by Andy Briggs
Lorna shoved Pete playfully. “Why wouldn’t she know?”
Toby dragged over some chairs so they could all see the screen. In moments the computer’s desktop appeared.
“This is it,” said Pete as he took the mouse. “This is where we find out if your hard drive works or not. This is going to tell us if we can access Hero.com.”
He dragged the mouse pointer across the screen, and double-clicked his computer icon.
A Storm Rising
Lorna and Toby’s mother, Sarah Wilkinson, opened her eyes … and saw nothing but blackness. She wondered if this was part of a nightmare. She remembered working on the computer, and looking out of the window to see the clouds roiling in the sky. Then a whirlwind had stabbed down, smashing through the front of her house. After that, things got muddled. A distorted goblin face peered at her and there was the sensation of movement as she was hauled upward. She must be hallucinating and long overdue for one of her insulin shots. The sensation of movement was probably because she was feeling a little light-headed.
No, the movement was real. She was feeling it now, but instead of going upward, her stomach was telling her she was descending at a rapid rate.
She couldn’t move her hands; experimentation revealed she was bound at the wrists. A hollow metal clunking noise reverberated around her, and the movement abruptly stopped as she rocked to one side. Then a pneumatic hiss signaled the opening of a door in front of her. A horizontal strip of light appeared, widening as a ramp descended. It took a moment for her vision to adjust to the light, and when it did she saw two sleek rifle barrels pointing at her. A pair of muscular men stared at her through red visors.
“Stand up,” one of them grunted.
Sarah took in their gray and black jumpsuits, and the curious tornado insignia on their chests.
“Nice uniform,” she said sarcastically.
One of the men simply pulled her upright, and shoved her down the ramp. Her legs felt a little wobbly, but her surroundings kept her mind away from feeling ill. She realized she was leaving the rear of an enormous Hercules aircraft, which was parked in the largest hangar she had ever seen.
The place was teeming with people, most of whom were unloading crates from the back of another Hercules. She looked at her captors quizzically.
“What’s happening here? Where am I?”
The man snickered and theatrically gestured to the hangar. “You just won first-class tickets … to the end of the world as you know it!”
Sarah was pushed forward at gunpoint. She took several halting steps—then a loud piercing alarm sounded, cherry-red strobe lights flickering on the walls.
“Look!” yelled her guard. Sarah followed her gaze to where he was pointing.
The entire hangar wall exploded in a bright orange fireball; the colossal power of the detonation knocked Sarah off her feet, sending her sliding along the floor until she crashed against the wall.
Gunfire crackled all around.
Hourglasses: the symbols of slow computers. Toby watched the pointer on the screen turn into a spinning hourglass. There was nothing he could do but wait.
Then a window appeared … and a collective cheer went up as an icon for the extra hard drive appeared on-screen.
“It’s worked!” Pete grinned.
“Okay … let’s see if we can get to Hero.com,” said Toby, pulling the mouse from Pete’s grasp.
Toby connected to the Internet. He browsed through the Favorites list, which showed most of Pete’s personal favorites, but with Toby’s mixed in there too. Sure enough, HERO was at the bottom. With a shaking hand, Toby clicked, and whispered a silent prayer.
In a flash the screen changed, and Hero.com appeared with a message:
“WELCOME BACK, YOUNG HEROES!”
Toby whooped with joy, punching a fist in the air. “It works! Pete … you’re a genius! We’re on!” Emily coughed, and Toby glanced at her. “Em … sorry. You’re a genius too!”
“How does it know it’s us?” asked Lorna.
“How does any of it work?” Toby replied.
“Who cares? Quick, get some powers!” said Pete.
“Wait a minute,” said Lorna, now standing behind them. “We don’t know where Mom is. We just know Doc Tempest has her, so what’s the point in getting powers just yet? All they’ll do is run out. We need to find out where he is first, then get powers that will help us.”
Pete bit his lip, and reluctantly nodded. “Okay, but how?”
They thought for a moment. Emily pointed to the screen.
“The job board,” she said. “Your mom’s been kidnapped by a supervillain. That has to be a job for a hero, right?”
Toby clicked his fingers. “Excellent.”
He zipped the mouse across the screen and clicked on the notice-board icon. As before, the screen changed, shimmering through many languages before settling onto English. Then, two familiar buttons:
“SEARCH BY DISTANCE” and “SEARCH BY RISK.”
“Whose risk?” Pete muttered.
“Try the distance one,” said Lorna. “This is where it happened.”
Toby selected and once more a huge list of bulletpointed jobs appeared. They scanned through.
“Kidnap … kidnap …,” recited Toby under his breath. “Here!”
He selected: “GALLERY OWNER KIDNAPPED.”
“It’s some Ukrainian guy. Wrong one.” Toby closed it, and felt a twinge of guilt. Someone, somewhere, was out there, suffering. And they had just passed up the opportunity to help. Then something else caught his eye.
“Another one,” he said, clicking on the option.
“WOMAN KIDNAPPED BY DOC TEMPEST.”
Toby clicked the mouse. Another message appeared on-screen. Something they hadn’t seen before:
“UNABLE TO SELECT: RESCUE MISSION IN PROGRESS.”
They all exchanged glances.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Pete.
“That means there are other superheroes out there,” said Lorna. “Just like us!”
KER-BOOM! Sarah was startled as a stack of crates exploded close by. They had been destroyed by a fairskinned guy, dressed head to toe in blue, who was flying through the air firing energy-bolts from his fingertips.
Sarah gawked. That simply wasn’t possible.
Another figure flew past and pirouetted skillfully in the air before landing next to her. This one was a darkskinned woman, who was maybe eighteen.
“Sarah Wilkinson?” the woman asked.
Sarah nodded weakly and thought she must need her medication badly, as the visions in front of her looked so real. “How are you … flying?”
The girl managed a smile. “We’re the Titanic Team. We’re superheroes and we’re here to save you! Don’t worry, I just—”
The woman jerked as a stream of glue-bullets slammed her hard into the fuselage of a Hercules. Sarah blinked; the woman was motionless.
Sarah turned around to see that the armed men who had held her prisoner had surrounded the blue-clad superhero who was stuck to the ground, one foot in a ball of resin. A pair of resin blobs covered his hands, preventing him from firing energy-bolts.
The soldiers parted as a pale muscular figure entered the hangar and strode toward the group, humming to himself. Sarah gasped; she’d remember the deformed head of her kidnapper anywhere.
Tempest stood in front of the terrified superhero, sizing him up.
“You won’t get away with this, Tempest!”
“Won’t I?” said Tempest, and for a moment it looked as if tears were welling. “Boo-hoo! Then I guess I should just let you go.”
The hero blinked, unsure what to say next. “That would be a good idea.”
The tears evaporated like magic and Tempest pointed at Sarah. “Trying to save her, eh? Problem is, now that you found my lair I can’t let you go telling all those other superhero types, can I? Bet it took you a lot of detective work to get here.”
Tempest strolled over to Sarah,
skipping the last few steps. Sarah’s expression revealed her thoughts. “You’re crazy.”
“Crazy? You think so?” said Tempest, leaning close. “Actually, I’m also quite smart.” Then he snapped his gaze back on the stuck superhero.
“Titanic Team, hm? You remember what sank the Titanic?”
He drew his hands back, skittering his feet to a tune only he heard. The surrounding guards edged a few paces back.
“It hit an iceberg!”
WHAM! A jet of ice spewed from Tempest’s hands. Within seconds the male superhero was frozen in a block of ice. Tempest pirouetted around and slammed his hands together. A shockwave of energy rippled out and struck the frozen hero—shattering him into tiny fragments.
Tempest wagged a finger at Sarah. “Now just sit back and chill out. Take her away!”
A guard pushed Sarah toward a door as cleanup crews started dousing flames, peeled the superwoman from the aircraft, and cleared up the remnants of the other frozen superhero.
“MISSION FAILED: HEROES TERMINATED.”
“Terminated?” said Emily. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“You think they died?” Pete asked with morbid curiosity.
Another message flashed up:
“DO YOU WISH TO ACCEPT THIS MISSION?”
Suddenly Pete wasn’t so sure. He exchanged anxious glances with the others. “What do you think? It … it doesn’t sound too safe.”
Toby looked at him in surprise—this was a real role reversal. Pete shifted uncomfortably. He had the familiar feeling of being bullied into a situation.
“I’ve got to think about me too,” he said in a whisper.
“Pete, this is about our mother,” said Lorna. “If you don’t want to …” Her voice trailed off. She knew they needed the help, but was it fair dragging their friends into this potentially deadly predicament?
Emily scowled at him. “Pete, you are so selfish! How can you think like that?”
Pete’s cheeks burned. He knew Emily was right. He closed his eyes and summoned his courage. “Okay. I’ll help. We’re in this together, right? Do it, Tobe.”
He glanced at Emily, but she pointedly ignored him.
Toby circled the mouse pointer around the “YES/NO” option. His mind was already decided, but he waited for a nod of acknowledgment from Emily and Lorna before he clicked.
The screen changed again, this time to short punchy paragraphs. Lorna read through it aloud:
“Sarah Wilkinson has been kidnapped by Doc Tempest and taken to his command center. The location of this command post is currently unknown.”
“Unknown?” said Toby. “What use is that? How can we find her?”
“Shush!” said Lorna. “Listen: ‘Heroes are advised that Doc Tempest has developed weather alteration technology and is planning to use it for blackmail.’”
“Weather alteration?” echoed Pete.
“He mentioned something about that when he robbed the bank,” said Toby thoughtfully. “And it explains the tornado. But what good is this? It doesn’t tell us where he is! He could be anywhere in the country!”
“Anywhere in the world,” added Lorna.
Emily frowned. “So where do we look? Or do we just sit here and wait?”
Everybody remained silent for several seconds. Lorna twirled her hair and squinted at the screen.
“Let’s think about this logically. Whoever created the Web site must have had a reason to go to all this effort.”
“That’s right,” said Pete. “For us to fight the bad guys.” “But why?”
“Why? Because it’s cool, that’s why! Somewhere out there is a superhero with a bunch of powers he wants to share with the world.”
“Or it could be several people,” Toby mused. “All sharing their powers with whoever wants to use them.”
Lorna began pacing the room. “But why would they do that?”
Toby rolled his eyes. “What does it matter?”
“If we work out the motives of whoever created Hero.com, then we can start working out how to use this Web site properly, and that way we might find Mom. Everything on here is mostly an icon, with no indication as to what it represents. What does that tell us?”
“That they’re trying to reach people across the world, regardless of language?” said Emily.
Pete stared at her with admiration. “That was impressive. But you’d still have to be smart to work them all out.”
“Exactly!”
Pete blinked. He was getting lost. “I’m not following.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” said Emily with a side-glance. “It’s all a test!” She gently, but firmly, shoved Toby out of his seat and circled the mouse pointer over several mysterious icons at the top of the screen. “They’re trying to see if we’re smart enough to make it as heroes.”
“Why would they do that, and who are ‘they’?”
Lorna hunched over the screen and perused the icons. “‘They’ are whoever built this site. Look at the bottom here.” She scrolled all the way down the screen to a small line.
“Property of the Foundation,” she read. “Obviously this Foundation must be superheroes, but are they retired? Are they so badly injured they can’t continue fighting evil? That message said ‘mission in progress,’ so we know there are other people out there, just like us.”
The answer hit Toby. “We’re being trained. As replacements?”
“Could be.” Lorna couldn’t keep the tremor of excitement from her voice. “This is all a trial, a very real trial, to see if we’re worthy.”
“And what if we are?” asked Pete cautiously.
“Then maybe we get these powers full time?” She shot a glance at her brother. “And maybe get to be famous from all this. Who knows?”
“Fame means money, right?” said Pete thoughtfully.
“Money’s not everything,” said Toby.
Pete grunted and answered sharply back. “Easy to say when you have it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Toby snapped back.
“Will you both shut up?” shouted Emily. The boys immediately fell silent and looked at her in astonishment. They’d never seen the usually mild-mannered Emily get angry before.
“We’re a team, so you better start acting like one.” She glared at them both for a moment, and then she broke into a pleasant smile and continued as normal. Pete glanced at Toby and raised an eyebrow—effortlessly communicating the fact that he wouldn’t want to get on her bad side. “It would be cool to track down the people behind Hero.com. Find out what is really going on.”
“But in the meantime, we have to get our mom. And quickly,” Toby reminded her. He tapped the small diabetes kit he now kept with him all the time. “And I don’t see how any of this helps.”
“It all helps,” said Emily, shifting her attention back to the screen. “It means that this Web site has some structure, like the job board. Which means there must be some blog or some way to share info. Aha!”
Emily clicked one of the top icons—and everybody took a wary step away from the screen, just in case. The image changed to a rolling list of text entries, and a prominent “search” box.
“Here we go,” said Emily with a broad grin. “A blog. That icon looks like a finger hitting a key.” The others looked dubiously at it. “Well, it does if you look hard enough.”
Pete patted Emily on the shoulder as he read the entries. He didn’t notice Emily nervously tense up.
“Good thinking, Em,” said Pete. There were dozens of entries from an assortment of users with peculiar names: Sergeant Power, Capman, Thunder Girl. And each had a few descriptive lines underneath that revealed a world of information—heroes spying on villains and reporting on the latest evil team-ups, schemes, and whereabouts. There was a lot going on in the world. Pete pointed at a blog halfway down the screen. “There! Click on it!”
Emily dutifully followed. It was an entry labeled “DOC TEMPEST” from somebody called Chameleon. The blog unfolde
d into a short paragraph that Pete read out.
“Alerted by movement from Doc Tempest. Suspect involvement with the renegade Basilisk—sources indicate Tempest is selling him out to the COE. Tempest on the move for Council approval in one hour fifty-five minutes.” Pete pushed his glasses firmly up his nose. “What the heck does all that mean?”
“What’s the Council?” asked Lorna. “Or Basilisk?”
“They’re code words,” said Pete with sudden confidence. The others looked at him quizzically. “If this Chameleon guy won’t use his real name, then he’ll probably use codes for everything else.”
“Maybe,” said Emily. The time on the screen slowly counted down. She circled the mouse pointer around the bottom of the message. “You missed this part. Says ‘click for map coordinates.’”
As she did a new window appeared showing the world from space. The globe swiveled around and zoomed toward an area in the Caribbean. Beaches, fields, and small towns became visible as the image continued magnifying until a rural town filled the screen—a single field highlighted.
“Well, we know where Doc Tempest is going to be,” said Toby firmly. “This time he won’t escape.”
“Let’s power up,” said Pete, eagerly rubbing his hands together.
The superpower page was different this time. A small window had appeared, cascading into English to display a set of instructions. Lorna read through it:
“Now that you have been fully initiated into Hero.com your trial period is over. You have earned two HEROISM POINTS each, allowing the download of two powers per hero for a maximum of twenty-four hours! Further powers may be purchased: Hero.com accepts Visa and MasterCard.”
“Purchased?” Toby shrieked.
“Knew it,” said Lorna triumphantly. “Dad always says you get nothing for free!”
“What are you talking about?” said Pete. “We each got heroism points for free!”
“That was for stopping Tempest’s bank robbery,” Emily pointed out. “Does that mean if we fail, we don’t get any points?”
“Maybe it’s like levels; the more heroic stuff you do, the more you get to download?”
“Excellent!” said Pete, who hoped that cleaning his room would earn him something, even if his parents never bothered to ask him to do it.