by Lucas Flint
Then I climbed down the rest of the ladder and, upon reaching the bottom, looked around at my new surroundings to get my bearings.
The Diver was not as narrow as I thought, though it was basically shaped like a long hallway extending for a good amount in either direction. The walls were made of a thick metal and the air down here was cold and somewhat damp, though I could feel the temperature rising, perhaps in response to the activation of the Diver’s engines, even though I couldn’t hear them at the moment.
“All right, Christina,” said Mack. “You’re going into the back until we reach Iconia, okay?”
“Sounds fine by me,” said Christina. “Will it be just me and you or—?”
“Actually, I’m going to keep an eye on you,” said Gina, folding her arms across her chest. “Just some girl time between the two of us.”
Christina grimaced. “Ugh. I never liked girl time when I was a girl and I still don’t like it now.”
“Don’t care,” said Gina. “Come with me.”
Gina grabbed Christina’s arms and pulled her along behind her with surprising roughness. Mack and I just stood there together, watching as the two women passed through the door to the back and closed it shut behind them.
“Gina can be pretty mean sometimes, can’t she?” I said, glancing at Mack.
“She’s just jealous,” said Mack, shaking his head. “Probably doesn’t want Christina flirting with me. Not that I blame her, because I don’t like it when guys flirt with Gina, either.”
“Yeah, same here,” I said. “I’d rather Christina keep calling me a brat than flirt with me. Not that she’s ugly or anything, but I’m not really into psychotic girls.”
“Wise man,” said Mack, nodding. “I dated a crazy girl once and it was an experience I’ll never quite forget. Gina is the sanest woman I’ve dated, even though she can be kind of crazy sometimes.”
“I noticed,” I said. “Anyway, where’s Uncle Josh?”
“Probably in the cockpit up front preparing the sub,” said Mack. “You should go check. I’m going to double-check the hatch to make sure it’s sealed, as well as check the rest of the sub for any potential problems before we head out.”
I nodded and walked up to the front of the sub, which was behind a door. Opening the door, I found Uncle Josh sitting in the cockpit, just as Mack said he would be, with a dazzling variety of buttons, switches, and screens that looked like something straight out of a science fiction spaceship to me. Uncle Josh, on the other hand, did not seem to be even remotely confused by the control board, because he was flipping switches, pressing buttons, and adjusting dials as if he did this sort of thing every day.
“Are we ready to take off, uncle?” I said as I closed the door behind me.
Uncle Josh glanced over his shoulder at me. “Oh, hi, Jack. Yes, I’d say we’re just about ready to go. It will be just a few more minutes, I think.”
“Have you piloted a submarine before?” I said, coming to a stop beside Uncle Josh and staring at the control panel. “It looks so complicated.”
“Yes, I’ve piloted submarines before,” said Uncle Josh. “And airplanes and trains and race cars and pretty much every other kind of vehicle you can name. Working as a spy for Pinnacle means there’s never a dull moment.”
“Wow,” I said. “You really have lived a pretty exciting life, huh?”
“To say the least,” said Uncle Josh. He sighed. “Sometimes, though, I wish I could live a lifestyle closer to your dad’s. Don’t tell him I said this, but I think he made the wiser choice in marrying your mom and starting a family, even if that means he’s never going to see even half the stuff I’ve seen on my travels around the world.”
I frowned. “Why would you say that?”
Uncle Josh stopped messing with the control board for a second and looked at me. “Traveling the world and fighting bad guys is fun and all, but it does get tiring after a while. I never stay in one place for too long, always on the move to the next city or state or even country. Don’t even get me started on all of the times I’ve risked my life. I’ve nearly died or been killed more times than I can count.”
“My dad’s work is pretty risky sometimes, too,” I said. “He’s got a lot of stories of getting injured or almost killed on the construction site.”
“That’s different, though,” said Uncle Josh. “Construction companies take great pains to make sure their workers don’t get hurt and they can be sued to oblivion if they don’t. My job pretty much means that ‘safety’ is an illusion.” He sighed. “Not that a hard hat would be very useful against guys shooting at you, I guess.”
“Well, you’re still doing good work,” I said. “If this mission goes well, Grandfather will be back in Rumsfeld with the rest of us.”
Uncle Josh nodded. “True, but I doubt I’ll get much time to spend with y’all. Once this mission is over, my boss will want me to jump into the next mission right away. Knowing him, it will probably be even more dangerous than this one.”
I wondered what kind of mission could be even more dangerous than blowing up Iconia, but decided not to ask, because Uncle Josh would just say it was classified, assuming he even knew what it was himself yet.
“But whatever,” said Uncle Josh, shaking his head. He resumed playing with the control panel. “I’ve made my choice and your dad has made his. The best we can do is just play the cards we’ve been dealt and try to live our lives the best we can. No point in obsessing over the past. That’s what I always say.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I said. “But you know you can come by the house and talk to us anytime you want, you know? Our door is always open to you, no matter how long you’ve been away.”
Uncle Josh smiled slightly when I said that. “I know, Jack, but thanks for the reminder anyway. Family is the most important. Never forget that.”
I nodded. “Don’t worry, Uncle, I won’t.”
Just as I said that, the entire submarine suddenly started vibrating and Uncle Josh grinned like a hyena. “Engine is a go! Tell Gina and Mack to strap in, because we’re about to head out and I want to make sure none of us get hurt on our way to Iconia.”
I nodded again and ran out of the cockpit, but I stopped briefly and looked over my shoulder at Uncle Josh one last time before I left. His attention was focused on the switches and buttons before him, seemingly unaware of everything else. Despite the smile on his face, I could tell that he was still a little sad about what we just talked about.
I wished I could help him, but there wasn’t really anything I could do to help. Uncle Josh could still get married, I guess, but I wondered if he was too old to have children. Maybe that was why he cared about me so much, because I was the son he didn’t have.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The next several hours were among the most boring of my entire life. According to Uncle Josh, the Diver could move very quickly through the water and, with Iconia’s coordinates entered into the sub’s computers, it would not be very long before we arrived. I had thought ‘not very long before we arrived’ meant something like maybe a couple of hours, but given how many hours passed as we sped through the water, I figured he meant something more like six hours or so.
It didn’t help that I was starting to get claustrophobic. The Diver was surprisingly smooth for a submarine, but at the same time, it would still shake every now and then whenever we ran into a current or if the engines increased their power. Every time it shook, my stomach lurched, but I never threw up even once. I had never ridden on a submarine before, so this was the first time I’d felt a lot of these sensations and they made me feel really sick. I just hoped that I would be able to hold my lunch down until we got to Iconia, because I didn’t want to think of how nasty the Diver would smell if I threw up in this enclosed space.
I didn’t spend the entire time by myself, however. I spent a lot of time with Mack and Gina, while occasionally wandering toward the cockpit to hang out with Uncle Josh and find out the progress of our jou
rney. Unfortunately, even that did little to alleviate my symptoms, because Mack and Gina rotated regularly in regards to guard duty with Christina, apparently because they still did not trust her enough to leave her alone for any meaningful period of time. I didn’t blame them. Though Christina had so far been a good little prisoner who hadn’t even tried to break her ropes, I was still convinced that Christina was just lying to us and that she had some deeper, ulterior motive for joining us. What that motive was, I couldn’t say, but I doubted it was anything as noble as defeating Icon.
But I did learn some things about Mack and Gina during our trip. Mack had apparently been in the US military for a decade before being honorably discharged, after which he became the superhero known as Bulldozer and worked in the greater Chicago area.
“Greater Chicago area?” I said, sitting next to Mack on the bench in the middle of the sub. Mack had just returned from his shift guarding Christina and Gina had already gone inside the makeshift cell to do her shift. “Don’t you just mean Chicago?”
“Nah, man,” said Mack, shaking his head. “I wasn’t the only superhero of Chicago. The city’s got about five, at least it did back when I was working there. At its height, Chicago actually had twenty, though their financial problems over the last decade or so means they can’t afford as many as they used to.”
“Interesting,” I said. “I thought that each city had just one superhero.”
“Smaller cities and towns, like Rumsfeld, do,” said Mack, “but bigger ones like Chicago, New York, and San Francisco have way more. It’s a scale thing. One superhero might be enough to defend a city the size of Rumsfeld, but there’s no way one superhero could defend all of New York City by himself. Even Baron Glory, back when he was still alive, worked alongside other supers to keep NYC safe.”
I nodded. “Makes sense. It sure would be helpful to have more superheroes to work with, I think. Easier to tackle crime that way.”
“Definitely,” said Mack. “But there’s something to be said about being on your own. Means you don’t have to work alongside other people who may or may not be competent.”
I grinned. “I take it you haven’t had a whole lot of good experiences working with other superheroes?”
Mack sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Don’t even get me started on the idiots I worked with in Chicago. There’s a reason that city is circling the drain, and it isn’t just because of its financial woes. Glad I got out of that city and started working for Pinnacle. Pinnacle does more meaningful work.”
“Like what?” I said. “I think superhero work is pretty meaningful.”
It was Mack’s turn to smile now. “Come on, kid. You know I can’t tell you what Pinnacle does. Your uncle may be a member of the organization, but that doesn’t mean I can just go and blab all of our deepest, darkest secrets to you. Just know that Pinnacle has averted several would-be catastrophes the likes of which you can’t even comprehend and leave it at that.”
As usual, I found it frustrating that no one in Pinnacle would actually tell me what the organization does. “I see. Can you at least tell me who your boss is? Unless that’s top secret, too.”
“Nah, I can tell you that, man,” said Mack. “The boss is Ephraim Jordan. He founded Pinnacle a long time ago and is one of the smartest men I know. He’s not a super like you or me, but he knows more about the Superpower drug than just about anything I know. He’s even more knowledgeable about the drug’s side effects than the scientist who injected me with the stuff in the first place back in Chicago.”
“Wonder why that is,” I said.
“Not sure,” said Mack with a shrug. “I think he might have been a Superpower scientist before founding Pinnacle, but I know he was a mechanical engineer. And his knowledge of engineering is even more important for this miss—”
Mack suddenly closed his mouth, as if he had almost said something he wasn’t allowed to say.
“What were you about to say, Mack?” I said. “How does Ephraim’s knowledge of engineering help us?”
“Uh, I wasn’t about to say that,” said Mack in a very unconvincing voice. “I was going to say that his knowledge has, er, really helped me personally on some of the missions I’ve been on. He’s a great leader and really helpful. Great guy.”
My suspicions were once again aroused. I was beginning to think that there was more to this mission than just what I had been told. There was the way Mack and Uncle Josh acted back at the hotel and now there was this slip up on Mack’s part. They were clearly hiding something from me, though what, I couldn’t be sure. All I knew for sure was that they had not been entirely upfront with me about the true purpose of the mission. Maybe it wasn’t any of my business, but if I was going to be helping these guys destroy Iconia, then I felt like I had the right to know what else they were planning to do when they got there.
The question was, how to make them tell me. It was pretty clear that everyone involved was being pretty tight-lipped on the true purpose of the mission. They were probably under orders from Ephraim to keep the details of the mission to themselves and not blab them to every person who asked. I could understand maintaining a measure of secrecy, but if this secrecy affected me, then I had to know it.
“Ah,” I said, nodding. “I see. I’d like to meet him someday. He sounds like a good guy.”
“Maybe someday,” said Mack, “though I wouldn’t count on it anytime soon. Ephraim doesn’t like meeting with people outside the organization unless he absolutely has to. Otherwise, he’s more than happy to stay in the background and let us agents do all the talking and socializing.”
“Makes sense,” I said, leaning back in my seat casually. “As the leader of Pinnacle, I imagine that Ephraim must be pretty busy.”
“He definitely is,” said Mack. “Pinnacle is a pretty big organization. We’re smaller than Icon, but we still have a lot of operations all over the world and many agents. I don’t envy his position at all.”
“How much involvement does he have in each mission, exactly?” I said. “Does he figure out all the details on his own or does he have someone else figure out the details and brief you on the mission or—?”
Mack smiled. “It varies. The most important missions, like this one, Ephraim personally debriefs the agents involved in the matter. In less important ones, though, he usually assigns debriefing duties to one of his subordinates.”
“So Ephraim himself debriefed you on this mission?” I said. “Then again, that doesn’t surprise me, given how important this mission is. It might be the most important mission you guys have ever gone on.”
“Can’t argue with that,” said Mack. “Between destroying Iconia and retrieving the Armor, this might be the most important mission in the history of Pinnacle, and that’s saying something, because Pinnacle has done a lot of important things throughout the years.”
“Armor?” I repeated. “What Armor are you talking about?”
Mack’s smile suddenly looked a lot more nervous now. “Oh, did I say ‘Armor’? I was thinking of another mission I was on recently. Has nothing to do with this one. I do that sometimes. Just ask Gina. I’ve frustrated her loads of times by mixing up the various missions I’ve gone on over the years.”
Mack laughed, but there was a hint of nervousness to it. It seemed to me that Mack had pretty loose lips for an agent of a secretive spy organization whose true purposes were unknown even to me, but hey, I wasn’t complaining. If Mack kept this up, I might just be able to make him tell me what was really going on here well before we arrived at Iconia.
“I’m not sure,” I said, stroking my chin. “That didn’t seem like a slip up to me.”
Mack gulped and suddenly stood up. “You know what? I’m going to go and check on Gina and Christina. I doubt Gina is having any trouble with her, but I know from experience how tricky Icon agents can be. Want to make sure she’s okay.”
Mack walked past me toward the door, opened it, and entered, practically slamming it shut behind him on his way o
ut.
I cursed under my breath. I’d been too obvious with my questioning about the true purpose of this mission. If I had been just a little bit subtler, I might have been able to get more information out of him.
On the other hand, our conversation hadn’t been entirely for nothing. I’d learned that Uncle Josh, Mack, and Gina were trying to retrieve some ‘Armor’ from Iconia in addition to destroying the island itself. Unfortunately, that just left me with more questions, like what this Armor was and why none of them had mentioned it to me before we left. Perhaps it was just because Pinnacle was a secret organization and they weren’t at liberty to discuss the full details of their mission with a non-member like me, but somehow I sensed that they were keeping it a secret from me for entirely different reasons. And maybe not entirely benign reasons, either.
Oh, well. It was too late for me to go back now. If Pinnacle was trying to do something that would hurt me, I would be able to take care of myself. Besides, I knew Uncle Josh would never harm me, regardless of what Ephraim may have told him.
All that mattered to me was getting to Iconia and saving Grandfather. I would worry about Pinnacle’s actual motives later, when Grandfather was freed and safely back home with the rest of my family where he belonged.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The second leg of the trip was more awkward than the first. I figured that Mack must have told Gina that I was asking too many questions, because when she ended her shift and came back to talk to me, she avoided mentioning Pinnacle or the mission at all, which was impressive, given how we were still on the mission.
Then again, we barely talked because Gina, when she was not guarding Christina, spent most of her time up front with Uncle Josh where she apparently helped him with the controls. I wanted to help as well, but Gina told me that because I didn’t have experience piloting submarines I couldn’t help and that I should just sit back and let them pilot it. She had a point, but I would have loved to help anyway, even if my only job was to monitor the screens, because that would be much more interesting than sitting around, bored out of my mind and waiting for us to get to Iconia.