‘And it says...?’
‘Ferdy has been unable to determine its meaning.’
‘You’ve got the most incredible brain in the universe, and you can’t decode it?’
‘Ferdy is as surprised as you, friend Dan. Ferdy is possibly the most intelligent being to ever exist—’
‘And the most modest.’
‘—and yet the code is so advanced that even Ferdy is perplexed.’ He paused. ‘It can be solved, but only by knowing the correct encryption key.’
It all sounded very odd to Dan, but now the odd sound had started again. It was someone whispering in English. It sounded like they were reading. Dan signed off. The skylight in the roof was broken, with vines growing into the building. One end of the corridor led to darkness. The other end led to a single cell where the roof had caved in.
Dan headed in this direction, the sound growing louder. By the time he reached the end, he could make out a massive hole in the ceiling. The rubble below had formed a natural staircase into the cell. Vines and palm fronds grew over the rubble.
A small boy was curled up on the moldy bunk with a book clasped firmly in his hand. Lowering it, he stared at Dan in amazement.
‘I’m Henry,’ the boy said. ‘What are you?’
Chapter Thirteen
The resistance had been busy. I realized this the instant we entered the heart of the base, a vast underground chamber the size of a football field. A thousand people lived there in a makeshift shantytown, under banks of fluorescent lights set into the ceiling.
‘We didn’t build this, but we had to fix it up,’ Mister Brown explained.
‘What is this place?’ Ebony asked.
‘We think it started off as a naturally occurring cavern,’ Mister Brown said. ‘Then it looks like the government set it up as an underground shelter in case of a nuclear attack. That must have been during the cold war.’
‘And The Agency doesn’t know about it?’ I asked.
‘We made certain all references to it were removed from Agency computers,’ he said, smiling grimly. ‘Like I said before, friends in high places.’
We crossed the cavern, and I was reminded of The Hub compound in Las Vegas where we’d been situated. I felt a tinge of loss. They hadn’t been great times, but they hadn’t been that bad either. You don’t appreciate what you’ve got till you don’t have it anymore.
‘There isn’t anywhere else you can hide?’ I asked. Being anywhere near a major city seemed a bad idea.
‘There probably are, but they don’t hold a thousand people.’
‘Why is James Price so intent on destroying the planet?’
‘He wasn’t always like this,’ Old Axel spoke up. ‘People welcomed his inventions in the beginning. They made life easier. He eventually became a techno hero. He seemed harmless enough, so the government gave him more power.’
‘So, what happened?’
‘Under that geeky exterior was a psychotic interior. Price was willing to take terrible risks in the name of science.’
‘Like what?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Let me guess. It would contaminate the timeline?’
‘That’s right.’
We entered another railway tunnel. It was colder here, and the light weaker. I didn’t notice the door at the end until we were almost on it. The next room was cylindrical and well lit with pieces of machinery everywhere. Men with welding torches huddled around a vessel in the center. Power leads ran from it to a generator.
They were trying to disguise the ship, but I would have been blind to not recognize it.
‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ I said.
Liber8tor.
The years hadn’t been kind to our old ship. The Tagaar warship had obviously been through a lot of battles. Sections of the hull, not disguised with new plating, were scarred and damaged. One support leg looked like it had been completely replaced.
A thought occurred to me. ‘Ferdy,’ I said. ‘What’s happened to—’
‘Long gone,’ Old Axel said. ‘Price had him purged from The Agency computers years ago.’ He shook his head. ‘Don’t ask.’
Ferdy. It was terrible, but I hadn’t spared a thought for him since our arrival. So he was dead. Again. I wondered about James Price. Could killing one man really change the future of world history?
‘What are you doing to Liber8tor?’ Ebony asked.
‘We’re getting her ready for our mission. The old girl isn’t what she was, but she’s still able to get past Agency radar and into orbit.’
‘Orbit?’
He nodded. ‘The Agency’s main research facility—Olympus—is in orbit. That’s where they have a supply of temporal resonators. We have access codes that’ll get us past security.’
I nodded at the new panels. ‘What’s with the disguise?’
Mister Brown spoke up. ‘It’s highly unlikely that anyone is actually going to look out an Olympus window, but if they do, they should see something that looks like an Agency vessel. Kind of.’
‘And who’s the pilot?’ I asked.
‘I am,’ Mister Brown said. ‘For this you get the best.’
I felt a little better about the mission. He led us to quarters that looked more like a cell than a residence, but at least they were clean, containing two bunk beds and a bench. Meals arrived a few minutes later, a stew made of fine meat. Mister Brown said it was rabbit, but I kept thinking about the rats I’d seen in the upper tunnels.
I ate it anyway.
Mister Brown stopped at the door just before he left. ‘It’s nice to see you again,’ he said, his eyes misting over. ‘It’s so good to see you young...and strong and full of hope. I’ve missed the old days. I’ve missed them a lot.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘For everything.’
Nodding, he pulled the door shut behind him. Turning off the light, Ebony and I climbed into our bunks. I stared up at the black ceiling. ‘It’s been quite a day,’ I said. We woke up this morning in the present and now we were forty years in the future. ‘And the worst part is that I’m a douche bag.’
‘You’re not a douche bag,’ Ebony said. ‘Your future self is, but...I mean...’
‘I get your drift. I think.’
‘You’re not like him at all. But this is a different world. I can see why he...you...want James Price dead.’ She sighed. ‘What should we do?’
‘About what?’
‘About James Price.’
I had already been through this once. I had been given the choice to sentence the Russian President to an equally terrible fate—and I hadn’t been able to pull the trigger. But this was worse. The fate of the entire human race could depend on us.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, wondering about Chad and Brodie. Where were they? And were they okay? ‘What do you think?’
But Ebony didn’t answer. She was already asleep.
Chapter Fourteen
What are you? Dan thought. What sort of question is that?
‘Uh, hello,’ Dan said, flustered. ‘What am I? I’m a boy like you.’
‘I’m a boy like you,’ Henry said.
‘How did you get here?’ Dan asked.
‘How did you get here?’
He’s just repeating everything I say, Dan thought.
‘I arrived in a plane,’ he said.
‘I arrived in a plane.’
‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’ Dan asked. ‘Are you here with your family? Or are you alone?’
‘Alone.’ Henry looked at the ceiling. ‘That is day.’
It was worse than having a conversation with Ferdy. At least Ferdy made sense. Maybe Henry was intellectually challenged. But how did he get here? Were there others with him? Dan tapped his communicator.
‘Ferdy? I’ve found a boy in the basement of the building.’ The only reply was a long squeal of static. ‘Can you hear me, Ferdy?’
Nothing. There was a problem with reception. Dan pretended to examine the cell lock.
‘I think this is broken,’ he said, gripping it in his hand, but focusing on the metal. It snapped open. ‘At least I can get you out of there. Where are your parents?’
‘No parents.’ Henry’s voice was soft. He had wide, brown eyes and black hair, and wore trousers, black shoes, and a white open-necked shirt. He was surprisingly clean, considering the state of the cell. ‘My name is Henry.’
‘I’m Dan.’
‘Dan.’
Dan’s eyes followed the trail of debris leading to the opening. Thick jungle surrounded the top.
‘Will you follow me?’ Dan asked.
The boy regarded Dan uncertainly for a moment before trailing him outside. A fresh breeze pushed back Dan’s hair. It was cooler. Maybe the weather was changing.
Henry still held the book.
‘Is that good?’ Dan asked.
‘Reading.’
‘Is it good?’
‘Good.’
Dan sighed. This was a terribly one-sided conversation. Still, at least Henry seemed able to read. Dan glanced at the cover of the novel. Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde. Hardly a bedtime story, but maybe it was the only book he owned.
Activating his communicator, this time Ferdy’s voice came back loud and clear. He told him about Henry. ‘Are there any records of shipwrecks in this area?’ he asked.
‘A sailing ship called the Morning Star went missing in this area ten years ago.’
‘Who was on board?’
‘A family of four. John and Carla Benson and their boys Phillip and Charles.’
Dan turned to Henry. ‘Do the names Charles and Phillip mean anything to you?’ he asked, gently.
Henry shook his head.
‘Ferdy, how old were those boys?’
‘Charles was seven. Phillip was two.’
Phillip could really be Henry, but why wouldn’t he know his own name?
Henry pointed towards the coast. ‘Ship,’ he said. ‘Beach.’
Dan led the boy towards the beach along an overgrown path. A bird cried out and went crashing through the trees. Stepping onto the sand, Dan felt both relief and sadness. He was glad to be free of the jungle, but he wished the others were here.
The beach curved for miles in both directions. This island could have been a Mecca for tourists, except it was a long way from anywhere. A white and angular shape poked from the jungle—the stern of a boat.
Drawing near, Dan saw it was a sailing vessel about thirty feet in length. Once it was a beautiful ship, but now its mast was gone, and half of the vessel lay buried in the sand.
Dan wiped the grime off the stern.
‘Morning Star,’ he read. ‘Henry, is this your ship?’
The boy stared at him blankly.
‘Henry, did you come here on this ship?’ Dan persisted. ‘With your brother and your parents?’
The boy said nothing. He looked back into the jungle and, for the first time, an expression of fear crossed his face.
‘Henry, what is it?’
‘There’s a monster,’ he whispered. ‘It comes out at night.’
‘I can fight off monsters,’ Dan assured him. ‘I’ll be back soon.’
He climbed on board the buried ship. It arrowed into the sand at a thirty-degree angle. Some ropes that had once been attached to the sail still remained, but they were hopelessly tangled and rotten. Dan found a hatch halfway down the deck. He tried moving it by hand. Stuck. He applied his powers, and it slid back with a painful screech.
A sound came from below deck.
Dan frowned. It had sounded like the shuffle of feet. ‘I’m a superhero,’ he muttered. ‘I can take on ten villains at once.’
But he still felt afraid.
He climbed into what was once an elegant living room, but now it had been wrecked by the elements. It smelt of mildew. A lounge ran along the port side, but the fabric had rotted. A few old magazines lay in a pool of water. Timber peeled from the coffee table in the center.
A hallway led to the bridge, a hole in the hull and jungle beyond. Dan crept towards the stern.
The first room contained four bunk beds. Some old children’s toys were on the floor, but like everything else on board, these were ruined. He continued down the hall until he reached the next room, the door jammed half-open. It seemed that more refuse was scattered across the floor, but then Dan spotted the human skull.
He grimly examined the remains. There were two bodies. Adults by the look of it. Probably the remains of John and Carla Benson. Their ruined clothing was mixed among the mishmash pile of bones.
From the stern came another sound—footfalls on the wooden decking. Dan edged to the doorway. He used his mind to pick up a rusty crossbeam from the floor. Anyone—or anything—had better watch out if they tried to take him down!
I’m a superhero, he told himself. I have amazing powers. I can lift up tons of metal and throw it at bad guys.
I’m Metal Boy, he thought.
He liked the sound of that—Metal Boy!
Henry had mentioned a monster on the island, but monsters weren’t real.
Were they?
He peered into the hallway. He couldn’t see anything, but he was sure he could hear breathing. It couldn’t be Henry. He was still outside, and the breathing was too guttural anyway. Dan stepped out cautiously, the piece of metal floating in the air next to him. It was dark here and there was still no sign—
Something crashed into his legs, sending Dan flying. He heard a wild grunting and a squeal. The metal beam fell onto his head. Yelling, he spun about in horror as a hairy, brown creature bolted past him and out of sight.
A pig! That’s all it was—some sort of wild boar. The creature must have been rooting about in the broken remains of the ship. He remembered hearing that early sailors would often leave pigs on remote islands, so there would be fresh meat for them when they later returned.
Dan felt a flush of embarrassment. What sort of superhero was he? A wild pig just scared him half to death! He swallowed hard. Henry probably heard the racket and was wondering what was happening.
He returned to the upper deck, but Henry was gone. Dan crossed to the edge of the water. From here, he could see up and down the coast.
‘Henry!’ he called. ‘Where are you?’
Silence. Then the roar of a beast rang out from deep inside the jungle. It wasn’t the snort of a wild boar. It wasn’t like anything that Dan had ever heard in his life. A flock of birds broke cover and sailed away towards the setting sun.
What had Henry told him?
There’s a monster, and it comes at night.
Chapter Fifteen
‘There it is,’ Mister Brown said. ‘Olympus.’
Ebony and I were sitting on Liber8tor’s bridge. It was surprisingly clean, although quite different from the Liber8tor we knew. Most of the reptilian Tagaar consoles had been removed and replaced with sleek stainless steel panels. Someone had whitewashed the walls, a strange thing to do to an alien spacecraft, but these were strange times.
Old Axel had gone below to check a shudder in the engines while Mister Brown controlled the helm. It was strange seeing him there instead of Dan. I wanted to ask him what had happened to Dan and the others over the years, but I was sure he would give the same answer as Old Axel.
It would cause irreparable damage to the space/time continuum.
The space station known as Olympus filled the viewscreen. Covered in green metal, it was shaped like a giant donut with a one-eighth section cut out. Cannons ringed the circumference. The size of it was hard to determine at first, but then I spotted a ship entering one of the cut ends of the donut. Olympus was massive. Miles across.
‘How on Earth did something like that get built?’ I asked.
‘I can’t say much because it—’
‘I know. Space/time continuum. I get the idea.’
‘Suffice to say, James Price was able to lasso a passing asteroid and transform it with nanites into a space station.
‘You
’re kidding.’
‘I wish I were.’
Nanites were tiny machines, only a few atoms in size. They were already being used in some basic applications in our time, but it sounded like they had been fully exploited by James Price and The Agency.
Mister Brown continued. ‘After the station was completed—’
‘Shut up,’ Old Axel said, appearing in the doorway with a box. ‘You know better than to blab.’
Mister Brown clamped his mouth shut. ‘Just giving them some warning. That’s all.’
‘The less they know, the better.’ He glared at me. ‘The things I could say would make your blood boil.’
I stared back. There was a terrible darkness in him, a deep hurt that had twisted him into something unrecognizable. Were we really the same person?
Old Axel produced belts with holsters attached. ‘I’ve got these for everyone,’ he said. ‘They’re simple laser pistols. You just point and shoot.’
‘We don’t normally use guns,’ Ebony said.
‘You might need them this time. This base hasn’t been attacked by mods for over a decade, but they could have zeno emitters installed.’
Zeno emitters could render our powers completely useless. I didn’t like our chances of surviving this without them. I wished Brodie was with us. She was the only one of us who wasn’t affected by them.
‘Thinking about Brodie?’ Old Axel asked me.
Maybe I was wearing a crazy grin. ‘Yes.’
‘Don’t,’ he said, his face black. ‘Stay focused on the mission. We’ll be lucky to make it out alive.’
The space station grew larger. I swallowed. Not only was Olympus massive, but probably protected to the gills. By comparison, there were four of us. How were we going to win against such odds?
‘Cold feet?’ Old Axel grinned.
He was reading my mind, or his mind, as it happened.
‘No.’
‘This all could have been avoided. I begged you to kill James Price, but you wanted evidence. Well, now you’ve got it.’
I couldn’t argue with him there. The future was obviously a terrible place, and it seemed James Price was responsible for it. Killing him would be like killing Hitler. No one would blame you for killing Hitler. If you could make the world into a better place—a much better place—wouldn’t you?
Teen Superheroes Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 53