The Secret War (Jack Blank Adventure) (21 page)

“Obscuro. The Rogue Secreteer,” Jack clarified. “He came through here last night.”

Lorem shook her head like she didn’t know what Jack was talking about, and raised the free, hanging earbud up toward her ear.

“It’s really important,” Jack said. “He definitely came through here. Are you sure you haven’t seen him?”

Lorem Ipsum stopped just short of sticking the additional earbud into her left ear. She looked annoyed. “It’s a pretty big place. You can see that, right?”

Her answer left Jack frustrated and curious. “Yeah, I can see that. What are you doing in it?”

“I
live
in it,” Lorem said. “At least I have been recently. Second time around for me in this place. I lived here before, too, but in a much smaller room.”

“You were a prisoner here? A prisoner of Smart’s?”

Lorem nodded. “This was my home for way too long back when the place was active. This is where he kept me. You know. Off the books.”

“Really?” Jack asked. “I thought he only kept Mechas here. People he suspected of Rüstov stuff.” Lorem Ipsum just shrugged. “Why’d he put you in here? Was it because you’re a supercriminal?”

Lorem burst out laughing. When she finally stopped, she said, “Oh, that was good. Really. I needed that.”

Jack didn’t see what Lorem found so funny. “If you’re not a supercriminal, what are you doing running with Speedrazor’s gang?”

“Please,” Lorem said. “I’m not in Speedrazor’s gang. I just wanted to hit back at SmartCorp. I owed the old man that much.” Lorem got up and looked around the sad, empty barracks. “My life was supposed to be different. Way different. I was in the School of Thought too, you know.”

“I know,” Jack said. “Midknight told us you had to leave because of … your father.” Jack paused a moment, trying to remember Midknight’s exact words. He had called Lorem’s father a very controlling man. Jack thought about what Lorem had just said about wanting to hit back at SmartCorp. The sound in her voice when she’d called Smart the “old man.” “Smart’s your father?” he guessed.

“Close,” Lorem replied. “He’s my manufacturer.” Lorem pulled back her sleeve to reveal a UPC bar code and a SmartCorp logo tattooed on her wrist. “I was grown in SmartCorp labs. I’m Lorem Ipsum Smart, lab test 212973, genetically engineered to have a specific power. ‘Daddy’ was going to grow his whole Peacemaker army that way, so he wouldn’t have to recruit questionable sorts like Speedrazor. He cut me loose when he couldn’t control me. Or more accurately, he locked me up.”

“I don’t believe it,” Jack said. “Well, I
do
believe it, but seriously … he locked you up? That’s crazy.”

Lorem shrugged. “I wasn’t supposed to have a personality. That was the one flaw in the experiment.” Lorem pulled her sleeve back into place. “What do you expect?
You don’t get sentimentality from a man with no heart. I don’t have to tell you that, do I, Jack?”

Jack didn’t know what to say. Lorem clearly knew who he was and all about his bad blood with Smart. He wanted to tell her that he thought her story was far worse than his own. That every time he didn’t think Smart could sink any lower, he did. The man was constantly inventing new ways to be less of a person. But before Jack had a chance to say any of that, there was a crackle-static noise on his wrist, and Allegra’s voice broke the silence.

“Jack … Jack, do you read me?” Allegra asked over the wrist communicator. “My tunnel hallway looped in with Skerren’s. Neither of us found anything. We’re heading back to the entrance. Do you want to meet us there, or should we come to you?”

“You call them down here, and I’ll be gone,” Lorem warned, raising a finger toward Jack. “And you’ll be incomprehensible.”

Jack’s back stiffened. “Why?”

“It’s bad enough you’re here,” Lorem told him. “The last thing I need is more people knowing where I live.”

Allegra called Jack’s name again. “Jack. Jack, do you
read me?” Jack didn’t reply. He was busy thinking. “Jack, are you okay?” Allegra’s voice asked, sounding concerned.

“Better get going,” Lorem told Jack. “Don’t want to keep your girlfriend waiting.”

“Allegra’s not my girlfriend,” Jack said quickly.

Lorem raised an eyebrow. “Okay,” she said with a smile. “You’re funny.”

“Jack, do you need us to come to you?” Allegra asked.

“No,” Jack said into his wrist, holding down the talk button on his bracelet. “No, this is Jack. I’m fine. I’m on my way back too. Don’t come to me. I’ll be up in a minute.” Jack let go of the talk button and looked up at Lorem Ipsum. He didn’t move an inch. Regardless of what he had just told Allegra, he wasn’t ready to head back just yet. Jack thought about Smart’s fifty-million-credit offer and what would happen if Obscuro sold him out. By some crazy stroke of luck, he was standing three feet away from his best chance of stopping that from happening.

“Lorem, how long does your gibberish-touch power last?” Jack asked.

Lorem almost looked intrigued, but not quite. “As long as I want,” she replied.

“As long as you want,” Jack repeated.
Perfect
. “Lorem, we’re after the Rogue Secreteer. He’s telling everyone’s secrets, causing trouble. He’s about to cause
me
a whole lot of trouble.”

Lorem shrugged for what seemed like the hundredth time. “And?” she asked.

“And I was thinking …,” Jack said. “What if he couldn’t talk? What if every time he opened his mouth, nothing came out but gibberish?”

“Wouldn’t that be something?” Lorem asked. “What’s in it for me?”

Jack turned his wristband all the way off. “How about a guarantee that it’ll drive Jonas Smart absolutely crazy?”

Lorem Ipsum smiled. “I’m listening.”

Stendeval had told Jack earlier, “Whenever you encounter a problem in life, it simply means that your situation has changed. What you need to do is take steps to deal with the new situation.”

With a little help from his friends, including some new and unexpected friends, Jack was now doing exactly that. A plan was starting to come together in his head. He didn’t have all the moves mapped out just yet, but he had the players. If Trea liked working alone, maybe that was for the best, Jack thought. Considering where
his head was at lately, she had a much better chance of curing the virus than he did. Having Trea’s help on the virus also freed him up to go after Glave and to try to keep Obscuro quiet. If everything went perfectly, there was even a chance he could be reunited with his father when this was all over. Unfortunately, if Jack’s plans were going to work, some very big pieces of the puzzle were going to have to fall into place at exactly the right time, and that was something that rarely ever happened. For Jack it had never happened, and it wasn’t about to start now.

Jack, Skerren, and Allegra got back to Cognito in time to find out why. They entered Jack’s apartment and found Trea still there, watching a SmartNews broadcast on Jack’s holo-screen. Her eyeballs were glued to the set, and the news anchors commanding her attention looked especially excited. That was never a good sign. As Stendeval might have put it, Jack’s situation was about to change once again.

“What’s going on?” Jack asked Trea.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I just turned the screen on as it cut to a special report. Looks like something big, though. Something about Smart.”

“Again?” Jack asked. He groaned and turned his eyes toward the holo-screen. Jack knew he wasn’t going to like anything he saw there, but Stendeval was right—he was better off knowing what Smart was up to.

“Welcome back,” Drack Hackman began, smiling into the camera. “We’re just moments away from going live to Hightown, where we’re told former Circleman Jonas Smart is getting ready to make a major announcement. No word as of yet regarding the subject matter of his statement, but whatever it is, you can bet it’s going to be exciting. And important.”

“I know I’m excited,” Hackman’s blond, cold-eyed coanchor agreed. Jack scowled at the screen. The woman looked like a snake wearing a wig. “Jonas Smart recently revealed that since being voted out of office, he’s spent nearly all his time and a large amount of his personal fortune on a powerful defense system called the SmarterNet. Is he finally ready to tell us all about it? SmartNews has the story.”

“The SmarterNet,” Hackman repeated. “I get chills just thinking about it. Hang on,” he added, touching a finger to his ear. “I’m being told Jonas Smart has left his
office and is about to take the stage at SmartTower. Let’s go there now.”

Jack and the others watched as an image of Jonas Smart striding confidently toward a press conference stage overtook the screen. Flashbulbs went off as he worked his way through a sea of microphones, reporters, and loyal supporters. He took his place at the lectern and prepared to address the crowd. Jack noted that Smart didn’t bother to thank anyone for coming to hear him speak.

“Good evening, Empire City,” Smart began in his usual grim tone. “As everyone within the sound of my voice already knows, my name is Jonas Smart, and I am the smartest man on the face of the Earth. But what concerns me tonight, and should also concern you, is what we
don’t
know. With just over forty-eight hours left before the Rüstov strike, I have yet to be contacted by the Rogue Secreteer regarding Jack Blank’s secrets.”

Jack breathed a momentary sigh of relief.

“While I wait, my Real World business concerns have been raided once again,” Smart revealed. “No doubt the work of Rüstov spies trying to sabotage the same key components of the SmarterNet that Jack Blank destroyed once
already,” he said. “The raid was unsuccessful, but it is still indicative of a greater problem. Our enemies move freely about the world at large, and nothing is being done to stop them. Meanwhile, here at home”—Smart tapped the lectern a moment and grunted—“a disturbing development in Machina has just been brought to my attention.”

Jack traded apprehensive looks with his friends. Machina? What was going on there? Were infected Mechas succumbing to the spyware virus ahead of schedule?

Smart cued in a holo-screen for the crowd, and the SmartNews producers cut to an image of the Hightown-Machina border. What Jack saw on the screen surprised him—a giant wall was being built around the Mechas’ borough.

“What the …,” Jack began.

“The Mechas are sealing off their borough!” Smart’s voice called out over footage of the wall’s construction. “Days before an attack, they are fortifying their position in this city and refusing to explain why!”

Jack and the others watched the holo-screen as it played footage of Virtua overseeing construction of the wall. “No comment,” she told the SmartNews reporters
on the scene, turning away to avoid their cameras. “No comment,” she said again as her security detail moved in to block the frame.

“Yeah,
that’s
not going to freak anyone out,” Trea said.

“Virtua, what are you doing?” Jack wondered aloud.

A concerned murmur ran through the tightly packed crowd assembled before Smart. He nodded in agreement with them, gaining momentum from their heightened state of fear. “I want to know what’s going on behind that wall!” he declared. “What do the Mechas know about the coming attack that we don’t? Who is this Glave?
Where
is he? Who is his partner, Khalix, and what is their plan? We cannot afford to have these mysteries!” Smart pounded a fist on the lectern. “That is why as of this moment, I am doubling my offer to the Rogue Secreteer. That’s right … one hundred million credits.”

The figure drew more gasps from the crowd. And from Jack. “A hundred million credits?” Jack exclaimed. “This is crazy!”

“No doubt you will all say this gesture goes above and beyond my duty as a private citizen,” Smart continued. “In these trying times, I say it is still not far enough. Whatever
Rüstov plot has the rogue scared enough to betray his order—whatever dark secret their Lost Boy, Jack Blank, has refused to share with us—I will uncover it, one way or the other.”

The crowd at SmartTower cheered Smart on, loud and angry. It was plain to see that Jack didn’t have any friends at that gathering. Public opinion was starting to turn, just as he’d feared. The mood of a city was a fickle thing, something Jack knew better than most. A year ago Empire City’s mood had shifted in his favor overnight. Jonas Smart was doing his best to flip that switch back in the other direction. If the reaction in Hightown was any reflection of how this speech was playing in the rest of the city, Jack’s days of signing autographs were all but over. He could practically see the wheels turning in people’s heads, the renewed curiosity about what he might be hiding…. It reminded him just how powerful people’s fear of the Rüstov was. There was an atmosphere of paranoia still lurking under the skin of Empire City like a scab waiting to be picked at, and Jonas Smart had only just begun to scratch at the wound.

“The end of the Imagine Nation could be mere days away, and still Jack Blank remains silent,” Smart railed
from the pulpit. “The Inner Circle has done nothing to protect you. If anything, they have worked hard to make you less safe! I say, ‘No more.’ I have found a way to safeguard all of you against the Rüstov while still complying with the Inner Circle’s newfound sensitivities for our enemy. The Rüstov operate globally, free to work their machinations in secret. From me they shall receive a global response. People of Empire City, have no fear. If these Rüstov interlopers expect to achieve their goals in the next forty-eight hours, then I will act decisively to stop them in the next twenty-four! Starting tomorrow my SmarterNet will deploy in the outside world, and it will hunt down these Rüstov invaders before they ever reach our shores!”

Thunderous cheers rang out from the audience. Smart bared a row of teeth in a chilling smile as the noise grew louder and louder. The applause wasn’t stopping, so Smart kept going, talking over the crowd’s ovation. “You are all invited to witness the launch of the SmarterNet tomorrow at Hero Square,” Smart shouted. “I promise you, one and all, the next time the sun sets on the Imagine Nation, you will be able to rest easy. Take comfort in the knowledge
that Jonas Smart is watching the world at large and keeping our enemies at bay.”