Strike 3: The Returning Sunrise

by Charlie Wood

  “Now,” he said to himself, “if only I can finally get through to Keplar on this stupid earpiece.”

  ***

  On the top floor of the Trident, the Daybreaker stood at the repaired, floor-to-ceiling window in his office, looking out at the crowd of people and firemen gathered below him in the park. Minutes ago, the Daybreaker had just started to recover from his latest procedure, but now the alarm had been sounded and the building evacuated.

  Behind the Daybreaker, Nova entered the office. He tried to hide the urgency in his voice.

  “Daybreaker, I can assure you that—”

  “What the hell is going on out there?” the boy said, spinning around.

  “It is just a minor security issue, and we are dealing with it as we speak. It is nothing to—”

  “Why do I feel like everyone is lying to me?” the Daybreaker asked. “What is going on here? Is this something I need to take care of?”

  Nova stood in the doorway. “No, no, sir. With your illness you need to be here and resting. We have the suspects cornered and we are resolving the matter now.”

  “Who are the suspects? Is someone here who shouldn’t be?”

  “We’re not sure yet, sir. But we know it can’t be Orion and the others, because there is no way for them to get through the Dark Nebula. Whoever it is, they came from the inside, and they will not escape. We have no reason to believe—”

  “Is everyone out of the building? Are the people of the city safe?”

  “Yes, sir. They were all evacuated and are being moved away from the building now.”

  Angry, the Daybreaker turned back to the window. “Fine. As long as the people are safe, I’ll trust you and Rigel to take care of it. I don’t want to have to get involved.”

  “Yes, sir. I will keep you updated.”

  As Nova closed the door and exited, the Daybreaker watched the massive crowd of partygoers in the park below the building. They quickly parted and moved away from the building as another truck of firemen arrived on the scene.

  However, one person didn’t move away from the building. This person was separated from the crowd, and they were actually walking toward the building—almost running—around the side of the structure and toward the skyscraper’s rear entrance.

  The Daybreaker stepped toward a telescope in his office and peered into it. Looking down, he could see that the person heading toward the rear of the building was a green-skinned teenage boy. The green-skinned boy was talking into an earpiece, and pushing it into his ear.

  The Daybreaker turned and exited the room.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “I can’t keep this up much longer!” Keplar shouted, standing on the chair in the basement, surrounded by an army of flesh-eating beetles. One of the bugs was clamped onto his ankle. He blasted it off, but seared his thigh in the process and burnt his blue fur. “More and more keep coming through!”

  “I’m almost in!” Scatterbolt yelled, his eyes dashing around the mainframe computer screen. “It’s just this code—I’ve never seen anything like it! The more I try and get in, the more it fights back! I’ve never seen code as strong as this! It’s absolutely fascinating!”

  Keplar spun around and fired at a beetle that was crawling up the backside of the chair. “Well, that’s great Zuckerberg, but I’ve got some things of my own I’m dealing with here, so if you can hurry it up, that’d be awesome!”

  “After all this, we have to get what we came for!” Scatterbolt said. “I’m almost in, I think I’ve got it...” The robot quickly jabbed at a few final keystrokes, and the computer screen became clear. “I got it, I got it! Oh my god, I got it!”

  “Great, SB, now download that krandor and let’s get out of here!”

  With his robotic fingers shaking, Scatterbolt opened a compartment on his chest and retrieved a small, black hard drive. He hooked the hard drive up to the mainframe by wires and began downloading.

  “That was insane,” Scatterbolt exhaled, finally sitting back in his chair. “Do you understand how hard that was?”

  “Probably about as hard as being bit sixteen times where the sun don’t shine by mechanical bugs with teeth the size of small daggers.”

  Scatterbolt watched the progress bar on the computer screen. “Sorry about that. But the download is almost done, I promise.”

  Keplar leapt from the chair and landed on a desk in the middle of the room. “Why aren’t they attacking you?”

  “I can only guess they’re programmed to only attack organic matter.”

  Keplar kicked away one of the maniacal beetles. “Well, that’s great. I hope you’re enjoying the show over there.”

  “As scary as they are, they are pretty fascinating.”

  “Say ‘fascinating’ one more time, and these won’t be the only robots I’ll be shooting.”

  Scatterbolt’s hard drive beeped.

  “Okay, we got it! Now we just have to get out of here!”

  Keplar looked around the room. There were no windows, and the door they came through wasn’t an option. “How are we gonna do that? These bugs keep coming in from out there, so I can only guess some other people are out there who’d also really like to hurt us.”

  Scatterbolt looked up. Then he retrieved the blowtorch from his chest compartment. “Well, if this thing can cut through the Dark Nebula, I’m pretty sure it can cut through the ceiling.”

  Keplar grinned. “Get cutting, kid.”

  ***

  Finally reaching the rear entrance of the skyscraper, Strike walked toward the glass doors, but there was a small crowd of newspaper reporters there, and the security guards were not letting anyone inside. Dozens of waiters and scientists were still evacuating the building and gathering on the sidewalk.

  “Crap,” Strike said. “There’s no way I’m getting back in there now.” He pushed the button on his earpiece. “Keplar, Keplar, can you hear me?”

  Keplar’s voice crackled through the static. “Yeah, I got you now, kid.”

  “Finally! What the hell was all that grinding noise before, I could barely hear you?”

  “Well, we had a visit from some not-so-friendly termite-beetle things, but we’re out of there now. Scatterbolt cut us out through the ceiling and we’re heading out a window on the first floor. Where’s Orion?”

  “He should be at the extraction point by now, waiting for us.”

  “Good, you get over there as fast as you can. The baddies think we are still in the computer center, so they won’t be following us. Just get to the getaway car.”

  “Got it!”

  Strike ran off through the streets of Boston. Even though everything around him had been replaced with something Rytonian, he still had a good idea of where he was, and he knew he wasn’t far from the getaway car. If he hit the northern edge of Boston Common and kept heading down Beacon Street, he’d be there in no time, and him and his friends could escape and get away back to Capricious.

  However, then he ran by an alley, and something caught his eye. As he passed the darkness in between a pair of brick buildings, he could see someone standing in the alleyway, looking out at him. Stopping himself, he turned around and carefully walked back to the alley.

  The Daybreaker was standing in between the two buildings, with his fists at his sides. He was wearing his silver armor, with its blades running down his arms and its red markings along his ribs. But, he was not wearing his helmet, so Strike could see himself staring back at him.

  “Oh my god,” Strike said, stepping toward the Daybreaker. It was the most bizarre sensation the boy had ever experienced: only twenty feet away, there was an exact duplicate of himself, looking back at him. The same dark hair, same thin build, and same dark brown eyes. Strike felt his knees buckle and his mind begin to swim, as if his brain could not handle what he was seeing. For a few seconds, it was beyond comprehension, like he was looking at a life-size video screen or having a strange dream. Except, Strike knew it was none of those things. Another version of himself—a per
fect mirror image from a different timeline—was staring back at him.

  As the Daybreaker stood there, unmoving and with his eyes pinned on Strike, Strike began to focus, and he was shocked to see the physical state of the Daybreaker. His skin was sickly and pale, as if he had not been in the sun for months, and the deep circles under his eyes were purplish-black and extended all the way down to his cheekbones. He looked the same way Strike’s uncle had looked, when he was dying of lung cancer, in the last days of his life.

  Strike waited for the Daybreaker to say something, but there was only silence. Hoping he himself would be able to speak through the shock, the boy took another careful step forward.

  “Um...hi,” Strike said. “What are you—what are you doing out here?”

  “Who are you?” the Daybreaker asked.

  Strike was surprised. “What?”

  “Who are you? I know you’re not a Rytonian. I know you’re in disguise. Who are you?”

  Strike thought it over. He realized he still looked like the Rytonian teenager. Reaching into his pocket, he pushed the button on his faker. The hologram faded away, and he was once again himself, dressed in his Strike uniform.

  The hero reached up and pulled down his mask, showing his face. “I’m...listen, I don’t know what you’ve been told, but—”

  “Who are you?” the Daybreaker said again, his face suddenly filled with anger.

  Tobin stood up straight, taken aback. He pointed to himself. “I’m me, this is me. I need to talk to you and—”

  “Who are you?” the Daybreaker shouted. “I told you to remove your disguise, and you just replaced it with another one! Who are you?”

  Tobin stepped into the alleyway. He was having a hard time concentrating, due to the bizarreness of the situation. “I’m not—I’m—this isn’t a disguise. This is me. I’m the same as you, I can explain if you—”

  Now the Daybreaker stepped forward out of the alley, his fists clenched. “What is your name? What is your name?”

  “My name...is Tobin Lloyd. Just like you. I’m the same as you. Listen, something terrible has happened, but I can explain and help you if you—”

  Suddenly, the Daybreaker screamed and charged toward the street. “Arrrrrrggghhhh!”

  Tobin moved back, readying himself. “No, listen, you don’t—”

  But the Daybreaker swung at Tobin, his armored arm glowing with white fire, and Tobin was only able to grab his bo-staff from his back at the last second and deflect the blow. The hero was knocked backward, but the Daybreaker was completely unaffected. With insane speed, he swung his fists at Tobin over and over again, his knuckles erupting with white bursts of flame each time he connected against Tobin’s staff.

  Tobin tried to stay on the defensive and look for an opening, but the Daybreaker wasn’t slowing down. He was in a fit of rage. “This isn’t what you think,” Tobin said. “You don’t—”

  The Daybreaker’s speed and strength were too much for Tobin, and he could not keep up. The Daybreaker connected with his open palm against Tobin’s chest, sending Tobin flying backward in a stream of white fire and electricity.

  “No, stop!” Tobin shouted from the ground, backing away from the Daybreaker, his Strike costume sending up wisps of smoke. He fired his own blue electricity from his bo-staff, and it erupted against the Daybreaker’s silver armor. The Daybreaker quickly raised an arm to his face, blinded by the blue flash.

  Taking advantage of the opportunity, Tobin got to his feet and lightning-jumped up onto a fire escape attached to one of the brick buildings in the alleyway. From there, he quickly sent another lightning burst down to his feet, and then leapt up onto the building’s rooftop.

  But, Tobin did not buy himself much time. As he lay on the roof, holding his side and trying to catch his breath, he watched as the Daybreaker slowly hovered up over the top of the building from the ground below, surrounded by white flames and snapping, blue electricity.

  “Please,” Tobin said, scooting away with his foot and putting some distance in between him and his opponent. “You have to listen to me...we can’t—”

  As soon as the Daybreaker’s metal boots hit the rooftop, he again charged at Tobin, with his teeth gritted and his face contorted with the ferocity of a warrior in battle. The enraged, armor-wearing teen was now wielding a bo-staff of his own—except this one was made out of pure white flame, and he used this scorching weapon to punish Tobin, raising it up and bringing it down against the boy’s body. As Tobin lay on the roof, he was only able to roll out of the way and desperately defend himself with his arms and his bo-staff, looking for any opening to pop a blue flash of electricity from his hands—this seemed to be the only method of attack that had any effect on the Daybreaker. Finally, as the rampaging teen swung upward with his staff, Tobin fired a ball of lightning from his palm, striking the Daybreaker in his face and momentarily stunning him.

  “Please,” Tobin said, getting to his feet. He held his hand against his chest. “We are the same person. I know...everything that you know. Our mom is named Catherine. We live in Bridgton. Our best friend is named Jennifer, our friend Chad is going to—”

  “Don’t you say their names!” the Daybreaker shouted, pointing his finger at Tobin. “Don’t you dare say their names!”

  “They’re my friends, too,” Tobin said. “I can prove it, I can—”

  The white fire around the Daybreaker grew. “Don’t you speak their names because they are dead! They are dead, and it’s all because of you!”

  Tobin was confused, but realized this was his only chance. This was obviously a topic that distracted the Daybreaker enough to stop him from attacking.

  “They’re not,” Tobin said, catching his breath. “They’re not—what are you talking about?”

  “Rigel told me the truth,” the Daybreaker said, stepping toward Tobin. “He told me about Orion and the others. He told me what you are all planning to do. He showed me how Orion killed them all.”

  “Orion didn’t do anything. They’re lying to you, telling you things—”

  “I saw it!” the Daybreaker screamed. Tobin could feel the intense heat from the Daybreaker’s white fire. “With my own eyes! He killed them! And I have to stop him! I have to stop all of you!”

  Tobin closed his eyes and held out his hand. “Listen, what you saw, it isn’t real. I don’t know what happened, but that helmet...we think it was that helmet. It fed you fake memories, false information. It made you think things that aren’t real.”

  “No, I saw it. Rigel showed me all of it. He showed me that Orion would create a fake version of me to try and fool me.”

  Tobin’s mind was racing. He tried to concentrate, focus on how he could get through to the Daybreaker. “We’re from—we’re from different timelines. Listen, you have to believe me. We’re the same person. But what’s happened to you...I don’t know what’s happened to you, but you are clearly in pain. You don’t look right. I don’t know what they are doing to you, but—”

  “They are not doing anything to me. They are training me. They are preparing me.”

  “Preparing you for what?”

  “To rule. Over everything. To make the decisions of the world, to protect everyone. So no one else gets hurt. I couldn’t protect them, but I will destroy every one of you if I have to—with my bare hands—to keep the rest of the universe safe.”

  Tobin shook his head and closed his eyes. “No, no. You have it all wrong. I can prove it to you, somehow. I don’t know how, but just come with me. Come talk to Orion, come with me and—”

  “I will not talk to you. I will not talk to Orion. I will only stop you. And anyone else that stands with you.”

  “What are you gonna do?” Tobin asked, frustrated. “Take over the world? Is that Rigel’s plan? Is that what you want to do? Kill millions of people? Destroy lives, destroy countries? That’s what you’ve signed up for?”

  “No one will die who does not need to die. Those that stand with us will not perish.” />
  Tobin shook his head again, smirking. “My god, that’s not how you talk. I know that’s not how you talk, because that’s not how I talk. Now you’re just repeating Rigel. You don’t have a single thought that belongs to you, do you?”

  “Yes, I do. This is all mine. All of this belongs to me. I’m in charge of this entire operation.”

  “That’s what you think, huh?” Tobin asked with a grin. “That’s cute.” Tobin thought it over. He couldn’t beat the Daybreaker with brute strength, but the mirror image of himself was clearly distracted by his anger. He would have to exploit that weakness with all that he had. “Seriously, it’s so obvious now what’s happened: you’ve bought into all their crap, just like they thought you would. I just didn’t realize I was so stupid. I mean, really, if you’ve decided to be a super-villain, at least get your own personality. I can’t believe I basically became the fat-free version of Rigel, with better skin.”

  “Rigel is not telling me what to do.” The Daybreaker pounded his fist against his chest. “I am in charge. They have shown me that it’s my destiny to rule over Earth and Capricious. To protect it, with my powers. To protect it from people like you.”

  “So to do that,” Tobin said, “you’ve encased Boston in a huge dome and now you’re scaring the crap out of the entire world.” He gave the Daybreaker a thumbs up. “Sounds like you’re doing a great job so far, buddy, keep it up.”

  The Daybreaker smirked. “They told me you would do this, if we ever met. They told me you would make jokes and try to get under my skin to distract me.”

  “You should have listened to them. They were right.”

  Tobin unleashed a stunning blast of lightning from his bo-staff. It barreled into the Daybreaker like a freight train and exploded in a burst of blue light against his chest, finally knocking him off his feet.

  Tobin walked toward his downed opponent, readying another blast in his staff.

  “I don’t know what they are teaching you in that skyscraper,” the boy said, “but you’ve clearly got a lot left to learn. Don’t you know that the longer we store our energy in objects, the stronger the blast? You seriously just stood there and let me charge my staff for like five minutes. You know, I keep thinking that you’re really stupid, but then I realize that means I’m really stupid. You’re indirectly giving me low self-esteem here.”