The Twisted Future (Teen Superheroes Book 4) (6 page)

Chapter Fourteen

What are you?
Dan thought.
What sort of question is that? 

‘Uh, hello,’ Dan said, flustered. ‘What am I? I’m a boy like you.’

‘I’m a boy like you,’ Henry said.

‘How did you get here?’ Dan asked.

‘How did you get here?’

He’s just repeating everything I say
, Dan thought.

‘I arrived in a plane,’ he said.

‘I arrived in a plane.’ 

‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’ Dan asked. ‘Are you here with your family? Or are you alone?’

‘Alone.’ Henry looked at the ceiling. ‘That is day.’

It was worse than having a conversation with Ferdy. At least Ferdy made sense. Maybe Henry suffered from an intellectual disability. But how did he get here? Were there others with him? Dan tapped his communicator.

‘Ferdy? I’ve found a boy in the basement of the building.’ The only reply was a long squeal of static. ‘Can you hear me, Ferdy?’

Nothing. There was a problem with reception. Dan pretended to examine the cell lock.

‘I think this is broken,’ he said, gripping it in his hand, but focusing on the metal. It snapped open. ‘At least I can get you out of there. Where are your parents?’ 

‘No parents.’ Henry’s voice was soft. He had wide, brown eyes and black hair, and wore trousers, black shoes and a white open necked shirt. He was surprisingly clean considering the state of the cell. ‘My name is Henry.’

‘I’m Dan.’

‘Dan.’

Dan’s eyes followed the trail of debris leading to the opening. Thick jungle surrounded the top.

‘Will you follow me?’ Dan asked.

The boy regarded Dan uncertainly for a moment before trailing him outside. A fresh breeze pushed back Dan’s hair. It was cooler. Maybe the weather was changing.

Henry still held the book.

‘Is that good?’ Dan asked.

‘Reading.’

‘Is it good?’

‘Good.’

Dan sighed. This was a terribly one sided conversation. Still, at least Henry seemed able to read. Dan glanced at the cover of the novel.
Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde
. Hardly a bedtime story, but maybe it was the only book he owned.

Activating his communicator
, this time Ferdy’s voice came back loud and clear. He explained finding Henry. ‘Are there any records of shipwrecks in this area?’ he asked.

‘A sailing ship called the
Morning Star
went missing in this area ten years ago.’

‘Who was on board?’

‘A family of four. John and Carla Benson and their boys Phillip and Charles.’

Dan turned to Henry. ‘Do the names Charles and Phillip mean anything to you?’ he asked, gently.

Henry shook his head.

‘Ferdy, how old were those boys?’

‘Charles was seven. Phillip was two.’

Phillip could really be Henry, but why wouldn’t he know his own name?

Henry pointed towards the coast. ‘Ship,’ he said. ‘Beach.’

Dan led the boy towards the beach along an overgrown path. A bird cried out and went crashing through the trees. Stepping onto the sand, Dan felt both relief and sadness. He was glad to be free of the jungle, but he wished the others were here.

The beach curved for miles in both directions. This island could have been a Mecca for tourists except it was a long way from anywhere. A white and angular shape poked from the jungle—the stern of a boat.

Drawing near, Dan saw it was a sailing vessel about thirty feet in length. Once it was a beautiful ship, but now its mast was gone and half of the vessel lay buried in the sand.

Dan wiped grime off the stern.

‘
Morning Star
,’ he read. ‘Henry, is this your ship?’

The boy stared at him blankly.

‘Henry, did you come here on this ship?’ Dan persisted. ‘With your brother and your parents?’

The boy said nothing. He looked back into the jungle and, for the first time, an expression of fear twisted his face.

‘Henry, what is it?’

‘There’s a monster,’ he said. ‘It comes out at night.’

‘I can fight off monsters,’ Dan assured him. ‘I’ll be back soon.’

He climbed on board the buried ship. It arrowed into the sand at a thirty degree angle. Some of the ropes that had once been attached to the sail still remained, but they were hopelessly tangled and rotten. Dan found a hatch half way down the deck. He tried moving it by hand. Stuck. He applied his powers and it slid back with a painful screech.

A sound came from below deck.

Dan frowned. It had sounded like the shuffle of feet. ‘I’m a superhero,’ he muttered. ‘I can take on ten villains at once.’

But he still felt afraid.

He climbed into what was once a classy living room, but now it had been wrecked by the elements. It smelt of mildew. A lounge ran along the port side, but the fabric had rotted. A few old magazines lay in a pool of water. Timber peeled from the coffee table in the center.

A hallway led to the bridge, a hole in the hull and jungle beyond. Dan crept towards the stern. 

The first room contained four bunk beds. Some old children’s toys were on the floor but, like everything else on board, these were ruined. He continued down the hall until he reached the next room, the door jammed half-open.
It seemed that more refuse was scattered across the floor, but then Dan spotted the human skull.

He grimly examined the remains. There were two bodies. Adults by the look of it. Probably the remains of John and Carla Benson. Their ruined clothing was mixed amongst the mishmash pile of bones.  

From the stern came another sound. Footfalls on the wooden decking. Dan edged to the doorway. He used his mind to pick up a rusty crossbeam from the floor. Anyone—or anything—had better watch out if they tried to take him down!

I’m a superhero
, he told himself.
I have amazing powers. I can lift up tons of metal and throw it at bad guys.

I’m Metal Boy
, he thought.

He liked the sound of that. Metal Boy.

Henry had mentioned a monster on the island, but monsters weren’t real.

Were they?

He peered into the hallway. He couldn’t see anything, but he was sure he could hear breathing. It couldn’t be Henry. He was still outside and the breathing was too guttural anyway. Dan stepped out cautiously, the piece of metal floating in the air next to him. It was dark here and there was still no sign—

Something crashed into his legs, sending Dan flying. He heard a wild grunting and a squeal. The metal beam fell onto his head. Yelling, he spun about in horror as a hairy, brown creature bolted past him and out of sight.

A pig! That’s all it was. Some sort of wild boar. The creature must have been rooting about in the broken remains of the ship. He remembered hearing that early sailors would often leave pigs on remote islands so there would be fresh meat for them when they later returned.

Dan felt a flush of embarrassment. What sort of superhero was he? A wild pig just scared him half to death! He swallowed hard. Henry probably heard the racket and was wondering what was happening. 

He returned to the upper deck, but Henry was gone. Dan crossed to the edge of the water. From here he could see up and down the coast.

‘Henry!’ he called. ‘Where are you?’

Silence. Then the roar of a beast rang out from deep inside the jungle. It wasn’t the snort of a wild boar. It wasn’t like anything that Dan had ever heard in his life. A flock of birds broke cover and sailed away towards the setting sun.

What had Henry told him?

There’s a monster and it comes at night.

Chapter Fifteen

‘There it is,’ Mr. Brown said. ‘
Olympus
.’

Ebony and I were sitting on
Liber8tor
’s bridge. It was surprisingly clean although quite different to the
Liber8tor
we knew. Most of the reptilian Tagaar consoles had been removed and replaced with sleek stainless steel panels, and someone had whitewashed the walls, a strange thing to do to an alien spacecraft, but these were strange times.

Old Axel had gone below to check a shudder in the engines while Mr. Brown controlled the helm. It was strange seeing him there instead of Dan. I wanted to ask him what had happened to Dan and the others over the years, but I was sure he would give the same answer as Old Axel.

It would cause irreparable damage to the space/time continuum.

The space station known as
Olympus
filled the view screen. Covered in green metal, it was shaped like a giant donut with a one-eighth section cut out. Cannons ringed the circumference. The size of it was hard to determine at first, but then I spotted a ship entering one of the cut ends of the donut.
Olympus
was massive. Miles across.

‘How on Earth did something like that get built?’ I asked.

‘I can’t say much because it—’

‘I know. Space/time continuum. I get the idea.’

‘Suffice to say, James Price was able to lasso a passing asteroid and transform it with nanites into a space station.

‘You’re kidding.’

‘I wish I were.’

Nanites were tiny machines only a few atoms in size. They were already being used in some basic applications in our time, but it sounded like they had been fully exploited by James Price and the Agency.

Mr. Brown continued. ‘After the station was completed—’

‘Shut up,’ Old Axel said, appearing in the doorway with a box. ‘You know better than to blab.’

Mr. Brown clamped his mouth shut. ‘Just giving them some warning. That’s all.’

‘They less they know the better.’ He glared at me. ‘The things I could say would make your blood boil.’

I stared back. There was a terrible darkness in him, a deep hurt that had twisted him into something unrecognizable.
Were we really the same person? 

Old Axel produced belts with holsters attached. ‘I’ve got these for everyone,’ he said. ‘They’re simple laser pistols. You just point and shoot.’

‘We don’t normally use guns,’ Ebony said.

‘You might need them this time. This base hasn’t been attacked by mods for over a decade, but they could have zeno emitters installed.’

Zeno emitters could render our powers completely useless. I didn’t like our chances of surviving this without superpowers. I wished Brodie was with us. She was the only one of us zeno emitters couldn’t affect.

‘Thinking about Brodie?’ Old Axel asked me.

Maybe I was wearing a crazy grin. ‘Yes.’

‘Don’t,’ he said, his face black. ‘Stay focused on the mission. We’ll be lucky to make it out alive.’

The space station grew larger. I swallowed. Not only was
Olympus
massive, but probably protected to the gills. By comparison, there were four of us. How were we going to win against such odds?

‘Cold feet?’ Old Axel grinned.

He was reading my mind, or his mind, as it happened.

‘No.’

‘This all could have been avoided. I begged you to kill James Price, but you wanted evidence. Well, now you’ve got it.’

I couldn’t argue with him there. The future was obviously a terrible place and it seemed James Price was responsible for it. Killing him would be like killing Hitler. No-one would blame you for killing Hitler. If you could make the world into a better place—a
much
better place—wouldn’t you?

‘We’re reaching R1,’ Mr. Brown said. ‘I’m sending the recognition codes.’

‘What’s R1?’ Ebony asked.

‘A security checkpoint. This is the first.’

Continuing towards a blunt end of the station, I saw a space dock with several ships moored inside. Ringing the outside were a dozen cannons aimed in our direction.

‘Fortunately for us,’ Old Axel said, ‘the research lab containing the temporal resonators is only half-a-mile from this end. And I’ve got a map.’

‘Providing we don’t get blown up first,’ Ebony said.

‘They’re returning our codes and allowing us through,’ Mr. Brown said.

I let out a sigh of relief.

‘Don’t get too cocky,’ Old Axel said. ‘That’s only the first checkpoint. There are two others to go.’

The space port filled the entire view screen. I remembered the extra plating that had been used to disguise
Liber8tor
. What if someone looked out the window and saw it wasn’t an Agency ship? 

‘We’ve reached R2,’ Mr. Brown said. ‘I’m sending the second codes.’

My throat was dry. I glanced down at my hands. I was sweating. Usually I was able to control my fear, but that was when I was in control of the situation. Here I wasn’t. I was decades in the future on a ship that might get blown to pieces at any second. I glanced at Ebony. She was pale.

For some terrible reason, this made me feel better. I tried to give her a reassuring smile, but it probably looked more like a grimace.

‘They’re not returning our codes,’ Mr. Brown said.

I wondered what I would do if they fired on us. Maybe I could create an air pocket around us if the ship was blasted apart. That would temporarily save us, but how would we get onto the station? A throbbing pain started at the back of my neck. This was suicide. What were we doing here? Surely there was another way to get a temporal resonator? I was about to speak when Mr. Brown let out a sigh of relief.

‘They’ve sent back the confirmation signal. We’re safe.’

‘One more checkpoint,’ Old Axel said.

Liber8tor
accelerated. ‘Sending the final codes,’ he said. ‘This is it.’

I rubbed my neck, glancing at Ebony. Her eyes were closed. What was she doing? Oh, praying. I sent up a message as the ship entered the space dock. The ship shuddered as artificial gravity took over. We were inside a massive airlock, with vessels all around us, many similar to our modified
Liber8tor
.

The docking port was only a few hundred feet away.

‘I’m not getting a reply code,’ Mr. Brown said, staring at his console. ‘I don’t like the look of this.’

‘Don’t panic,’ Old Axel said. ‘We’ve gotten this far.’

‘Wait a second!’ Mr. Brown’s voice rose in panic. ‘They’re fixing cannons on us.’

‘Raise the force field!’ Old Axel snapped.

I heard the shimmer of the force field embracing the ship. An instant later something slammed into
Liber8tor
and we were thrown sideways. Old Axel swore as I desperately tried to focus on my plan to make an air pocket.

‘Full throttle!’ Old Axel yelled. ‘Fire forward torpedoes!’

I felt the sudden surge of engines as the docking bay rushed towards us. Two torpedoes flew from us as cannon fire slammed into
Liber8tor
from all sides. Ebony screamed. Our missiles slammed into the interior doors of the docking bay, reducing them to scrap. Beyond lay a huge tunnel, large enough to hold our ship. We flew through the shattered remains of the doors.

‘Fire torpedoes!’ Old Axel screamed.

Two more torpedoes rushed away from us. Another explosion followed. The view screen dissolved into static and
Liber8tor
crashed into the space station, catapulting me onto the floor.

After that, I knew nothing.