by Lucas Flint
Of course, that wasn’t what it was at all. It was actually a box left here by Dad. According to Valerie, during Dad’s superhero days, he’d spent time creating and hiding ‘back up boxes’ all over the country. They contained extra versions of his basic equipment, such as his Teleportation Buckle, in case he ever found himself needing extras or if he lost the equipment he usually carried with him. Dad had created a large database that listed the location of each back up box, but he had not used it since retiring.
But Valerie had access to it, so she had given me the location of the nearest back up box, which is why I had to fly to it. I wondered why Dad hadn’t told me about these while he was still alive, but I supposed that Dad hadn’t seen any reason to mention them to me, considering how I had never needed to use them until now. Still, I was lucky that this box hadn’t been swept away by the tides or stolen by someone; if that had happened, I would have been out of luck.
I popped open the box’s lid and looked inside. It had a variety of gadgets; a set of Dad’s gauntlets that could send electrical charges and also access the Internet, another version of his helmet, and—exactly what I was looking for—another Teleportation Buckle.
I grabbed the Teleportation Buckle and looked it over. Despite the aged appearance of the box, the Buckle appeared to be in good working condition. But it looked a little different from the Buckle that Dad had had before he died; it was square-shaped rather than rounded and slightly bulkier, too.
“Kevin, did you open the box and find what you were looking for?” said Valerie.
I nodded. “Yeah. There’s a Teleportation Buckle in here. But it looks different.”
“That’s because this particular back up box is one of the older ones, so the equipment it contains is older than what Genius used,” said Valerie. “But still, it should all be perfectly functional and should be able to get you to where you need to go.”
“So you think the Teleportation Buckle could send me to the Compound?” I said. “It has the power to do that?”
“Yes,” said Valerie.
“Okay,” I said. I put the box down, pushing it back under the tree roots where it was originally, and then looked at the Buckle again. “Where are we going to get the coordinates for the Compound, though? It’s location is supposed to be top secret.”
“Don’t worry,” said Valerie. “I got its coordinates when you and your parents were in hiding down there from Robert. All you need to do is attach the Buckle to your belt and I will feed the coordinates into it, which will allow you to teleport directly inside the Compound without problem.”
“Okay,” I said. “But what if it teleports me into a place where I might be seen by the people working there?”
“That may happen, but I doubt it,” said Valerie. “The coordinates will put you into a spot in the Compound that doesn’t have any people in it currently. But you will have to be careful; the Compound has good automated security systems that cannot be easily fooled. Watch out for security cameras.”
“Gotcha,” I said.
I attached the Buckle to my belt and found that it was an awkward fit, given that my belt hadn’t been designed to fit the Buckle. But it fit anyway and didn’t feel like it was in danger of falling off, so I didn’t worry about it for now.
“Okay,” I said. “The Buckle is attached. Have you downloaded the Compound’s coordinates into it yet?”
“Just did,” said Valerie. “Turn the Buckle to the right and you should end up down in the Compound. But again, be careful; otherwise, you could be spotted by the Compound’s automated security systems.”
I nodded and, grabbing the Buckle, I turned it to the right, just as Valerie told me.
I didn’t really feel anything when I teleported, though that wasn’t surprising, because I had teleported a few times before and had never felt anything out of the ordinary. In one moment, I was standing on the isolated beach in the middle of nowhere, feeling the cool wind blowing on my face and listening to the waves splashing against the sandy shore; the next, however, I was standing in a dark room that smelled of potatoes and sugar. The sudden shift almost made me start, even though I had been expecting it. Though it was really the sudden shift from the light of the sun to the dark of this room that had taken me by surprise; it was like someone had suddenly shut off the lights.
I staggered backwards and hit what felt like a large crate, which kept me from falling over. I immediately stopped, however, because I didn’t want to make any noise that might attract the attention of the government workers and guards in this place. I stayed very still, listening for the sounds of other people, but the room was quiet, so I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Val, I made it,” I spoke into my watch, but softly so I wouldn’t be overheard accidentally. “At least, I think so.”
“Yes, Kevin,” said Valerie, her voice somewhat distorted. “My sensors indicate that you are under the sea, so the Buckle worked.”
“Right, but why does your voice sound so distorted?” I said. “It sounds like you’re underwater yourself.”
“Must be the signal,” said Valerie. “The depth of the ocean must be making it hard for me to connect. There is also the fact that the Compound probably has measures in place to keep people from communicating with the people inside, though I’ve managed to get through them so far.”
“Does that mean you won’t be able to talk to me?” I said.
“It will be harder for me to talk to you down here,” said Valerie, “but I will try to stay in touch. Just don’t be surprised if I suddenly cut out in the middle of a—”
Valerie suddenly stopped speaking and our call on my watch suddenly ended. I immediately tapped her number again, but just as quickly, a message reading ‘ERROR. COULD NOT CONNECT’ popped up.
I sighed in exasperation. Great. I was now in the middle of enemy territory without backup. Oh, well. Valerie had warned me that this could happen. And besides, I figured I could handle the Compound. If I remembered correctly, they had only two G-Men agents down here: Renaissance and a guy named Diver, who could breathe underwater. The normal guards would be no match against me, assuming that they didn’t pack powerless pellets, anyway. Still, I would have to try to sneak around this place first and find out where Blizzard and the others were; if I could do that without fighting every guard in this place, that would be great.
So I slowly began picking my way through the dark room in which I had ended up. Based on the smells, I guessed that I had teleported into the Compound’s food supplies. I smelled potato, sugar, corn, bread, and a whole bunch of other food smells that made my stomach grumble and my mouth water; it had been a long time since I’d had a proper meal, not counting the food I’d had back in Mastermind’s universe. Thus, I was tempted to take a few of the Compound’s supplies and have a quick snack.
But I had no idea when or if one of the guards was going to come by to get supplies or maybe investigate it to make sure no one was hiding in here, so I didn’t touch anything. I wished I could see where I was going, though; while the room was completely dark, I could sense just how large it was. I hoped I wouldn’t get lost in here, because that would suck.
All of a sudden, I heard a door push open, followed by a light coming from somewhere up ahead. Immediately, I crouched behind a large barrel and listened. I heard someone walk into the room, so I peeked over the top of the barrel and saw that it was a man, but he was silhouetted against the light, which made it impossible to make out any details on his form.
But I could hear him talking. It sounded like he was talking to someone else, even though the guy seemed to be alone.
“Let’s see,” said the guy in a low voice. “Ten pounds of potatoes, five pounds of carrots, and a bag of sugar. Is that it?”
Immediately, I heard a slightly muffled reply, which I realized was coming from a phone in his hand that the man was holding up to his ear.
“Okay,” said the guy. “I will get that stuff right away, Chef.”
The muf
fled voice gave a short, snappy reply before it hung up. Then I heard the guy—who must have been a cook—sigh.
“Dumb idiot,” the guy suddenly said. “Somehow it’s my fault that we didn’t have enough potatoes and carrots on hand for dinner? I don’t know how that moron ever got the title of Chef. He couldn’t even make a bowel of cereal without burning it.”
Ah. So this guy was a cook, getting some supplies for dinner, and apparently a disgruntled one, at that. Still, I had to be careful; he may have been disgruntled about his boss, but if he knew I was here, he’d sound the alarm just as quickly as any guard.
My first instinct was to wait for him to leave and then continue making my way out. But then a thought occurred to me: He might have an idea of where the others were being kept prisoner in this place. I would just need to make him talk.
So I walked as carefully as I could, keeping as low to the floor as possible, while the cook went around looking through the barrels of food scattered everywhere. I made more noise than I would have liked—which made me wish that I had had Emma’s powers of camouflage and silence—but the cook was making a lot of noise himself, opening barrels while grumbling under his breath about his stupid boss. He also had a habit of violently throwing away any potatoes or carrots that he decided weren’t good enough to eat; one of those potatoes even hit me in the head, but I didn’t cry out in pain, although I did rub the spot where the potato hit me anyway.
As a result, the cook was too absorbed in his own grumbling to notice me coming up behind him. Now that I was closer to him, I saw that he was wearing a white apron and a cook’s hat, though with his back to me I couldn’t see his face.
Not that I needed to, however. Once I was close enough, I rose up and immediately put a hand over his mouth, while at the same time twisting his right arm behind his back.
The cook let out a cry of shock, but my hand quickly muffled his cry. He violently resisted at first, kicking back with his foot, but another twist of his arm and he immediately stopped.
“Okay, cook,” I said into the cook’s ear, “I hope you realize that if you keep trying to resist, I will break your arm clean off your body. Right now, I’m just applying a ton of pressure on it, but if I wasn’t so careful, I could leave you with a cast over your arm for life.”
The cook was moaning in fear now, which actually made me feel kind of powerful. I was so used to most guys just sneering at me that I didn’t really know what it was like to have someone who actually complied with your demands. At the same time, though, the cook seemed pretty lame to me, which explained why he apparently didn’t voice any of his complaints to his boss.
“But I’m not interested in killing you,” I said. “I don’t even want to harm you. I just want some information, information you might be able to give me.”
The cook just moaned again, though this time it sounded like he was trying to ask a question, like he was saying, What do you want to know? Please tell me. I’ll tell you anything as long as you don’t kill me.
“I learned from someone else that there are five prisoners being kept here,” I said. “Five superhumans known as Blizzard, Nuclear Winter, Rime, Triplet, and a girl named Emma. Would you happen to know where they are all being kept?”
The cook was silent at first, which I thought meant that he was not going to tell me, but then he made a muffled sound that sounded like he said he was going to tell me.
So I lowered my hand to let him speak, but as soon as I did that, the cook suddenly shouted, “Help! There’s an intruder in the—”
I immediately slammed my hand back over the cook’s mouth and listened. I didn’t hear anyone else coming into the storage room, which meant that the cook’s cries for help hadn’t been heard.
Still, I said to the cook, in a more threatening voice than before, “Perhaps I didn’t make this clear. If you cry out for help or sound an alarm, I will not only break your arm, but also your spine and your legs. Would you like to spend the rest of your life unable to move your body from the neck down? I don’t think that would be a lot of fun.”
The cook shook his head.
“Then tell me where the prisoners are being kept,” I said. “And don’t lie or try to call out for help. Remember your spine.”
The cook moaned in fear again, but this time, I could tell he was not going to try that shouting for help nonsense again, so I lowered my hand from his mouth.
“The prisoners are being kept on Level Three,” said the cook in a trembling voice. His voice trembled so much that I could barely understand his words. “They’re in a special cage in which they are constantly being bathed in powerless gas to keep them from using their powers.”
“Level Three?” I said. “The Compound has levels?”
“Y-Yes,” said the cook. “Five levels. We’re on Level Two. Level One is the entrance, Level Two is the living quarters for the guards and the people who are under government protection, Level Three is where the prisoners are kept, Level Four is where weapons and vehicles are stored, and Level Five is the power room, where the power for the rest of the facility is generated. It’s also where people are supposed to retreat in the event of an attack.”
I didn’t ask him for all of that detail, but I appreciated it anyway. I did wonder, though, why no one told me about the Levels of the Compound the first time I was here. I vaguely recalled someone answering all of my questions about the Compound with ‘classified’ when I arrived here months ago, though, which explained that.
“How well are they protected?” I said.
“V-Very,” said the cook. “Armed guards protect the entrance. The Compound’s automated security systems actively monitor everyone who passes through, and the cage is underwater.”
“Underwater?” I repeated. “What do you mean?”
“I-It’s in a section of the Compound built underwater,” said the cook. “The cage is inside a glass, bulletproof dome underneath a ton of water. You have to take a tiny submarine to get down there.”
“They really don’t want them escaping, do they?” I said. “What else?”
“That’s it,” said the cook, but his trembling voice told me that he wasn’t being exactly honest.
“No, there’s more,” I said. “Remember your spine.”
“Okay, okay,” said the cook in a panicky voice, but to his credit, he still hadn’t shouted for help. “You need an ID to enter. If you don’t have an ID, the automated security systems won’t let you in.”
“Uh huh,” I said. “And where would I get such an ID, if I wanted one?”
“Everyone in the Compound has one,” said the cook. “I have one myself, actually, which is how I know this stuff, because I had to deliver meals to the prisoners and—”
I decided I’d learned everything I needed, so I sent a jolt of electricity through the cook’s body. He immediately collapsed in my arms, knocked out by the jolt. I carefully lay him on the floor next to the potato barrel and then stroked my chin.
Assuming the cook was telling the truth to me, it sounded like Blizzard and the others were locked up pretty tight. And, unlike Emma, I couldn’t just sneak around the place without being seen. I would be spotted and attacked before I could even reach Level Three.
But how was I going to get there? I thought about teleporting with my Teleportation Buckle, but I didn’t know the exact coordinates of the cage. Besides, I remembered Dad telling me about the dangers of teleportation indoors, so I decided not to do it.
Therefore, I would need to figure out a way to walk around in plain sight without drawing unnecessary attention to myself. But how?
Then I looked down at the unconscious cook at my feet. He looked older than me—probably in his early thirties, judging by his stomach—but we had a similar body shape and size anyway.
An idea came to mind, perhaps the perfect plan for getting around the Compound unseen, so I went to work undressing the man, but I did it quickly, because I didn’t know if the Chef or any of the other cooks would come look
ing for their fellow cook if he was gone for too long.
Chapter Ten
I walked through the halls of the Compound in the cook’s universe, occasionally readjusting my chef hat in order to keep it from falling off. I didn’t know how actual cooks did it; maybe every cook was born with the power of super balance, which was how they kept their hats from falling off their heads.
In any case, so far my disguise had worked. No one looked twice at me whenever I passed by someone, but that wasn’t saying much, since I hadn’t seen too many people on my way down to Level Three. I did get a little lost, though, and had to ask a guard for directions to Level Three, but he had been kind enough to point me in the right direction and hadn’t even asked me to prove my identification, but I could have because I had taken the cook’s ID card off his body when I knocked him out. It was currently stuffed into one of the apron’s pockets, but so far I hadn’t had need to use it. Still, the cook had said that the only way to access the cage was to have an ID on you, so it was probably the most important object on me at the moment. I also had my suit-up watch in another pocket; I had removed it so that no one would notice it and get suspicious.
Despite the success of my plan so far, I was still a little nervous. Even if no one recognized me, all it would take was for someone to find the unconscious cook—Damian Frank, according to his ID—in the food storage room and then sound the alarm. And I doubted it would take the guards very long to find me.
But I pushed that thought aside for now. I needed to focus on getting to the others. I would worry about being found out later; besides, I’d tied up the cook with some rope I found and hid him as well as I could, so with luck, they would only discover him after my friends and I escaped this place.
Besides, very few people in this place even knew my face. On my first visit several months ago, I had only been seen by a few guards and a handful of other people, so even if someone saw my face, they wouldn’t realize who I was. They’d just think I was another cook in the Compound, albeit probably younger than most. I had the perfect disguise, so long as no one asked to see the ID I’d stolen, anyway.
