The Supervillain High Boxed Set: Books One - Three of the Supervillain High Series

by Gerhard Gehrke

  “Tell us what’s happening,” Brendan said.

  The man wiped grime and sweat from his brow. Deep lines etched his face. His eyes were set deep and his shirt was stained with dark reddish-brown splotches. “It’s best if your teachers fill you in.”

  “Was it just the one earthquake?” Tina asked. “It felt like it was right under us.”

  “It’s Los Angeles, here, a lot of the desert towns. As bad or worse than the first one. They have refreshments in the gym and television. You’ll get your questions answered there.”

  Charlotte was distracted. She was looking off campus. Brendan realized that her father was in his house, and instead of checking on him she had followed them to the admin building.

  “I’ll walk you kids down,” the firefighter said.

  “Wait,” Brendan said. “There’s a dead body down there. We found him in one of the workshops.”

  The firefighter looked at him and the words didn’t seem to register. Then he nodded.

  “We’ll have people get him out.”

  “You don’t understand. I think the man might have been murdered. He looks like one of the government scientists that’ve been in town lately.”

  The firefighter got on a handheld radio. He called for someone named Officer Bill to come to the admin building.

  Tina began coughing. She grabbed Brendan for support. “I think I’m going to throw up.” She pulled Brendan along to some bushes and coughed some more, catching his eye while doing so. “We need to leave,” she hissed.

  The firefighter was keeping an eye on them, as were several of the rescue workers.

  “Where’s Charlotte?” Brendan asked. She was gone.

  Tina faked some more coughs. “Take me to the gym.”

  The firefighter’s eyes narrowed. “The police are on their way. Is she okay?”

  To Brendan’s ear, Tina’s newest fit of coughs sounded particularly staged. He patted her on the back. “Let me get her some water. We’ll manage. Thanks.”

  One of the volunteers offered a bottle. Tina shook her head. “Need to lie down,” she gasped.

  “You might be in shock,” the firefighter said. “Lie down here.”

  “I’ll take her down to the gym,” Brendan said and made a show of shepherding her along.

  A police officer was heading their direction, a look of recognition on his face. Tina and Brendan bolted down the side of the humanities building as the officer called for them to stop.

  “Do we know him?” Brendan said as they ran.

  “I think I met all of them earlier. I guess I made an impression.”

  They headed for the headmaster’s house. The streets weren’t as damaged as the ones on the last world they had visited, but Dutchman Springs had taken a beating. Most homes had visible damage and quite a few had suffered collapse. The streets were cracked and crumpled. Cars would have a difficult time maneuvering down them. Several cars had been abandoned, hung up on raised banks of asphalt and dirt. The smell of motor oil and smoke hung in the air, but Brendan didn’t see any signs of a fire.

  Residents now occupied the sidewalks of the cul-de-sac, and a number of tents had been set up in many of the front yards. Neighbors were speaking with one another in soft tones. Children played in the streets as if the chaos around them was merely a reason to skip school on an otherwise typical day. A few battery-powered radios were tuned to news stations.

  Brendan and Tina did not pass through unnoticed. At first the looks they received were hopeful, as if the two kids came bearing some promised news. But the locals’ lack of recognition soon turned into suspicion.

  A woman blocked their way up the street. “Who are you?”

  When Tina just tried to step around her, the woman grabbed her arm.

  Fear shot through Brendan. Tina no doubt had enough of the upstream nourishment in her system that she could knock the woman across the street. But Tina just put on her friendliest face and said, “We’re checking on Mr. Appleton and his daughter.”

  The woman’s hard expression remained frozen for a moment before giving way to a look of sadness. “Oh my, you haven’t heard.”

  “Heard what?” Brendan asked.

  “His house totally collapsed. He was killed instantly.”

  Brendan ran up the street to the flattened remains of the headmaster’s home. Charlotte was in front of the house staring at the wreckage. A few neighbors stood nearby watching her.

  “He was inside,” Charlotte said. “In bed. They found his body this morning.”

  “Charlotte, I’m sorry,” Brendan said.

  She nodded stiffly. Brendan didn’t know what to do. When Tina arrived, she put an arm around Charlotte and helped her to the curb. They sat down, and Brendan took a moment to look around at the house. Like a few other nearby structures, it had fallen in on itself, most of the roof now resting atop a layer of debris and the foundation. Orange spray paint marked where emergency workers had come by, communicating through their symbols that the house had been searched. A note posted on the right corner of the ruins warned readers to keep out.

  Brendan studied the air around the house. He saw no shimmering and smelled no ozone. If a gate had opened inside through some hidden machine the headmaster had in reserve, it was underneath tons of debris. Perhaps the earthquakes were normal seismic events. The thought that this kind of devastation could hit at any time was frightening. At least with the couple of hurricanes he had experienced that had brushed New York, there had been days of warning.

  But there still was the possibility that none of this was natural.

  “Are you an academy student?” The neighbor woman came up next to him, carefully stepping around scattered pieces of stucco. When Brendan didn’t answer right away, she continued. “I hear it’s bad. My husband is down there now helping out. Do you kids need a place while we wait to hear from the authorities?”

  It occurred to him that at least on this world, he was homeless and had no parents. He wasn’t even a student. He was no one.

  “Thank you. I don’t know yet. I guess we’re waiting to see what happens down at the school. We shouldn’t be away too long.”

  “Is that his daughter?”

  “Yeah,” Brendan said before thinking it might not be a good idea to answer.

  The woman looked in Charlotte’s direction. “We’ve heard so many rumors. Sperry never was around much since her disappearance. We assumed the worst. How long has she been back?”

  “A few weeks. She was traveling abroad with her stepdad.”

  The neighbor nodded.

  Abruptly Charlotte got up. She shrugged Tina off when she tried to put a hand on her shoulder. Brendan hurried to catch up with them as they made their way down the street.

  “They know something,” Charlotte said.

  “Wait. Who?”

  “The scientists. They’ve been looking for a gate and getting into my father’s things. One of them did this.”

  “You don’t know that. Will you please stop for a minute?”

  She paused and looked around. They were in the middle of the street with a dozen people nearby staring, including the children that had been playing. They made their way down to a bus stop bench on the adjoining street.

  “Maybe one of them did,” he said. “Maybe one of them is a murderer and pretending to be a scientist. But the air force people don’t seem to understand much of anything.”

  Charlotte rubbed her eyes. She was staring at the ground as if trying to concentrate. It reminded him of how tired he felt. His stomach growled, and he felt hazy and thick, as if the world had another layer of air weighing down on him.

  “It’s still a lot of guessing,” Tina said. She was standing behind them and looking at a movie poster in the ad space of the bus stop’s shelter. The smiling cartoon fish appeared less joyful and more mocking under the circumstances. “We don’t know if the murderer used the gate, or how many people might have gone through it. It’s even possible the headmaster was in on it
and was pulling some sort of ruse by taking apart his machine.”

  Charlotte turned her head sharply and glared at Tina, but she didn’t notice.

  “But now this,” Tina said. “The earthquake didn’t happen at the same time the gate was used. It came later. We also don’t know if the headmaster figured out how to access the vault to reset the gate before we got there to do it ourselves. What if the people that went through went upstream to some other machine and turned it on, causing this?”

  “Okay, maybe the scientists do know something,” Brendan said. “That’s crazy enough to be plausible with everything we’ve experienced. But we can’t just head to their base and expect them to give up information. We’re all tired and hungry.”

  “Then give me my pack so I can send you home,” Charlotte said softly.

  “We’re not quitting. We just need to be smart about this.”

  They heard a helicopter nearby, and the hollow air-chopping sound grew louder. They looked skyward but it wasn’t yet in view. Tina looked like she was ready to run. It appeared suddenly, flying low, passing just above the tree line. Before they could do anything, it continued west.

  “Someone’s in a hurry,” Tina said.

  Charlotte rose and started walking, shuffling her steps. She stumbled and would have fallen, but Brendan caught her.

  “Let me go,” she said.

  “You’re exhausted. We need to take a break. This isn’t your world anymore. You probably aren’t used to it.”

  She eyed him carefully. Her hand clasped his, and she tried to push him back. But she was unable to budge him.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “How much of the upworld water did you drink?”

  “A couple of eight-ounce bottles.”

  “Do you have more?” He hesitated. “Give me some,” she said. “I’m going to need it.”

  He gave her a bottle from his pack. She drank half of it and paused for a moment as if letting it settle. Then she drank the rest.

  “What are you planning on doing?” he asked. “You going to charge in there and bust heads?”

  “They made it clear they’re not interested in polite conversation.”

  “Finally, someone who gets it,” Tina said. “Give me a water too.”

  ***

  The streets leading out of town had fared no better. A number of cars were abandoned where the ground itself had penned them in. Work crews labored at a number of properties where downed power lines hung low off crooked utility poles. A black off-road Jeep with roll bars honked from behind, driving towards them along the sidewalk. It barely slowed down as they got out of the way. The vehicle carried a group of younger men, one with a shotgun in his lap.

  “Go back to your school,” one of them shouted with a wave.

  The Jeep continued past.

  “We could have grabbed a ride,” Tina said. “I mean with them, not taking their car. Which we also could have done. Easily.”

  “We’re going as low-key as we can,” Brendan said. “Remember they’re the ones with tranquilizer rifles and helicopters.”

  As they continued along, Brendan kept his eyes open for any other vehicles, but none came. Several plumes of smoke rose in the distance. The helicopter came into view again but then flew off. The aircraft was further west, well beyond the makeshift base. A haze hung in the air. Soon the old drive-in theater was before them. In the daytime, the parked RVs and tents didn’t look quite as imposing, now looking more like a meeting place for retirees with a predilection for decrepit rural settings.

  “We can try sneaking in around the side or back,” Brendan said.

  Charlotte took off running towards the theater lot.

  “Wait!”

  Tina pulled Brendan along. “I think we’re committed.”

  Charlotte vaulted over the old chain-link fence. Brendan and Tina followed. The water was doing its magic. He cleared the fence as easily as if it had been a high curb. They landed beside one of the RVs. Charlotte had already rounded the vehicle. Brendan pointed up. He and Tina jumped to the top of the RV, landing with a hollow thud. Charlotte was marching to one of the tents in the center of camp. Several people were standing at the tent entrance but none saw her coming. Brendan had a good view of the concession stand. None of the guards they had encountered were in sight. Most of the smaller vehicles were gone.

  Charlotte made it to the group of scientists, who finally noticed her. One laid a hand on her and she threw the woman down to the ground. In one quick motion she picked up a man and pitched him inside the tent.

  “She’s going to kill someone,” Tina said.

  A man in a black uniform came out of the RV and looked up at them. He had a sidearm on a thigh holster and was reaching for it when Brendan jumped down next to him and slammed him against the side of the vehicle. Tina dropped next to the man and took the pistol. She hurled it into the distance.

  Screams came from the tent and they ran to it. Three people were laid out in front of it. They glanced at each other and went inside. A group of five scientists were herded against the far side of the tent. Charlotte stood in the center, having just knocked over a set of tables. The computer equipment they had held was now scattered on the ground. Brendan recognized one of the scientists. The woman’s arm was set in a sling.

  Charlotte pointed at her. “Come here.”

  The woman took a few tentative steps forward. Her companions watched her with a mixture of fear and relief that it was not them. The girl in the middle of their tent had just clobbered three adults. They were faced with the incredible idea that an angry teenage girl might tear them limb from limb.

  “How is this possible?” the woman asked.

  “I’m asking the questions,” Charlotte said. She grabbed the woman, who screamed as she was dragged to a chair and plopped down on it. “Tell me what you’re doing here. Tell me everything.”

  A radio handset on the floor crackled. “Helen, base, is everything okay there?”

  Charlotte stomped on it.

  The woman flinched. “I’ll tell you what you want to know. Don’t hurt anyone.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “We’re investigating the earthquakes. We know they’re not normal. Each one has been preceded by an infrasound pulse on ground level an instant before the quake hits. It’s almost like a nuclear bomb goes off but without the radiation or electromagnetic side effects. There have been seven major quakes all around the western United States. And then we found an anomaly here in Dutchman Springs.”

  “What kind of anomaly?”

  “A fixed disturbance in the air with unusual properties. This was in the park where you kids were first seen. I believe some of this may be connected to your father’s machine and research. We don’t yet know how.”

  Charlotte walked around the woman, who tried her best to not shy away. Brendan looked outside the tent. He saw no one else coming. The three outside on the ground were in too much pain to try anything.

  “Have you been in any way trying to duplicate my father’s work?” Charlotte asked.

  “No. That’s not why we’re here. We barely understood his machine. It would power on, yet it always seemed there was a piece missing that kept it from doing anything. Sperry wouldn’t cooperate, and then he took it apart. I also don’t see any causation between a machine that isn’t even working and the anomaly. The earthquakes and their triggers have struck at different times and in different locations. They’re almost random except for falling within a certain geographic locale.”

  “Then why were you spending so much time on him?”

  “Because I know your father. I knew him before any of this even began. I tried recruiting him for our research team, even just as a consultant, when he published some of his early papers on the brane multiverse and string theory. But he refused the offer and was content with his teaching. His research became completely private and secret. He never shared or published anything after you were born. Let’s talk to y
our father. He’ll explain our relationship if you don’t believe me.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “The last earthquake leveled the house. He was inside.”

  The woman was shaking her head. “No, not Sperry. Oh my god. Charlotte, I’m so sorry.”

  Charlotte pushed the woman out of the chair with enough force that she tumbled into a row of chairs, knocking them down. The woman cried out in pain. Her arm had slipped out of the sling.

  “Stop speaking to me as if you know me. You don’t.”

  The woman held a hand up defensively.

  “That’s enough,” Brendan said. “What are you hoping to accomplish? She doesn’t know anything.”

  “I’m not convinced of that yet.”

  Another helicopter buzzed past above the tent, heading away from town.

  “What’s going on?” Tina asked. “Where are all your people?”

  Another of the scientists helped the woman up.

  “There are unidentified individuals down on the highway interchange causing a disturbance,” the woman said through clenched teeth. She winced as the other scientist put her arm back in the sling. “They’re displaying enhanced strength. We heard reports of injured highway patrolmen and destruction of property. Most of our security went to respond. We though they might be you.”

  “Not us this time,” Tina said. “We’ve been in town all night. Sort of.”

  “How many more of you are there?”

  Brendan thought of the worlds further upstream and who it might be that had come through. Before using the vault and discovering the hall of mirrors, he had believed that the Earths were part of a single line, like links in a chain. But now he wasn’t sure.

  “Do you have a car we can borrow?” he asked.

  12. Truck Stop Blues

  One of the scientists handed them a set of car keys. The man wouldn’t look Brendan in the eye and seemed ready to jump out of his skin when Brendan took the keys. He felt a wave of guilty pleasure at the man’s reaction.