Virus Attack (16 page)

Pete had seen this too. The suspended animation had left him feeling groggy and his joints felt as if they were
still frozen solid, even bathed in the relatively warm river. He snarled in anger and thrust his hand at Basilisk, not really knowing if anything would happen—but remembering one of the first times he had ever used his powers.

A cone of ice shot out from his hand—and smashed into Basilisk with such force he was propelled backward. Pete released his rage in one long scream—something he had wanted to do since he discovered his parents were splitting up, his home had been destroyed, and he'd been kidnapped—and the scream didn't stop until Basilisk was trapped in a huge ball of ice that plummeted into the water.

The effort made Pete so weak that he no longer had the strength to keep himself afloat. Seconds later he felt arms around him and he was dragged to the riverbank. Only when he felt the pebbly riverbed beneath him did he risk looking around to see who his savior was. Emily beamed back at him.

“Good to see you again,” she said. Then they both glanced up to see the bizarre sight of a mini iceberg drifting past in the tropical jungle river, with Basilisk at the core.

The heroes regrouped on dry land, fighting for breath and grinning from ear to ear. Even in the early morning the humid atmosphere was oppressive, but the dip had cooled them down.

Toby helped Lorna sit upright; her arms and legs were numb from where the blast had ricocheted into her. But she assured Toby that the feeling was coming back.

“What just happened?” Pete asked, rubbing his joints to improve his circulation.

Toby filled him in on events. Then Lorna and Emily told them how Emily had remembered that the wristbands were controlling the powers stored inside them by
suppressing
them. By tearing off Lorna's wristband she had allowed the wild powers inside her to manifest—a risk, since they had no idea if she would be able to use the powers effectively, and losing the wristband would leave Lorna defenseless.

For his part, Pete had told them about the night with Basilisk, his parents, and the attack on his house. The others listened in guilty silence and gushed apologies once he had finished. Pete didn't respond. How could he, since he blamed them too? He first wondered if it was an aftereffect of being frozen alive, but then realized something had snapped inside him. He now knew the only person he could rely on was himself. He wasn't part of the team anymore. He'd be better off alone and would demand his own access to Hero.com.

But he kept these thoughts quiet. He'd talk to the others once this whole mess had been resolved.

Toby knew they still had to face Worm and the others, but there was some good news. “At least we got rid of that stone-faced supergoon, right?”

“Wrong!”

They spun around to see Basilisk rising from the water, sodden and disheveled. Lumps of ice clung to his cape and he tore his hood down, revealing a rapidly decaying face that might have been recognizable if his regeneration powers had been working. As he reached the bank, he raised a hand and shot an energy bolt at Pete.

Pete found himself pitched sideways as Emily crashed into him—taking the brunt of the blast.

“Em!” screamed Lorna—but she froze as Basilisk raised his hand toward her.

“Stop!” he commanded. “Or you'll die like your friend!”

Pete gritted his teeth and shot out his hand.

Nothing happened. He stared at his fingers, dumbstruck. He tried again and this time Basilisk burst into laughter.

“Your powers are nothing more than random residuals of the mighty Hero.com! Without the Web site they are withering, and will soon fade to nothing.”

Pete stood to face Basilisk as he approached. He tried another power—nothing.

“Come on, boy. Take your best shot.”

Basilisk opened his arms to provide the largest possible target. “Strike me down!”

Instead Pete delivered a kick to Basilisk's groin that would have toppled an elephant. Basilisk didn't flinch.

“You're useless. All of you. The Foundation's little foot soldiers have achieved nothing. How the mighty have fallen.”

He roughly pushed Pete to the ground.

“In fact I have no need to kill you. Why bother? I will let the jungle take you.”

Toby had been fingering his wristband. He knew the powers on it were defensive or stealth ones—but after a glance at Emily's prone body, there was no way he could let Basilisk walk away. He stabbed one button and felt the power transfer.

“We're going to bring you down, Basilisk,” he shouted.

Basilisk gave him a questioning look and opened his mouth to speak just as Toby extended his arms and wondered exactly what he'd selected.

His arms continued to extend like elastic and punched Basilisk across the jaw. Basilisk stumbled backward, not from the blow, but out of surprise. Toby's arms snapped back to normal and he tried a kick.

Basilisk's eyes glowed blue as Toby's leg shot out several feet and booted Basilisk forcefully into the river. Pete and Lorna joined in the attack by hurling rocks at
Basilisk. A few drew blood as they struck his head and the water around him turned pink.

“Enough!” screamed Basilisk. “Time for you to join your friend!”

He stood, using one stonelike arm to shield his bleeding forehead, and raised the other to fire.

There was a sudden explosion of water around Basilisk. Toby thought one of the others had unleashed a power against him. But then he saw a darker shape in the water—a huge crocodile sprang from the river, jaws open as it sensed blood. The splashing water obscured the brunt of the violence—but they all saw the jaws clamp across Basilisk's chest as he was dragged down into the water.

Lorna screamed in horror. Pete took the chance to run across to Emily's body and kneel by her.

“Lorn, we're getting out of here!” Toby shouted as he grabbed Lorna's arm, tearing her away from the river.

Basilisk was putting up a fight. He resurfaced, raising a stone arm and deflecting the crocodile's powerful bite. With his other hand he unleashed an energy bolt that heaved the beast from the river and threw it back into the water with a mighty splash. Basilisk roared with primeval victory.

But he didn't see the three other prehistoric hunters charge behind him. One clamped around his arm like a rabid dog, while the other bit his torso.

Unable to watch any longer, Lorna and Toby joined their friends.

“Hold on to me!” Toby instructed, and selected the teleport option from the wristband.

The last thing he saw was Basilisk being dragged into the churning water by ravenous crocodiles—an energy blast ripping one of the animals apart just as another came to take its place.

Then the heroes teleported out of Mexico.

The hard bucket seat was probably the most uncomfortable thing Toby had ever sat on, but he still found himself nodding off to sleep. His head slipped from where his arm propped it up, jolting him back awake. He looked around the drab waiting room and saw that Lorna had finally cried herself to sleep. Pete lay across several seats with his back to them all, but Toby was pretty sure he'd heard sniffling coming from him, too.

The auto-teleport device had been preprogrammed to bring them to a small, empty office in the middle of an industrial estate. A plump woman had watched them appear in midair, and smiled pleasantly, as though this kind of thing happened all the time. Which, for her, it probably did.

It turned out to be a Hero Foundation safe house, disguised as a plumbing supply distribution office. She immediately checked Emily for a pulse, and assured everybody that she was still alive. Barely. Then the
woman called for an ambulance. Toby was surprised when a few minutes later an air ambulance appeared and ferried them to a private Foundation hospital, one of many they were told were located in almost every country around the world.

Emily had been taken right away on a stretcher while Mr. Grimm greeted the others and took them to a private office where he debriefed them. They all found it difficult to answer Mr. Grimm's barrage of questions. The man didn't express even a modicum of emotion when they described Emily being struck down. If anything, he was annoyed that they had left without stopping Basilisk.

Fighting fatigue, Toby snapped at him. It was clear they didn't have the experience or even the range of powers to fight four seasoned supervillains, one of whom was so dangerous that he'd been in Diablo Island's
maximum
security wing. It was time the Primes came out of hiding to help.

“That won't happen. Even Chameleon has vanished,” Mr. Grimm replied.

Toby gasped in surprise. “What happened?”

Mr. Grimm shrugged. “He risked his life and it seems he paid the price. As I feared, the balance has been broken. Anarchy is slowly breaking out on a global scale.”

Silence filled the room. Toby felt sick. Chameleon had been his mentor and the only Prime, aside from
Mr. Grimm, who had spared any time to talk to them. He glanced at Lorna and Pete. They looked crestfallen. Mr. Grimm turned on a TV in the corner of the room. It played a muted news channel, but the images said it all. Reporters stood in front of burning buildings and streets trashed from terrible fights. Mr. Grimm took a sip of water, then steepled his fingers as he continued.

“In the last twenty-four hours virtually every city around the world has experienced a supercrime attack. They're mostly high-profile robberies and kidnappings. Every attack has the Council of Evil's signature. Global military forces are on high alert and of course, the public is being kept in the dark as much as possible. It's all being blamed on gang warfare and terrorists.” A frown creased his smooth brow. “Which was difficult when the Statue of Liberty was destroyed and the president of the United States kidnapped by the Hunter.”

Toby rubbed his eyes as he saw the image on TV: the iconic Lady Liberty was lying in pieces. What could
they
possibly do to strike back without stable superpowers?

“A small detachment of Enforcers has been deployed to try to round up Basilisk's gang. Hopefully you have weakened them enough. But if they fail, then it falls to you to stop them.”

Toby shook his head. “So you keep saying. But there's nothing we can do!”

“You're a team. We each have our part to play. That was the understanding when you signed up for Hero.com. That formed a contract of trust, honesty, and loyalty.”

“Ha! Right!” snapped Pete. “I think you have the wrong group for that. They're qualities we don't have.” Pete shot Mr. Grimm the sort of dirty look that he usually reserved for the backs of bullies, and once again Toby wondered how much Pete's parents' split was affecting his friend. “We're a terrible team. We're just a group of kids who don't know what we're doing! I even wonder if
you
know what you're doing—you put Toby in charge! What about me? I read all the comic books, I know we're supposed to coordinate our attacks and work together. Instead we're just running around improvising every time there's a problem! You keep yapping on about a balance when the truth is more like every man for himself. Otherwise you'd be risking your own life instead of ours.”

The telephone rang, breaking the tense atmosphere. Mr. Grimm swooped it up. He didn't say a word before replacing the handset.

“Emily is conscious. The doctors here are skilled in assisting hyperenergy-related wounds and have begun a regeneration process for her. She'll be as good as new in a few hours. You should take this time to rest.”

“Can we go home?” Toby asked eagerly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Pete go rigid.

“No.” Mr. Grimm saw their expressions, and held up a slim hand in reassurance. “Your families are perfectly safe. But you still have a mission to finish if the Enforcers fail.”

An orderly led them to the waiting room where they were given some food in sterile plastic trays. Lorna didn't like it; it tasted as if the flavor had been sucked from every molecule. She had retrieved her cell phone from Pete, and despite the freezing and dunking it had received, it had dried out and worked perfectly, even if the screen was now cracked. She was delighted to see that she had several voice-mail messages.

Lorna left the room to make a call and answered Toby's questioning glance with: “Don't worry; I'm not calling Mom and Dad.”

“So who are you calling?”

“A friend,” she mumbled, and quickly exited.

“Boyfriend,” Pete stated bluntly.

Toby didn't feel like talking to Pete after his outburst. He stared at the ceiling and prayed that the Enforcers could capture or kill Worm and the others. If not, he and his friends were supposed to save the world from complete anarchy.

Toby couldn't shake the feeling that the world was doomed.

* * *

Trojan and Viral swapped uneasy glances as they were rocked in their red velvet seats aboard the
Nematode
. Worm was at the controls and they could see nothing but black earth passing the bug-eyed windows and hear the occasional clang of rocks striking the bronze hull. They glanced back at Basilisk, who was strapped flat on the floor, like a piece of cargo.

“They're not following,” Worm declared with some relief.

Less than an hour earlier Trojan and Viral had escaped from the burning control room by climbing down the side of the pyramid. They had rejoined Worm in the clearing and watched as an angry orange fireball ripped off the top of the pyramid.

“There goes our HQ,” said Trojan wistfully. “I kind of liked it.”

“Good riddance to my prison,” snapped Worm, who had only used the facility after Basilisk had convinced him that they required a base for operations.

With her powers recharged, Trojan had volunteered to search for Basilisk in the jungle. Quantum shifting on her own meant she could make more trips than if she had to take others. After fifteen minutes of fruitless hunting she had stepped out on a riverbank and discovered Basilisk washed up and surrounded by
several dead crocodiles. She had carefully approached, aware that there were more of the reptiles lurking in the water.