I collected the lamp from the alcove and set off down the narrow, sloping tunnel into the gloom. As I made my way around stalactites and stalagmites, the swinging lamp-light throwing shadows against the walls, I felt a presence in the darkness. Not a ghost or a cave-monster, but something far more unsettling. It had loomed over me since my first meeting with Other Luke, a question as unavoidable as Karnak the Inhuman’s giant head.
Was I the Evil Twin?
In comics there are superheroes who start off with good intentions, but somewhere down the road everything gets twisted. They lose their way. I never intended to be the bad guy. Everything I’d done – stealing Zorbon’s ship, kidnapping Zack from another universe – I’d done for good reasons. I just wanted to make Mum and Dad and all the people who loved my brother happy again. I wanted to be happy again. I was sure I’d come across a phrase that summed it up: the ends justify being mean. So had I lost my way? I was too far down this road to go back now, so I pushed the question back into the shadows. However, if my destiny was to don the black cape of villainy, I resolved to avoid making some obvious mistakes.
I reached the archway that led to the chamber where I’d locked Zack up. I was pleased to find the force field securely in place, emitting a powerful hum. It didn’t actually need to hum, since electrical humming is caused by stray magnetic fields making transformers vibrate, and there was no transformer. But I liked the effect.
I parted the field and went inside. I’d brought him something to eat and a change of clothes. He’d arrived in my world wearing his Star Lad costume but I could hardly reintroduce him to Mum and Dad wearing that. I was also carrying a secret weapon. Not a weapon like a power ring or a lasso of truth; this was a family photo album. I hoped that seeing pictures of us together would bring him round to the idea that we really were his family.
Zack lay on the floor of the cave, doing sit-ups by the light of the glow-sticks I’d left him.
I set down the takeaway from the café next to him. “I got you a meal combo. A medium Chai-ly Illogical, Wrap of Khan and one To Boldly Doughnut.”
He completed another sit-up and counted, “One hundred and sixty-four.”
He was pretending to ignore me. Which was typical of Zack.
“And I thought we could look through this together,” I said, opening the album.
“One hundred and sixty-five.”
“So many memories.” I turned the pages, thick with snapshots of our family.
“One hundred and sixty-six.”
“Oh, you must remember this one – when we went to that safari park and I tried to smuggle out a monkey?”
He stopped exercising and sat up, breathing lightly. “Nope.” He dabbed his forehead with a sleeve. “I’m sorry, but while I accept that in some ways I am him, I’m also not him.”
“Don’t say that!”
“I know what you’re trying to do,” he said, gesturing to the album. “And it won’t work.”
“I can make you remember. There are other ways of changing people’s minds,” I said darkly, closing the album with a thud. “Mind control, for instance.”
Zack got slowly to his feet. I could see that I’d rattled him. “You have mind-control powers?”
OK, well, now this was a bit awkward. “Uh, no. But I reckon I could give it a good try. It’s kind of like evil telepathy, right?”
Zack sighed. “You are so like him.”
“Yes! Yes I am,” I said, seizing upon his admission. “I am Luke. And you are Zack.”
He stood in silence and then he laid a hand on my shoulder. For a second I thought he was about to attempt a judo throw, but then a sad smile appeared on his face.
“What happened wasn’t your fault,” he said. “You can’t save everyone.”
“You did.”
“I had help. Without Luke and his friends, that day would’ve ended differently. You took on Nemesis all by yourself.”
“I had to. First rule of being a superhero – keep your identity a secret.”
“Sorry.” He gave me a sheepish look. “I broke that one. Maybe you should break it too. This thing we do, it’s a gift, but it’s also a heavy responsibility. You should think about sharing it.”
“And if I do, will you stay? Just tell me – what will it take to convince you?”
For a moment I thought he was about to give me an answer, but instead he shook his head. “I could lie to you. Say that I’ve come round. But it wouldn’t be fair – to either of us.”
I stamped my foot, sending up a cloud of dirt. “Your choice. But we are deep underground. No starlight can reach you here. And until you accept that you are my brother, I can’t let you leave.”
Zack put his hands on his hips and cast his eye around the cavern. “Are we in Chislehurst Caves?”
First rule of supervillainy – never tell them your plan. “Maybe.”
He ran a hand along one wall as he proceeded to walk round the perimeter. “I know this place. This is where Dad took us when Luke wanted a Batcave.” I could see it all come back to him. “Yeah, and when he turned off the lamp, Luke freaked out.”
Barely had he spoken the words when my head began to throb. Something had triggered my Stellar Scanner. A blurry image swam into my mind. Three figures dismounting from bikes at the cave entrance. I homed in on them and gasped. Other Luke was here, in my world. But how? There wasn’t time to speculate. He was not alone. I adjusted the image until they came into focus. It was Lara Lee. Of course, they were best friends in his universe. At least in this one she didn’t have superpowers. And the third? Serge! Well, how about that. Somehow Other Luke had patched it up with him.
“Luke?” muttered Zack.
I spun round. I could see it in his face – Zack had detected his other brother. But how? Unless he was using his Star-Sense, which was – “Impossible. You’re out of starlight and there’s no way you could have recharged your powers.”
Zack gave an apologetic shrug. “Surprise?”
The entrance to the cave lay before us. A few hundred metres inside, at the end of its twisting passageways, my brother was being held captive by Stellar – I was sure of it. For the first time since arriving in this world I had an advantage over my Evil Twin: he didn’t know we were coming.
“You ready?” I asked the others.
Lara nodded and a smile played about her lips. “We have the elephant of surprise.”
“Um, yeah, it’s the element of surprise.”
She snorted. “That’s ridiculous. What does that even mean? An elephant makes much more sense. What would you do if you felt a tap on your shoulder, then turned round to find a wrinkly trunk belonging to a blinking great elephant standing behind you?”
“Leap three metres straight up in the air?” said Serge.
“Exactly.”
She had a point.
I was about to lead us into the cave when there was the whistle of parting air.
“Watch out!” Lara dropped to the ground as, with a crunch of exploding rock, two figures shot out of the narrow cave entrance. Splinters of stone rained down on us. I looked up from my prone position.
Twisting around each other in a subsonic streak, Stellar and Star Lad cleared the treetops and arrowed into the darkening sky.
“Zack’s escaped!” cried Lara delightedly.
“Typical,” I muttered. It was so typical of my brother. We’d just visited the cave shop and I’d bought supplies. I had a whole Mission Impossible rescue plan figured out, involving glow-sticks, multiple pulleys and a particularly imaginative use of a karabiner. And what does Zack do? Ruin it.
Lara was already on her bike, racing back towards the car park, tracking the figures in the sky. I hopped on to mine and set after her, gawping at the scene unfolding above. Star Lad and Stellar were locked in single combat. I’d witnessed a lot of fantastic things lately, from giant robots in shopping centres to alien motherships to world-eating monsters, but here was something which until that moment I’d only seen i
n comics or films: a battle between superpowered foes wearing capes.
“This is the best thing ever,” said Serge, voicing my unspoken thought. “Incroyable! Although, I struggle with the idea that in any universe Zack Parker is le superheros.”
“I know. Annoying, isn’t it?”
We pedalled furiously to keep pace with the action. There was the sound of wrenching metal as a lamppost tore itself from the pavement and flew narrowly over our heads. All along the road a line of lampposts ripped themselves from their foundations and speared into the air.
Controlling them with telekinesis, Stellar launched the posts at Star Lad. I could see my brother track the incoming projectiles and in an instant activate his force field. They bounced off his protective shield and tumbled back to earth. Star Lad had enough presence of mind to guide them safely down, making sure to avoid innocent bystanders, although a parked Ford Focus got one in the sunroof.
It was Star Lad’s turn to launch a telekinetic attack of his own. Swooping low, he skimmed over a row of bungalows. As he sped past them there was a tearing noise and the houses’ perfectly manicured lawns detached themselves from their roots and followed in his wake.
“Why is he doing that?” asked Lara.
I realised the genius of his manoeuvre. “I have hay fever,” I said. “Which means–”
“– so does Stellar,” she finished.
Gaining altitude, Star Lad opened fire on his opponent with a rapid burst of bungalow lawn. Stellar disappeared beneath the onslaught, swamped by a green carpet. We awaited the inevitable sneeze-pocalypse.
“And that’s what you call a turf war,” I quipped. But unfortunately Lara didn’t hear me over the rumble of thunder that immediately filled the sky. The ground shook beneath our wheels.
Stellar had opened a gerbil-hole.
“Stellar, listen to me,” I shouted the words in my head. “If you don’t stop what you’re doing you risk triggering the end of all existence. Your gerbil-holes are altering the structure of the multiverse.”
There was a pause, and then to my surprise, I heard him.
“Is it like Emmental?”
For flip’s sake, what was it with the cheese similes?
He gave a mocking laugh. “Nice try, Other Luke, but you don’t honestly expect me to fall for that one, do you? It’s the oldest trick in the comic book – your powers threaten the very fabric of space-time. I mean, come on, really, is that the best you’ve got?” His voice whispered in my head. “Let me show you what I’ve got.” And with that, he severed our telepathic link.
“Incoming!” Lara yelled.
A fleet of lawn tractors blasted out of the latest gerbil-hole, cutting decks lowered, blades spinning. But these were no ordinary tractors. Each came equipped with what I estimated to be a 50-litre grass-cutting collector, and a thrust vectoring nozzle and lift fan like the one on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The flying tractors tore through the lawns, which fell in clods all around us, setting off car alarms, sending passers-by seeking shelter in doorways. Stellar shrugged off the last few blades of grass, sent the tractors back through the hole and set off again in pursuit of my brother.
There was still enough illumination from the eclipsed sun to pick out the two of them. Light rolled off Stellar’s cape as he zoomed past us at low level, gesturing to a row of terraced houses. The air filled with a hum like a swarm of angry bees. All the satellite dishes on the houses vibrated, and with a series of pings broke free from their mountings, racing skyward like an alien saucer fleet on an intercept course with Star Lad.
He picked them off one by one, swiftly targeting them with his Star-Sense radar, then knocking them out of the sky with a volley of pinpoint telekinetic blasts.
From our position on the ground Star Lad and Stellar were, at that exact moment, perfectly framed by what remained of the sun. By then it was half in light, half in darkness. Like the two halves, the opponents were evenly matched.
“They’re heading to the shops,” said Lara, speeding after the flying gladiators.
The battle went street to street, cul-de-sac to avenue. At one moment Star Lad gained the upper hand, then the advantage switched to Stellar. There was a brief but violent exchange of seafood over the fishmonger. It was a clever move on Stellar’s part, since Zack hated prawns.
Stellar used his gerbil-hole power again. This time hundreds of sheets of paper streamed out of the dimensional portal and surrounded my brother. Stray sheets floated to the ground. I braked and leaned down to collect a bundle. This was bad. Really bad. “Exam papers.”
Serge made a face. “Is that all?”
“You don’t understand – they appear to be exam papers for the next three years.” I looked up at my brother, knowing what was about to happen.
“He’s closed his eyes,” said Lara. “Why’s he doing that?”
I knew why. My scrupulously honest brother didn’t want to risk glimpsing the questions and gaining an unfair advantage in a future exam. Stellar was a genius. But as my Evil Twin moved in to take advantage, Star Lad began to spin at an incredible rate. In seconds he had created a vortex that sucked in the exam papers, whirled them around furiously and spat them out. Thousands of paper ribbons drifted on the breeze. He had shredded the exam questions, not only removing the immediate threat to him, but ensuring no one could benefit from Stellar’s cheating.
The battle raged and each time Stellar opened a hole it caused a new and stronger tremor. The universe continued to exist. For now.
I caught up to Lara and Serge and the three of us pedalled side by side.
“It’s too dangerous to let him carry on making those holes,” I said.
Lara shook her head. “But how do we stop him?”
Before I could answer, something scurried out in front of my wheel and I slammed on the brakes. It was a rat. It darted across the road, pursued by a straggly-looking cat, a stray like those I’d seen roaming Moore Street.
I had an idea. “Serge, I have a vital question, the answer to which could very well make the difference between our mission succeeding and the end of the world – in every universe.”
“Oui?”
“Did you eat all your sandwiches?”
Five minutes later Serge was on his way back to the tree house to carry out my plan. I couldn’t have put my trust in anyone better. He had the grit, the determination and the anchovies. Meanwhile, as people realised that something extraordinary was happening above them, the streets filled with onlookers. At first they were unsure about the superpowered clash, but wariness quickly turned to excitement at the thrilling aerial action. With a screech of tyres, a pair of competing mobile TV news crews swung into the street from opposite ends, narrowly avoiding a collision with each other. The emergency services showed up too. There were fire engines, ambulances, even a police helicopter. A policeman with a loudhailer ordered Star Lad and Stellar to cease fighting, but I don’t think anyone expected that they would actually listen, not even the policeman.
Hovering high above us, capes rippling out behind them, Star Lad and Stellar stared each other down like a couple of Wild West gunslingers.
I closed my eyes. “Zack, can you hear me?”
“My Star-Sense wasn’t wrong – it is you. Bit busy right now, Luke.”
I needed to tell Zack something but there was a chance Stellar was listening in. I had to take the risk. “Get to the tree house.”
“You have a plan? Why am I asking – of course you have a plan. OK. See you there.”
The battle resumed at the same breathless pace, but after a few more superpowered exchanges I could tell that the crowd’s initial excitement was beginning to wane. The police and fire brigade were called to another emergency. People drifted away. Even the TV news crews drove off, having recorded enough superhero action for a feature film and eight sequels. I could completely understand their loss of enthusiasm. What is it with superhero fights that they always go on far too long?
By the time the trail of de
struction led to Moore Street, we were the only interested civilians left following the battling supers. Zack was true to his word. He herded Stellar along our street. They clashed above the garden at number 128 and then the two of them dropped from sight.
We ditched the bikes and squeezed through the gap in the fence that ringed Stellar’s former home. For the first time since the fight began, the skies above Bromley were silent and empty. Surrounded by an eerie stillness we made our way across the blasted garden to the foot of the tree house. I clambered up the rope ladder and opened the door.
Stellar and Star Lad faced each other across a floor squirming with cats.
Cats packed the tree house, mewing, hissing and slinking. There wasn’t a centimetre of floor space that didn’t contain a paw or a hackle. Serge had accomplished the mission, even at the cost of triggering his allergies. He took several puffs of his inhaler and shook a ginger tom off one leg.
“Well, look at this, the gang’s all here,” Stellar sneered.
Lara folded her arms and met his gaze with a steely one of her own.
Stellar fixed me across the room. “Just in time for me to send you back where you came from,” he crowed. “Bye-bye.” Casually, he waved a hand to open a gerbil-hole.
My Evil Twin Is a Supervillain Page 15