The Secret War

by Matt Myklusch

  Obscuro reached out a hand to Jack. Jack wanted to hear more about his family, but he hesitated. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?” he asked. “You say my father’s still alive? What do you mean see him again? Where is he?”

  “You have to trust me. Your father’s out there,” Obscuro said, pointing up at the sky. “I can take you to hi—” He stopped abruptly when an intense spotlight shone down on him from above.

  “There!” a voice called out from high in the sky, and Jack looked up to see the Knightwing hovering overhead. The ship had separated, and Midknight, Blue, and Ricochet were riding down toward them on the lower half. A glowing Chinese dragon was following close behind with Trea and Zhi on its back. Obscuro grunted angrily as he watched the heroes approach.

  “Think about it, Jack,” Obscuro said as he backed away slowly. “Just don’t take too long. The clock is ticking faster than ever.” The Rogue Secreteer dove into the nearby cave opening, leaving Jack dumbfounded. He stuck his head in after him, but saw nothing. Nothing at all. The Rogue Secreteer had vanished.

  Jack was still trying to wrap his head around what Obscuro had just told him, when his classmates and the mentor heroes touched down.

  “Jack? Jack! What’s going on here? Who was that?” Midknight demanded.

  “Midknight?” Jack said, confused. “What … what are you guys doing here?”

  “What are we doing here?” Midknight repeated. “We’re tracking down a lead on Speedrazor’s gang. What are you doing here?”

  “I’ll tell you what he’s doing,” Oblivia cut in as she came up behind Jack with a very angry group of Secreteers in tow. “Ruining our best chance to end the Rogue Secreteer’s madness!” The matriarch of the Clandestine Order was absolutely livid. Jack looked again at the cave Obscuro had escaped into. He frowned. Something about the cave felt off. Before he could put his finger on what it was, Skerren and Allegra came out of their Secreteer-induced trances and immediately barraged everyone with questions.

  “Why are you all here?” Skerren asked, looking around at Midknight and the others. “What happened? Where’s Obscuro?”

  “Obscuro?” Ricochet exclaimed. “The Rogue Secreteer? That was him?”

  “Yes,” Oblivia said curtly. “And thanks to your sidekicks, he got away.”

  “Got away?” Skerren cried. “When? What’s going on? How did we get out here?” He was getting ready to blow at any minute. Allegra was a bit more composed.

  “Jack,” Allegra said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “What happened?”

  “Are you okay?” Blue asked. “Jack, what was he saying to you before we got down here? Before he took off?”

  Everyone was talking at once. Jack was overwhelmed. Just getting the words out of his mouth was going to be a struggle; he could hardly believe them himself. But he wanted to believe. He wanted to more than anything.

  “He said,” Jack began, finding his voice at last. “He said he knows where my father is. He said he can take me to him.”

  “Your father?” Blue replied. “Really?”

  Jack nodded and looked over the faces of the many Secreteers who kept arriving on the scene one after the other. Oblivia, Hypnova, and all the other members of the Clandestine Order were furious, and the fact of the matter was they had every right be.

  “That’s it?” Skerren asked. “That’s what you talked about? You could have asked him anything, and you asked him about your father?”

  “I didn’t ask him,” Jack said. “He just told me. He didn’t even …” Jack trailed off midsentence. His head was all over the place. “Hypnova, if Obscuro knows secrets about my father, doesn’t that mean you know them too?”

  “You can’t be serious,” Hypnova shot back. “Do you honestly think I’m going to tell you anything now? After what you’ve done? Do you have any concept of the position your actions here tonight have put me in?”

  “Jack. Focus,” Midknight said. “This information about your father is interesting, but the Obscuro situation is important. What are you doing out here? What’s got you three hunting the Rogue Secreteer through the Outlands by yourselves?”

  Jack tried his best to look innocent. “What do you mean?” he asked. “You said we had to take on solo missions.”

  “Don’t play games, Jack,” Midknight countered. “Something else is going on here, I can tell. What did Obscuro say to you? What do you know about this Secreteer business that we don’t?”

  Jack stared up at the old vigilante detective’s penetrating eyes. He had to hand it to Midknight, the man didn’t miss a thing. He was a real pro. Blue, Ricochet, Trea, and Zhi all started looking at Jack the same way, wondering what he wasn’t telling them.

  “What’s Obscuro scared of?” Ricochet asked. “Did he say?”

  Jack shook his head. He wished Stendeval were there to help with this.

  “Jack, just tell them,” Allegra said. Jack felt his head snap around to look at her. Allegra didn’t know what she was asking. She didn’t know what Obscuro had just said about his future.

  “What is this, Jack?” Blue asked. “Tell us what?”

  Jack had a hard time looking Blue in the eye. This wasn’t how he wanted to tell Blue about Jazen. He didn’t know how on earth he was going to tell everyone what Obscuro had just said about Revile.

  “It’s okay,” Allegra insisted. “Just tell them about the virus, Jack. We have to.”

  Jack thought for a moment. Allegra couldn’t have known it, but she’d just given him an idea. Just tell them about the virus, he thought. He looked up at his friends’ surprised and expectant faces. They were his friends. He could trust them with that much. He’d have to. He certainly had to tell them something now. Jack looked at the Secreteers. They already knew everything, but they were sworn to secrecy. They wouldn’t say anything if Jack happened to leave part of the story out.

  “Okay,” Jack said to Midknight and the others. “But you have to promise not to tell anyone else.” One by one Midknight, Blue, Ricochet, Trea, and Zhi all agreed to Jack’s terms, but Blue looked especially disappointed. “If this gets out,” Jack said, “the whole city’s going to be at risk. Even more than it is now.”

  “I don’t like this, Jack,” Blue said. “I told you how I feel about secrets.”

  “I know, Blue,” Jack said. “I didn’t have any choice. Trust me, you’ll understand after you hear what I have to say.” Jack cleared his throat and looked up at his friend and mentor. “I hope you’ll understand.”

  After not talking to anyone about the spyware virus for more than a year, Jack was about to tell the story for the second time that day. He opened his mouth and started talking. It wasn’t any easier the second time around.

  CHAPTER

  13

  The Lost Boy

  The next morning Jack woke up to find Stendeval sitting in his living room reading a copy of Cognito’s local paper, the Cipher.

  “Good morning, Jack.” Stendeval smiled, looking up from the newspaper. “I hope you don’t mind, I let myself in. I didn’t want to wake you. I understand you had something of an eventful evening last night.”

  Still groggy, Jack ran a hand through his messy hair and squinted at Stendeval. “Yeah, you could say that,” he said after a moment. He went to the refrigerator and took out a pitcher of juice that glowed with a bright electric-blue light. “What’s going on? Is something wrong?” he asked. As Jack gulped down his juice, he realized what a ridiculous question that was. “You know …,” he added. “Other than the fact that the Rüstov are coming back in three days and we’re all going to die.”

  Stendeval didn’t answer right away. An article on the front page of the paper had all his attention. When he was finished reading, he frowned and folded the paper in half. “You should read this.”

  Jack winced. “Do I have to? I was actually going to try and avoid the news today. The other night I stayed up watching the NewsNets for hours. Didn’t learn anything and just ended up making myself crazy.�
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  Stendeval got up out of his seat. “I’m afraid it can’t be helped,” he said, bringing the paper over. “I can’t promise this won’t add to your troubles, but at the very least you’ll learn something new.”

  Jack put his glass down and leaned on the counter. “I’m afraid to look,” he said as he took the paper from Stendeval. He dropped it onto the kitchen counter a few feet away from him like it was a three-day-old piece of fish.

  Stendeval slid the paper back across the countertop toward Jack. “Ignorance and avoidance make poor solutions to any problem,” he said. “Better that you should know what’s going on and arm yourself with information. As a highly trained military unit I once fought alongside used to say, knowing is half the battle.”

  “Got it,” Jack grumbled. “Thanks.” More good advice from Stendeval’s peers in the impossible-role-model club. That was exactly what he wanted to hear.

  Jack opened up the paper with a loud flap and saw articles written in every direction imaginable: top to bottom, bottom to top, right to left, and left to right. There were even articles written diagonally, and all of them were filled with jumbled letters that were splattered across the page in nonsensical gibberish.

  “How’s today’s riddle?” Jack asked. “Is it a hard one?”

  “It’s fitting,” was all Stendeval said in reply.

  Fitting? Jack thought. That was an odd thing to say. He turned back to the front page and read the one line of text that was laid out in proper order: the daily riddle. That was what made the Cipher such a one-of-a-kind publication. It wasn’t enough just to buy Cognito’s local paper—you had to solve the daily riddle to unscramble its stories. There was no other way to make the paper give up the news of the day. Sometimes they were clever riddles, like: What falls but never breaks, and breaks but never falls? (Night and day.) Sometimes they were tricky riddles, like: Who can jump higher than the mountains? (Everyone. Mountains can’t jump.) And sometimes they were logic-game riddles, like: The boy is afraid to go home because the man in the mask is there. Why? (The boy is playing baseball. The man in the mask is the catcher.)

  Today the riddle was a logic riddle. When Jack read it, he saw that Stendeval was right on the money. It was fitting. A little too fitting, in fact.

  A judge tells an accused boy,

  “If you lie, we will hang you.

  If you tell the truth, we will shoot you.”

  What can he say to save himself?

  Jack put down the paper and looked at Stendeval. “What is this, some kind of joke?”

  Stendeval shook his head. “Riddles are often humorous, but I don’t think this one is meant to be. Think about it,” he said. “The answer’s right there in front of you.”

  Jack leaned over the paper and looked back down at the riddle. He turned the question over in his head a few times, but he couldn’t think of anything at all. “The boy can say, ‘I’m taking the Rogue Secreteer up on his offer and getting the heck out of here.’”

  Stendeval peered over at the paper to see if the letters had begun moving themselves into the correct order. “I don’t think that’s the answer, Jack,” Stendeval said without cracking a smile.

  “You know he offered to take me with him, right?” Jack asked. “He said he could take me to see my father.”

  “I know,” Stendeval said. “I spoke to Midknight after he brought you and the others home. He also said you turned Obscuro down. You’re not changing your mind, I hope.”

  “Don’t worry,” Jack told Stendeval. “I’m not going anywhere. Not yet anyway.”

  Stendeval appeared relieved. “Good. How did Blue take the news about Jazen and the virus?”

  Jack just stared down at the paper. “Not well,” he said.

  Stendeval nodded but didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say about that.

  Jack gave the paper’s riddle one more try, but it was no use. His head was overloaded from what Obscuro had told him the night before, and he was no closer to solving the Cipher’s conundrum than he was his own. The riddle of the day felt like the same question Jack had been asking himself for the better part of a year, and he was tired of searching for the answer. He pushed the paper away in frustration and told Stendeval, “I give up. You tell me what the boy says, because I obviously don’t know. If I did, I would have said it a long time ago.”

  Stendeval sighed heavily at Jack’s defeated tone. “The boy can tell the judge, ‘You are going to hang me.’”

  Jack sat motionless at the table, looking at Stendeval. At most, he might have raised an eyebrow. “Not really seeing how that helps the situation.”

  “Think about it,” Stendeval said again. “If they hang him, he told the truth. They should have shot him. If they shoot him, he lied. They should have hung him.” Stendeval sat back in his chair and waved a hand as if to say “There you have it.”

  The letters and words in each article began rearranging themselves, dancing across the pages and spinning back into a proper, legible order. Stendeval watched them as they worked, looking quite amused. Jack always liked watching the Cipher’s letters move back into place, especially since they were printed with real ink on real paper, but he didn’t share his teacher’s appreciation for the riddle’s so-called solution.

  “I still don’t get it. How does that help the boy?” Jack asked.

  Stendeval put his hands up. “He leaves the judge with no options. Based on the rules that he himself set up, the judge can enforce neither punishment. He’s stuck in an infinite loop.” Stendeval smiled. “The boy’s managed to lie and tell the truth at the same time. He’s beaten him at his own game.”

  Jack still wasn’t clear on how that helped the boy in the riddle. “Sounds like a great plan,” he told Stendeval. He looked down at the unscrambled story on page one and frowned. “I think I like my solution better.”

  It wasn’t hard to see why. The Cipher’s front-page headline read, JUNAS SMART OFFERS ROGUE SECRETEER FIFTY MILLION CREDITS FOR JACK BLANK’S SECRETS. Jack felt like a spider was crawling up his back as he leaned forward to read the story on page one:

  FORMER CIRCLEMAN

  MAKES BID TO SAVE

  EMPIRE CITY

  By Drack Hackman

  (on special assignment for the Ciphef)

  This morning Jonas Smart called out Obscuro, the Rogue Secreteer, urging him to stop selling secrets to supervillains in the shadows and come forward with what he knows about the looming Rüstov threat. It’s a claim the former Circleman is backing up with his wallet, offering fifty million credits for information he believes is vital to the Imagine Nation’s defense. With just three days left until the Rüstov strike, has Empire City finally found the savior it so desperately needs?

  “If the rogue’s only concern is money, I still have plenty of that,” Jonas Smart said in a statement outside his SmartCorp offices. “I’ll gladly pay whatever it takes to learn the truth about this Rüstov threat.” When asked what brought on this bold move, and what Jack Blank’s connection to the Rüstov invaders might be, Smart revealed that his SmarterNet project had intercepted a new, chilling transmission from the Rüstov agent Glave (translated from the Rüstov language below):

  “Glave to command. Glave to command. Report: Operation remains on schedule. Making use of all available Left-Behind operatives, and have established contact with Khalix. In three days the infinite war will return to Earth. The Lost Boy will fulfill his destiny. Long live the empire. Glave out.”

  This morning in an exclusive interview, Jonas Smart made it clear exactly who he believes “the Lost Boy” to be, and this reporter is inclined to agree with him. “Whatever it is that’s coming, Jack Blank is involved, and I want to know how,” Smart said. “For the last year the Inner Circle has held this boy up as a hero while deliberately dismantling security provisions that once kept the Imagine Nation safe. I may not be Circleman of Hightown any longer, but I’ve never stopped working for the people of this city. Rest assured, all of you, if your electe
d officials on the Inner Circle won’t protect you… I will.”

  With a second Rüstov invasion mere days away, it’s clear that at least one citizen of the Imagine Nation is doing everything he can to fight back. Jonas Smart has just put the ball squarely in Obscuro’s court. If the Rogue Secreteer is still on our team, this is his chance to prove it.

  Once Jack’s eyes reached the bottom of the page, he scanned the article again, rereading the worst parts. He couldn’t take his eyes off the paper. He felt dizzy with dread, like the walls of his apartment were closing in on him. If this kind of talk kept up, Jack really was going to have to take Obscuro up on his offer and grab a seat on his spaceship out of town. The article read like a SmartCorp press release. Jack had come to expect that from the biased and dogmatic SmartNews broadcasts, but this was the Cipher. Jack could hardly believe his own eyes. Then he noticed the word ADVERTISEMENT printed in tiny letters way up at the top of the page.

  “Wait a minute,” Jack began. “This isn’t an article…. It’s an ad. No wonder Hackman was the reporter!” Jack shook his head. “Special assignment … yeah, right,” he said, and grunted. Jack looked up at Stendeval and slapped the paper with the back of his fingertips. “The Cipher sold the front page to Jonas Smart.”

  “Not just the Cipher,” Stendeval said. “All the city papers. The Datafeed, the King’s Herald, the Comet, the Ninja Scroll…”

  “The Empirical, too, I bet,” Jack guessed, naming the Hightown major daily. “They probably ran it for free. That’s all I need. Every paper in the city offering fifty million credits for what I know.” Jack grimaced. “Obscuro just wants money—he’ll jump at that. Once Smart finds out about Revile and the virus, he’ll put it out in every paper. He’ll tell the story his way, just like this, and turn the whole city against me again,” Jack told Stendeval. “The worst part is, he’s right,” Jack added. “I am the Lost Boy. Obscuro said so.”