by Wyatt Kane
<<<>>>
As Tempest carried him through the air, Ty found himself enjoying the blonde superhero’s strength and close presence even more than usual. It wasn’t hard to figure out why. Their last journey through the skies together had been an experience Ty would look back on fondly for the rest of his life.
At the same time, he couldn’t help but feel unprepared. He had his mesh suit and modified blaster, and he’d brought his police baton with him as well.
But he didn’t know what the Master had planned for them. The shadowy villain knew Tempest’s strengths well, and even if he didn’t fully understand the nature of Ty’s abilities, the mercenaries he’d already fought would have reported back. They knew he was durable within his shield. Would they have come up with some way to counter that?
With his talent, Ty could effectively change his stats, leveling up at need. He could give himself strengths and abilities beyond those he currently possessed, and that could prove decisive.
He could be the ace in the deck, but only if he did the work needed to get there.
At the same time as enjoying the flight with Tempest, Ty worried that he hadn’t found time to work on his shield. He hadn’t found a way to prevent fall damage. His durability was good, but his strength and stamina were no greater than normal.
He hadn’t yet done any of the things he meant to do.
As Tempest started to drop toward the expanse of the park beneath them, Ty promised himself that should they survive whatever was to come, he would do that work as soon as possible.
Tempest’s usual habit was to find an out-of-the-way place to land, often an alley or vacant lot. But this was different. There were still several minutes to go before the digital timer was due to run out, but that didn’t mean they could take their time. They didn’t know what the Master planned.
So Tempest’s first option was to circle the park from above. It became clear right away that Dinah’s message hadn’t got through, or hadn’t been believed. Tempest swore quietly to herself at all the people on the ground.
“See anything?” she asked in Ty’s ear.
Ty was also disappointed that the park hadn’t been shut down. To him, it looked the same as normal. A busy place filled with people, many of them children running about candy floss and hotdogs in their hands. The park was spread over several acres, and as well as the mighty pendulum ride in the middle, there was a rollercoaster at one end, a Ferris wheel to the side, and multiple smaller merry-go-round type rides for the youngsters. There was a haunted house, a house of mirrors, and a line of fairground attractions and booths where the sharp eyed and coordinated could perhaps win a prize.
Everywhere Ty looked, there were smiling, happy people, just going about their day at the park as if there was nothing amiss. To Ty, it was like an oasis of good cheer within an ocean of gloom that defined the rest of the city.
“No, nothing,” he said, shaking his head.
“Me neither,” Tempest replied. “Time for a closer look,” she said.
With that, she picked a spot behind the row of booths where few would see them and came in for a landing.
A random customer looked at them in surprise and confusion, but Tempest and Ty ignored him.
As soon as Ty found his balance, Tempest let him go. “We should split up. Look for anything suspicious. Mercenaries, your friend Lilith, whatever. If you see anything, contact me right away, and I’ll do the same.”
33: Scare Kingdom
Ty knew they didn’t have long before the Master’s time limit ran out. With increasing worry, he made his way through the park, looking for anything out of the ordinary. But he didn’t even know what shape that might take. What did, “out of the ordinary” look like? What would the Master have planned?
“Think like a villain,” Ty said to himself. “What is his plan? Why are we here?”
Yet all he could think of was maybe a bomb in one of the trash cans, and that just didn’t seem spectacular enough.
The shadowy villain wanted to put enough lives in danger to flush Ty and Tempest out. What he would do after that was secondary. The Master’s primary goal was to attract their attention. Would a bomb in a trash can fit the bill?
If it did, then how could he or Tempest find it in time?
He wondered if he should just start firing his blaster in the air and yelling at the top of his lungs for people to run. But he knew that would just create panic and perhaps do more harm than good.
And maybe that was what the Master wanted anyway. Maybe he wanted Ty and Tempest to be the threat to the amusement park. To get them in trouble with the authorities while he sat back and laughed as his men engaged in some other scheme entirely.
There was just so much Ty didn’t know, and that lack of knowledge was more than frustrating.
He found himself cursing to himself loudly enough that a small child looked his way. He gave her a fleeting grin, then continued along the pathway, looking for anything out of place. It was all he could realistically do.
But the park remained disconcertingly normal. People were talking and laughing. The intermittent odors of popcorn and fried food wafted by. As Ty approached the various rides, fairground music washed over him in much the same way that Martin’s techno punk music did in the Club.
Nothing at all stood out to him as unusual, and he hoped Tempest was having better luck.
With his frustration mounting with every passing moment, he forced himself to stop for a moment and just think. He was on a slight rise with people passing him on all sides, and from there he could see much of the park. He asked himself not just what a normal villain might do, but what a comic book villain might do to gain a hero’s attention. Because to Ty, that was the key. They were no longer dealing with ordinary criminals any more, but legitimate supervillains. The Master wasn’t just a bad guy hidden in the shadows. He was their nemesis, their adversary. For some reason, the Master had set himself in opposition to them in the same way that trademarked characters in comic books and films did with Ty and Tempest’s fictional counterparts.
But what did that mean?
For long moments, Ty just stood there cudgeling his brain. He tried to work out what these comic book supervillians all had in common. But at first, he couldn’t understand. They were all so different.
And then he had it. He understood. Every supervillain ever conceived had a knack for drama. Spectacle. Which had to be what the Master was going for as well. How else would he attract Ty and Tempest’s attention?
Whatever the Master was planning, it had to be big.
At the thought, Ty found himself staring at the pendulum ride. The centerpiece of the park. A massive construction of steel more than fifty feet tall.
Even from where Ty stood, he could see it clearly. Four colossal legs joining at a juncture high in the sky, from which a pendulum swung. At the base of that pendulum, there was a circular platform or gondola that could carry more than forty people all strapped in and facing outward.
As Ty watched, that circular gondola slowly started to spin.
Then the pendulum began to swing. It was gentle yet, but Ty knew from personal experience that it wouldn’t stay so for long. The pendulum would swing back and forth, going faster and faster while the people at in the gondola were spun all around. By the time the pendulum reached the horizontal, people would be screaming in excitement and pseudo-terror.
But the pendulum wouldn’t stop there. Each swing would take the people higher and higher until at last, the impossible happened. It would pause near the top of the ride, at around a hundred feet in the air, and then with one more swing, it would complete the circuit.
Ty remembered the adrenaline rush of being swung completely upside down while spinning in a circle. It had been a marvelous ride, and he would jump at the chance to do it again.
But just at that moment, as he watched the pendulum swing back and forth, a cold dread clutched at his innards. He knew without a hint of a doubt what the Master had in min
d.
The pendulum ride was by far the most dramatic, most sensational thing at Scare Kingdom. And with more than forty people per ride, what better option was there for creating havoc?
Ty started toward the pendulum ride automatically. He had no idea what he could do to prevent the tragedy he feared was coming. But he had no choice. He had to do whatever he could.
As he broke into a jog, he used his device to call Tempest. Even though her device was still on her ankle rather than her wrist, she responded in an instant.
“The pendulum!” Ty blurted.
“On my way,” Tempest responded.
Ty was closest. He made it to the base of the ride before she did. Up close, it looked truly forbidding. Even the pendulum alone would have weighed several tons. And the noise it made as it cut through the air – it was like standing too close to a truck thundering past combined with a ratcheting sound as the gondola spun about, and the excited, terrified shouts of half a hundred people gleefully looking fear in the eye.
There was a wire fence between Ty and the ride. Another twenty people had already gathered under the eye of a park worker standing at the gate, opposite a booth where a man sold tickets.
Ty couldn’t wait for Tempest. He had to do something. He went up to the booth, pushing in front of a family of four who were about to buy tickets.
“You have to stop the ride!” he said, trying to keep his voice under control. “Something is going to happen! People are in danger! You’ve got to stop it!”
The man just looked at him, and Ty knew what he was thinking. In the Club, he’d watched Badger, the bouncer, deal with psychos and nut jobs on a daily basis. The look on the booth attendant’s face said that he thought Ty to be one of them. Nor did it help that the family were starting to get vocal behind him.
“Hey, buddy, there’s a line here,” the man said at the same time as his wife spoke up. “Do you mind?”
But Ty had no time for politeness. He tried again. “Look, I know what it sounds like. But trust me, a threat has been leveled at this park. You have to stop this ride!”
The man had a round face, and the only modifications Ty could see were his ears, which pointed and sported multiple rings. Perhaps he’d thought to look like an elf, but if he had, he fell short of the mark. He was more of a goblin, or perhaps a pointy-eared gnome.
He was shaking his head and looked vaguely annoyed. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. If you want to go on this ride, join the queue like everyone else. But if you continue to make a disturbance, I will have no choice but to contact security.”
Ty was beyond frustrated. He wanted to pick the man up and shake some sense into him, but there was little he could actually do. He looked around, searching for inspiration, and all of a sudden Tempest was beside him. Ty hadn’t seen where she had come from. For all he knew, she might have dropped from the sky like an angel fallen from heaven.
“Have you seen something?” she asked, all business. The time of the Master’s threat was upon them.
Ty shook his head. “No. But if this Master is trying to make a statement, can you think of a better option?”
It was good enough for Tempest. She took Ty’s place at the counter, giving rise to more complaints from the family behind them. She ignored them completely. “Stop this ride now!” she demanded, a great deal more forcefully than Ty had done.
It was too little, too late. The ride was reaching its finale, with the pendulum swinging all the way to the top. The pointy eared gnome shook his head and started to speak. “Lady, as I said to your boyfriend –”
But that was as far as he got before being interrupted by a muted explosion coupled with the rending of metal.
34: An Immediate Threat
It was horrendous. It was like the sound a garbage truck might make if a giant grabbed it and twisted it apart. Metal screeched, and people screamed loudly. Ty’s heart leapt into his throat and he looked about to see what had happened.
To start with, he didn’t understand. The pendulum had paused at its highest point, holding the spinning gondola full of people about a hundred feet in the air. At first glance, it looked perfectly normal.
Then Ty looked down to the pivot point and saw that it had become misshapen. Smoke was pouring out of the gears. Somehow, the Master had sabotaged the ride at the most dangerous point.
“Tempest!” Ty cried. With the pivot point so badly damaged, the pendulum wouldn’t swing gracefully back to its starting position. It would slam to the ground, hurling more than forty people at the concrete at a phenomenal speed.
He didn’t see how anyone would survive.
“I see it!” Tempest said. “Stay here! Look out for danger!”
With that, Tempest launched herself into the air. Despite her words, Ty watched her streak into the sky. As the pendulum started its descent, she put her shoulder to it.
Ty knew Tempest was strong and that her ability to manipulate energy enhanced that strength. But could she really control so much weight? So many tons of metal?
He could only hope that she could.
The noise of the explosion and rending of metal attracted attention. The family Ty and Tempest had pushed in front of were among the first to notice. They let out gasps of shock and horror as they pointed up at the smoke and Tempest above it.
Nor were they the only ones. The twenty or so people who had already paid also started to point and stare. The park worker guarding the gate, a young woman whose skin had been modified to give off a silvery glow, let out an expletive so extreme it took Ty by surprise.
The pointy-eared gnome came out of his booth and blustered about. “What have you done?” he demanded of Ty.
“It wasn’t us,” Ty responded. “We were trying to stop it!”
The sound of grinding metal continued. It was clear to all that the pendulum had been dealt a catastrophic blow. The pivot point crumbled under its weight, and Ty knew that the only reason the pendulum hadn’t fallen was because of Tempest.
He stood there, wanting to help but knowing that his shield and blaster were next to useless. There was nothing he could do.
Except that the explosion was just the first step.
Boom!
It wasn’t an explosion this time, but the sound of something massive hitting steel. At first, Ty couldn’t see where it had come from, and then it repeated.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Again and again, blow after blow. And amongst it all, a malignant laughter that Ty recognized.
He felt the dread tie knots in his innards. Ty knew that laughter. He’d heard it before, and it wasn’t good.
Someone in the crowd yelled out. “Look, over there!”
Ty looked, and it was as he feared. This was the Master’s secret weapon, the difference between success and failure. It was Bain. The monstrous man was standing next to the far leg of the pendulum ride, laughing as he smashed at it with his fists. Boom! Boom! Boom!
If Ty tried to do that, the effect would have been laughable. He would break every bone in his hand with the first punch, and that would be that. But Bain was not a normal man. He was huge, more than eight feet tall and built as if he injected gallons of steroids directly into his muscles.
The leg of the pendulum ride was solid steel. A girder made of iron maybe two inches thick. It had been built to withstand the pressure of the pendulum swinging back and forth, and that pressure was substantial. Even someone built like Bain shouldn’t have been able to do any damage. It should have been like an ant trying to take down a tree.
But Bain wore a device on his wrist. The Architect’s own device, most likely. As well as his size and formidable physique, Bain was stupendously strong.
He had gone one-on-one with Tempest more than once, and lived to tell the tale.
When last Ty had seen him, the monstrous man had been defeated. Tempest had flown him to the outer reaches of the atmosphere, then pile-driven him into the ground. Bain had been bad
ly injured, but it seemed to Ty that extreme strength and durability were not the only attributes the man had.
It had only been a day since that almost-defeat. Ty hadn’t seen Bain’s character sheet, but his ability to heal must have been off the charts.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
With each powerful blow, the monstrous villain sent shudders up the length of the leg. Ty could see it clearly. The vibrations were only minor at the base, but where Tempest was, high in the air, they were severe.
Nor was that the worst of it. Already, the leg was starting to become malformed. Bain was weakening the leg of the ride with his bare fists alone.
All about Ty, people were starting to cry out in fear or dismay, and he could hear screams of real terror from high above.
Without even thinking, Ty activated his shield and drew his blaster all at once, taking off at a run and hurdling the low fence as he did. As far from Bain as he was, the blaster would do no more damage than a gust of wind. Ty needed to get closer.
This was his task. He may not have been able to help Tempest directly, but he could prevent Bain from making things worse.
This was what Ty’s shield had been built for.
With a snarl of rage, Ty ran as fast as he could, cutting the distance between Bain and himself with quick strides. Bain saw him coming, but continued to pound on the leg and laughed his malignant laugh. Boom! Boom! Boom!
Ty felt his anger increase with every stride he took, with every time Bain hit the leg. He wanted to press the blaster against Bain’s face and pull the trigger. If he did that, he doubted even Bain would be able to survive.
Yet even as he had the thought, Ty wondered at Brad’s words. Bain was a recurring boss. His powers of recovery were obviously far beyond normal. Would he be able to recover from death?
Would this monster be able to respawn?
Not if he doesn’t have the device on his wrist, Ty thought, and promised himself that his first task once Bain was down would be to take the man’s arm off at the shoulder.
Ty gritted his teeth in anger. He was just a couple of seconds away from pulling his trigger, and the monstrous man had done nothing to defend himself. He just stood there, watching, grinning, and pounding away. Ty thought he had won. He thought nothing could stop him.
