The Secret War (Jack Blank Adventure)

by Matt Myklusch

  “Sometimes a sacrifice is the only move you can make,” Jack said. “It’s okay. I’ve waited my whole life for information on my parents—any kind of information. I’ve gotten that much out of Obscuro already. Just to know that my dad is even still out there is huge. That’ll do for now. It’ll have to.”

  Hypnova smiled. “Putting the needs of others ahead of your own. Sounds like you learned a thing or two in that school of yours after all.”

  “Better late than never,” Jack said. “So we have a deal?”

  Hypnova drew the saber from her belt and cut the tie lines that held her ship to the dock. “We have a deal.”

  The Mysterrii sprang to their stations, and the ship took flight with the midnight wind. Hypnova set a course for the one place that apparently no one had bothered to look for the Rogue Secreteer—the crystal rock face of Mount Nevertop, ten thousand feet up in the air.

  CHAPTER

  25

  The Rogue Revealed

  Jack and Hypnova sailed off into the night, flying straight up along the rock face of Mount Nevertop. The crystal mountainside scrolled down beside them as they went, its cloudy white surface radiating a soft glow in the moonlight. Jack was rooted to the ship’s railing the whole way, scanning the mountain intently. He wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for. The coordinates Obscuro had written on the memory card put him somewhere around halfway up the mountain. What that said about Obscuro’s hideout, Jack had no idea. Would it be easy to spot or hidden away? Would they find Obscuro hiding in plain sight, hanging out on the ledge of a cliff? Not likely, Jack decided. Obscuro’s lair had to be tunneled into the mountain, like the pathway up to the Cloud Cliffs that Jack had walked, back on his first full day in the Imagine Nation. That was just a year ago, Jack thought. It might as well have been a lifetime ago. He kept looking for an opening in the mountain as Hypnova steered the ship up toward the ten-thousand-foot mark.

  “I’m surprised to find you without your two friends,” Hypnova said to Jack, trying to make conversation. “I thought you three were inseparable.”

  Jack grunted. “I guess you Secreteers don’t know everything after all.”

  Hypnova raised a rankled eyebrow. “I thought you weren’t mad at me anymore.”

  “I’m not,” Jack said, taking the edge out of his voice. “You just made me remember something I’d rather not think about, is all.”

  Jack filled Hypnova in on his troubles with Skerren and Allegra.

  “You have more important things to worry about,” Hypnova said, dismissing the matter entirely. “They’ll get over it.”

  Just then Jack’s wristband communicator pinged. It had just come back online now that they were far enough away from Varagog for it to work again, and Allegra’s voice cut in almost immediately. “Jack … Jack, are you there? Come in. It’s me, Allegra.”

  Hypnova gave Jack a mocking smile. “What’d I tell you?” her eyes seemed to say.

  Jack couldn’t believe Allegra was calling him already. He thought for sure she would still be too angry to speak to him. He was happy, but the funny thing was, now he was nervous, too. “What do I do?” he asked Hypnova.

  “Answer her,” Hypnova replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  Jack rolled his eyes. “Thanks,” he said. He took a few seconds to gather his thoughts before hitting the button to contact Allegra. He’d never needed to do that before. Talking to his friend Allegra had always been the easiest thing in the world for Jack, but right there, at that moment, he couldn’t for the life of him think of what he was going to say to her. He tapped a button on his wrist-band and called out her name.

  “Jack!” Allegra said. “Finally! Where are you? I’ve been trying to reach you.”

  “Sorry,” Jack said. “I couldn’t hear you until just now. My wristband wasn’t working where I was. No signal.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I’m fine, thanks,” Jack said, warmed by Allegra’s concern. “I was afraid you still weren’t speaking to—” Jack stopped midsentence, hearing some commotion in the background on Allegra’s end of the line. “What’s that?” he asked her. “Where are you?”

  “I’m in Hightown trying to keep a mob of crazy people out of Machina. Where are you? Don’t you know what’s going on? Didn’t you hear Smart’s speech?”

  “I heard it,” Jack said. “Everyone heard it. That’s why the Inner Circle wanted me to stay home tonight.”

  “So you’re home, then?”

  “I was. Did they tell you that the SmarterNet is the reason the virus is spreading so fast now? Smart left that part out of his speech. I’m trying to stop it right now. I’m on my way back to the Rogue Secreteer, but that’s … Listen, forget about that for a second,” Jack said. “Allegra, I’m sorry,” he told her. “For everything. Really. I couldn’t say it before because of Lorem, but you have to know how sorry I am about all of—”

  “Wait, the Rogue Secreteer?” Allegra interrupted. “Obscuro? Jack, you’re not leaving, are you? Don’t go with him! You don’t have to run away because of what happened, even if your father is out there.”

  “What? Allegra, I’m not going anywhere,” Jack said. “I’m here with Hypnova. We’re going to stop the virus.”

  “Hypnova?” Allegra asked. “I thought she hated us now. What do you mean the SmarterNet is spreading the virus? How are you stopping it? Where are you?”

  “I’m on Hypnova’s ship,” Jack replied. “We’re on our way up to … to …” Jack trailed off and looked over at the mountain. They were almost at ten thousand feet. “Hang on,” he told Allegra. “Something feels weird.”

  “Weird?” Allegra asked. “Jack, you’re not making any sense. What feels weird?” She kept asking questions, but Jack was no longer paying attention. High up on the mountainside he saw something, and what he saw was hard to see. There had been massive excavation work done on the rock face of Mount Nevertop, and a cloudy blur was visible within.

  “Hypnova, do you see that?” Jack asked.

  “I see it,” Hypnova replied.

  “See what?” Allegra asked, getting impatient. Distracted, Jack told her he’d call her back, and he shut off the wristband before she could say another word. Jack recognized that blurry spot on the mountain. That is to say, he recognized what had created it—a cloaking device, like the one Obscuro’s ship had used back in hangar 17.

  The cloak being put to use on the mountain was masking something much bigger than Obscuro’s starship. As Hypnova’s ship closed in on the blur, what Jack saw was a huge facility, built into the side of Mount Nevertop, far away from prying eyes. That location alone should have been enough security for anyone, but whoever had built this thing had added the cloaking device as an additional layer of camouflage just in case someone did happen to come across it. What could be so important? Jack wondered briefly. Only one thing came to mind. Jack’s first guess was confirmed when he realized he was staring at the nerve center of a very big machine, and he wasn’t picking up any vibes from it. In fact, his powers weren’t picking up any vibes from anything at all, not even his wristband communicator.

  “Holy cow,” Jack marveled once he realized what he was looking at. “This is it.”

  “What?” Hypnova asked. “What is it?”

  Jack shook his head. “I don’t believe this,” he said, blown away by his good fortune. “Hypnova, this is what I came here for. This is the SmarterNet!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure,” Jack said. “Obscuro is at the exact thing we need to shut down! This is too good to be true.”

  “I’m afraid you might be right,” Hypnova said. “None of this adds up. His note to you … this place … What would he be doing here?” Hypnova pulled the ship into the massive chamber carved into the side of the mountain. The Mysterrii dropped anchor and began to tie the ship down. Hypnova looked around, uneasy. “I don’t like this. Something’s wrong.”

  Jack was barely listen
ing. He was too busy staring at the massive transparent machine. If he concentrated, he could see it was there. Cloaking devices don’t fool the naked eye. Jack was able to make out the basic size and shape of the SmarterNet because of the way light bends the wrong way on a cloaked object. It was hard to see in the dark, but Jack could tell it was a massive construct, big enough to walk on, around, and inside of. The SmarterNet was the size of an oil rig, a giant invisible machine, made even more invisible because of the nullifiers. Jack figured he couldn’t shut it down, but he could still find its heart and rip it out. He didn’t need his powers to smash the SmarterNet’s control panel with a rock. That would do the trick, nullifiers or no. Jack was about to get out of the boat, when Hypnova grabbed him.

  “Wait,” she said, gripping his shoulder tightly.

  Hypnova pointed at the floor of the cavernous chamber. A dead SmartCorp employee was lying there. A closer examination of the SmarterNet’s general vicinity revealed several more dead bodies scattered about.

  Jack got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Hypnova was right. Something was definitely wrong.

  “What is this?” Jack asked.

  Floodlights switched on all around the chamber. “That’s what I’d like to know,” Obscuro called out. Jack squinted as his eyes adjusted to the light. When his vision cleared, he watched Obscuro step out onto an iron-grate walkway up near the ceiling. He hopped down onto the cloaked machine, which made it look like he was standing on thin air. His voluminous cloak flapped in the wind. “You were supposed to come here alone,” he told Jack.

  Jack looked up at the Rogue Secreteer. “I only came to get the codes to the SmarterNet,” he said. “I didn’t expect to find the machine itself here with you. What’s going on, Obscuro? Did you kill these people?”

  “Not personally, no,” Obscuro replied. “But these things happen.”

  “That’s how you rationalize it, then, eh?” Hypnova asked. “Collateral damage. More people who had to suffer for you to get what you want. People like Jack, like myself … like the order.” Hypnova scowled and drew her sword. “It ends here.” Without needing to be told, twenty Mysterrii drew knives from their belts as well. Jack had never even known they carried weapons. “After tonight there will be no more carnage left in your wake. Obscuro, your hour of judgment is at hand.”

  Obscuro nodded. “I see,” he said as the Mysterrii began to climb out of the boat and move toward him. “If I may have just one final moment…. You wouldn’t begrudge a condemned man his last words, would you?”

  Hypnova chortled. “By all means. Make them count.”

  “I will,” Obscuro replied. He cleared his throat and issued a command in the Rüstov tongue. Hypnova heard only computer tones and static, but Jack understood it as an attack order given to forces that were waiting in reserve. Worse than that, he recognized the voice. He’d heard it before on Smart’s recordings. Obscuro let out a chilling laugh as dozens of Rüstov Left-Behinds crawled out of the woodwork. Even with the armed Mysterrii at their side, Jack and Hypnova were greatly outnumbered.

  “Obscuro!” Hypnova said, shocked. “What is the meaning of this? You’ve betrayed us to the Rüstov as well?”

  The Rogue Secreteer’s sinister, triumphant laughter echoed through the chamber. “You keep calling me Obscuro,” he replied. He reached up and pulled back the hood of his cloak, revealing a face with a dark Rüstov scar around its right eye. “The name,” he said, “is Glave.”

  CHAPTER

  26

  Glave and Khalix

  Shock waves from the Rogue Secreteer’s revelation punched through Jack’s system from head to toe. He felt like he was waking up inside a crashing car. For a few scary seconds he was confused. Every synapse in his brain was firing at the same time, and he was thinking a million different things at once. Then, like a groggy rider in the passenger seat drawing focus on a wave of oncoming traffic, Jack understood the danger he was in mere seconds before impact. It was an understanding that came far too late for him to get out of harm’s way.

  Hypnova gasped at the sight of the unmistakable Rüstov eye. “You’re infected,” she said. “Obscuro … he never—”

  “Obscuro is gone,” Glave said. “That name is nothing more than a disguise that is no longer necessary.” The Rüstov agent cast off his cloak. It fell away like a half-opened parachute plummeting down off the mountain.

  “How …,” Hypnova started to say, then trailed off. Jack figured she was thinking the same thing he was. If Obscuro was infected, that meant his every move had been part of a Rüstov plot. Jack had to stop and think about how far back this went. The Rüstov had been manipulating everyone from the very beginning. He didn’t know what that said about their plans, but he knew it wasn’t good. The Rüstov had taken a Secreteer. They knew way too much.

  “It wasn’t easy,” Glave said. “It took a long time to successfully infect a member of your order. Thirteen years, in fact, but I never gave up. And I never gave up on you, boy,” he added, looking at Jack. “We didn’t even know for certain that you were still alive until just last year, but I never stopped looking.”

  Jack scowled at Glave. So that’s what this is about, he thought. The Rüstov wanted him, same as the team of Left-Behinds did last year. That’s why Glave had wanted him to come alone. This was another attempt to steal him away and turn him into Revile.

  “It was all lies, then, wasn’t it?” Jack asked. “Just a trick to get me out here. You don’t have any idea where my father is.”

  “Not your father, no,” Glave replied.

  Jack squinted at the Rüstov master spy. “What are you talking about? Your note said—”

  “My note said ‘there is a father who longs to see his son once again.’ That part of the message wasn’t meant for you. You simply assumed it was.”

  Jack opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it without saying anything.

  Glave seemed to take great pride in Jack’s befuddled state. “There are two of you in there, or did you forget?” he said to Jack. “I was talking about the father of the Rüstov inside you.”

  “The Rüstov inside me?” Jack repeated. “My parasite?”

  “He has a name,” Glave said. “He’s called Khalix, and he is the rightful heir to the Rüstov empire. I’m here to set him free.”

  Jack felt like he’d just been hit in the stomach with a sledgehammer. The realization that the chance to reunite with his father at any point in the future was nothing more than a false hope was bad enough, but this …

  “No,” Jack said. “That can’t be right.”

  “You should be honored,” Glave replied. “His father is the Magus. He has a great destiny before him. A destiny that’s been put on hold for far too long.”

  “A great destiny,” Hypnova said under her breath. She looked at Jack, her eyes full of fear. “He means …”

  “That’s right,” Glave said, hopping down a level on the invisible SmarterNet. “Jack knows all about it. You both do. After all, you’re the one who stole the secrets out of his head. Isn’t that right, Hypnova?” Glave climbed up onto another iron-grate catwalk and walked a few more steps until he was standing directly across from Jack and Hypnova. The skin on his face was tight and dry, giving way to more rust and decay. Patches of Glave’s hair were falling out clumps at a time. Jack wanted to smash his smug face in.

  “I always knew the value of infecting a Secreteer would be impossible to match,” Glave continued. “When the empire left this place years ago, I chose to stay behind to gather intelligence through strategic infection.” Glave grinned an evil grin. “Obscuro told me things I never could have imagined. Things about the future … the glorious future.” The Rüstov spy rubbed his hands together like a starving man sizing up a heaping plate of food. “Great things are in store for Khalix, Jack Blank. You’re bound for glory, both of you. It’s time for my prince to go home, and for me to receive my reward.”

  Jack couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The pa
rasite inside him … a Rüstov prince. In a way, he really was Rüstov royalty, just like the Left-Behind had said back on Wrekzaw Isle a year ago. Jack didn’t bother to dispute Glave’s claims any further. Like it or not, it all made perfect sense. It was the son of the Rüstov emperor who’d been tapped to one day become the empire’s unbeatable soldier. It might just have been his imagination, but somewhere deep inside his mind, Jack swore he could hear Khalix laughing at him.

  “I’m never going to be Revile,” Jack said, unsure if he even believed it himself. “It’s not going to happen.”

  “I’m curious … how do you intend to stop it?” Glave asked as Left-Behinds continued to arrive on the scene in greater numbers. “You cannot fight the future, Jack. We are the future. What you know about tomorrow merely confirms the empire’s inevitable victory.”

  “The future isn’t set in stone,” Jack said, trying to find strength in Stendeval’s words. “We make our own future.”

  “Indeed,” Glave replied. “That’s exactly what I’ve been doing for the last thirteen years. It’s all happening exactly as I’d planned. Once I succeeded in taking a Secreteer as my host, the outcome was never in doubt. I started selling secrets to supervillains, knowing they would keep the heroes of Empire City out of my way while I worked to spread the spyware virus.” Glave gestured to the cloaked machine behind him. “From Obscuro I learned the truth about the SmarterNet, the perfect delivery mechanism for the virus. I created a situation where I could gain access to this wondrous device and cast suspicion on you at the same time. Once all the pieces were in place, it took less than a week to cut the protection around you down to nothing. You people are so easy to manipulate. That is why your future holds nothing but death and defeat.”

  “You haven’t won anything yet,” Jack said. “We’re going to smash that machine.”

  Glave shrugged off Jack’s threat. “Be my guest. Even if you manage to succeed, you can’t undo the work I’ve done here. The entire Mecha population of Empire City is infected. They’re attacking the Imagine Nation on my orders, and this is not even the empire’s first strike.”