by Lucas Flint
“What was that?” said Hypno, shaking his head and looking around the van in confusion. “Why did we stop? Are we at the prison already?”
“No, we can’t be,” said Lauren slowly. She sounded a little scared. “We should only be about halfway there now.”
“Then we stopped for another reason?” said Beams, pushing himself up into a sitting position and shaking his head. “What do you think—”
Without warning, the sound of gunshots going off in the air could be heard outside of the van. Lauren immediately clung to Beams, while Beams and Hypno both looked around in alarm. The gunshots were followed by screams and then the sound of a fist punching someone’s face. Then everything went silent again.
“What was that?” Hypno asked again, this time in a much lower voice than before.
“I don’t know,” said Lauren, fear etched in her words. “But whatever it was, I think we should stay quiet. Maybe it will leave us alone if—”
The back doors of the van were suddenly torn off their hinges and tossed away. Beyond the open doors, Beams could see that they were in the middle of a forest, but it looked quiet and empty right now. Lauren clung more tightly to him than ever, while Beams just prepared his laser vision for whoever was going to show up.
As it turned out, however, Beams did not need to shoot anyone, because the person who stepped into view appeared to be unarmed. The figure wore a stark white lab coat and insect-like helmet on his head, which obscured his features. He also wore identical metallic gauntlets on his arms that had all kinds of buttons on them. He stood very still, almost like a robot, though he was obviously a human being.
“Lauren?” said the man, whose voice was slightly muffled by the helmet on his head. “Are you okay? Can you walk?”
All of a sudden, Lauren’s face broke into a big smile. “It’s him.”
Beams looked at Lauren. “Him who?”
Lauren looked at Beams, her smile growing wider all the time. “Theodore Jason, or, as he’s better known, Genius, one of the first ever superheroes and one of the founders of the Dissidents. Everything is going to be all right.”
CHAPTER THREE
Bolt would never have admitted it to anyone, but he thought that the Rubbermobile was the coolest car he had ever seen in his life. Heck, it was probably the coolest car in the multiverse, though he had to be careful about saying that because there was probably a universe out there with way cooler cars than this one.
If so, I’m probably never going to visit it, Bolt thought, sitting in the passenger’s seat next to Rubberman as the Rubbermobile made its way through the streets of Golden City. So I can still say this is the coolest car I’ve ever seen, at least.
Bolt looked over his shoulder. Shade seemed to think the Rubbermobile was cool, too, because she was stretched out on the back seats, her hands behind her head and a relaxed expression on her face. She even looked like she was about to fall asleep, but Bolt knew better than to think that because one of her shadowy tendrils was snaking along the back of Rubberman’s seat. Should Rubberman attempt to betray them, Shade would not hesitate to slit his throat, which Bolt thought was a little extreme, but it seemed to work because Rubberman didn’t show any hesitation in driving them to exactly where they wanted to go.
When Rubberman had agreed to take Bolt and Shade to the McCoy Robotics factory on the north side of Golden City, Rubberman had suggested they take his work vehicle, a sleek race car he dubbed the Rubbermobile. It seemed like a dumb name to Bolt, but the actual Rubbermobile itself was so cool that it almost made the name cool as well. It was a tricked out sports car with a wicked awesome spoiler. Its colors matched Rubberman’s suit and it even had the same MATM logo that Rubberman’s suit did, except bigger and more obvious.
And it drove like a hover car. Bolt couldn’t even feel its tires burning against the pavement. In fact, if Bolt hadn’t been looking out the windshield, watching building after building disappear behind them as they drove through Golden City, Bolt would have assumed that they weren’t moving at all. That was how smooth it was.
Why didn’t Beams tell me about this? Bolt thought. Was he just trying to keep it a secret from me or something?
Bolt looked at Rubberman. Rubberman had been extremely tight-lipped ever since they forced him to help them. Bolt understood because he’d probably be the same way if a couple of ‘criminals’ held him hostage, but he didn’t like how tense the air in the car was. He wondered how Shade could possibly relax with all of the tension in the air, but perhaps that was just the way she was.
“So …” said Rubberman suddenly as they turned a corner down a narrow street. A bridge was coming up ahead. “You’re from another universe.”
Bolt nodded. “Yeah.”
“One where superpowers are inborn,” said Rubberman. “Right?”
“Right,” said Bolt, nodding again.
“And superheroes do not have to get a license in order to operate in public,” said Rubberman slowly, “but instead act as protectors of the common good for free, right?”
“Not if you’re a member of a superhero organization like the NHA,” said Bolt. “I get paid a pretty good salary every month for my services to the organization. The NHA isn’t a business, but it does make good income by allowing tourism onto Hero Island and making licensing deals anyway. Think Omega Man merchandise makes up like five percent of the organization’s yearly revenue or something like that.”
“Uh huh,” said Rubberman skeptically. “It sounds … chaotic.”
Bolt frowned. He had already answered a lot of Rubberman’s earlier questions about his home universe, so he wasn’t sure why Rubberman was bringing it all up again all of a sudden. “Chaotic? What do you mean?”
“I mean, it sounds like just about anyone can put on a suit and start calling themselves a superhero where you’re from,” said Rubberman. “And they don’t even do it for profit. It’s crazy.”
“Do you do it for profit?” said Bolt, tilting his head to the side. “Why would any superhero refuse to save lives if there’s no money in it? That doesn’t sound like something a real hero would do.”
“I’m all for saving lives and everything, but—” Rubberman shook his head. “What am I saying? You and the girl are obviously insane. I don’t know where you’re actually from or what you’re actually trying to do, but I know you can’t be from an alternate universe. I must be losing my mind by thinking through the implications of your lies.”
Bolt stretched his arms and leaned back in the comfy seat that conformed to his body shape. “Believe what you want, man, but it’s the truth. Once we find a dimensional portal, then you’ll see. Or maybe you won’t because we’re not going to take you with us when we go back to our universe.”
Rubberman gave Bolt the oddest look before shaking his head again and muttering, “Mom was right. I shouldn’t have become a superhero. I should have become a lawyer like she wanted. I’d still work with crazy people, but at least I’d make good money doing it.”
Bolt felt bad for Rubberman because he knew just how crazy his story sounded, but at the same time, he remembered how many times Rubberman had attempted to choke the life out of him already and stopped feeling sorry for him almost immediately. “You sound like you don’t enjoy this line of work.”
Rubberman sighed as they crossed the bridge crossing a beautiful river. “I do. I did. I mean … I don’t know what I mean, honestly. Ever since I sold the business to Sasha five years ago, I feel like I’ve become trapped.”
“Why did you sell your business to this Sasha lady in the first place?” said Bolt. “Sounds like you made a bad choice if you don’t enjoy it.”
Rubberman’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. Bolt realized he must have asked Rubberman a very personal question because Rubberman did not seem to want to answer it. It made Bolt feel a little stupid, even though, again, he didn’t feel sorry for Rubberman after remembering what he did to him.
Then, all of a sudden, Rubberman spoke.
“Five years ago, I was a rising star in the superhero industry. My revenue and profits were skyrocketing year after year, I was making licensing deals left, right, and center, and was becoming beloved by the people of Golden City for all the good deeds I did among them. Lots of people tried to convince me to sell the business and retire young, but I knew I had a moneymaker on my hands and I didn’t want to give it up before its peak.”
Rubberman’s voice was full of regret. He sounded as if he regretted everything he had ever done.
“But then it happened.”
“What happened?”
Rubberman looked at Bolt before turning his attention back to the road. “Fro-Zen happened. He was my first sidekick five years ago, but the two of us had a falling out due to differing views on the industry. I didn’t think I’d see him again until he came back one day out of the blue and announced his intention to murder me for my ‘failure’ to live up to his ideas of what a superhero should be.”
“Sounds crazy,” said Bolt.
“Oh, that’s just the beginning of Fro-Zen’s madness,” said Rubberman with a shudder. “Fro-Zen wanted me to come out and face him like a man, but I knew what he was trying to do and so I didn’t fall for his bait. That is until he took all of the students in Harold Golden High hostage and threatened to kill every last one of them if I didn’t show up and fight him. He did a similar thing about five years before that when we had our falling out, though I managed to stop him that time.”
“That time?” Bolt repeated. “You don’t mean you failed to stop him this time?”
Rubberman shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I was by myself. I didn’t have a sidekick to back me up and my butler, Adams, wasn’t very useful for fighting. When I got there, it turned out that Fro-Zen had already killed every single student in the high school, plus the handful of faculty that had been there early, turning them into ice statues. We fought anyway and I just barely managed to win by breaking Fro-Zen’s neck, but the damage was done.”
“Yeah,” said Bolt. “He killed a bunch of teenagers. That’s psycho.”
“I’m not talking about the deaths, though those are tragic,” said Rubberman. “He also destroyed my reputation. Stories all over the media blamed the deaths of those teens—fifty in all, the worse school mass murder in US history—on me and my failure to get there in time to save them. The citizens of Golden City turned on me seemingly overnight, to the point where the city government was making plans to end its contract with me early, even though that would have required slogging through the court system and wasting a lot of money.”
“Ouch,” said Bolt. “Did they really turn on you that quickly?”
“Not everyone in Golden City likes me,” said Rubberman, his eyes focused on the road. “Even though I have faithfully served and protected the city for five years, there are people in power who hated me and wanted me taken down. I suspect they took advantage of the emotional shock so many citizens felt at losing so many innocent kids so quickly to take me out. Regardless, I saw my revenue drop to nothing, my licensing deals got cut, and people on the streets stopped waving or smiling at me whenever they saw me out on the streets. Even the police started treating me more as a nuisance than anything, It was a miserable time.”
“How did you get out of it?” said Bolt.
Rubberman nodded at the logo on his chest. “Sasha Munroe contacted me. She offered to buy out the Rubberman brand and business from me for a shocking price, much more than it was actually worth at the time, to be frank. I always hated the idea of selling out my independence, but I was in such dire financial straits that I accepted her deal. I sold the Rubberman brand and business and all its assets to Munroe Acquisitions, Inc. As a result, I am now technically an employee of that company.”
“That’s not so bad.”
“Oh, it is,” Rubberman reassured Bolt. “I mean, perhaps it’s better than shutting down the business entirely, but I’m no longer as independent as I once was. I don’t have any power over the day-to-day decisions of the business. All money earned from licensing deals goes directly to MA’s bank accounts. They could even fire me at any time and replace me with someone else. The only reason they haven’t is that it would be very expensive to train a replacement for me, though I could see Sasha doing it anyway just to spite me.”
Bolt bit his lower lip. “Ah. Do the people still hate you or—?”
“Not as much,” said Rubberman, “though I’m not as popular as I was before, either. The buyout at least saved the brand, because the licensing deals that were dropped suddenly were back on the table. I guess that the licensing companies felt safer doing business with Munroe Acquisitions than with me. Maybe they thought MA would turn around the brand’s image or something. MA’s been known to do that to the brands it acquires, though most of those rebranding efforts were from before Sasha became CEO.”
“Well, I guess it must have worked,” said Bolt. “If it hadn’t, would you even be working as Rubberman anymore?”
Rubberman’s fingers drummed against the steering wheel. “No, I probably wouldn’t. Even so, I still sometimes wish I had rejected Sasha’s offer and found some other way to save my business. I miss my freedom and independence. And I think Sasha cares more about the money she can milk from my brand than helping people or keeping the streets safe.”
Bolt nodded, mostly because he had nothing else to say. The world Rubberman described was so completely different from Bolt’s that he had a hard time wrapping his head around it. Bolt was just glad that superheroes weren’t a business in his world, because the last thing he needed was to lose his independence to some corporation that cared more about profit than saving lives.
I wonder if things are this bad in Beams’ universe, Bolt thought, turning his attention back to the road. Probably not, given how Beams acts, but I’m still glad I don’t live in his world.
“Hey, Stretch,” said Shade, suddenly sitting up and leaning forward. “Why are we stopping? Are we at the factory?”
Shade was right. The Rubbermobile came to a stop in front of what looked like an abandoned storefront in the middle of the city. There did not seem to be any people in this part of the city, nor did Bolt see anything he would even remotely describe as a factory.
“I agree with Shade,” said Bolt, looking at Rubberman. “Where are we?”
Rubberman didn’t take his hands off the steering wheel. But his eyes darted toward Bolt and there was a look in his eyes that set off alarms in Bolt’s head.
“No, we’re not at the Factory,” said Rubberman slowly. “And I never intended to take either of you to anywhere other than a prison cell, where illegal superheroes like you two belong.”
Without warning, a gas mask popped out of the ceiling and swung onto Rubberman’s face. At the same time, a thick green gas exploded from the air conditioning vents, hitting Bolt and Shade and making them cough and gag. The gas burned Bolt’s eyes and made his skin itch, but even worse, he could sense it knocking him out. Shade had already fallen unconscious in the back seats, her head lolling on her shoulders.
Covering his mouth, Bolt forced open the car door and spilled out of the Rubbermobile. He managed to crawl a few feet before Rubberman’s arm extended out of the car and wrapped around his neck, making him gasp. He looked over his shoulder to see Rubberman’s gas mask-wearing face extend out of the gas, looking like something straight out of a horror film.
“Knock out gas,” said Rubberman, his voice slightly obscured by his mask. “Always have some on hand for just these kinds of situations. Good night.”
Bolt would have resisted, but then darkness covered his vision and he knew nothing anymore.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lauren let go of Beams and rushed toward Genius. She practically tackled Genius, hugging him tightly and saying, “Genius, I can’t believe you saved me! Thank you SO much! I thought I’d never see you again!”
Genius seemed uncomfortable with Lauren’s hug, but he patted her on the head reassuringly an
yway. “It’s fine, Lauren. When you didn’t come back to the rendezvous point, I knew you must have been captured. So, using my tracking tech, I managed to find the van which was taking you to Ultimate Max to be reeducated.”
“Did you stop the van all by yourself?” said Lauren, looking up at Genius with admiring eyes.
“No,” said Genius, shaking his head. “I had some help.”
All of a sudden, two young adults appeared behind Genius. They were a boy and a girl and seemed to be twins, from what Beams could tell. They wore identical full bodysuits, differing only in color, with the boy wearing a black suit and the girl wearing a white one. They also had identical gems glowing in their chests, with the boy having a purple one and the girl having an orange one.
“Is everyone okay?” said the boy. “No one got hurt when the van stopped, right?”
“Everyone is fine, Bait,” said Genius, glancing over his shoulder at the boy. “You don’t have to worry about them.”
“See?” said the girl to the boy with a smirk. “I told you stopping the van wouldn’t hurt them, but you wouldn’t believe me.”
“They still could have been hurt, though,” the man, apparently named Bait, argued. “That soldier could have just run straight into me. Car accidents kill thousands of people a year. Real heroes don’t recklessly endanger people’s lives like that.”
“’Real heroes,’ huh?” said the woman. “If you want to be a ‘real’ hero, maybe you should have stayed in the Academy like—”
“Bait, Switch,” said Genius in a firm tone. “This is not the time to argue. The government will find out that one of their own super hunters has been taken out and they’ll send someone to investigate. We need to get out of here before reinforcements arrive.”
“Okay, okay,” said the woman, apparently named Switch, who held up her hands as if to defend herself. “I’m still right, though.”
Bait shot Switch the kind of glare that only siblings could shoot at each other, but then Genius’ eyes landed on Beams and Hypno and he frowned. “Who are these two? I’ve never seen them before.”
