Council of Evil (10 page)

For almost a minute he writhed on the floor, the vision slowly returning to one of his heavily watering eyes. He heard shouting, and looked up to see the hobo run into the middle of the road, arms flailing. At first Jake thought he was dancing drunkenly, until he noticed he was flagging down a police car.

“Aw, no,” groaned Jake through gritted teeth. “Idiot!”

He stood, still unable to open his right eye. The
police car had stopped, and a pair of uniformed cops climbed out to pacify the vagrant. Jake couldn't hear what was being said, but the homeless man pointed to the top of the building, then to Jake. The policemen obviously must have thought it was the ramblings of a drunk, as they burst out laughing.

Until they spotted Jake, with the gallery owner slumped at his feet.

The officers ran toward Jake, shouting. “Hey! You over there!”

Jake panicked and crouched down, trying to pull the Ukrainian upright. It was difficult, as the man was twice as heavy as he was, and in a fleeting thought Jake wished he'd downloaded super-strength.

“Superpowers, of course!” Jake stood back up and raised his hands toward the cops and concentrated hard. For safety he had downloaded the radioactive power again; it was something he felt proficient in.

Green tendrils shot out of his hands. A pair of fine strands slammed into the two policemen, knocking them to the floor. The main thrust of the energy struck the police car, which briefly glowed, then exploded in a magnificent fireball. The vagrant dived for cover in a doorway as vehicle fragments struck the wall around him, shattering several windows and triggering car alarms along the street.

Jake bent back down and hooked the Ukrainian's arm
around his shoulder. He hoped that his flying power was going to be able to lift them both. Exerting every muscle in his legs, Jake tried to jump from a crouching position. He shouldn't have worried. He shot into the air like a firework, gripping his hostage tightly so he wouldn't fall.

The cops watched with open mouths as Jake carried the man ten stories up, disappearing on the rooftop. They scrambled for their radios to report the situation.

Jake landed on the roof with a gasp. The higher he had climbed with Ramius, the harder it had been to fly. Obviously there were some weight restrictions with the power. Jake dragged the gallery owner the rest of the way to the SkyKar. Already he could feel the muscles in his arms, legs, and back screaming out as he strained to lift Ramius into the vehicle. He locked the Ukrainian's belt before hesitating. Ramius looked wan, and didn't seem to be breathing. Jake panicked and felt for a pulse on his wrist. Not finding one he checked his neck, breathing a sigh of relief as he detected a strong, steady beat. Leaning close he could now hear shallow breathing. The knockout gas must be incredibly strong, and Jake belatedly remembered Basilisk telling him to spray it a good foot away from the victim. He had accidentally given the Ukrainian a huge dose.

A rhythmic thumping got Jake's attention. He looked
around the rooftop with his one good eye, but couldn't see anything amiss.

The noise was getting louder, and Jake suddenly realized what it was. He scanned the sky until he spotted the approaching police helicopter. He ran to the edge of the roof for a better look.

“Oh, great. That's all I need.” Below, an uproar of police sirens rose simultaneously, and he could see flickering blue strobes across several streets, all converging on him. After the incident with the jet fighters he had no wish to fight a helicopter.

His bullying instinct told him to run.

He ran back to the SkyKar and jammed the doors closed. All he had to do was remember how to activate the autopilot. He thought back to the hangar on the island. Basilisk had briefed him on the SkyKar's various safety features, but Jake had been staring at the Core Probe as a couple of engineers welded a lattice cradle to the top of it. Jake had wondered what it was for. He only zoned back to Basilisk when the villain had wished him luck and thumbed a button on the touch screen. The autopilot switch!

The helicopter was now circling overhead with a loud clatter of rotors. A hesitant voice boomed over the aircraft's loudspeaker.

“You in the … uh … car on the roof. Come out with your hands up!”

Jake examined the multitude of options on the screen. They were all labeled with icons. What was it with these people—couldn't they just spell out what the buttons did? Jake had a feeling Basilisk had touched the button that showed an image of the SkyKar.

Jake pressed it.

The SkyKar whined to life and spoke: “Autopilot engaged.”

“Way to go!” he screamed jubilantly.

The vehicle shot up vertically, surprising the helicopter pilot who thrust aside sharply. Jake instinctively pushed himself back in his seat, as the chopper's lethal rotors filled the windshield as he sped past.

Soon they would be in the clouds, and speeding toward safety. The SkyKar suddenly shuddered. Jake heard several heavy thumps against the fuselage as a pair of bullet holes punctured the SkyKar's nose.

They were shooting at him.

“What're you doing?” Jake screamed. He'd watched enough police chase shows on television to know that police helicopters were not supposed to be armed. But he saw the sharpshooter hanging from the side door of the chopper as it banked around.

The rifle was aimed in his direction—until a muzzle flash and a violent thud came from underneath. The computer screen glitched: “You have manual control.” The SkyKar stopped ascending, and hovered in the air.

“What? No! I don't want manual control. I want to get out of here!” shouted Jake. The vehicle lurched as he thumped the control stick. He looked up to see the helicopter bearing down on him.

“Land now, or we will shoot you down!” came the voice of the chopper pilot.

“Don't you know I have a hostage? You'll kill us both!” Of course they couldn't hear his panicked cries. He also knew that unless he took the controls he'd be history.

He gripped the control column, and his fingers rested on a set of hand grips and buttons like they'd done many times on his game console at home. His feet found a set of pedals, and he hoped his instincts would get him through this. He tried to recall Basilisk's actions when they had been outmaneuvering the Typhoon fighters.

The SkyKar suddenly jolted low, just underneath the helicopter, which rotated to give chase. It was a skillful move—even though Jake had been attempting to rise
over
the chopper.

“Controls are inverted!” he said through gritted teeth. And, unlike his computer games, Jake doubted there would be an option to reconfigure them.

The ground rose up to greet Jake, and he pulled back hard on the stick. The SkyKar leveled out three feet above the traffic. He zoomed past parked cars, the air
pressure setting off their alarms. Three police cars squealed in pursuit, the helicopter thundering just above them.

Jake pulled on the stick, and swung the SkyKar around into another street. He was going so fast he barely made the turn—the underbelly of the vehicle shattered several office windows as he slewed wide, scraping a building. Jake leveled out. The gallery was in a quiet part of the city, but now he had just turned onto one of the main avenues, and the Saturday traffic below squealed to a halt as the drivers and pedestrians watched the SkyKar race overhead.

Below, the police were struggling to keep up. One took the turn wide and crashed into another car whose driver had stopped midway past a crossroads to gape at the flying car.

Jake glanced at the dashboard and saw one button that resembled a camera. He pressed it and the monitor screen turned into a split view of what was behind and below him. He could see the police chopper was hot on his tail. Jake didn't have the expertise to lose the helicopter. He'd have to rely on something else.

He gently released the control stick, and the craft remained steady and straight. The road below was long, so Jake took the chance to open the door and lean out. The air blasted his ears, and caused his good eye to smart. He kept one hand firmly gripping the door
frame, twisted himself backward, and leaned as far as he dared to face the pursuing helicopter.

He saw the sharpshooter raise his gun—then hesitate when he realized Jake was only a boy.

A bad mistake.

Jake extended his hand. He was mad at himself for messing up such a simple job; that anger manifested itself in his superpowers.

Millions of tiny pellets issued from Jake's hand, like black ball bearings. They extended into a thick cloud of hail that the copter flew straight into. The effect was instantaneous.

The chopper's windshield shattered, and the rest of the fuselage was peppered with pinholes. The pellets struck through to the engine and instantly caused metal to grind against metal. Black smoke poured from the engine, as fragments of the rotor were torn off.

In seconds, the helicopter dropped from the sky. The damaged rotors slowly revolved as the air forced them to turn, something pilots called autorotation—effectively serving as a parachute and saving the crew inside.

The chopper landed on top of a bus, the roof of which crumpled, tipping the helicopter sidelong onto a taxi. The rotors shattered as they hit the road; people scattered in all directions.

A smile crawled across Jake's face as he watched. “No
way!” He'd broken things before, but nothing on this scale.

He pulled the gull-wing door shut. Catching his breath he thumbed the autopilot button. It didn't respond.

“Come on!” He snarled and irritably punched the dashboard. The autopilot light suddenly flashed on, and the computer confirmed it.

Jake forced himself to relax as the SkyKar sharply angled up and accelerated. His hostage was peacefully slumbering next to him.

He'd done it: his first solo task, and he'd enjoyed it—the suspense, the thrill of the chase, and the ultimate sensation of living on the edge. Jake Hunter was officially a supervillain, and he felt proud.

What he didn't know was that his picture was currently being circulated by police forces across the country, and then passed on to worldwide antiterrorist units. By the time Jake had returned to Basilisk's hideout, he had become the most wanted criminal in the country.

And by the following week, he would be the most wanted supervillain in the
world
.

To say it had been a strange weekend would have been a gross understatement. Jake lay on his bed, in the familiar surroundings of his home. He was feeling restless as he gazed blankly at the ceiling, his mind churning over recent events.

Returning to Basilisk's volcanic paradise had been straightforward. The supervillain had started to ask Jake if the mission went smoothly, but the question drifted from his lips when he saw the bullet holes peppering the SkyKar. The swelling in Jake's eye had faded, and he'd finally got his sight back. Embarrassed, Jake had to tell Basilisk about the police pursuit across the city. Basilisk didn't say a word, but his fists clenched with an audible crunch.

Then Jake was left alone for a while, and he decided to take the opportunity to get some fresh air and explore the island. As he soared up the access tunnel leading to the surface, he could feel the warm tropical air on his face. But as he emerged, the bright sunshine started to hurt his eyes and gave him a headache. His
skin felt raw, as though his face had been severely sunburned. It was a bizarre reaction to a beautiful day, and it forced Jake back underground, wondering if his sister's omen about him falling ill was coming true.

Basilisk strode into the hangar, interrupting his thoughts. “I've issued the ransom demand to Ramius's people, so now we wait. I'm sure they're crooked enough to want to keep this out of the way of law enforcement. If that's possible after half the cops in the country saw you kidnap him!”

“My skin is burning!” Jake said, ignoring Basilisk's accusation.

“Ah, as I feared. You're becoming photosensitive.”

“Huh?”

“It means you are becoming sensitive to light. In this case, bright UV rays, like you get from the sun. Don't let it worry you. We're near the equator. The sun is stronger here than anywhere else in the world.”

“But why? I never used to be photo … whatever.”

Basilisk hesitated. “There are occasional side effects from long-term exposure to your superpowers.”

Jake scowled. “You said there were no side effects!”

“They're very rare,” Basilisk said levelly. “Now, you will return home until phase three.”

And so Jake sat aboard the hastily patched-up SkyKar and was ferried home. Basilisk's last words puzzled him during the flight home.

“Keep your head down, and don't mention this to
anyone
. We'll talk soon.” He understood that their devious plan was not something he could divulge to friends. But why would he have to keep his head down?

Jake arrived at his house and walked straight into the living room where his parents were watching television. He was about to tell them his preprepared lie about what he'd done with his friends, when his mother shot him a look of concern.

“Jake, do you feel okay?”

“Fine, why?”

“You look very pale. As if you're sick. Have you been sleeping okay?”

Jake assured her that he had been and tried to leave the room, but his eyes strayed to the news.

An anchorman was talking about an attempted bank robbery in the city the day before. The sudden surge in violence across the country had prompted the mobilization of SWAT teams. And it was one such air patrol that had tried to foil a kidnapping. The ensuing car chase had caused chaos, the reporter said, but Jake noticed there was no mention of the fact that his car was
flying
.

Then the image changed to a fuzzy shot of Jake himself. It was a close-up as he hung from the SkyKar, taken from an angle that didn't make it apparent that he had been in midair. Blurred or not, there was no mistaking that it was Jake.