by Lucas Flint
“Fair enough,” said Triplet. “I don’t like revealing the details of my cases to people, but since you two are inevitably going to be involved anyway, there’s no point in keeping any secrets.”
Triplet walked over to the dead tiger and nudged it with his foot, as it to make sure it was really dead. “About a month ago, my client contacted me about a case in Virginia he wanted me to solve. My client asked me to investigate the disappearance of a young superhuman girl named Lauren Brooks.”
“Her name sounds familiar,” I said. “But I can’t recall where I heard it before.”
“She isn’t very famous,” said Triplet. “Her dad is a coal miner and her mom runs her own quilt shop. Anyway, Lauren went missing a couple of months ago and the police haven’t been able to find her. So my client asked me to do it instead, even paying for my expenses on my trip to Virginia to make sure I could find her.”
“Your client must be loaded,” I said.
“Perhaps,” said Triplet with a shrug. “In any case, I thought it would be a fairly simple missing persons case. I’ve solved a lot of missing persons cases and, while they can sometimes take time, they’re usually one of the easier kinds of cases for me to solve. I expected to take less than a week to solve it, but as usual, it turned out to be more complicated—and far bigger—than I originally imagined.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
Triplet turned around to face us, a serious frown crossing his lips. “It isn’t just one girl. Multiple girls of superhuman descent—including a few who haven’t started showing powers yet but probably will when they get older—have gone missing in Virginia over the past six months. By my count, there are at least six girls missing and no one knows where any of them are or if they are even alive.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Weird. I’ve been here for three months now but haven’t heard about this. Seems like something Brains and Vanish would have told me about.”
“Brains and Vanish are focused on Showdown,” said Triplet. “I imagine they don’t have the time or resources to patrol the whole state. Even if they did, however, they probably still wouldn’t know about it, because even the state government was unaware of the pattern until I put it together. One of the weaknesses of centralized organizations like the NHA is that they move very slowly, which is probably why Brains and Vanish haven’t figured this out yet.”
“Ah,” I said. “So you say there’s a pattern?”
“Yes,” said Triplet. “A pattern I’ve managed to trace all the way back here to Showdown. More specifically, to Samuel Longworth’s mansion just outside the Showdown City limits. I believe that Longworth might be behind these disappearances, or at least might know who is.”
“Then how did you end up in this pit?” I said, glancing up at the closed ceiling above us. “Did he drop you in here, too?”
Trip scratched the back of his head. “Unfortunately, yes. I didn’t see it coming, so I walked right into his trap. I didn’t even have time to split off any of my Thirds. And cell phone reception down here is either nonexistent or being blocked because I can’t call anyone for help.”
“My phone doesn’t show any signal, too,” said Strike, who had pulled out his phone and was now scrolling down its screen with a curious and worried expression on his face. “Not good.”
I didn’t check my phone or suit-up watch, but I suspected that my devices lacked signals as well, which meant that we were all on our own down here. “How long have you been down here, Trip?”
“A few hours,” said Triplet. He dusted off his overcoat. “Not long enough to make me worried, but long enough to make me want to be stuck back in traffic in NYC again.”
“How have you survived down here all by yourself?” said Strike in amazement. “That tiger alone nearly killed us. I couldn’t imagine surviving down here all by yourself for a few hours.”
Triplet snorted. “Trust me, I’ve been in far worse situations before and survived. Helps that my Thirds are able to distract most of the creatures, but I will admit that I’ve had a hard time finding my way out. With how dark it is down here, everything looks and feels the same. It was sheer luck I stumbled upon you two.”
“Good luck, in this case,” I said. “There is safety in numbers, after all.”
“Perhaps,” said Triplet. He rolled his shoulders. “Now it’s your turn. What brings you two down here?”
Strike explained all about Dizzy’s disappearance, as well as the strange disappearance of Phaser’s corpse from his mausoleum. Triplet, as usual, was a good listener, not interrupting until Strike finished his story.
“Very interesting,” said Triplet. He stroked his chin and looked down at his shoes in thought. “How old is Dizzy?”
“Seventeen,” Strike replied. “Why?”
“Because that’s the average age of the girls I am looking for,” said Triplet, but he still didn’t look up at us. “I wonder if Dizzy’s kidnapping is connected to the kidnapping of Lauren Brooks and the other girls who went missing over the last couple of months, even though Dizzy is from California, not Virginia.”
“Actually, Dizzy was born in Virginia,” Strike corrected, “although her family moved out to California when she was two, so she doesn’t remember much about it.”
Triplet looked up at us again and I could tell that his mind was working in overdrive to make sense of this new information. “Was she, now? Very interesting. It would seem impractical to travel to the other side of the country to pick up just one girl, but maybe Longworth is crazier than I thought.”
“Are you telling us that Longworth is kidnapping all these girls?” I said. “Why?”
“That is what I am trying to figure out,” said Triplet. “Longworth is very much a mad scientist type, so I don’t know why he would want a bunch of teenage girls unless he is experimenting upon them in some way.”
“Like the cyborg tiger,” I said. “Right?”
“Maybe,” said Triplet. He gestured into the darkness that still surrounded us. “All I know is that this place is much bigger than it seems. It appears to me that Longworth has built an entire maze underneath his mansion, full of his creations and experiments. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t been able to find a way out yet. It’s just too big and has far too many dead ends.”
“Brains didn’t mention Longworth having a maze full of monsters under his house,” I said. “Then again, he did say Longworth is a hermit, so maybe he had it built during all those years he spent alone and just didn’t tell anyone.”
“Or maybe it’s always existed and we just didn’t know about it until now,” said Triplet. He glanced around. “This place seems too old to have been built within the last four or five years. In any case, we don’t need to know the origins of the maze in order to escape.”
“Oh, that’s going to be easy after the tiger,” I said. I pointed upward. “I’ll just fly up and bash open the lid. A few good punches and you’ll soon be back in NYC rush hour traffic again.”
Without waiting for either of them to respond, I flew straight up toward the ceiling of the pit. Although it was too dark to see it, I could sense that I was getting closer and closer to the ceiling, so I pulled back my fist and threw a superpowered punch at the ceiling as soon as I got close enough to it.
My fist slammed directly into the steel ceiling, making a loud bong noise echo throughout the pit. Instead of breaking it open, however, I felt the ceiling recoil and hit me back, sending me falling down to the floor as shocking speeds.
I crashed into the floor of the pit hard enough to make a small crater and I lay there, dazed and hurt, wondering what the heck just happened to me and where I even was.
A flashlight suddenly flashed in my face, causing me to blink and hold a hand over my eyes to protect my vision. It was Triplet, who held a flashlight over me with his usual serious frown, while Strike stood next to him with a more anxious expression on his face.
“What happened?” said Strike. “What knocked you down?
Don’t tell me there are creatures hanging from the ceiling, too.”
“I’m not sure what happened,” I said with a groan. “I punched the ceiling, but then the ceiling recoiled and sent me falling back down here.”
“Sounds like Indestructonium,” said Triplet. He glanced up at the ceiling. “How Longworth got his hands on that stuff when only the government is supposed to have it, I don’t know.”
“Indestructonium?” said Strike. He snapped his fingers. “Sorry, but I can’t do anything about that. My magnetic powers don’t work on Indestructonium, unfortunately. We’re out of luck.”
“Then how are we supposed to get out of here?” I said as I sat up, dusting off my shoulders. “There has to be an exit.”
“There probably is, but …” Triplet looked around again before shrugging. “I don’t know where it is.”
I groaned. This was going to be a very long day.
CHAPTER TEN
With the lid a dead end, we decided to head down one of the many side tunnels diverging off from the pit. Apparently, the concrete walls of the pit actually had a few door-sized openings to allow travel between different rooms and chambers. Triplet had already explored a fair few of them, even using his notebook to draw out a rough map to use as our guide, but Triplet stressed that his map was far from complete and that there were still tons and tons of rooms and tunnels he hadn’t even found yet.
Even if Triplet hadn’t stressed that, I wouldn’t have found his map very helpful. While it did give us a vague idea of the size of the maze, it completely lacked any sort of exit or escape route. That was, of course, because Triplet hadn’t found his way out yet, but it was still disappointing nonetheless.
“It’s pretty clear that Longworth designed this maze to be inescapable,” said Triplet when I voiced my disappointment. He held up his map. “There probably is an exit somewhere, but I haven’t found it yet and I am not exactly optimistic that we will.”
I put my hands on my hips. “I’ll just use my super speed and run around the maze until I find something. You guys can stay here and wait for my return.”
“Are you saying we should split up?” said Strike, looking at me like I was stupid. “I know this isn’t a horror movie, but it’s pretty darn close to one and the one lesson I’ve taken from horror movies is that you should never split up.”
“I didn’t know you were a horror movie fan,” I said.
Strike shrugged. “What’s so weird about that? I just like horror movies.”
“Strike is right,” said Triplet. He clicked off his flashlight, which wasn’t necessary anymore thanks to the dim lights along the walls of the tunnel that provided us with some illumination. “Splitting up down here is a bad idea, and I say this as a super with the power to literally split up. There are too many dangerous monsters down here to make that idea practical. Better to stick together until we can find a way to escape. Plus, we don’t want you running into the walls because it’s too dark for you to see where you’re going.”
“My reflexes aren’t that bad,” I said, folding my arms in front of my chest. “But yeah, I guess you guys are right. But I still hate the idea of wandering around down here aimlessly until we stumble upon the exit by sheer luck.”
“I hate it even more than you,” said Strike. He looked up at the ceiling. “Dizzy might be in the mansion above us, maybe being experimented upon by this Longworth guy, and there’s nothing I can do to save her.”
“Both of you need to learn some patience,” said Triplet, glancing over his shoulder at us both. “Despite what I said, I actually think we’re closer to finding the exit now than I was before I found you two. And it’s all thanks to your help.”
I looked at Triplet in confusion. “Our help? What did we do to help?”
Triplet pointed at the walls to our right. “See those walls? What can you see on their surface?”
Frowning, I looked at the walls more closely as we walked by. Faded green arrows space in one foot intervals were painted on the surface of the stone walls, pointing in the direction we were walking. They seemed to be directional arrows as if to help whoever got lost.
“I didn’t see those arrows until you used your lightning powers, which illuminated the walls and let me see them,” said Triplet, putting his hand back into his coat pocket. “They seem to be designed to help people find their way around down here.”
“Meaning if we just follow the arrows, we’ll eventually find our way out of here?” I said.
“Or it will lead us into a trap we can’t get out of,” said Triplet. “But you know me. I prefer to look at the bright side of things. Much more constructive than worrying about things going wrong.”
I rolled my eyes, knowing Triplet’s cynical attitude, but I said, “Well, I hope you’re right because I don’t want to wander around down here forever.”
“Trust me, I don’t, either,” said Triplet. “Regardless of what awaits us up ahead, we need to keep our wits about ourselves. There are still monsters down here, hungry monsters, and they aren’t going to leave us alone just because we killed one of their own.”
I nodded and looked around us. The dim lights on the walls made it easier to see our surroundings, but just barely. Still, it was enough light by which to see that we were completely alone in this particular tunnel, but I still smelled dried animal droppings and a hint of raw meat, which made me wonder if Longworth fed his beasts raw meat to make sure they didn’t starve down here. Despite our apparent aloneness, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone or something was watching us.
Then, without warning, Strike whirled around and fired a laser beam into the shadows behind us. His lasers hit something and I heard what sounded like an engine blow up, followed shortly by a loud clunk as something made out of metal hit the concrete floor.
“What was that?” I said, looking at Strike in surprise.
Strike lowered his hand from the side of his glasses, his eyes still fixed on the darkness. “I heard something following us. Let’s see what it is.”
Strike held out a hand toward the shadows. He must have activated his magnetic powers because a large, round metal ball suddenly flew out of the shadows. He caught the ball with one hand and held it up, allowing Triplet and I to see the object clearly.
It was a metallic ball, slightly larger than a baseball. It looked pretty simple, with no features on it except what appeared to be the lens of a camera. Smoke rose out from the top of the ball, indicating where Strike’s laser beams had hit it.
“What is it?” I said, looking at the machine curiously. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“A drone, I think,” said Triplet. “I saw one of these when I first got down here, but only from a distance. Taking the camera into consideration, I’m guessing Longworth uses these drones to keep an eye on his prisoners.”
“You mean he knows we killed his pet cat?” I said. I waved a hand in front of the camera lens. “Hi, Longworth! Sorry for killing your cat, but it was wild and the poor thing needed to be put down. Might want to think about putting it in a cage next time you have visitors over.”
“He probably can’t see you,” said Strike, turning the small drone over in his hands as to make sure it was broken. “It doesn’t look like it works anymore, so—”
Without warning, the camera lens popped open and a dart shot out of the opening and struck Strike in the neck. Strike gasped in pain and dropped the drone, clutching his neck as the drone fell to the floor and rolled away out of sight.
But I didn’t care about the drone. I put a hand on Strike’s shoulder and said, “Strike, what happened? Are you okay?”
Strike gasped again and said, “N-No. The dart has some sort of poison in it. Feeling weak and … and …”
Strike’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed. Or would have, if I didn’t catch him at the last minute and gently rest him on the floor. I checked his pulse and found that it was still beating, which meant he was just unconscious, not dea
d, although that wasn’t very comforting given I had no idea what kind of poison that dart had in it.
“He’s still alive,” I said, looking up at Triplet. “Just unconscious.”
Triplet scowled. “Knew he shouldn’t have picked it up. Longworth is trickier than I thought. We’ll need to be even more careful in here because it looks like there are more than just monsters running around down—”
Triplet was interrupted by an ear-piercing roar that seemed to make the entire tunnel shake. It came from somewhere up ahead, but the dim lights of the tunnel were not bright enough to let us see that far down. But I could hear something making its way toward us, one heavy footstep at a time, drawing closer and closer to us like a predator on the hunt.
“Holy crap,” I said. “What was that?”
Triplet’s face paled when he heard the roar. “Something you don’t want to see. Let’s get out of here. Now.”
“Now?” I said. I gestured at Strike. “But Strike is unconscious.”
“Then carry him,” Triplet snapped. He seemed unusually stressed, which made me wonder exactly what had just roared. “You’re strong enough to do that. Or drag him like a sack of potatoes. I really don’t care. Just grab him before it gets here.”
I was about to ask Triplet what ‘it’ was when, without warning, a bright, almost blinding light filled the tunnel. It was like the headlights of a huge monster truck at midnight, forcing me to cover my eyes to avoid getting blinded.
“Oh, no …” said Triplet, also covering his eyes, though he seemed to be trying to see through the light at the same time. “It’s here …”
Before I could ask Triplet what he meant, there was another ear-piercing roar—much closer now—and this time, it was Triplet’s turn to suddenly collapse onto the floor, unconscious.
