by Andy Briggs
Now Chameleon could see straight into an aircraft hangar and he braced himself to unleash a fireball. But instead he was greeted by stillness. The hangar was brightly lit, and he was shocked to see the battered carcass of Air Force One. Before Chameleon had left there had been no reports that the president was missing, but he had now been gone for many hours. He resisted the temptation to run in and shout for his old friend.
He quickly searched the hangar and confirmed he was alone, before he turned his attention to the aircraft. His first thoughts that it was a fake were dashed when he explored inside. He’d been invited aboard Air Force One when he had saved the president’s daughter. But since governments had strict guidelines that prevented any Super from entering seats of power, he hadn’t been invited into the White House. Just in case.
Chameleon’s heart sank. The president had been in trouble while he had been poking his nose in restricted Foundation archives instead of doing his job. The next question on his mind was, how did this all link with Grimm? At least it confirmed his suspicions that Grimm was up to no good.
Chameleon sneaked out of the only door, which was partially open, and up a broad, spiral staircase. After several minutes, and with throbbing thigh muscles, he calculated that he must now be in the castle basement. He passed several dark prison cells and looked inside. Empty.
Further investigation took him up another level to the kitchen area, where he could hear a radio playing Romanian songs that reminded him painfully of the European version of American Idol.
He poked his head around the kitchen door. It was decked out with modern stainless steel and all the implements needed for a gourmet chef. It had a huge refrigerator, and a massive fire burned in front of an oak table. The aroma of cooked food on the table caught his nostrils and made his stomach rumble.
That noise was the only cue Igor needed. He had been hiding under the table with a meat cleaver in his hands. His instructions had been simple. Defend the castle from any intruders. He leaped out without a whisper.
Chameleon barely managed to duck as the cleaver swished over his head. He retaliated with a punch—which fell wide. Igor was nimble, and tossed the blade into his other hand as he circled the hero.
Chameleon quickly assessed the situation. If the man had any superpowers he would have used them instead of the cleaver, which meant he was just the cook. Chameleon almost laughed. He had dealt with vile supervillains who could tear the flesh off a person with a sonic scream; he had stopped nuclear attacks, earthquakes, and robberies. An ordinary guy posed no problems.
His tail whipped out, aiming straight for the man’s face. But Igor easily dodged the overconfident blow and struck out with the cleaver. Chameleon felt a stab of pain as the blade sliced his tail in two. Blood splattered the stainless-steel refrigerator door.
Chameleon dropped to his knees in agony, and Igor seized his moment of weakness to pounce. This time Chameleon acted in time and unleashed a fireball that plucked the man from the air, mid-leap, and hurled him against a wall rack of utensils. He fell to the floor with a loud clatter, his shirt smoldering. He didn’t move.
Right now Chameleon didn’t care if he had killed the man or not. He grabbed the end of his tail and squeezed tightly to stem the blood flow. He closed his eyes and willed the pain away. It wasn’t easy. But after what seemed like an eternity the pain faded and a new section of his tail started to grow a few inches at a time. It wasn’t a superpowered healing factor. Like most common lizards, Chameleon had the ability to regenerate his tail if it was severed, though of course his regenerated much quicker, and it was still a painful process.
Only after he was whole again did he check on the cook. He felt a weak pulse. Satisfied the man was alive, he prowled around the rest of the castle.
It didn’t take him long to discover that, aside from the cook, the place was empty. In a bathroom, he found a stack of old smelly clothes that he recognized as belonging to Jake Hunter, and a television playing the news. In a couple of minutes Chameleon was fully briefed on the rapidly changing world situation, and the fact that the president was missing. That confirmed his suspicions: Grimm was working for the enemy—at the very least he was colluding with Hunter. Chameleon decided not to report his discovery to the Foundation just yet. He would need hard evidence to convince the Foundation’s leader. He had to catch Grimm red-handed.
He finally climbed the castle’s tower and found himself in what passed for a command center. His eyes were immediately drawn to a computer screen showing pictures of Liberty Island. Chameleon scoured the Internet history and found that was all Hunter had been searching for. He decided that must be where he was taking the president.
He glanced at the computer’s clock and prayed that he could make it there in time to save him.
Freedom and Liberty
Jake stared up at the floodlit back of the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World, more commonly known as the Statue of Liberty. He stood in the circular walkway surrounding it, and even from more than three hundred feet away he had to crane his neck to take in the full statue.
Liberty Island was empty. Nobody patrolled it at this time of night except a few coast guard vessels. The president stood with him, gazing up. His Secret Service crew were still encased, and Jake had had enough of the secretary of defense’s complaining and had zapped him into a crystalline statue too.
“It was a gift from the French, you know,” said the president when he regained his balance after the sudden teleportation. “A symbol of liberty and freedom.”
Jake didn’t respond. He nervously glanced northeast to the battery of lights that formed the Manhattan skyline, and behind him, at the shores of New Jersey. He felt like an open target here on a small island in Hudson Bay.
The president pointed to the irregular eleven-star foundation and narrow granite plinth the statue stood on. Jake felt as if he was with a tour guide. “The height’s all an illusion though. That base is higher than the statue itself. Still … she’s a wondrous sight to behold.”
Jake looked sidelong at him. He’d been mulling over Mr. Grimm’s message—Chromosome was not to be trusted and would certainly betray him.
“You should go.”
The president stared at him incredulously. “What? Are you kidding?”
“No, seriously. Get out of here. This is all wrong. Chromosome has no intention of helping me track down Psych. She just wanted me to do her dirty work.”
The president still made no move. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
Jake turned to him. “Go back to your family.” He nodded his head toward the frozen entourage. “Them too. This is not your fight.”
The president looked at him long and hard. “We’re on my country’s soil. That makes it my fight.”
Jake’s response never made it to his lips. The water in front of the statue erupted as a circular Council of Evil craft rose from the bay and silently drifted across the island, dripping water like rain as it landed next to the statue. The ramp unfolded from the belly and Jake tensed, hissing at the president.
“Run! Get out of here!”
This time the president heeded his words and darted for cover in the trees. Jake suddenly remembered everybody else was still frozen.
Too late to deal with that now.
Chromosome walked down the concourse toward him, a sea of metal spiders glinting around her feet.
“That’s far enough, Chromosome!”
She stopped and folded her arms, looking relaxed and amiable. She studied the president’s frozen entourage lining the circular plaza.
“Where is the president, Hunter? I saw him on my monitors when we landed. Is he hiding? Afraid of me?”
“If you know he’s here, then tell me where Psych is.”
Her hesitation was enough for Jake to know he had been duped. “What you achieved, Hunter, was nothing short of a miracle. Some of your powers have evolved beyond what anybody has ever seen before. You are truly a force to be rec
koned with. Why not join me? With our combined strength we could get rid of the Council, the Foundation, and all these warring nations. We could eradicate all life on this planet and start the world again. A new Garden of Eden, just you and me creating life that only we think is worthy.”
This level of madness surprised Jake. He’d heard about overthrowing the Council from Basilisk, and he didn’t care about that—although the Council was becoming a thorn in his side, and he would have to deal with it sooner or later. But restarting the world … Though the more he thought about it the more it made sense. Just him and Chromosome, a perfect partnership. They would be …
Jake shook his head, clearing away the rose-tinted image conjured by Chromosome’s beguiling voice. “You want to play God!”
Chromosome smiled. “And why not? Think about it, Hunter. We’ll do a better job. You and I. A fresh new world.”
Jake had a warm feeling when she spoke, and he could clearly see a utopia crafted by them both. But he closed his eyes, suspecting that Chromosome had some kind of charm power, something that made men susceptible to her demands. He wasn’t going to fall for that.
Eradication of all life was what she was suggesting. That was pure evil.
This is where years of never listening to his sister would finally come in handy. He could just tune Chromosome out.
“I’m only interested in finding Psych. We had a deal. Where is he?”
“Japan … or was it France? Ah, I remember now, he was last seen in the Big Apple, just over there. Or was that Egypt? You know … I just can’t remember such trivia. If you don’t have the decency to listen to my offers of power, then,” her honey tones returned, “just give me the president. Where is he?”
Jake saw her head snap toward the trees lining the concourse, and realized that he was pointing in the direction the president had run. The subtle tones in her voice must have unconsciously persuaded him to raise his arm. The Legion skittered in that direction.
“No!” Jake launched a fireball at the carpet of bugs. The blast was so severe it gouged a crater into the redbrick concourse and sent the arachnids flipping through the air.
“My Legion!” screamed Chromosome.
Jake turned on her. He didn’t know the full extent of her powers, but he wasn’t willing to give her the opportunity to use them. He threw another fireball that blasted the ground—but she nimbly cartwheeled aside. When the smoke had cleared, Jake could see that her Legion had reformed and were charging toward him.
He had no time to react before the horde of chrome spiders surrounded him, scuttling up his legs and burrowing into his clothes. He felt hundreds of pinpricks across his body as they bit him, and he prayed that they weren’t poisonous. The onslaught of so many tiny attacks was much worse than anything he’d encountered before and he dropped to his knees screaming, only to have one of the metal spiders crawl into his mouth.
Jake’s entire body suddenly flared with a bright green radioactive wave, streamers peeling away from him in a ghostly corona. The Legion was struck, some melting on the spot, others flung across the island. Jake roared and swung the green blast at a startled Chromosome. It was as if a solid weight had struck her. The villain was thrown nearly five hundred feet before slamming down just below the three arches on the statue’s pedestal. Stonework cracked around her.
Jake used the lull to unfreeze the president’s men. The Secret Service guys acted immediately and drew their sidearms, firing a dozen shots at Jake. He wasn’t expecting that. His force field caught the shots, but the impacts made him reel backward.
“Stop shooting! You’re free! The president went that way, make sure he gets off this island in one piece!”
The group hesitated, clustering around their only other important charge, the secretary of defense. One weaselly man chirped up. “You heard him! Let’s go!”
They ran for cover among the trees. When Jake turned back to Chromosome he saw that she was pushing herself away from the crumpled stonework, assisted by numerous long insect legs that had unfolded from her rib cage and now pushed against the plinth. Free, she dropped thirty feet onto the star-shaped foundation and advanced.
Jake hoped that flying was not one of her abilities and would be his advantage. He took to the air and flew full speed into her. He grabbed her waist and they slammed into the corner of the plinth, knocking gray stones loose.
When he looked back up at Chromosome he didn’t recognize the face. The perfect features had warped into a hideous and fanged snarling beast with mottled black skin. Her hands had become clawed talons; the insect legs protruding from her back were actually double-jointed and folded around to the front, gripping Jake in a tight bear hug. He felt and heard a rib crack.
“How dare you challenge me, boy!” she screeched in an unrecognizable voice.
Without being aware of what he was doing, Jake’s body enveloped itself in a radioactive aura and he smelled burning flesh. It was Chromosome’s. She screamed and released him. Jake shot straight in the air and landed on the tarnished green copper base of the statue to catch his breath.
He saw an emergency flare go up from the west pier and hoped that it was the president signaling for help. Across Hudson Bay he saw a coast guard cutter swing around, its searchlight focusing on the pier, highlighting a group of figures.
When he looked back down he saw the remains of Chromosome’s legion scuttling up the plinth. Chromosome herself was writhing as something grew from her back with the sickening sound of crunching bone and tearing flesh. She was evolving the limbs she needed to fight Jake.
He backed away, stumbling around to the front of the statue as his injured body regenerated. He was feeling unusually exhausted, and he found it difficult to catch his breath. He backed into a giant chain protruding from the statue’s feet. It took him a second to realize that it was part of the statue, a feature that couldn’t be seen from the ground. He remembered learning in school that it symbolized the broken chains of repression. He glanced farther down at the viewing balcony that ran around the top of the stone plinth and considered hiding inside the statue.
Then he saw the silver flurry of the Legion scuttling up. He tried to fly, but managed only a few yards—he was too weak to climb any higher. He latched onto the side of the statue like a spider and looked down.
The Legion was reproducing around the feet of the statue like bacteria. One spider would pull itself apart to reveal another. Then he saw Chromosome. She was still at the base of the plinth, but now Jake could see that the protuberances on her back were transforming into wings, growing out larger and larger. She experimentally flapped them like a baby bird.
Jake scurried up the front of the statue to get away from the monstrosities. The copper folds of Liberty’s gown made progress difficult. He was halfway up when he heard a clanging sound like a metal barrel being pelted by stones. When he looked down he saw the entire base of the statue had turned silver as the Legion’s members scuttled up in pursuit. The Legion had also changed form, morphing into a combination of a spider and a scorpion. Curved tails quivered in anticipation of the kill.
Jake headed sidelong to the wide surface offered by the book in Lady Liberty’s left hand. He caught his breath and wondered why he felt so weak.
A quick look around revealed that the coast guard cutter was speeding toward the pier and a swarm of helicopters was buzzing in from the opposite side.
The Legion flooded around him and Jake unleashed his radioactive blast. Most of them were flung aside or melted on the spot. The energy was so intense that it ripped through the hollow copper bodywork of the statue and severed the iron structural beams beneath. The sound of groaning metal reverberated through the statue. Jake stopped in horror, aware that he was defacing a national treasure.
The break in his attack was enough to give ten creatures a chance to climb onto the smooth surface of the statue’s book. Jake’s fingers gripped the ruts of the engraving on the book beneath him as the scorpion tails extended and lashed aro
und both his legs, pulling him down the slope. Another positioned itself at his head, the tail suddenly transforming into a spike that struck at his face.
Jake jerked his head aside, but felt the spike slice his cheek and puncture the copper. Though his shield prevented him from getting hurt by explosions, bullets, or other dangers, it was useless against this attack. It offered zero resistance against a slower-moving sharp blade. On top of that, Jake was blinded as several spotlights picked him out when the helicopters neared. He caught sight of a jumble of letters on the side of one chopper and realized that they were news crews. They buzzed around him like flies.
Jake no longer cared that he might be recognized. He picked up the critter near his face and crushed it with his superstrength. After brief resistance it was like smashing an egg, and gloopy innards covered his hand. He had no time to feel sick. He blasted the two Legion creatures climbing up his legs, then managed a short flight up to the statue’s crown, where he had to rest again. The searchlights took a few seconds to find him as they weaved across Lady Liberty.
A rustle of leathery wings caught his attention and Chromosome rose into view, mighty batlike wings beating to keep her airborne.
“What’s the matter? Feeling weak? Did you not know that I have the ability to negate your powers or evolve myself to fight you in any way I need?” Chromosome knew that the effects only lasted for a minute, and could only affect a handful of powers at any one time. But that was not a weakness she would admit to.
Jake lashed out a stream of green energy. It flowed like colorful ribbons, just missing Chromosome, who twisted aside. But it struck one of the helicopters. The tail rotor blew off and the chopper spun out of control. The other news choppers banked aside, relocating to safer distances. The helicopter splashed down into the black water below.
“If I can’t have you join me, I’ll see if your corpse can offer any assistance to my cause. And I’ll still take the president! You lose either way.”
