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REPLICATION
A Kid Sensation Novel
By
Kevin Hardman
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
This book is a work of fiction contrived by the author, and is not meant to reflect any actual or specific person, place, action, incident or event. Any resemblance to incidents, events, actions, locales or persons, living or dead, factual or fictional, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Kevin Hardman.
Cover Design by Isikol
Edited by Faith Williams, The Atwater Group
This book is published by I&H Recherche Publishing.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address I&H Recherche Publishing, P.O. Box 2727, Cypress, TX 77410.
ISBN: 978-1-937666-41-5
Printed in the U.S.A.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the following for their help with this book: GOD first and foremost, who continues to bless my endeavors; my family; and my readers, who have been very kind and generous with their support.
Thank you for purchasing this book! If, after reading, you find that you enjoyed it, please feel free to leave a review on the site from which it was purchased.
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Finally, for those who may be interested, I have included my website, blog, Facebook, and Twitter info:
Website: http://www.kevinhardmanauthor.com/
Blog: http://kevinhardman.blogspot.com/
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Twitter: @kevindhardman
Chapter 1
“Stay close,” Mouse muttered softly. “I’m gonna need you.”
I gave a terse nod in response but didn’t say anything.
We were currently downtown in the city, on the street. Mouse – my mentor – was wearing a buttoned-up but loose-fitting beige trench coat, under which he sported the well-known black-and-gold uniform of the Alpha League, the world’s greatest superhero team.
Since we were attempting to be inconspicuous, I also wore my uniform under ordinary daywear, which in my case consisted of jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a light-weight jacket. Initially, however, I had pressed the notion of wearing a trench coat as well, but Mouse had nixed the idea.
“One guy in a trench coat is inconspicuous,” he’d said. “Two is a couple of TV detectives, looking to bust a case wide open.”
“So why do you get to wear the cool outfit?” I’d asked.
“Because I can actually pull off the look,” he’d declared. “Besides, don’t kids your age like looking scruffy and scraggly? Just wear some sweats or ripped jeans, and you’ll be the epitome of cool.”
And so we had come to be dressed in our current attire. From all indications, our attempt to keep a low profile was working, as no one seemed to be paying particular attention to us as we walked. More to the point, as I reached out empathically, I didn’t sense any out-of-the-ordinary emotional vibes coming from any of the people around us.
After a few moments, we came to one of the city’s many subway entrances. Mouse and I ducked inside, stepping onto an escalator that appeared to descend a good hundred feet, at the very least. Once at the bottom, we found ourselves in the midst of throngs of people trying to get through the turnstiles and onto the subway platform.
Welcome to rush hour, I thought, as bodies hemmed us in on all sides.
Tapping my shoulder to get my attention, Mouse suddenly tilted his head to the side, indicating I should follow him. We then began heading to one of the side walls, cutting a path through those around us that was perpendicular to the flow of foot traffic, causing shouts of frustration (and more than a few obscenities) to be voiced in our wake.
A few seconds later, we found ourselves at the wall. Nearby was a somewhat narrow gate which displayed an official “Metro Employees Only” sign. Needless to say, this was an entrance reserved for subway employees, a means of allowing them to quickly access the subway platform in order to go about their official duties rather than having to wait in line with the unwashed masses. And next to the gate – just to make sure no subway passengers temporarily forgot who they worked for – were a couple of transit cops.
Mouse approached the two officers and flashed what appeared to be a card made of plastic. One of the transit officers – a big fellow who made a show of twirling his nightstick – glanced at the card and simply nodded. Mouse then hustled through the gate, with me on his heels.
At that juncture, a train was just pulling into the subway station. There was a high-pitched squeal of brakes as it slowly came to a halt; a moment later, a two-tone chime sounded, followed by the subway doors opening, and a mass of people began filing out.
He didn’t say anything, but I sensed a slight twinge of frustration coming from Mouse, and I understood why. We were on a tight timetable, and although using the employee gate had allowed us to sidestep the wait and crush of bodies going through the turnstiles, we were still near the rear of a sizeable crowd. Even more, it was evident that we probably wouldn’t make it onto this particular train, which would really throw our schedule out of whack.
As the last of the exiting passengers stepped off the train, those waiting to enter surged forward – a tidal wave of bodies that rushed ahead, almost heedless of anything and anyone around it. If it wasn’t clear before, it was pretty certain now that getting on this particular train was out of the question. Unless we temporarily abandoned our efforts to be low-key.
“Hang on,” I said to Mouse as I telescoped my vision in order to get a good look at the interior of the last train car. Then I teleported us, popping us into the subway car in question, but right in front of a middle-aged woman in a dark pants suit.
She jumped a little, obviously startled by our sudden appearance, then muttered, “I’m sorry. I didn’t even see you there.”
“No problem,” Mouse assured her, then turned to me and gave a subtle nod of his head. I smiled slightly, taking this as acknowledgment that – although we were trying to avoid drawing attention to ourselves – using my powers had been the right decision.
The car quickly filled up with passengers, and the press of bodies forced Mouse and me back to the very rear of the train car. At last, the chime sounded again, and the subway doors closed in the face of numerous disappointed patrons who hadn’t been able to squeeze in. A moment later, we began moving, and within seconds we entered the tunnel, quickly picking up speed as the train moved toward its next destination. Glancing through a window set in the train’s rear door, I watched as light from the platform we’d just left quickly receded into the distance.
I turned to Mouse, who – unlike me – was looking out the side windows instead.
“Scrubber room…” I heard him mutter softly. “Signal room… Communications…”
I followed his gaze, but already knew what he was doing: calling out the names of specific areas in the subway tunnel as we passed them.
Basically, the tunnel didn’t just consist of steel tracks laid down in a passageway carved through the earth. There was a narrow, railed walkway on both sides which – at discrete intervals – intersected with the entrances to various areas that provided support functions. Most subway commuters had almost no idea how much was required in terms of manpower and equipment in order to keep the trains running in a timely and efficient manner.
“Okay, get ready…” Mouse droned. “Now!”
Telekinetically, I placed a firm grip on Mouse. At the same time, I phased us – making the two of us physically insubstantial. Then I floated about an inch into the air (lifting Mouse as well), at the same time gently moving the two of us backward.
With our momentum now the opposite that of the subway car, the result was that we phased through the rear door. A second later, we were floating in the semi-darkness of the subway tunnel, watching the train swiftly moving away from us.
Empathically, I stayed in tune with the passengers for a moment, trying to make sure that our sudden disappearance hadn’t caused any distress in those around us. Frankly speaking, I could have saved myself the trouble; I detected no more than mild surprise at our unorthodox departure. (Apparently, subway passengers adopt a mind-your-own-business mantra, although in all honesty I couldn’t be sure how many of them had actually been paying attention to us in the first place.) This reaction actually served our current purpose, but at the same time it left me slightly disheartened with respect to human nature: two guys disappear from a moving subway train, and no one’s concerned enough to raise an alarm?
“So far, so good,” Mouse muttered, bringing me back to myself.
I moved us over to the railed walkway to our left, then made us substantial again and gently set us down. At the same time, I cycled my vision through the light spectrum until I could see almost normally. On his part, Mouse donned a pair of night vision goggles that he’d obviously brought with him.
“Let’s go,” he said, heading towards a nearby set of double doors. Unlike the previous areas we had passed (which had had the names of the respective rooms written on the entryways), this one was unlabeled.
Mouse tried the handle; unsurprisingly, it was locked. I phased the door without being told, and we stepped inside. We found ourselves on a landing at the top of a set of straight stairs that descended for about thirty feet.
We hustled down to the bottom of the staircase, which opened up into a square room roughly thirty-by-thirty feet in size. There was some type of equipment pushed against a couple of the walls, but none of it was familiar to me. Straight ahead of us was the entry to a narrow corridor. Mouse pulled out his computer tablet (which he always seemed to carry with him) and began walking towards the passageway. I immediately fell into step beside him.
Several hallways seemed to branch off from the one in which we found ourselves. Apparently using his tablet as a map, Mouse began guiding us through a honeycombed network of rooms, corridors, and even tunnels (with me occasionally using my phasing ability to get us past locked doors, blocked entrances, and the like).
“What is this place?” I asked softly a few minutes later as we walked through what appeared to be an abandoned subway line.
“Subterranean tunnel,” Mouse answered with a snarky grin. “I’d have thought that was obvious.”
“Funny,” I replied sarcastically. “I meant why is it here, wise guy. Any of it, in fact. I mean, we’ve passed through a dozen places since we left the subway train that look like nobody’s visited regularly in years.”
“Yeah, well, it might shock you to know that there are scores of deserted underground sites throughout the city.”
“But again, why? It just seems weird to me to build out all these spaces and then simply abandon them.”
“There are actually lots of reasons why people would simply walk away,” Mouse declared as we left the subway line and entered a connecting passageway. “Maybe a tunnel collapsed or became too unstable to keep digging. Maybe they hit a pocket of gas or somehow lacked the ability to get fresh air far enough underground. In at least one instance, they upgraded the subway cars and then found out they wouldn’t fit with the existing platforms. And in some cases, they just ran out of funding for the project.”
I nodded in understanding. In the not-too-distant past, I had actually visited a town that had been evacuated years ago because of alleged exposure to some virulent biological agent. Thus, I could accept that there were occasionally valid reasons for abandoning places that had been built. Still, what I was currently seeing around me seemed like an incredible waste of effort, and I stated as much. This sparked a conversation between me and Mouse about the relative merits of cutting’s one losses versus seeing a questionable project through to the end.
“Regardless of how you feel about them representing the squander of resources,” Mouse finally said, “you have to admit that these underground spaces are a boon in terms of our task today.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Assuming we can get to the end of this rat maze.”
“Sounds like someone’s losing faith in the mission,” Mouse chided as we rounded a corner. “How about a bit of cheese for encouragement?”
He pointed to the far end of the hallway we had just entered. There were still no lights (at least none that were on), but – with my vision set to the current band of the light spectrum – I didn’t need them to see what Mouse was indicating: an elevator.
I smiled as we began heading toward it, as the presence of the elevator was an indicator that we were still moving in the right direction. Not that I had ever doubted Mouse or his ability to guide us through the underground labyrinth of tunnels and passageways. He was pretty much the smartest person on the planet and was rarely ever wrong about anything. Still, when the strategy for this particular mission was being planned, one of the drawbacks had been the lack of complete maps for the underground sites. That being the case, the path Mouse and I had taken to reach our current destination had – to some extent – consisted of guesswork and extrapolation. In short, it was nice to know we hadn’t taken a wrong turn somewhere or gotten lost.
We stopped at the elevator doors, and Mouse began taking off his trench coat. This hinted at two things: first, that we were close enough to our final destination that the need to remain inconspicuous didn’t matter. It also implied that Mouse didn’t want excess clothing restricting his movements in any way.
Unlike my mentor, I didn’t bother taking off my outer clothing. I merely phased myself and my Alpha League uniform, and everything else fell to the ground.
“We in a race?” Mouse asked accusingly, as if my method of changing clothes was a crime.
I laughed out loud, then sobered immediately as the sound echoed through the hallways around us.
My focus now back on the mission, I asked, “Do you think he knows we’re here?”
“Dream Machine?” Mouse said quizzically as he tossed his trench coat down. “If he doesn’t, he will soon enough, so get your game face on.”
I nodded and then, assuming that Mouse was ready, gripped him telekinetically again and phased us. I then moved us through the doors (which looked as though they hadn’t opened in years) and into the elevator shaft.
Several floors below us was the elevator itself, but judging from the condition of the equipment in the shaft – rusted cables, exposed wiring, dilapidated pulleys, etcetera – I doubted that it was still functional (or would be safe to use even if it were). Like the elevator doors, everything around us probably hadn’t seen use in a generation and was covered with dust and cobwebs.
Slowly, I began lowering us down the shaft. As we descended, I spent a few moments thinking about what lay ahead of us.
Despite having gone up against bad guys before, this was officially my first mission, the first one where my presence was actually sanctioned by the Alpha League. However, because of the individual we were about to face off with – Dream Machine – putting me (or someone like me) on the mission roster had almost been a foregone conclusion.
Technically, Dream Machine wasn’t a person. He had started off as an artificial intelligence – a set of complex computer progra
ms designed to help people with dementia, especially those having problems perceiving reality, through direct interface with the human brain.
Initially, the project was considered a roaring success. Somehow, however, the AI not only outgrew its original programming but also became self-aware. Moreover, through its incipient work with those suffering from dementia, it had somehow developed the ability to manipulate human perception. In short, it could cause people to see hallucinations, among other things. Taking on the name Dream Machine (and a masculine persona), the AI had decided that it could best fulfill its original purpose of helping people by conquering humanity. Thus, since escaping several years ago from the computer network where he was housed, Dream Machine had made world domination his top priority.
All of this flitted through my mind as we got closer to the elevator. Phasing through the roof, we found the interior of the elevator just as pulverulent and cobwebbed as the shaft we’d just left. Changing direction, I now moved us forward, taking us through the rusted-shut elevator doors.
The first thing I noticed when we emerged was light. Previously, we had been making our way through the subterranean tunnels and hallways in almost complete darkness. Now, however, there was a fair amount of illumination.
Glancing around, I saw that we were in a sizeable chamber that seemed to extend about a hundred feet ahead of us, as well as rise several stories in height. The light I had noticed apparently stemmed from two sources: electric bulbs that seemed to have been placed haphazardly throughout the area, and steel drums being used as burn barrels.
Much to my surprise, there were people scattered throughout the place – some old, some young, some alone, some with families. I had no idea where they had come from or how they’d managed to find their way this far underground, but one look at their threadbare clothing, well-worn footwear, and the multitude of sleeping bags made it clear to me that they were homeless.
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