The Twisted Future (Teen Superheroes Book 4)

by Darrell Pitt

  The Agency is your friend

  ‘Is that—’ I started.

  ‘James Price,’ Old Axel confirmed. ‘The years—and plastic surgery—have been kind. He doesn’t look much different to that in your time.’

  We started down another alley.

  ‘How did all this happen?’ Ebony asked. ‘How did one man take over the Agency? And the world?’

  ‘I can’t say much for fear of contaminating the time line,’ Old Axel said, ‘but you should know that James Price is a genius. In terms of intellect, he’s a Leonardo da Vinci or Albert Einstein. Unfortunately, unlike them, he is completely without morals. After joining the Agency, he became obsessed with controlling it, then the United States and finally the planet.’

  We walked in silence. While I didn’t agree with his murder of the old man, I was starting to understand my older self. His life had been unbearably hard. Our lives were difficult, but he had lived through the fall of civilization, the end of the world.

  We descended to a disused subway, climbed over rusting gates and continued down another flight of stairs. The gloom grew worse by the minute; I wished we had torches. I was just about to suggest this when Old Axel stopped at an empty vending machine. He eased a corner of it aside and I heard him exchange a few words with someone.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, turning to us. ‘We’re here.’

  He pushed the vending machine aside and a faint glow sprang from a hole behind. We passed the gatekeeper, a dirty looking woman with matted hair and one arm, and continued along an old section of subway. A string of faint LED lights hung from the walls. On both sides of the long defunct rail line, people sat, engaged in different sorts of work: repairing clothing, cleaning guns, cooking foods on oil burners.

  Ebony shot a horrified look at me. Was this how people lived? In the darkness? With little hope of survival?

  ‘For most people it’s worse,’ Old Axel said. ‘Things would be better, but there’s not much collaboration between the different branches of the rebellion.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘There are traitors everywhere. Information dissemination is at a minimum. The less you know, the better, in case you’re captured and tortured.’ He grimaced. ‘Mind you, it’s different for Agency employees. They live in palatial accommodation in the city’s red zones.’

  ‘Red zones?’

  ‘Closed compounds guarded by Agency security.’

  Old Axel led us into the basement of a building. The only light was through a tiny window high on the wall, but I still felt relieved. Feeble daylight was better than none at all.

  An old black man with gray hair, and a long scar down one side of his face, sat at a table. He had been studying a set of schematics, but now he turned, his mouth falling open in astonishment.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘It’s not possible.’

  I stared at him blankly. Who was he?

  ‘Mr. Brown!’ Ebony cried, embracing him.

  Mr. Brown. The man who had first trained me at the Agency. A man who was as much a friend as he was a mentor. Open mouthed, I shook his hand and then went in for the full hug. He glared at Old Axel.

  ‘You weren’t supposed to bring them back,’ he said. ‘Why’d you do that?’

  ‘They were harder to convince than I expected.’ He explained what had happened. ‘So we’ve lost the time ship as well as the temporal resonators.’

  ‘Chad and Brodie will probably get picked up by the resistance,’ Mr. Brown said, thoughtfully. ‘The real problem is getting you all back.’

  ‘Back?’ I said.

  ‘To your own time. We’ve almost completed another time machine, but the big problem is the temporal resonator.’ I must have looked astonished because he smiled slightly. ‘The time machine is a complicated device, but is based on a perpetual energy device Price developed years ago. We’ve had access to those plans for years. The difficult part is the resonator. It contains a rare element called Francium.’

  ‘You have contacts within the Agency?’ I asked.

  ‘Not everyone in the Agency is on board with their program. They leak information to us all the time.’

  ‘So how do we get a temporal resonator?’

  Mr. Brown smiled. ‘Feel like a little excitement?’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Whatever made us do this?’ Brodie groaned. ‘We had a nice tropical island to explore. Days of lying in the sun. We could’ve eaten coconuts till we puked.’

  ‘The perfect life,’ Chad agreed.

  She and Chad were in the hallway of a derelict building where he had carried her after the red man had collapsed the building. By the time she had regained consciousness, the fight was over and armed security forces were roaming the streets.

  Now we’re lost forty years in the future, she thought. And everyone wants to kill us.

  ‘I tried my wrist communicator,’ Chad said. ‘It’s not working.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. The Agency probably uses a dampening field to kill communications.’ The city was a disaster zone. It seemed Old Axel had been telling the truth about the future. ‘I wonder how we’ll find the others.’

  ‘There must be some sort of resistance movement. We need to make contact.’ Chad thought for a moment. ‘Maybe we can put an ad on Craigslist.’

  ‘I don’t think—’

  ‘Joking.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I’m a funny guy, but what else would you expect from The Chad?’ He stared at her. ‘What?’

  ‘There you go again. Spoiling everything.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  She gently tapped his head. ‘There might be a nice guy trapped under that inflated ego. You should let him out some time.’

  Chad shrugged. ‘We’re superheroes. That makes us better than the average person.’

  ‘I’m sure Hitler thought the same thing.’

  ‘He didn’t have super powers.’

  ‘No-one’s superior to anyone else,’ Brodie said, patiently. ‘Everyone deserves respect as long as they act decently.’ She peered down the hallway. ‘Let’s get moving.’

  They left through the rear of the building and maneuvered down a thin alley choked with mounds of garbage. There was not a person to be seen, but Brodie had the feeling they were being watched.

  I wouldn’t come out either, she thought.

  A flying ship, resembling a helicopter, but with the rotors removed, passed overhead and disappeared behind a building.

  ‘There’s still plenty of technology around,’ Chad said.

  ‘All owned by the Agency, I guess. Let’s see where that ship went.’

  They navigated an abandoned street clogged with a decades old traffic jam and continued up another alley. Reaching the end, they gazed out at a familiar landmark.

  ‘Is this Times Square?’ Chad asked.

  ‘It was Times Square. Now it’s just a mess.’

  The once iconic area now lay in ruin. Some of the buildings had collapsed. The myriad of distinctive billboards were either broken or missing. A mammoth hole was at the corner of Broadway and West Forty-Seventh Street. The famous Toshiba billboard was long defunct. A huge canvas sign with an image of a smiling face hung over it. The wording beneath read:

  Terrorists Will Be Shot

  ‘I wonder if that’s James Price,’ Chad said.

  ‘I bet it is,’ Brodie said. ‘What’s going on with that ship?’

  The rotor vessel hovered over the middle of the square where a pile of rubble lay. Both sides of the aircraft opened and military personnel spilled out on ropes and abseiled down. Finally a man with a hood over his head, and cuffed hands, was lowered to the ground. Two of the guards picked him up and attached him to a large stake in the center of the rubble.

  ‘I don’t like the look of this,’ Chad muttered. ‘It looks like they’re going to execute that guy.’

  One of the guards whipped the hood off the prisoner’s head and the man stood blinking in the hot sun. He w
ore a thick collar around his neck, some sort of electronic device. His eyes settled on the nearest guard and he said something. The guard responded by punching him in the stomach. The man doubled over.

  A guard pulled a device from his pocket and pressed a button. A chime rang out from the roofs of the shattered buildings.

  ‘Samuel Taffe,’ the guard said, his voice reverberating around the quiet streets. ‘You have been found guilty of crimes against the Agency. These crimes include terrorism, theft of Agency property and the murder of Agency personnel.’

  Incredibly, Samuel Taffe laughed in response and another of the guards stepped forward and backhanded him across the face.

  ‘This is terrible,’ Brodie said. ‘They’re going to kill him.’

  ‘We can’t do anything,’ Chad said. ‘We’ve got to look after ourselves.’

  ‘At the cost of someone else’s life?’ Brodie spun on him. ‘And you wonder why people don’t respect you?’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ Chad said, turning red. ‘We’re out of our depths.’

  Brodie turned away from him and Chad fumed in silence.

  Why does she have to be so pig-headed? They were outnumbered and outgunned. And neither of them was invincible. No-one with brains would take on these guys.

  Except...

  Except Axel. But then he was the big Kahuna of the group. Axel would come flying in like a superhero and save that guy.

  But this isn’t about Axel, Chad thought. It’s about me. Do I have what it takes?

  Do I?

  The men stepped back from the makeshift stake, formed a line and raised their weapons.

  Taking them on would be insane, Chad thought. Completely insane.

  Chad stepped into the street.

  Call me insane.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘Excuse me,’ he yelled. ‘I’m looking for some directions.’

  Fifty feet lay between him and the man they were about to execute. Chad waved in a friendly manner as he strode towards them. Turning at the sound of his voice, the men leveled their weapons.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ the leader commanded. ‘This is Agency business!’

  ‘I understand that,’ Chad said, continuing. ‘But I really need your help.’

  Forty feet. A bead of sweat trailed down the side of Chad’s face.

  ‘Stop!’ A guard yelled. ‘That’s an order!’

  Chad kept walking. ‘I’m so sorry. My hearing’s not so good. I haven’t been the same since someone dropped a building on me.’

  Thirty feet.

  A guard said to the leader, ‘We had reports of unauthorized mods operating in the area.’

  Twenty feet.

  Their leader fired a warning shot. It pinged off the road in front of Chad and he stopped, raising his arms in surrender.

  ‘I apologize,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. Someone shot me up with drugs a while back and turned me into a superhero.’

  The leader aimed his weapon at Chad’s head. ‘Unauthorized mods are enemies of the Agency.’

  ‘I’ve had issues with authority figures,’ Chad explained. ‘I think it’s because I’m better than everyone else.’

  Whatever the leader of the group was about to say was interrupted by the rock that slammed into the middle of his forehead, knocking him unconscious. The other men fell back in surprise.

  Chad nodded to Brodie who stood in a nearby alley, dusting her hands with satisfaction. ‘Nice shot!’ he yelled.

  ‘Thanks!’

  Chad turned, raised his arm and fired blocks of ice at each of the armed men. He dove to one side as they opened fire. He rolled, their bullets narrowly missing him. He formed a wall of compressed ice. A hail of bullets started to demolish it.

  Another guard fell as a rock struck his chest. Chad spent a micro-second admiring Brodie’s abilities. She had the abilities of three grown men—including their visual acuity.

  I’m never playing baseball against you, Chad thought.

  He twisted again, firing a blast of intense heat at a guard. It knocked him flying. Chad shot a volley at the tail section of the rotor craft, severing it completely. The flying vessel immediately spun out of control, smashed into the sign hanging over the Toshiba billboard and exploded.

  Good, he thought. We needed a diversion.

  Advancing on Samuel Taffe, he threw up another ice barrier to keep the guards away before freeze drying the handcuffs, and breaking them off. A guard screamed into his radio for backup.

  ‘Looks like it’s gonna get crowded,’ Chad said.

  ‘Get this neck brace off me,’ Taffe yelled. ‘I can get us out of here.’

  Two more rotor craft swept along the city streets towards them. They would start firing at any second. Brodie took out the remaining guards, grabbed Chad’s arm and pointed at a dozen guards pouring around a corner. ‘We’ve got company!’

  ‘Take this thing off!’ Taffe said. ‘Quickly!’

  Brodie shot Chad a look, and gripped the brace with all her strength. It gave a grinding sound and broke off.

  Samuel Taffe grabbed their arms. ‘Hang on. This will be disorientating.’

  ‘What will?’ Chad asked.

  Then Chad saw a nearby building fly towards him—or did he fly towards it? He passed through where a family lived deep within the structure. They were eating beans out of a can. Then he saw empty rooms. A dilapidated restaurant.

  What the hell’s going on?

  Brodie and Taffe appeared to be the only stationery things in the universe. Everything else was rushing past them. Brodie’s mouth was open in astonishment. Or was it horror?

  They went through the rear wall of the building and continued along a street at super speed, passing wrecked cars, broken buildings, the remains of a crashed passenger jet. Chad saw them approach a homeless man. For one horrifying moment he thought they were going to crash into him, but then he was inside the man; he could see his blood vessels, his brain and the interior of his skull.

  They continued on. Passed under a bridge. Across the murky sludge of what had once been the East River. Another building rushed at them—and they flew straight through it.

  Suddenly they were passing streets filled with yellow fog. Chad tried to yell out, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t make a sound.

  Samuel Taffe’s power was teleportation. Unlike them, he was able to move, and now he shot a cheeky grin at Chad.

  Glad you’re enjoying yourself, Chad thought.

  Taffe was right about one thing; it was disorientating. Chad felt like his stomach had been left back in Times Square. A terrible thought occurred to him. Maybe it had. Maybe something had gone wrong and part of his internal anatomy was missing.

  What a horrible way to die, he thought. The Chad, the greatest superhero who had ever lived, strewn across New York City like a bag of trash. What would they say about him?

  Here lies Chad. And here. And over here.

  They slid through more buildings, now moving more slowly.

  I feel sick, Chad thought. I’m going to vomit. That might be a good sign. You can’t vomit without a stomach.

  Can you?

  The fog disappeared and they went past another building into what was once a park. The trees were dead, and the grass, dust. They slowed and came to a grinding stop. For a horrifying moment Chad thought the teleportation had failed because now he was frozen solid.

  I’m gonna be like this forever—

  Then he felt sun on his face and the world snapped back to normal. They weren’t in Times Square; he had no idea where they were. His feet hit the earth and he toppled over. He was dimly aware of Brodie hitting the ground nearby. Chad sucked in great lungfuls of air. He felt dizzy. And sick.

  ‘That last bit is the worst,’ Taffe said. ‘I’ve got to create a perfect vacuum before we rematerialize. That means pushing all the atoms aside. If I didn’t then you’d be sharing the same space with other matter. The result wouldn’t be pretty.’

  Ch
ad struggled to his knees. He tried to speak, but then his stomach caught up with him and he started to heave.

  ‘Don’t feel too bad,’ Taffe said. ‘That happens to everyone.’

  Chapter Twelve

  It was Dan’s belt buckle that saved him.

  As the floor collapsed beneath him, Dan fell through the air, instinctively focusing on staying upright. His belt buckle jerked upwards, leaving him suspended in mid-air.

  The crash of the collapsing floor seemed to echo forever. Finally, it subsided and Dan allowed himself to peep downwards. Dust was still everywhere, but the debris had settled. He slowly lowered himself to the remains of the floor below.

  ‘Some superhero I am,’ he muttered.

  He was glad the others had not seen this. Chad would have laughed at him, and it would have confirmed to Axel and Brodie that he was too young to be part of the team. And Ebony—

  Well, she always barracked for the underdog. She would have been on his side. He sighed. Anyone could have stepped onto that floor. He was alive. That’s what mattered.

  So now what? The floor had collapsed into some kind of lab. Benches were everywhere, covered in chemistry equipment and papers. Most of them had been destroyed in the floor collapse, but some had survived. Dan climbed over the debris to one of the benches. The pages were old and dusty, and covered in writing.

  He tapped his communicator and showed Ferdy one of the pages via the camera. ‘This is Japanese,’ Dan said. ‘Right?’

  ‘That’s correct, Dan.’

  ‘So the Japanese were here? Maybe during the war?’

  ‘The history of this island shows no details about Japanese occupation.’

  ‘Why do—’ Dan stopped. ‘Ferdy, can you hear that?’

  Dan listened hard. A darkened corridor led away from this chamber. A murmur came from it.

  ‘Ferdy cannot hear anything unusual,’ Ferdy said, pausing. ‘Groundhog Day is celebrated on the second of February—’

  ‘I’ll get back to you on that.’ Dan disconnected the link and peered down the corridor. He listened hard. He could hear a distant voice. Could someone else be here? A shiver tickled his spine. Could a Japanese soldier still be here from the war? He had heard stories of soldiers fighting long after its finish.