by Darrell Pitt
‘Hey man,’ Chad started. ‘You’ve got to understand—’
‘I thought you were my friends!’
The wind began to build in the chamber. The group in the corner stopped speaking as a mini-tornado formed around me. I pushed everyone away. Chad. Brodie. Even Ebony. She was Chad’s sister. Did she already know about this? I didn’t know or care.
I couldn’t be with people I didn’t trust.
I was so enraged I didn’t hear the doors fly open behind me. It was only when Ebony fell that I knew something was happening. Looking back, I saw men in combat suits firing stun weapons at us. I tried to react, but I was already too late. A man had me firmly in his sights. He pulled the trigger and everything went black.
Chapter Thirty-Five
A ceiling went racing by. Two men were holding my arms, dragging me down a corridor. I tried using my powers, but nothing happened so I fought against them. I saw one of them raise a baton and everything went dark again.
A million years passed—or so it seemed. When I next awoke, I found myself on a concrete floor with something around my neck. A brace of some kind. I blearily looked about, my eyes finally focusing on Chad.
‘It’s a portable zeno ray generator,’ he informed me. ‘Our powers are kaput.’
‘Great,’ I mumbled, peering around the cell. Brodie and Ebony were hunched together against a wall. ‘Where are the others?’
Ebony spoke up. ‘They were taken somewhere else.’
The room was concrete with a single barred window. Very Twentieth century. By comparison, the door was some sort of force field, transparent except for a red haze.
‘I already tried it,’ Chad said, holding up a burnt finger. ‘Ouch.’
Beyond lay an empty hallway with elevators at the other end. I tried in vain to push the wall down, but it was pointless. Chad was right. The brace was designed to nullify our powers and it was working. I tried tearing it off with pure brute force, but to no avail. These things had been keeping mods under control for decades.
I glanced at Brodie. Whoever had imprisoned us knew our powers intimately. She had been secured to the wall with a metal brace. I caught her eye momentarily, but then I remembered what the future held for Chad and Brodie. Happy families. Together forever. The wrenching apart of everything I’d known since I’d woken up in a squalid hotel room with superpowers. I looked away.
Despite the terrible situation we were in, I could understand why Old Axel was so bitter and angry. He—or I—had been betrayed by my closest friends.
‘Someone’s coming,’ Ebony said.
The elevator doors slid open. Two guards approached with a man behind. He had gray hair and a youthful face. What was it Old Axel had said?
The years—and plastic surgery—have been kind to him.
The door dissolved and Price stepped in. The guards produced weapons, aiming them at us. They didn’t stop Chad. He immediately made a grab for Price, but a bolt of crackling electricity from a weapon knocked him down.
Writhing in agony, unable to stand, he spat at Price through clenched teeth. ‘You’re going to regret that,’ he said.
‘I doubt it,’ James Price said. He had a high-pitched voice, belying his callous interior. Turning to a guard, he said, ‘Again.’
So they hit Chad with another bolt. We leapt to our feet, but the guards waved us back.
‘I can make things very bad for you,’ Price said. ‘You don’t want that. Not yet.’
Ebony dragged Chad away where he crouched against her, shaking, blood seeping from a cut in his mouth.
‘What’s going to happen to us?’ she asked.
‘I’m a scientist. I want to know what makes you tick,’ he said. ‘I’ve experimented on a lot of mods over the years. There’s always more to learn.’
‘You’re sick,’ I said.
He laughed. ‘After I’ve found out what I want, you will be neutered, your powers permanently removed. Then I will confine you to the lowest levels of the darkest dungeon I can find, and there you will rot for the remainder of your lives.’
I tried to think of something clever to say, but nothing came.
‘Nor will your older selves ever see the light of day again,’ he continued. ‘You’ve had a wonderful adventure, but your days of adventuring are over. As the years slowly pass, I’m sure you will remember those times fondly, hoping you will one day escape.’ Price shook his head sadly. ‘But you never will.’
He marched out, the guards reactivated the door and they disappeared into the elevator.
‘And here I was thinking this was serious,’ Chad said.
No-one laughed.
We remained silent for over an hour, lost in our own thoughts, drowned by the horror of what James Price had said.
Finally Brodie muttered something under her breath.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘That’s Morse code.’
Brodie could have said the moon was made from green cheese and it would have made more sense. She pointed at the light. It had been flickering on and off for several minutes, but I had barely noticed it.
‘What’s Morse code?’ Chad asked.
‘An old kind of message system using dots and dashes. The light is sending a message.’
I stared at her.
‘It is!’ she continued, angrily. ‘It’s saying...E...L...E...V...’ A few seconds passed. ‘Elevator. It’s saying elevator.’
I nodded. ‘Sure.’
A click came from my throat and I felt the brace loosening. Gingerly touching it, I pulled it away in amazement. I stared at the others. Theirs had also unlocked.
‘What’s going on?’ Chad asked.
‘No idea,’ Ebony replied. ‘But I don’t care. Let’s go.’
I crossed to Brodie and broke her metal chains. I was still pissed with her and Chad, but we had to focus on getting out of here. With a little effort I could smash a hole in the wall—
The red haze in the doorway flickered to static before it faded completely.
‘Do you get the feeling someone’s helping?’ Brodie asked.
‘Maybe it’s a trap,’ Ebony said.
‘Shot while trying to escape?’ I said. ‘They don’t need to do that. They could have killed us anytime they wanted
We made our way to the elevator. It appeared as if almost on cue. Climbing in, we stood, undecided, until the elevator made up its mind for us. It descended. I should have been rejoicing in our newfound freedom, but instead an image of Chad and Brodie together flashed through my mind, and acid burnt in my stomach as we sunk into the bowels of the earth.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The elevator slowed to a halt, opening onto a fifty-foot-high concrete hallway. Florescent lighting lined the ceiling, but most of the tubes were dead, leaving an odd checkerboard of light and shadow to illuminate our way.
‘What is this place?’ Ebony asked.
‘I think this whole compound is an old Agency stronghold,’ Brodie replied. ‘This area must have been abandoned.’
‘It doesn’t look like it’s been used in years,’ Chad agreed.
The corridor seemed endless, but we finally reached a door at the end that opened onto a chamber with huge computers on each side. They were ancient; the type that still operated on magnetic reels of tape, like they used last century. Incredibly, they were still operational, doing...something.
‘This is bizarre,’ Ebony said.
She said it. Benches were everywhere, dust covering the surfaces. A coffee cup even sat on one, the liquid inside long since evaporated. The controls on the benches were ancient. Buttons and levers. Like us, they were something from another time.
‘What are we doing here?’ I asked. ‘And who sent us that code?’
‘Over there,’ Brodie said, pointing to a light flashing over a door. ‘That wasn’t on before.’
The door gave a huge squeak as I pulled it open. Beyond was another chamber, even older and bigger than the last. A row of light bulbs were set
into the ceiling; most had blown over the years, but a few yellowing globes still provided a faint illumination. No-one had been here in decades.
A massive computer several hundred feet in length dominated one side. Colored lights flashed. Hundreds of reels whirred and clicked. The machine appeared so old it looked like it had been built as part of the building. I had seen a photo of a similar device in an book; some of the early computers had taken up entire floors because of their size. This one was larger. Maybe it was the largest in its day.
A faint monitor glowed in the dark. We studied the screen. A green cursor blinked. It could have been doing that for ages. Maybe years.
‘This is a dead end,’ Chad said. ‘We have to get out of here.’
‘I agree,’ Ebony said, peering about the darkened recesses. ‘I appreciate that someone released us, but now we’ve got to escape while the going’s good.’
We started combing the room for an exit, but came up empty handed. There wasn’t even an air vent in the chamber. We were at the lowest level of a bunker set deep into the earth.
So why had someone brought us here? My eyes returned to the monitor.
‘Hang on,’ I said, staring at the screen. ‘This has changed.’
The others came over and peered over my shoulder.
The letter W had appeared.
A distant rumble came from far away. Chad ran from the room, returning a minute later. ‘A bunch of Agency guards just came pouring out of the elevator,’ he said. ‘They don’t look happy.’
I turned back to the screen.
A
‘You’ve got to stop them,’ I told Chad. ‘Or at least slow them down.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Someone brought us here for a reason. We’ve got to find out why.’
Ebony grabbed Chad’s arm. ‘I’ll come with you.’
More letters appeared.
I
T
‘WAIT,’ Brodie read the word. ‘Wait for what?’
A massive fight erupted in the hallway leading to the chamber.
The word started flashing.
Wait. Wait. Wait.
A breeze pulled at my hair. I looked about in surprise. This room had no windows so there could be no wind. Then the current grew stronger as a tiny black line appeared in the middle of the room, growing larger as a strange hum filled the air.
‘What the hell..?’ Brodie’s mouth fell open in amazement. ‘How—’
I didn’t know how. It made no sense at all, but now the line had expanded into a circle and we could see a small silver vessel inside. Within seconds it had eased itself free from the portal in time and space.
‘It’s a time machine,’ I said.
The vessel shuddered slightly, dropping to the floor. Pieces of ice fell off and smashed. I raced over and jerked the door open. Empty. No-one was flying it. Stepping back from the craft, I saw it was smaller than the one in which we had traveled to the future. Possibly it was an earlier model.
An earlier model.
It all clicked into place.
I raced to the console. The word on the screen had disappeared and another had appeared while we examined the time machine. I barked out a laugh of disbelief.
It wasn’t possible and yet somehow it all made sense.
Ferdy. Ferdy. Ferdy.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
‘Dan?’ the voice came from a million miles away. ‘Dan?’
Dan awoke slowly, opened his eyes and saw Henry standing over him.
‘Henry?’
‘Are you all right?’ Henry asked. ‘Did the monster hurt you?’
Holding onto Henry for support, Dan pulled himself upright and peered around. Liber8tor lay at a crazy angle. Miraculously, a few consoles were back online, as was the emergency lighting.
‘The monster didn’t hurt me,’ Dan said. ‘But it hurt our ship.’
And I helped it, he thought. Because I was hopeless.
‘The monster’s bad,’ Henry said, his face crumpling into tears. ‘He’s bad and Henry just wants to be good.’
‘I’m sure you do.’ Dan gripped the boy’s shoulder. He had wrecked the ship, but now he had to move forward. That’s what the others would do. They would take stock and find a way to make things better. ‘We’re going to beat it,’ he promised, ‘but first I’ve got to fix our ship.’
He crossed to the navigation console. ‘Ferdy? Can you hear me?’
Silence.
Great, Dan thought. Ferdy’s still offline. Or broken. Or dead.
No, he couldn’t think that way. Liber8tor was tough and Ferdy was too. Ferdy was probably fine, but unable to communicate because of the damage. Dan manually brought up a status report of the systems, thankful for the time he had put in learning the Tagaar language. The words he couldn’t read, he was able to guess. The system seemed to be rebooting itself.
‘How did you get in?’ he asked Henry.
‘The hatch downstairs is broken.’
Hell, Dan thought. I’d better check the outer hull.
He retrieved a weapon from the Tagaar armory. They had not used these since they had taken over the ship; having superpowers made them superfluous. However, Dan’s last encounter with the monster had shaken his confidence. He wasn’t going outside without firepower.
Henry trailed him as Dan carefully surveyed the damage. The port side had taken quite a bang. Much of the housing was damaged, but his ability to manipulate metal would easily fix it.
The most difficult task would be to repair the engines. One of the firing thrusters was completely smashed. An oily black liquid leaked from a cracked pipe. Something Dan couldn’t even identify was completely crushed. Peering into the mess, he understood how little he actually knew about the ship. For that matter, none of them knew anything much about it. They relied upon Ferdy to keep the ship’s systems operational.
Dan promised himself he would change that. He would become an expert in every square inch of this ship, as long as he was given the chance. Although considering what he had done to Liber8tor during their absence, the others might permanently confine him to quarters.
Dan frowned. He was getting ahead of himself. One thing at a time.
‘This looks bad,’ he said to Henry, ‘but I think it’s fixable.’
‘So your ship will fly again?’
‘Yes, but I’ve got to get Ferdy up and running.’ He glanced down and noticed Henry still had his book tightly clenched in his hand. ‘You’re still reading your book?’
‘I read it all the time.’
‘Do you remember anything more about how you came to the island? The ship you were on? Your parents?’
‘No.’
‘What’s the first thing you remember?’
Henry creased his brow in concentration. ‘I just remember waking up on the island,’ he said. ‘I looked down and saw I was holding my book.’
That wasn’t very helpful, so Dan gripped his shoulder. ‘Everything will be all right,’ he said. ‘My friends will be back soon and we’ll get you back to civilization.’
A distant roar came from the jungle. Henry grabbed Dan’s arm in panic, his eyes filling with tears. ‘It’s the monster,’ he said. ‘We should run away.’
‘We’ll be okay aboard Liter8tor.’
Henry gazed dubiously at the wrecked ship.
‘I know that’s hard to believe,’ Dan said. ‘Just let me take a look at this damaged pipe and we’ll go inside.’
He examined the broken pipe more closely. It was a hydraulic system. Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he wrapped it around the break. It didn’t stop the leak, but it slowed.
‘That’s better already,’ he said. ‘Henry?’
The boy was gone.
Dan moaned in frustration, but he could understand Henry’s fear. Liber8tor hardly looked like a safe refuge. He did a check inside the ship anyway, but Henry was definitely gone. Returning to the bridge, Dan called out Ferdy’s name.
He
was greeted by silence. Then—
‘Ferdy can hear you!’
Yes!
‘Ferdy!’ Dan cried. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Ferdy is feeling fine, but a number of the Liber8tor systems were damaged in the crash.’
‘Uh, yeah. Sorry about that.’
‘Dan should not blame himself. Whatever was stopping Liber8tor from leaving the island was a powerful force. Dan did well to stop the ship from being destroyed.’
‘Thanks,’ Dan said, embarrassed at the praise. ‘Hey, I saw Henry again.’
‘That is good.’
‘But now he’s missing again. I think he was scared about the monster returning to the ship.’
‘That is understandable,’ Ferdy agreed. ‘Also, Charles Chaplin Senior was also a famous performer long before his son—’
It sounded like Ferdy was returning to normal. ‘Henry and I shouldn’t have left Liber8tor,’ Dan said, thoughtfully. ‘Then he wouldn’t have heard the monster in the jungle.’
Ferdy didn’t reply.
‘Ferdy,’ Dan said. ‘Are you still there?’
‘Ferdy is still here. Is Dan saying Henry was onboard Liber8tor?’
‘He was on the ship when I woke up after the crash.’
‘That is not possible.’
Dan frowned. ‘Huh?’
‘Liber8tor tracks heat signatures of life forms aboard the ship. No new entries have been added to the log.’
‘The system must have been broken,’ Dan said.
‘That particular system has been fully operational the whole time. The only person who has been on board Liber8tor is Dan.’
‘That’s crazy,’ Dan said. ‘You’re telling me Henry is some kind of—’
He didn’t dare say the word.
Ghost.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
‘There must be something wrong with the system,’ Dan insisted.
‘Many of Liber8tor’s systems were offline, but that particular component is part of life support. It was working normally.’ Ferdy paused. ‘Is Dan sure that he didn’t imagine the experience?’
