by Lucas Flint
“And there’s also the possibility that he will order the G-Men to move our leader to an entirely different location,” said Incantation. She cursed foully under her breath. “Meaning that all of this work will be for nothing.”
“Precisely,” said Thaumaturge. “As I have said, Cadmus Smith is smart. He will no doubt set a trap for us and also move our leader to a different location, so that even if we do get past Facility Fifty-Two’s defenses, we won’t even get to see our leader.”
“Was all of this in vain, then?” I said. “Was our entire mission a failure? Did Sarah get shot for nothing?”
“Don’t despair just yet,” said Thaumaturge. “Not all hope is lost, despite how grim the situation is.”
“Do you mean you know of a way for us to save our leader?” said Technical in a hopeful voice. “How?”
“Simple,” said Thaumaturge. “We track down the vehicle the G-Men will use to transport our leader to wherever his next location happens to be. Then we ambush it, kill its drivers and guards, and remove our leader from it well before they reach the other facility to which they will try to transport him.”
Hopper and I breathed a sigh of relief at that simple plan, while Incantation crossed her arms and said, “Okay, but how do we locate the vehicle that will take our leader away? How will we be able to track it?”
“That is also easy,” said Thaumaturge. “Because we know where our leader is currently being kept, we can send someone to spy on the facility and place a tracking device on the vehicle. Using that device, we will figure out the vehicle’s path and set up an ambush somewhere along the way that the G-Men will not expect.”
“We have tracking devices?” I said.
“Yes,” said Technical, nodding. “I’ve built some of my own, based off your dad’s own designs, actually. I haven’t had much of a chance to test them, but I know they work.”
“See?” said Thaumaturge. “And what makes it even better is how Cadmus will never see this coming. Despite his intelligence and cunning, that fool cannot foresee every action we’ll take. And then, once the Visionary is safely in our custody, Vision will rise again, stronger and better than ever before.”
Thaumaturge spoke very confidently, which made me trust that he knew what he was doing and that his plan would work. At least I hoped it would, because if it didn’t, then I wasn’t so sure about the fate of Vision.
Chapter Eight
Due to the events of the night, Thaumaturge ordered all of us to go to bed. He said that we would probably start the mission in the morning and wanted us all to be well rested in anticipation for tomorrow’s rescue mission. Because I was rather tired from the events at the White House, I did not object to the plan.
Instead, I returned to my room, where I took a shower and got undressed. I said good night to Incantation—who apparently had her own room separate from mine, which actually made me feel somewhat relieved for some reason—and crashed into my bed and immediately went to sleep.
But it wasn’t long before I woke up again. Based on the time that my clock displayed, I’d only been knocked out for a couple of hours. I wondered why I had woken up when I suddenly realized that I needed to grab a snack.
Yawning, I sat up in my bed and looked around my room, but unfortunately my room did not seem to have come equipped with a mini-fridge full of essential snacks for hungry teenage boys like myself. Rubbing the back of my head, I decided to make a quick trip to the kitchen, which I had learned the location of before I went to bed last night.
Jumping out of bed, I did not bother to put on my costume. I just walked out of my room in my boxers and sleeveless undershirt, mostly because I didn’t see any reason to get dressed. Everyone else seemed to be asleep, so the chances of me running into someone else on my way to raid the fridge was pretty unlikely. And if I did, oh well; they’d just have to deal with seeing me in my underwear.
Unfortunately, I got lost pretty quickly in the mansion. It was probably due to how dark it was; all of the lights had been turned off and I was relying on my memory to remember the path to the kitchen, but because I was still suffering from amnesia, my memory wasn’t particularly helpful in that regard. I stumbled pretty blindly through the darkness and almost gave up until I rounded a corner and saw a door was cracked open.
It was the door to Thaumaturge’s study. That was useful to know, because I knew that Thaumaturge’s study was about two halls down from the kitchen. Therefore, all I needed to do was go pass his study and I would eventually find the kitchen, where all of the snacks were kept. Oddly, there was a light on in the room, but maybe Thaumaturge was staying up late studying the documents we’d stolen from the White House.
As I passed the door, however, I heard voices beyond it. One I recognized as Thaumaturge’s deep and ancient voice, while the other was a younger woman’s voice that I had never heard before. It sounded almost like Incantation, but it was quicker and higher than her voice, and definitely sounded nothing like Technical or Sarah, either. And I heard the voice mention my name.
Despite my hunger, I stopped by the door and peered inside, but did it quietly so that neither Thaumaturge or the woman would see me.
Through the crack in the door, I saw Thaumaturge sitting at his desk, with the folder containing the files of our leader’s location open before him. Even though it was early in the morning, he looked alert and awake, and I didn’t see any coffee, either, which made me wonder where he had gotten that energy from.
Thaumaturge wasn’t alone. A young woman in a black coat—a coat that looked eerily familiar, even though I couldn’t remember where I’d seen it before—stood on the opposite side of the desk. Due to her cloak and hood, it was impossible to tell what she looked like, though she seemed very thin. She was also trembling slightly, like she was cold, even though the temperature in the mansion was pretty even at the moment.
“... He won’t remember,” the woman said. She was the source of that voice I had heard out in the hall. “As long as I keep massaging his memory, Bolt will never suspect a thing.”
“Yes, I know, but the entire plan was almost ruined by his encounter with Shade in the Oval Office,” said Thaumaturge. “Had he listened, there’s a good chance that the entire plan would have failed.”
I frowned. What plan? Why were they talking about me and that Shade woman? Why would I ever listen to her? She was the enemy. You weren’t supposed to listen to the enemy.
“Don’t worry,” said the woman. “It doesn’t matter if even his old friends talk to him. As long as he stays under my control, he’ll never suspect that anything is out of the ordinary or that we’re controlling him.”
“I saw the doubt in his eyes when he told me about Shade earlier,” said Thaumaturge in a sharp voice. “That seems to me like evidence that your suppression of his old memories isn’t quite as thorough as you make it out to be.”
Suppression of my old memories? What was Thaumaturge talking about? I listened more closely, controlling my breath so neither of them would hear me, because I doubted either of them would be happy if they knew I was eavesdropping on what they thought was a private conversation.
“That’s why you should have sent me along with them to the White House,” said the woman. “My reach is great, but I can’t suppress or alter memories when the target is outside of my range. Once my targets leave my power’s range, their memories start to naturally come back on their own, albeit slowly and in pieces.”
“Sending you along with them would have been a foolish risk, since we would be risking your capture in addition to capture of Bolt,” said Thaumaturge. “We can do without him, but we need you. Otherwise, Bolt will remember the truth, and we cannot have him remembering the truth about anything, at least not yet.”
“He will learn the truth sooner or later,” the woman said. “If we keep sending him out on missions like this outside of the range of my power, his memory will return or he will start to suspect that something is amiss and possibly turn against us.”<
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“True, but he will only remember the truth when we allow him,” said Thaumaturge. “Once he has played his part, we will discard him like trash and Vision’s greatest obstacle to glory will be gone.”
I stifled a gasp. They were manipulating my memories? They were actually going to get rid of me once I ‘played’ my ‘part’? What was going on here? I pinched myself to make sure this wasn’t some kind of weird dream or, more likely, nightmare, but when I didn’t suddenly wake up from a deep sleep, I knew this was real.
“We may not even have to do that much,” said the woman, “given how news of the famous hero Bolt working with Vision is starting to spread over the Internet. Should he survive all of this … well, let’s just say I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up behind bars in Ultimate Max when all is said and done.”
“That would truly be justice,” said Thaumaturge.
I didn’t know what to do. Should I try to confront Thaumaturge and this woman? Or should I go back to my room quietly and pretend like I hadn’t overheard this entire conversation? Maybe I should try to wake up Incantation and the others and let them know. But what if they were all in on this, too? Was Incantation even my real girlfriend or was that, too, a lie?
While I was probably stronger than the woman and Thaumaturge, I didn’t want the woman to know I was here, because then she might wipe my memory. I decided that I would go back to my room and sleep and then, in the morning, do some more investigating to see if I could find out the truth. Maybe I would even talk about it with Incantation and the others, although if they were also in on this trick, then that would be a mistake.
So I took one step backwards, but then my foot snagged on the floor’s carpeting and I fell onto my hands and knees. The carpeting hid most of the noise from my fall, but there was still an audible thump when my hands and knees hit the floor.
A second later, the door to Thaumaturge’s study burst open fully and the woman in the cloak appeared in the doorway. She looked down at me with a shocked expression barely visible underneath her dark hood.
I immediately got up and said, “Who are you? I heard what you and Thaumaturge were saying. What are you planning to—”
The woman raised her hands and twisted them in a circle.
Instantly, my whole world turned black around me and I could think no more.
-
When I woke up again, I was lying in my bed in my room. I immediately sat up, panting and sweating. I didn’t know why I was so scared, but then I realized that I had had a bad nightmare last night. The nightmare was already fading from my memory; about the only part I could remember clearly was that I had been walking down the hallways of the mansion and feeling like I was being watched.
But something told me that that nightmare was far more important—and real—than it first seemed. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t recall anything more than a few fleeting mental images that made no sense. So I calmed down a little and wiped the sweat off my face.
It was just a nightmare. That was all it had been. I didn’t know what caused it. Probably just my amnesia acting up. Or maybe it was the pizza I’d had for dinner, before we went on that mission to the White House. There were a lot of ways to explain it, but despite that, I still felt like I was in the nightmare, like I had never really awoken, and that the worst was yet to come.
Suddenly, I heard my room’s door started to slowly open. Instinctively, I fired a lightning bolt at it, striking the door and blowing it up as someone screamed behind it. Chunks of wood flew everywhere, forcing me to raise my blankets above my head to avoid getting hit in the face, but once the explosion ended, I lowered my blanket and looked at the door.
Or, rather, what remained of the door. Only a few chunks of burnt wood hung from their hinges on the door frame; the rest of the door had been completely obliterated. There were smoking bits of burnt wood scattered all over the floor and my bed, which I could feel the heat of even from underneath my covers.
Then Incantation’s head peered from around the corner, a look of alarm and anger on her face. “Bolt, what the hell was that?”
“Sorry,” I said. I rubbed the back of my head, which was aching again. “I just had a really bad nightmare last night and I’m still kind of jumpy from it.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t blow my face off,” said Incantation. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of smoke and burnt wood. “And when Hanson learns about this, he’s going to flip.”
“Why?” I said. “Won’t he be able to afford to repair it?”
“Yes, but Thaumaturge promised him that we wouldn’t wreck his mansion while staying here,” said Incantation. She grimaced. “Of course, that’s assuming Uncle just doesn’t kill us both outright for making a liar of him. He’s not exactly tolerant or understanding of these kinds of mistakes, you know.”
“I’ll have to apologize to him later, then,” I said. “But … man, that nightmare was scary.”
“What happened in it?” said Incantation.
“I don’t remember,” I said. “I just remember walking down the halls of the mansion and feeling like I was being watched. Can’t remember much more than that.”
“Well, as long as it doesn’t keep you from helping us in today’s mission, it doesn’t matter,” said Incantation. “Anyway, I came to see if you were awake because we’re going to start the next mission and Thaumaturge wants you in it.”
The word ‘mission’ caused something to click in my mind. I tried to remember what, but every time I thought about that word, my memory came up blank. Then again, maybe it was nothing; I mean, it wasn’t like ‘mission’ was a particularly special word or anything. It still felt like I was forgetting something significant, but it was probably nothing.
“Are you okay?” said Incantation. “Hello? Earth to Bolt? You look like you’re out of it.”
I shook my head and looked at Incantation again. “What? Oh, it’s nothing. I just got distracted by … something.”
Incantation rolled her eyes. “Right. Well, you’d better get dressed and get down to the dining room. Thaumaturge says that we all need to be there as soon as possible so we can start the mission.”
“Okay,” I said. “Will you wait for—”
But Incantation was gone before I could finish my sentence. Apparently, even though she was my girlfriend, she wasn’t going to go down to the dining room with me.
Sighing, I tossed my blankets off my legs and swung my legs over the side of my bed. My memory still felt off, like I was forgetting something very important, but no matter how much I focused, my memory just wouldn’t work. It was like trying to turn on a really old and broken down car; the ignition just wouldn’t start.
But hey, it probably didn’t mean anything. If Incantation was telling the truth, then Thaumaturge was most likely becoming impatient waiting for me to come over and report for the mission. And you know, I didn’t want to waste any time in saving our leader.
So I walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower, intending to be in and out and dressed as quickly as possible.
Chapter Nine
Walking through the hallways of the mansion, my hair still damp from my shower, I made my way to the dining room as fast as I could without using my super speed. But at the same time, I did walk more hesitantly and found myself avoiding dark corners. There was something about these hallways that made me feel … strange and afraid, like I was afraid that I might get attacked or something.
The feeling intensified when I walked by the door to Thaumaturge’s office, which was closed shut. I had no idea why. Maybe it had to do with that nightmare that I could remember. If so, I just had to ignore these feelings, and the best way to ignore them was to walk as fast as I could until I reached the dining room where everyone else was. Yeah. That would work.
Thankfully, I arrived in the dining room without being attacked. But I wasn’t the first to arrive; Incantation, Hopper, and Technical were there, along with Thaumaturge and Wrath. I did
n’t see Sarah, but I imagined that she was probably still recovering from the bullet wound she’d received during last night’s mission. I hoped she was doing better, though I also found that I wouldn’t mind too much if she didn’t recover from it.
But then I noticed someone new sitting at the table. Unlike the rest of us, this guy looked pretty normal, more or less, and by ‘normal’ I mean he didn’t have a superhero costume. He wore a fancy white business suit, which contrasted sharply with his dark skin. He was also incredibly large, almost obese, and had a number of flashy golden rings on his fingers that told me that this guy was rich. He sat near the end of the table, close to Thaumaturge, and apparently had been deep in discussion with him before Thaumaturge looked up to see that I had arrived.
“Ah, Bolt,” said Thaumaturge, though he didn’t smile when he said my name. “Good to see you finally came, though you’re slightly late.”
“Sorry,” I said as I took a seat by Incantation, who also didn’t smile at me. “I just had a really bad nightmare last night and I didn’t hear the alarm I set on my watch to wake me up.”
“It’s fine, but please remember to be more prompt next time,” said Thaumaturge. “This mission is the most important mission you will ever go on and we are working under a strict time limit which, if we miss, might make it impossible for us to save him ever again.”
“So this is the famous Bolt, eh?” said the large black man in the white suit, causing me to look at him abruptly. He had a deep, gravelly voice that made him sound even more authoritative than Thaumaturge. “You’re a scrawny one, you are, but then, all of you kids are nowadays. Except for our leader’s granddaughter; she eats too much.”
I blinked and looked down at my body. I was no bodybuilder, sure, but I was fairly fit, and so were the others. Except for Sarah, obviously, but I was shocked at this guy’s bluntness, because I didn’t know we could be so blunt about Sarah’s weight like that. Though, given that Incantation, Hopper, and Technical all looked totally shocked by the guy’s words, maybe we couldn’t.