by Lucas Flint
“You should get help,” Blizzard insisted. “I don’t think you’ll be able to hurt him like this.”
“Neither will you,” I said in annoyance. “In case you haven’t noticed, he’s boiling hot. He’ll probably melt you if he touches you.”
“I’m just concerned about your health is all,” said Blizzard in annoyance. “But fine. If you don’t care about that, then do what you want, even if it gets you hurt.”
“Are you guilt-tripping me now?” I said in disbelief. “Really, Blizzard? In the middle of a battle, of all places? This is really—”
All of a sudden, I was interrupted by the sound of rushing water. Blizzard and I looked over to the other end of the alley to see Drop—still in his wave form—rushing down toward us, his boiling water leaving steam everywhere it touched. Blizzard raised her hands and created a huge ice barrier between us and Drop, but he just plowed through it like it was nothing. And it was too late for me to fly us out of the way, particularly when the pain in my foot flared and distracted me.
But right before the wave of boiling water could wash over us, it abruptly came to a stop, like time had frozen around it. Blizzard and I just stared at the wave, holding our breaths, not sure if this was part of some kind of fake out technique from Drop or if there was another reason he had come to a stop like this.
Then the boiling wave started to slowly draw back into itself. Actually, it started out slow, but soon sped up, until within seconds Drop was back in his humanoid form again, but this time, he didn’t look so confident. He clutched his head and started screaming, screaming so loudly that both Blizzard and I jumped.
But Drop didn’t fight us. He just staggered backwards, screaming and thrashing about, which made him look absolutely crazy. I still wasn’t sure if Drop had just lost his mind for some reason or if this was all part of some elaborate tactic to get us to drop our defenses right before he killed us.
Blizzard must have been thinking the same thing as me, because she said, “Um … Bolt, do you know what he’s doing?”
“No,” I said. “This isn’t my fault. Maybe he’s lost his marbles.”
“He’s perfectly sane,” said a voice behind us, causing us to look over our shoulders to see who was speaking. “But he’s just suffering a very bad headache at the moment.”
The owner of the voice was a tall man who appeared to be in his early forties, with jet black hair and an old-fashioned suit that had a G-Men patch on its shoulder. His hands were in his pockets, which made him look pretty casual and relaxed, but I was still surprised to see him, given that I hadn’t expected this guy, of all people, to show up here.
“Cadmus Smith?” I said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“That’s Cadmus Smith?” said Blizzard. “Leader of th G-Men? I’ve never met him before.”
Cadmus merely nodded at Blizzard. “It is nice to meet you, Blizzard, real name Emily Ricker, from Tucson, Arizona, if I recall correctly.”
“How do you know my real name and where I’m from?” said Blizzard defensively.
Cadmus tapped his forehead. “Telepathy. Which is also, coincidentally, how I am harming Drop.”
I looked back at Drop, who was still screaming and clutching his head in pain. “You mean you’re doing that?”
“Yes,” said Cadmus. “All I am doing is applying telepathic pressure to his mind, similar to what I have heard Barnabas Sagan could do before he was left comatose.”
“But I don’t understand why you’re here,” I said. “I didn’t even know you were in New York.”
“The G-Men have become involved in this whole Test Subject fiasco,” said Cadmus. “After those three you and Mecha Knight defeated were arrested and put into Ultimate Max, I decided to get involved in tracking down and locking them up, seeing as they are escapees from a top secret government program. Hence why I came to New York; my sources indicate that Matthew Jason is somewhere in this city, which means that the Test Subjects are here as well. I found you almost by coincidence; I was just traveling nearby, heard the sounds of fighting, and came to investigate. It is a good thing that I did.”
I was going to ask why Cadmus had personally chosen to get involved, given that he usually worked through one of the other G-Men, when Drop screamed again, causing us to look at him.
Drop’s skin was still boiling and he still looked like he was in pain, but now he looked absolutely enraged. He removed his hands from his head and pointed a shaking finger at Cadmus, growling, “Cadmus Smith … never expected to see you again …”
“Long time, no see, Drop,” said Cadmus, his tone not changed despite the fact that Drop was several times taller—and scarier—than him. “I see you haven’t changed much since Project Neo. Tell me, have you been hiding in a pond somewhere all this time or were you hiding in a water park instead?”
“You bastard,” Drop snarled. “You sided with the enemy! Don’t you want revenge against the government? Revenge for what they did to us? Don’t you want to destroy the people who ruined our lives?”
“My life was hardly ruined by Project Neo, given that I ended up becoming the Director of Department of Superpowered and Extraterrestrial Beings,” said Cadmus. “Besides, my loyalty is to my country and if Matthew Jason or anyone else has committed crimes, they must be tried in a court of law, not murdered in the streets by their enemies.”
“Court of law?” Drop repeated. He put a hand on his head and winced, but still kept talking. “You truly have such a rosy view of reality. Don’t you realize that the government will toss you away and that your country will never appreciate your hard work, the sacrifices you’ve made, just to keep them safe?”
“Keep saying that and I might eventually start listening,” said Cadmus Smith. “In the mean, I am simply going to subdue you and put you in prison with your three friends.”
“My three friends?” Drop said. “You were a Test Subject just like us. If you would but renounce your post as the Director and join us, we could get the revenge that we’ve all been after for so, so long.”
“I do not want revenge,” said Cadmus. “I want justice. And I cannot get justice by siding with criminals like yourself, even if I was ‘one of you’ in the past.”
“Then I will kill you, along with the two brats,” Drop snarled. “But it is sad, because you know that Echo would be happy to see you.”
To my surprise, Cadmus actually hesitated when Drop said that. “Echo? You mean she is still alive?”
“Yes, but you will never get to see her when I am done with you!” Drop shouted.
He fired a stream of hot water directly at Cadmus. But before it could hit him, a black wall of shadow rose from the earth and blocked the water, sending it splattering everywhere.
“What?” said Drop as he cut off the stream of boiling water. “What was that?”
I heard a familiar giggling, a giggling I had hoped to never hear again, and then Shade—another G-Man agent and Cadmus’s right hand woman—stepped out of the shadow wall, which sank into her shadow behind her. “That would be me.”
“Who are you?” said Drop. He noticed her shoulder patch. “Another G-Man? One of Cadmus’s lackeys?”
“Lackey?” said Shade with a frown. “I’m not one of his lackeys. I’m his protege.”
Then Shade looked at me and waved. “Hi, Bolt. How is your date with your girlfriend going? If it isn’t going too well, maybe we could go out sometime. I’m usually free on Saturday nights.”
“Who are you and where do you get off saying that to Bolt?” said Blizzard. She looked at me indignantly. “Bolt, who is this woman?”
“I, er, um,” I stammered, trying to think of how I could explain Shade without getting into trouble with Blizzard. “Well, you see, Blizzard, uh—”
“Shade, quit teasing Bolt and focus on the mission at hand,” said Cadmus, though I thought he sounded slightly amused at all of this. “Drop is still a threat that needs to be taken down.”
“Okay, okay, yes, sir,
” said Shade. “I was just having a little fun is all.”
Ticking off my potential girlfriend in front of me didn’t seem like ‘fun’ to me, but I did not get a chance to say that before Shade turned to face Drop and waved her hands at him.
Shadow tendrils rose from the street around Drop and wrapped around his arms and legs. Shocked, Drop tried to turn into a wave, but then his form solidified again when he screamed in pain, likely from Cadmus’s telepathy based on the way he tried to reach for his skull.
“Give up peacefully, Drop, and we’ll send you to prison conscious,” said Cadmus. “If you keep resisting, we’ll keep upping the pain.”
Drop just growled, which Cadmus apparently took to mean ‘keep up the pain,’ because he just shrugged and said, “It’s your funeral, then.”
As soon as Cadmus said that, Drop suddenly screamed far louder than before, so loud that his entire watery body shook, waves rippling across his whole form. It looked really weird, especially since his body was still boiling.
But then, all of a sudden, Drop stopped screaming. He looked down on us with hate and anger and then started pulling at the shadows around his limbs. With a yell, he ripped his arms out of Shade’s shadows, freeing himself in an instant.
“Huh?” said Shade. “How did he—”
Shade was interrupted when Drop slammed her out of the way with one of his fists. She slammed into a building and then fell onto the street, where she lay quite still.
“Shade!” Cadmus shouted in surprise. “No!”
But because Cadmus was looking at Shade, he didn’t even seem to notice Drop’s fist coming at him. I immediately activated my super speed and got in between Drop and Cadmus, but I knew that I couldn’t protect him with my body, because we’d both get scalded and maybe even killed.
So I pulled back my fist and did something I’d never done before: Charged it with the red lightning, instead of shooting the lightning. Red sparks shot from my fist as it glowed with the charged energy, but I didn’t spend much time looking at it.
I just launched my fist at Drop’s, regardless of what was going to happen. When my fist met Drop’s in midair, there was a huge, electrical surge, followed by Drop screaming in pain before his entire body exploded. Hot water shot everywhere, pelting all of us and covering the whole alley. The hot water hurt like hell, but since the explosion went everywhere, we didn’t get hurt nearly as badly as we could have.
Panting, I lowered my fist and looked at it. It crackled with energy every now and then, but I must have spent more energy than I realized, because I felt exhausted just looking at it.
Then I looked at Blizzard and Cadmus. Both of them looked wetter than before, particularly Blizzard, whose white hair now dripped with water. But at least they were alive, which was a relief.
“What … what was that?” said Blizzard.
I shook my fist, which felt like it had punched a steel drum, and said, “I charged my fist with my red lightning. And since water conducts electricity, I guess it must have blown him up somehow.”
“Does that mean he’s … dead?” said Blizzard with a gulp.
I looked at Cadmus. He looked quite stunned himself, as if I had somehow electrocuted him, too.
“Can you sense his mind anywhere with your telepathy?” I said.
Cadmus shook his head. “No. Usually, that’s a sign that a person is either dead or has left my immediate sphere of influence.”
“So, in his case, which is it?” said Blizzard.
“That, I do not know, because elemental superhumans like Drop tend to have more … fractured minds, if you will, capable of dividing their consciousness throughout their bodies and whatever forms they make,” said Cadmus. “Even if he is still alive, however, I doubt he will be back again anytime soon. That explosion likely left him in a lot of pain and he will probably need to take a lot of time to recover.”
“So we might see him again at some point?” I said.
“Maybe,” said Cadmus. Then he started, like he just remembered something. “Shade.”
He ran over to Shade, who hadn’t moved an inch from where she had been knocked down, and actually scooped her into his arms. “Shade, are you okay? Can you hear me?”
Shade’s eyes blinked open rather suddenly, though when she spoke, her voice sounded weak. “Ow. What happened?”
“Drop is defeated,” said Cadmus. “Does anything hurt?”
Shade grimaced. “Everything. He hit me hard.”
“Then I will get you to the nearest hospital,” said Cadmus.
Cadmus stood up, holding the injured Shade in his arms, and turned to face us. His expression—which had been worried and even tender when he had spoken to Shade—had returned to its usual business-like stoicism.
“Bolt, Blizzard, I must thank you for defeating Drop,” said Cadmus. “He was a serious threat to the citizens of New York City. But Shade and I must leave in order to get her the medical attention that she needs.”
“You aren’t going to stay and explain how you found us?” I said.
“There is no need,” said Cadmus, “although it is possible that we will be seeing each other again very soon. Good bye.”
With that, Cadmus stepped into the nearby shadows and vanished with Shade. I guess Shade must have been well enough to use her shadow powers to help her and Cadmus escape.
That just left me and Blizzard standing here alone in the wet, steamy alleyway, where we exchanged a puzzled looked before Blizzard said, “I guess this date didn’t go so well, then.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It didn’t.”
Chapter Fifteen
When the police finally arrived, they, of course, didn’t find anyone or anything to arrest. We explained to them what happened, but the police officer who recorded our explanation didn’t seem convinced that we were telling the truth. That was really weird, because I frankly didn’t see what was so unbelievable about a teenager with lightning powers blowing up a giant made of water in a world where highly advanced AIs existed and men and women could fly like eagles and pick up skyscrapers like toys. I told them to talk to the officer I’d saved earlier, who would at least be able to confirm the existence of Drop if nothing else.
In any case, the police let us leave the scene without any further problem, especially after I told them to contact Cadmus if they had any more questions about it. The Neocopter arrived soon after, with the rest of the team ready for action, but when we told them that the fight was already over, they were really disappointed.
But not as disappointed as me. While I thought the date hadn’t been a total disaster, I still thought that it could have been better. Probably should have expected something like this to happen, given how supervillains always seem to strike just when you are about to relax, but it was still annoying. Blizzard told me the date was good anyway, but I caught a hint of disappointment in her voice. She was obviously not as satisfied with the date as she said she was, which made me more determined than ever to make our next date better.
And because of the injuries we sustained during the battle, Blizzard and I had to return to Hero Island to rest and heal. Thanks to my invulnerability, I didn’t need very much healing, but Blizzard had suffered worse than me, so she had to stay in the medical station for a while.
Then I told the rest of the team about what happened, since they were all interested in hearing about this new water supervillain that no one had ever heard of before. This required telling them about some of the stuff regarding Project Neo, though I didn’t tell them every little detail because they didn’t need to know it all. They all listened rapidly and when I finished, they all seemed disturbed by it. Still, Stinger offered to go and track down Drop and the other Test Subjects, but I told him not to worry about it, especially since the G-Men were now on the case and would likely have the Test Subjects recaptured in short order.
After that, I returned to my room. The events of the day had exhausted me, making me want to sleep. I thought about go
ing out and searching for Grandfather—if Cadmus Smith was telling the truth, then he was somewhere in New York City—but I decided that that could wait until I’d recovered from my fight with Drop before I went searching for him.
But just as I closed the door to my room behind me, my earcom crackled and Valerie’s voice came. “Hello, Kevin. I’m back.”
I started when I heard her voice. “Huh? Back? What do you mean?”
“Don’t you remember?” said Valerie. “I left last week to search for the server that could be unlocked with the password ‘MATTHEW.’”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, nodding. “From Dad’s video, right? What took you so long?”
“It wasn’t easy,” said Valerie. “Genius hid the server very well. He must not have wanted anyone to find it. I almost gave up, which is a very rare thing for me, because I always follow my programming and orders no matter what.”
“Really?” I said as I walked over to my bed and sat down. Although I was interested in hearing Valerie’s findings, I was also interested in taking a nap. “Well, Dad always was very thorough and meticulous, so I don’t doubt that he was thorough and meticulous in hiding that server’s location.”
“He was indeed,” said Valerie. “But after much searching of Genius’s databases back in the Lab underneath your mother’s house in Silvers, I managed to locate the server, which was based somewhere in rural Montana, of all places.”
“Montana?” I repeated. “Huh. Did Dad live there at some point?”
“I know he once fought a supervillain named Stardust there,” said Valerie, “but beyond that I don’t know what made Genius choose to place a server all the way out there.”
“Huh,” I said. “Dad’s always been a bit enigmatic, but it doesn’t matter. What did you find?”
“I found many interesting things,” said Valerie, “but the most interesting, I think, was a file that contained data about Matthew Jason, or as you call him, Grandfather.”
“What kind of data are we talking about here?” I said. I had been about to lie down on my bed, but now I was too interested in hearing about what Valerie found to do even that much.
