The Secret War (Jack Blank Adventure) (20 page)

“That we will,” Skerren replied, gently pushing a bothersome thorn bush from his path as he hiked along. “We’ll find out soon enough. Smart’s secret prison
has
been rumored to be hidden somewhere in the Outlands, so I suppose it’s possible. It’s just too bad you didn’t think of this last night when it would have made a difference.”

Jack grunted as a prickly branch whipped him in the face. “Give me a break, Skerren,” he said. “Like I said, I wasn’t exactly thinking straight when this all went down.”

It was the understatement to end all understatements. “Not thinking straight” was one thing, but Jack’s brain had practically folded itself in half when Obscuro had started talking about his missing father. Almost a day later it still wasn’t back to normal. Even with everything that was going on, Jack was well aware that turning Obscuro down might have meant giving up his only chance to be reunited with his family. Jack couldn’t believe he’d done that without even thinking about it. But he couldn’t just run out on the Imagine Nation and leave his friends to deal with the Rüstov alone. He could stay and fight, or he could run and hide. Those were the choices that Obscuro had really offered him, and no matter how badly Jack wanted to find
out about his father, he knew he couldn’t go out like that. Of course, that didn’t stop the back of Jack’s brain from grabbing on to Obscuro’s offer and refusing to let go.

“It’s all right, Jack,” Allegra said. “The important thing is you thought of it now. It can still make a difference.”

“Let’s hope so,” Jack said as they closed in on the entrance to the cave. “Otherwise, this whole trip is just a big waste of time.”

As soon as Jack stepped inside the cave, he knew it wasn’t. The cavern was brighter in the light of day, but that hardly even mattered. It could have been darker than the dirty swamp water back at St. Barnaby’s, the New Jersey orphanage in which he’d grown up, and the machines that were built into the cave’s fake rock walls still would have been calling out to Jack like blinking Christmas lights. Microchips and motherboards—
thousands of them!
—were buzzing away like a vibrating phone on a glass table. There was no doubt about it. This was more than just an ordinary cave.

How could I have missed this?
Jack asked himself, already knowing the answer. Jack shook his head as he found a seam in the wall, cursing himself for being so clueless.
Skerren was right—if only he’d been more focused back when it had mattered, maybe Obscuro wouldn’t have gotten away.

“This is it,” Jack said, feeling out the edges of a hidden door with his fingers. Jack knew he had to shake off his disappointment and keep moving forward. Allegra was right; it wasn’t too late to make a difference.

Unfortunately, the front door of Smart’s secret prison was in no mood to cooperate. Jack asked it very nicely to open up for him, and it responded with a comment so rude that Jack flat out refused to repeat it in front of Allegra. “Oh, that’s how it’s gonna be, huh?” Jack replied, not budging an inch. The door’s aggressive attitude was exactly what he’d needed to get his head screwed on right and get ready for action. Jack didn’t take that kind of lip from any machine, with or without a mouth.

Jack took a step back so he could take a look at the big picture. Using his powers, he reached out to the door with his mind and looked through its inner workings. “Let’s try this again,” he said once he had everything he needed. “You should know that I’m only asking you to open up nicely because I have manners. I don’t need your
permission. You’re an X-15 model SmartLock door with a DeadVolt-brand electroshock deterrent added on. The power nullifiers are off, and I know your systems inside and out. I can take you apart in my sleep, and if I really want to teach you a lesson, I can use whatever power is left in that DeadVolt battery to fry your CPU while I’m at it,” Jack warned the door. “So what’s it going to be? Are we gonna do this the easy way or the hard way?”

The door slid back into the wall like a frightened puppy running off with its tail between its legs.

Jack smiled at Allegra and Skerren. “Open sesame.”

“That was awesome,” Allegra told Jack.

Jack shook his head like it was no big deal. “Security systems always think they’re so tough. C’mon. Let’s go see what’s in there.”

The three children walked through a short tunnel and emerged into a massive underground chamber that was carved deep into the rock caverns below the forest. The air was cool and moist in the vast, empty space. The floor beneath their feet was nothing more than a small platform anchored to the wall, overlooking a huge vertical shaft that went down hundreds of feet. Jack felt like
he was standing on the inside of a gigantic well.

To his left Jack saw a small metal staircase leading down from the platform to a highway-size ramp that wound itself around the walls and down like a spiral staircase. A giant freestanding tower of video screens stood in the center of the shaft, rising up off the ground floor and climbing all the way up to the ceiling. Countless monitoring stations wound around the video tower from top to bottom, circling it in unbroken loops. The monitoring station chairs were all empty. No one was watching the screens anymore. They were all shut off, burned-out, or cracked. It was clear this place had not been active in quite some time, but when it had been open for business, it definitely had been a major operation.

“I don’t get it,” Skerren said. “I cut off a treetop last night, and we get mobbed by Gravens. How did Smart manage to build this place?”

“The Gravens are responsible for the earth,” Allegra said. “I guess that means the rocks are on their own. My question is, how did he keep something this big a secret?”

“He buried it, for one thing,” Jack said. “After that it’s just ‘deny, deny, deny,’” he added from experience. “I’ll
tell you one thing, I doubt we’ll find anything here with the SmartCorp logo on it.”

Jack started down the steps to the main ramp, and Skerren and Allegra followed close behind. As they went, they noticed several other small doors like the one they’d entered through, all scattered about the walls of the pit with their own crooked stairways leading up or down to the main ramp. Abandoned guard stations were posted near each door and set up behind empty gun turrets that were mounted into the walls. It was dark, but rings of emergency lights lined the interior walls all the way down to the ground, giving off a dull fluorescent glow. The cavernous facility felt cold and industrial, and the faded lighting made everything look worse.

At the bottom of the staircase, Jack saw a battered computer kiosk with a smashed screen and keyboard. He wondered if Obscuro had done that and somehow shorted out the nullifiers in the process. There was no one to ask. The deserted prison was as quiet as a grave. Jack tried using his powers to turn on the tower of screens and see if they could tell him anything. A few sets flickered on briefly to reveal rows of open cell doors, empty hallways,
interrogation rooms, and guard stations, but the images quickly blinked out. There wasn’t enough power left to run the giant surveillance tower anymore.

“Imagine being a Mecha forced to stay here for no reason,” Allegra said.

“Not necessarily for no reason,” Skerren corrected. “There is the Rüstov spyware virus.”

“Doesn’t excuse what Smart did here,” Jack told Skerren. “He didn’t even know about the virus.”

“That doesn’t mean he didn’t take any infected Mechas prisoner,” Skerren replied. “We’ll never know, one way or the other. They’re all gone now.” Skerren looked around and listened to the silence. “This place is deserted. It doesn’t look like there’s any trace of Obscuro, and I don’t think we’re taking any Left-Behinds home with us either.”

“Maybe not
live
Left-Behinds,” Jack said. “There might be something down there we can salvage. If Smart had any Rüstov locked up here, that is. Let’s see if I can narrow things down.”

Jack walked up to the busted computer kiosk and tried to connect with the prison’s cameras, map-finder programs, and anything else he could think of, but everything
was either broken-down or not hooked up to a live power source. The best he could do was light up three tunnels that split off from the main path. They were positioned at the top, middle, and bottom of the winding down-ramp and ran deep into the rock walls. The children agreed that they needed to check out what was in there.

“We should split up,” Skerren said. “We’ll cover more ground that way.”

“That makes no sense,” Allegra disagreed. “There’s a reason we came here together. This place is dangerous.”

“This place is empty,” Skerren countered. “This is just a salvage operation now. We’re not going to come across any live Rüstov. Jack already said as much. If they were here, he would have sensed them.”

Skerren and Allegra both looked to Jack for confirmation on that. It was true; if there had been any live Left-Behinds in the area, Jack would have picked up on it. “I think it’s safe to split up,” Jack said. “But we should stay in contact just in case.” He went into his messenger bag and took out two bracelets. “I made these a few weeks ago. Here, take one,” he said, offering one of the bracelets to Allegra.

“What is this?” Allegra asked.

“I meant to give one of these to you a while back,” Jack said. “I guess they got buried under all the junk I have in my lab. I totally forgot about them until I was in there with Trea this morning.”

“You made bracelets?” Skerren asked.

“They’re two-way communicator bands,” Jack said. “Kind of like mobile phones you wear on your wrist, only they’re just hooked up to each other. If you get in trouble, just call me.” Jack showed Allegra how her bracelet worked, and put the other one on his wrist.

“Thanks, Jack,” Allegra said, looking over his gift. “This is really cool. I even like the design.”

“Do you really? I hoped you would.”

“Yes, they’re very nice, Jack. Very impressive,” Skerren said. “I can’t help but notice that you didn’t make me one.”

“What?” Jack replied, caught off guard. “No, I have more back at the lab. I just didn’t think you’d want one. I mean … it wouldn’t even work in Varagog.”

“It’s fine,” Skerren said. “You’re right, I don’t need it. I just thought it was funny. That’s all.”

Jack gave Skerren a curious look. “I’m still not used to your sense of humor, Skerren.”

Allegra slid the bracelet onto her wrist. “It fits,” she said. “Check, check,” she added, speaking into her wristband’s microphone.

“Copy,” Jack said, speaking into his own. “All right. Should we get going?”

“Absolutely,” Skerren said. “Now that we’re all wearing the proper accessories,” he added with a grin.

The three children split up, with Allegra taking the first tunnel, Skerren taking the second, and Jack taking the last one all the way down at the bottom. It was darkest down there at the base of the ramp, with the emergency lights glowing just brightly enough for Jack to see where he should put his next step. When Jack reached the bottom, he saw a row of footlights leading from the end of the down ramp to the mouth of the tunnel. Beyond the light’s edge was an endless void, a sea of blackness that anything could be hiding within. Jack didn’t even know for sure if there was a ground out there. He didn’t stray from the path but went straight into the tunnel and down the long hallway.

Most of the way down, it didn’t seem like there was anyone else there. Jack followed the tunnel past empty
interrogation rooms that reminded him of the places Smart had used for his stress tests a year earlier. The drip, drip, drip of leaky pipes above Jack’s head created puddles beneath his feet that brought him back to the watery basement at St. Barnaby’s. They were both bad memories. Jack was starting to think that memories were all that was left in the prison. He didn’t see any Left-Behinds, and he certainly didn’t see any trace of Obscuro. That was a major disappointment. The outside chance that he might somehow get a message from his father was still nagging at his brain, even if he did know that he was supposed to be focusing on more important things.

Jack passed through a set of gates and found himself in a guard’s break area. There was a large kitchenette filled with boxes of prepackaged instant meals, the kind of food that people put in bomb shelters because it never went bad. Looking around, Jack saw something funny. Someone had recently washed the dishes. A set of plates and silverware were stacked neatly in the drying rack, still wet. Was this where Obscuro was staying? Maybe he was still here after all? Pressing on, Jack found a locker room and barracks in the back. Countless bunk beds with bare
mattresses filled the room, but one of them was made up with sheets and a comforter. It had been slept in recently.

“Can I help you?” a voice asked from behind Jack.

Jack jumped, spinning around to see Lorem Ipsum standing in the doorway behind him. She was leaning against the door frame, keeping one eye on Jack and one eye on the phone in her hand. Jack instinctively went for his wristband communicator to call Allegra, but Lorem leaped into action like a cat. Before Jack could even blink, she had her hand in front of his face, threatening him with her gibberish touch.

“If you want to go on speaking English … don’t,” she told him. “I’m not bothering anyone here. Don’t give me a reason to bother with you.”

Jack moved his hand away from his wrist, and Lorem dropped hers to her side. She walked past Jack to her bed, where she sat down and plugged a set of headphones into her phone. She stuck one earbud in her ear and let the other one hang down over her shoulder.
She isn’t here to fight
, Jack thought, intrigued. That was good, because Lorem was a couple of years older than Jack, and he was no match for her speed. Luckily, she was content to just
type away on her phone, looking disinterested and very cool.

“What are you doing here, kid?” Lorem asked. “Looking for me?”

“No,” Jack replied. “I’m here for Rüstov parts.”

Lorem scrunched up her face. “Rüstov parts?” she asked. “Why?”

“Either that, or Obscuro,” Jack added, looking around. “Have you seen him?”

“Who?”