The Superhero's Clone

by Lucas Flint

  My eyes widened when the implications sunk in. “So you’re telling me that this accelerated aging process doesn’t end after you leave the tubes.”

  “Correct,” said Uncle Jake. “It gets even worse, actually. The only way to slow it down is by putting us in suspended animation. That’s how I managed to survive all these years because I was inside a suspended animation pod that slowed my body’s aging process down to a snail crawl. But my body began aging again as soon as I was freed from my slumber.”

  “How much time do you think you have left before you die?” I said.

  Uncle Jake shrugged again. “A few weeks, maybe, or perhaps a couple of months if I am really lucky. I’m actually a lot luckier than most clones. The other clones didn’t last nearly as long as I did. I’m not sure why I’ve lasted so long. Maybe I really do have a soul, though probably not a full one.”

  “Maybe we could save you,” I suggested. “Hero Island has some of the best medical staff in the world. If we could get you there—”

  “Has modern medicine managed to heal aging yet?” asked Uncle Jake. “Considering all of the obituaries I see in the newspaper every day, I don’t think it has. There’s nothing you or anyone else can do for me. Sooner or later, I will die, which is why I must get redemption as soon as possible.”

  “Your redemption,” I repeated. “How are you going to do that?”

  Uncle Jake punched his fist into his other hand. “By killing Seth Richards, of course. He may have created me, but he’s an evil man with evil plans for the world. That’s why I came to Montana. I came to seek out Seth Richards and kill him in cold blood. It’s what he deserves.”

  Uncle Jake sounded surprisingly bloodthirsty, but I said, “So Seth Richards is here in Montana?”

  Uncle Jake nodded. “His last cloning facility is out here somewhere. He told me about it once when I was still working for him. I don’t know if he is actually there or not, but it’s the only lead I’ve got, and I won’t stop until I find him.”

  “Well, I want to stop him, too,” I said. I held out a hand. “I can help you defeat Seth Richards. If the two of us work together, we might be able to stop him for good. What do you say? Do you want to work with me or not … Uncle?”

  That last word seemed to work like a spell on Uncle Jake because he suddenly looked at me as if he had never seen me before. He wiped the tears from his eyes and said, “I guess so, but don’t call me uncle. I am not your uncle, even if I share his genetic code with him.”

  “We’ll see about that,” I said, although I couldn’t help but smile anyway.

  Uncle Jake took one step forward, but then stopped when a soft clapping sound came from nowhere. The two of us immediately looked around the tiny church, but as far as we could tell, there was no one else in here other than us.

  “What a beautiful family reunion,” said a familiar high-pitched voice I had been hoping not to hear again. “It almost pains me to have to be the one to break it up … almost.”

  Before our startled eyes, Phaser rose up through the floor in the middle of the main aisle. He looked about the same as the last time I saw him, but somehow he looked even smugger than before if that was possible. With his arms folded in front of his chest, he gazed upon us with wicked glee in his eyes.

  “Phaser,” I said, my hands balling into fists. “I didn’t expect you to show up again so soon.”

  Phaser shrugged. “Nice to see you again as well, Bolt, although I am surprised you recovered from Red Tide’s toxins so quickly. Perhaps Red Tide’s powers aren’t as strong as they seemed.”

  Then Phaser turned around to face Uncle Jake. “Regardless, I’m not here for you, but for good old Fisticuffs here. Seth is really tired of you being free. It’s time for you to come home.”

  Phaser then rushed toward Uncle Jake, his hands outstretched, a terrifying grin on his ugly face.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  My super speed kicked in instinctively and I shot into the air, flying over Phaser and reaching Uncle Jake before he did. I grabbed Uncle Jake’s arm and yanked him to the side, narrowly avoiding Phaser, who fell into the floorboards and disappeared from sight.

  “That was too close,” I said to a bewildered Uncle Jake, who was staring at the floor as if not quite sure he had actually seen Phaser disappear. “Uncle, we need to get you out of here before Phaser returns. Follow me.”

  Thankfully, Uncle Jake did not question my orders and the two of us rushed across the church to the front doors. Just as we came within arm’s reach, the doors were suddenly kicked open so hard that one of them even got knocked off its hinges. Uncle Jake and I skidded to a stop as we looked upon the figure standing in the doorway.

  At first, it was hard to tell who stood before us. With his back to the moonlight, his form was silhouetted, but his outline resembled the armor of a knight. Then blue eyes glowed from within a helmet and he drew a long, black sword from his side.

  “Mecha Knight?” I said in astonishment. “What are you doing here?”

  “I am here for the clone,” said Mecha Knight. His eyes locked onto Uncle Jake. “Per Seth Richards’ orders.”

  Uh oh. I had forgotten that Seth’s control over Mecha Knight extended well past the Vaultwork and into the real world. That meant that Mecha Knight was not really in control of his mental faculties at the moment, but that was hardly a reassuring thought when I looked at his wicked sharp blade and knew exactly how much damage he could cause if he wanted to.

  Mecha Knight raised his sword, but then the shadows around him twisted and shadow tendrils emerged from the floor around him, wrapping around his arms and legs. Surprised, Mecha Knight tried to fight back, but it was clear that even his robotic strength couldn’t break the shadows restraining him right now.

  “Sorry, Mr. Knight,” said Shade, who I noticed standing on the steps behind Mecha Knight, “but we still have some business with Bolt that would be really hard to finish if he was dead.”

  For once in my life, I was grateful for Shade’s presence. She really did seem to restrain Mecha Knight, whose mechanical body was making all sorts of strange creaking noises as his joints struggled against the shadows.

  Then he abruptly went limp, which I thought meant he had given up until a compartment in his chest popped open and a small, round ball with a blinking blue light fell out of it and landed on the floor rather roughly. A second later, bright white light—almost as bright as the sun itself—exploded from within the ball, forcing me and Uncle Jake to close our eyes to avoid getting blinded. I heard Shade scream in pain for a second before she was abruptly cut off by a dull thud, but I didn’t see what happened to her until the light faded and I lowered my hands from my eyes.

  Shade lay at the foot of the steps, her eyes closed and her body very still. Mecha Knight, on the other hand, was completely freed from the shadow tendrils that had been holding him back. He dusted himself off before returning his attention to us, his helmet looking more terrifying than usual under the darkness of the night.

  Then Mecha Knight rushed toward us and swung his sword directly at my head. I ducked, however, and responded with a solid kick to the knee, which caused Mecha Knight to stumble. Rather than take advantage of this moment to finish him off, however, I grabbed Uncle Jake and rushed past the open doorway out into the cold air of the Montana night.

  When we reached the bottom of the steps, I heard footfalls around us and looked around to see Fingerprints and Blizzard running from around the building toward us.

  “Bolt!” said Fingerprints as he ran up to us. “I heard noise inside and—What happened to Shade?”

  Fingerprints noticed the unconscious Shade lying at the bottom of the steps and immediately bent over to inspect her. “Who did this to her?”

  “Mecha Knight,” I said grimly.

  “Mecha Knight?” Blizzard repeated. “What do you mean ‘Mecha Knight’? He’s not—”

  Blizzard was interrupted by the loud sound of mechanical joints creaking. We looked up a
t the entrance to the church to see Mecha Knight standing there again, his sword held at his side. His cold robotic eyes fell upon us and I could tell he was already thinking of the best way to kill us all.

  I looked at Fingerprints. “Prints, get Shade and Uncle Jake to safety. I’ll distract Mecha Knight long enough for you guys to get away.”

  “What about me?” said Blizzard. “I am not going to leave you behind, no matter how dangerous it is.”

  I rounded on Blizzard. “Go with Prints and the others. Phaser is here too and he’s trying to get Uncle Jake. You need to protect him as best as you can, okay?”

  Blizzard looked like she wanted to argue, but at that point Mecha Knight activated his booster rockets and flew toward us. I immediately flew toward him, however, and swung a punch at his face, but Mecha Knight banked at the last moment and completely dodged my attack. He thrust out a hand and fired a blast of energy at me, which hit me in the chest and sent me flying away.

  But I recovered quickly and rocketed back toward him. Mecha Knight, to my surprise, shot toward me without hesitation. He slashed his sword at me, forcing me to bank to the right to avoid getting my head taken off. His wide attack, however, left his side wide open, so I kicked him in the side hard enough to crunch his armor, although I didn’t smash through it because I didn’t want to harm Mecha Knight too badly.

  Unfortunately for me, Mecha Knight was not under the same constraints. He slashed at me again, this time just narrowly missing my neck by a couple of inches. I launched myself away from Mecha Knight, putting a good distance between us. I might have been stronger and faster than Mecha Knight, but he was still just a machine, which meant he could take a lot of punishment before he started to see any change in his performance. I, on the other hand, was a flesh and blood human being, already pretty exhausted from the events of the night, so I needed to find a way to end this quickly before I got too tired.

  Raising my hands, I unleashed a powerful stream of red electricity directly at Mecha Knight. Mecha Knight immediately raised his hand and unleashed a continuous beam of energy. His energy met my electricity in the middle and we soon found ourselves in the middle of a huge beam of war. His blue energy and my red electricity crackled and struggled against each other, sending sparks and stray bolts in every direction. I worried my friends below might accidentally get caught in the middle, but I was so focused on keeping Mecha Knight from overwhelming me that I couldn’t afford to think about them too much right now.

  Mecha Knight’s energy beam was surprisingly strong, holding firmly against my electricity. That wasn’t good. Mecha Knight had way more endurance than me. I could already feel my electricity starting to weaken, which was reflected in Mecha Knight’s energy beam slowly but surely starting to push me back.

  I pushed back as hard as I could, but exhaustion was finally starting to overtake me. My arms ached and my legs burned. I tried to put all of my effort into maintaining this attack, but it was rapidly draining me. I wasn’t used to unleashing continuous beams of energy like this. I usually preferred short bursts of power. And now I was starting to pay the price for not practicing my endurance.

  Abruptly, Mecha Knight’s energy beam increased in power and just blasted directly through my electric stream like it was nothing. I poured as much energy into my stream as I could, but it barely slowed Mecha Knight’s attack.

  Then Mecha Knight’s energy beam slammed into me hard enough to send me flying backward. I crashed into and through the roof of the church and onto the altar. Lying in the debris of the church, I tried to hang onto consciousness as much as I could but found it impossible.

  As the last of my consciousness slipped between my fingers, the last sight I saw was Mecha Knight floating down toward me through the hole in the ceiling above, his sword held tightly in his hands and his cold robotic eyes gazing down upon me without mercy.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  At some point, I must have lost consciousness. The world around me was pitch black, and no, it wasn’t because it was nighttime. It was because I had been knocked unconscious. My body ached pretty much everywhere, though from what I could tell, I was lying down somewhere, though where, I couldn’t tell. All I could tell was that I was lying down on something flat and hard, which didn’t help my body’s aches and pains. All I wanted to do was just sleep away the pain …

  Suddenly, I found it hard to breathe. My heart rate began rushing and I felt like I was dying. My eyes snapped open and I tried to scream, but I couldn’t. All I could do was stare up into the bright lights directly above me, which for a very brief moment I thought were the pearly gates of heaven itself standing open for me.

  Then I heard laughter and a far too familiar voice nearby said, “Ha! Look at that stupid expression on his face. You can’t buy this kind of comedy.”

  The pressure in my chest vanished at that moment and I found that I could breathe clearly once again. Breathing in and out in an attempt to fill my lungs with air again, I found that my vision was slowly but surely starting to regain focus.

  I was staring up, not into the pearly gates of heaven, but normal lights hanging directly above me. They weren’t even as bright as I first thought, although staring directly into them probably wasn’t good for my eyes.

  Then, without warning, a familiar face leaned over me, his mouth twisted into a horrible smirk. “Tell me how many fingers I am holding up.”

  I blinked. “Phaser? Is that you? Where am I? What happened?”

  Phaser scowled. “Wrong answer. Or maybe you didn’t hear me correctly. Let’s see if sticking my arm into your chest again will help your hearing.”

  Phaser raised his hand, but before he could plunge it into my chest again, I heard another familiar voice—this one much deeper—say, “Phaser, that is enough. I do not want you to torture the boy. Given everything he’s been through tonight, I don’t want to risk killing him if I can help it.”

  Phaser frowned. “Boo. You’re no fun sometimes, Seth, you know that?”

  “Seth?” I repeated dumbly. “Seth Richards?”

  Seth Richards’ face suddenly appeared over me. He looked even older than the last time I saw him, actually, with whiter hair and more lines in his face. “Well, it seems like his reasoning faculties weren’t entirely destroyed by that crash.”

  “Not like he ever used them for much,” said Phaser with a snort. “Not like me, of course.”

  Seth rolled his eyes. “Thank you for your comments, Phaser. I will take them into account the next time I need your opinion.”

  “No problem, boss,” said Phaser without missing a beat. “I am always happy to give my feedback on everything, even when not asked.”

  I shook my head. “What’s going on here? Where am I? How did I end up here? Where’s Uncle Jake? Blizzard? The others?”

  “My, you have a lot of questions,” said Seth. “But instead of answering them with words, I think I will show you where you are.”

  Seth and Phaser pulled their heads away from me. A second later, I felt the metal table upon which I lay tilt upward, until soon I was standing upright. The only reason I wasn’t falling off the table was thanks to the metal clamps holding me down, but I could at least see my surroundings now.

  It looked like I was in some kind of laboratory. I was on top of some kind of metal platform that stood high above rows upon rows of what looked like gigantic cloning tubes or maybe pods. Their glass covers were opaque, but each tube was slightly bigger than a full-sized human adult, with room to spare to account for people bigger or taller than average. The dark green metal paneling reflected the lights above pretty well, while massive cables overhead crisscrossed the ceiling, making me feel like I was in the lab of a mad scientist, although this place didn’t seem to be Vault A. It smelled vaguely of antiseptic, metal, and slime, although the place appeared perfectly clean despite that.

  A hand clasped down on my shoulder, causing me to look and see Seth standing beside me, his hand on my shoulder. He was smiling proudly
, looking out over the cloning tubes below with something like fatherly pride.

  “Welcome, Bolt, to Doppelganger Cloning Facility Number Thirteen,” said Seth. “Or, as I like to call it, Vault Z, the final and newest Vault, built after Project Revival was shut down.”

  I gaped. “Are all those tubes down there—”

  “Clones?” Seth finished for me. “Yes. And not just clones for me, but clones for anyone who can afford Doppelganger’s generous fees.”

  I looked down at the cloning tubes again, trying to see through the opaque glass covers of the tubes but failing. “And what kind of people would that be? Rich people?”

  “People far more important than even you realize,” said Seth. “In any case, the specific identities of each person are irrelevant. All you need to know is that this is the true center of my cloning operations. It is here that my army will be born … and here where I will achieve true immortality, just as I’ve always dreamed of.”

  “We’ll get immortality, too, right?” said Phaser.

  I looked over at Phaser, who stood off to the side, but then I noticed he wasn’t alone. The Neo-Killer stood nearby as well, leaning against the railing with his arms crossed in front of his chest. Although his face was hidden behind his mask, I could tell he was glaring at me, fantasizing about killing me in cold blood like he desperately wanted.

  Mecha Knight also stood nearby, but he was not leaning against anything. He stood stock still, looking more like a robot than a human, which made me wonder if that was really all he was anymore. His arm was still dented where I had kicked him, but other than that, he looked a lot better than I felt, that was for sure.