The Strike Trilogy (65 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

I
n the park outside of the Trident, the battle was nearly over. As Tobin crouched behind a fountain, pressing his back against the marble and holding his ribs, he scanned Boston Common. Heroes—and his friends—lay strewn about the scorched earth. To his left, he saw Junior, ripped from his mech suit and slumped against a railing, with his eyes closed. To his right, he saw Agent Everybody, laying face down on the ground and motionless, with his ray gun a few inches from his fingers. Tobin had no way of knowing who was dead and who was still alive.

Groaning and shifting his body, the boy kneeled on one leg. Over the top of the fountain, he could see a squadron of Eradicators, marching the remaining Rytonian Rebels toward the skyscraper. The rebels were chained at their wrists and shackled at their ankles. At the other end of the park, every few moments, Tobin could see a giant red flash, snapping brightly in between the buildings in the east. This meant the survivors and the wounded heroes were retreating back to Capricious.

Reaching up, grimacing through the pain, Tobin pushed the button on his earpiece and spoke into his communicator.

“Keplar. Keplar, can you hear me? Where are you?”

Nearby, Keplar was standing near a stretcher in one of the buildings along the side of the park. He and Ida were trying to force Orion to stay in the stretcher, but the old man was resisting, reaching for his bow and arrows.

“I’m with the medics,” Keplar said into his communicator. “I had to get the old man and bring him in here. He got hit pretty bad. Where are you?”

“I’m in the Common,” Tobin said. “I’m not sure who’s left.”

“Krandor, kid,” Keplar snapped, his hand on Orion’s shoulder. “You gotta get out of there. We need to regroup, get back to Capricious, and come up with another tactic. This one is shot to hell.”

“Nope,” Tobin said, sitting in the dirt. “I’m facing him now. Rigel has to be stopped. Get who you can together and give me some backup.”

Keplar thought it over. He looked around the medic building. There weren’t many heroes left: just Mad Dog John, Adrianna, Aykrada, and a few of King Ontombe’s animal warriors.

“Damn, kid,” Keplar said, shaking his head. “If this is how you want to go out, I’m there. Just give me a second. We’ll be right there.”

As Tobin released the button on his earpiece, Rigel hovered over to him, surrounded by the blue, electrified flames.

“It’s over, Tobin,” the red giant said. “The fight you showed was admirable. But it is time for you to face your destiny.”

“It’s not over,” Tobin said, clutching his ribs and trying to stand. “It’s never gonna be over. Because I’m not gonna stop until Earth is safe. I’ll never stop.”

Rigel snickered from above. “Finally, I see why your father always made Vincent laugh.” He held out his arm. “Look around you, Tobin. You are the only one left. I have dismantled each and every one of you. It is time to give in. There comes a time when you must admit defeat.”

Tobin got to his feet, coughing and spitting up blood. “I’ll never give up. I’ll keep fighting for what I believe in until the day I die. You know why? You know who taught me that? Orion.”

Tobin stood as tall as he could and walked toward Rigel.

“You were given a gift when Orion came into your life, Rigel. He could have taught you. He could have helped you, guided you. But instead you became a whining, simpering, misguided little buffoon. And that’s all you’ll ever be, no matter what kind of delusions you have in that head of yours.”

The fire around Rigel grew. “You can talk all you want, Tobin. Just like your father. All he ever did was talk, and look where he ended up. There’s a reason why I’m here and your dad and the others are gone. There’s a difference between talking about what you’re going to do, and actually making it a reality.”

Tobin painfully removed his bo-staff from his back. “Can I at least get credit for using the word ‘simpering?’ That was the ‘word of the day’ on my calendar the other day. I thought that was pretty good.”

Rigel rose higher into the air, hovering directly above Tobin. “A change is here, Tobin. A change Vincent planned for and spoke about for nearly a century. The next phase of Earth has begun. And you will simply have to be something my people step over as they begin to rebuild Earth into a better world.”

With a ground-shaking roar, Rigel reared his burning hand back, letting the fire rage, and prepared to swoop down and blast the weakened Tobin.

“Rrrrraaaaaaarrrggghhh!”

But then, suddenly, the red giant stopped. He stayed there, motionless in the air a few feet above Tobin, as if frozen in his blue flames. His face was stuck, contorted into his angry roar, and his arm was raised behind him, his fingers spread open. He didn’t—or couldn’t—move a muscle.

Bewildered, Tobin looked around the Common. He saw that everything else in the park was also frozen in time. The flames on the trees were no longer flickering—they were simply standing still and pointing straight up into the sky. The Eradicators near the skyscraper were stuck in mid-march, with the captured rebels behind them also not moving, their shackled feet in mid-stride. Even the smoke rising off the ground and into the sky was still, as if someone had pushed pause on the area inside Boston Common.

As Tobin looked back to Rigel, the boy realized the only thing not stuck in time was himself—but even he couldn’t move very well. Stepping forward, he found that he was now moving in slow-motion, with his head filled with a strange fog, and a dull, constant hum vibrating in his ears.

Then, Tobin saw him. He was walking through the park and toward him from the entrance of the skyscraper. It was the Daybreaker. He was wearing his armor but not his helmet, and appeared to be completely unaffected by the freezing of time, moving across the grass at normal speed. However, he also appeared to be sickly and limping, dragging his armored left foot behind him as he walked. As he shuffled down the middle of the Common, he was clutching his arm across his stomach, as if even the simple act of walking was causing him to use all of his strength.

However, when the Daybreaker finally reached Tobin, the armored boy’s expression showed no pain, illness, or suffering. He simply stared at the mirror image of himself, with one arm dangling at his side.

Preparing himself to face the Daybreaker, Tobin forced his own arm to move in slow-motion and bring his bo-staff in front of him. However, he soon realized the Daybreaker was not going to attack him. He also realized the Daybreaker now looked less confused, less angry. As strange as it sounded, he now looked more like Tobin.

Then, with eyes locked forward, the Daybreaker slowly raised his armored hand and pointed at Tobin. After the Daybreaker’s arm burst with blue-and-white electricity, the energy soon traveled down his fingers and out at Tobin. Closing his eyes and preparing himself for the devastating blast, Tobin saw a bright, snapping, blue pop of lightning, and then darkness.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

W
hen the blue flash reappeared in his vision, Tobin opened his eyes and gasped for air. He found that he was now on his hands and knees in his bedroom in Bridgton, looking down at the carpet, with his lungs empty of oxygen. Snapping his head up and to his right, he saw the Daybreaker, who was standing with his arms crossed near the window.

“What the hell?” Tobin said, his voice hoarse as his throat filled with air. “Where are we?”

“We’re in your bedroom,” the Daybreaker said, completely unaffected. “I brought us here.”

Tobin got to his feet, his arms and legs wobbly. He shook his head, trying to clear the electric humming in his ears. “How did—how did you do that?”

“There’s lots of things I can do,” the Daybreaker said. “You can do them, too. We don’t just control electricity—we control all energy. Kinetic, gravitational, even temporal. Your powers—our powers—are limitless. I guess you haven’t learned that yet.”

Tobin looked across the room at the Daybreaker. “But why did you bring us here?” He walked to the window and looked out at his mom’s car, parked in the driveway. “What if someone sees us? Is my mom home?”

“Don’t worry, she’s downstairs,” the Daybreaker said. “She’s watching an Oprah special about the dome. She won’t bother us. She doesn’t know we’re here.”

The Daybreaker limped around the room, inspecting the movie posters on the walls, the empty cups and dirty plates on Tobin’s nightstand, and the video game systems hooked up to the flat-screen TV across the room. It was as if the Daybreaker was looking at—and remembering—a different life.

“Jennifer,” the Daybreaker began, “the Jennifer from this timeline—she told me what happened. How I’m not from this timeline.”

Tobin stared at him. “She did? Jennifer? When?”

The Daybreaker motioned with his head toward the window. “A few minutes ago, in the skyscraper. She came to see me. I think your robot friend brought her.”

“He did?” Tobin asked. He shook his head. That would have to wait for another time. He looked at the Daybreaker, squinting, as the Daybreaker walked around the room. “And do you believe her?”

The Daybreaker picked up a video game from Tobin’s shelf. It was a war game, showing a man in black fatigues wearing glowing, green, night-vision goggles. “I’m not sure yet,” the Daybreaker said, looking at the video game case. “But she knew things only she could know. And she showed me pictures. And if what she’s saying is true...”

The Daybreaker picked up a framed picture of his mother.

“I have to go back where I belong.”

Tobin stepped forward, eagerly taking advantage of the opportunity. “Yes, you do. And I can help you with that, actually.”

Tobin reached for the Chrono-Key stuck into the middle of his bo-staff. He popped the blue, translucent pocket watch out of the weapon and held it in front of him, showing it to the Daybreaker.

“This is what this whole thing has been about,” Tobin said. “This is what Rigel used to bring you here from the past. We were hoping by coming to Boston we could draw you out, so I could then somehow use this to send you back.”

The Daybreaker nodded. “I figured as much.” He took the Chrono-Key from Tobin. “This will send me back? This will work?”

“Yes,” Tobin said urgently. “And you need to go back right now. You’ve been gone from your timeline for two months, and in your timeline, Vincent Harris is still alive. You weren’t there to stop him. That’s what I was trying to tell you back in Boston. Who knows what Vincent has done to Earth since you’ve been gone.”

Holding the Chrono-Key in his hand, the Daybreaker gripped it tight and walked to a beanbag chair in the corner of the room, near the TV. He smiled, but with sadness.

“Do you remember when Mom used to sit there with us in the rocking chair after kindergarten and read us stories?” The Daybreaker stared at the beanbag. “Things were better then. Everything was better then.”

Tobin stepped forward, surprised by the comment. “I know...I know that might seem true—and maybe it is true—but things change. They have to. They can’t stay the same forever. That’s just what happens. And they can’t go back to how they used to be. They have to change. That much I know for sure.”

The Daybreaker looked at the beanbag chair, then walked to the window and looked out the blinds, prying them open with his finger.

“When you came to the skyscraper a few nights ago with your friends, the night of the party, you discovered two parts of our next phase. One of them was the trigulsaurs. Did you ever find out what the next part of the plan was?”

Tobin shook his head. “No. We found some maps of the stars and things like that, but that’s it. We couldn’t figure it out.”

The Daybreaker nodded. “We’re shutting down all travel between Capricious and Earth. Those maps you saw, with the markings? Those are over one thousand satellites, above the world of Capricious, that will prohibit all travel between worlds.”

Tobin stared at him, in shock, with his mouth dropped. “But you can’t...you can’t do that.”

“You won’t find the satellites,” the Daybreaker said. “No one will. They are out of the reach of even the space programs of Capricious. When they are active, no portals of any kind will open between worlds.”

Tobin looked at the ground, his eyes darting around the floor. He grew angry. “You can’t—you can’t do that!” He looked at the Daybreaker and walked toward him. “We—my friends and I—we
have
to be able to travel between worlds! To do what we do, to save people! Since I’ve been going back and forth with Orion and my other friends, look at how much good we have done! How many lives we’ve saved!”

The Daybreaker spun to him. “Really? Have you looked at Boston lately? Is that some of the ‘good’ that’s been done since the heroes and super-villains from Capricious have started traveling through portals to Earth? You think some of the people of Boston would disagree with you?”

Tobin shook his head. “But that’s not us. We do good work. Damn good work. To keep people safe, to keep them protected. I can’t do that without my friends from Capricious. I can’t do that without working with them. Orion and the others. They keep Earth safe.”

“These kinds of heroes and creatures and monsters should never have come here,” the Daybreaker said. “They don’t belong here. Travel between the two worlds should have never happened. Look at everything that’s happened since the first contact between the worlds was made. Earth was better off before all this started. For all the lives you saved, there’s been ten times the destruction.”

Tobin shook his head again. “That’s not true. That’s just not true.”

“It is true. And I’m putting a stop to it. Earth will be left alone, and so will Capricious.”

“You can’t do this!” Tobin shouted, slamming his fists against his sides. “I won’t let you!”

The Daybreaker walked toward Tobin’s bed. “I already have. The satellites were activated this morning. Five hours from now—at 5 o’clock tomorrow morning—all portals between Earth and Capricious will be shut down. They will be useless. For good. Make sure your friends and anyone else from Capricious knows that.”

Tobin sat down on the bed, overwhelmed, nearly in tears. “You can’t...you can’t do that. Please. Please.” He looked up at the Daybreaker. “You have no idea how much that will hurt Earth.”

“Earth will be better off. And so will you. None of this contact with Capricious should have happened. Your life—and my life—shouldn’t have been affected this way. And when I get back to my timeline, I’m going to shut down the portals there the same way.”

Tobin shook his head, his hands clasped in front of him. “You can’t...my friends. I need their help. Earth needs their help.”

“You’ll see that’s not true. You’ll see that this is for the best.”

The Daybreaker stood against the wall, in between the foot of Tobin’s bed and the door that led to the hallway outside.

“The reason Rigel is as powerful as he is now is because he and Nova were siphoning off my power,” the Daybreaker said. “I know that now. My powers—our powers—are transferable, and Rigel has transferred a great amount of my power into himself. Essentially, he’s as powerful as me. And much more powerful than you.”

The Daybreaker held out his armored hand. Tobin looked at it, then took it, as the Daybreaker helped him stand up. Suddenly, Tobin felt an electric tingling down his arm.

“The only way you’re going to have a chance of defeating Rigel is by fighting as hard as you can to access the deep recesses of your power,” the Daybreaker said. “You might think you’ve reached your limits, but you haven’t. You’ll have to try and access more. You’ll have to fight harder, if you want it. It’s the only chance you’ve got.

“After all that has happened to me, I can’t afford to give you much of my power, but when I helped you stand just now, I transferred some of my power to you—I helped your mind open to the possibilities, just a little bit. That’s all I can tell you. I hope everything works out for you here.”

The Daybreaker stepped back, standing only inches from the wall. He gripped the Chrono-Key in his hand. The outside of the watch began to glow bright blue, and its cogs and levers—visible through its back—began to spin and turn.

“I’m going back now,” the Daybreaker said. “Tell Jennifer I said thank you.”

Tobin nodded. The blue glow around the watch intensified and began to spread over the Daybreaker’s arms. But before he could go, Tobin held out his hand.

“Wait,” Tobin said. “I know...I know some terrible things have happened to you. And I can’t apologize for that enough. In some ways, this is all my fault. But don’t let this destroy you. Don’t let the choices of others define your life.”

The Daybreaker stared back at Tobin, then nodded slightly. The two Tobins locked eyes with each other, and stayed there, until the blue glow from the Chrono-Key spread all across the Daybreaker’s body. Finally, with a bright flash that cascaded out over Tobin and the entire room, the Daybreaker was gone.

Tobin stood in the middle of the room, staring at the wall. He looked at the hand the Daybreaker had touched when he helped him up off the bed.

“Tobin?” the boy’s mother called from the bottom of the stairs. “Is that you?”

“Yup,” Tobin called back, surprised, his voice cracking. “I’m just—I just have to head out for a bit.”