by Andy Briggs
They edged forward toward the ship’s dark helm at the front of the boat. As they drew nearer they could see the captain inside the control room, bathed in pale lights. The captain didn’t look around, but instead stared at his instruments. The ship was old enough to be steered by a large wheel, instead of the small computer joysticks of modern vessels. The captain was using all his weight to keep the wheel level.
Toby landed on the raised deck and took a step forward when Lorna suddenly gave a loud yelp. She had been about to follow her brother through the control room door when she was violently dragged up and backward into the sky by some invisible force. She suddenly stopped and hung stationary for a second, before rapidly zigzagging through the air like a balloon—coming to another abrupt halt. She stopped screaming for a microsecond before plummeting into the water.
Lorna’s screams alerted the captain. He spun around to see Toby—who had his back to the man, watching his sister’s plight. He didn’t see the captain pick up a small fire extinguisher and raise it to strike Toby’s head.
Emily dragged her gaze from Lorna, who was thrashing in the ocean, to Toby, who was about to be clocked by the captain.
“Tobe!” she screamed and extended her hands. The orbs appeared as before—but then they popped like harmless soap bubbles. For a brief second she panicked—the friends’ powers were only temporary and liable to run out at any moment. But she reasoned that her powers hadn’t expired, or else she wouldn’t still be flying.
Toby heard her warning and turned just as the captain swung the fire extinguisher down. Toby ducked aside but the extinguisher still clipped his shoulder. The might of the attack forced him to the floor, his right arm numb from where he’d been struck. The captain loomed over him and hissed in an unfamiliar language. Toby could see the bloodthirsty rage in the man’s eyes….
A sound like a million waterfalls rumbling interrupted the captain. After years on the sea, he knew trouble from the ocean when he heard it. He looked through the control room’s window. Toby followed the captain’s gaze, his eyes widening.
A wall of water rose in front of the ship, almost one hundred feet tall and four times as wide. It was a tidal wave—except this one didn’t move, but stood up from the sea like a liquid wall, seawater rising on one side and cascading down the other. The cap of the wave bubbled and frothed, betraying the force of the water contained beneath—and Pete stood on top of it like a champion surfer. Dressed in his black wetsuit with his arms folded, he was laughing in delight.
Once they had accepted the mission to stop a pirate vessel from smuggling its illegal cargo into the country, Pete had scoured the Web site for aquatic powers. It had delayed them by a good forty minutes as he struggled to make an educated guess about which icons symbolized them.
The moment they had found the freighter, Pete had plummeted into the ocean. He had been delighted to discover he could breathe just as well underwater as in the air. While the others tracked the ship from above, it had taken him time to discover what other powers he had. After some experimentation, Pete succeeded in scaring a school of inquisitive fish when he created a dense ball of seawater that was almost as hard as rock.
When the fight broke out above, he exerted himself to create a wall of water so he could stop the ship. And he was surprised to see that it had worked a lot better than he’d imagined.
Emily was the only one with a clear vantage point above the action. The tidal wave Pete had created was huge, and she was certain that it was well beyond the limits of the powers they were supposed to have.
“How can he do that?” she muttered to herself.
She checked that Lorna was still treading water to the right of the ship—starboard, she corrected herself. Toby was still on his knees outside the door.
When she looked back at Pete she saw him draw his hands together as though he were closing curtains—and the tidal wave surged forward.
She yelled, “Pete, no, don’t do it!”
The weight of the tidal wave would surely crush Toby on the ship and Lorna in the water, and it didn’t seem that Pete had any idea either of them was in there.
Pete was enjoying himself too much to notice Emily frantically waving her arms in warning, and the roar of the water was too loud for him to hear her.
Without thinking, Emily dived toward the ocean.
Pete was stunned at the wave’s magnitude, but he assumed that he was controlling his powers like a true master. The wave tore forward. As it reached the bow of the freighter he noticed movement from the corner of his eye—it was Emily flying down. Pete looked around with a frown, suddenly aware that none of his friends were airborne.
Toby clambered to his feet, holding a deck rail as the tidal wave struck the boat. The front of the vessel was pitched almost vertically up. Toby’s feet slipped from the deck and he fell. The angled floor now became a slide and he plummeted down toward a set of steel railings that circled the control tower. He hit them hard, the impact knocking the breath out of him.
His shoulder was aching so much that he could only use one hand to try and right himself as the wave carried the ship backward through the ocean at an acute angle. The water broke overhead and rained down on the deck like a heavy downpour that increased in intensity with every passing second.
Salt water stung Toby’s eyes and his mouth tasted of nothing else. He pushed himself forward to fly—but found the superpower had vanished. He suddenly felt helpless, as the world around him became nothing but seawater and a frenzy of white bubbles.
Emily had to use both hands to heave Lorna from the water. It was difficult to gain any altitude with the additional weight.
“Higher!” shouted Lorna as the wave enveloped the boat.
“I can’t! You’re too heavy!”
“What?” Lorna bit back any argument over her weight. Now was not the time to fight. Emily opted to try to outrun the wave instead. Lorna felt the world starting to move in slow motion as the surge bore down on them. They watched in amazement as the water submerged the vessel—and then the entire wall fell back into the ocean as though somebody had pressed a “stop” button. The colossal sound of collapsing water dissipated into silence.
Lorna suddenly jolted into the air, bouncing off Emily, as her own flying power kicked back into action. She hovered next to her friend and they watched the surface of the sea bubble where the ship used to be. Personal possessions floated to the surface along with eight struggling crew members who all treaded water that was fast becoming littered with thousands of DVD cases. They spread across the surface like driftwood as they escaped from the smuggler ship’s hold.
Pete swooped down next to the girls.
“Wow! Wasn’t I incredible? Did you see what I did? Amazing!”
Emily looked incredulous. “That was a team effort.” But Pete wasn’t listening. He’d become boastful of his own exploits on the last few missions they had completed. It was beginning to get annoying.
Pete suddenly looked around with concern. “Where’s Toby?”
Emily pointed. “He was on the boat, you idiot.”
They stared at the surface for a stunned second—then Pete flew straight for the water …
And bounced right off, as if he had flown into a sheet of rubber. He rolled across the undulating surface, not a centimeter of his body getting wet.
Lorna and Emily watched with concern. The boat crew were swimming normally, but Pete couldn’t break the surface. It was like kneeling on a bouncy castle as he pounded the mysteriously solid water.
“I can’t break through!” he yelled.
Emily suddenly understood. “Our powers are malfunctioning!”
A loud splash sent Pete reeling backward as Toby surfaced through the plastic cases, sucking in a deep breath.
“Dude!” Pete said as he stood on the water—which suddenly collapsed under him, sending him splashing into the ocean as the laws of physics decided to wake up. He treaded water next to Toby.
“You okay?”
Toby nodded. He glanced around and saw the captain had surfaced some ways away and was frantically swimming toward his crew.
“You planning on swimming in there all night?” asked Lorna. She was grinning with relief.
Pete and Toby flew from the water to join the girls. Toby looked around the ocean and got a sense of what had happened. The water was littered with cases and the ship’s crew, who were trying to distance themselves from the superheroes. Aside from other debris, there was no sign of the freighter. In the distance, a spotlight combed the water, and they heard the dull drone of an approaching coast guard vessel.
“Sinking the boat still counts as stopping it, right?” Pete asked.
“We stopped them from smuggling the pirated movies,” said Emily. “That’s a successful mission.”
“Still think it’s a waste of time though,” said Lorna. The others looked at her. “Well it is! You nearly died, Tobe. For what?”
“For doing what superheroes do.”
“And we get a bunch of Heroism points,” Pete added.
Lorna shook her head. “That’s my point. We did what the authorities should be doing. Okay, that may be heroic but it’s not the job of a superhero. We should be doing bigger things. Getting ourselves noticed.”
Toby rolled his eyes. This was Lorna’s latest argument. She wanted to use the powers to get famous instead of to do a job. “We’ve talked about this. Getting noticed is the last thing we want. If people knew we had these powers or that superheroes even existed …” He drifted off.
“Exactly. What would happen?” said Lorna. “We might get a little fame and even get paid to do this stuff. I’d rather go on a talk show and brag about what we’ve done than do a paper route.”
“I agree,” said Pete.
Toby shot Pete a look. Agreeing with his sister was a huge betrayal. “We’ve been through this before.” Toby sighed. “There are government departments and the Enforcers out there trying to stop the public from knowing!”
“And what else are they hiding?” said Pete, eager for a conspiracy theory.
“Anyway, there’s more important things to think about,” said Emily, who was tiring of the constant fighting. “Like why did our powers glitch?”
Pete shrugged. “I felt terrific. Better than ever. Except when I bounced off the water. That was strange.”
“They were a little too good,” Emily commented.
“Jealous?”
“No. I’m just saying. Don’t you think your powers seemed, I don’t know, increased, while ours suffered?”
Pete swapped a glance with Toby and nodded. “She’s jealous all right.”
Emily looked away, refusing to argue. The coast guard vessel was drawing nearer. Its searchlight drifted across the sea and fixed on one of the crew, who was frantically signaling for help.
“We better get going,” said Toby. “Our job here is done.”
The superheroes rose into the night sky and headed toward home. If the coast guard crew had had sharper hearing, they might have heard the sound of arguing passing overhead as four figures shot across the full moon.
Moonlight played over the swaying heather fields of the Cornish Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall, England. Powerful floodlights pierced the dark landscape and bathed the world’s largest and oldest satellite earth station: England’s massive Goonhilly Downs complex. Some sixty-one satellite dishes of all shapes and sizes poked toward the heavens. In the center of the complex stood multiple buildings that housed everything from the tourist center to the control rooms. It was a twenty-four-hour operation, so even at this time of night there was a full contingent of staff on duty, but at least the external roads were quiet. A lone security jeep rolled by; the guard inside had little idea that there were intruders already within the complex.
One of the large control rooms designated to obscure the dish array was a hybrid of older decor and modern computers. The night staff lay unconscious on the floor, with one unlucky soul transformed to stone when he had tried to contact security. The telephone was still clenched in his petrified hand.
Basilisk was slumped in a chair, leaning on the central Y-shaped desk as he stared at a computer screen. After a few weeks spent formulating their plan at Worm’s base, he was dismayed that he still hadn’t fully recovered from his ordeal on the volcanic island. His leg throbbed, forcing him to walk with a cane. His new dark-green bodysuit hid the scars well and the deep hood of his cloak obscured his badly burned face—a face so damaged that even he no longer recognized it. His regeneration powers should have kicked in by now, but nothing had happened. It was time for a fresh regeneration—a completely new set of DNA to rejuvenate him as it had over the centuries. But right now, that would have to wait.
Worm stood across from him, examining a large monitor displaying the site’s numerous satellite arrays. Worm was bowled over by the leap in progress that had occurred during his incarceration and was taking every opportunity to marvel at it.
“Incredible,” he muttered under his breath. “Truly amazing. Who would have thought mankind could do all this and finally set foot in space without the aid of superpowers?”
Basilisk shook his head. He had done his best to bring Worm up-to-date on over half a century’s achievements, but the technology was far beyond anything Worm had dreamed of. His constant exclamations of astonishment were wearing Basilisk down. Still, Basilisk had lost everything when his island was destroyed and was forced to rely on Worm. The villain’s unique skills were now integral to Basilisk’s plan.
Worm’s powers allowed him to travel through earth, ideally soil or sand, by deconstructing himself into billions of cell particles and seeping through the ground—in between the very particles that made the earth seem solid. By altering his technique he could just as easily walk through tiny cracks in the walls or seep under doors to enter rooms, but there was nothing technological about his powers. The drawback was that they weren’t very effective through dense material such as rock or metal.
Once they had left the island, Basilisk and Worm had spent weeks gathering equipment, such as laptops and Basilisk’s new body armor, so they could implement the ambitious plan.
Basilisk had worked with Worm to teach him how to adapt his powers to use on computers. It had been a slow process, especially with Worm’s constant complaints and his threats to hand Basilisk over to the Council of Evil every time something went wrong. But eventually, under careful guidance from Basilisk, Worm was able to use his ability to send atomized fragments of his finger into a computer. His power was limited; he could only extend so far before the pain became unbearable. Scrambling his body through the dirt was easy, but the metal was denser and electronic systems had magnetic fields and electron flows yanking at his every atom—it was like swimming through a riptide that threatened to pull you apart. But his reach of a dozen inches was enough to enter the heart of a processor chip—which was nothing more than an elaborate series of digital switches. Once inside, Worm could manipulate the computer system.
Worm’s short reach made Basilisk’s plans a little more difficult. He had hoped they could conduct phase one from the comfort of Worm’s lair. Instead they had been forced to break into the Goonhilly complex to directly access the computer system and satellite dish they needed.
Once Worm had got them inside, Basilisk was able to locate the dish that was channeling Internet traffic for Hero.com. Whether the station staff knew it or not, the heroes’ Web site was transmitting its superpowers among ordinary Internet traffic, TV signals, and radio communications. Basilisk had even managed to locate the satellite that Hero.com used, off which it bounced its communications. Needless to say, there was no official log of such a satellite and Basilisk correctly assumed it had been launched in secret.
Basilisk had tried to explain to Worm that superpowers were stored in massive vats, donated by heroes, and more recently some had been artificially synthesized. Then through a complex process of quantum physics, they were digitized an
d transferred via the satellite, through the Internet, and into a person. The process relied on a constant “pulse” of information being broadcast directly to the superhero, without their knowledge, no matter where they were. The “pulse” was like a mobile phone signal. It was an instruction to the hero’s body on how to use the power. If the body didn’t get the message, then the power would become unstable and have, hopefully, terrible consequences. Villain.net worked on the same principle.
Under Basilisk’s direction, Worm infiltrated the Hero.com satellite stream and interrupted it. It was only momentary, but it proved to Basilisk that it could be done.
“I do not see what help it is to us if we do not permanently break the signal from here,” complained Worm as he pulled his hand from the computer terminal and sucked the sore tip of his finger.
“Because they will simply switch to another Ground Station.”
“Then what have we just achieved? Nothing!”
Basilisk sighed. He felt like a teenager explaining simple technology to a confused parent. “We’ve just proved my plan will work. We can interrupt the signal. Any Downloaders using their powers would have felt the effect immediately. Now we need to overload the Hero.com Web site and temporarily stop it from functioning.”
“Then we attack the Hero Foundation? Kill Courage?” Worm said with glee. He was an old foot soldier, not used to such tactical planning.
Basilisk fought to control his temper. They’d been through this almost every day.
“No. Our combined skills are not enough to bring the Foundation down.”
“I think you underestimate me,” Worm said with a hint of pride.
Basilisk looked long and hard at him. “No. No, I don’t.” A long moment passed before Worm processed the insult. He opened his mouth to retaliate, but Basilisk continued. “Remember, the Web site is just a weapon, a line of defense to stop the Foundation from being attacked. There are still the Primes, and the Foundation headquarters has its own internal electrical systems that need to be disabled.”