by Andy Briggs
“I thought being a hero is a state of mind? Well, thanks to you, Pete may be dead and Basilisk is back on the loose.”
Mr. Grimm refused to meet Toby’s accusing gaze and instead studied a computer monitor. A blip flashed over the northeast arm of Mexico. “We have a position for him. We’re still picking up a faint signal from Lorna’s cell.”
“I hope he doesn’t make any calls,” said Lorna. It was the first thing she had said since they had been picked up by Mr. Grimm. “Mom would kill me if I got another huge phone bill.”
Mr. Grimm shook his head. “It’s switched off.”
Emily looked up. “Off? How can you trace a phone if it’s off?”
“You can remotely activate a phone, its microphone, or even its camera without the end user ever knowing. Although there seems to be some sort of interference stopping us from doing that. The FBI call it a Roving Bug; the only way to stop it is by removing the battery.” He typed a few commands on the keyboard. “He has been stationary since we began tracing. Perhaps he is in a prison?”
“Or dead,” Emily said in a low voice. She was the only one who had tried to call Pete. She should have known something was wrong when he didn’t answer. Tears rolled from her eyes and she fought not to cry out loud.
“A possibility,” said Grimm in his irritatingly calm voice. “But you must remember, above everything else, that this is a chance to stop Basilisk’s plan. His actions have upset the balance between good and evil around the globe. And a stable balance is something the world needs in order to function. As we speak, world governments are fighting villains who are capitalizing on the situation. Everywhere, crime is on the rise and unless we stop Basilisk and his gang, things will only get worse. We need to create more heroes to bring back the status quo.”
They understood the gravity of his words, but from where they were sitting in the back of the vehicle the rest of the world seemed to be functioning as usual.
“Don’t you mean we need more heroes to win?” asked Toby.
“Win? Well, that would be terrible!”
The three friends exchanged glances.
“But I thought that was the point,” said Emily.
“A world run by superheroes would bring about more trouble than you could imagine. If everybody thought they were right, then soon divisions would appear, and divisions cause conflict. Conflict causes war.”
Toby was thinking hard. “But it would be two hero sides fighting … would that be so bad?”
“It would be two forces fighting. Both would think the other a villain. No, a balance is always needed. What good is light without shade to hide in?”
Toby’s mind reeled at the heavy concept. He was on the right side … wasn’t he?
Mr. Grimm continued. “If you are going to stop Basilisk and company then you need to change your tactics.”
“What do you mean?” Toby asked, fearing a lecture was coming.
“I’ve seen your record. Since you were recruited you have survived by brute force and pure luck. It’s time for a stealth approach.”
Grimm reached behind his seat and pulled out a large black case. He pressed his thumb against a pad and the biometric sensor beeped and unlocked the case. Inside were four black jumpsuits made from a leathery material.
“It’s time you started thinking about the bigger picture. You have been behaving like a loose group of individuals, downloading powers without thinking things through. You need to act like a team, using complementary powers and working together. These will be your uniforms.”
Toby groaned, and Lorna couldn’t help but flash a smile. Toby and Pete had been arguing over wearing uniforms. Toby was dead set against it, but Pete had Lorna’s vote. Emily sat on the fence over the matter.
“Do we have to? They look so stupid!” Toby moaned.
“This is the very latest in nanofabric weave. The material will automatically take on the same temperature as your surroundings, thus making you invisible to thermal vision or cameras. It will also keep you warm or cool you down and keep you dry. They have a Kevlar weave, which offers resistance to claws, knives, bullets, and mid-range energy weapons. It’s fireproof and doesn’t need washing or ironing.”
“Great,” muttered Toby as he examined the one-piece jet-black suit.
“It also comes with matching boots. Nonslip soles. They will automatically fit to your feet, so there is no need for laces.”
“No cape?” asked Lorna. She would love to have a cape, dramatically swirling it around. And it would annoy the heck out of Toby.
“No. Capes are not needed with this clothing system. They’re all identical, so you will actually look like a hero team.” He fixed his gaze on Toby. “And every team needs a strong leader.”
Toby didn’t enjoy the scrutiny. He caught Lorna shaking her head and Emily smiling admiringly.
Mr. Grimm broke the uncomfortable silence. “Of course, Hero.com is still off-line so you will have to rely on the irregular powers within you.”
He opened a case revealing three small vials of orange liquid. He rolled Lorna’s sleeve back to reveal the wristband they all still wore to help control their powers. Grimm ejected the empty vial that contained the teleport power and inserted the new, and slightly larger, cartridge. He repeated the process for Emily and Toby as he spoke.
“Your powers are slowly wearing off and still fluctuating wildly, so I have reprogrammed the wristbands to try and suppress the fluctuations inside you. I have also distilled some raw stealth and defensive powers that we had in storage. It will ensure you can still function as a superteam.”
Lorna rolled through the touch screen; a small selection of unfamiliar stick figure icons were available, which she could scroll through left or right.
“So without this wristband repressing them, our powers will still randomly fire off,” Emily said. “But you’re also saying that they could completely vanish at a moment’s notice?”
“Correct.”
Toby groaned. “So this is a suicide mission?”
“One would hope not.”
“Then why give us stealth powers? How about something more useful in an attack?”
“We are literally injecting you with superpowers at this stage. It is not something we would do if we were not desperate. And it is not as though I usually have such superpowers lying around! The Foundation headquarters has been relocated to a classified place, so we can’t walk over there and ask to borrow some. By chance these had been donated by a Prime before Hero.com crashed.”
“And before he went scurrying into hiding,” Toby mumbled.
“No matter what you think, Mr. Wilkinson, you are all regarded as essential assets by the Foundation. You are their only hope.”
A rat the size of Pete’s foot sniffed around a skeleton shackled to the far wall. Pete couldn’t tear his eyes from the rodent: he was terrified of rats. The skeleton had been there for some time, and Pete could not help but notice that its bones had been gnawed. He wondered if the rats had eaten the prisoner alive.
He’d woken up in the small cell; the last thing he remembered was being in his own backyard. He had no idea where he was now. The air was cloying. The walls were crafted from large thick blocks that fitted tightly together and the iron door looked as if it had been added as an afterthought. His wristband had been torn from his arm, leaving an angry red blotch. His hands were bound with unusual cuffs that had a small numeric pad between them. He recognized Emily’s description of them as power-dampening handcuffs that Doc Tempest had forced her to wear once when she had been held captive.
The door opened and Trojan stood with her hands on her hips, casting a skeptical look at Pete.
“Come on, kiddo. Somebody wants to speak to you.”
For a change, Pete thought bitterly, but he didn’t say a word as he stepped from the cell into a narrow, steeply sloping corridor. It was no cooler out there.
Trojan shoved him in the back. “Walk! And no funny business.”
Pete
couldn’t think of any funny quips to throw at her. His thoughts were dark. Abandoned by his friends and facing the prospect of his parents splitting up made him feel as if there was nothing worth returning to. Maybe he should defect to the bad guys for a while. At least he’d be on the winning side. Right now he just didn’t care what they were going to do with him.
The stone passage sloped up and Pete got the sense he was walking in a square spiral. It ended at another iron door that was thick with rust. Trojan had to use her shoulder to open this one and gestured for Pete to walk through first. The new room was a stark contrast to what Pete had seen before. It was large, well lit, and paneled with brown tiles. One wall was open and offered a stunning view across a rich jungle canopy. Vividly colored parrots flew past in a large flock.
But Pete’s attention was drawn back into the room. Basilisk and Worm stood around a central control column that sat on pneumatic arms, revealing a reclining chair bolted to the floor and surrounded by cables with dry ice drifting from them. Once the column came down it would clearly seal the chair, and its occupant, inside.
“That will be all, Trojan,” said Worm. The squat man didn’t notice the rude gesture she made behind his back as she left the room, pulling the door closed behind her.
“What is this place?” Pete asked. His dark mood had banished any feelings of fear.
Worm gestured to the chair. “A cryogenic storage chamber. Sit.”
Pete ignored him and walked over to the panoramic balcony. Glancing down he could see that he was at the top of a steep stepped pyramid, exactly like the one that he had seen in photographs at Toby’s house.
“We’re in South America?”
“Central. Mexico, to be precise,” said Basilisk. “I’d advise you not to jump. If the fall does not kill you, then the jungle provides many dangers of its own.”
“Maybe I’ll just fly out of here?”
“Perhaps you could. But with those power-dampening handcuffs on, I very much doubt it.” Pete scowled at him. “Now sit down.”
Pete still didn’t move and he could see that Worm was growing impatient. “What are you going to do with me? I’m no threat. If you think the Enforcers are going to bust through the door or that my friends will be bothered to come and find me, then you’re sadly mistaken.”
“I know. It seems nobody wants you. Except us.”
Basilisk effortlessly dragged Pete across the room. Pete shouted and pushed back but without powers it was like fighting an elephant. Basilisk shoved him into the reclining chair and held him in place with one massive palm pushed against Pete’s chest, crushing the breath from him. Worm darted forward and pulled restraints across Pete’s arms and legs, fastening him in place.
“As I said,” grunted Worm, “this is a storage facility. It’s where I was entombed for decades. Held in a state of suspended animation. The dimwit Commander Courage thought it would keep me out of the way until the war ended. Then he was going to release me and put me on trial. But the good commander forgot all about me. I would have remained here forever if I hadn’t been inadvertently freed by a group of scavenging archaeologists. They accidentally cut the power to my cryogenic chamber when they breached the outer chamber, setting me free.”
“What are you going to do to me?” Pete said, now suddenly fearful as Basilisk hovered over him with a nasty-looking implement—all chrome nozzles and serrated edges.
“Take a sample of your DNA,” said Basilisk. He placed a nozzle against Pete’s arm and squeezed the trigger. Pete yelped. It felt as if he had been bitten. When Basilisk removed the nozzle there was a small circular indentation in Pete’s arm, bright red and throbbing.
Basilisk placed the sample in a freezer, then checked some of the old dials on the machine. He tapped one to make the needle move. “We’re putting you to sleep. When we bring down the Hero Foundation you will be their only Downloader specimen left. We intend to reprogram Hero.com for our own benefit and need to preserve you to see if there will be any unwelcome side effects.”
“You’re using me as a guinea pig?” Pete futilely struggled against the straps. “Let me out of here!”
Worm gave him a humorless, thin smile. “This will hurt—a lot. For several minutes, as the temperature lowers, it will feel like an icy knife skewering your flesh. But then your brain functions will begin to slow and you’ll lose consciousness.”
Basilisk slid a curved chrome door half closed. “Just think, you’re more useful as a frozen icicle than anything else. Sweet dreams.”
The column lowered with an ominous thud that reverberated around the chamber, plunging Pete into blackness. A cool breeze replaced the warm air and he heard a sound like gas releasing as the temperature plummeted.
Then he felt as if he’d just fallen into Arctic waters as the cold stabbed his body with such ferocity that he had to scream.
Toby, Lorna, and Emily felt as if they had just arrived in a nightmare. Branches and vines smacked their faces and the dark jungle was alive with hoots, howls, and the sound of a billion insects advancing toward them.
“I hate the jungle!” moaned Lorna.
Hours earlier, Mr. Grimm had taken them to an army base. A small squadron of Enforcers surrounded a sleek black aircraft that reminded Toby of a stretched B-2 stealth bomber. Lorna noticed that the Enforcers were keeping away any inquisitive military personnel. Grimm had informed them that the plane was the next generation of stealth bombers code-named “Aurora.” It had scramjet technology that enabled it to fly faster than any other military fighter ever had.
“Why can’t we teleport there?” asked Toby as they were strapped, chest down, onto specially constructed seats that resembled beds mounted in a circular carousel arrangement, like a ride at the county fair, inside the belly of the aircraft—the bomb bay.
Emily looked terrified as Mr. Grimm explained they would be dropped like bombs over the target area. Their wristbands had been programmed with a limited gliding superpower that would allow them to descend safely.
“We have few samples of teleport charges left outside the Foundation headquarters. This vial is one of a few remaining, and you will need it to return home. And that is one power for the four of you—so make sure you are together.” He inserted it into Toby’s wristband as he continued. “This aircraft will take you in stealthily, invisible to radar and more importantly, to anything Basilisk and company have set up. Remember this is a twofold mission. Stopping Basilisk and his team is your primary goal. No matter how you feel, the rescue mission is of secondary importance. Good luck.”
As they were sealed snugly into the bomb bay, which was illuminated with a dim red light, they all agreed that Pete had to be their main concern. Everything else could wait.
They felt very little movement as they took off—until the craft accelerated skyward at such speed they thought the g-forces would tear skin from bone. They heard the engines shriek like banshees and the g-force continued for a full fifteen minutes before they achieved cruising speed.
Toby took the opportunity to interrogate Lorna about missing their dad’s exhibition. She mumbled something about forgetting and having previous plans while Emily teased her about going on a date. No names were mentioned, but Toby got the impression that it was somebody from school who he wasn’t supposed to know about. Not that he cared.
For two hours they said nothing more, and Toby was surprised to hear Lorna gently snoring. The pilot’s voice eventually roused everybody.
“Approaching target area. Cargo deployment in thirty seconds.”
Toby assumed that meant them, and wondered if the pilot had known that his cargo was a bunch of teenage superheroes. Probably not.
The pilot began to count down from fifteen. Toby felt a knot of anticipation in his stomach, and heard exclamations from both girls as the bomb bay doors swung open beneath them with a blast of warm air, revealing a moonlit jungle canopy.
Toby barely had time to marvel at the vista before the pilot’s count reached “zero” an
d he felt the bunk he was lying on tip aside, dropping him from the aircraft. The carousel spun around, deploying Emily then Lorna with mechanical precision.
They screamed as they fell, arms and legs flailing as they tried to fly and only remembering at the last moment they had the power to glide. Pushing fear from their minds and focusing on the powers they had, they discovered they could spiral through the air and control the speed of their descent by stretching their arms like wings. It wasn’t as much fun as flying, but it was infinitely better than falling.
After ten seconds they had gained enough mastery to look around. The Aurora plane had vanished into the night. The square tops of some ancient Mayan pyramids stood some way off, outlined by the moon. Even in silhouette, Toby recognized the formations as those his father had discovered.
Seconds later they punched through the tree canopy. Branches whipped their faces as they dropped, landing on the jungle floor amid bushes. Lorna was the first to stand, screaming as she frantically swiped at her body, knocking off several large insects.
Toby recalled numerous conversations with his dad about the hazards of field trips in the jungle, although at the time Toby thought they had been nothing more than embellishments of his father’s stories to make archaeology sound more adventurous. Leeches drawing blood as you walked across damp ground, hungry jaguars prowling, carnivorous fish, crocodiles, poisonous spiders, scorpions, millipedes, frogs, and deadly plants. Mosquitoes with malaria, insects that buried their young under your skin, and ants with bites so venomous that it felt as if you’d been shot.
Toby decided the best course of action was to keep his mouth shut and not mention anything to alarm the others.
They lost no time in trekking toward the pyramids. After one minute they were soaked with sweat and mosquitoes buzzed irritatingly close to their ears.
“Are you sure that we’re heading in the right direction?” Emily asked with concern. They had been walking so long, it seemed that they should have reached their destination by now.
