Diary of a Teenage Superhero

by Darrell Pitt

  Chapter Thirty-One

  My eyes slowly open.

  The first thing I hear is Chad.

  Why does it have to be Chad?

  “Looks like sleeping beauty is awake,” he comments.

  It takes a moment to focus, but it makes me wish I had stayed asleep. Nothing I see bodes well for the future. We are in an enclosed cell. It appears to be the same type of cell that held Ebony and Chad back in Ravana’s building. A mesh of wire covers the front. Each of us is chained to the rear wall with metal cuffs over our heads. The strain in my arms is terrible. My feet reach the floor – but just barely.

  I know it’s pointless trying my powers, but I do anyway.

  Nothing.

  “Don’t bother trying your powers,” Brodie says. “They’re using those zeno ray emitters.”

  “I would have already burnt their faces off,” Chad advises me. “If I could.”

  I glare at him. “What happened to you guys, anyway? You were supposed to create a diversion.”

  Chad looks away. “We were…uh, overtaken by superior numbers.”

  “They shot us with that stun ray,” Dan says. “We were busy skipping stones.”

  At first I think I’ve misheard him. “Skipping stones? You must be joking.”

  If looks could kill, Chad’s glare at Dan would strike him cold dead. “Did you have to tell Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes?”

  I’m about to explode at Chad, but at that moment the door to the room swings open and a man in a Typhoid uniform enters. He is tall, European looking with stark white hair. He does not look very old, so his hair must have aged prematurely. He is wearing gloves. Two guards flank him.

  “So the children have awoken,” he says. “Good. We must keep moving. Time is money as they say.”

  “Who are you?” Chad asks. “Let us out of here or –”

  The man makes a tut-tutting sound as he shakes his head. “You are not the one giving orders here, boy. I am. I will be the one who decides who lives and who dies and when that will happen.”

  Well, if there’s such a thing as a conversation killer, that’s it.

  “I am General Solomon Wolff,” he says. “I was not born with that name, but it is the name by which I am now known. You know a little about me and my organization and I, in turn, know a little about you.”

  He pauses, but none of us say anything.

  “Now you are silent. Later you will speak. You will beg to make yourselves heard. Some of you have already been introduced to one of our ‘motivational’ devices. We have many others. If you thought you previously experienced pain, I assure you it is only a taste of what we can dispense.

  “As I say, I know a little about you. I know about The Agency and its alien representatives. I know about their eternal watching and the scientists that work with them. Perhaps you do not know that there are other aliens here on Earth. They also have their affiliations and their aspirations for our planet.”

  None of us say anything to this.

  “By creating you – a super powered mercenary – The Agency has created an imbalance in the power structure of the world,” Wolff says. “There are governments that will pay handsomely to have that balance redressed.”

  “What do you want from us?” I ask.

  “First there will be blood.” He pretends to look shocked. “Oh no. We are not so inhuman that we intend to beat you bloody. No, we want your blood to examine. If it is possible to replicate the processes that created you, then we can make you in our own form.

  “What could be better than to create an army of super beings? Nothing could stop such an army. It would be invincible.”

  “Funny,” Brodie says. “I think Hitler had similar ideas and see what a loser he was.”

  “You compare me to Hitler,” Wolff shakes his head. “I have no such grandiose ideals. Money is power. It is a simple ingredient to life that oils the wheels of the world and makes all things possible.”

  The door to the room opens again and a figure enters. My blood runs cold. The man looks like a mummy. His entire body is covered in bandages.

  Wolff chuckles. “I believe you know the good Doctor Ravana? His appearance has changed somewhat since your last encounter.”

  Ravana yells a command and two guards enter the chamber and unlock the cell. They go straight to Ebony.

  “No!” Chad screams. “Leave her alone.”

  Ravana enters the cell and punches Chad hard in the stomach. Once. Twice. Three times.

  As Chad hangs helplessly from the wall, struggling to regain his breath, Ravana grasps his head with a bandaged hand.

  “You are the fire boy who set me alight,” Doctor Ravana says. “I will save something special for your interrogation.”

  The doctor turns his attention to Ebony and injects her with a needle. Within seconds her eyes roll up into her head and she sags from the wall. The guards unchain her and drag her from the room.

  “You bastard!” Chad gasps. “Leave my sister alone!”

  “She is not alone,” the general says as he relocks the cell. “Doctor Ravana will be keeping her company.” He makes his way to the door. “One final thing. The Agency seemed to believe that Pegasus operated under a separate guidance system. I assure you nothing could be further from the truth. We rectified that weakness when we modified the missile. Pegasus is fully capable of finding its way to New York on its own.

  “We are making history within the hour. It is a shame you will not be present for the launch.” He pauses. “What is it you American’s say? Adios?”

  The general exits the room.

  Brodie mutters under her breath, “I’m not American.”

  The only other sound is Chad trying to regain his breath.

  “Can anyone use their powers?” I ask. “At all?”

  “Not me,” Dan says.

  “Me neither,” Brodie answers.

  “Chad?” I ask.

  He simply shakes his head. I can’t believe that things have turned out so badly. Not only have we been captured, but destroying the computer system did nothing to delay the launch of the rocket. And it appears New York is the target. The same streets we were walking on a few days ago are about to turn to rubble and molten metal.

  And the people –

  “But I do have a plan,” Brodie says.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “You seem to have forgotten I’m a whiz with locks,” Brodie says. She slips off her boots with her toes and pulls out a long piece of metal. Within seconds she’s gripping it between her toes and has swung up so the metal is inserted into my cuffs.

  “You’ve got to be joking,” I say.

  “Do you want to be free?”

  About a minute later I hear a satisfying click and the cuff comes loose. I try unlocking Brodie’s cuffs, but even with her detailed instructions it still takes about ten minutes. Once she’s free, the others are loose in moments.

  “How did you learn to do all that?” Chad asks.

  “Beats me,” Brodie says. “It’s all part of my previous life. Whatever that was.”

  “There’s just one problem,” I tell them.

  We turn to look at the wall of the cell. It is only composed of vertical bars covered by a metal mesh, but without our powers it may as well be solid concrete.