Secret Origins

by James Riley

  The chains rattled as the man picked them up. Metal grated on metal, and then a loud bang made Owen almost jump out of his skin, which probably would have been noticeable. A dank smelling air filled the room as the man grunted, sounding lower this time, then metal scraped again as the manhole closed back up.

  Owen closed his eyes and just breathed for a moment, glad that he didn’t have to find out what people who dressed up as superheroes did when they found intruders in their houses.

  And then someone grabbed his arm, and Owen screamed, “Don’t murder me, this was all her fault!”

  “Hey!” Bethany shouted at him, slapping his arm. “Don’t do that! And thanks a lot!”

  “I thought you were the Doc Twilight guy!” Owen shouted back. “Don’t just grab someone like that!”

  “Why did you have your eyes closed?”

  “Because creepy things were happening!” Owen peeked out from behind the case and saw that the manhole cover was back in place.

  Bethany stepped over to it. “He went down there. Let’s follow him.”

  “What?!” Owen shouted, pulling her away from the manhole. “Are you kidding? He’s dressing as a superhero. And not for a comic convention or something normal. He’s probably trying to fight crime for real, which means he’s insane. We’re not going down there, no way. Down there leads to horrible things, and the last thing we need is a nonfictional adventure. People get killed for real in those things, you know, and there’s no jumping out of a book to save us.”

  Bethany stared at him like she was about to say something, then paused, looking down at the ground. “You’re right.”

  “I’m . . . what?” Owen paused, a bit flustered. He hadn’t expected that.

  “Don’t push it,” Bethany told him, walking back to the basement door. “I . . . might not have thought this whole thing through. I just feel like I’m about to burst, Owen. I have so much energy, and all I want to do is something . . . risky.”

  “You sound like Kiel,” he told her, forcing a smile.

  She looked up at him, then sighed. “Probably. But it doesn’t matter. The best thing to do is just confront my mother and ask her what’s going on.”

  “Like I suggested upstairs,” Owen pointed out quietly.

  “What’d I say about not pushing it?” she told him, glaring over her shoulder as she started up the basement stairs.

  An oversized overcoat and hat now covered the couch in the living room. Next to the outer garments was what looked like a large envelope that the man must have brought in with him.

  Bethany picked it up, glancing at Owen as if waiting for him to say something, but he figured she’d earned this much. He nodded. “Go for it.”

  She grinned just a bit, then opened the top of the envelope, pulling out some pages that looked a lot like the art hanging on the walls.

  “What is it?” Owen said, but Bethany didn’t answer, her eyes on the pages as she scanned them.

  Then her eyes widened, and she dropped the pages and envelope to the floor, staring at Owen in shock. Without another word, she turned and sprinted back down the basement stairs.

  “What is it?!” Owen repeated, grabbing for the pages and scanning them quickly.

  It was Doc Twilight, the comic book version, in what must have been his Twilight Cave or whatever. He was alone and talking to himself in a mirror. “The world must never find out my secret identity,” Doc Twilight said as he pulled off his mask. “For what would they think if they knew that Christian Sanderson, astronomer of Jupiter City, was actually Doc Twilight?”

  Owen glanced at the face, thinking it seemed familiar. Where had he . . . and then his eyes rose to the photo of Bethany’s fourth birthday party.

  Doc Twilight had the same face as one of the men in the photo. And it wasn’t Murray.

  From the basement Owen heard the unmistakable sound of Bethany pulling the manhole cover up and dragging it slowly to the side. And for once, Owen couldn’t blame her.

  Doc Twilight . . . was her father?

  CHAPTER 6

  Bethany stared down into the manhole, ready to jump in the moment Owen tried to stop her. It didn’t matter what he said, not now. This was her dad. Her dad. She’d been within a few feet of him without even knowing! He’d been watching over her, keeping her safe for months now, maybe even longer, and she’d never known!

  “Don’t even say it, Owen,” she said as her friend walked up next to her.

  Owen glanced down. “I was just going to point out that you don’t usually see manholes covering up blue circles of fire.”

  Bethany gave him a look, then turned back to the fiery circle right underneath the manhole. “Yeah, okay, fair enough. I can’t say I was expecting that either. Figured there’d be a tunnel or a ladder or something.”

  “So what do you think it is?” he asked, peering down into the darkness through the circle of fire. Whatever was on the other side, it was too dark to make out.

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m going in. You can come with me or stay here, up to you, but I’m going.”

  Owen didn’t answer at first, and Bethany closed her eyes, hoping he’d just this once be on her side.

  “Follow me,” he said, moving to the side of the manhole.

  Bethany smiled in surprise. “You’re going? And you’re going first?”

  “What’s there to be afraid of?” he asked, shrugging. “It’s just a big blue circle of fire. Doc Twilight knew what it was, and he went down there, so what can go wrong?”

  “I found him, Owen,” Bethany said quietly. “That was my dad.”

  Owen sat down on the floor next to the hole, staring at the blue fire. “All we know for sure is that a guy put on the costume of a guy who looks like your dad. We don’t know if that comic superhero is your real dad. Or if this guy is him either.”

  “It was him,” Bethany said, shaking her head. “It all makes sense now. That’s why I couldn’t find him, because he wasn’t in a book at all!”

  Owen’s foot reached the blue circle, and he poked it through slowly. “None of this makes sense. Don’t lie.”

  “He couldn’t come back to us because he had some important mission, obviously,” Bethany said. “Look at him, he’s a real live superhero! He probably had to save the world, and couldn’t put us in danger or something. Villains are always finding out about people’s secret identities, aren’t they? But he couldn’t just leave us alone, so he’s been watching over us from a distance this whole time.”

  “Well, my foot isn’t bursting into flames or anything,” Owen said, pushing the rest of his leg in. “I’m not feeling anything on the other side to stand on, though. I’m going to try to poke my head through, okay?”

  Bethany nodded, not hearing a word he said. “I still have a lot of questions, but at least he must have had a good reason. And my mom must know! They both must have been protecting me. This changes everything, Owen.”

  Owen didn’t respond, so Bethany looked over at him. “Owen?”

  There was nobody there. He must have already jumped through while she was talking. Bethany dropped to the floor, then slid into the blue circle of fire, ready for anything.

  Instead, everything went dizzy, and she crashed against something, landing hard on her stomach. Shaking off the jolt, she looked around into a room lit only by a larger version of the blue-fire ring that had been covered by the manhole, except this one was standing straight up and down, instead of in a hole in the floor. And it was surrounded by metal equipment on all sides.

  In fact, there wasn’t much of anything in the room that wasn’t covered in machines.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about all of this,” Owen said from behind her. She pushed to her feet and found him standing over a dimly lit control panel.

  “Is someone here?” she asked, then louder, “Da . . . Doc Twilight?”

  “I don’t see him,” Owen said. “But I think this machine is what’s making the fire portal thing we just came through. It’s all hooked u
p to it. Where are we? You think this is, like, some kind of government thing under the city?”

  “Does the government use blue-fire portals?” Bethany asked, looking around.

  Owen shrugged. “Probably.” He walked around, running his hand over various machines before stopping in front of something large covered in blankets. “What do you think this thing is? It looks almost like a person.”

  Bethany walked over next to him, moving slowly in the dimly lit room. Whatever he’d found did sort of look personish. “Maybe it’s, like, a robotic suit for someone to wear?”

  Owen poked it with his finger. “What, like Iron Man?”

  Something began to whir underneath the blankets, and the suit abruptly doubled in height. The blankets fell off, and Bethany gasped as a ten-foot-tall robot with missiles on its shoulder and buzz saws for hands turned on in front of her. It had a giant remote control with a big red button taped to its chest, which must have turned it on when Owen touched it.

  “FOOLS!” the robot yelled, holding its buzz-saw hands up in triumph. “You have awakened Dr. Apathy, and now face your deaths!”

  CHAPTER 7

  Owen gasped, jumped forward, and hit the button on the robot. The robot instantly powered down, its arms and torso hanging limply as the buzz-saw hands slowly spun to a halt.

  “What . . . was that?” Bethany said, her eyes wide.

  Owen seemed to be trying to catch his breath. “I don’t think this is a government facility.”

  She just stared at him. “How is this happening? Where are we exactly?”

  Owen shook his head, then turned to look at the blue-fire portal. “I don’t think we’re below that house anymore, Bethany. Wherever that thing brought us . . . it’s not good.”

  Bethany nodded. “Right. Well, we need answers, so . . .” She pushed the robot’s button, and it began to power up.

  “FOOLS!” it shouted, then powered down as Owen quickly hit the button again.

  “What are you doing?” he shouted at her.

  “I’m going to ask it where we are,” she told him. “Do you have a better idea for finding out?”

  Owen just stared at her, his mouth hanging open. “It’s a death robot!” he said finally. “Named Dr. Apathy!”

  “ ‘Apathy’ means ‘indifference,’ ” Bethany told him. “So the robot probably won’t care enough to kill us.” She hit the robot’s button, and it powered back up.

  “FOOLS!” the robot shouted, its buzz-saw hands spinning up again.

  “Stop that!” Owen shouted at her, punching the button. “You’re doing it again!”

  “Doing what?”

  “Taking crazy risks! You’re asking a ten-foot-tall robot with buzz-saw hands for directions. Literally anyone else would be better!”

  “Do you see anyone else?” Bethany asked him. “And we can clearly shut it off whenever we want. So why worry about it?”

  “It’s a death robot. Everything you need to know is right there in the name!”

  “Then go hide,” she told him, her heart racing. “I’m finding out what this thing knows about my dad.” And she smacked the robot in the chest again.

  The robot powered up. “FOOLS!” it shouted, holding its hands up in triumph. “Stop turning me off and on!”

  “Who are you, and where are we?” Bethany asked as the buzz-saw hands made horrible grinding noises. In spite of the danger, her heart was beating faster than it had in months, and she couldn’t help feeling excited.

  “I am Dr. Apathy, wretch! And you shall pay for invading my laboratory. All of Jupiter City shall pay!” The robot paused, then looked around. “Wait, this isn’t the real me.” He felt around his body with his buzz saws, leaving cuts in the metal. “This is just the copy of my brainwaves that I stuck in my robot. I must still be in jail, which means I need to go break myself out!”

  “Where is Doc Twilight?” Bethany said, ready to shut the robot down at a moment’s notice.

  “Doc Twilight?” the robot roared. “My greatest enemy? Where is he!” The robot stepped out into the lab, a beam of red light searching all around. It passed over Owen, who shouted in terror and dropped to the floor, then continued. “He’s not here. What trickery is this?”

  “He passed through here,” Bethany told the robot. “Where is this place? Where is Jupiter City?”

  “I care not for your questions,” the robot told her. “Silence them, or you shall meet your doom.”

  “Oh, stop it,” Bethany said, and hit the button.

  “Don’t do thaaaaa—” the robot said, trailing off as it lost power again. Bethany ignored it and ran over to Owen, then helped him stand up.

  “I thought that was a laser beam or something,” he told her.

  “I know,” she said. “Doesn’t matter. Jupiter City was the name of the place Doc Twilight’s from, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s what the comic said.” Owen gave her a strange look. “Don’t even start with that. We’re not actually in Jupiter City. We didn’t jump into anything.”

  Bethany pointed at the portal. “We did come through that, though. Think about it. How did my father get into the real world to begin with, before I was born? He never had the power to travel between the worlds like I do. So what if this thing’s a portal?”

  Owen’s eyes widened. “Supervillains are always making crazy portals to other dimensions. And this Dr. Apathy guy seems to be pretty good with the fake comic-booky science stuff.”

  “What do you mean, fake?”

  Owen snorted. “Did you hear the robot? It said Dr. Apathy put his brainwaves into it. That’s not exactly realistic science. It’s a lot more like the science that comic books use that sounds cool, but would never happen.” He shrugged. “Think about it. It’s like Peter Parker getting bitten by a radioactive spider. That would probably give him radiation poisoning or something in real life, but instead, he becomes Spider-Man. The Hulk gets hit by a gamma bomb, which isn’t a real thing anyway, and doesn’t die. Comic book science just needs to sound good, it doesn’t need to actually be real.”

  “But if it’s real enough in that world,” Bethany said, stepping closer to the portal, “does that mean it could actually work? A doorway to the nonfictional world? That could be how Dad got out!”

  Owen sighed. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we could always ask the robot.”

  Bethany grinned. “You’re a brave man, Owen Connors. Just stand back.”

  Owen shook his head, stepping closer to her. “If this really is a superhero world, I’m probably safer being brave. If you try to run, the villain always gets you. It’s always better in comics to stand and fight against bullies and bad guys.”

  She gave him an odd look, but he just slapped the robot in the button, and it immediately woke up.

  “FOOLS!” the robot shouted, raising its hands in triumph. “I’m really beginning to tire of—”

  “Where does that portal go?” Owen shouted, pointing at the blue ring of fire.

  “Children do not interrupt Dr. Apathy when he is pontificating, wretch!” the robot shouted, bringing his buzz-saw hands down close to Owen. “And the Apathy Circle burns a hole between dimensions to a world where there are no superpowered meddlers to thwart—”

  Bethany pushed the robot’s button, shutting him down again. “You were right, we’re in the fictional world, then!”

  “Only, we didn’t jump in,” Owen said quietly, his eyes on the robot still.

  “So? That doesn’t matter. Forget our promise, this is about my dad!”

  “No, I mean, we didn’t get here by jumping into a comic book. Does that mean we can’t jump out, either?”

  Bethany paused, then rolled her eyes. “Of course I can jump us out. It’s the fictional world. That’s what I do.”

  Owen gave her a look, then waved her on.

  “Fine,” she said. “But only to show you how wrong you are.” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then jumped out of the story.

  Ex
cept instead of the nonfictional world, she landed right in the same spot.

  “Uh-oh,” Owen said.

  CHAPTER 8

  Okay,” Owen said as Bethany jumped into the air over and over, getting more frustrated with every landing. “So we’re in a comic book world. How much do you know about that?”

  “I read comics,” Bethany said between jumps, glaring at him.

  “Like what?”

  She finally stopped, breathing a bit hard. “Bone. Tintin. Zita the Spacegirl.”

  Owen nodded. “So no superhero comics then. If we’re going to go out there after Doc Twilight, wherever he went, then you need to know how this place works.”

  Bethany rolled her eyes. “We’ve wasted a lot of time already. Why don’t we just go find my dad before he disappears again?”

  Owen pointed at the depowered killer robot. “Because this? This is normal here. In superhero comics, there are alien invasions, entire cities get mind-controlled, and almost everyone has superpowers at one point or another. You really want to just run out into that without knowing what you’re doing?”

  “Fine. Let’s just hurry.”

  “Okay, there are five rules to superhero comics,” Owen told her, marking them off on his fingers. “First, like I already mentioned, science works differently here. It’s not quite science-fiction, but it’s close. Basically, if it would look cool in a fight, it’s probably possible here. So don’t worry about how someone who can shrink to the size of a bug gets super strong when they’re small. They just look cool punching someone out. See what I mean?”

  “Nope,” Bethany said, shifting her weight back and forth like she couldn’t wait to go. “Next?”

  Owen sighed. “Second, superpowers come from three different things: You get them just by your genetics, like the X-Men or Superman or someone; you make them yourself, like Iron Man; or you get them by accident, like pretty much everyone else. And the accidents should normally kill you, but here, they don’t.”

  “Accidents are good. Got it.”

  “Third, everyone has a theme, heroes and villains. A lot involve animals for whatever reason. Bats and spiders and black widows—”