Virus Attack

by Andy Briggs

  “Totally,” said Toby. They followed an animal trail, since it offered the least resistance, and were soon rewarded with large moss-carpeted boulders that showed signs of being carved by man.

  “There!” whispered Lorna. She pointed through a narrow break in the trees where the side of a pyramid could just be seen against the sky, which was getting marginally lighter as dawn approached.

  They edged forward for a better look, stumbling over yet more carved stones. There were two large symmetrical stepped pyramids stretching out of the jungle.

  “Which one is it?” asked Emily.

  Toby and Lorna had been forced to watch their father’s expedition recordings so much that they felt they had been here before.

  “The expedition cleared a trail around the base of the pyramids. But they only had time to explore one tomb before my father was called back,” Toby said.

  Staring into the darkness, they could just see the trail and noticed that most of the clearing had been done around the farthest structure. Lorna pointed.

  “I’ve seen that entrance on Dad’s videos.”

  Carefully they stepped out on the trail and walked around the base of the nearest pyramid. The stonework was ancient, covered in moss, and weather-beaten. Faded carvings covered every inch. They hurried past and hoped that there were no surveillance cameras watching them. They reached the entrance to the second pyramid and it was as though they had stepped magically into their father’s video.

  Moonlight reflected from the tarnished seal on the open door. It was metal, something that his father had pointed out was incongruous, as the Mayans had no knowledge of metallurgy, so it must have been added later. It showed a crude serpent, or as Toby had correctly identified, an S-shaped worm placed there by Commander Courage to mark the temporary incarceration of Worm. Toby briefly wondered what terrible accident had befallen the commander to almost kill him and make him forget such a place. It wasn’t good to dwell on such dark mysteries.

  They peered into the inky blackness. Nothing was visible.

  “Wait a minute,” said Emily. She looked at her wristband. “Grimm talked about defensive powers, right? Let’s see what we have for night vision.” She scrolled through the list of irritatingly vague icons on the touch screen and settled on one that showed waves coming from the stick figure’s head. “If these are stealth powers, then I doubt it’s going to be some kind of laser blast.”

  She tapped the screen and felt a tingle through her arm as the raw power was transferred via the sensors in her arm.

  Lorna took a step back from Emily as her friend’s eyes glowed a pale green. It was an unnerving effect.

  “I can see!” exclaimed Emily. “Come on, try it. Let’s go.”

  Toby and Lorna chose the same option. The world around them lit up with a pale green light and they could suddenly see into the darkest corner of the chamber ahead. They entered the inner sanctum, and Toby was more than aware that he was tracing his father’s steps. The walls were etched with hieroglyphs. Any items that had been decorating the tomb had been taken away and were currently on display in the museum.

  “There’s nobody here,” whispered Emily. “Are you sure this is the right place?”

  “Dad only accessed the outer chamber before he had to leave. He said there was a solid stone door preventing them from getting farther inside without a lot of work.” Toby had memorized from the display plans in the museum, so he led the way. Now he was glad he’d attended the exhibition. They turned a corner and were confronted by the door to the inner chamber.

  Or what was left of it. The corridor was strewn with rubble. The door had been blown apart—from the inside. No doubt when Worm had escaped. Beyond, a faint electrical light flickered on the wall and the floor sloped upward.

  “I’d say this is definitely it,” Toby whispered. His night vision faded as his vision adjusted to the electrical light. “Let’s be smart about this. No unnecessary risks. We get Pete, then we get out together. Only then should we decide if we can take Basilisk’s team out.”

  Lorna was impressed with the ease with which Toby was taking charge, although she wouldn’t admit it. They entered the corridor and cautiously walked up. Toby judged that they must have been walking around the perimeter of the pyramid as the passage turned a left-hand corner ahead. Toby peeped around.

  The route continued sloping upward and had a single door against the wall, midway, before it turned yet another left-hand corner, spiraling up the structure. They cautiously passed the door and saw a dingy cell beyond the narrow bars.

  “Empty,” said Toby, who had hoped they could have sprung Pete from the cell quickly and easily.

  They reached the next corner. As Toby was about to step out he felt Emily pull him back and push him against the wall, clamping a hand over his mouth.

  “Listen,” she whispered.

  It was strange to Toby to have Emily so close. This wasn’t the time to think about girls—especially Emily. Toby shook the thoughts away. He strained to listen instead. Arguing voices drifted from another room halfway along the passage.

  “You killed him!” said a female voice.

  “I thought you were going to shoot him!” barked an angry male voice.

  Lorna rolled through the options on her wristband looking for a blank icon square. She hoped that she had invisibility; that was the ultimate stealth power. No luck.

  “Wait here,” said Toby. “I’ll scout ahead.”

  Before they could argue, Toby gingerly tiptoed toward the door and pressed himself flat against the wall. He was annoyed at himself as he couldn’t get the Mission Impossible theme song from his head, and regretted having watched the movies with Pete a couple of days earlier. He risked a peek around the corner, expecting to witness a scene of torture.

  Instead he saw the backs of Viral and Trojan. They had their feet up and were playing a PlayStation game, shooting digital foes on a tiny screen. Toby swallowed his relieved laugh—it was nice to know that villains were people too. He crept past the opening and checked that they hadn’t heard him, then waved for the others to follow him.

  “Look out!” screamed Trojan.

  Lorna froze in the open doorway, convinced she was caught. A quick check revealed that Trojan was still referring to the game.

  The trio advanced up the sloping corridor, and judging by the fact that each turn was shorter than the last, Toby knew they must be close to the apex.

  So far, so good, he thought. He’d expected things to be much more difficult than they had been. But then, an iron door blocked the passage ahead, and behind it, they could hear the low thrum of machinery and muffled voices. Although the words were indistinguishable, both Basilisk and Worm were easily identifiable. Shadows moved on the floor.

  Toby studied the heavy door. Without any energy weapons or superstrength there was no way they could charge their way through, and he realized that they were effectively trapped at the top of the ancient Mayan pyramid with two dangerous supervillains ahead of them and another two behind.

  Toby scrolled through the superpowers on his wristband and hoped there was something they could use to save Pete.

  Exit Strategy

  Basilisk stared at Worm and, not for the first time, pondered how he was going to get rid of the irritating little man once they’d triumphed with the plan. Aside from his brief capture, which, in fact, had turned out to be a blessing now that they had a Downloader in captivity, the plan had been flawless. Hero.com was still down, the Primes who ran it were in hiding, and the Hero Foundation was an open target—or would be once he had located it, of course.

  But time was beginning to turn against them.

  The virus he had inserted into the system at Goonhilly had been state-of-the-art and caused more damage than he’d thought possible. But Basilisk knew it was only a matter of time before the Foundation’s nonsuper technicians got Hero.com working again—and it was taking him longer than he’d anticipated to access the Foundation satellites. If he didn
’t do that soon then he’d be back to square one. When he had voiced his concerns to Worm, the little man instantly began to worry.

  “Perhaps it is time for the Council to step in to help us topple the Foundation?” he whined.

  Basilisk flicked a glance at the suspended animation pod that entrapped the boy.

  “No doubt they would destroy the Foundation,” Basilisk growled, “and Hero.com with it. Then what good would it do to hand the power to them?”

  “Asking for help is better than failure! Why should we struggle in the final steps when the Council would be all too willing to—”

  Basilisk raised his voice. “This is bigger than your petty drive to avenge yourself on Commander Courage. Think of the bigger picture for once! We will have our own superpower Web site. Besides, the Council has no love for me after I tried to overturn them. They would kill me in the process.” He caught Worm’s calculating expression. “And you for harboring me for so long. I’m beginning to think that you’re getting cold feet.”

  Worm shook his head. “Not at all.” In truth the desire for revenge on the Hero Foundation creator was something that burned through him. “But instead of action we hide away in this prison,” spat Worm, who didn’t have the vocabulary to describe how much he hated the pyramid, jungle, and entire country.

  Neither man noticed a subtle movement under the door. It looked as though somebody had pushed a sheet of paper underneath—a paper printed with a picture of Toby.

  But in fact it was Toby himself.

  He was wafer thin, and pulled himself through the narrow gap under the doorway. It was an unusual experience to be so thin, and he found it difficult to grip the stone floor to drag himself into the room.

  Basilisk continued. “As I have explained, we leave the boy here and proceed to phase two. Thanks to our infiltration of the satellite station in Britain, I know which satellite the Foundation is using to transmit the powers. We need to get to that satellite so Viral can act.”

  “About time! All he’s done is make the place smell with his rank odor. After all the effort we went through to release him you’d think he’d at least take a shower. So what can he do that’s so important?”

  “Once you open up the system for him, Viral can insert a malicious code directly into the satellite to pinpoint the location the Foundation is transmitting from. Then he can knock their security systems off-line so we can perform our final assault.”

  “At last, some action.”

  “Once he has inserted his virus it won’t matter if they bring Hero.com back online, since we’ll control the satellite!”

  “Why does everything you do seem complicated?”

  “Because nothing in life is easy! Not if it’s worth doing. My plan is foolproof and will see us victorious!” With you in a box, Basilisk added silently.

  Toby was now through the door and he dragged himself behind the central steel column. He stood upright, careful to keep his paper-thin edge toward the villains. For a frightening moment, he thought he caught Worm glancing over, but the villain didn’t seem to notice him.

  “And what about the other two? I don’t like them.”

  Basilisk was secretly plotting to use Viral and Trojan to assault Villain.net as well, but that was a future plan that didn’t concern Worm. “After this is over you can deal with them.” Basilisk resisted laughing out loud—Trojan and Viral would tear Worm apart.

  Toby looked at the machine’s controls in front of him. He had been expecting to find Pete tied up, and was shocked to see his friend’s face on a monitor. Heart sensors steadily beeped indicating he was alive, and Toby somehow knew he must be contained in the column in front of him.

  “Very well. I allow you to continue,” said Worm.

  “Most generous,” purred Basilisk, who wanted nothing more than to pulverize the little fiend into dust.

  “I will charge up the Nematode so we can proceed with the second phase.”

  Toby watched as Worm strode toward the panoramic opening at the top of the pyramid, which wasn’t visible from the outside, camouflaged by a holographic screen. Worm suddenly dissolved into fine sandlike grains that cascaded down the side of the pyramid, reforming into the villain once the grains reached the jungle floor.

  Toby grinned. If they waited for the bad guys to leave they would have no problem freeing Pete. Basilisk spun around and headed for the door.

  That was when Toby saw the flaw in his plan. He had no time to shout out before Basilisk yanked open the door.

  Lorna and Emily froze when they saw the villain. Basilisk stopped in his tracks too, stunned to see them.

  Chaos erupted.

  “Intruders!” he roared.

  Toby took a step forward, intending to distract Basilisk, but then noticed a large red button amid the old dials on the control panel. It was such an obvious button to press, and Toby rationalized that it would probably have been a stylish design sixty-odd years ago when the machine had been constructed. With the villain momentarily distracted this was his chance to release Pete.

  He hit the button.

  An alarm squawked out, drowning Basilisk’s voice. Yellow warning lights rotated on the cryogenic chamber and an icy high-pressure mist shot out of the machine.

  Basilisk’s eyes blazed malevolently. Both Emily and Lorna screamed in agony as they felt their skin tightening across their bodies. The sensation vanished the moment Basilisk broke eye contact to twist around to see the dry ice flood the room behind him.

  “Who’s there?” he yelled in obvious confusion.

  Emily and Lorna turned to retreat but froze when they saw Trojan and Viral running up the corridor behind them. The villains slowed their pace when they saw the intruders were trapped.

  Viral grinned evilly. “Lost, little girls?”

  Lorna grabbed Emily and shouted something. Toby saw all this through the dry ice filling the room. He watched as Emily and Lorna stabbed their wristbands and then vanished in a cloud of smoke that mixed with the vapors in the room.

  Basilisk turned and ran toward the console, still oblivious to Toby’s presence. Toby circled around him and slammed the door closed, pulling a heavy bar across it to prevent Viral and Trojan from entering the room.

  Basilisk spun around and finally noticed Toby, who stood like a two-dimensional cartoon character. Behind, the cryogenic chamber rose to reveal an unconscious Pete strapped to the chair, covered in a sheen of ice.

  “You don’t give up, do you?” Basilisk snarled when he recognized him.

  Toby was well aware that he was on his own. Emily and Lorna must have teleported away. Half of him resented the fact they’d left him on his own while the other half understood that they had been trapped with only one escape route.

  “I just came for my friend, Basilisk,” said Toby, raising his wafer-thin hands for a fight even though he looked ridiculous. A passing thought made him wonder if a single punch from the supervillain would tear a hole through him. That would surely kill him.

  “Then come and get him, boy.”

  Toby took a step forward and wondered how he could avoid the villain’s gaze. Trojan suddenly appeared in the room with a flourish of her cape; Viral walked out from the folds of the material as it swished around the girl. Trojan wasn’t wearing her mask, and Toby thought for a second she looked very attractive, until she gave him a cruel smile. He was outnumbered.

  And he was probably going to die.

  Emily and Lorna reappeared with a sucking noise. They felt dizzy from their quick escape. They were standing on the broad flat top of the pyramid opposite the one they had just fled. Dawn illuminated the jungle. Lorna was momentarily struck by how beautiful the landscape looked.

  Moments before, she and Emily had been examining the options on their wristbands and thought they’d identified one that could be useful—when Basilisk had opened the door. Once the other villains appeared behind them they had little choice but to select the new power, and to hope.

  Their bodies atomiz
ed in a cloud with a sensation that felt like being tickled all over. Although their bodies were no longer larger than a particle of smoke, they could still see around them. They zoomed past Basilisk and circled the chamber like ghosts before spotting the opening outside. They shot through and banked across to the pyramid opposite just as the power wore off.

  Emily pointed back at the pyramid. A solid-looking wall was blocking the opening they had escaped from. She stared for a couple of seconds, and then noticed the image glitch as if it was a looped video image.

  “It’s a fake wall! A hologram or something.”

  “We’ve got to go back and get Toby.”

  “We can’t fight with just defensive powers.”

  “What do we do?”

  “Give me a second, Lorn. I have an idea.”

  Toby grunted in pain. His power abruptly wore off and his entire body reinflated like an expanding balloon. It felt like being punched all over.

  Trojan watched in surprise. “Nice trick.”

  “Thanks.” He gave her what he thought was a charming smile, before remembering the danger he was in.

  “Can we just kill him already?” snarled Viral.

  Basilisk nodded. “Yes, he’s of no use to us.”

  Toby took a step back and felt the iron door blocking his path. Viral opened his mouth to say something snotty.

  Then he was blasted off his feet by a fireball that slammed him against the ancient Mayan wall. Trojan and Basilisk spun around to see Emily and Lorna swoop through the archway. Emily landed next to Pete and immediately began unfastening his restraints. Lorna unleashed another fireball between Trojan and Basilisk—forcing them to leap aside.

  “Tobe! We are leaving!” she screamed.

  Toby didn’t have time to ponder where they had found these powers; instead he darted forward and helped Emily free Pete.

  The three downed villains were all trying to rise at the same time. An energy blast erupted from Basilisk’s hands—Lorna darted aside as the beam punched a jagged hole in the ancient brickwork. She retaliated with a fireball that hit Basilisk firmly in his chest and rolled him into Viral. She spun around with another fireball aimed at Trojan—but it exploded harmlessly against Trojan’s cape as she pulled it up.