Jack could tell he’d hit on a sensitive subject. “I’m sorry, Jazen, I didn’t mean anything by that. I’m just really messed up by this whole Rüstov infection thing.”
“Don’t be,” Jazen said. “You’re going to beat it.”
“How do you know that?”
“Listen to me, Jack, because this is important,” Jazen began. “No one’s ever survived a Rüstov infection. Ever. When a person gets infected, circuits weave their way through bones and tissue, transforming every inch of what was once a person into a Rüstov soldier. The body starts to rust and decay, and it takes less than a minute to start happening. No one’s ever lasted longer than that.” Jazen smiled. “But look at you! You don’t even have the Rüstov mark on your eye. Your parasite doesn’t control you; you control it. You have to trust me on this, Jack: You’re special.”
“You’re the only one who seems to think so,” Jack said. “Mr. Smart and that guy with the sharp fingers really freaked me out yesterday. My face is all over the news. I’m a little worried about what else is going to be out there today.”
“I’m not going to lie to you,” Jazen said. “There are people in the Imagine Nation who are going to be suspicious of you. They might wonder if you’re safe to be around, or if you’re a Rüstov spy. Some people are going to wonder if you beat the parasite, or if it’s just a matter of time before you turn into one of them.”
“How many people?” Jack asked.
“Almost everyone,” Jazen answered.
Jack slumped into a chair. “Fantastic.”
“Jack,” Jazen said, “nothing is going to happen until you go before the Inner Circle. And you’re with me,” he added. “You should know my systems are equipped to handle seventy-two percent of all superhuman attacks we may encounter in the city today.”
“Really? Seventy-two percent?” Jack asked. “Why didn’t you say so? In that case, I’ve got nothing to worry about!”
Jazen raised an eyebrow, allowing a slight smile to cross his lips. “Seventy-two percent covers more than you might expect,” he said. “I’m also one hundred percent fluent in sarcasm, in case you were wondering. Now finish your breakfast. We’re going to be late.”
After breakfast Jack and Jazen rode a lightning-fast elevator 437 floors down to the lobby, where the Smart-Cams were anxiously waiting to begin their broadcast day. They didn’t get much footage for their trouble. Jazen had a HoverCar ready and waiting. He ushered Jack quickly inside and followed him in, careful not to step on the road.
“The HoverCars in Empire City don’t run on gasoline,” Jazen explained. “They have powerful electromagnets that propel them along MagLev roads that are charged with the same magnetic currents. If any metal, including what makes up my interior frame, gets too close to the road, it gets magnetically locked down to it until someone comes and cuts the power to the street.”
Jazen tinted the windows to give Jack a break from the SmartCams and staring onlookers as they drove through Hightown. To Jack, it looked like the New York City he had seen in his comic books, only fast-forwarded about a thousand years into the future. There were buildings stacked on top of other buildings, with streets, bridges, and trains running endlessly through the gaps in between. HoverCars, AirSpeeders, and countless superpeople crisscrossed paths on their way through jam-packed highways and skyways. Men and women swung through the air, flew across the sky, and jumped off rooftops. A whole family of superspeedsters ran alongside Jack’s car before veering off in another direction, and Jazen drove past three separate superhuman battles along the way to Hero Square.
Jack and Jazen were just gliding down the street when something thumped on their roof. Jazen didn’t bat an eye, but Jack certainly did when he looked out the windshield and saw a ninja crawling onto the hood of their car. Jack recognized the colors the ninja wore from his comics. “That’s a ZenClan ninja,” he said, somewhat surprised to hear the words coming out of his mouth.
“It certainly is,” Jazen replied. The ninja asked Jazen to speed up, and he was happy to help out. He was chasing two other ninjas wearing white masks with no holes for the nose or mouth. Their form-fitting white suits were as tight as a second skin stretched over their long, stringy bodies and thin, chiseled muscles. Jack recognized them, too.
“Are those…Ronin assassins?” Jack asked Jazen.
“Yup,” Jazen said. “Let me guess, you read about these guys in Dragonfist Comics! Or was it Kung-Fu Killers!”
“ZenClan Warriors, actually,” Jack said.
Jack rolled up his window and locked his door. The Ronin always creeped him out whenever they showed up in a story—undead, soulless ninjas who worked for the evil ShadowClan Shogun. If Jack had to see them in real life, he was glad that it was in broad daylight with a ZenClan ninja hot on their tail. Based on what he’d read about them, these ShadowClan ninjas were not creatures he ever wanted to meet in a dark alley.
The Ronin were flipping back and forth between speeding cars as they swiped at the ninja on Jazen’s hood with sai blades and dodged punches and kicks. Not every driver dealt with the distraction as well as Jazen seemed to. Up ahead, a HoverCar swerved to avoid a Ronin’s leap, crashing into a truck right in front of Jack and Jazen.
“Buckle up, Jack!” Jazen called out. Without slowing the car down, he banked a hard right onto a street that literally ran straight down. Jack’s stomach jumped up to his throat as the car made a ninety-degree turn and raced down a hundred-foot vertical drop. Jack buckled up just in time and screamed like he was on a roller coaster. This was not a steep hill they were driving down; they were driving down the side of a skyscraper. When they reached the bottom, Jazen just kept driving like it was no big deal.
“All right, excitement’s over,” Jazen said. “Just a random superfight. No big thing. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Jack replied. He paused for a moment. “Can we do that again?”
“Maybe later,” Jazen replied. “Look out your window, I want you to see something.” Jazen turned into a fenced-off area. “Remember when we were flying in and I mentioned SeasonStill Park?” Jack nodded and Jazen continued, “This is it. Each corner of this park is permanently fixed with the weather of one of the four seasons, so kids can play in whatever weather they want. You’ll definitely want to come back here later when we have more time.”
Jazen drove through the snow flurries blowing in Winterwind Way, past the swimming holes and tire swings in Spring Falls, the bright autumn leaves dropping around the lakes of Fall Springs, and finally past the boardwalks and beaches of the Summershore Stretch. Jack decided that this was the best park in the world, a playground for all seasons. He wanted to see more, but Jazen said he had to get him to the Dedication Day festival by noon.
“What’s Dedication Day?” Jack asked Jazen with his face pressed up against the car window.
“It’s where we relight the Legendary Flame Monument and dedicate the city to the memory of the man who saved it during the invasion. The history books of the Imagine Nation simultaneously remember it as both our greatest victory and worst defeat.”
“The Legendary Flame?”
“It’s in Hero Square, where the festival is held each year. That’s where we’re going.”
“Tell me about the invasion,” Jack said. “What happened?”
“The Rüstov happened,” Jazen replied. “It was twelve years ago today. It was terrible. Without any warning the entire Rüstov Armada appeared one morning and launched a full-scale invasion on the Imagine Nation. Thousands died. It…” Jazen paused, as if lost in the memory. “It was the first day of a war some people say might never really end.”
“I thought you said we won that battle,” Jack said. “The superheroes fought back, right?”
“Everyone fought back,” Jazen said. “Even the so-called villains. But there were so many Rüstov, and every infected super became another soldier in their army. The battle for Empire City went on for an entire day, and there was one of them… There was
one of the invaders who just could not be beaten… Revile.” When Jazen said Revile’s name, he scowled. The loathing and dread in his voice was palpable, synthesized android speech or not. “Revile was a Rüstov supersoldier who simply could not be killed. No matter how many times our side blew him up, he regenerated. He rebuilt himself from scrap, again and again and again. In the end, it was only Legend, the strongest of all our heroes, who could fight him.”
“I never heard of Legend,” Jack said. “He was the strongest hero?” Jazen nodded. “Tougher than Captain Courage?” Jack pressed.
“Captain Courage?” Jazen laughed. “C’mon, Jack,” he added, shaking his head. “Captain Courage is just a comic book character. Legend was real.”
Jack didn’t quite understand why a real-life Captain Courage was any crazier than real-life Ronin assassins, but he didn’t interrupt Jazen.
“When all the other supers fell, Legend fought Revile by himself,” Jazen continued. “He never gave up. Even when he knew he couldn’t defeat Revile, he just kept going.”
“How did he win?”
“The Legendary Sacrifice,” Jazen said in a reverent voice. “Revile engaged a self-destruct mechanism, what the Rüstov call the ‘Omega Protocol.’ He was going to detonate his nuclear power source and blow up the entire city. A cheap and cowardly way to end the battle, but it would have worked. It would have worked if not for Legend, that is. He grabbed Revile and flew him straight into the Rüstov mothership, right into the Infinite Warp Core engine. The explosion filled the sky, destroying the mothership, Revile, and any hope the Rüstov had of winning the Battle of Empire City.”
“And destroying Legend, too?” Jack guessed.
Jazen nodded. “We won the battle, but it cost us the greatest hero the world has ever known. Today we dedicate the city to his memory, and celebrate lasting another year in our war against the Rüstov.”
Jack leaned back in his seat and exhaled deeply. It was quite a story, but as he turned it over in his head, something about it didn’t quite fit. “I don’t get it,” Jack said. “How did the Rüstov find the Imagine Nation? Did someone take them here like you took me?”
“Yes,” Jazen said bitterly. “A traitor. The Great Collaborator.”
“A traitor? Did they ever catch him?”
Jazen thought about it for a moment. “That all depends on who you ask,” the emissary said as he pulled the car up to the edge of Hero Square. “We’re here.” Jazen got out of the car, and Jack hopped out after him. Jack’s curiosity about the Great Collaborator was quickly sidetracked by the spectacle of Hero Square.
The square was gigantic: a gargantuan plaza built from granite and marble, at least a thousand feet wide and packed with people—humans, aliens, superhumans, and nonsupers—as if all of Empire City had turned out for the Dedication Day festival. There were food vendors, candy stands, and street performers scattered everywhere, combining to create a dizzying array of scrumptious smells and flying acrobatics. Jack and Jazen passed beneath a colossal arch and out onto the animated plaza.
An immense, classic stone building lined the perimeter of the square with arches, pillars, and a museum-like stateliness. Floating over a pedestal in the center of it all was a giant iron sphere with several large rings swinging around it like a gyroscope. Jazen explained that this was the heart of Empire City. The boroughs of the diverse metropolis surrounded the square like members of a dysfunctional but happy family.
To Jack’s right the ancient walls of Varagog stood strong like a fortress against the modern era. Jack spotted chivalrous knights, fair maidens, and noble monarchs gathered behind gothic castle windows. Hundreds of provincial townsfolk lined the tops of the stone walls, standing on every ledge and peeking through every nook and cranny. It was like a place that time forgot.
On Jack’s left was the exact opposite, the space-age borough of Galaxis. Alien families from across the universe were huddled together on the roofs of orb-shaped buildings and on the decks of glistening starships. Jack looked up past the boroughs of Karateka, Cognito, and Machina. He looked on to the towering spires of Hightown. The skyscrapers were all built into the hills of the island. From Hero Square, Jack could see the entire city.
Behind Jack a stone bridge ran through the square, past the edge of the island and out over the bottomless waterfalls. At the end of the bridge stood the statue of a noble hero, reaching out to the city with a tiny blue flame burning in his palm.
“Is that-”
“Legend,” Jazen finished. “The man who saved the Imagine Nation from the invaders.”
Invaders like the one hiding inside of me, Jack thought. The very idea made his skin crawl. An alien parasite, somewhere inside his body, living off him. That wasn’t even the worst of it either. The worst was that it might one day take him over. It was exactly what everyone in Hero Square was worried about.
As Jazen led Jack through the crowd, the reaction that Jack got was pretty much the one he expected. His face was already famous all over Empire City, and not in a good way. Music grinded to a halt, and the crowd parted like the Red Sea. People were shrinking back, mumbling to one another about “the infected boy” and giving Jack dirty looks. Even more were shouting angrily at Jack, calling him “Rusty.” The SmartCams caught up to Jack and broadcasted live coverage on the NewsNets like reality TV. Jack could tell that nobody wanted him there. They were afraid of him and what he represented. Part of him had to wonder if they were right to feel that way—if it really was only a matter of time before he turned into a Rüstov. He shut the thought out of his mind. He had more immediate concerns, like the Inner Circle and the mob of people outside the sphere. The crowd’s fear made it dangerous, and Jazen’s assurance that he could fend off 72 percent of any trouble was not very reassuring. To make matters worse, Jack recognized the uniforms of several more Peacemaker superteams working security, scaring people back behind dotted lines. If the crowd decided to go after Jack, the Peacemakers were more likely to join the mob than stop it. Jack grew more nervous until he saw a familiar blue face in the crowd.
Blue walked out to meet Jack and Jazen, flanked by several large members of his police unit. They were all part of the Brute Force, a squad of Empire City’s toughest supercops. They escorted Jack safely through the mob and deposited him at a special VIP area directly under the black iron sphere.
Standing in the VIP area were two other children Jack’s age. The first, a girl with liquid metal skin, shrieked when she saw Jack and turned into something resembling a puddle of mercury. A boy, dressed in the garb of a young squire from Varagog, actually drew two swords on Jack before Jazen stepped in to stay his hand.
“Easy, Skerren, we’re all friends here,” Jazen said to the boy. The young swordsman muttered something decidedly unfriendly and skulked off on his own. “What’d I tell you?” Jazen said to Jack. “No worries.”
“Yeah, we’re doing great,” Jack replied, pointing up at a NewsNet screen that read RÜSTOV SPAWN TERRORIZES HERO SQUARE!
Jazen grumbled at the headline and led Jack to the marble pedestal. They walked up a staircase that was carved into the sides and stood directly beneath the sphere. “Here we go,” Jazen said. A moment later, the platform began to rise up toward the iron globe above them. The sphere’s swirling rings whizzed by over their heads, and Jack thought about just how much it would hurt to get hit with them. He also took note of the solid iron frame of the fast-approaching orb. “Shouldn’t that thing have a door?” Jack asked.
A ring swung by, inches from the top of Jack and Jazen’s heads. Jack ducked, missing whatever Jazen said in reply as they continued rising toward the sphere. There was no door opening up that Jack could see. They were going to slam right into the bottom.
Another ring flew by, but closer and faster this time. Jack and Jazen were almost at the sphere, and just as Jack was sure they were going to be crushed against the bottom, they passed right through it. The iron surface gave way and became soft metal that ran over Jack’s skin li
ke melted chocolate, only without the stickiness. Jack passed through the sphere unharmed and emerged inside the sanctum sanctorum of the Inner Circle. As the metal exterior of the sphere slid off his skin, Jack looked around. This was the place where his fate would be decided. The rest of his life, however long or short it might be, would hinge on the next few minutes in this great, round room.
CHAPTER
6
The Inner Circle
On the outside, the sphere of the Inner Circle was only about ten or fifteen feet across. On the inside, the sphere was bigger than a football stadium. There was enough room to fit fifty thousand people or more, and the only thing more striking than the vast space hidden inside the sphere was its complete and utter emptiness. Jack and Jazen were alone, standing in a pit, and looking up at a table that ran around them in a circle. The pit wasn’t very deep, but it was still an intimidating spot to be in. Jack was scared, though he trusted that Jazen knew what he was doing. He was pretty sure he did, anyway.
Six separate tunnel openings lined the walls of the sphere. Each one had the name of an Empire City borough inscribed above it and a path leading to a seat at the tribunal. Jazen explained that this was where the Inner Circle met, although it was more like the Half Circle these days. There were supposed to be six Circlemen, one person elected from each borough. When all six were there, they were said to be at “Full Circle,” and could choose a seventh member to join them. “Right now there are two empty seats,” Jazen explained, pointing up toward the empty chairs. “That seventh seat once belonged to Legend. The seat next to it, the one from Cognito, belonged to Stendeval.”
There was that name again. Jack remembered Jazen mentioning Stendeval’s name back when Jonas Smart was talking about executions and dissections.
Jack’s reaction to the name must have struck Jazen as odd. “You don’t know Stendeval,” Jazen probed, “do you, Jack?”
Accidental Hero (Jack Blank Adventure) Page 8
