by Lucas Flint
“Oh my god,” I said. “That’s awful.”
“Oh, and did I forget to mention that it was specifically designed to kill supers quickly?” said Christina. “Benjamin explained it to me once. Said the gas interacts negatively with the altered genes of your average superhero and causes the target to explode, rather than just have their flesh eaten off their bones in three seconds like what happens to ordinary humans.”
I gulped and looked over my shoulder again. “You mean if we let that stuff touch us, you and I will explode?”
“Yep,” said Christina. “And I have no reason to think Benjamin was being his usual lying, weaselly self when he told me that, because he showed me the video they had taken of the test subject they had used the gas on and it worked exactly like how he described. He told me it took them hours to clean up all of the blood and gore from the resulting explosion.”
I shuddered at the thought of Christina and I blowing up via exposure to that gas. “Why would Icon unleash such a dangerous gas in their own tunnels? Don’t they realize they’re going to have to fix all of the damage it’s causing?”
“Chaser obviously wants us dead,” said Christina. “And, given how everything else he’s thrown at us has failed so far, he’s probably getting desperate. He probably thinks killing us off is worth rendering one of his tunnels unusable for a few weeks or months or however long it might take to repair it.”
“He’s insane,” I said.
“No, he’s the Superior,” said Christina sarcastically. “That means he’s smarter than everyone else in Icon put together, including yours truly.”
“Can you two stop talking?” said Uncle Josh, who was huffing and puffing worse than either Christina or me. “We can speculate on why Chaser is ruining his own island later. Right now, we need to outrun that gas.”
Uncle Josh was absolutely right. The gas cloud behind us had grown so thick that I couldn’t even see through it anymore. Not to mention it seemed to be gaining speed, slowly but surely catching up to us. There was still a chance we could outrun it, but that was less and less likely every second. It didn’t help that all three of us were dead tired from the events of the night. The adrenaline was probably the only thing keeping us from failing entirely, though how long even that would last, I didn’t even know.
That was when a new idea occurred to me. I looked at Uncle Josh and Christina and said, “I have an idea about how we can outrun the gas.”
“What is it?” said Uncle Josh, glancing at me as we ran. “You don’t happen to have super speed as one of your abilities and you just didn’t mention it until now?”
“No, it’s better than that,” I said. “I could fly all three of us the rest of the way. I can fly faster than I can run, so this might help us.”
“Can you even carry us both?” said Christina, glancing over her shoulder at me with a disbelieving look on her face. “We might just slow you down.”
“That’s what my super strength is for,” I said. “I can carry both of you in my arms like you weigh nothing.”
“It’s worth a shot,” said Uncle Josh. “I’m starting to get tired anyway. Let’s see how it does.”
I nodded and flew into the air, grabbing Uncle Josh and Christina around their waists and lifting them into the air. With my super strength, it was indeed easy to pick up both of them, though I was still unused to flying with more people than just myself, so I found it hard to balance the two at first due to the stark difference in Uncle Josh and Christina’s weight. Uncle Josh weighed a lot more than Christina, nearly unbalancing me, but I managed to shift their weight around enough that I could stay upright as I flew.
With Uncle Josh and Christina held securely in my arms, I flew the rest of the length of the tunnel as fast as I could. Behind me, I could hear the sizzling noise of the gas as it ate through the metal panels of the tunnel, but I didn’t dare look back. I just flew across the tunnel straight and true, focusing entirely on getting to the end, where the entrance to the dungeons was.
There it was. A large set of double doors stood set against the end of the tunnel on top of what looked like a loading platform of some sort. An odd-looking vehicle with no wheels or other visible forms of propulsion sat next to the loading bay, a vehicle I recognized as the trolley Christina told us about earlier.
“We’re almost there,” said Christina, who sound positively giddy. “Just a little father …”
All of a sudden, I heard the sound of gears creaking and then, not too far ahead, a large metal wall began to descend from the ceiling toward the floor. The metal wall was descending quickly, and if it fell onto the floor, I realized that we were going to be trapped between the wall and the gas. Chaser must have wanted to make sure we didn’t make it to the dungeons, so he was activating the wall in order to keep us from escaping the gas. And worse, I wasn’t sure I could fly fast enough to get to the other side.
I looked at Uncle Josh and Christina. “Guys, I can’t make it to the other side of the wall fast enough, but I think if I throw you guys, you should be able to make it.”
“Throw us?” said Christina, looking up at me in alarm. “Oh, hell no. You are not going to throw—”
I never got to hear Christina finish her sentence, because at that moment I threw both her and Uncle Josh at the rapidly closing gap between the wall and the floor. I even used my perfect aim powers to ensure they made it, though I wasn’t sure if my powers worked on people like they did on objects.
Christina and Uncle Josh hit the floor and rolled underneath the wall, making it safely onto the other side. The gap was bigger than I thought. Maybe if I flew faster …
But then the wall came down with a sickening boom and I landed in front of it. I banged hard on the wall with my fists, but even with my super strength, I was unable to even dent it. Whatever this wall was made of, it was clearly meant to last.
“Uncle! Christina!” I shouted. “I don’t know if you guys can hear me, but you need to keep going! Go save Grandfather!”
No response, which I had expected, because as far as I could tell, the wall was too thick for sound to travel through it. I just hoped that they somehow understood my message and would keep going even without me. Uncle Josh probably would, but I couldn’t count on Christina to not give up. I just hoped that Christina’s desire for revenge against Chaser would overwhelm her fear of them.
I looked around the tunnel frantically, hoping that I might have overlooked a way I could escape. But there were no exits or escape routes, nowhere I could hide for safety. It was just me, the wall, and the gas … and the gas was getting closer and closer all the time.
If I didn’t find a way out of this soon, then the gas would be upon me in seconds … and I would die.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Just as that thought passed through my mind, a flat line of energy suddenly poked out from under the wall. Before my startled eyes, the energy line started to rise, forcing the wall up inch by inch. It looked like a carjack lifting up a car, except the wall must have been heavier than any car I knew of, because it rose very slowly.
“Kid!” said Christina’s voice from underneath the gap under the wall. “Are you still alive? Has the gas gotten you yet?”
“No, it hasn’t,” I said. “Is this your doing, Christina?”
“Yeah,” said Christina, whose voice sounded strained. “Using my energy ropes to force the wall open, but it’s hard because I’ve never done this before and the wall is freaking heavy. Not sure how much longer I’ll be able to hold this up.”
I squatted and put my hands under the small gap between the wall and floor. “You don’t need to do this on your own. I’ve got your back. Just let me use my super strength and we can raise this wall together.”
Activating my super strength, I struggled to lift the wall. With both Christina and I working on it now, the wall rose quicker than before, but I was still far too aware of the deadly gas coming my way. I didn’t know how close it was to me now, but it would be upon me
any second now, so I didn’t have any time to sit around and worry about it. I just put all of my effort into raising the wall inch by inch, nearly screaming from the effort.
Finally, I noticed that the gap was big enough for me to slip under. With a grunt, I fell down to the floor and rolled underneath the wall. As soon as I passed through to the other side, Christina’s energy rope dissipated and the wall slammed back down onto the floor so hard that the noise ringed in my ears. But the wall was so flush with the floor that not even a tiny bit of the gas could get through.
Panting and sweating, I looked up at Uncle Josh and Christina, who stood nearby. Christina was sweating and panting nearly as much as me, while Uncle Josh just looked very stressed out, rubbing his chin anxiously.
“Jack, are you okay?” said Uncle Josh, walking over to me and kneeling down beside me. “You didn’t inhale any of that Benjamin gas or anything, did you?”
Breathing hard, I said, “No … I … no, I didn’t. Just really tired from having to lift up that wall.”
“I can see that,” said Uncle Josh. “Your super strength is a sight to behold, but even you have your limits. You nearly killed yourself back there.”
“So did I,” said Christina. She wiped the sweat off her forehead and looked at her hand in disgust. “Ugh, sweat. I hate sweat.”
I looked at Christina with a puzzled look on my face. “Why … why did you save me? The gas could have sneaked through under the wall. You risked exposing yourself and Uncle Josh to the gas, yet you helped me anyway. Why?”
“Because I still need you if we’re going to kill Chaser,” said Christina. I noticed she wasn’t looking directly at me. “My powers are strong in their own right, but it’s easier to kill someone if you have allies. Plus, I wanted to make sure Chaser didn’t get any kills this time. It’s pretty obvious he was hoping to get all three of us down here, but he didn’t even get one of us. I bet that pisses him off worse than anything else I could have done.”
Despite what Christina said, I sensed she had other reasons for saving me. Maybe she had actually grown to like me as a friend, though that didn’t seem likely, given how Christina didn’t seem to like anyone other than herself.
Regardless of her motives, I said, “Well, thanks for saving me, anyway. I would have been a goner back there if you hadn’t saved me.”
“No problem,” said Christina. “I’ve done tougher than that before. That was almost child’s play, actually, given how ridiculously easy it was.”
“Right, that’s why you’re sweating so much,” I said with a smirk.
“Shut up,” Christina said.
“You two need to stop sniping at each other,” said Uncle Josh. He rose to his feet and dusted off his pants. “What matters is that we all got out of this together. As long as we’re still alive, we can handle whatever Chaser throws at us, no matter how deadly or dangerous.”
“True,” said Christina, “but I still don’t think it’s wise to get too comfy just yet. Chaser knows what we’re trying to do at this point and I bet he’s going to have some new nasty traps for us waiting in the dungeons ahead, though I can’t really say what.”
I rose to my feet with Uncle Josh’s help. I was shaking slightly and still panting hard, but I said, “I agree. We need to remain on our guard, but at the same time, we should keep going forward confidently. The dungeons are on the other side of those doors, right?”
I pointed at the massive double doors on the platform above us. The doors appeared to be made out of solid iron and looked like they had been built and installed a long time ago. They even had huge metal rings in place of doorknobs, which made them look more like the entrance to an ancient medieval castle than the doors to the dungeons of a secretive spy organization’s headquarters.
“That’s right,” said Christina. “Actually, they don’t open up to the dungeons directly. They open up to a hallway. One way leads up to the higher levels of the Tower. The other way leads to the dungeons, though the dungeons aren’t very far down from here.”
I clenched my fists. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s get going. There’s no time to waste.”
Before we could go any further, however, Uncle Josh’s phone suddenly rang again. He whipped his phone out of his pocket, glanced at the screen, and said, “It’s Mack again.”
“What?” said Christina in alarm. “Did he and Gina plant the Gift already? Please tell me they didn’t. We still haven’t saved the kid’s old man just yet.”
“Only one way to find out,” said Uncle Josh.
He fumbled with the screen of his phone accidentally and somehow turned the speakerphone feature on at the same time as he answered the phone itself. As soon as he did that, Mack’s voice suddenly blared over the phone, “Josh! It’s gone.”
“What’s gone?” said Uncle Josh. “What are you talking about? You didn’t lose the Gift, did you?”
“No, we still have that,” said Mack. “But the other thing we came here to steal is gone. The suit is gone. Completely missing.”
“What other thing you came here to steal?” I said. I looked at Uncle Josh questioningly. “You didn’t mention stealing anything on this mission. I thought you were trying to destroy Iconia.”
“Is that Trickshot?” said Mack. “Wait, Josh, do you have the speaker phone on? Please tell me you don’t, because we’re not supposed to let Trickshot know what we’re actually doing here.”
Christina and I exchanged surprised looks and I looked at the phone again. “What are you talking—”
I stopped speaking as soon as Uncle Josh ended the call. He looked guilty as hell, his eyes shifting back and forth as he took a step away from me. I didn’t know what was going on here, but it was clear to me that Uncle Josh had been keeping something a secret from me.
“Uncle Josh,” I said slowly. “What was Mack talking about?”
“Nothing,” said Uncle Josh quickly. “Nothing at all. Mack, in case you hadn’t noticed, has a tendency to speak without thinking. He was probably just confusing this mission with another one we’re supposed to go on soon. I wouldn’t give any second thought to anything he just said.”
Christina laughed. “Come on, Josh. That has to be the worst deflection I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard a lot of deflections in my time. You’re obviously hiding something … and if I had to hazard a guess, it would be the true purpose behind this mission.”
“True purpose?” Uncle Josh laughed nervously. “You know what the ‘true purpose’ of this mission is. We’re trying to destroy Iconia with the Gift. It’s that simple.”
“Actually, it’s not,” said Christina. “I mean, that might be one of your goals, but it’s pretty obvious that that is just a cover story so you can accomplish your real goal. Your real goal, by the way, that I don’t know anything about, though I don’t need to know what you guys are actually doing in order to tell that you’re bullshitting your own nephew here.”
I looked at Uncle Josh. “Is that true, uncle? Have you been lying to us about the real reason you, Mack, and Gina are helping me? The real reason Pinnacle sent you to Iconia?”
“Of course it’s not true,” said Uncle Josh. “I would never lie to my own nephew, not even if my boss told me to.”
Christina laughed again. “Sure. That’s why Mack was talking about not being able to steal the thing you guys wanted.”
“I don’t think Uncle Josh would lie to me,” I said. “Like he said, I’m his nephew.”
“And?” said Christina. “Come on, kid. I know you have your suspicions. I could tell back on the sub. You figured there was something else going on here, something more than just an attempt to blow up an island. You just never thought to actually figure it out or even ask because you’re too trusting for your own good.”
I hated to admit it, but Christina had a point. Back on the Diver, I had indeed suspected that Uncle Josh and his fellow Pinnacle agents were withholding some information from me. But I had just dismissed it as information relating t
o the mission I didn’t need to know. I mean, as long as they helped me save Grandfather, I really didn’t care about all of the tiny, insignificant details of this mission of theirs.
But now, I was starting to think that there was indeed a lot more going on than they had told me.
I looked at Uncle Josh straight in the eyes and said, “Tell me the truth, uncle. What are you, Mack, and Gina really trying to accomplish here on Iconia?”
Uncle Josh hesitated and for a second I thought he was actually going to try to run away.
But then Uncle Josh sighed and said, “All right. I guess you deserve to know the truth. You want to know why we’re really here? It isn’t to blow up Iconia or even kill Chaser. It doesn’t even have anything to do with the Gift, really.”
“Then why are you here?” I said. “Why go through all of this?”
“You want to know why?” said Uncle Josh. He took a deep breath and said, “We’re trying to get the Atlas Armor.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“The Atlas Armor?” I said, staring at Uncle Josh in confusion. “What’s that?”
Uncle Josh rubbed his arm. “You remember the Atlas Glove, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I remember that. It was that weird gauntlet you wore on your hand that could shoot laser blasts, right?”
“Right,” said Uncle Josh. “The one I stole from Icon. Do you remember how I told you that it was just one part of a much larger machine that Icon was working on?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “But you said you guys didn’t know, exactly, what they were building at the time, right?”
“Yes,” said Uncle Josh. “We just knew they needed the Glove to complete it. But since then, the intelligence we’ve gathered suggests that Icon didn’t just build a Glove. They built an entire suit of power armor they call the Atlas Armor, so named because it is said to grant its user the strength of the Greek titan Atlas.”