by Andy Briggs
He gazed at the photographs of the huge stepped pyramid that his father had discovered, hidden by foliage deep in the Mexican jungle. Its sides reached over the tree line, but were covered in so much vegetation that they blended into the jungle like a hill. It was just part of a lost city his father’s expedition had uncovered, so new that it still hadn’t been given a name. The surprising thing was that such a structure had remained hidden in this day and age. But then again, Toby knew that marvels could still be found in the world.
Toby stood at his father’s side. His dad was giving an enthusiastic summary of the exhibition to a small knot of fascinated visitors. His zeal hadn’t waned in the last three hours. Toby had even caught his mom hiding a yawn on more than one occasion.
“We only made it into the outer chamber. The secrets of the inner chamber still remain for our next expedition. You can see from the aerial photographs that it resembles the site at Chichén Itzá, except here we have two symmetrical pyramids that … “
Toby zoned out. He had always liked the stories of the ancient Mayans, especially their version of basketball called Pok-ta-pok, which was played with a small rubber ball that the players had to keep off the ground using any parts of their body, except their hands. They had to get it through tiny sideways stone hoops on a wall. And sometimes the losers were killed. Gruesome, but great.
Toby sighed and glanced at his watch. Only two more hours to go. He hoped that Pete was okay and that the Enforcers had already taken Basilisk from him. He felt sorry for Pete and wished that he’d paid more attention to the fact his friend had not been himself the last few weeks. Then there was the problem of tracking Worm down. Chameleon had given him no help at all on that. He glanced at his watch again to double-check the time … then his eye was drawn to something on an exhibition photograph.
Something familiar.
Frowning, Toby squeezed between a couple of artsy types to get a better view. It was an enlarged still of the pyramid’s door. Toby had seen it dozens of times on his dad’s jerky video diary. But here it was much clearer, a familiar swirling logo that had been incorrectly identified as a snake.
It was the same logo as the one on Worm’s brooch, the one that had momentarily hypnotized Toby on Diablo Island. Mr. Grimm had warned them about Worm’s old-school techniques, but Toby and Lorna had not paid any attention to such a small detail.
A horrible realization dawned on Toby. It was his own father who had discovered Worm’s resting place; his own father who had unwittingly unleashed the supervillain, leading to events that would ultimately topple the Hero Foundation and destroy the world.
Toby felt sick.
Now more than ever he needed to talk to Pete. He just hoped there was not going to be any more bad news.
Pete sat in his dark bedroom and stared at the posters on his wall; some of them were fading with age. He had cried most of the night, but then had abruptly stopped as the sadness he had been feeling was replaced by numbness. He slipped Lorna’s phone into his pocket since it was clear that Toby was not going to show up or even bother calling. After a two-hour wait, he finally realized his friends were about as reliable as his parents.
The only good news of the day was that his parents had left the house that morning. His mother was going to see friends and his dad was going to a bar, so it was quiet for a change and he wouldn’t have to explain the arrival of the Enforcers to them. Whenever they bothered showing up.
Pete went into the kitchen for a glass of water. He slipped a straw in and went out to the shed, hoping that his prisoner hadn’t died of thirst.
Basilisk’s head shot up when Pete entered. Pete put the straw under the rim of the sack and Basilisk emptied the glass in one gulp.
“I heard shouting last night. I was worried you had been hurt,” said Basilisk in a concerned tone.
“It’s none of your business,” snarled Pete. “And why would you be worried about me?”
“Because if you died, then maybe I would die alone in this cell?” Pete glanced around the flimsy wooden shed. “Your friends never came to interrogate me. So I presume without you, I would be alone in this place.”
“Huh,” said Pete. One person had bothered to call last night, Emily. But when Pete had seen her name on his caller ID he’d hesitated too long before answering and she hung up. As lonely as he was, he’d felt too miserable to speak to anyone.
“So how did you become leader of such an irreverent group of heroes?”
“I’m not their leader,” Pete snapped back, again silently cursing himself that he’d said too much.
“Surely somebody as talented and brave as you would be an inspiring leader, not a follower?”
At some level, Pete knew that Basilisk was just trying to butter him up. But right now the one thing he needed was positive encouragement.
“I agree with you. But I wouldn’t let it worry you too much because the Enforcers are on their way as we speak. You’re going to have a nice long time to think about it in Diablo Island. And when Hero.com is back online I will be the one making a difference and calling the shots.”
Basilisk’s voice echoed his concern. “Enforcers? Coming here?”
“When they bother showing up,” said Pete, looking out of the dirty window.
“Did you know there’s another way to get powers other than that juvenile Web site of yours?”
“Yeah, I know. Villain.net. I heard about that. But it’s not as good as our site, rip-offs never are. You just end up with a poor quality copy,” Pete mocked.
The ground suddenly started to shake. Jars of screws and nails scattered across the shelves and smashed on the floor. Pete gripped the door frame for support, convinced it was an earthquake.
“A pity you think so. I was hoping to find a more amicable solution rather than just killing you.”
Pete whirled around to see a fine laser extend from Basilisk’s finger and vaporize the electrical cable that was binding him. He stood up, kicking the chair away and tearing the sack from his head. His face was still obscured by his hood.
“You could escape? Then why did you wait?”
“I was waiting for my friends to turn up,” mocked Basilisk. “You see, I have some. And here they are.”
The muddy grass that Pete called a lawn suddenly erupted in a shower of dirt as the Nematode leaped from the ground and smashed through the neighbors’ fence as the machine thudded to the ground like a soaring whale.
The vibrations from the Nematode were so intense that the flimsy shed shook itself apart. Pete shielded his head as the rotted roof crashed around him.
“No!” he bellowed and extended his hands to hurl a fireball or energy blast at Basilisk. Nothing happened. Pete panicked and willed himself aflame—still nothing.
The hatch of the Nematode flipped down, revealing a staircase, like in old-fashioned airplanes. Trojan jumped out, Viral following down the steps at a more leisurely pace.
“Seems you are all washed up, little man,” Basilisk said with a laugh. “Now let me look at you!”
Basilisk’s eyes flared blue. To Pete the light seemed to fill his vision. He felt his chest constrict and he raised his hand protectively—the tips of his fingers turned cool. He suddenly recalled Mr. Grimm’s briefing on the villain’s powers—the petrification gaze. Pete worked on impulse and remembered a computer game he’d played. It was based on an ancient Greek legend of Perseus battling Medusa, whose gaze would turn anybody to stone. He grabbed a broken bathroom mirror that was poking from the shed rubble and turned it on Basilisk.
Basilisk suddenly howled as he stared at his own reflection. He tore his gaze away as the tip of his hood started to petrify. Pete dropped the mirror and scrambled backward into the yard, slipping on the mud and dropping to all fours.
He felt a hand grip his shoulder and yank him around. Mud splashed across his glasses and it was a moment before he could see the pale face of Viral staring at him.
“You’re not going anywhere, squirt.”
Basilisk limped up the machine’s staircase and spared a quick glance at Pete. “Kill him!”
The commotion had alerted Pete’s neighbors, who came out to complain about the huge bronze machine that had appeared in their yards.
“What’s going on here?” said a potbellied man wearing a thick sweater and unfashionably bright pants.
“Mr. Richards! Run!” screamed Pete.
The man opened his mouth to reply but Trojan turned on him and waved her arms as though throwing a Frisbee. She shot discus-shaped plasma at the man and blew him backward through his greenhouse window.
Pete fired an energy bolt at Trojan. It went wide and took out his kitchen window. Trojan whipped around and tossed another discus in retaliation. It hit Pete square in the chest—catapulting him through several neighboring fences in quick succession before he splashed into the pond of a house six doors down.
“Let me finish the runt off!” snarled Viral as he stalked toward Pete.
More neighbors were peering from their homes as Viral walked across perfectly manicured lawns, the grass turning black and decayed under his feet. One man emerged from his house wielding a baseball bat and clobbered Viral over the back of the head. The Goth went down.
“Teach you to trespass!” the man roared.
Viral rubbed his head and gave the man a wicked grin.
The baseball bat turned black in the man’s hands as the wood quickly rotted away. He dropped the blackened stump, and when he looked up, Viral was standing right in front of him. He snapped a hand around the man’s throat. Immediately his flesh began to turn black and the man gagged for air.
A fireball whacked into Viral, breaking his deadly grip, leaving the man curled up on the ground, but alive. Viral was blown back through a standing portion of fence and rolled out the flames on the damp grass.
“I guess you’re not fireproof, disease-boy,” growled Pete, his own hands aflame. The neighbors who were still brave enough to be watching gasped in astonishment as their quiet young neighbor charged forward with a battle cry.
Basilisk watched the events from the Nematode’s doorway. “What are you waiting for? It’s only one superbrat. Eliminate him!”
A deep thumping noise caught his attention and he looked up to see three twin-rotor Chinook helicopters roar low over the houses. They were black, with the Enforcers’ insignia on the rear and weapon pods strapped to the sides of the machine.
“You’re all under arrest!”
Basilisk leaned into the Nematode and shouted to Worm, who was still seated at the controls. “Do you have anything in this piece of junk to bring those helicopters down?”
Worm was staring at the flying machine in fascination. “I have a sonic cannon. It was able enough against Spitfires during the war. I remember—”
Basilisk cut him off. “Use it!”
Viral stood up and wiped the blood from his nose. He stared at it in surprise. “I’m bleeding!”
Pete was in no mood to listen. He slung another fireball at the villain. Viral ducked and the blast ripped into a patio of the house behind him; the intense heat melted the double-glazing and set fire to several well-tended plants and Christmas decorations inside.
Viral didn’t hang around. He sprinted toward the Nematode. Pete raced in pursuit, only stopping when he noticed the sonic cannon rise from the top of the ship. The weapon looked like a stretched bullhorn. It pivoted on a clockwork assembly toward one of the Chinooks. Then a bass-heavy roar blasted from the device. Pete felt his ribs vibrate and his teeth chatter as the sound wave rolled out and hit the aircraft.
The helicopter tried to bank away, but the sound blast sheared the front rotor and shattered the cockpit windows. The craft lurched down, out of control.
Pete watched in horror as the Chinook roared overhead and plowed into a house two doors down from where he lived. The helicopter tore straight through the roof in a shower of slates and crashed into the street on the other side of the building.
The remaining two helicopters responded by firing missiles from their weapon pods. Pete watched as one missile struck the side of the Nematode. The machine lurched, throwing Basilisk clear. The second missile blew Pete’s patio to smithereens. The final two were wide of their mark and hit the upper floor of his house. Pete watched in dismay as a huge hole punched through the masonry, destroying his bathroom.
Trojan threw up her cape to shield herself from falling bricks. With her other hand she hurled a plasma disk at the Enforcers. The disk scraped the undercarriage of the chopper as it thundered overhead, but otherwise left it unharmed.
The Nematode moved on its bristling spikes and righted itself. Viral and Trojan ran for the stairwell.
Pete snarled under his breath. “You’re not getting away with this!”
He sprinted forward. The sonic cannon spun around to track another Chinook.
Inside the Nematode, Worm was having the time of his life. It had been more than sixty years since he’d had a chance to play with his gadgets, and he was chuckling happily.
By the time Pete had reached the steps of Worm’s machine, the sonic cannon had fired again. Being this close to the cannon made his head feel as if it would rip in two.
The targeted helicopter orbited the battle zone, but Worm had had experience fighting the faster Spitfires during World War II. The blast hit the Chinook along the central fuselage and tore the helicopter in two—both halves sporting their own rotors.
Pete couldn’t pull his gaze away as he saw Enforcers flung from the two halves of the chopper. The fuselages rotated wildly around, counter to the rotors. The lead half of the chopper zipped over the Nematode, forcing Pete to throw himself flat on the ground as the rotors swished narrowly overhead and sliced a groove across the machine’s bronze bodywork, before smashing into Pete’s living room with the force of a wrecking ball. The second portion of the Chinook followed and took out the roof of a neighbor’s house as it fell into the street beyond.
Pete lifted himself up, covered in mud and fueled by anger. He jumped up the Nematode’s boarding steps and almost ran into Trojan as she poked her head out. She looked at him in surprise as he brought his arms around to fire at her point-blank.
But he never made it. A solid stone fist clunked him on the back of the head, knocking him unconscious.
The remaining Enforcer Chinook circled around, trying to get a decent shot, but the smoke pouring from the row of damaged houses obscured the scene below. Switching to thermal cameras, they watched as Basilisk dragged Pete’s body into the Nematode. Seconds later the antique craft rumbled forward, digging through more gardens as it chewed into the ground.
The Chinook fired a salvo at the machine, but the rockets only managed to blow apart a few yard gnomes. The supervillains were gone—leaving a swathe of destruction and taking Pete with them.
Welcome to the Jungle
The soda can was crushed to a ball of tin the size of a marble under Toby’s extra-strong grip. He threw the metal into the corner of the SUV and glared at Mr. Grimm, who was sitting opposite him in his pristine black suit. The only mark he seemed to have after the plane crash on Diablo Island was what looked like a bite on his forehead.
Toby had regretted leaving Pete alone with Basilisk, and now he didn’t even know if his friend was still alive. He was feeling guilty. He had taken the role of leader, but had done little to be proud of. He’d had enough and had shouted at Grimm that his friend was missing. Initially, Grimm had only been concerned with the mass hypnotism they’d have to perform so the residents of Pete’s neighborhood would forget the day’s events. The damage would have to be covered with a story of an exploding
gas pipe or a plane crash. Toby, Lorna, and Emily listened in silence as Grimm lamented that the Prime they needed to make people really forget was a guy called Psych. He didn’t hypnotize, he rewired people’s brains. It was a shame he was in hiding.
“Are you sure about this?” Mr. Grimm asked after Toby had calmed down and explained how he’d matched the symbol on his father’s discovery with the one on Worm’s brooch. It was a tenuous link to Worm’s lair, but Mr. Grimm had agreed it was the right place to start looking.
“It’s the only lead we have,” said Toby. “And we all owe it to Pete to save him.”
Toby glanced at Lorna and Emily who sat in guilty silence. Lorna had been grounded after she had returned from her mystery date. When Toby had explained what he had found at Pete’s house, or rather the remains of it, she instantly agreed to help. She had to sneak out and there would be trouble when she got home, but she couldn’t worry about that right now.
“Since your flying powers are haphazard at best, the Foundation has an aircraft waiting for you,” said Mr. Grimm. “It will take you through Mexican airspace, under radar so you don’t get shot down. After that, I’m afraid you are on your own.”
Toby stared at him. “Not that you’ve been much of a help to begin with.”
Mr. Grimm stared unblinkingly at him. “We are overstretched, as I have explained to you at every possible occasion.”
“While you all have been hiding and throwing us to the supervillains out there, we’ve been risking our lives to prevent this gang from destroying the Hero Foundation.” Mr. Grimm straightened his already perfect tie and Toby assumed he’d hit a nerve.
“Like true heroes. Selfless sacrifice.” Toby was sure he saw the flicker of an ironic smile when Grimm said that. He didn’t entirely trust the man. “Remember, heroes are not made by powers or abilities. They are made by action and attitude. And I did not abandon you. I teleported out as soon as the plane went down, as I thought you would too.”
