The Doomsday Device (Teen Superheroes Book 2) (14 page)

“Of course,” Jeremiah nodded to himself. This seemed like a good plan. He first wanted to use one of the boy’s friends to make him see reason, but if that did not work then a backup plan would be available. He looked up. “It seems our business together may not yet be finished.”

Wolff smiled and said nothing.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chad was ill. Very ill.

Half way through the night I had been awoken by his cries. Then the other prisoners had started. Some of them had yelled abuse from their alcoves. Others laughed and cat called. Recoil had threatened to put Chad out of his misery. Only Drink had remained silent.

“No-one comes near him,” I yelled into the darkness. “I’ll kill anyone who tries to touch him!”

That shut them up for a while. True to form I heard Chad give a laugh.

“Hey Axel,” he said. “You some kind of tough guy?”

“Of course,” I said. “Don’t you know that?”

“You’re a dweeb,” he said faintly.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“What do you think?” he said.

I felt his forehead. He was burning up.
Damn.
This was the last thing we needed. Chad’s powers were formidable. In some ways he was more powerful than me. With him out of action and my own powers liable to fail at any moment…

Well, things weren’t looking good.

Getting Zachary out of here would be difficult enough without having to carry Chad out too.

“I feel hungry,” Chad said. “How long is it since we ate?”

“About two days.”

“No wonder I feel hungry.” He whispered, “Lean closer.”

I did. “Yeah?”

“You know that virus has to be stopped.”

“Sure. That’s why we’re here.”

“I mean it’s more important than anything. You know what I mean?”

Not really. “No.”

“I’m saying you’ve got to get Zachary out of here and get back home. Even if that means leaving me here.”

“I’m not leaving you here.”

He gripped my arm. “You’ve got to look after everyone. Including my sister.”

“Okay,” I said uncertainly.

“That doesn’t mean you two can start dating.”

Okay. He wasn’t too sick. He was still a pain in the ass.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Why? She’s not pretty enough for you?”

“Of course she’s -. Look, shut up. We’re both getting out of here.”

“I need food,” Chad groaned. “I’m hungry.”

“I’ve got a plan for that.”

“What’s your plan?”

“Just wait and see.”

The hours passed slowly. Every so often I would hear screams or moans in the night. I glanced at my watch. It was almost time for the lights to come on. I had a plan for getting the food and I’d already made up my mind I might have to kill someone to make this whole thing work.

So be it. Even other than Chad’s life there was also the rather major issue of the Doomsday virus and the deaths of seven billion people. I had killed other people before out of necessity and I would do it again.

The lights flickered on. Both Drink and Recoil rose from their bunks and waited at the entrance to the alcove. They eagerly looked up at the ceiling. I tried to imagine what it would be like living in this place for years. It’s impossible to conceive of such a thing. There was no fresh air. Food and water were luxury items. And how did someone wile away the hours and the days and the years in this place? There was no television. No books. Nothing to help pass the time.

If there was a living Hell on this Earth, this was it.

No-one deserved to be treated in this manner. No matter what crime – and probably most of the inmates here had committed no crime – they did not deserve to rot here in this terrible place.

The slots in the ceiling opened. A few seconds passed and then the food fell through. I was aware that food was dropping down through three separate slots, but I focused entirely on the slot closest. As the food fell I formed a platform, caught it and dragged it through the air towards Chad and myself.

It landed in a heap next to us. Drink made a grab for it as did Recoil, but I threw up a shield and closed them out. The cat man leapt at the barrier and bounced off. He turned around and took a swipe at Drink, but he turned to water. Recoil ran away and cowered on his bench on the other side of the enclosure.

I hate to say it, but I experienced an enormous sense of pleasure at seeing the expression of fear on Recoil’s face.

I had foiled them. So far. We had a pile of food. I had learned to never take anything for granted. Over on the other side of the enclosure I saw a life and death battle taking place between two mods. One was the thin man who was able to emit electricity from his hands. The other was someone I had not seen before; a strange half man, half dog looking creature with a jaw the size of a lion.

They were rolling around on the floor. Blood was spilling everywhere. I could hear screaming and yelling emanating from the human side of the jail. Men were yelling encouragement. A thudding sound came from a darkened corner followed by a terrible groan.

I felt sick and looked away.

Chad’s eyes were open again. “Hey buddy,” he said faintly.

“Hey,” I said.

“That was good,” he said. “Fast.”

Sweat was rolling down his face. He started to cough. Once he started, he could not seem to stop. He continued for about two minutes before he finally buried his face in his sleeve. I began to examine the pile of food I had retrieved for us. Good thing I wasn’t expecting the equivalent of a three course meal, because this stuff was little more than garbage. There was half a loaf of stale bread, three apples, two oranges and a pile of goop that looked like someone had boiled vegetable skins into a mush.

The bread had patches of mould growing on it, but I broke those sections off and divided the remainder in two. I gave some to Chad and he sat up on the bench and listlessly struggled to swallow it. After that he ate one of the apples and an orange.

Despite my hunger I found it hard eating the food. Outside of here I would have discarded all of it into the garbage without a second thought. Now I realized this meager supply of rations could mean the difference between life and death.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chad lay back down and went to sleep. I settled onto the bench with the remaining food and began to think. I had identified Zachary. Now we had to get out of this place. The next step had to be to work out an escape plan.

I glanced over towards Drink and Recoil. They both looked rather down in the dumps. They had been here for years. Surely they had some sort of idea about escape.

“Hey guys,” I said. “Interested in some food?”

Recoil looked at me as if I’d just said a dirty word, but Drink nodded in a friendly enough fashion. I took one of the oranges, lowered my shield momentarily and tossed it towards him. He instantly started eating it. Recoil’s eyes opened wide, but he said nothing.

“Want some?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said.

I repeated the action and a moment later Recoil was hungrily biting into the apple. I waited until both men had eaten their share. They both still looked hungry – who didn’t in this place – but they appeared a little less hostile.

“I want to talk strategy,” I said.

“Sure,” Drink replied.

“You’re still going for the Noble Peace Prize?” Recoil asked.

“We need to get out of here,” I said.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Recoil said. “What a great idea.”

I persisted. “You guys have been here longer than me. How do we arrange an escape?”

A sound came from the bars separating the mods from the humans. I glanced over. It was Zachary with another man. Carefully keeping my shield in place, I went over to the bars.

“Hey,” I said.

Zachary pointed to his friend. “This is Frank Seth. We overheard you boys talking.”

“And?”

“Frank thinks there’s a way out.”

“How?”

“It’s through your side,” Frank said. He was an older man. Maybe about sixty. Thin as a stick. He had a long beard down to his waist. “Your mod friends should know about it, but we want out too.”

I wondered how to handle this. Obviously I wanted to get Zachary out, but I had to do it in such as way as to not appear obvious. We had a cover story – that we had been abandoned by our government. Maybe now was the time to use it.

“I want to get everyone out of here,” I said. “Every single inmate.”

Zachary smirked. “Good luck with that.”

“I’m going to make the government pay for what they did to us,” I said. “First they wiped our memory. Then they experimented on us. Then they dumped us in here like criminals.”

I hoped I sounded bitter. It wasn’t too hard, actually, because a lot of the resentment was real.

“Ask your friends about Edmund Domain,” Frank said.

Zachary nodded. “It’s probably our best bet if the story’s true.”

“We’ll talk later,” I said.

I returned to the cell. Fortunately my shield was holding up okay. My powers had not failed me. And a good thing too. With Chad out of action I was the only one who was still able to fight.

“Tell me about Domain,” I said to Drink and Recoil.

Recoil shrugged, but Drink started straight away.

“Domain is one of the mods,” he said. “He has his own alcove. Apparently there’s a tunnel at the back of his alcove.”

“A tunnel?” I said. “Like out of here? So why doesn’t he leave?”

“He’s too large,” Recoil said. “He can’t fit through the hole.”

“You’re joking.”

He shook his head. “I’m completely serious, little one. Once you see Edmund Domain you’ll see what I mean.”

“What alcove is he in?”

Recoil cast a glance at Drink. “Information isn’t free.”

I looked down at our food and supplied each of the men with another piece of fruit each. They ate it rapidly before answering. I actually felt sad for these men. Obviously food had been whisked away from them so many times in the past, it was imperative to eat first before doing anything else.

Finally Drink finished his piece of fruit. “Maybe he was human. Once. That was a long time ago. Now he’s more like some sort of monster.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen him yet.”

“You haven’t,” Recoil said. “He only comes out once every few weeks.”

“How does he survive?” I asked.

“Like I said,” Recoil replied. “He comes out every few weeks to eat -.”

“But how -.”

“-one of us.”

It took me a moment to make sense of his words.
He comes out every few weeks to eat one of us.
He actually ate people.
Really
ate people. My mind reeled at the thought. Maybe Drink was right. Maybe Domain wasn’t a human being at all, but some kind of animal.

I shook my head. Whatever the case, he still had to be overcome. We still had to break through. But maybe this whole story about the tunnel was a fallacy. How could there actually be a tunnel leading out of this place?

I asked Drink and Recoil about it.

“There was an earthquake a few years back,” Recoil said. “It shook the whole place up pretty bad. There was actually a breakout and a few inmates escaped. That was how Domain ended up here. When they brought him here, they didn’t bring him down the stairs like everyone else. They brought him through the new tunnel.”

That sort of made sense. “But they must have sealed the tunnel back up,” I said.

“Probably,” Recoil said. “But it may not be as difficult getting through as all those stairs and locked steel doors.”

“So why haven’t you taken on Domain?”

“Even I’m not that powerful.”

“He tried once,” Drink said.

“Once was enough,” Recoil said.

“Okay,” I said thoughtfully. “Then tonight’s the night. We’re breaking out of here after the lights go out.”

“What ‘we’ are you talking about?” Recoil asked.

“Whoever wants to come with us,” I said. “Tonight we’re leaving this place no matter what.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Brodie helped to arrange the tables in the main hall for dinner. She felt annoyed and frustrated, but did her best not to show it. Jason had taken her on the tour of the inside of the complex. He had been quite thorough, but had refused to show her anything below what he referred to as ‘Level D’.

“That’s off limits,” he said firmly.

“What’s down there?” she had asked.

“It’s off limits,” he repeated and that ended all further conversation.

Now she was lifting tables and arranging chairs with the others. She felt like she had made no headway at all. They had been here for a number of days and she had still not seen Ferdy. For all she knew, he could be dead.

Ebony sidled up to her carrying a bunch of chairs.

“Hey look who’s joined us,” she said.

Brodie turned around.

Dan!

“Hey!” she called.

He was on the other side of the hall. He seemed to be engaged in an animated conversation with a bunch of kids around his same age. Particularly a young girl.

He turned around, said something to the others and headed over.

“Hey Brodie! Ebony! How are you going?”

“How are we?” Ebony asked. “More’s the question, how are you? Are you feeling okay?”

“Sure,” he said. “As good as new. I’ve been getting to know some of the other people here. Aren’t they great?”

Brodie felt like she had fallen down a rabbit hole.

“Great?” she asked. “Are you joking?”

Dan looked offended. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” Brodie hears her voice rising. She didn’t want to create a scene, so she forced a smile. “A lot of things are wrong here. We need to find Ferdy and get out of here.”

“Sure,” Dan said, casting a glance over at the kids he had been helping. “I know that.”

“Have you seen Ferdy?” Ebony asked.

“No,” he said. “Have you?”

“Have I?” Even the normally quiet Ebony looked angry. “I wouldn’t be asking you if I had. Are you okay or is there something wrong with your brain?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me!” Dan snapped.

Oh no
, Brodie thought.