The Supervillain High Boxed Set: Books One - Three of the Supervillain High Series

by Gerhard Gehrke

  “How do we do that?” Vlad asked.

  Soren raised a hand. “Wh-what do you remember about where your father was being held?” he asked. “The surroundings? Everything but your father that was on the video?”

  Brendan thought about it. “A big white pipe. Some other plumbing. It could be anywhere.”

  “Like a basement back in New York?”

  “Maybe. More like a hospital or a big apartment or commercial building, probably not a single home.”

  “What else?”

  Brendan closed his eyes. “A mop. A yellow fire extinguisher attached to a wall. There wasn’t much else.”

  “At the very least, we could check the school.”

  Vlad patted Soren on the shoulder. The smaller boy was visibly sweating.

  “The ring is the problem,” Charlotte said. “You won’t get him to give it up. And it will be obvious to him once he knows you’re trying to take it. We won’t be able to just fight him for it. My dad’s no slouch. He’s always been strong, and for reasons I don’t fully understand, he’s stronger here. Plus, there’s his security. Anyone sees a bunch of students attack faculty, and the cops will be here.”

  “I guess we could trick him,” Lucille said. “Or just give him what he wants.” She and Charlotte locked eyes.

  “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought of that,” Brendan said. “But the headmaster won’t let it go at that. He’ll come for me and anyone else that’s with me. Then we’ll all be like Poser or worse. But besides a frontal assault, I’m out of bright ideas.”

  Charlotte produced the metal glove she had been working on in the electronics lab. “That’s where I can help. His ring isn’t so special. It’s not like a magic item. It’s just a simple piece of technology. It manipulates a magnetic field much like how a key interacts with tumblers to turn a deadbolt. All we need to do is copy it. This should copy the ring’s weak signal. It just needs to touch it, or get very close.”

  Brendan nodded and reached for the glove.

  Tina snatched it first, surprising even Charlotte, who didn’t appear ready to surrender her device.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Tina said. “Neither you or Charlotte will make it in to see him. But any of the rest of us could.”

  “But he’s seen you, if he’s been paying attention,” Brendan said. “You were waiting for me today when I went to his office.”

  Several of them spoke at the same time. Arguments broke out, and then Soren said as loudly as he could: “I’ll do it.”

  “Why you?” Brendan asked.

  “Because I have something I need to talk to him about.” He offered no other explanation.

  “Soren, are you sure?” Tina asked.

  He sighed, nodded, and took the glove from her hands. He held the device by the wrist piece and wiggled the fingers. “He’ll see this a mile away before we shake, or after, and then he might take it away.”

  “I can remove everything but the wrist,” Charlotte said. “Once I pop the battery in, it’s good to go.”

  “Then what?”

  “Hopefully nothing. A good handshake is all you need; it will do the rest.”

  Soren nodded. Charlotte produced some tools from her backpack and went to work, disconnecting the finger sections with a small screwdriver. A small square black battery slid into an open clip. The remaining unit was still large for Soren’s small wrist, but he pulled his jacket sleeve down over it and wiggled his arm.

  “Is that thing going to make a noise?” Vlad asked.

  “No. It’s self-contained. It produces no more signal than a Bluetooth headset. Is it comfortable?”

  Soren nodded. To Brendan he looked less and less confident. But then he stood up and pulled on his own backpack. “No time like the present.”

  “Thank you,” Charlotte said. “This means a lot.”

  “Text me before you go in,” Brendan said. Both he and Vlad wished him luck. Tina gave him a hug. And he was off.

  Brendan noticed Lucille hadn’t said anything. She shook her head ever so slightly. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “You crack me up. Get all bent out of shape when you see me with Paul or Henry and how they act around me. I see it in your looks. But then you send Soren to do your dirty work like a faithful foot soldier.”

  “What’s your problem?” Tina asked.

  “No problem at all. Just don’t go taking the moral high ground with me, at least not in my presence. This is a cold play in my book. Your little friend there is out of his depth.”

  “Soren just wants to help.”

  “Of course he does. But that’s the cost of keeping friends like you. He’d do anything. And Charlotte here? She’s a stranger to him. He has no reason to do this but to make the rest of you like him.”

  Vlad shook his head. “I don’t get you. You’re helping us, aren’t you?”

  “I am. But I have my own reasons. I’m certainly not doing it for her.” She pointed at Charlotte.

  Charlotte put a hand on Vlad’s arm and stepped up to Lucille. Lucille backed away, but Charlotte followed. She took Lucille’s hands, and with the warmest smile said, “For what you have done, thank you. I can’t give you anything but my gratitude. It’s true I don’t know Soren or any of you very well. I’m a stranger here. But to the extent that we have a chance to prevent further harm to others at this school and even another disaster, we need to continue to work together.”

  “I…I…” Lucille stammered. Finally, she just nodded.

  It gnawed at Brendan’s mind who Charlotte was reminding him of. Then it clicked. The nurse. This was how the nurse had spoken with Officer Foster both times. Something beyond the tone of her words resonated in the pit of Brendan’s stomach, an odd warmth that he didn’t want to end. Had Charlotte worked some sort of mind trick with him? He didn’t think so, but perhaps Paul and Henry felt the same towards Lucille. They understood they were being manipulated and didn’t mind.

  “Is this where you vanish again?” Brendan asked.

  “No,” Charlotte said. “No more vanishing. I’m here to finish the fight. I’m sorry your father got involved with this, and that he’s now being used to hurt you. We end this all tonight. Soren is our first move. For now, we just need to wait.”

  Vlad checked his watch. “Well, do you mind if I catch my calculus class? I’m late, and I have a test.”

  ***

  While inside the science building, Brendan couldn’t connect with the drone. He had to get closer to the admin building. It was agreed that Charlotte should continue to stay out of sight. Tina volunteered to stay with her. Lucille, Henry, and Brendan went to the restaurant, which turned out to be in range of the drone. He fired it up and accessed its camera feed. Soon enough he was hovering the drone in front of the headmaster’s office window, trying as hard as he could to keep it from bobbing.

  “Motion attracts attention,” Henry said. He seemed especially interested in the operation of the drone and its software, as if waiting his turn for a game. But Brendan wasn’t about to hand his baby over. There was little wind, and soon he held it rock steady. But there was nothing to see but a portion of the headmaster’s office. The headmaster was there, but he was seated behind his desk and working at his computer.

  It all quickly bored Lucille. She left and returned with a tray holding three cups of hot tea. “I added sugar and milk to them all.”

  Brendan nodded his thanks but kept his eyes locked on the screen. Soren texted: “I’m in.” “Sitting down.” “Waiting…”

  “Roger that,” he wrote back.

  After a minute: “Got called in.”

  “He’s going in,” Brendan said.

  Soren appeared on the tablet screen, the image from inside the office pixelated but stable. The headmaster had his ring off and was rubbing lotion on his hands. Then he rounded the desk as he always did and leaned against it as Soren sat.

  “He left his ring off,” Lucille said. “Why did he leave his ring off?”

&nbs
p; “I don’t know. Now shut up, I’m concentrating.”

  A breeze had picked up, pushing the drone away from the window and down. Brendan worked the controls but overcompensated, sending it too high. He thought it would crash into something out of sight on top of the admin building, but he sent it higher still and got it stabilized.

  “Does Henry need to take over?” Lucille asked.

  Brendan didn’t reply. He got the drone oriented with the office’s window, and then dropped down ever so slowly. How his father managed to automate a dozen of the things astounded him. They were still speaking, but no audio could be picked up. The ring still rested on the desk. The headmaster stood and offered his hand. Soren took it, and the headmaster pumped it up and down. Charlotte’s bracelet wouldn’t do anything at that range with the ring not even on the man’s hand.

  “He doesn’t have the ring on,” Lucille said.

  “I know. Wait.”

  But she was right. The meeting was over. The handshake ended. The headmaster held a hand towards the door, and Soren was getting up.

  Brendan only had a moment before their chance would pass. He pitched the drone forward into a dive towards the window. It slammed into the glass, the image becoming a jumble. He worked the controls, trying to get it to fly up again. All he saw was a blur, and then the headmaster’s face filling the screen. The headmaster shook his head slowly. He wore an expression of disappointment as he did something to the drone. The screen went black.

  “What happened?” Lucille asked.

  “I crashed the drone into the glass.”

  “Why?”

  “To get his attention. But he knows it was me. I have to assume he’ll send security looking for me.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Brendan messaged Soren. “Get out of there. Meet at last spot.”

  He got no reply. He waited a moment, willing Soren to respond. Nothing. He had allowed Soren to visit the headmaster. Soren had no reason to be involved. It should have been him.

  “I’m heading up there.” He got up and ran from the restaurant. Crossing the pathway between buildings, he saw a pair of security officers walking among a pack of students, but they were speaking with one another and didn’t appear interested in him. Just before he got to the admin building doors, Soren came hurrying out. He looked pale, nervous, and wide eyed. Brendan grabbed him by the elbow and led him away.

  “I got it,” Soren said with a nervous laugh. “I got it, I got it, I can’t believe I got it.”

  “What, you didn’t actually steal the ring, did you?”

  Soren shook his head. “No. But when you crashed the drone into the window I picked the ring up, rubbed it on the bracelet, and put it back. He didn’t see me.”

  “You did good. So, I need to ask: are you you?”

  “I hope so. I’d be terrified if I became someone else.”

  Brendan sighed in relief. “Me too. Don’t ever change.”

  ***

  “You guys get to have all the excitement,” Tina said. “Charlotte had us tour the school basements.”

  “I took pictures on the tablet,” Charlotte said. “Let’s see if it matches up with where you saw your father being held.”

  They sat together in the front-row seats of the drama theater. None of them had classes there, so Brendan reasoned it would be a good place to meet. Vlad was late, and Lucille had messaged “brt.”

  “Lucille’s coming,” he said.

  Soren gave the bracelet to Charlotte, handling it like it was an egg. Charlotte accessed it via her tablet, and a program popped up displaying a fixed-wave pattern.

  “Did he get it?” Brendan asked.

  Charlotte tapped a few commands and nodded. “He got something. The pattern’s locked in, and I think we’re in business. But there’s always a chance it’s not right. We won’t know until we go back in and test it.”

  “And what happens then?”

  “We can use his machine and open the door to his world.”

  Tina examined the tablet screen but didn’t look impressed. “But we’re not even certain of that, are we? We don’t know what it opens to, or if it does anything. It’s not like we discovered his vulnerability and he’ll dissolve into a puddle of goo.”

  “That’s her dad you’re talking about,” Brendan said.

  Charlotte chuckled. “That’s not what will happen. All we accomplish if it works is we open a door. Then I go through.”

  “Not alone.”

  “I guess I won’t be able to talk you out of it. I know you have to find your father. But this could be a dead end. We could get stuck there and not have a way back.”

  “It’s all we have to go on. So you have pictures?”

  Charlotte swiped the tablet screen and showed Brendan the photos they had taken of the school basements. Several of the shots looked like where his father was being held, with white paint and the same kind of plumbing. There had been so little else to identify. His could be anywhere. But then he pointed at the screen.

  “He’s not here. These fire extinguishers are red. The one I saw in the video with my dad were yellow.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It doesn’t matter. He has him. If I can’t get to him to get him back, I’ll find something to use as a bargaining chip. Your dad will have something to break or steal.”

  “Remember that he built a machine that destroyed a city. You can’t just start breaking things. It’s too dangerous. If you come with me, I need to know you’ll be careful.”

  Brendan just nodded. He felt the old anger rise.

  Soon the last period chime sounded and Vlad joined them. He apologized a few times, saying that he’d had some assignments to turn in. Brendan tuned him out. Grades and schoolwork were the furthest things from his mind. He rubbed his temples, closed his eyes, and thought about what else he could do to prepare.

  “You dear children.”

  Brendan opened his eyes and saw Nurse Dreyfus standing there. They were all surprised to see her there, except for Charlotte, who rose and gave the woman a hug.

  ***

  The nurse hugged Charlotte back firmly and then addressed them as a group. “I understand some of you might be going on a journey.”

  Like well-seasoned conspirators, they feigned confusion. Brendan looked at Charlotte and asked, “What did you tell her?”

  “She knows,” Charlotte said. “She’s on our side.”

  “There are no sides,” the nurse said. “Some just walk without guidance. We all suffer through such periods in our life. It is for us to choose when to abandon our course, even if we don’t realize the path is there open to us.”

  Vlad whispered, “What’s she talking about?”

  Brendan motioned for him to shush. “What do you know about the headmaster that can help us?”

  “I know that he’s come a long way to get here, and that you might be the one who helps him realize his path must be corrected.”

  “You’re the first staff member who knows about this. He’s kidnapped my father. He’s behind the attack on the school and did something to Poser and Paul. This is too much for us to handle. You need to help us by calling the police for us.”

  “If only it were so simple,” she said. “The authorities won’t be able to help. They won’t see what you’ve seen, even if you show them. The headmaster has taken measures to ensure that. I’ve done what I can to limit the harm he can do to you and your fellow students. If all you wish is to remain safe, I can help. But he and I are at an impasse. His building is where he is strongest, and there I can do little. If your wish is to save your father, you will have to risk all and go there, and I can’t recommend this course.”

  “There’s a video on his phone,” Brendan said. “And there’s got to be some evidence linking him to the men that attacked the campus.”

  “All this evidence will vanish, if it hasn’t already. I’ve been to the police station. Everyone involved has already been transferred by people Sperry controls. I m
anaged to keep all of the children safe after the attack, except for Paul. He was exchanged for a double from the headmaster’s world. Even now, the headmaster’s looking for you, but he thinks you’ve left campus. The guards will try to apprehend you if they see you.”

  “Are you from his world too, like Charlotte says she is?” Tina asked.

  “No, dear. But I knew Charlotte was special from the first time I saw her here.”

  “Then what can you do to help?”

  “Let me take you from here to someplace safe, away from here and away from harm. I can offer you protection, if you accept it. Then I can try to answer some of your questions.”

  Tina scowled. “You’re suggesting we not help Brendan.”

  “No. I’m offering all of you sanctuary. But it would mean leaving school grounds. Giving up what you seek to do here. I would put you out of harm’s way. That I am able to do.”

  “This is all very vague,” Brendan said. “But let me hear the bottom line. What can you do to help me find my father? I’m not running or hiding. Now that we have a way to find out what the headmaster is doing, I’m going to go over to his world and stop him.”

  The nurse opened a small clutch. She produced a vial and a set of needleless syringes.

  “Charlotte told me you would be set on going. If that is the case, I can give you this.”

  “You want to give us drugs?” Tina asked. “No thanks.”

  Brendan took the vial and examined it. It was as clear as water, and there was no label. “What is it?”

  “Think of it like a vitamin,” Nurse Dreyfus said. “It will have little effect on you here. But when you step over to his world, it will keep you from being at a disadvantage. You will survive the journey without it, but it will be more difficult. Even with the medicine, you’ll find the other side challenging and disorienting. This will help.”

  “No way am I injecting anything,” Vlad said.

  “It’s not an injection. The syringe is for a measured dose. You simply squirt it on the tongue and swallow.”