by Lucas Flint
Christina walked up next to Uncle Josh’s chair, while Gina stepped back to give her room. But I could tell Gina was watching Christina very carefully, probably in order to ensure that Christina did not try to harm Uncle Josh. Christina, as usual, did not seem to care about how Gina looked at her. She just immediately began giving Uncle Josh directions, which he faithfully inputted into the Diver’s system.
Mack and I stood back, Mack with his arms crossed in front of his chest, me with my hands on my hips. We watched Christina as carefully as Gina, but my attention was starting to wander due to how boring our current situation was.
“Think we can trust her?” Mack said under his breath.
“Who, Christina?” I replied in an equally low tone. “No, why?”
“I’m just a little suspicious, that’s all,” said Mack. “Even if she helps us avoid the mines, that doesn’t mean we’ll be scott free. What if some Icon agents are waiting for us on the island for an ambush?”
“Always a possibility,” I said. I nodded at Uncle Josh. “But you’re going to have to bring that up with him if you want anything done about it. He’s the guy in charge here, not me.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Mack, “but I’m not sure Josh is going to agree with me that we need to get rid of her. Then again, I guess it’s a little too late to do that, isn’t it?”
“Yep,” I said. “If we didn’t want to bring Christina with us, we should have left her back in Port Don and forgot about her. As it is, she came with us and she’s going to be with us to the bitter end, assuming she doesn’t betray us at some point.”
“Which is very likely, given her past with Icon,” said Mack. “Indeed, I bet she’s plotting to betray us right—”
Mack was interrupted by a sudden static sound coming from the Diver’s speaker. Uncle Josh immediately pressed a button next to it and said, “Hello, this is Joshua Resnick speaking. Who is this?”
There was nothing but static at first until a flat, monotone voice that nonetheless sent shivers down my spine said, “Hello, Joshua Resnick. I have heard your name countless times in the past from my agents who have encountered you on their missions, but this is the first time I’ve ever actually spoken with you. Your voice is deeper than I thought.”
Mack, Gina, and I exchanged confused looks, while Christina stepped back with a fearful expression on her face. Uncle Josh, however, just leaned forward and snapped, “Who is this? State your name and affiliation, or—”
“I thought it would be obvious,” said the voice, “but I guess because you’ve never heard my voice before, it’s not surprising you don’t know me. I am Roland Chaser, the Superior of Icon.”
Shocked silence fill the cockpit of the Diver. Even Christina, who was rarely rattled by anything, looked shocked by this proclamation from the voice in the radio. Actually, she looked even more afraid than the rest of us, which made sense, because as a traitor to Icon, Chaser probably hated her more than he hated the rest of us.
“Roland Chaser?” said Uncle Josh. “Impossible. The real Chaser wouldn’t contact us directly like this.”
“True, I usually prefer speaking to my enemies through my agents,” said Chaser. “But special situations require special responses. I am well aware that you are carrying a bomb on board your submarine with which you intend to blow up Iconia and therefore kill me and all of my agents. You intend to make this Pinnacle’s final stand against Icon, but instead of making it a final fight, you choose subterfuge and a small strike force.”
“We’re all spies here, Chaser,” said Uncle Josh, though I noticed his skin was paler than usual. “We’re not big on final battles. All of our battles are done in the shadows.”
“Of course,” said Chaser. “I would never criticize my enemies for a tactic I myself would use, if I wanted to attempt to end my conflict with your group. I’m simply restating your plan so you know exactly how much I know about your little plans.”
“How did you even detect us?” said Uncle Josh. “This channel—”
“Easily hacked into,” said Chaser. “I’ve hacked into social media accounts with higher security than this radio channel. Honestly, I expected better of Ephraim. Has he started to lose his touch in his old age?”
“Ephraim doesn’t have much to do with the Diver’s systems,” said Uncle Josh. “Even if he did, he’s still as brilliant as he’s ever been.”
“Maybe,” said Chaser, “but it doesn’t really matter, given how Ephraim isn’t even here, now does it? No, of course it doesn’t. You five are on your own and are at my mercy.”
“We’re not at anyone’s mercy,” said Uncle Josh. “There’s nothing you can do to take us down. Thanks to your little traitor here, we’re going to reach your island and blow it to kingdom come before you even know what hit you.”
“Ah, is Christina there with you?” said Chaser. “Hello, Christina, if you can hear me.”
Christina gulped. Her skin was even paler than Uncle Josh’s and she even seemed to be visibly trembling. “H-Hi, Chaser.”
“When I first learned you betrayed Icon, I reasoned that you would either do the smart thing and vanish off the face of the earth or else do the stupid thing and help these four try to kill me,” said Chaser. “Yet even I didn’t expect you to actually come with them in order to help them kill me. Truly, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, although I’m not sure how I scorned you.”
It disturbed me deeply to see Christina unable to say anything to Chaser. She always had some kind of response to anything anyone said to her, usually sarcastic and biting, but in the presence of Chaser, she was as tongue-tied as a shy schoolgirl. It almost made me feel sorry for her, because she had clearly not anticipated what would happen if Chaser confronted her over her treachery.
“And I believe Trickshot is on board your vessel as well,” said Chaser. “Correct?”
I stepped forward and said, “Yeah, Chaser, I’m right here. And I’m going to save Grandfather from you.”
“You mean Gregory, yes?” said Chaser. “Yes, I am aware that you want to save him. He’s still here, locked away as he should be. It would be perfect, if only we had the Trickshot Watch as well.”
I rested a hand on the Watch. “You can’t have it. It’s mine and it belongs to the McDonald family.”
Chaser laughed. “Oh, how ignorant you are, boy. If only you knew the truth behind the Trickshot Watch … but never mind. You aren’t going to live long enough to know the truth, not unless you agree to my demands, that is.”
“Demands?” Uncle Josh repeated. “What demands are you talking about?”
“The reason I called you in the first place,” said Chaser. “I could have easily sunk your submarine without even giving you a courtesy call first, but I decided I would give you five one last chance to survive. Give me the Trickshot Watch and I will spare your vessel. Refuse to give it to me, however, and I will sink the submarine with all five of you on it. And please, don’t try anything stupid, not unless you want to rest in a watery grave tonight, that is.”
CHAPTER TEN
I rushed over to the speaker and shouted, “Get lost, Chaser! We’re not giving you a dang thing after everything you’ve done to us. You can take your stupid offer and shove it right up your—”
Uncle Josh shoved me out of the way and, after shooting me an annoyed glare, said into the speaker, “What Jack meant was—”
“Oh, I caught his meaning quite clearly, Joshua,” said Chaser. “And I don’t think you’ll have any luck in convincing him to give up his precious, precious Watch. Hence, I will be launching three torpedoes directly at your submarine within the next five minutes. All three will strike at the same time, which ought to be more than enough to sink your sub. Bye.”
The speaker clicked off.
Almost as soon as it did, Christina threw her arm out toward me and an energy rope launched out of the palm of her hand and wrapped around her neck. She yanked the rope back and I fell to my knees, grabbing at the rope and gasping f
or air.
“Christina!” Uncle Josh cried in shock. “What are you doing?”
“Teaching this brat a lesson,” Christina snapped. She looked at me. “What the hell was that, kid? You didn’t even give us a minute to talk about it. What are you, retarded or something?”
Glaring at Christina, I rose to my feet and, grabbing the energy rope, yanked it hard. Christina stumbled over her feet and the rope dissipated just as she hit the floor where she lay with a stunned and surprised look on her face.
Dusting myself off, I said, “Chaser was just going to kill us all anyway, whether I gave him the Watch or not.”
Christina jumped up to her feet again and glared at me with intense hatred. “You’re not just a stupid kid, but also really, really suicidal, too. You don’t know Chaser. He’s going to kill us all and it’s going to be your fault.”
“My fault?” I said. “You’re the traitor here, not me. I bet Chaser is more upset about the fact that you quit Icon and are actively trying to help us destroy it than whatever I’ve done or said. He doesn’t strike me as the type who is very forgiving of traitors.”
Before Christina could respond to that, Uncle Josh rose from his chair and held up his hands, saying, “Stop fighting, you two. We can play the blame game later, after we survive this situation. Those torpedoes are not going to stop coming after us just because we’re fighting each other.”
“But how are we supposed to avoid them?” said Mack. “The Diver isn’t very elegant or graceful. With only a few minutes to spare, we won’t be able to dodge them effectively, if at all. If even just one of those torpedoes hits us, we’re going down for sure.”
“We’re not avoiding them,” said Uncle Josh. He sat back down at the controls and immediately began pressing buttons and flipping switches. “We’re going to shoot them down before they even get close.”
“Shoot them down?” I said. “How are we supposed to do that?”
“The Diver isn’t entirely defenseless, you know,” said Uncle Josh without looking up at me. “It has laser cannons built into it for precisely these kinds of situations. I can use the Diver’s radar system to locate and take down torpedoes before they even get here. But I have to do it fast, because Chaser said we’ll have less than five minutes before the torpedoes hit.”
I watched as Uncle Josh frantically activated the Diver’s laser cannons. I felt so useless, but what was I supposed to do to help? I couldn’t just leave the sub and destroy the torpedoes myself, because water breathing was not one of my super powers. Ever since becoming Trickshot, I rarely felt useless in most situations, but this was one where I did and I didn’t like it at all. Based on how Mack, Gina, and Christina looked, they must have felt as useless as me. It was up to the one normal human to save us superhumans from destruction. Kind of ironic when you think about it.
“There,” said Uncle Josh as a row of red lights suddenly turned on in the center of the control panel. “Cannons activated. Let’s see what the radar can find.”
Uncle Josh looked at the radar screen next to the controls. So did the rest of us. For a moment, the radar showed nothing around us, which made me believe, irrationally, that maybe Chaser had been lying about shooting the torpedoes at us and that we might be able to get to Iconia in one piece after all.
But then three green dots appeared on the radar, three green dots that were getting closer and closer with each passing second. They all came from the same general direction, though their speed amazed me, because it sure looked to me like they’d be upon us in less than a minute.
“There they are,” said Uncle Josh. “Time to see if the cannons work.”
Uncle Josh pressed a button underneath the red lights. A second later, one of the green dots disappeared, leaving just two more hurtling toward us at high speeds.
“It worked!” Gina cried out triumphantly. “Yay!”
“Don’t celebrate just yet,” said Uncle Josh. “There are still two more.”
“Why didn’t you just shoot all three of them down at once?” said Christina. “Wouldn’t that have been better than shooting them down one at a time?”
“Cannons need to recharge,” said Uncle Josh. “Recharge only takes a few seconds, but it’s still annoying. Ah, it’s done recharging.”
Uncle Josh pressed the button again, and then I noticed the red lights went off when he did that, which I realized was the sign that the cannon had fired and was entering its recharge period.
Looking at the radar, I saw the second dot disappear. I also thought I heard something outside the sub, like some kind of explosion, but it was very faint and far away, so it might have just been my ears playing tricks on me or something.
“Two down, one to go,” said Mack. “How long until the cannons recharge?”
“Once all of these lights are back on,” said Uncle Josh, gesturing at the red lights I’d notice before. Three of them were on. “These lights monitor the status of the cannons. When all of them are off, the cannons are not operational. When all of them are on, the cannon is at full power. Pretty simple.”
“They’d better all turn back on quick,” said Christina, looking at the radar anxiously. “That last green dot is getting too close for comfort.”
For once, I agreed with Christina. The last green dot was getting closer and closer with every second. The fourth red light turned on, but there was still one red light to go and I feared that it would not activate in time for Uncle Josh to blow up the last missile.
“Just got to be patient, everyone,” said Uncle Josh. “Don’t panic. The cannons are nearly done recharging, and once they are, we’ll be okay.”
Uncle Josh’s voice was calm and even soothing, but I found it hard to remain calm nonetheless, because that green dot was getting closer and closer. It was almost to the center of the radar now, right where we were. I was now starting to worry that even if the cannons finished recharging in time, that it might be too late because the torpedo might be too close for the cannons to actually blow them up.
Then, abruptly, the final red light turned on and Uncle Josh immediately pressed the button underneath the lights again.
A second later, the last green dot disappeared off the radar. There were no more green dots left. It was completely clean.
“Yay!” said Gina, jumping up into the air and hugging Mack. “We’re alive! I can’t believe it.”
“No problem,” said Uncle Josh, though he wiped some sweat off his forehead. “Those torpedoes would have been a threat under any other circumstance, but they were no match for the power of our laser cannons. You should thank the Pinnacle engineers when we get back to base.”
I sighed in relief. I noticed that Christina also looked relieved. We’d all thought we were going to die there. I could just imagine how frustrated Chaser had to be that his great plan had been ruined by a few well-placed lasers.
All of a sudden, the speaker crackled again and Chaser’s voice spoke over it again. “You destroyed my torpedoes. Impressive.”
Uncle Josh, who was grinning like a maniac, leaned forward and said into the speaker, “Yeah, and we’ll destroy any more you send at us, too, you dumb jerk. We can do this all night.”
“Yes, you probably could,” said Chaser. “But that would be a big waste of time for all of us, I think we can agree. We should end this now, rather than drag it on for who-knows-how-long.”
“And how are you going to do that, Chaser?” said Uncle Josh. “Shoot more useless torpedoes at us?”
Though I couldn’t see Chaser’s face and didn’t even know what it looked like, when he next spoke, I could just imagine him smirking in a room somewhere all by himself. “Maybe I should have made myself clearer. The torpedoes were meant to be the distraction. Hence why I just sent three, rather than unleashing our entire arsenal on you and completely annihilating your sub.”
“The torpedoes were a distraction?” said Uncle Josh. “A distraction from what?”
All of a sudden, the submarine shuddered. Mack
held Gina tightly against him to keep her from falling over, while Christina would have tripped and fallen flat on her face if I hadn’t grabbed her arm and pulled her upright at the last moment. Uncle Josh clung to the arms of his chair for dear life, his eyes wide with terror.
“What was that?” said Gina, her voice full of fear as she looked up at the ceiling. “Did we hit something?”
“Josh, how are the engines holding up?” said Mack.
Uncle Josh looked at the monitors frankly. “I-I don’t understand. The monitors show that the engines are still working and active, but we’re not actually going anywhere. It doesn’t make any sense.”
I let go of Christina—who glared at me as if I had just violated her privacy—and rushed over to the speaker. “Chaser, what happened? Is this your doing?”
“Perhaps,” said Chaser. “Or perhaps you hit a sunken ship. There are plenty of those around these waters. Easy to hit if you’re not familiar with the area.”
I was about to snap at Chaser for his sarcasm when Gina all of a sudden shrieked like a banshee, causing me to look over my shoulder at her. “Gina, what’s the problem?”
Gina was clutching Mack tighter than ever, but her eyes were locked on the ceiling of the sub. Her face was as pale as snow. “I saw a face. In the ceiling.”
“A face in the ceiling?” I said. All of us looked up at what Gina was looking at. “I don’t see a face in the—”
And that was when a ghost floated down through the ceiling, wearing a wide grin on his face and carrying a scythe in his hands.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The ghost looked to be a black man in his thirties, wearing flowing white robes and carrying a long, wicked scythe in his hands. His body glowed a sickly green color, while his grin revealed crooked but oddly white teeth that gave him the appearance of a ghoul. He was completely bald, but he had an impressive goatee and seemed to be well-muscled underneath his robes.