by Andy Briggs
“This is it,” Jake thought, “I’m going to die.”
The First Steps
It was difficult for Jake to explain how he knew what to do; his every action had just seemed natural. The missiles had been so close that Jake could make out the symbols on the red nose cones warning that they were high-explosive devices. Jake held his hands out, palms up, and the air glistened around his body—both projectiles exploded in front of him in a fierce blast of orange and midnight black that set the sky afire.
Flames curled around him, but it was as if he were trapped in a giant bubble. The air shimmered as the fire probed for a weakness. Jake was hurled head over heels before he caught his balance. Seconds later the fireball had burned itself out, and tiny fragments of shrapnel rained down.
“Wow!”
A distinctive pinging noise came from below. Jake glanced down to see four army jeeps had swiveled their machine guns toward him and opened fire. The high-caliber bullets bounced off his invisible shield. It occurred to him that he didn’t know how long this shield would hold, so he’d better act fast. Already the two mobile missile platforms had teams of men reloading them.
Jake pivoted his body down as though he was diving and stretched forward. In the blink of an eye he was zeroing down toward the nearest jeep. The soldiers manning the machine guns made an admirable attempt at tracking his progress as Jake swooped low, pulling himself horizontally mere inches off the ground and powering toward them like a bullet, kicking up a cloud of dust in his wake.
Gunfire tore the ground around him but ricocheted harmlessly off Jake’s shield. In three seconds flat he ploughed into the jeep. Some of the soldiers leaped clear as Jake rammed the vehicle sidelong.
He pulled himself to a halt above the ground to watch as the car rapidly bounced sideways, unidentifiable parts flying off with each impact with the ground. The jeep covered fifty feet before slamming into another gun jeep—whose desperate soldiers trained their machine-gun fire on the metal hulk in a futile attempt to stop the collision.
Jake whooped with delight as the spinning jeep toppled the second vehicle over onto its side, spilling the men everywhere. From the impact with the other vehicle, Jake’s “bowled” jeep leaped in the air, spiraling out of control—before it smashed through a second-floor mirrored window on the main building behind.
“Wow!” he yelled. It was like living in a computer game. The excitement was tangible, and it made him feel more alive than he ever had.
The troops that had been thrown off the jeeps had the presence of mind to flee. Jake felt flushed with anger—how dare they shoot at him?
He recalled Basilisk’s instructions and channeled his indignation. He extended his hand and felt a pulse of heat travel down his arm, and a split second later a green snake of radioactive energy shot from his hand, twisting through the air like Silly String until it struck the fleeing men. They fell down on the spot, instantly breaking Jake’s concentration. He was filled with dread. He hadn’t meant to kill them. But faint groaning from the prone figures assured him they were still alive.
More gunfire churned the ground around him, and bullets pinged off his shield. He twisted around to see the remaining two jeeps jouncing across the desert rocks toward him. Beyond, he could see that the crews of two missile platforms had finished reloading, and it was only a matter of time before they fired again. He looked around for Basilisk, but the villain was nowhere to be seen.
Jake was alone and right in the center of it all.
A sudden tug of conscience asked him how he’d wound up in this lethal situation. He nudged the thoughts away; he didn’t have time to daydream. He took to the air and raced toward the missile trucks. He looked and felt as if he’d been flying all his life. However, Jake was focused on only one thing: destroying the trucks before they fired their next batch of missiles at him. Years of playing games on his consoles had drummed basic strategy into his brain.
He passed between the jeeps like a rocket. One gun team had the presence of mind to stop firing—but the other continued, bullets tearing across the jeep opposite and shredding the armored vehicle. The tires were blown out as the vehicle’s occupants dived for cover from the friendly fire.
The missile operating crews didn’t have time to respond as the boy tore toward them. A haze of green radioactive energy blossomed from his outstretched fingers and blasted one of the flatbeds. It folded in two in the middle, the missile rig collapsing onto the ground with a groan of twisted metal.
The commander of the second truck punched the fire control in panic before he sprinted away. The missile arced wildly in the sky as Jake hurled another energy blast. This time the rear section of the flatbed was consumed, and the entire vehicle angled down and sideways with such a force it flipped the flatbed truck onto its side.
Jake pulled up from his flight, and found he had to run several feet across the dirt to stop himself from falling over, just like the speed change experienced when running off an escalator. He surveyed his handiwork with wide eyes, as rapidly cooling metal plinked.
“That was cool! Now where’s that hooded idiot?” He turned to the building, half expecting Basilisk to step out of concealment after Jake had won the fight.
Instead he faced the devil-red tip of a heat-seeking missile. The faint trail of exhaust smoke indicated it had just completed a revolution in the sky. Jake threw his arms up in panic….
BLAM! The missile exploded right in front of him, fire and shrapnel bouncing inches from his face as his force field kicked in. This time the energy from the detonation pushed him backward. Jake felt as though a gigantic fist had punched him. He was lifted clean off his feet and hurled against trees in the glade that had camouflaged the missile launchers.
He knew he’d let his guard down—a stupid mistake he had seen in others during countless schoolyard fights. The moment somebody’s guard dropped, usually when they thought they were winning, was the perfect time to strike. And that lapse in judgment had almost cost him his life.
It felt painful to move, but Jake pulled himself upright only to see the final armored jeep bouncing toward him.
“I’d forgotten about that,” he mumbled, hoping he had the strength to do something about it. But the explosion had made his head feel woozy, like being woken from a deep sleep.
“Don’t move!” the Enforcers yelled, training their M16 rifles on him. A third soldier rotated the massive 16mm gun to face Jake, his finger lightly resting on the dual triggers. “Stand up! Slowly.”
“Don’t move or stand up? Make up your mind,” Jake said groggily.
The soldiers were at a loss. Five of their heavy perimeter defenses had been destroyed by a flying figure that had hurled energy bolts. And that figure turned out to be a young boy in an Ironfist T-shirt.
“I said, on your feet, boy,” confirmed the soldier Jake assumed was in charge. “Hands on your head. Don’t try any funny business.”
Jake’s vision was returning along with his strength, and with it, a familiar feeling of resentment. Why should he allow himself to be bullied by these guys, even if they were wielding guns? Jake slowly climbed to his feet, crossing his arms over his head.
“What now?” he asked with a defiant sneer.
The soldiers swapped nervous glances as burning chunks of leaves drifted from the trees above.
“Those weapons look a little hot for you,” Jake said casually, remembering Basilisk’s trick with the wrench. The tree trunks behind suddenly erupted into flames, startling the troopers. They raised their weapons menacingly.
“I told you not to move!”
“I haven’t lifted a finger.”
“And not to spe—” The guard’s words turned into a shriek of pain as his gun glowed red. Both soldiers dropped their weapons. The guy on the truck released the 16mm triggers as they burned his fingers. The steel chassis of the jeep started to smolder and the paint bubble. Seconds later the padded seats erupted into flames.
“You better run,” whispered
Jake as the ground under his feet grew black and leaked acrid smoke.
The three men regarded Jake with horror. With the blazing trees behind, they thought a demon had risen—and they certainly weren’t getting paid enough to fight the supernatural. They fled as fast as they could, never looking back.
This brought a smile to Jake’s face; it was much more fun than anything he’d done before. When he had been younger, he’d played with toys, crashing his cars first into one another, and then smashing them with his dad’s hammer to make the destruction more authentic. But now that he could do this for real, whole cities could be his playground. Basilisk was definitely onto something when he spoke of power. Jake liked this feeling and wanted more.
With that in mind, he rose a few inches into the air and flew across to the complex, where the alarms were still squawking loudly, and an automated voice warned of “intruders” in multiple languages. Jake felt confident as he entered the building in search of his mentor.
The large glass entrance hall must have looked stunning five minutes earlier, splendidly decorated with plasma screens, glass sculptures, and fine water features. But now smashed monitors sparked lifelessly, and the fountains were splintered beyond repair, water flooding across the floor.
A proud sign declaring: THE INDIAN INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY had been shot up. Bullet holes riddled the walls and ceiling. Rifles lay discarded on the floor but there was no sign of any bodies, only a fine layer of dust and chunks of gray rubble.
The incessant alarm drew him back to the situation. The noise started to aggravate him, but he couldn’t see where it was coming from. Instead he cocked his head, hoping to hear Basilisk’s path of destruction. Sure enough, a distant scream followed by a loud crash got Jake’s attention, and he ran in that direction.
The corridors were wide and straight, with the occasional signs of a skirmish, but again no evidence of the hapless guards caught in Basilisk’s path. Jake turned a corner—and a vending machine next to him exploded in a shower of flames. Punctured soda cans clattered everywhere; streams of fizzy drink propelled them across the floor. Jake felt a firm hand pull him sideways into a doorway.
“Keep your head down,” Basilisk commanded as another powerful laser bolt struck the frame above them, cracking wood and clattering plaster dust into Jake’s hair.
“What is it?”
“They’ve activated one of the Institute’s military research projects and turned it on us. Something my petrifying powers have no effect upon. Some kind of RoboSoldier.”
Jake risked a peek around the corner. An eight-foot-tall Goliath blocked the end of the corridor, with several white-coated scientists cowering behind it. The RoboSoldier was essentially a humanoid shape, with smooth flowing metal skin that bent with its limbs to conceal any moving parts. The head was a simple dome with an inverted “V” slit visor where the eyes should be. Somebody had drawn a pair of cartoon eyes above the machine’s visor, but it didn’t make it any less intimidating.
Jake saw a pulse of energy, like a camera flash, in the RoboSoldier’s eyes, and then a chunky yellow laser fired out and ripped away another piece of masonry close to his ear.
Jake felt debris bounce from his face. “It’s going to blast through the wall to get us if we just hide here! Do something!”
“I can’t. My energy blasts aren’t strong enough, and my petrifying powers work only on living targets.”
“Living? You mean you can’t do anything about that giant robot at the end of the corridor?”
Basilisk’s voice changed to a caustic tone. “Yes, I can hide while my accomplice selects which of his panoply of powers to use.”
Jake bit back a sarcastic reply, annoyed by Basilisk’s fancy words. Already he was getting tired of the villain’s sneering tone. Without willing it, Jake felt his hands burn as the radioactive power took over. He rolled into the corridor, like he’d seen the heroes do in movies, and unleashed a tangle of radioactive streamers at the mechanoid.
It was a perfect hit. A bulletin board next to the RoboSoldier burst into flame, as did several ceiling tiles. Then the radioactive luminance died away, and Jake gasped.
“Oh no!”
The machine was unharmed—and Jake was left crouching in the corridor, a sitting duck. He leaped back into concealment as another laser bolt bored into the ceramic tiled floor, carving a trench where he had been.
“It didn’t work!”
“Of course not! I told you energy blasts wouldn’t be enough. That thing is built to fight through a nuclear war. What else have you got?”
“Just a shield, and I can fly.”
A footstep rang out from the end of the corridor. This time Basilisk risked a glance over Jake’s shoulder. The machine was taking long measured steps down the hall toward them, each footfall so heavy the tiles cracked underfoot.
“Think!” bellowed Basilisk with an edge of panic in his voice. “You downloaded four powers. What is the fourth?”
Jake drew a blank, and shook his head. What could it be? The flying, the force field, and the radioactive blasts had materialized without any conscious effort from Jake, so why hadn’t the fourth?
Another set of thunderous steps brought the machine closer, and another blast clipped the edge of the doorway.
“Time is running out, Hunter. I hadn’t factored this into my plan. Think quickly.”
The clipped sentences reminded Jake of his math teacher, Mr. Rutledge, who always took great delight in embarrassing him in front of the class by asking him the answers to impossible problems. The world already had enough Mr. Rutledges, and Jake hoped he’d have these powers one day in class so he could use them against the creep.
Jake was so consumed by his vision of extracting revenge on his math teacher that he didn’t realize he had caused his fourth power to manifest.
“Jake! Look at your hands!” said Basilisk.
Jake held them up. They appeared to be wet, with a liquid dripping from every pore. A drop landed on Basilisk’s arm with a hiss as it burned into his stone skin.
“Acid,” Jake said in surprise.
He quickly moved his hands so as not to burn Basilisk any further, and extended them away from his own body. Jake took a deep breath and jumped back into the corridor.
RoboSoldier was halfway down the passageway, its head twisted toward Jake. Jake stretched his fingers as he held his hands aloft, and twin globs of acid spat from his palms. One globule hit the mechanoid’s chest and instantly began chewing the armor away in a cloud of hissing smoke. Jake’s second shot struck across the robot’s visor—just as he saw it flare with energy.
The acid melted the eye slit on contact—at the precise moment RoboSoldier primed and fired its laser. With no visor opening, the laser blew apart the machine’s head from the inside. The headless body staggered a few steps, but with its guidance processors fried it could do nothing else but topple over like a drunk, smashing a dozen floor tiles.
Jake took in his victory openmouthed, then looked at his hands, which had returned to normal. “Awesome,” he murmured under his breath.
Basilisk strode past him, confident once again. The knot of scientists at the end of the corridor cowered and raised their hands in surrender as their eyes darted from Basilisk to their defeated guardian.
“Now tell me,” rumbled Basilisk, his eyes flaring a malevolent blue, “where is the Core Probe?”
A bespectacled scientist pushed his way defiantly forward. “You’ll never have it! It is in the vault, and nobody will supply you with that code!”
Basilisk grabbed the man by the neck, and lifted him off his feet. The scientist gurgled and thumped Basilisk’s arm. The villain ensured everybody was watching, and then his eyes flared brightly from within the recesses of the hood.
With a cracking noise the scientist’s skin took on the same dull sheen as Basilisk’s own hands, and his thrashing limbs became rigid. The man was being petrified—turned to stone in front of everyone. Jake jumped at a noise li
ke a balloon bursting, as the scientist suddenly turned to fine dust in Basilisk’s hand. The charcoal powder and tiny stone fragments washed over the startled witnesses.
Jake thought about what he’d just seen. That explained the gray ash throughout the complex; the guards had never stood a chance. He felt a chill run through him. This was a level of violence that he’d never encountered before. When he actually calmed down enough to realize what he was doing, he felt a panic attack coming on, and his thoughts briefly turned to Scuffer and his destructive nature.
“So, who wants to open the vault for me?” Basilisk asked pleasantly, as if he were ordering food in a restaurant.
The terrified scientists all offered. Anything to get out of this predicament alive.
Basilisk had ordered Jake to be rear guard as he selected one of the scientists, a petite Indian woman, to lead the way. Jake frowned but complied; he really didn’t like the way Basilisk told him what to do.
Told, not asked.
They entered a huge circular development chamber that was equipped with computers, scopes, and screens for projects unfathomable to Jake. He remained silent and watched over the scientists, who were clearly too scared to show any bravado.
The woman keyed in a code on a small keypad adjacent to a huge circular vault door. Pneumatic rams slammed into place, drawing open the ten-foot-thick bombproof door like a cork being pulled from a wine bottle. Inside the vault stood the Core Probe, supported on a wheeled frame so it could be moved around the lab.
At first glance, the device resembled a ten-foot-tall thimble, with the curved underside pointing down. But on closer inspection the curve was a giant glasslike bowl with an array of lasers behind it, all pointing at the convex surface. The exterior surface of the probe was covered in heat-resistant matte-black tiles, with a dozen caterpillar tracks running the length of the machine to give it traction beneath the earth.
Basilisk ordered the scientists to wheel the probe out of the vault and toward a set of loading doors on the far side of the lab. The petite woman rested her hand on another keypad mounted on the loading doors, but hesitated as though debating whether she should open it. All Basilisk had to do was stand behind her; his shadow was enough to prompt her into entering the code.
