by Lucas Flint
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I didn’t even say anything. I just rushed down toward the river, all thoughts pushed out of my head except for one: Save Triplet.
But when I was about halfway there, a tentacle came out of nowhere and slapped me out of the air. The sudden attack sent me veering off course. I crashed into the floor and rolled several times before coming to a stop, gasping for breath and feeling pain in my whole body. It felt like every bone in my body was smashed to bits, but I still managed to push myself up enough to see Triplet’s hat disappear down the middle branch out of my sight.
“Triplet!” I screamed. “Triplet, no!”
But there was no response. Even if Triplet was still alive, he wouldn’t have been able to hear me over the roar of the waterfall. Heck, I could barely hear myself above the racket.
Still, I forced myself to my feet and looked at the turtle-squid. Its tentacles were still weaving and waving through the air like snakes. I was outside of their range now, which was probably why they weren’t attacking me, but that didn’t mean I was home-free just yet. No doubt the turtle-squid was waiting for the right moment to attack me, waiting for me to slip up and give it an opening so it could continue pummeling me like a sandbag.
The only problem, of course, was that I was done playing with this thing and had no intention of allowing it to lay even one more suction cup on me. Yet without Triplet to act as a distraction, there was no way I could electrocute it.
My eyes darted to the abandoned observation tower at the top of the waterfall. Then again, who said electrocution was the only way to kill it?
Taking a deep breath, I launched into the air and flew straight toward the observation tower. The turtle-squid’s tentacles tried to catch me again, but I easily avoided them and reached the tower at the top of the waterfall. Up here, the roaring of the waterfall was so loud that I could barely hear myself think, but I didn’t need to hear my own thoughts to know what to do next.
I landed near the base of the waterfall and checked its foundation. It appeared to be built into the top of the waterfall, but I also noticed it was quite rusty from years of exposure to water. What I was about to do might not work, but I had a good feeling it would.
I curled and uncurled my fists a few times before taking another deep breath and then slamming my fist as hard as I could into the side of the tower.
The tower shuddered under the blow, but it still stood, so I hit it with another punch and then another, each blow fueled by my super strength. Fist-shaped dents appeared in the base of the tower, but soon the dents gave way to holes as I tore at its foundations, hitting faster and harder with each blow until—with one final smash—I sent the tower falling to the bottom of the waterfall below.
But I didn’t stop there. I flew down and caught the tower on my back and shoulders. It was heavy—nearly as heavy as the Alpha Airlines plane I had caught—but I managed to hold it just long enough to fly it over the shell of the turtle-squid. Its head and limbs had retracted into the shell again, but that wouldn’t save it from what I was about to do.
With a yell, I threw the tower directly down at the floating metal shell below. The tower crashed into the shell and both of them sank beneath the water out of sight, the crash sending gallons of ice-cold water flying into the air high enough that even I got splashed by it.
As I watched, the tower sank down deeper and deeper until it apparently hit the bottom, although the tower was too tall to go under completely. Half of it stood out of the river, while the other half was completely submerged. It was wide enough to nearly block off the river entirely, but luckily there was enough room on either side for the water to continue to flow, if at a slightly slower pace than normal.
I waited a couple of seconds to see if the turtle-squid would rise again, but the tower didn’t even budge. Either the impact of the crash had outright killed the beast or maybe the tower was too heavy for the monster to push off its back. Regardless, the fight was over, which meant I could finally relax.
Or could I?
I looked down the river, looking for Triplet, even though I knew he was long gone by now and I wasn’t sure which of the three branches he disappeared down. I wanted to go and save him, but that would require going down each tunnel—which were completely dark, from what I could tell—and trying to find him relying solely on my eyesight. Even then, I might have to check all three before I found him, which would probably take hours, hours I didn’t really have.
My hands balled into fists. I shouldn’t have agreed to Triplet’s plan. If we had simply skipped the turtle-squid entirely and moved on, he would still be here and still be alive. As it was, there was a good chance that Triplet was dead and there was nothing I could do to save him.
With a sigh, I turned away and began walking toward the entrance to the tunnel on the other side of the chamber.
First Strike, now Triplet … how could things possibly get worse?
CHAPTER TWENTY
I reached the tunnel on the other side of the chamber with no difficulty and entered just as easily. It was identical to the tunnel from which Triplet and I had emerged earlier, only I noticed it slightly inclined upward. This filled me with hope because maybe it meant I had already hit the bottom of the maze and had nowhere to go but up from here. I might even find Longworth’s lab, wherever that was.
But I still kept my guard up. Though this tunnel seemed empty and devoid of life, I knew from experience that this maze was far more dangerous than it looked. I needed to be more cautious than ever, given how I was all by myself now. I couldn’t even rely on Valerie for help, because she was being blocked by the jammer Longworth was using to prevent signals from getting in and out of this place. I could only hope that Brains and Vanish would notice that Strike and I had not returned from our visit to Longworth and would come over to investigate, but would they get here in time to help us?
I was especially worried about Strike. There was no telling what Longworth was doing to him. I sincerely doubted that Longworth had simply allowed Strike to reunite with Dizzy. Most likely, Strike was made part of Longworth’s experiments against his will. Strike was a strong guy, but he wasn’t invincible and Longworth still had leverage over him with Dizzy.
Mostly, I found myself wondering just what the heck was going on here. A massive, sprawling maze full of cyborg animals with a taste for human blood, a massive waterfall seemingly designed to provide power for a single mansion, Phaser somehow coming back to life, superhuman teenage girls being kidnapped … it was all very strange and incomprehensible. Even worse, I had a feeling that I might not live long enough to find the answers I needed.
My thoughts were interrupted by a tapping sound up ahead. I paused and listened intently, trying to locate the exact source of the sound. It was soft but consistent, like a machine doing the same exact move over and over again. Had I stumbled upon another one of Longworth’s machines? Or was it something else?
It didn’t sound very scary to me, but I wasn’t going to let my guard down, especially while I was alone. I continued to advance, but slowly and cautiously. That was easy to do because I was still pretty exhausted from my earlier fight with the turtle-squid. I was also soaking wet and far too aware of the water dripping off my body onto the floor, but hopefully not loud enough for whatever was making the tapping sound to hear.
I soon emerged into yet another chamber, but unlike the last, this one was significantly smaller. It was about twice as big as my room back in the Braindome, but that wasn’t saying much because my room wasn’t very big. Unlike the other chamber, it was shaped more like a normal room, although it was also very well-lit with the fluorescent bulbs on the ceiling providing enough light by which to see.
At first, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. On the other side of the room was yet another exit that seemed to lead to yet another tunnel, but in between me and that exit was what looked like a large machine of some sort. It looked kind of like a power generator like the kind Hero Island had
to provide backup electricity in the event that the island lost power, but much bigger. It was connected to the ceiling and floor and the tapping sound came from within the generator. Up close, the tapping sound was much louder, but it was still rather soft.
The room, as far as I could tell, was completely empty, but unlike the last chamber, it did not seem to be abandoned. The machine was humming along, for one, and the floor and walls were clean like they had just been washed recently.
Surely this couldn’t be the power generator for the whole facility, could it? Then again, if the waterfall from before was supposed to be a hydroelectric dam, then maybe this was what it was powering. Of course, it might not be a power generator at all. It might even be a weapon.
In any case, I had had enough adventures for today. Normally my curiosity would have motivated me to examine it, but I just wanted to get the heck out of here and didn’t care about anything else. Luckily, it looked like I could just walk around the generator and keep going, so I decided to do just that.
Man, this was going to be easy. After the turtle-squid, walking past an electrical generator was almost as easy as taking a walk in the park. I guess Phaser could have set a trap for me, but I kind of doubted that, because I had a feeling I would have sensed if there was one.
As I walked past the generator, I noticed what looked like a tiny computer monitor built into the side. I had no idea what it was used for, but if I had to guess, I would say it probably allowed Longworth to study the power levels of the generator. That was probably what the various lines, graphs, and numbers meant, but I wasn’t interested enough to stop by.
That is until I distinctly heard a feminine voice say, “Help.”
I came to an abrupt stop and looked over at the generator. Not only was I sure I had heard a female voice come from the generator, but I even recognized it. Although slight static-y, its cool monotone was instantly familiar to me from years of listening to her voice and talking to her all the time.
“Valerie?” I said, turning to face the generator. “Is that you?”
Static buzzed from the generator in response, making me think I must have been hearing things, but then I heard Valerie again. “Help … please help … can’t hang on much longer …”
The words abruptly broke off into unintelligible static. Worried, I walked up to the generator’s control console and rested my hands on either side of the keyboard. “Valerie? Hello? Are you still there? How are you talking to me through this generator? Can you hear me?”
“Affirmative,” said Valerie, “but … not Valerie. I sound like her, but—”
More harsh static, making it impossible for me to hear what she said, but a second later her voice came clear again and said, “Run … don’t stay here … get out of here and … never come back …”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I felt like I was listening to the recording of a woman dying or maybe being tortured to death. I looked to the left and right briefly, but still didn’t see anyone in here other than myself.
“If you’re not Valerie, then who are you?” I said, leaning in closer to the generator. “What is your name? Are you one of Longworth’s prisoners?”
“Yes,” said the female voice which sounded way too much like Valerie for comfort. “Sort of … don’t have much time … can barely communicate—”
Harsh static—harsher and louder than before—blasted from the generator’s speakers, making me cringe and pull back, but then the woman resumed speaking: “… too late. Longworth too powerful … death awaits you …”
“What do you mean about Longworth being too powerful?” I said. “He’s just making cyborgs, right?”
“Longworth not alone,” said the female voice as if she had to force herself to speak. “Allied with a terrible man, awful man, who—”
Suddenly, the female voice was cut off, but not by static. It was a deep, droning sound like a freight train’s smokestack bellowing. I would have stepped away from the computer if I hadn’t been so interested in finding out just what the heck was going on.
“No,” said the female voice again, this time far more panicky than before, “they’ve found me, they’ve got me, it’s too late, I miscalculated, I—”
“What happened?” I said, leaning in closer. “What’s going on? Who found you?”
“Abaddon,” said the female voice. “The Destroyer. It wants me. It wants all of us.”
“All of us?” I said. “All of who?”
“He’s back,” said the female voice, apparently ignoring my questions. “Back …and worse than ever … oh my god …”
“Who’s back?” I said. “Abaddon? Who’s that?”
“Run!” said the female voice urgently. “Run now, while you still—”
This time, her voice was not interrupted by static. Instead, she suddenly screamed in pain, screaming so loudly that the speakers made weird noises. I stepped back instinctively, putting my hands over my ears to protect my hearing.
Yet as quickly as it began, the screaming stopped, as if the woman on the other end—whoever she was—had been killed, which was very likely the case.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Lowering my hands from my ears, I stared at the generator’s monitor uncertainly. It was back to normal now, showing the basic power levels of the generator as well as the rest of the maze. Looked pretty detailed, too, but I didn’t care about that. I was more interested in this woman, whoever she was, and what she meant about ‘Abaddon,’ plus ‘The Destroyer,’ whatever the heck that was.
I walked up to the monitor and stared at the graphs a little bit more closely than before. Unfortunately, this was where my lack of mathematical expertise hindered me because I couldn’t make sense of any of the graphs, bars, and numbers displayed before me. The only legible thing was what appeared to be the name of the maze—’UNIT VA’—but even that was useless. It did hint, however, that perhaps there were more ‘units’ than this place, but what kind of person would own multiple underground mazes on the same scale as this one?
I tapped the screen hesitantly, but nothing happened and I did not get a response. All I got was the sense that I had just heard the last words of a terrified woman, one of Longworth’s prisoners. Most of what she said didn’t make any sense to me, but it was obvious that she must have pulled off an escape attempt only to end up being recaptured and killed by someone called Abaddon. I guess Phaser wasn’t the only supervillain working with Longworth, because Abaddon sounded like the name of a supervillain to me, although I had never heard of a supervillain with that name before.
I wondered how this woman had even managed to contact me. For that matter, how did she know I was even in here? Did she have access to the maze’s cameras? I looked up at the ceiling but did not see any cameras in the corners. Either the cameras were extremely well-hidden or maybe the generator itself had a camera attached that allowed a person on the other end to monitor who was in the room.
My best guess was that the woman was one of the girls who Longworth had kidnapped for his evil experiments, but even that theory didn’t make sense. Triplet claimed that they were teenage girls. This woman I just spoke to sounded like a full-grown adult. Even weirder, she sounded just like Valerie, if a bit more emotional than her, which just added to the bizarreness of this all.
I bit my lip and glanced at the exit. It was still unguarded, but now I was having second thoughts about continuing on. Why did she tell me to run away? Did she know who I was and what I could do? It sounded to me like she was ranting, but maybe there was more to her ranting than at first glance.
Perhaps I should try to connect to her again. Maybe she didn’t die at all but just shut off her end so she could get away from Abaddon. It was worth a shot, after all.
I walked up to the computer monitor and leaned closer to it, trying to see how I could possibly connect to other people with this, but unfortunately, I didn’t see anything as simple as a button I could press. The keyboard at the base of the monitor was
even less helpful, being that it was just a random series of numbers probably used for this place’s password.
I tapped the screen again and said, “Uh, lady? Are you still there? Can you hear me?”
Abruptly, the screen changed, but it did not show a woman’s face. Instead, I found myself face to face with an ugly old man. He was rail thin and wore what appeared to be a white lab coat over his thin frame, horn-rimmed glasses perched on his beak-like nose. I could only see him from the neck up, but I could see what appeared to be an extensive laboratory in the background, although it was hard to make out much on such a small screen.
“Ah!” I said, jumping back. “You’re not a woman.”
“Indeed I am not,” said the old man with a vicious chuckle. “I thought you would recognize me, seeing as we have already met once, but it was from a distance, so allow me to introduce myself: I am Samuel Longworth, the owner of this maze. You have already met my brother.”
My eyes widened. “You’re Longworth? Man, you’re even uglier than I thought.”
Longworth sneered. “Show some respect for your elders, brat. Didn’t your dead dad ever teach you manners?”
“Only to elders who deserve it,” I said, “which someone like you does not.”
I expected Longworth to keep arguing the point, but instead, he simply shrugged and said, “Never mind that. We have far more important things to discuss.”
“How did you know I was in here?” I said. “Did you see me on the generator’s camera?”
“Yes,” said Longworth. “I noticed someone using the generator’s camera, which wouldn’t make sense unless someone was in here. So I toggled over to the generator’s camera, and lo and behold, I am finally face to face with Lightning Brat.”
“Bolt,” I said in annoyance. “Just Bolt.”
“Whatever,” said Longworth. “I’ve always hated superhero names and could never get them right. But it doesn’t matter. What really matters is finally being able to speak with you like men.”