Strike 2: Dawn of the Daybreaker (8 page)

At the wheel of the car, Strike was soon able to relax a little; they were out of the crowded city, and he no longer had to worry about all of the civilians caught in the crossfire. Just when he was thankful to be out on the open road, however, he realized that he was driving straight towards a bridge...and the bridge was opening.

“Oh, crap!” Strike yelled. “Hold on!”

The Bolt Racer hit the open bridge as if it was a ramp, and the car flew off the street and up into the night sky. Many of the criminals’ cars also hit the ramp and went airborne, making them easy targets for Keplar—as if they were ducks floating in the air, he blasted them with green plasma bursts from his gun, one-by-one:
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

Crashing back to the street on the other side of the bridge with a screeching of rubber, Strike desperately tried to regain control of the Bolt Racer, which was fishtailing wildly and kicking up dirt and stones and narrowly missing the other cars coming toward them.

“Kid, keep us on the damn road!” Keplar yelled. The dog looked to the rear of the car; thanks to the open bridge, most of the criminals were stuck on the other side of the river, and there was now only one convertible full of villains chasing them. However, the heroes weren’t out of danger yet; Keplar could see swarms of flying demons in the air above them, and a few of the tougher super-powered criminals with the power of flight were still following them. “SB, how’s it going down there?”

Scatterbolt was underneath the dashboard on the passenger side of the Bolt Racer, working on its exposed wires with his hands, which were turned into welding tools.

“A couple more minutes!” the robot yelled.

“Okay,” Keplar shouted, over the sounds of screeching tires and honking horns. “Just let us know when—Aarrrggh!”

Keplar grunted as his arm was hit with a laser blast from one of the flying super-criminals. He fell into the front of the car, holding his wound.

“You okay?” Strike asked, his eyes pinned to the road.

“Yeah, but—aarrrghhh!” Keplar tried to move his arm, but couldn’t. “This arm is blurkopped...damn it! Kid, you can’t drive for crap. Get up there and shoot.”

Keplar took the Bolt Racer’s wheel from Strike and pushed him out of the way. Strike jumped into the back of the vehicle and picked up Keplar’s plasma cannon.

“How the heck do you work this thing?” Strike asked, inspecting the gun.

A bullet whizzed by Strike’s ear and he had to drop to the backseat. 

“Just pull the thing on the bottom!” Keplar yelled.

“Where?”

“The thing, the thing!”

“What thing?!”

A flying, one-eyed, grey-skinned demon dropped from the sky and landed on the back of the Bolt Racer, screeching at Strike.

“Ah, the hell with it,” Strike said. He swung the Plasma Cannon and bashed the demon in the head with the butt of the weapon, as if the gun was a giant hammer.

“Uh, not exactly how that thing works, kid,” Keplar told him.

After whaling on the demon’s head with the Plasma Cannon and finally getting the demon to let go, Strike tried one more time to figure out the gun, but gave up and tossed it away.

“Forget it,” Strike said.

Keplar looked in the rear view mirror; the last convertible of criminals was catching up with them. “How are you gonna hit them from here?” the dog asked.

Strike stood on the backseat of the Bolt Racer, leapt into the air, soared across the street, and landed inside the criminals’ convertible, where he immediately started taking out the villains with his glowing bo-staff.

“Huh,” Keplar said, turning back to the road. “That works, too. Sometimes the kid impresses me.”

“Okay, got it!” Scatterbolt shouted, closing the control panel on the dashboard of the Bolt Racer. Reaching out, he pressed the “Morph” button. “Change to Flying Mantis!”

The Bolt Racer sprouted midnight blue wings from its sides, and the vehicle soared into the air. Finally, Keplar and Scatterbolt were free from the road…but, just when the vehicle reached cruising altitude, its wings disappeared, a roof covered its top, and the vehicle morphed again. Now the Bolt Racer was plummeting back to Earth.

“Um, what the hell just happened?” Keplar asked.

“I’m not sure,” Scatterbolt replied, looking at a screen on the dashboard that showed the new shape of the vehicle. “But I’m pretty sure we’re a submarine now.”

“Oh, that’s just fantastic.”

Sure enough, the Bolt Racer had morphed into a submarine, and with Keplar and Scatterbolt trapped inside, the metallic, blue submersible smashed into the pavement like a missile. Spinning out of control and sending sparks flying along the street, the vehicle eventually collided with a tree in a city park and came to a sudden, destructive stop.

Strike—now behind the wheel of the criminals’ convertible—was heading straight toward the crashed submarine, so he had to violently cut the wheel. Unable to regain control of the car, he drove off of a nearby dock and splashed into a river. The impact with the water caused him to hit his head on the dashboard, and he was knocked out cold. He was also entangled in the car’s seatbelt during the crash, and was unable to escape as the convertible sunk into the river and slowly filled with water.

Regaining his bearings inside the crashed Bolt Racer, Keplar blinked his eyes and looked around; the vehicle had morphed back into a sports car. As the dog tried to stop his head from spinning, he looked in the rear-view mirror.

Nova and Rigel had arrived on the scene, and they were approaching the Bolt Racer. Keplar closed his eyes and dropped his head against the steering wheel.

“Are they dead?” Nova asked, as he walked to the passenger side of the car.

Rigel leaned down and inspected Keplar.

“I doubt it,” Rigel said. “They are incredibly—”

Keplar sat up and opened his eyes.

“Morning!” he said, before grabbing Rigel by the back of his head and smashing his face against the car. The red giant was knocked backward, stumbling and holding his nose.

On the other side of the car, Nova looked up to see Rigel stumbling, then quickly looked down to the passenger window.

“Whoever you are,” Scatterbolt said, as he popped up from underneath the dashboard and held out his palm, “I really don’t like you.” Before Nova could duck, a basketball-sized glob of tar shot out from Scatterbolt’s palm. The gooey, black gunk stuck to Nova’s mask and blinded him, like a wad of chewed up, sticky bubble gum.

“I really am so glad to see you’re still alive, Rigel,” Keplar said, as he stepped out of the Bolt Racer. After rearing his foot back, he swung it forward and kicked Rigel in the gut, causing the red giant to double over. “After all, we didn’t get a chance to talk last time.” The dog then punched Rigel across the face, nailing him with a right hook. The giant fell to the ground, and Keplar stood over him.

“And, ya know what,” the dog said, removing a laser blaster from his waist, “I’ve got a few things I need to get off my chest.”

The dog powered up the blaster and pointed it at Rigel. The red giant was lying in the dirt, afraid, with the blaster inches from his face. The barrel of the weapon was glowing bright green.

“No,” Rigel said, holding his hands out. “No, Keplar. It’s me. It’s still me. It’s Marcus.”

Rigel’s red-skinned body changed—it shrunk down and changed color, and the giant’s face became human. He was no longer Rigel—he was now a young, frightened black man, about thirty years old, with his human-sized body practically lost in the green cloak.

The anger and concentration in Keplar’s face faded. His eyes narrowed, and his laser blaster dropped, away from the frightened man on the ground.

“I’m sorry, Keplar,” Marcus said. “I’m so...I’m screwed up. Please. Help me. Ask Orion to help me. Please.”

Keplar thought a moment, with his eyes focused and his jaw clenched. Finally, he depowered his gun, and the green glow around the laser blaster faded.

Marcus grinned. In an instant, his body reverted back to the red giant, and he kicked upward at Keplar with both feet. The husky was sent flying by the blow, and he crashed into a wall across the street before dropping to the dirt, unconscious.

“Keplar!” Scatterbolt shouted. The robot ran to his friend, but was quickly grabbed by Rigel and lifted into the air. The robot tried to fight back, firing globs of oil at the giant, but had no success. Rigel simply laughed.

Finally removing the black tar from his facemask, Nova looked to the sky; a helicopter was in the air hovering over them, shining its spotlight downward and illuminating the area.

“Too many eyes on us,” Nova said, as police sirens blared from a few streets away. “We need to get out of here.”

“Yes,” Rigel said, looking at the punching-and-kicking robot he was holding by the neck. “And we’ll bring him with us.”

“No!” Scatterbolt shouted. As Nova and Rigel began walking away, Scatterbolt opened a compartment on his chest and reached into his robotic insides. Soon, he pulled out an object: it was a golden sphere, covered in shining computer circuitry. After rearing his arm back, the robot heaved the sphere toward Keplar, and it rolled across the pavement and toward the dock where Strike had driven into the water. Seconds after the sphere left the robot’s hand, his body shut down; his eyes turned off, and his arms and legs went limp.

“Let’s go,” Rigel said, with the motionless robot dangling from his hand. With his other hand, the red giant reached into his cloak pocket and retrieved a black, chrome portal pistol. Pointing the shining pistol in front of him, he pulled its trigger and created a black, swirling portal of energy.

“Where’s Strike?” Nova said, as they walked toward the portal.

“No time to deal with the others; they will have to wait until later.”

The two villains stepped into the portal, and it closed after them. They—and Scatterbolt—were gone.

Near the dock, Scatterbolt’s golden sphere was still lying on a patch of grass—until Adrianna picked it up. The beautiful, purple-garbed girl looked over the sphere, before noticing tire tracks on the dock leading into the water. Bubbles were rising to the surface from the darkness of the river below.

Putting the sphere into one of her pockets, Adrianna sprinted across the dock, leapt off of it, and dove into the water. Swimming downward, she followed the bubbles until she saw a car—it was sinking downward, with its nose toward the bottom of the river and its brake lights glowing toward her. The vehicle was a convertible, and inside she could see Strike in the driver’s seat—he was tangled in the seat belt, floating and unconscious.

Knowing she only had a few seconds, Adrianna kicked her feet and swam down to Strike. Reaching into the car, she used a knife to cut the seat belt around the hero, and then pulled him free. After holding his unmoving body against her, she pushed herself off the car with her feet, looked up, and swam toward the moonlight above.

With a desperate gasp, Adrianna broke the surface of the water and pulled Strike into the open air. After swimming with him to the shore, she threw him down onto the riverbank. His mask had fallen off, and she saw that the teenage boy’s face was blue and his lips were purple. Dropping to her knees, she leaned over and began giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, before sitting him up and giving him the Heimlich maneuver. Finally, after feeling the boy move, she let go of him just as he coughed violently and fell to the dirt. After vomiting a few gallons of water, he looked up, confused and disoriented.

“Yes,” Adrianna said, smiling down at him, “I just saved your butt again.”

Tobin nodded, then spit up more water. He was starting to remember: the car chase; Keplar and Scatterbolt crashing in the submarine; driving the convertible off the dock. And now here he was, with the beautiful, dark-haired girl from the hotel rooftop. And he was pretty sure they had just made out. Technically.