by Lucas Flint
“I’m not playing at anything,” I said. I put a hand on my chest. “I’m a real hero, just like my grandfather. I know you’re really cynical and probably don’t actually believe in heroes, but I do and I strive to be one every day.”
“You’re right about one thing,” said Christina. “I don’t believe in heroes. And you shouldn’t, either, not if you don’t want to be disappointed. But that’s another lesson the world will beat into you at some point. Who knows, maybe it will beat that lesson into you tonight.”
I found Christina’s smugness incredibly irritating, to the point where I wished I could just punch her in the mouth and shut her up for good. But I kept calm and said, “It’s not a ‘lesson’ I need to learn, Christina. I think you, maybe, need to learn that real heroes exist, even if you don’t think they do.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Christina. “And so far, I haven’t seen any, including you.”
“Then maybe tonight, you’ll see a real hero at work,” I said. “Trust me, you will.”
Christina actually raised an interested eyebrow when I said that. “Sounds interesting, but I would recommend not making promises you can’t keep. That’s a good way to destroy your credibility, though to be fair, you don’t have much credibility with me to start with.”
“I’ll earn it tonight, then,” I said. “You’ll see, one way or another.”
“Right,” said Christina. She peeked out the entrance and pulled her head back in. “Everything sounds quiet, so the alarms have probably shut off. That means it’s go time. You ready?”
I nodded. “Of course. Lead the way.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The rest of the journey through the forest was a lot quieter than the first part. That was mostly because of me, because having seen what happens when you make too much noise in here, I decided I would be extra quiet tonight. Christina, of course, moved as silently as ever, but I was learning quickly and matching her movements step for step. She seemed somewhat amused by my copying of her movements, but she didn’t say anything.
Once or twice, we found more tripwires like the one I set off earlier, but we were always careful to step over them. In my case, I thought about flying the rest of the way, but Christina informed me that the treetops also had tripwires for any intruders who might try to hide in them and that it was easier and quicker to walk than fly through the forest.
Another time, we nearly woke up a sleeping Blind Ape, which was resting on the ground near a tree. It had looked like a giant mound of dirt at first, at least until it stirred and rolled over on its side, nearly hitting Christina with one of its hands in the process. But we managed to get around the sleeping beast without waking it, though we moved even slower than ever after that to avoid walking into other sleeping Blind Apes we might run across.
Fortunately, we did not run into any more Blind Apes or any other security system Icon had set up here. We reached the tree line in a fairly timely manner, but instead of walking out of that cursed forest forever, Christina got on her hands and knees and gestured for me to do the same. We hid behind a thick bush in between two large trees and Christina pulled aside a portion of the bush for us to see what lay beyond.
We had made it to the center of the island, which was a large compound that covered a surprisingly large area. Street lamps lit up all of the streets and alleyways between the buildings, while armed guards patrolled the streets with grim expressions on their faces. The sheer amount of buildings was startling, though they were all gray boxes of varying shapes and sizes. I noticed that several of the buildings were marked: Lab #1, Lab #2, etc. I even saw a cat dashing between two buildings as if it did not want to be seen.
But what caught my attention more than anything was the huge Tower that rose out of the very center of the compound. The Tower of Icon was even bigger and more majestic in real life than it was in the pictures I’d seen. It rose high into the air like a sword held by a knight, towering over every other building in the immediate area and even over the trees of the forest. It wasn’t quite a skyscraper in size, but it was about as close as you could reasonably get to one and would definitely stand out among the many buildings of Rumsfeld back home. Lights lit up its exterior, but unless my eyes were tricking me, it seemed like the lights were designed in such a way as to deliberately make it look forbidding and even evil.
“There it is,” said Christina. “The Tower of Icon itself. Chaser’s pride and joy. And our target.”
“It’s massive,” I said. “What does Chaser need all of that space for?”
“Oh, Chaser doesn’t use all of it for himself,” said Christina. “Several of the high-ranking Icon executives have rooms there, plus there are training arenas, armories, and labs for experiments to be performed in. It’s also where most of Icon’s newest tech is tested. Oh, and the roof has a helicopter pad.”
Christina nodded at the very top of the Tower. I looked up and saw a helicopter making its way across the skies toward the Tower.
“Whose helicopter is that?” I said, looking at Christina.
Christina frowned. “Not sure. Could be Chaser’s, but he never uses it and anyway that helicopter is too dark to be his. It’s probably one of his agents coming back from a mission. Sometimes agents use the helicopter to get around. I should know, because I’ve flown it before myself.”
“You mean you’re a helicopter pilot?” I said.
“Yeah,” said Christina, nodding. She tapped the side of her head. “Another thing I learned when I joined Icon was that I am a very skilled helicopter pilot, which means that at one point in my old life I learned how to fly helicopters. Yet another mystery about yours truly, though I’m not complaining, of course.”
I nodded and then looked at all of the smaller buildings scattered about the compound. “And what are the rest of these buildings for?”
“Various purposes,” said Christina. “Some are warehouses where we keep equipment and objects retrieved from missions. Others are labs where all kinds of crazy scientific testing is done. And some are apartments for agents who aren’t high-ranking enough to earn a room in the Tower. I had one of those apartments when I was an agent and they suck. Too small, walls too thin, and of course all of the other male Icon agents are a bunch of perverts.”
“Labs, huh?” I said. “Like where Power was made?”
“Exactly,” said Christina, nodding. “That’s the sort of thing we make here, though to be frank, most of Icon’s experiments go nowhere. Power is our most successful product and is about the only thing keeping the organization afloat financially from what I understand.”
“Well, it’s a horrible drug,” I said. I looked up at the Tower again. “And if we can destroy Iconia, then we can destroy Power as well and keep it from destroying any more innocent lives.”
“Yeah,” said Christina. “Only problem is, we don’t have the bomb, so I’m not sure how we’re going to destroy the Tower.”
“Wonder no more,” said a voice behind us, “for we are here!”
Christina and I looked over our shoulders to see Uncle Josh, Mack, and Gina walking toward us. All three of them looked like they had been wandering through the wilderness for ages, especially Gina, who was picking twigs and leaves out of her hair with a rather sour expression on her face.
“Uncle,” I said, turning around to face the three Pinnacle agents in surprise. “What are you doing here? I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”
“Hey, I said we were making our way to the center of the island,” said Uncle Josh. He smiled. “What, didn’t think I’d keep my word?”
“It was pretty hard, though,” said Mack with a shudder. “Dang Apes. And those stupid Pits, too.”
Christina smirked. “You found the Pits? Seriously?”
“What are the Pits?” I said.
“Just one of the many, many traps Icon has set up on this dumb island,” said Gina in a cross voice. “One you would think we’d be smart enough to avoid.”
> “Hey, it was well-hidden,” said Mack. He rubbed the back of his head. “And you know I’m really heavy, so don’t be surprised that I fell into it first.”
“Enough bickering, you two,” said Uncle Josh before Gina could respond. “What matters is that we evaded Iconia’s security and managed to make it here against all odds. And reunite with Jack and Christina as well.”
“Right,” said Christina. She chuckled. “Still, I can’t believe you fell for the Pits, possibly the lamest security measure this island has. And I mean literally fell into it. I could go on about—”
“Don’t,” said Uncle Josh, raising a finger to silence her. He squatted down next to us, as did Mack and Gina. “We’re all here and we’re all safe. What matters next is putting the plan into action.”
“You mean blowing up Iconia,” I said. “Right?”
“Right,” said Uncle Josh, nodding. He patted his backpack. “I have the Gift right here. It should have enough bang to destroy the entire island, if I can fix it in the right place.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Christina. “Can I help set it up? I like blowing things up, especially things I betrayed.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” I said, holding up a hand. “Before we blow anything up, I need to save my Grandfather.”
“Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about him,” said Mack, slapping his forehead. “He’s still here on Iconia, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” I said. “He’s being held prisoner somewhere in Iconia’s dungeons. He even managed to call me and warn me that there was a trap waiting for me somewhere up ahead.”
“How did he call you if he’s being held prisoner?” said Uncle Josh in amazement.
“I don’t know,” I said. I raised the Watch. “I just know he somehow managed to contact me through the Watch. So I know, at the very least, that he’s still alive, even if he’s not currently free.”
“Interesting,” said Uncle Josh. He frowned. “But this does make things a bit sticky for us. The original plan was to step in, set up the bomb, and then get off Iconia as fast as possible before the bomb blew up. Of course, getting off Iconia in a timely manner was always going to be a dicey proposition, what with the Diver being destroyed, but I figured we could just commandeer an Icon vessel and use that to escape.”
“But we can’t just leave Grandfather here to die,” I said. “He’s my grandfather. I need to save him. And he’s your family, too, uncle, even if only by marriage.”
“I know, and I agree, but it makes this tight mission even tighter than it already is,” said Uncle Josh. “Unless you can guarantee that you can find him quickly, we’ll have to time everything just right.”
“Give me half an hour,” I said. “Half an hour to find and rescue Grandfather. If you can give me that much time, then I’ll get him and bring him with us when we leave Iconia.”
“Half an hour isn’t much time,” said Mack doubtfully. “Even I would ask for a little bit more time than that.”
“I can give you half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes at most,” said Uncle Josh. “I worked some extra time into the plan in case something like this happened. Still, it’s going to be extremely tight no matter how you look at it.”
“I’ll go with him,” said Christina. She patted me on the shoulder. “Otherwise, he might get lost trying to find the dungeons and end up ruining our plan. Not that I expect the plan won’t go to hell either way, but if he has me to guide him, then his chances of success are a lot higher.”
I rolled my eyes at Christina. “Whatever, Christie.”
“Don’t call me Christie.”
“I’ll call you whatever I—”
“Stop bickering,” Uncle Josh snapped suddenly. He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “This is the crew I was assigned to lead. And you two weren’t even part of the original crew. Ugh.”
“Sorry,” I said. “No more bickering. Right, Christie?”
Christina shot me the dirtiest look she could muster, but then Uncle Josh said, “Let’s work out a plan, now that we’re all here together. We don’t have much time before Icon finds us, so let’s figure out what we’re all supposed to do and put the plan into action quickly, because the time to act is now and we must not let this opportunity slip between our fingers.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
About ten minutes later, a plan was fleshed out and agreed upon. Mack and Gina would take the Gift to the Tower of Icon’s power supply, where it would cause the maximum amount of damage, while Uncle Josh, Christina, and I would head for the dungeons to rescue Grandfather. It surprised me that Uncle Josh was coming along on this mission, but he said that Mack and Gina needed as many distractions as they could get in order to place the bomb and he figured the three of us would make excellent distractions for Icon. I didn’t like thinking of myself as a ‘distraction,’ but I didn’t complain about Uncle Josh coming along, because the way I saw it, the more people we had, the better.
After Mack and Gina set the bomb, they would set the timer for thirty minutes and meet up with us at the top of the Tower of Icon. Uncle Josh said that he wanted to hijack one of the Tower’s helicopters, which we would then use to escape the island and return to the mainland USA. Thirty minutes hardly seemed like enough time for us to travel from the dungeons of the Tower to the top, but Mack and Gina couldn’t guarantee us any more time than that, so I didn’t complain. I just hoped we would be fast enough to meet the deadline before it happened.
Christina’s nearly encyclopedic knowledge of the compound’s security cameras and guard patrol cycles (seriously, it was really creepy how much she knew, even though she claimed that she didn’t play much of a role in the island’s security systems before she quit the organization) came in handy for the three of us. She helped us find a small gap in the compound’s defenses, a portion of the compound where no security cameras were focused and where none of the guards patrolled regularly, save for the afternoon guy who only came by once. She told us that we were unlikely to be seen if we took that route, so we took her advice and made our way around the edge of the compound until we found it.
Then, one by one, we crossed the gap between the forest and the compound, taking shelter in the shadows of a warehouse that towered above us. Once all three of us crossed over, I said, “Okay, Christina, where should we go next?”
“Easy,” said Christina. She pointed down the streets between the buildings. “We keep going until we reach the Tower.”
“We’re going through the front door?” said Uncle Josh with a frown. “Come on. You have to realize that Icon has probably buffed up their security since we got here. Even with Trickshot’s super strength, I don’t think we’d be able to just force our way in.”
Christina tilted her head to the side. “Good point. But the front door isn’t the only way into the Tower. Hell, even the back door isn’t the primary way to get in. There are other ways inside if you know this place as well as I do.”
Christina nodded at a building on the other side of the street, which had the label Lab #5 on it in bright red paint. “Lab Five should do the trick.”
“How?” I said. “It’s a completely separate building from the main Tower. I’m not sure how entering Lab Five will take us anywhere.”
“I guess I forgot to mention how the compound works,” said Christina. She gestured at the street under our feet. “You see, nearly every building on Iconia is connected to the Tower through a series of underground tunnels. It’s really a maze of sorts, connecting the Tower to every lab, warehouse, and living quarters in the vicinity. It even extends out to the docks in some cases, which is helpful for transporting goods that you want to safely take to the Tower.”
“Why are they connected like that?” I asked in bewilderment. “It must have been expensive even for Icon to build and maintain.”
“There are … things that Chaser doesn’t want even his agents knowing,” said Christina. “I told you that the various laboratories here on Iconia do all kinds of freaky experiments, but I ne
ver told you what these experiments are. That’s because I don’t know, because a good chunk of them are delivered to the Tower via the underground tunnels connecting them to it. Oh, and sometimes the Tower sends things like prisoners through the tunnels to the labs for experimentation purposes.”
My stomach churned at the thought. “You mean there are experiments so awful that even Chaser doesn’t want you guys knowing about them?”
“Yep,” said Christina. “Now you’re starting to get why I quit.”
“I see your plan,” said Uncle Josh. “If we break into Lab Five, then we could use its underground tunnel to enter the Tower of Icon from below. In fact, it should take us directly to the dungeons, right?”
“Spot on,” said Christina. “I’ve only used the tunnels a few times myself, however, so I’m not as familiar with them as I am with other parts of the island. But I understand how they work, and they aren’t all that complicated, anyway. Plenty of signs to help anyone who gets lost down there to point them in the right direction.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said. “How well guarded are the labs?”
“Not as well guarded as you’d think,” said Christina. “Usually, there’s just one guard and maybe a security camera to cover the door, but we can just go through the back entrance. Follow me.”
Like a ninja, Christina moved with silence across the open streets to Lab #5 across from us. Uncle Josh and I followed her as quietly as we could, making our way around to the back of the building which was, as Christina said, unguarded. The back door stood all by itself next to a dumpster, with a single security camera fixed on it.
“A security camera,” said Uncle Josh as the three of us came to a stop just a few feet away. “Luckily it’s not focused on us, but it is still problematic if we’re going to enter without being—”
