by Lucas Flint
“Please,” said Longworth in a pleading tone, shaking under my grip, “don’t kill me, please don’t kill me. I don’t want to die.”
I snorted. “I won’t kill you if you deactivate the Control Crowns and let Strike and the girls go. Oh, and I also need you and Phaser to surrender. I’m sure the guys at Ultimate Max will be able to find a cell big enough to fit the two of you.”
“No, I would never do that,” said Longworth. “I did not come this far, spend this much time, money, and effort, just to end up in a prison cell.”
“Life’s like that sometimes, bud,” I said. “You work really hard to achieve your goal and sometimes it just doesn’t work. I suggest whining less. It makes you look like a kid.”
Suddenly, Longworth stopped shaking. He turned his head just enough to allow me to see a mad grin on his face, a sharp contrast to his fearful, pleading tone from even just a few minutes ago. “And I would suggest you treat your elders with more respect, brat, because we’re not nearly as weak as we look.”
I was about to ask Longworth what he meant when a dark shadow fell over me suddenly. When I looked over my shoulder to see who it was, I saw a large fist coming down straight toward my face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
My super speed kicked in instinctively and Longworth and I rushed over to the side, narrowly avoiding the large fist that slammed into the floor where Longworth and I had been standing mere moments ago. We skidded to a stop against the railing and, without letting go for Longworth, I looked over to see just who had tried to crush us.
The figure who stood in front of the door was someone I had never seen before. He was a powerfully built man in white and gold armor, his face hidden behind a gold-plated knight helmet. Spikes ran along the sides of his arms and legs, giving him a threatening appearance. He had to be at least a head taller than me and carried what appeared to be a long sword at his side, although it was currently sheathed.
The man turned to face us and held up his fists, which were covered in thick gauntlets that reminded me of hammers. Though his face was hidden underneath his helmet, I could sense he was ready to take me on.
“Who the heck is that?” I said. I shook Longworth. “Answer me!”
Longworth’s face broke into the most disgusting grin I had ever seen. “That, my dear sweet child, is Abaddon the Destroyer. As you might have guessed from his name, he isn’t very nice.”
Abaddon … I had heard that name before recently, back in the generator room. It had been uttered by the mysterious woman who sounded like Valerie, but I hadn’t given it much thought since then. Perhaps I should have because Abaddon definitely looked like a threat.
“Abaddon, huh?” I said. “Another one of your experiments?”
“Of course not,” said Longworth. “He’s a friend. Well, an ally, at any rate.”
Abaddon grunted. He still didn’t move, but I could tell the only reason he wasn’t attacking me was because I still held Longworth prisoner. This was still a tough situation for me, though, because between Abaddon and Phaser, I was probably going to have to fight for my life soon, regardless of what I did to Longworth.
“Well, he doesn’t look that tough,” I said.
“I am far stronger than I appear, Bolt,” said Abaddon. Although his voice was slightly muffled through his helmet, there was something familiar about it, like I had heard it somewhere once before. “Would you like a demonstration of my power?”
My eyes narrowed. “How do you know my name?”
“Because we’ve met before,” said Abaddon. “And not too long ago.”
“I think I’d remember if I’d met a guy like you before,” I said. “Your appearance is pretty distinctive.”
“Let me show you my face,” said Abaddon. “Perhaps that will remind you about who I am.”
Abaddon undid the straps connecting his helmet to his armor. Then he took his helmet off his head and looked at me.
I was struck by how familiar the man looked. I was sure I had never seen him before, but his general facial structure, his brown hair, and his gray eyes all reminded me of someone, although I still couldn’t place where I’d seen him before. He was a man in his late thirties or early forties if the streaks of gray in his hair were any indication. He seemed to be pretty well-built, given the shape of his armor and reminded me of men who used to play sports in high school when they were younger.
“Recognize me?” said Abaddon. “Or do I really look that different?”
“Still don’t know who you are,” I said. “But you do seem familiar.”
Abaddon smiled. That smile was so familiar that I finally recognized him even before he spoke, but I couldn’t believe what my own eyes were showing me.
“I am Seth Richards,” said Abaddon, holding his helmet under his arm like a football. “Long time, no see, Bolt.”
Although I kept an iron grip on Longworth, I had to admit that seeing Seth Richards in the flesh shook me harder than I would like to admit. “You can’t be Seth Richards. Seth died last month when his yacht sank while he was in the stateroom. Plus, you’re way too young to be Seth Richards. Seth was a guy in his sixties. You look like you’re in your thirties or maybe forties.”
Seth chuckled. “I anticipated you would respond this way. Yes, I did die last month … or my body did, at any rate. My old, frail, broken body.”
“Your body?” I said. “Are you telling me that your mind is—”
“In a new body?” Seth finished for me. He patted his armored chest. “Correct. This is a clone of my body, admittedly a younger clone, but borne from the same DNA as my original body. When my yacht sank into the sea, only my body was lost.”
I eyed Seth carefully. “Do you mean that your mind was somehow transferred from your old body into your new, cloned body?”
Seth tapped the side of his head. “Yes. Every now and then I like to ‘back up’ my consciousness, so to speak, in a computer database. That way, when my current body dies, I can simply upload my backup into my new body, thus ensuring I can live forever. When I died in the yacht last month, a signal was sent to the cloning facility I run to activate my new clone.”
“Impossible,” I said. “That can’t be possible.”
“It’s perfectly possible, my young friend,” said Seth. “Look at the proof before you. I got the idea from Mecha Knight, who you know is also a consciousness put inside a machine, although I’m a consciousness put into a cloned organic body.”
I gulped. “What the heck are you doing here, then? Are you working with Longworth?”
“Other way around, Bolt,” said Seth. He gestured at the room around us. “Longworth is working for me. I am the one who paid for and built this entire maze and laboratory. Without me, this place wouldn’t even exist.”
I looked down at Longworth, who had been strangely quiet during this entire confrontation. “Is he telling the truth?”
“Yes,” said Longworth, who winced like he thought I was going to punch him in the face. “Without his backing, I honestly couldn’t afford to even live in my mansion, much less operate a full-scale scientific lab like this. The Longworth family inheritance isn’t what it used to be.”
I suddenly looked over at Phaser, who still stood in front of the door to the maze. “If Seth is a clone, then is this Phaser also a clone of the original?”
“Bingo, kid,” said Phaser. He took a step forward, a vicious grin on his lips. “This isn’t the body I died in. This is a newly-grown body, made from the remains of the original. Only my mind is original, but that is because I had it copied before Brain destroyed it, though I think I still have a screw loose or two.”
“The plan was always to resurrect my brother,” said Longworth quickly. “I’ve been working for Seth for well over fifteen years, carrying on Project Revival’s goals even after that project was shut down. It wasn’t until recently, however, that I felt I had come far enough in my experiments to safely resurrect Phaser. That’s why we built his tomb with a secret back
door so we could get his body when the time was right.”
I looked at Seth again, who had not moved an inch from where he stood. “Mecha Knight told me Project Revival was shut down, that you shut it down when you weren’t pleased with the results.”
Seth chuckled. “Technically, I did shut it down, but only the other eleven facilities. Of all of the Vaults, Vault A is the only one I kept operational for my own purposes.”
“Wait, Vault A?” I said. I looked around again at the lab. “Don’t tell me that this place is—”
“One of your father’s Vault, yes,” said Seth, nodding. He waved one of his arms to indicate the lab. “This entire maze was the biggest Vault, as well as the one which produced more clones than any of the others. Longworth was the project manager of Project Revival even then, although he had to answer to me, of course.”
My eyes widened. “If this is one of Dad’s Vaults, where’s the AI … assistant …”
Suddenly, I understood who that voice I’d heard earlier had belonged to. It had belonged to the AI who ran this Vault. It explained why she sounded so much like Valerie because all of the AIs were really just different versions of her. Those must have been her last words that I heard earlier.
“Are you talking about Diana?” said Seth. “She is offline. Despite having been designed to assist us, she proved to be very … unhelpful.”
“Tried to sabotage our project, you mean,” Longworth grumbled. “Stupid program was more loyal to Genius than to us. She deserved to be deleted.”
Although I had already assumed Diana was dead, I still couldn’t help but feel disgusted at how casually they admitted to deleting her. I didn’t know Diana, but I was partial to the AI assistants like Diana and it made me angry to hear about how they essentially killed her because she did not want to go along with their plans, whatever those were.
“So what is the aim of Project Revival, then?” I said to Seth. “The real goal, I mean? It wasn’t just to revive good people who died before their time, was it?”
Seth’s smile was chilling. “Now, now, Bolt, I’m not going to reveal all my secrets to you quite so easily like that. I’ve already told you far more than you need to know. Far, far more than you need to know.”
“What are you going to do, kill me?” I said. I firmly grabbed Longworth’s neck, making him freeze. “I’m no scientist, but from what I understand, Longworth here is the brains of your little operation. If I kill him, then Project Revival will basically come to a halt. At least, I bet it would be really inconvenient for you guys if I killed him.”
Seth tilted his head to the side. “I thought superheroes didn’t murder people.”
“Would it really be murder after all of the crud he put me and my friends through?” I said. “And if you’re really concerned about him, let me, Strike, and the girls go and I will be happy to spare his life.”
“I am sorry, Bolt, but I cannot do that,” said Seth, shaking his head. “If I let you go, you will undoubtedly alert the NHA, INJ, and G-Men of what is going on here. I have come too far to allow outside forces to interfere with my plans. I hope you understand that.”
“Well, then,” I said. “It looks like we’re at an impasse. I’m not going to let Longworth go until you agree to let me and my friends go. But you don’t want to let me and my friends go, yet you can’t attack me without putting Longworth’s life at risk.” I chuckled. “I’m not as smart as my old man, but I feel pretty proud of myself for putting you guys in this situation.”
Seth smirked. “The only person whose life is in danger here, Bolt, is yours.”
Before I could ask Seth what he meant by that, my heart rate suddenly slowed and I found it incredibly hard to breathe, making me let go of Longworth, who quickly crawled away outside of my reach. Confused at first, I looked down at my chest and saw a familiar clenched fist sticking out through my chest, glowing softly under the lab’s lights.
And when I looked over my shoulder, I saw Phaser standing behind me, his face in a huge, nasty grin that told me I had just been played.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Dang it. In all of my conversation with Seth, I had forgotten about Phaser. Or, rather, I forgot to keep an eye on him. I guess I assumed he wouldn’t dare attack me while I held his brother’s life in my hands, yet here he was, putting his arm through my heart like he did before. Seth must have been distracting me long enough for Phaser to sneak up and take me out. I would have felt ashamed and embarrassed by allowing myself to be distracted like this if I wasn’t currently focused on the pain in my heart and the knowledge that I was slowly but surely dying.
And this time, no one was coming to save me. Triplet was dead. Strike was still unconscious, but even if he wasn’t, his Control Crown would have prevented him from coming to my aid. Nor could I expect last minute help from Brains and Vanish, who probably didn’t even know anything was wrong. I was all on my own now and there was nothing I could do about it.
Frantically, my eyes darted around the lab as I tried to find anything I could use to save myself. But no matter where I looked, I just saw enemies: Phaser behind me, Longworth to the side, and Seth before me. If this was how I was going to die, then it was an awful way to go. I had hoped to die surrounded by friends and family, but instead, I was going to die surrounded by three of my enemies. Life sure could suck sometimes.
Even worse, it was becoming harder and harder to think over the pain in my heart. I wanted to punch Phaser, but I was too weak to draw upon any of my powers to save me. All I could do was just stand there and feel my life drain away bit by bit.
But then my eyes fell on my Teleportation Buckle. I had forgotten all about it during my trip into the maze, or the Vault, which is what this place really was. The Teleportation Buckle was still attached securely to my belt. I couldn’t use it to teleport out of here because the Vault had an anti-teleportation field around it, but then maybe I didn’t need to teleport out of here. Maybe I just needed to get away from Phaser.
Breathing hard, I slowly moved my hand down to my belt buckle. Even a movement as simple as that was almost impossible to do, taking as much energy and effort as it took to lift a car above my head. Nonetheless, I found myself making progress until my hand landed on my Buckle.
“What are you doing, kid?” said Phaser, his voice—and stinking breath—in my ear. “Rubbing your lucky buckle? I used to have a lucky belt buckle I wore everywhere when I was your age, but I’m pretty sure your luck has run out.”
I grimaced and looked over my shoulder at Phaser. “Actually, I think I still have a little bit left.”
I twisted the Teleportation Buckle at that moment. Before Phaser’s startled eyes, I teleported away from him and reappeared next to Strike. With Phaser’s arm no longer in my chest, I felt like I could breathe again, but I didn’t relax for even one moment. I bent over Strike and ripped the Control Crown off his head, tossing it aside and letting it clack against the floor a few feet away.
As soon as I removed the Control Crown off his head, Strike’s eyes snapped open and he sat up. “Whoa, where am I? What happened?” He looked at me. “Bolt? What are you doing here?”
“Saving your life,” I said, my voice slightly out of breath due to the aftereffects of Phaser’s arm. “Now get up. Going to need your help to save Dizzy and the girls. I’ll explain later.”
To my relief, Strike didn’t ask any questions. He just got to his feet and raised his hands toward the large metal cage above us, but before he could use his magnetic powers to tear the cage apart, Phaser popped out of the floor in front of us. He reached for Strike’s legs, but I grabbed Strike and flew him into the air, narrowly avoiding Phaser’s grabby hands. I heard Phaser curse us both as we flew, but I ignored him and the two of us landed on top of the cage.
“There,” I said, letting go of Strike. “Should be safer up here. You know what to do.”
Strike nodded and fired a laser at the cage’s roof, puncturing a large enough hole for us to see all the girls
. As soon as the hole appeared, Strike thrust a hand forward and all of the Control Crowns flew off their heads and into Strike’s hands, who immediately crushed them into a ball and tossed the broken remains over the side of the cage, which landed somewhere on the concrete floor below.
When the Control Crowns were taken off their heads, the girls began to stir. Most of them looked even more confused than Strike did when they woke up, except for Dizzy, who immediately looked up and smiled the biggest smile I had ever seen on her face. “Strike!”
“Dizzy!” said Strike, kneeling down and peering through the hole at her. He wore a smile almost as big as hers, except his was a lot more tired. “Are you all right? How do you feel? Can you stand?”
“I think so,” said Dizzy. She nodded at the ropes around her wrists and ankles. “Except for these ropes. They’re too tight.”
I clasped a hand on Strike’s shoulder, making him look up at me suddenly. “Strike, I need you to take care of the girls. Get them out of here.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Strike with a frown. “Sure could use your help.”
“Distract Phaser and Seth,” I said. “They’ve already made it clear they aren’t going to let us leave here alive, so I’ll keep them busy while you get the girls to safety. Got it?”
For a moment, Strike looked like he was about to argue with me, but then he nodded and said, “Got it. Stay safe, Bolt.”
I nodded in return and then flew off of the cage and down onto the floor. Almost as soon as my feet touched ground, Phaser popped out of the floor again and tried to punch me, but I activated my super speed and rushed to the side, avoiding his fist and stopping only when I was on the other side of the room.
“Nice try, Phaser, but I’m not falling for the same trick twice,” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “Maybe try something else other than your whack-a-mole impersonation.”