There came the sound of sliding chairs on tile and a pair of voices speaking in low tones, one male, one female. Then hard-sole footsteps passing them heading towards the elevator.
“That’s him,” Tina whispered. She gripped Brendan’s arm as he cracked the door and looked out. The headmaster appeared particularly large and broad shouldered. Perhaps it was his imagination or the narrow hallway. The headmaster rounded the corner. The elevator dinged and began to hum. Brendan squeezed out of the janitor closet and moved out into the hallway. As he approached the one open door, he got down. He motioned for Tina to stay put. Ever so slowly, he peeked in.
Two security guards, one man and one woman, were sitting inside a neatly arranged lounge at a table. A large television and a couch filled much of the space, but the TV was off. There was also a sink and refrigerator. Both guards had unwrapped hot sandwiches, fries, and drinks with straws. They had a tablet propped up between them that displayed a four-way split screen. Brendan inched further out for a better view. The screen showed four cells from a high angle. Each had a bed and a toilet, and two of the cells were occupied. He couldn’t see clearly enough to make out who the occupants were, but he could guess.
His father was here somewhere. But if all the other doors were locked, he’d need a key.
There was one door on the far side of the guards’ lounge. But the cells could be anywhere.
“Hey you!” a voice called from down the hallway.
A third guard was heading his way. With all his attention on the screen, Brendan hadn’t heard the elevator. He jumped up. The man had one hand out for Brendan to stop and was pulling a long metal flashlight from his belt. With no time to see if Tina was still in the closet, Brendan ran. Soon the other guards were joining in the shouting. Brendan rounded a corner, turned, and saw several doors near him. There was also a long corridor that ended at a short flight of stairs. He tried a couple of doors, but they were locked. He vaulted down the stairs.
They led down to a dark room with three large machines, all linked to a mass of cables that connected to a complex of steel junctions. One wall had panels and a set of meters. Brendan had toured the inside of a hydroelectric dam once, and this reminded him of what he had seen inside the power control station. The panels had padlocks. He jogged to the far side of the room. The machines made a low hum that he felt inside his head and teeth. The sound made him feel queasy. He tried the three doors he found. Only one opened, and it was another closet.
“Down here,” a voice called. “Hey, you, come on out. This is a restricted area.”
He entered the closet and closed the door, immediately knowing it was a futile act. The closet had no lock, and what would be the point if he could lock the guards out anyway?
The door was thrown open. All three guards stood there. Unlike his own campus security, one held a Taser while the other two had their flashlights in hand. A brilliant white light blinded him.
“Step out of there.”
Brendan complied with his hands up.
“What are you doing down here?”
Brendan tried to smile. “Sorry, I was just taking a look around.”
“This building is off-limits and the basement doubly so. You should know that. Are you a student here?”
Brendan tried to block the light. The guard lowered the flashlight, allowing Brendan to better see the three guards. They were alert, yet relaxed. The woman who held the Taser didn’t have it pointed at Brendan. One of the guards took his arm.
“Yes, I’m a student. I didn’t steal anything.”
“Are you alone?”
He saw a flash of motion by the stairs, tried not to look. The grip on his arm tightened.
The female guard turned her head. “Who else is here with you?”
“Secure him.”
The male guard pushed Brendan forward and pulled his arm behind his back.
“Tina, run!” Brendan shouted.
The other guard headed down between the machines, his flashlight playing from side to side.
Pain shot down Brendan’s arms. While the man held him, the woman tried to place plastic restraints on his wrists. Brendan jerked away, and he was surprised when the guard let him go. The flashlight went crashing to the floor.
“Hold still!”
The guard grabbed him again and a hand slammed down on the back of Brendan’s neck. Brendan swung back with an elbow, missed, and then reached up and took the guard by the wrist.
The man screamed. Brendan pushed the guard away, sending him tumbling to the floor gripping his wrist. Brendan could only stare in disbelief. The man had seventy pounds on him at least.
The female guard brought up her Taser. Brendan grabbed at the first thing he saw: the guard’s dropped flashlight. He flung it at her, and it knocked the Taser out of her hand.
“You little creep,” she said as she closed on him. Her hands came up into a fighting stance. Brendan had no real fighting skill. He knew how to make a fist and swing, but most of his fights had been pushing matches until someone broke them up. Knocking out Paul had been the exception. He raised his arms up defensively.
“Hit her!” Tina shouted.
The guard feinted high and punched low. Pain exploded in his midsection, doubling him over. He reached out to push the woman away and grabbed her shirt. As she pulled away, he shoved and sent her sprawling.
Tina ran to his side and helped him up. The woman guard got up, a look of confusion on her face.
“Watch this,” Tina said. She went over to the female guard and, in one motion, pitched the woman into the closet.
“How did you do that?” he asked, not believing what he just saw.
“You try.” She pointed to the guard with the hurt wrist.
The man had a look of terror on his face. He shook his head. “Look, kid, don’t touch me. I think you broke it.”
Brendan pointed to the closet. The man hesitated, but when Tina took a step in his direction he went inside. She relieved him of his belt and patted both down, removing keys and phones.
“Get the third one,” she said. “I thumped him over by the stairs.”
Brendan found the guard. The man appeared to weigh over two hundred pounds and wasn’t moving, his nose leaking blood. Brendan dragged him by the hands, finding it took no effort to do so. He took his possessions and pulled him into the closet. Both of the other guards kept their distance.
“Boo!” Tina said and laughed.
Brendan closed the door and Tina dragged a large workbench over to block it. He could only shake his head in disbelief as he watched her move the massive piece of furniture.
“The drug?” he asked.
A wicked grin lit up her face. “This is the most awesome thing ever. It explains how the guard could lift Vlad. It wasn’t just water or Gatorade the nurse gave us.”
“How is this even possible?”
“When the guards chased you, I was gripping the doorknob. It broke. That’s when I knew. I don’t know how long it will last.”
The door shook.
Brendan felt light-headed. “You guys stay put in there. If you come out, you’ll get hurt.”
“I’ll tie you all into a pretzel,” Tina added.
The prisoners in the closet went silent.
“We have their keys,” Tina said. “Let’s see what we find.”
The basement was more secure than anything Brendan had seen back at the academy on his Earth. The high half-windows had bars and were frosted opaque. All the doors needed keys except for the janitorial closets. Brendan even found a schedule for maintenance posted by the elevator, the names and initials on the checklist of assignments matching the names on the guards’ own tracking sheets. Everyone signed in and out as they went, except for the headmaster. Proficient. Organized. They were guarding something, and security did the janitorial work to limit other people’s access to the basement.
In the lounge, Brendan examined the security guards’ tablet. The footage from before was still
onscreen. The view into one cell showed him his father sitting on a cot. The second prisoner appeared large. He had expected to see Poser, but whoever this was looked like an adult, taller and more muscled. The man lay on his cot, curled up and facing away from the camera. The other two cells were empty.
The door from the lounge led to a dead-end hallway with the four cell doors. Brendan went to unlock them with the keys.
Tina held one of the guard’s heavy flashlights and was flipping it in her hands. “A girl could really hurt someone with this power.”
“Keep watch. Listen for the elevator.”
The first door he opened was empty. The second cell held his father.
He was perched on his cot and he stared blankly at Brendan. A muted television sat on a nightstand. Besides a sink, toilet, and a small shower stall there was little else to the cell. Brendan stepped over a plastic tray on the floor that held a soiled paper plate and plastic utensils.
“Dad?”
His father blinked, frowned, and asked, “What are you doing here?”
Brendan went to hug his father. “I’m here to get you out.”
His father patted Brendan’s back and broke off the embrace. He got up and leaned on Brendan. “Give me a hand. I’m sorry, I must smell.”
“Don’t worry about it. Who else is here?”
His father just shook his head.
Brendan called Tina and gave her the keys. She unlocked the other doors. The next cell was empty. The fourth held the second prisoner, who was waiting by the door. Tina clicked on her light and shined it on the prisoner’s face. The headmaster squinted in the glare.
***
Sperry Appleton’s cheeks were sunken, his eyes dark with circles. His white hair hung limply around his face. The dark suit he wore was rumpled and torn. This wasn’t the headmaster who had commanded such fear in Brendan during their last interview, but a faded shadow of the same man. Brendan looked down at the man’s hand and saw that he wore no ring.
“Get me out of here,” the headmaster said, his voice holding none of the thunder of his counterpart’s. He tried to move forward out of his cell.
“Hold on,” Brendan said, blocking the way. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“I’ve been kidnapped. You’ve got to get me out so we can call the authorities.”
“Is this your world? Your building? Are these machines yours?”
“There’s no time for this. Let me go.”
By the look in his eyes, Brendan could see the man didn’t recognize him. “Hold on,” he said. “The other you. He put you here?”
“Yes. He’s an imposter and a criminal. He’s kept me down here for so long.”
“How long?”
“Two whole years. Please, we must go, before he returns.” There was real fear in his voice.
“Brendan, let’s get out of here,” his dad said.
“Before I let you out, tell me about the machines. Did you build them?”
The headmaster tried to get past, but Brendan pushed him back with the slightest shove, and he had to lean on his cell wall for support. “Why is this so important to you? They’ll be back soon.”
“Tell me.”
The man hesitated, looked side to side, and was clearly uncomfortable. Brendan stood immobile. Finally the headmaster nodded. “The imposter showed me his machines, yes. But he built them. I have designs for machines like this, but I never completed them. There was always a part of my calculation just out of reach, so I never saw the point of going forward with a prototype. Without the math to back me up, I could never find backing. I’m a scientist, and this was my research. But then he came and took me. Wanted me to help him on his work, as if he didn’t know how to recreate his own invention. Now please, boy, we have to go.”
“These machines have caused a lot of harm. Do you have a daughter?”
The headmaster shook his head. “The imposter spoke of her. Says she understands the machines and did something to perfect them. But I have no children.”
“What about other prisoners? A boy named Brian, another named Paul, possibly other security guards from our Earth.”
“Not here. I don’t know where. We can look later, but first we need to go and summon help.”
Something in the headmaster’s face made Brendan want to slam the cell door. Perhaps it was because he was identical to the man who had threatened his father. Was this man not cut from the same cloth? But for having a brilliant daughter, he might have built his own machine and brought on another disaster to an unsuspecting Earth further downstream.
“Let’s go, Brendan,” his father said.
“Can you walk?” Brendan asked the headmaster.
He nodded and followed them towards the elevator, pausing to catch his breath a few times but refusing any help.
Tina led the way with exaggerated vigilance. Once she got to the corner by the elevator and stairwell she waved them forward.
An alarm sounded. It rang in four quick pulses, paused, and repeated the pattern. It sounded different than the alarm of their admin building.
“Get the elevator,” Brendan said. “The headmaster can’t walk up the stairs.”
Tina nodded and hit the call button. The elevator began to descend from the fifth floor. The other headmaster was up in his office or had passed back through. Brendan didn’t want to confront him, but he saw few other options. With the alarm, more security would be on the way, and perhaps the police from this Earth. Whatever enhanced strength they possessed wouldn’t be enough against such odds. Brendan didn’t want to know if he was bulletproof.
“What do we call you?” Tina asked the headmaster.
“Mister Appleton, young lady.”
Tina rolled her eyes. The elevator dinged and they got in. As the elevator climbed, Tina said to Brendan’s father, “So you’re a real supervillain. That’s cool.”
Myron shrugged. “It’s meant to pay the bills. Doesn’t always work out so well.”
“But how many guys did the headmaster send to take you down?”
“I got hit by a stun gun. I don’t remember much else.”
“What about your gunshot wound?” Brendan asked. “How are you feeling?”
“Better, besides atrophied from being cramped inside that cell.”
They arrived at the fifth floor. The alarm sounded muted once they left the elevator and the doors slid shut. Tina waited for Brendan at the door to the office. Once he was beside her, she swung it open. There was no one inside.
“He must have gone back and used his ring to turn the machine off again,” she said.
“Did just the two of you come?” Appleton asked as he looked around the empty office.
“We didn’t exactly have time to recruit,” Brendan said. “We need to cross back over. With the two of you, we can call the police. You can tell them what happened, and we can get some real help.”
Appleton shook his head. “No. I can’t chance him catching me again. He’s there waiting, and you’re just a boy. You can’t stop him. We have the machine on this side. We need to disconnect the power so he doesn’t return. That’ll give me time to fashion a kill switch on a timer so we can return and this machine will shut down.” He pushed past Brendan and moved across the office towards the controls. Brendan caught up with him and clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Let me go. You don’t understand.”
“Probably not. But we’re getting my dad back first, and I’m not letting you turn anything off until we find Brian and any others who might still be here.”
“No. It’s too dangerous to wait. Go through if you must, but I need to turn this off.”
He tried to slip away from Brendan. Brendan held on to him with ease. “No, you don’t. You’re coming with us if for no other reason than I don’t trust you. For now, the machine stays on.”
“I understand that people I care for have been hurt, and I’m going to make sure it gets stopped. I don’t know how this machine getting turned off will change things on my wo
rld. I’m taking you both with me until I figure it out.”
“But you don’t have the ring,” Appleton said.
“I don’t need it.” Brendan didn’t feel like sharing anything else. He went to the control panel and hit the third toggle. If the headmaster had crossed back over, he had closed the gate behind him. The last thing he would be expecting was for them to appear. The distortion in the air began again, gently sending ripples in the air by the bookcase. Brendan and Tina both waited until his father and Appleton went through. Then they followed.
The first thing Brendan heard as he crossed into the other office was both headmasters screaming.
24. Two Headmasters Are Better Than One
The two headmasters had their hands locked on one another, alternately cursing and shouting. One was biting the other’s arm. In the dim light, it was difficult to tell which was which. Both Brendan’s father and Tina had moved clear of them. Brendan could again see his own breath, and the chill in the air stung his eyes. The alarm bells were still ringing.
“You fool!” one of the headmasters cried. “I don’t want to hurt you! Let me go!”
One pried at the other’s hand, trying to get it open. The ring. He’s going for the ring. The ring-wearing headmaster pulled away and stumbled over Brendan. The man fell, knocking his head against the bookcase. The other headmaster pounced and began to pummel his twin. Brendan tried to pull him off but was struck with a backhand blow. The headmaster on the ground appeared dazed, and Appleton took the ring off his double’s hand.
“I’m guessing that’s bad,” Tina said.
Brendan grabbed the victorious headmaster’s arm. Whatever special strength Brendan had on the other Earth was gone, but this headmaster didn’t have the strength of the other. He pried the man’s hand open, and the ring fell to the rug.
“Grab it,” Brendan said. Tina snatched up the ring.
Appleton continued to struggle, but Brendan felt the man’s strength give out. He pushed him off to the floor where he lay panting heavily, appearing completely exhausted.
Supervillain High Page 20