The Nameless Hero (25 page)

“The black room,” I said.

“That’s right. He’s been in there ever since. Unable to move. Hooked up to machines that tend to his injuries. His body may have been ruined, but his mind … his mind is just as warped as ever. He brought in a team of experts to build him a new body. A bionic form that won’t just keep him alive. It’ll make him
invincible
.”

My memory pitched back to the conversation I’d had with my parents over the phone about the world’s best doctors, scientists, and engineers going missing.

Turning to my mom and dad, I said, “That’s the secret project they were working on! They were building Vex some kind of new bionic body!”

“It all makes sense now,” Dad said. “The last time we spoke, we started to tell you about one of the scientists with a tracking chip in her wristwatch.”

I nodded, remembering how Elliot had eaten the phone before my parents could say where the scientist had been taken. With the insanity of the Nameless Hero’s schedule, there hadn’t been a chance for Mom and Dad to fill me in on the rest of the details. Until now.

“The abducted scientist,” Dad said. “She was tracked back to Sheepsdale. And now I understand why. Vex was holding her in
this
underground facility, along with all his other hostages.”

“How’s that possible?” Sophie asked, astonished. “We never saw any sign of them.”

“That’s exactly what Vex had in mind,” Gavin said. “He kept the doctors and scientists trapped, isolated in a separate part of the facility. Told them they wouldn’t be released until they’d completed his bionic form.”

A grave expression crossed Mom’s face. “And when will that be?”

“Tonight. At midnight.”

Dad checked the watch on his wristband. “That means we have less than an hour.”

“Then we’d better move quickly,” I said.

Mom stepped forward. “What do you mean
we
? I don’t want you going anywhere
near
Vex.”

“I’m the one Vex wants,” I said, clenching my jaw. “And I want to be there when we stop him.”

I could see the concern on my parents’ faces, but there wasn’t any time to argue. Reluctantly, they agreed that I could come along. “As long as you stay close to us,” Mom insisted.

Brandy opened the holding cell, releasing everyone but Gavin. She shoved Multiplier inside and locked the cell again. With Trace and Elliot standing guard outside the cell, the rest of us set out for the black room.

Since she knew headquarters better than the rest of us, Brandy led the way. My parents jogged alongside her, their plasma pistols out and ready. I trailed behind, alongside Milton, Sophie, Miranda, and nFinity.

“Are your Gyfts working yet?” Milton asked.

Without breaking stride, I exchanged a glance with the others. Sophie’s expression fixed into the look of concentration that she got whenever focusing on her power. A moment later, she shook her head. “Nothing.”

nFinity and Miranda said the same.

Whatever had been in the gas that had knocked us out earlier, it was still neutralizing our powers. Even without really trying to use it, I could somehow just
tell
that my
spontaneous combustion wouldn’t work. It was as if something inside me had gone missing, something I hadn’t noticed until it was no longer there.

We turned right and headed down a hallway that led us to the training hall where we’d fought the GLOM. We’d nearly reached the other end of the room when the door slid shut in front of us.

Brandy and my parents barely avoided colliding with the closed doorway. I barely avoided colliding with Brandy and my parents.

“Uh—what’s going on?” Mom asked.

“The door,” Brandy muttered, knitting her brow. “Someone must be controlling it remotely.”

“But that’s impossible,” nFinity said. “I thought Gavin was the only one with a remote.”

“He is.”

“So now the doors are just closing themselves?” nFinity wondered.

“There must be someone else.” Brandy’s expression darkened. “Someone who can control headquarters and knows where we are right now.”

My eyes turned upward. Perched in the corner, pointed right at us, was a small black surveillance camera. And with a sickening revulsion, I knew instantly who was on the other end.

“Vex,” I said.

A shiver worked its way down my spine, the feeling you get when you’re being watched. But Vex wasn’t just tracking our movements. He was controlling the headquarters.

A panel in the wall opened up, spraying a burst of fire that would’ve roasted Milton if he hadn’t ducked at the last second.

“We should probably get out of here,” Milton said as smoke trailed up from his mask.

“Come on!” Brandy yelled, rushing back the way we’d come. “We’ll have to find another way!”

We were halfway across the room when another section of the wall opened and three robotic lunch ladies emerged in hairnets and aprons. Except Vex must’ve done something to reprogram them, because now the robots didn’t
look like they were here to fix us a late-night snack. They had something else in mind.

“Kill! Kill! Kill!” they chanted, zooming toward us. Each had a spatula in one hand and a butcher knife in the other.

With the lightning-fast reflexes of a guy who’s been in deadly situations plenty of times before, Dad reached into his utility belt and removed the small plastic container that held his remaining metal-eating ants. After opening the cap, he tossed the ants at the killer cafeteria workers.

“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” The robotic lunch ladies scattered across the room, trying to slap away the ants that were gnawing into their circuitry.

“This entire room is rigged with traps!” Brandy screamed.

Every surface of the training hall was designed to test our skills with deadly technology. A battering ram swung down from the ceiling, nearly taking my head off. nFinity stumbled into a pit of quicksand. He would’ve been buried alive if Milton hadn’t pulled him out.

“As long as Vex can see us, he can keep attacking us!” Sophie yelled. “We need to take out the security cameras!”

“Shouldn’t be a problem!” Mom aimed her plasma pistol and shot the two security cameras. She did the same thing to the closed door, blasting it apart bit by bit until we had an opening big enough to escape through.

“This way!” Brandy said, climbing through the opening. “We’re almost out of time!”

We might have made it out of the training hall, but that didn’t mean Vex was done with us yet. Buzz saws sliced through the floor like sharks’ fins, chasing us down the hallway. After emerging into the next room, I staggered to a halt just in time to avoid tumbling into a stream of molten lava. The boiling red liquid gushed through a channel stretching from one wall to another.

There was only one way across. We would have to jump.

I didn’t have time to contemplate whether I’d make it or not. Backing up, I gave myself a head start. Then I took off at a run and leaped.…

There was a moment of flinging through the air when all I could feel was the heat rising from the roiling lava beneath me.

Then I landed on the other side—but just barely. A few inches less and I would’ve taken a lava bath.

Sophie and Miranda jumped after me, each clearing the gap with even less room to spare.

The boiling stream of lava looked wider from this side. Another second passed before I realized why: the channel was expanding. The distance from one side to the other was steadily increasing.

nFinity charged forward, launching into the air before I could warn him. For a split second, I was sure he would plunge into the lava, but somehow he made it across. Milton would never have made it if it weren’t for his jet-shoes.

By the time my parents and Brandy arrived in the room, the stream of lava had grown too wide to jump. Milton,
Miranda, Sophie, nFinity, and I inched backward to avoid falling in.

“You’ll have to go on without us!” Brandy called.

I stared across the widening gap separating us from the adults. “Isn’t there some other way?”

“Not if you want to stop Vex by midnight!” Brandy said.

“You can do it!” Mom’s voice was firm. Her eyes never left mine. “You have to.”

“Here—take this.” Dad tossed his plasma pistol. It landed on the other side and skidded across the floor. nFinity bent down to pick it up.

“The black room is that way!” Brandy pointed toward an arched doorway. “Into the next room, then turn right.”

Her directions led us to the long corridor that I’d been down once before with Miranda. Except this time, instead of avoiding the security cameras that lined the walls, we raced past them. The clatter of our pounding footsteps echoed in my ears.

We came to a stop in front of the black door.

The idea of facing down Vex had been a lot easier to grasp when I’d thought my parents would be there with me. But now it was just us—five kids in uniforms. No superpowers, no utility belts. All we had was Dad’s plasma pistol. Would that be enough?

I pushed all my doubts away. Once Vex got his new bionic body, he’d be invincible. And unless we managed to stop him in the next three minutes, that was exactly what was going to happen.

Lost in these thoughts, I didn’t notice nFinity turning
and raising the plasma pistol, until the barrel was pointed right at my chest.

“Any sudden moves and I pull the trigger,” he said.

I felt like I’d stumbled into a bizarre dream. None of this made any sense. nFinity stepped forward calmly, a dark grin forming on his face.

“Everybody back up.” He jabbed the plasma pistol, forcing us backward until we were against the wall. His eyes narrowed behind his mask.

“Wh-what’re you doing?” Miranda asked in a wounded voice. “Vex is going to be here any minute.”

“That’s right. And I imagine he’ll be pretty happy to see what I brought him.”

Milton gaped at nFinity, his mouth hanging open. “You and Vex—you’re working together?”

nFinity shook his head. “Not yet. But I’ve been in this business long enough to know that it’s never too late to form new partnerships. It’s an opportunity too good to pass up, really. I give Vex something he wants”—nFinity’s eyes flickered over to me—“and he gets rid of the competition.”

“What’re you talking about?” I asked.

“Isn’t it obvious? Ever since the world found out about the Nameless Hero, I’ve been ignored, overlooked.
I
was supposed to be the cover story of
Super Scoop. I
was supposed to be the one with endorsement deals. But then you came along.” nFinity glared at me. “Do you have any idea how hard I worked to get where I am? I’m not about to let you swoop in and take my place.”

I struggled to comprehend what I was hearing. So there’d been some truth to
Super Scoop
’s claims of a power struggle between us. I just hadn’t known about it.

“Don’t act so surprised, Nameless! You want the attention more than any of us. Back at the commercial shoot when those scorpions attacked, you stood back and let those things overpower us. You watched while I nearly got killed.”

My memory flashed with the sight of nFinity, blood streaming out of multiple wounds, cornered by scorpions. “I wanted to fight sooner,” I said. “But Gavin … he was holding me back.”

nFinity shook his head furiously. “Don’t blame this on anyone else. It was
you
! You were waiting for just the right moment—until the rest of us were weak. Nearly defeated. The perfect moment for the Nameless Hero to swoop in and save the day.”

“You have to believe me,” I pleaded. “That wasn’t the way it happened.”

“Shut up!” nFinity’s finger tightened on the trigger. “Because of you, I’m nothing. What am I supposed to do now? Perform in shopping malls, showing off my fire tricks for six-year-olds? I don’t think so. Once Vex takes care of the Nameless Hero, things will go back to the way they were. I’ll be famous again.”

My heart thundered in my ears. In the corner of my vision, I could see the black door. Vex was behind there. Any second now, he’d be unstoppable.

Until now, Sophie had taken nFinity’s sudden betrayal in silence. But I could see in her face that it hit her the hardest.

“nFinity, please,” she pleaded, her voice wavering. “You’re not thinking clearly. This isn’t who you are.”

“I’m sorry, Sophie.” nFinity’s expression softened, and just for a second I saw the cool, good-looking hero Sophie had adored all this time. But it was only a moment. Then his face changed again. His jaw clenched in fierce determination. “This is the way it has to be.”

My brain seared with the hopelessness of the situation. I didn’t know what was worse—getting blasted by the plasma pistol or waiting around for Vex to show up. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much choice. A thunderous noise rumbled through the corridor. Something was moving behind the black door. Something enormous.

I glanced at my friends. Was this the last time I was ever going to see them?

“I’m the one Vex wants,” I said to nFinity. “Not them. Let the others go.”

“Not a chance.” nFinity’s lip curled into a sneer that wiped away any last trace of the teenage superhero he’d once been. “I can’t have any witnesses contradicting my side of the story.”