‘How can I help?’ Ebony asked.
Dan nodded to the building. ‘Stop that from collapsing if you can,’ he said. ‘I tried but didn’t get very far.’
He had used his power to bend light poles against the building in a crude attempt to prop it up. The structure still looked like it was about to topple at any moment. The building gave another groan as larger pieces of masonry began dropping to the street. Ebony’s eyes strayed to a police officer who was leaving the structure with a child in her arms.
A section of brickwork broke loose and fell toward them. The policewoman tried to race free, slipped, and went crashing to the sidewalk. Ebony ran over and turned the brickwork to oxygen at the last moment.
‘Thanks,’ the cop said, standing. ‘I think everyone’s out, but the building’s not going to last.’
Ebony nodded.
Maybe there’s something I can do.
She had to be careful. Very careful. If she didn’t get the balance right, this could all go horribly wrong. She’d never tried to alter such a big object before.
Well, she thought. First time for everything.
Focusing, Ebony touched a hand to the wall nearest her and turned it to titanium. She spread the metal down to the ground and across the street, so it was one solid piece. She couldn’t put too much metal into the building yet; the weight would make the whole structure collapse.
‘Watch out!’ Dan screamed.
She glanced about in time to see Dan maneuver a piece of metal over her head.
Claaaang!
A section of brickwork bounced off the makeshift shield. Ebony grunted a word of thanks as she continued to turn the road to titanium. Next, she focused on doing the same to the building. The bottom section of the structure was stable, but it was taking time to transform the upper floors.
She peered up.
Second floor. Good. Third floor. Good.
The upper section began to shake violently.
I’m not going to make it.
‘Ebony,’ Dan said, drawing near. ‘We’ve got to go.’
She gasped. ‘Just a bit longer.’
At that moment, Liber8tor swung into view as Ferdy braced the ship against the upper floors. Small pieces tumbled down, striking Dan’s shield. It was like being under a metal roof in the middle of a storm. Dan kept the metal cover in place as Ebony continued to transform the brickwork to iron.
Her wristcom came to life. ‘Ferdy will try to keep the building in place,’ he said. ‘But Ebony must hurry.’
Ebony continued to focus.
Fourth floor. Fifth floor. Sixth floor…
A final brick slammed onto the metal cover.
‘Ebony,’ Dan said. ‘You’ve done it.’
Exhausted, Ebony fell back from the building and peered up at the structure. The entire building had been transformed into titanium. Emergency service workers broke into applause as Ferdy brought the Liber8tor down into the street.
Ebony looked about. She’d never been the center of so much attention before and felt herself reddening as dozens of eyes focused on her.
Brodie raced over. ‘Ebony!’ she said. ‘That was fantastic!’
‘Thanks,’ Ebony said, then looked around. ‘Where’s Chad and Axel?’
Chapter Six
Boom!
The power blast struck the side of my air shield, and I was catapulted through the sky. I fired more air cannonballs at the robot, but it deflected them. Chad followed up with a burst of fire. Throwing him backward, the stranger quickly responded with another burst of orange energy.
We were high over the center of Washington. Army helicopters and fighter jets had begun to circle the entire area. The White House was only a few miles from where we were battling the robot.
Ka-boom!
Another orange power blast struck my shield.
Chad flew over to me. ‘We’re not making any headway,’ he said. ‘Nothing seems to affect it.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘It seems indestructible.’
The robot turned from us and pointed to a nearby helicopter. Letting out a blast, it annihilated the rear end of the chopper. I flew through the sky as the chopper began to swing wildly about. It had no chance of landing safely. Grabbing what remained of the helicopter, another blast hit its side, sending an army officer falling from the interior. I watched in horror as the man dropped toward the ground.
I can’t save both him and the chopper!
Then I spotted Chad. Arrowing through the air, he caught the man and gently took him to the ground as I lowered the helicopter. Within seconds, we had the remainder of the crew evacuated and on firm ground.
My eyes scanned the sky.
Where’s the robot gone?
No!
A power blast had struck the Washington Monument's midpoint sending pieces of stone and metal flying as the entire structure shuddered. Hundreds of tourists visited the monument every day. They’re in danger. I flew to the structure's side, gripping it in a desperate attempt to keep the monument upright.
Then I felt the vibration stop. Glancing down, I saw that Chad had applied thick ice to the hole in the side. He flew up to me.
‘That won’t last for long,’ he said.
‘Hopefully, they’ll have the place evacuated soon,’ I said, glancing about. ‘Any idea where our friend went?’
‘I think it’s gone for now.’ Chad shook his head. ‘That robot was tough to beat.’
‘You’re telling me—and we didn’t even beat it. The thing just got tired of playing with us and flew off.’
We headed back toward the building where my double had lived. Halfway back, I turned to Chad, who was on his fireboard.
‘By the way,’ I said. ‘Thanks for saving me.’
‘Huh? When?’
I laughed. ‘Back in the apartment,’ I said. ‘You pushed me out of the way when the robot fired at us.’
Chad shook his head. ‘Don’t mention it,’ he said, his face growing serious. ‘I’m sorry about this double of yours. If it’s your brother or even if it’s you.’
I’d never seen Chad look this worried before. ‘It’s okay,’ I said.
He shook his head. ‘It’s not,’ he said. ‘If the guy was your twin or your brother, then that’s a loss. But if it’s you…well, we’ve got to do everything we can to stop you from time traveling.’
I gave him a reassuring smile. ‘If I suddenly get the impulse,’ I said, ‘then stop me.’
‘I will.’
We landed on the street near the building, where we discovered that Ebony had decided to turn the building into a vast titanium fortress.
‘Hey, sis,’ Chad said. ‘That’s impressive.’
Ebony laughed. ‘Thanks. I think it’s my best work.’
It looked like the police had everything under control, so we returned to Liber8tor.
‘Where to now?’ Dan asked.
I produced the key from my pocket. ‘The storage facility that this key unlocks,’ I said. ‘I think that’s our best bet.’
We took off and were soon landing outside of a place called Leonards Storage. Located in Deanwood, it was a medium-sized brick building with yellow signage out the front. These sorts of places were often unmanned or monitored by video camera only. Passing the front desk, we navigated up through the building to the number that matched the key. The storage locker was identical to all the others: it was like a small garage with a single number painted on a roller door.
‘Here goes nothing,’ I said.
As I pushed the door up, a light went on automatically in the room beyond. It was completely empty except for a chest in the middle. Exchanging glances, we crossed slowly to it.
‘Wait a minute,’ Dan said. ‘This is just like Journey To Yabbada.’
‘Huh?’ Ebony said.
Chad spoke. ‘This is nothing like Journey to Yabbada.’
‘It is,’ Dan insisted. ‘It’s exactly like the Chest of Eternal Damnation.’
I peer
ed down at the chest. It did bear an uncanny resemblance to The Chest of Eternal Damnation. In the game, the chest was a terrible trap that dragged people in when they opened it. I’d been caught by it a few times myself. The idea was that you were sucked into the chest and had to spend the rest of eternity languishing in some kind of hellish landscape.
‘If I get sucked in,’ I said. ‘Cast a lifeline spell.’
Grabbing the latch on the chest, I gently pulled it up to reveal a single object: a laptop computer.
‘There are no demons,’ Chad said. ‘Although that’s a pretty old laptop. That’s almost as bad.’
I booted it up, but it came up with a login screen. ‘I don’t dare to try logging in,’ I said. ‘We need to get this back to The Agency.’
Returning to Liber8tor, we flew back to New York and were soon huddled about in one of the meeting rooms.
‘Ferdy?’ Brodie said. ‘Can you hear us?’
‘Ferdy can hear you.’
‘We need you to hack this laptop. Can you do that?’
‘Ferdy can try.’
Brodie plugged in the device, turned it on, and ran a USB lead to The Agency network. Ferdy told us he was accessing the data. A few seconds later, he told us he’d successfully broken in.
‘There is a single document on the laptop,’ Ferdy said. ‘Everything else is the operating system.’
‘What’s the document about?’ I asked.
But it was a pointless question as the laptop’s screen came to life, showing the almost empty desktop. The only thing on it other than the standard icons was a single file. The document’s name told me everything I needed to know.
Ravana.
Chapter Seven
‘Seriously?’ Chad said.
A chill went through me as I stared at the name. Doctor Ravana. We had only met him on a few occasions, and it had never been under good circumstances. He was a sadistic doctor who I’d first met not long after waking up with my powers. He had tortured me for information I didn’t have and would have killed me except Brodie came to my rescue.
Chad had later set him ablaze, badly injuring him. Eventually, Ravana had been killed but had miraculously come back to life.
Doctor Ravana.
On that occasion, he’d tried to take revenge on us by making me believe I’d found my family. At the same time, he’d trapped the rest of the team in a virtual reality simulator. Fortunately, we’d discovered his ruse and escaped. Ravana was now serving a life sentence in jail.
‘Well,’ Chad said. ‘That says it all.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘This whole thing is a trap,’ he said. ‘It’s a scheme devised by Ravana to try to capture us again.’
I stared at the file.
‘Open it up,’ Dan said.
Clicking on the file, it opened to show a photo of the man who had tortured me. Another shudder went up my spine. He was an evil monster. I would have been pleased to see him dead. Skimming through the file, it quickly became evident that this was a dossier about him, a biography about his education, where he’d been and what he’d done.
‘Okay,’ Ebony said, nodding. ‘He once told us he couldn’t be killed. That he was invincible. Looks like he was telling the truth.’
The document contained dozens of pictures of him, many decades old. In all of them, Ravana never seemed to age. I shuddered. One of the most disturbing pictures showed him in a Nazi uniform.
‘That’s horrible,’ Brodie said.
But not surprising, I thought. Nothing would surprise me about this creep.
There were other pictures too. One was from an old painting from somewhere in Western Europe. It was hard to believe, but one of the people in the group was Ravana.
‘So he’s some kind of modified human,’ Chad said.
‘Or alien,’ Dan nodded.
‘Seems that way,’ I said.
‘Anyway,’ Chad said. ‘We need to steer clear of him and this whole escapade.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘We need to follow this up.’
Chad turned to me in amazement. ‘Axel,’ he said. ‘This is a trap. It reeks of this horrible man. He’s tried to kill us before. This is just another attempt.’
‘To trap us? From jail? I don’t think so.’
Brodie spoke up. ‘I don’t see how it can be a trap,’ she said. ‘He’s in a maximum-security prison. I doubt he’s allowed any visitors or any type of communication.’
The others continued to argue as I read through the document. It contained a lot of information, but most of it had been gleaned from news reports. There were even mentions of us concerning Ravana’s capture.
A line of text was highlighted in bold:
…Ravana was caught by a group of superheroes he tried to capture and use for their adrenal glands…
My eyes focused on the line. Glen knew about us. He knew about me. So why did he never make contact? I could only think of one reasonable explanation. If I were sent back in time, I wouldn’t make contact either. That could upset the entire timeline. I’d done that once before, and it had almost resulted in disaster.
But now I know, I thought. Knowing what lies ahead, I can make different decisions.
My mind reeled. If I really were Glen Johnson—if I ever did find myself in the past and assumed that identity—I needed to know what got me there. I could stop all that from happening, but I couldn’t operate with ignorance. Information was power. The more I knew about what was going on, the better.
‘Chad,’ I said, breaking into their conversation. ‘I appreciate what you’re saying, but we need to know. We don’t have any other options, and we need to move forward. Speaking to Ravana is our best bet.’
Reluctantly, he and the others agreed.
‘We’ll back you on this,’ Chad said. ‘But if you end up being experimented on like a lab rat, you’ve only got yourself to blame.’
Contacting Mister Brown, I arranged for us to travel to see Doctor Ravana in jail. It took less than an hour for the agent to get back to us.
‘I spoke to the warden,’ he said. ‘He’s arranged a visit for 10.00am tomorrow.’
‘Okay,’ I said, turning to the others. ‘I think we need to finish our training for the day.’
‘You can still train after everything we’ve been through?’ Brodie said.
‘The more prepared we are, the better.’
The Agency was still putting a training program in place for the burgeoning number of trainee superheroes who were joining their ranks. It was clear they were having problems making the whole system work. The rest of our day was a strange combination of traditional school learning and individualized training for teenagers with various powers.
That night, I met up with the others in The Agency’s main dining hall. There were about fifty teenagers spread about the hall. Most were eating, but a lot were on their phones or laptops. A few were clowning about; one kid was firing tiny electric shocks at another as they retaliated with shots of sticky globs. In one corner, a girl levitated over her seat while she read. In another, two boys played chess upside down on the ceiling.
I spotted Chad. He had his arm around Quinn. They were looking very friendly. It was nice to see. Ironic, too, considering he had started off disliking her.
Relationships are weird sometimes, I thought.
Dan was reading on his laptop. He motioned me over.
‘Hey,’ he said.
‘Hey you.’
‘I’ve been checking your twin’s laptop,’ he said.
‘And? Did you find anything?’
‘Only that it’s pretty much a pile of junk,’ he said. ‘If he didn’t find it in a trash can, then he mustn’t have paid much for it. I examined that file too. It looks like he created it over a long time, adding information as it came to hand.’
‘Any idea why he was so interested in Ravana?’
Dan shook his head. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘But there’s one interesting thing. There’s a couple of
references to The Swan in here.’
The Swan?
Now, I thought. That does bring back some memories.
That was the man Doctor Richards had referred me to in the hotel room before he died. I’d eventually located the building where the Swan was located. As I arrived there, however, The Swan had been hurled out of the building and fallen to his death. Ravana had been his killer. I’d never learned his name. Even after asking Mister Brown and others at The Agency, it seemed he was one of the doctors involved in The Alpha Project.
What could The Swan have to do with all this?
Sitting there in silence, I ate dinner with Dan as he continued to examine the laptop. I couldn’t help but think back to that moment. The Swan had slammed into a nearby vehicle, dying instantly. I’d always felt guilty about it. If I’d gotten there earlier, I would have probably found out everything about our origins: who our parents were and why we were chosen for The Alpha Project.
Dan was working his way through his third bowl of pasta bolognese. His prodigious appetite never failed to amaze me. He was taller than he had been. Maybe all that food was making him grow.
‘I wonder if we found everything back at the storage locker,’ Dan mused.
‘There was only that chest,’ I pointed out.
‘Yeah,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘But we found the laptop and didn’t bother searching anymore.’
‘That’s true,’ I said thoughtfully.
‘How about Ferdy and I recheck the storage locker? You and the others go to see Ravana.’
‘Do you mind?’
Dan raised an eyebrow. ‘Mind?’ he said. ‘The guy’s a psycho. I’ll be glad to never see him again for as long as I live.’
Thanking him, I returned to my room and went to bed. From here, I had a view of some apartment buildings across the road. It wasn’t the best view in the world, but I’d grown to like it. On one building clung a flashing neon sign of a bear advertising cookies. It blinked on and off at night.
Peering out at the flashing sign, I eventually closed my eyes. It took me a while to get to sleep, and when I did, I dreamed of Glen Johnson on the slab in the morgue. The dream became a nightmare as he woke up and his cloudy, dead eyes stared into mine…
Teen Superheroes Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 98
