Teen Superheroes Box Set | Books 1-7

by Pitt, Darrell

  A cat broke from the shadows. Sniffing at her body, it let out a plaintive meow.

  ‘Your mistress has not died in vain,’ the man said, picking up the cat. ‘Her death is only a small part of a much larger plan.’ A door opened, and a woman who looked identical to Mavis appeared.

  ‘She is dead?’ the woman asked.

  The man nodded. ‘Go to the house and familiarize yourself with it,’ he instructed. ‘You must know every corner of it by the time they arrive.’ As the woman left, the scarred man brought the cat to his face and read the name on the collar.

  ‘Felix,’ he said. ‘A good name. Would Felix like some milk?’

  The cat meowed contentedly.

  Chapter Two

  ‘Sydney Australia,’ Brodie said. ‘I didn’t know it was such a beautiful place.’

  We were halfway across the Sydney Harbor Bridge. A cold wind swept over the iconic landmark, but I didn’t care. I’d faced death so many times that a stiff breeze was the least of my problems.

  Five of us—myself, Brodie, Chad, Dan, and Ebony—were directly over the glistening harbor. Chuffing across the water was a green and ivory ferry, the name Queenscliff emblazoned on her bow. A flotilla of sailing boats gracefully curved out of her path, heading out to sea. Leaden clouds nestled on the distant horizon, but the sky above was clear and blue.

  The famous Sydney Opera House with its gleaming white sails shone in the midday light. I wished Ferdy could see this, but being permanently locked in the computer system of Liber8tor made sightseeing a problem. We’d left the ship in a large park, the cloaking device engaged, a few miles east of the city.

  ‘None of this rings a bell?’ Chad asked.

  The breeze caught at Brodie’s hair. She was Australian. Like the rest of us, she had no memory of her previous life.

  ‘No,’ she said, finally. ‘Sydney’s a wonderful city with a beautiful harbor and friendly people, but I don’t remember ever being here before.’

  ‘Maybe you haven’t,’ Dan said. ‘Australia’s a big place.’

  Australia was a big place. Until we flew here in Liber8tor, I don’t think any of us had any idea exactly how big. We’d shaken off Agency pursuit ships—known as Flex craft—thanks to a new device built by Ferdy. His genius mind had once again worked out a way to make Liber8tor’s cloaking device invisible to The Agency. How long it would last, like so many other things in this crazy world, was impossible to know.

  ‘That’s true,’ Brodie said. ‘I could have lived in a million places in this country. A different capital city, maybe, or somewhere in the outback.’

  We’d flown over the outback, a vast region of red dirt and scrubland that seemed to go on forever. It had been a surprise to us all. The unchanging landscape, stretching from one horizon to the other, had looked like the surface of another world.

  Coming to a halt, Chad accidentally bumped into Brodie and apologized. Swallowing, I glanced away. I should have felt relaxed, but I’d been on edge ever since our last adventure where we’d traveled in time and seen what our futures held. In the strange, twisted future that we’d seen, Chad and Brodie were together and had a child, leaving me a bitter old man.

  We had changed history. The events of that terrible future might never eventuate, but it was hard to forget. I had to focus on the now, but that was easier said than done.

  Taking a deep breath, I turned to the gray structure around us. The Sydney Harbor Bridge had eight lanes, with rail lines and a dedicated bike track on the other side. Our side was pedestrians only. Men were working on the metalwork high over our heads. Ferdy had told us the bridge was being repainted continuously, as part of the process to keep it protected from the elements, particularly the salt air.

  I had to forget about Chad and Brodie. We were momentarily free of The Agency, and freedom had to be enjoyed. If only it could stay like this—

  Ka-boom!

  The bridge shuddered violently.

  ‘What the—’ Chad started.

  A fiery blast had struck the opposite side. Cars slammed into each other, cyclists came off their bikes, and a train skidded off the tracks. Tourists screamed and grabbed handrails for support as the bridge shook as if hit by an earthquake.

  ‘Up there!’ Brodie yelled.

  Three black figures flew across the sky, nimbly skirted the web of trusses to land in the middle of the bridge. The letter E, in a circle, was printed on their costumes. Beneath the logos were numbers—One, Two, and Three.

  Dan started. ‘They must be—’

  ‘—E-Group,’ I said.

  E-Group was a worldwide terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of the world economy. They weren’t mods like us. Instead, their powers came from their high-tech uniforms, ironic considering they were against technology and everything that came with it. The group had attacked over a dozen famous landmarks worldwide. It looked like the Sydney Harbor Bridge was next.

  One raised a hand and pointed it in our direction.

  ‘Down!’ I screamed.

  A bolt of power flew through the air and would have killed us—if not for the titanium wall thrown up by Ebony. It held, but only just. Two fired a bolt at the bridge itself, cutting the deck in two. Cars tumbled towards the gap.

  ‘They’re using some kind of laser,’ Ebony yelled.

  ‘No kidding!’ Chad responded.

  ‘You go after them!’ Brodie yelled. ‘We’ll look after the people.’

  Taking to the air, I fired a blast of air at Three. He was thrown backward, but Two followed up with a fiery blast of his own. I threw up an invisible barrier of compressed air, but not quickly enough. The explosion sent me flying over the side of the bridge. For what seemed like an eternity, I fell towards the sparkling waters of the harbor. Then a blast of hot air hit my face, and someone grabbed me.

  Chad.

  He had been trying to perfect his flying skills for months, creating a cushion of hot air for him to travel on. The results had ranged from competent to dangerous. At least this time it had worked.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, squirming free from his grasp. ‘I’m fine.’

  He looked annoyed, but simply nodded as I flew back towards the bridge. As he disappeared over the top, I saw something begin to tumble over the other side—a train.

  Putting on a burst of speed, I threw myself under it, firing a blast of air at the locomotive. Halting its descent, I started pushing it back towards the bridge, but then I saw a door slide open. A young girl, clinging to a railing, gave a scream as she fell through the gap. Catching her in mid-air, my focus on the train lapsed, and it continued over the edge.

  Then I saw the metal of the train melt into the bridge.

  How—

  Dan’s head appeared over a railing.

  ‘Just call me Metal Boy!’ he yelled.

  ‘I’ll give it some thought!’ I said, not too seriously.

  Returning the girl to the bridge, I landed near the others. Brodie was engaged in a fistfight with Two, or a more accurate way of saying it would be that Brodie was introducing him to her fists—close up. He was firing blasts at her, but you can’t hurt what you can’t hit. She was simply too fast.

  Swinging about, she sent a roundhouse kick into his face, and he went flying. Hitting the ground, he did not move.

  The bridge gave an enormous shudder. One had taken to the air and was firing blasts at the suspension cables. It was only a matter of time before the weight became too great, and the whole bridge collapsed. Ebony raced over to the deck and touched the road. A bolt of metal shot towards the upper span and linked. That would slow down the destruction, but wouldn’t stop it indefinitely.

  Chad flew towards One, firing icy bolts at him. A shaft of ice struck One’s rocket pack, and he lost power, crashing into the deck of the bridge.

  I glanced back at Brodie. Two was now on the ground. That meant more than half of their team was finished. But where was—

  Three emerged from behind a crashed car. As he fired a
bolt at me, I threw up a shield to block it, but he followed up with two blasts aimed at the main supports of the overhead span. Twisted metal and cabling fell. I ducked, running for cover.

  Taking refuge behind an abandoned car, I fired compressed air at Three. He went flying and did not move again.

  Ebony and Dan quickly went to work, reconnecting the deck of the bridge. As I took to the sky, I caught a glimpse of Chad working on the opposite span. He was melting shattered crossbeams together and freezing them to form joins. I went to the other span, using air to merge the broken pieces back together. This wasn’t going to be easy. My powers were good at wrecking things, but not so good at putting them back together.

  ‘Having fun?’

  Turning, I saw a woman in midair next to me. She wore a blue mask over the upper part of her face and a red-and-white tightly fitted uniform.

  ‘Not really,’ I said.

  ‘Mind if I lend a hand?’

  ‘Please do.’

  She pointed, and the two pieces of span melted back into a solid join.

  ‘You must be Agent Australia,’ I said. The uniformed hero had made the news several times in the last few months. ‘That’s quite a costume.’

  Underneath that mask was a friendly-looking woman, blonde with blue eyes, a few years my senior. It took me a moment to remind myself that many superheroes worked for The Agency.

  ‘That’s me,’ she said. ‘And you are?’

  I didn’t say anything as we floated down to the deck. Sirens filled the air as police vehicles and ambulances approached. Injured people were all over the road. Several had been killed. Traffic was gridlocked and would stay like that for most of the day.

  ‘A mystery,’ I said.

  ‘One I should probably be investigating,’ Agent Australia said. She held out a hand. ‘Thanks for helping.’

  ‘Our pleasure.’

  ‘You should probably be going, Axel.’

  So she knew my name.

  ‘Thanks for the advice,’ I said.

  I joined Chad and the others. Mingling with the crowds, we were off the bridge in minutes. We’d saved a lot of lives today, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Agent Australia. She had been on our side. Not everyone who worked for The Agency was against us.

  ‘Where to now?’ Dan asked.

  ‘Liber8tor,’ I said. Sydney was in chaos. People had lost loved ones. Lives had been changed forever. ‘That’s enough sightseeing for one day.’

  Chapter Three

  ‘Ferdy is pleased to see you enjoyed your time in Sydney,’ Ferdy said.

  ‘I don’t think enjoyed is how to describe it,’ Chad said, rolling his eyes. ‘Survived is probably more accurate.’

  We were back on Liber8tor’s flight deck. The ship was our home or the only home we knew. Dan was at the helm, Chad weapons, Ebony navigation, and Brodie science. My job was to monitor environmental systems, which meant I didn’t have a lot to do. Reading the Tagaar language had become easier as the weeks had passed, but I wasn’t ready to tackle the classics.

  Dan had dedicated himself to learning as much about the ship as possible. I was impressed. For a young kid, he had already learned a lot. He had Ferdy’s help, but Ferdy was sometimes hard to understand. Just because you’re a genius doesn’t mean you can carry on a conversation.

  ‘Did things go badly in Sydney?’ Ferdy asked.

  ‘Just the usual,’ Ebony said breezily. ‘Supervillains. Explosions. Collapsing bridges.’

  I liked that—the usual. Glancing over at Brodie, I caught her eye, and she smiled. I almost smiled back, but then I remembered things had changed. We weren’t a couple anymore. That didn’t mean we couldn’t still be friends, but nothing was the same. Despite her insistence that she had no romantic interest in Chad, I still thought they might end up together. And where did that leave me? Out of the loop.

  ‘Liber8tor is receiving a message on a closed channel,’ Ferdy reported.

  ‘A message?’ Brodie said. ‘I didn’t think anyone had our phone number.’

  ‘It’s on a channel used only by the Tagaar.’

  ‘So the Tagaar are calling us?’ Ebony said.

  We weren’t exactly on speaking terms with the Tagaar. Alien species lose a lot of brownie points when they try to invade your planet.

  ‘The message is not coming from beyond Earth,’ Ferdy said. ‘It is coming from the United States, the town known as New Haven, to be exact.’

  New Haven? That was the settlement established by the survivors of the spacecraft that had crashed on Earth. Species from a hundred worlds lived there, in permanent quarantine, while their status was debated at the United Nations.

  ‘What does the message say?’ Chad asked.

  ‘Come at once. We have urgent information for you,’ Ferdy replied. ‘It is signed, Tomay.’

  Tomay was one of the aliens Brodie and the others had befriended during the time aboard the Tagaar slave ship.

  ‘It’s a trap,’ Chad said. ‘Got to be.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Ebony said.

  ‘But what information could he have?’ Dan asked. ‘He and the other aliens are stuck inside New Haven like rats in a cage.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ebony said. ‘It sounds urgent.’

  ‘It would,’ Chad said, ‘if it were a trap. It’s a juicy piece of bait designed to draw us in.’ He glanced around. ‘You’re not seriously thinking about going?’

  ‘Ferdy,’ I said. ‘What’s the status of the new cloaking device?’

  ‘Fully operational. Though there is one important fact you should know.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s a fallacy that the Great Wall of China is the only manmade object observable from space.’

  ‘Thanks...that’s helpful.’ Ferdy was full of interesting titbits, handed out at precisely the wrong times. I thrummed my fingers on the console. ‘I think we should go. It might be important.’

  Chad looked like he wanted to argue, but he clamped his mouth shut when he saw the expression on my face. Sometimes friendship is like a piece of elastic; it doesn’t take much to break it.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘We’ll go.’

  Night had fallen by the time we reached New Haven. As we circled the town, I was struck by how much it looked as if it had been created out of spare parts. The ship the aliens had crashed in had been disassembled into three main pieces. Clustered around these were a hundred demountable buildings. It looked vaguely like a refugee camp, which, I suppose, it was.

  ‘Anything on sensors?’ I asked.

  ‘There are lots of bits of information on the sensors,’ Ferdy said. ‘Atmospheric readings, wind velocity—’

  ‘I mean, what does security look like?’

  ‘A six-foot-high wire fence surrounds the entire compound. Three Agency ships are circling the perimeter.’

  ‘That sounds pretty normal,’ Brodie said. ‘Not so many ships that we can’t get through—’

  ‘—and not so few that it looks like a trap,’ Ebony finished.

  ‘How are our weapons?’ I asked.

  ‘Fully operational,’ Chad said. ‘I’m ready to blast anything that moves.’ We all stared at him. ‘Squirrels are safe.’

  Ebony scanned her controls. ‘There isn’t enough room to put down inside the compound,’ she said. ‘But there’s a small clearing a mile west.’

  ‘Are we still receiving the signal?’ I asked.

  ‘Loud and clear,’ Brodie reported. ‘It’s a homing beacon. I can relay it to our wrist communicators.’

  ‘Then let’s do it.’

  Liber8tor swept through the darkness to a break in the forest. It didn’t look big enough to accommodate the ship, but Dan got us down without difficulty. As we headed for the exit, Chad turned to Dan.

  ‘Not you,’ Chad said.

  ‘Why not?’

  Dan had a chip on his shoulder because of his age.

  ‘We need you here,’ Ebony said. ‘Liber8tor’s got to be ready to take o
ff in case of trouble.’

  Reluctantly, he agreed. We left the ship and found a small trail leading towards town. New Haven was easy to spot in the dark. It was the only illuminated place for miles around. The settlement was quiet—it was almost midnight—but there was still an armed guard walking the boundary. We waited till he turned a corner before advancing.

  Racing to the fence, Ebony placed her hand on the ground and turned it to oxygen, creating a tunnel. After we climbed under the fence, she placed her hand on the ground again. While Ebony couldn’t create something as complex as dirt, she could create a single element. She turned the hole into carbon. No-one would notice any difference if they didn’t look too closely.

  Brodie led the way. Following the flashing light on her wrist communicator, we moved silently through the camp. There were no guards. With the perimeter surrounded, they probably didn’t think the interior needed watching.

  Unless this whole thing was a trap, in which case we would need to fight for our lives.

  Reaching the center of town, Brodie paused, examining her communicator. ‘This is it,’ she said. ‘Tomay should be here.’

  Almost as if on cue, a shadow broke from a doorway. The alien man known as Tomay stepped out, waving us over. Covered in a fine brown fur, he was tall with a snub nose.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ he said.

  ‘It wasn’t easy,’ Chad grumbled. ‘We’re on every wanted poster from here to Tagaar.’

  Tomay led us into a single-room building. It looked like it was made to accommodate thirty people, but the only other occupant was an alien woman, vaguely snake-like in appearance.

  ‘Bax,’ Ebony said. ‘It’s nice to see you.’

  ‘And you as well,’ she replied. ‘Thank you for coming. We did not know how long you would take.’

  ‘We have a Tagaar warship,’ I said. ‘We’ve christened it Liber8tor. It takes us wherever we need to go—and fast.’

  We sat around a meeting table. I was worried about guards, but Tomay quickly allayed my concern.

  ‘They don’t enter the camp,’ he said. ‘Your United Nations has decreed New Haven to be an independent territory.’