Ebony spoke up. ‘They were taken somewhere else.’
The room was concrete with a single barred window. Very Twentieth century. By comparison, the door was some sort of force field, transparent except for a red haze.
‘I already tried it,’ Chad said, holding up a burnt finger. ‘Ouch.’
Beyond lay an empty hallway with elevators at the other end. I tried in vain to push the wall down, but it was pointless. Chad was right. The collar was designed to nullify our powers, and it was working. I tried tearing it off with pure brute force but to no avail. These things had been keeping mods under control for decades.
I glanced at Brodie. Whoever had imprisoned us knew our powers intimately. She had been secured to the wall with a metal brace. I caught her eye momentarily, but then I remembered what the future held for Chad and Brodie. Happy families. Together forever. The wrenching apart of everything I’d known since I’d woken up in a squalid hotel room with superpowers. I looked away.
Despite the terrible situation we were in, I could understand why Old Axel was so bitter and angry. He—or I—had been betrayed by my closest friends.
‘Someone’s coming,’ Ebony said.
The elevator doors slid open. Two guards approached with a man behind. He had gray hair and a youthful face. What was it Old Axel had said?
The years—and plastic surgery—have been kind to him.
The door dissolved, and Price stepped in. The guards produced weapons, aiming them at us. They didn’t stop Chad. He immediately made a grab for Price, but a bolt of crackling electricity from a weapon knocked him down.
Writhing in agony, unable to stand, he spat at Price through clenched teeth. ‘You’re going to regret that,’ he said.
‘I doubt it,’ James Price said. His voice was high-pitched. He turned back to the guard. ‘Again.’
So they hit Chad with another bolt. We leaped to our feet, but the guards waved us back.
‘I can make things very bad for you,’ Price said. ‘You don’t want that. Not yet.’
Ebony dragged Chad away. He crouched against her, shaking, blood seeping from a cut in his mouth.
‘What’s going to happen to us?’ Ebony asked.
‘I’m a scientist. I want to know what makes you tick,’ he said. ‘I’ve experimented on a lot of mods over the years. There’s always more to learn.’
‘You’re sick,’ I said.
He laughed. ‘After I’ve found out what I want, you will be neutered, your powers permanently removed. Then I will confine you to the lowest levels of the darkest dungeon I can find, and there you will rot for the remainder of your lives.’
I tried to think of something witty to say, but nothing came.
‘Nor will your older selves ever see the light of day again,’ he continued. ‘You’ve had a wonderful adventure, but your days of adventuring are over. As the years slowly pass, I’m sure you will remember those times fondly, hoping you will one day escape.’ Price shook his head sadly. ‘But you never will.’
He marched out, the guards reactivated the door, and they disappeared into the elevator.
‘And here I was thinking this was serious,’ Chad said.
No one laughed.
We remained silent for over an hour, lost in our own thoughts, drowned by the horror of what James Price had said.
Finally, Brodie muttered something under her breath.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘That’s Morse code.’
Brodie could have said the moon was made from green cheese, and it would have made more sense. She pointed at the light. It had been flickering on and off for several minutes, but I had barely noticed it.
‘What’s Morse code?’ Chad asked.
‘An old kind of message system using dots and dashes. The light is sending a message.’
I stared at her.
‘It is!’ she continued, angrily. ‘It’s saying...E...L...E...V...’ A few seconds passed. ‘Elevator. It’s saying elevator.’
I nodded. ‘Sure.’
A click came from my throat, and I felt the brace loosening. Gingerly touching it, I pulled it away in amazement. I stared at the others. Theirs had also been unlocked.
‘What’s going on?’ Chad asked.
‘No idea,’ Ebony replied. ‘But I don’t care. Let’s go.’
I crossed to Brodie and broke her metal chains. I was still annoyed with her and Chad, but we had to focus on getting out of here. With a little effort, I could smash a hole in the wall—
The red haze in the doorway flickered to static before it faded completely.
‘Do you get the feeling someone’s helping?’ Brodie asked.
‘Maybe it’s a trap,’ Ebony said.
‘Shot while trying to escape?’ I said. ‘They don’t need to do that. They could have killed us anytime they wanted
We went to the elevator. It appeared as if almost on cue. We got in, unsure what to do, and then the elevator made up its mind for us. It descended. I should have been rejoicing in our newfound freedom. Instead, an image of Chad and Brodie together flashed through my mind. Acid burnt in my stomach as we sunk into the bowels of the earth.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The elevator slowed to a halt, opening onto a fifty-foot-high concrete hallway. Florescent lighting lined the ceiling, but most of the tubes were dead, leaving an odd checkerboard of light and shadow to illuminate our way.
‘What is this place?’ Ebony asked.
‘I think this whole compound is an old Agency stronghold,’ Brodie replied. ‘This area must have been abandoned.’
‘It doesn’t look like it’s been used in years,’ Chad agreed.
The corridor seemed endless, but we finally reached a door at the end that opened onto a chamber with massive computers on each side. They were ancient, the type that still operated on magnetic reels of tape like they used last century. Incredibly, they were still operational, doing...something.
‘This is bizarre,’ Ebony said.
She said it. Benches were everywhere, dust covering the surfaces. A coffee cup even sat on one, the liquid inside long since evaporated. The controls on the benches were ancient. Buttons and levers. Like us, they were something from another time.
‘What are we doing here?’ I asked. ‘And who sent us that code?’
‘Over there,’ Brodie said, pointing to a light flashing over a door. ‘That wasn’t on before.’
The door groaned as I pulled it open. Beyond was a vast chamber, even older than the last. A row of light bulbs was set into the ceiling; most had blown over the years, but a few yellowing globes still provided faint illumination. No one had been here in decades.
A massive computer several hundred feet in length dominated one side. Colored lights flashed. Hundreds of reels whirred and clicked. The machine appeared so old it looked like it had been built as part of the building. I had seen a photo of a similar device in a book; some of the early computers had taken up entire floors because of their size. This one was larger. Maybe it was the largest in its day.
A faint monitor glowed in the dark. We studied the screen. A green cursor blinked. It could have been doing that for ages. Maybe years.
‘This is a dead-end,’ Chad said. ‘We need to get out of here.’
‘I agree,’ Ebony said, peering about the darkened recesses. ‘I appreciate that someone released us, but we’ve got to escape while the going’s good.’
We started combing the room for an exit but came up empty-handed. There wasn’t even an air vent in the chamber. We were at the lowest level of a bunker set deep into the earth.
Why did someone bring us here?
My eyes returned to the monitor.
‘Hang on,’ I said, staring at the screen. ‘This has changed.’
The others came over and peered over my shoulder.
The letter W had appeared.
A distant rumble came from far away. Chad ran from the room, returning a minute later. ‘A bunch of Agency guards just came
pouring out of the elevator,’ he said. ‘They don’t look happy.’
I turned back to the screen.
A
‘You’ve got to stop them,’ I told Chad. ‘Or at least slow them down.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Someone brought us here for a reason,’ I said, eyeing the screen. ‘We’ve got to find out why.’
Ebony grabbed Chad’s arm. ‘I’ll come with you.’
They disappeared into the next room as more letters appeared on the screen.
I
T
‘WAIT,’ Brodie read the word. ‘Wait for what?’
A massive fight erupted in the hallway leading to the chamber.
The word started flashing.
Wait. Wait. Wait.
A breeze pulled at my hair. I looked about in surprise. This room had no windows, so there could be no wind. Then the current grew stronger as a tiny black line appeared in the middle of the room, growing more extensive as a strange hum filled the air.
‘What the—’ Brodie’s mouth fell open in amazement. ‘How—’
I didn’t know how. It made no sense at all, but now the line had expanded into a circle, and we could see a small silver vessel inside. Within seconds it had eased itself free from the portal in time and space.
‘It’s a time machine,’ I said.
The vessel shuddered slightly, dropping to the floor. Pieces of ice fell off and smashed. I raced over and jerked the door open. Empty. No one was flying it. Stepping back from the craft, I saw it was smaller than the one in which we had traveled to the future. Possibly it was an earlier model.
An earlier model.
It all clicked into place.
I raced to the console. The word on the screen had disappeared, and another had appeared while we examined the time machine. I barked out a laugh of disbelief as it flashed on and off.
It wasn’t possible, and yet somehow it all made sense.
Ferdy. Ferdy. Ferdy.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
‘Dan?’ the voice came from a million miles away. ‘Dan?’
Dan awoke slowly, opened his eyes, and saw Henry standing over him.
‘Henry?’
‘Are you all right?’ Henry asked. ‘Did the monster hurt you?’
Holding onto Henry for support, Dan pulled himself upright and peered around. Liber8tor lay at a crazy angle. Miraculously, a few consoles were back online, as was the emergency lighting.
‘The monster didn’t hurt me,’ Dan said. ‘But it hurt our ship.’
And I helped it, he thought. Because I was hopeless.
‘The monster’s bad,’ Henry said, his face crumpling into tears. ‘He’s bad, and Henry just wants to be good.’
‘I’m sure you do.’ Dan gripped the boy’s shoulder as he looked around. He’d wrecked the ship, but now he had to move forward. That’s what the others would do. They would take stock and find a way to make things better. ‘We’re going to beat it,’ Dan promised, ‘but first I’ve got to fix our ship.’
He crossed to the navigation console. ‘Ferdy? Can you hear me?’
Silence.
Great, Dan thought. Ferdy’s offline. Or broken. Or dead.
No, he couldn’t think that way. Liber8tor was tough, and Ferdy was too. Ferdy was probably fine, but unable to communicate because of the damage. Dan manually brought up a status report of the systems, thankful for the time he had put in learning the Tagaar language. The words he couldn’t read, he was able to guess. The system seemed to be rebooting itself.
‘How did you get in?’ he asked Henry.
‘The hatch downstairs is broken.’
I’d better check the outer hull.
He retrieved a weapon from the Tagaar armory. They hadn’t used these since taking over the ship; having superpowers made them superfluous. However, Dan’s last encounter with the monster had shaken his confidence. He wasn’t going outside without firepower.
Henry trailed him as Dan carefully surveyed the damage. The port side had taken quite a bang. Much of the housing was damaged, but his ability to manipulate metal would quickly fix it.
The most challenging task would be to repair the engines. One of the firing thrusters was smashed—an oily black liquid leaked from a cracked pipe. Something Dan couldn’t even identify was utterly crushed. Peering into the mess, he understood how little he actually knew about the ship. For that matter, none of them knew anything much about it. They relied upon Ferdy to keep the ship’s systems operational.
Dan promised himself he would change that. He would become an expert in every square inch of this ship—as long as he was given a chance. Although considering what he had done to Liber8tor during their absence, the others might permanently confine him to quarters.
Dan frowned. He was getting ahead of himself. One thing at a time.
‘This looks bad,’ he said to Henry, ‘but I think it’s fixable.’
‘So, your ship will fly again?’
‘Yes, but I’ve got to get Ferdy up and running.’ He glanced down and noticed Henry still had his book tightly clenched in his hand. ‘You’re still reading your book?’
‘I read it all the time.’
‘Do you remember anything more about how you came to the island? The ship you were on? Your parents?’
‘No.’
‘What’s the first thing you remember?’
Henry creased his brow in concentration. ‘I just remember waking up on the island,’ he said. ‘I looked down and saw I was holding my book.’
That wasn’t very helpful, so Dan gripped his shoulder. ‘Everything will be all right,’ he said. ‘My friends will be back soon, and we’ll get you back to civilization.’
A distant roar came from the jungle. Henry grabbed Dan’s arm in panic, his eyes filling with tears. ‘It’s the monster,’ he said. ‘We should run away.’
‘We’ll be okay aboard Liber8tor.’
Henry gazed dubiously at the wrecked ship.
‘I know that’s hard to believe,’ Dan said. ‘Just let me take a look at this damaged pipe, and we’ll go inside.’
He spent the next few minutes examining the broken pipe. It was a hydraulic system. Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he wrapped it around the break. It didn’t stop the leak, but it slowed.
‘That’s better already,’ he said. ‘Henry?’
The boy was gone.
Dan moaned in frustration, but he could understand Henry’s fear. Liber8tor hardly looked like a safe refuge. It would send anyone running. Still, he did a check inside the ship, but it only confirmed what he already knew: Henry was missing. Once back on the bridge, Dan called out Ferdy’s name. He was greeted by silence. Then—
‘Ferdy can hear you!’
Yes!
‘Ferdy!’ Dan cried. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Ferdy is feeling fine, but a number of the Liber8tor systems were damaged in the crash.’
‘Uh, yeah. Sorry about that.’
‘Dan should not blame himself. Whatever was stopping Liber8tor from leaving the island was a powerful force. Dan did well to stop the ship from being destroyed.’
‘Thanks,’ Dan said, embarrassed at the praise. ‘Hey, I saw Henry again.’
‘That is good.’
‘But now he’s missing again. I think he was scared about the monster returning to the ship.’
‘That is understandable,’ Ferdy agreed. ‘Also, Charles Chaplin Senior was also a famous performer long before his son—’
It sounded like Ferdy was returning to normal. ‘Henry and I shouldn’t have left Liber8tor,’ Dan said, thoughtfully. ‘Then he wouldn’t have heard the monster in the jungle.’
Ferdy didn’t reply.
‘Ferdy,’ Dan said. ‘Are you still there?’
‘Ferdy is still here. Is Dan saying Henry was onboard Liber8tor?’
‘He was on the ship when I woke up after the crash.’
‘That is not possible.’
D
an frowned. ‘Huh?’
‘Liber8tor tracks heat signatures of life forms aboard the ship. No new entries have been added to the log.’
‘The system must have been broken,’ Dan said.
‘That particular system has been fully operational the whole time. The only person who has been onboard Liber8tor is Dan.’
‘That’s crazy,’ Dan said. ‘You’re telling me Henry is some kind of—’
He didn’t dare say the word.
Ghost.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
‘There must be something wrong with the ship,’ Dan insisted.
‘Many of Liber8tor’s systems were offline, but that particular component is part of life support. It was working normally.’ Ferdy paused. ‘Is Dan sure that he didn’t imagine the experience?’
Dan felt his stomach churning. He had been rattled after the crash, but he was awake. He was sure of it. ‘I need to find Henry,’ he said. ‘I’m going out looking for him.’
‘Ferdy does not think that is a good idea. The entity that attacked Liber8tor was extremely dangerous.’
But Dan wouldn’t listen. His gut was churning. He was the only person who had actually seen Henry. Could the boy have been a figment of his imagination the whole time?
Pocketing the Tagaar blaster, he filled his backpack with metal pipes, and checked his communicator was still working as he headed to the exit. ‘Can you keep repairing the Liber8tor systems?’ he asked Ferdy. ‘And try to find out what this island was used for during the war.’
‘Ferdy will do what he can. And one more thing, friend Dan.’
‘Yes,’ Dan said, ready for Ferdy to pass on some useless information about the life cycle of bees, or the size of the planet Jupiter. ‘What is it?’
‘Be careful.’
‘Oh. Thank you. Yes, I will.’
Dan headed in the direction of the buildings. He was afraid of the monster that lived on this island, but he was even more afraid for his own sanity. Could he have imagined Henry? No. Was Henry a ghost? Dan wasn’t sure he believed in ghosts. The sensors onboard Liber8tor had to be faulty. He had touched Henry. Felt him. He was real.
He remembered the wrecked ship on the beach and changed direction. Minutes later, he was climbing aboard the Morning Star, calling out Henry’s name. No greeting came back, but he hadn’t expected the boy to be here anyway. Dan returned to the room where he had found the skeletal remains, grimacing as he examined the bones more closely. There was no doubt about it. They were the bodies of two adults. Dan continued to the next cabin. He had not come this far last time. The wild pig had scared him off. Now he pushed open a door and peered into a darkened cabin.
Teen Superheroes Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 61