The Secret War (Jack Blank Adventure) (15 page)

Jack looked across the river and saw that Skerren and Allegra were both okay. He sighed with relief and turned around to float on his back as the current carried him and his friends safely away.

The river shallowed out and the current slowed as Jack, Skerren, and Allegra approached the area below Hypnova’s ship. The group came up on an empty riverbank and got out of the water. Jack stood and turned his messenger bag upside down on the ground. All the electronic devices he’d brought along, including the remaining Nuclear Knuckles glove on his left hand, were shorted out. Ruined. “So much for my bag of tricks,” he said to himself.

“This way,” Skerren said, heading off toward a light that could be seen off in the distance.

“C’mon,” Allegra said to Jack, and followed Skerren.

Jack hustled after his friends as they hiked up the ridge. He caught up with them, and rubbed up and down on his arms to warm up as they walked along the river’s edge. He felt chilled to his bones. It was a cold night in the woods, and being soaked from the river made it worse. The creepy, dark forest oozed out a feeling of mysterious dread. Jack didn’t like it there, but it was exactly the kind of place he’d expected Secreteers to gather. The three of them kept following the river toward Hypnova’s ship. Sure enough, he heard what sounded like voices up ahead. A lot of voices, in fact.

Jack, Skerren, and Allegra quieted down as they closed in on a rocky crag that the river ran over as it headed out of sight. The voices were coming from the other side. Inch by inch Jack and the others crawled toward the lip of the stone ledge and took cover behind a row of thorn bushes. They looked down on a clearing in the forest. The land before them fell away with a steep decline, and the river narrowed into a tight stream that ran through a rocky gorge. The rock walls on either side of the river had smooth grooves that lined their stone faces with long,
straight rows, the kind of erosion that was the work of years and years. The trees were all set back from the gorge, and the fog lingered back with them as if an invisible fence were keeping it in place.

Without any fog there to muddle his view, Jack could see at least two dozen robed figures standing atop the ridge walls on both sides of the water. The soft glow of the Gravenmurk mist lit the figures from behind, turning them into silhouettes with glowing eyes that seemed to float in the darkness beneath the hoods of their cloaks. There was no question who they were. Secreteers. Lots of them. Jack doubted anyone had ever seen so many in one place.

“There,” Skerren whispered, pointing at a shadowy figure a hundred yards away. He was standing on a natural stone bridge that connected the two rock walls of the gorge. All the Secreteers were watching him. Moonlight twinkled like glitter on the surface of the water beneath his feet as it shone down to reveal his shape and size. He wore the same robes as the other Secreteers, only his were open. A golden clasp at his collar held the dark purple cloak in place, and the enveloping shroud seemed impossibly large as it fluttered in the breeze. Beneath his vestments he wore
all black. His hood was up, and a mask covered his mouth and nose. Unknowable eyes stared out from the blackness within. The children all looked at one another in silence. There was no mistaking him…. It was Obscuro.

Moments later the row of Secreteers on the right parted at the center, and a person who appeared to be their leader stepped forward. “Traitor!” she called out. “Do not attempt to flee this place. You are outnumbered and overmatched. Your time of judgment is at hand.”

The head Secreteer threw back her hood, revealing an angry face with smooth, graceful features, pale skin, and flowing white hair.

“Oblivia,” Obscuro said, giving a formal bow. “So good of you to come. It’s an honor.” His voice sounded positively reptilian.

“You seem almost glad to see me,” Oblivia said.

“Of course,” Obscuro replied. “I would have taken offense if anyone other than the matriarch of our order had dared to try to apprehend me.”

A murmur ran through the contingent of Secreteers, no doubt bristling at Obscuro’s nerve and ego. Oblivia silenced them all with a wave of her hand.

“You know better than that, Obscuro,” she said. “We have not come to ‘try,’ and we are not here to ‘apprehend.’”

Oblivia nodded to her fellow Secreteers, and they slowly advanced on Obscuro’s position.

“For hundreds of years the Clandestine Order has guarded the hidden truths of this planet,” Oblivia declared. “Your betrayal threatens not only our sacred mission but also the very existence of our order. Your selfishness and cowardice are unacceptable. You cannot be trusted to keep the real secrets of this world—to hold the line between the imaginary and the real.” As the Secreteers closed in on Obscuro, blocking off his exit on both sides of the bridge, Oblivia prepared to render her final judgment. “For breaking your vows and violating the most sacred tenets of our order … for the damage you have already done to our cause and our good name, your life, Obscuro … is forfeit.”

Obscuro let out a terse laugh. “All life on this planet is forfeit, Oblivia. The Rüstov are going to win this war. You know that as well as I.”

“I know of no such thing,” Oblivia replied.

Obscuro waved his hand. “Have it your way, then.
Your decision is final? Your mind made up?”

“The only choice in this matter was yours, Obscuro. You’ve sealed your own fate, and your lack of remorse leaves me with no regrets,” she told her former acolyte. “Take him!” she ordered.

Allegra grabbed Jack’s hand. This secret gathering was about to turn into an execution. “What are we going to do?” she whispered. “We can’t just let them kill him!”

“How do you propose we stop them?” Skerren asked. “Obscuro broke his vows. He knew what he was getting himself into.”

“If they kill him, we’re back at square one,” Jack said. “We need to know what he knows. He’s the only Secreteer who’ll tell us anything about Glave and the virus.”

“I know, but how are we supposed to save him?” Skerren asked. “I count at least twenty Secreteers down there, and there’s only three of us. Four, if you count Obscuro, who doesn’t even know we’re here or what our intentions are.”

Jack grumbled to himself. Skerren had a point.

The Secreteers closed in on Obscuro’s left and right flanks, and he jumped down from the bridge, landing on
the stone riverbank. They followed him down, surrounding him.

“There’s no escape,” Oblivia said. “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

“I’m afraid I have to if I want to go on living,” Obscuro replied. “My continued survival is quite important to me. That
is
the reason behind all of this, you know. It’s also why I brought
them
.”

“Them?” Oblivia asked.

The Rogue Secreteer clapped his hands, and a legion of supervillains stepped out of the mist on the ridge walls, taking up positions in the places the Secreteers had just vacated. Obscuro was no longer outnumbered and over-matched. If anything, he’d just outwitted his pursuers, luring them down to his level on the riverbank while his henchmen took the high ground above them.

“I’d like you to meet some of the people I’ve been forced to associate with as of late,” Obscuro told his fellow Secreteers. “I know it’s nothing to be proud of, but I’ve had to make certain sacrifices to avoid being sacrificed myself. I’m ready to leave this world, Oblivia, but not the way you have in mind.”

Jack, Skerren, and Allegra stared on, aghast at the stunning turn of events.

“Supercriminals,” Allegra said. “There’s so many of them.”

“He must have been selling secrets for a while now,” Jack whispered.

“That would explain the crime wave,” Skerren agreed. “And look who’s here,” he added. “Some old friends.” Skerren pointed out Pain, Fugazi, and Backstab among the throng of supervillains that had emerged on the scene. Jack looked over the rest of the superpowered felons, noting some former Peacemakers and straight-up bad guys there as well. Jack saw Tiki Man, Albatross, Celsius, Arsenal, Fist, Battlecry, and Onyx, just to name a few. They were all heavy hitters. The one villain he did not see was Lorem Ipsum.

Despite the sudden evening of the odds, Oblivia remained undaunted when Obscuro’s mob emerged from the fog. One fierce look from her was all it took to make the villains closest to her step back. “You’ve been expecting us,” she said to Obscuro.

“I knew you’d come calling sooner or later,” Obscuro
admitted. “As a precaution I’ve altered the memories of a few clients here and there. The way they remember things, their job is to protect me. They think they’re part of my gang.” Obscuro shrugged. “I suppose in a way that’s true now, isn’t it?”

“It won’t save you,” Oblivia replied.

Obscuro flipped back up onto the stone bridge and raised his hand in a bring-it-on motion toward Oblivia. “Do your worst,” he said.

Oblivia and her Secreteers did exactly that. They attacked with artful deception and a complete lack of mercy, wielding bats, clubs, and staffs. Hidden safely behind the thorn bushes, Jack, Skerren, and Allegra watched eruptions of smoke run through the gorge in waves as Secreteers vanished and then reappeared, blind-siding their enemies over and over. They moved like ninja ghosts, striking hard and fading away fast, only to reappear again moments later in clouds of smoke, attacking from new angles.

Obscuro and his supervillain cronies met the Secreteers blow for blow. Obscuro’s brainwashed allies returned fire with a diverse array of creative violence. Onyx, the giant
black stone man, swung away with his large, powerful fists. Keystone, who had the power to break his enemies into hundreds of equal-size pieces with a single touch, was dismantling every Secreteer he could get his hands on. Tiki Man, a tribal shaman wearing a large wooden mask and grass skirt, was throwing cursed weapons at the Secreteers from a satchel he carried over his shoulder. His bag of tricks seemed positively bottomless, and dozens of other villains were there, every one of them attacking with equal ferocity.

Jack didn’t know what to do next. Everything was happening so fast. “Now what?” he asked the others. “If we help the Secreteers, we make it easier for them to kill Obscuro. If we help Obscuro …” Jack shook his head. “What are we going to do, fight alongside supervillains? We can’t do that.”

“Maybe we’re better off sitting this one out,” Allegra said. “Take our chances with whoever’s left standing.”

Skerren shook his head. “I’ve got unfinished business with some of the villains down there. I’m not sitting anything out. This is what we train for.”

Jack thought about that for a second. Skerren was right
again. “I say we help the Secreteers,” he said. “Maybe if we help them, they’ll help us.”

“If we go in there now, we’re just as likely to get attacked by one side as the other,” Allegra said.

“We can’t just stand by and do nothing,” Skerren said.

“Let’s see what I can do from up here before we rush into anything,” Jack said. The inventions he’d brought with him might have been gone, but there were plenty of supervillains down there with powers he could mess with just by thinking about it. “Just give me a minute,” Jack said, looking over the battlefield for a target.

First came Albatross, the living tank. Jack remapped his weapons systems to target supervillains instead of Secreteers. A few people in the battle down below seemed surprised when one of Albatross’s missiles crashed into Pain, but the Secreteers didn’t miss a beat. They stopped attacking Albatross straightaway. As long as he was taking out his own teammates, they were happy to let him do it. Next came Fist and Battlecry, two more Peacemakers who had gone bad. Jack used his powers to short out the controls on Battlecry’s sonic weaponry, causing him to blast his allies. After that, Jack took control of Fist’s oversize bionic
arm and made him punch himself in the face a few times.

Unfortunately, the more Jack used his powers, the more obvious it became that there was a hidden player on the battlefield. Arsenal, a supersoldier-mercenary who carried every sort of weapon imaginable, furrowed his brow when one of his laser guns misfired. He switched to a new weapon and looked around, curious. When that one didn’t work, he threw it away and went for another.

Jack enjoyed frustrating Arsenal’s efforts as he grabbed gun after gun. The man was an infamous assassin, rotten to the very marrow of his spine, and Jack was thrilled to be using what he’d learned in class on him. Jack had learned loads about machines and weapons over the past year. He was a force to be reckoned with, using his powers to save the Secreteers’ lives, but he wasn’t paying attention to the little details. He realized too late that as Arsenal fired each new weapon, trying to shoot Secreteers, he wasn’t really aiming. Arsenal was looking around the forest each time he pulled the trigger.

“Jack …,” Allegra began. “Something’s wrong. He’s not looking where he’s shooting.”

“Who, Arsenal?” Jack asked, only half paying attention.
“Good. That means he’s not hitting anybody.”

“No, Jack,” Allegra said. “It means he’s not looking at his targets. He’s looking—”

“For us,” Skerren said as Arsenal turned and focused on the three of them.

“Down!” Allegra yelled as Arsenal took out throwing knives, something Jack couldn’t manipulate with his powers, and threw them with deadly accuracy. She morphed into a shield, blocking the daggers.

“There!” Arsenal called out, pointing up at the thorn bush that Jack, Skerren, and Allegra were no longer hidden behind. The battle ground to a halt for a split second as all eyes turned to look up at the children.

“Get them!” Obscuro screamed at his minions.

“You heard the man,” Arsenal shouted. “Get the kids! We’re gonna need hostages if we want to get out of here!”

With that, the entire focus of the fight turned from the Rogue Secreteer to Jack, Skerren, and Allegra. Bursts of smoke blasted out of the ground all around Jack and his friends as the Secreteers rushed to them. One of them grabbed Jack off his feet and pulled him close. “What are you doing here?” she screamed. “I told you we were going
to handle this!” Beneath the shadows of her hood, Jack could see it was Hypnova. Oblivia appeared at her side almost immediately.