The Secret War (Jack Blank Adventure) (5 page)

Up on the roof of the train, Pain was still getting beat down by Blue and Ricochet. “
You’re
waiting?” he yelled back. “Where’s Lorem? We’re getting our butts kicked up here!”

Speedrazor looked up and over at the girl speeding on the AirSkimmer. When he saw her typing away on her phone’s keypad instead of helping, he absolutely lost it.

“Are you kidding me?” Speedrazor cried out. Unable to do anything more with the train’s cargo, Jack watched Speedrazor run up the canyon wall and come out on the ledge next to the AirSkimmer. “Lorem!” he shouted at the girl as he ran alongside her. “We didn’t bring you along for your sparkling personality, you know. Are you planning on joining us, or what?”

“In a minute,” the girl replied, waving him off with one hand while texting her friends with the other.

In a flash Speedrazor was on the AirSkimmer. He snatched her phone away with his superfast hands and threatened to drive a claw through it. “Now,” he said.

The girl rolled her eyes at Speedrazor and shook her
head. “Fine,” she said, standing up on the speeding aircraft. She stretched lazily for a moment, and then leaped onto the moving train. She executed a dazzling acrobatic routine, flipping over and around Blue, Ricochet, and Skerren. The girl tagged them all before they even knew what hit them.

“Lorem?” Midknight said when he saw her flying through the air. “Lorem Ipsum? Is that you?”

The girl touched down in front of Midknight, who had taken most of the fight out of Fugazi. She dove at him instead of replying. Midknight rolled backward, barely evading her touch. He counterattacked with his nightsticks, trying to keep her back, but she was even faster than he was. Jack was impressed by her grace and agility. Midknight was one of the best fighters he’d ever seen, and he couldn’t lay a hand on her. Midknight clearly shared Jack’s admiration for his opponent’s skills. “Lorem,” he told the girl sadly as she ducked underneath his fist, “you had such potential.”

“Ugh,” the girl scoffed. “Spare me.” She jumped up and flipped over Midknight’s head, reaching down toward him as she went.

Although Midknight’s bulletproof supersuit protected him against most physical attacks, when Lorem’s fingers skidded across the helmetlike mask he wore to hide his face, her pinkie finger grazed his cheek, and that was it. The fight was over.

Midknight opened his mouth and said,
“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet… Consectetur? Adipisicing elit! Sed!”

Lorem Ipsum just laughed. “You can say that again,” she replied.

“Do eiusmod tempor!”
Midknight continued, struggling to speak.
“Incididunt ut labore et! Dolore magna aliqua!”
He seemed unable to say anything but gibberish.

It was the same for the other heroes, too. They were all disoriented and unable to communicate with one another. It was just the opening Speedrazor and his superpowered hijackers needed.

Backstab got up and plunged her synapse-scrambling fingers into Midknight and Skerren. Fugazi ripped a headlight off the train and shined it through an oil-free hand, blinding Ricochet and Blue. Pain took the opportunity to slow down the train in a way Jack had never thought of trying. He threw Blue underneath it.

As Blue’s massive frame tore up the tracks, the cars all careened into the canyon walls, making a horrible screeching noise as the train ground to a halt. Sparks shot out everywhere as Pain ran back to the last car, shoved Jack and Allegra to the side, and ripped apart the coupling that connected the caboose to the crashing train.

Speedrazor grabbed hold of the cargo car and told Pain to forget about loading it anywhere. He started running the car down the tracks in the other direction, with his superstrong legs pushing it along easily. As he ran he told his cronies to take the AirSkimmer and get out of there. Allegra and Jack were powerless to stop them.

“Jack, he’s getting away!” Allegra yelled. “What do we do?”

“What
can
we do?” Jack asked. He threw his hands up, exasperated. He had one job on this mission—to keep that cargo out of Speedrazor’s hands. Right now he was failing at it, but he had an idea. “There is one thing …,” he said, trailing off.

Allegra looked at Jack. “What one thing?”

Jack shook his head.

“Do it!” Allegra shouted. “Whatever it is, just do it!”

Jack hesitated. He didn’t know how this would go over with the others, but he couldn’t ask permission. The mentor heroes couldn’t even talk. Jack didn’t know what Speedrazor had in that train car, but whatever it was, Jack couldn’t let him get away with it. He had one chance to stop him. He was still controlling both halves of the
Knightwing
, and the top half, the one still up in the air, was armed to the teeth.

Jack fired a series of shots from the
Knightwing
gunship. The cargo car that Speedrazor was running off with exploded in a fireball, and when the smoke cleared, the former Peacemaker’s unconscious body was sprawled across the train tracks. As the rest of Speedrazor’s gang escaped in the AirSkimmer, Jack got a good look at their shocked faces. They couldn’t believe what he’d just done. Lorem Ipsum was laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world. She was definitely a strange one. The villains sped out of sight, leaving their ringleader behind, and Jack and his friends turned their attention to the wreckage of the train.

Later, when Lorem’s gibberish touch wore off, the adults told Jack he’d done the right thing, and he’d done
the wrong thing. “It’s good that you stopped the heist,” Midknight told him. “But you destroyed the cargo in order to save it. Doesn’t make much sense, does it, son?”

“No, I guess not,” Jack admitted, feeling pretty foolish.

“We don’t even know what was in there,” Ricochet added. “It could have been anything.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said. “Really. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Blue gave Jack a pat on the back. “Don’t beat yourself up too much, partner. You’re learning. That’s what this is all about. Besides, no one got hurt except Speedrazor. You knocked him into next week, and that’s always a good thing.” Blue put up a fist for Jack to bump.

Jack smiled and gave Blue’s fist a pound. “Thanks, Blue. I just wish I’d been able to get Pain in there with him. I mean, the guy threw you under a train. That’s not cool.”

Blue rubbed his neck and turned to look over at the mangled train cars. “Forget Pain. We’ve got other stuff to worry about,” he said, wincing. “Check it out.”

Jack looked over at the wrecked bullet train and the flabbergasted people who were slowly staggering out of it
with their mouths agape. They were people from the Real World. People who weren’t supposed to know anything about superheroes, supervillains, or any other residents of the Imagine Nation.

“Blue,” Jack said, “we don’t have any cover out here.”

“Tell me about it,” Blue replied grimly. “This is a job for the Secreteers.”

After the crash about thirty-five people stepped off the wrecked train in a state of total, wide-eyed shock. No one appeared to be seriously injured, but they had all seen way too much. Some of them were even taking pictures with their cell phone cameras. That kind of thing wasn’t a concern when Jack and his friends fought the CyberRaiders in Machina, or when they ran the Doppelganger Gang out of Hightown. People were used to superfights in those places.

“What happens now?” Jack asked. “Are we going to get
in trouble for this?” It was the first time Jack had ever had to deal with Real World witnesses. So far he didn’t like it. One of the first things Jack learned about in the School of Thought were the laws of intervention and secrecy. They were the two guiding principles that governed any and all contact the Imagine Nation had with the outside world. Jack and the others had clearly violated at least one of them.

The law of intervention maintained that interfering with the lives of normal humans was permissible only in order to help them. This law was strictly enforced by the heroes of the Imagine Nation, and regularly broken by the villains they met in battle. The law of secrecy decreed that no direct proof of the Imagine Nation’s existence was ever to be left behind in the Real World. Real Worlders weren’t ready to know about the Imagine Nation or the extraordinary wonders and dangers within it. For more than five hundred years, the Clandestine Order of Secreteers had made certain they didn’t, usually by cleaning up messes like the one Jack and his friends currently found themselves in.

“Don’t worry,” Midknight assured Jack. “This kind of thing comes with the territory. Besides, we’re out in the middle of nowhere right now. This is containable.”

“It’s
quite
containable,” Ricochet said, agreeing with Midknight. “But it doesn’t really matter where we are. We don’t get to plan out the emergencies we respond to, Jack. We do our part to save lives and defend justice. That’s our job. Covering our tracks is someone else’s responsibility.”

Jack nodded slowly, giving Ricochet a curious look. He agreed that saving lives and upholding the law had to be prioritized above all else, but her carefree attitude toward the witnesses took him by surprise. Allegra apparently felt the same way.

“Ricochet, I don’t mean to be rude, but …” Allegra paused and looked up at her mentor, unsure if she should continue.

Ricochet turned to her sidekick with an understanding smile. “It’s perfectly all right, Allegra. You never have to be afraid to ask me anything.”

“In that case,” Allegra continued, “aren’t we being a little casual about all this? What about the laws of secrecy?”

“Forgive me, I don’t mean to be so cavalier,” Ricochet replied. “The laws of secrecy are very important, and I certainly don’t wish to make more work for the Secreteers. I’m simply saying that we have to focus on our job and
allow them to focus on theirs. You may think I seem overly calm about all this, but it’s only because they’re so very good at what they do.”

“How exactly are they going to do what they do?” Jack asked. “This isn’t the kind of thing these people are going to forget anytime soon. Shouldn’t we at least call the Secreteers and tell them what’s going on here?”

“You don’t call Secreteers, Jack. They just show up,” Blue replied. “Trust me, they know to come here. They know everything.” Blue tugged on his collar and looked around, hunching his shoulders with an uneasy look on his face. “Creeps me out, to tell you the truth.”

“Really?” Jack asked. He was surprised to hear Blue admit that he got creeped out by anything, let alone the Secreteers, who were supposed to be good guys.

“The Secreteers have dedicated their lives to guarding over the Imagine Nation’s secrets,” Skerren said. “Are you saying that you—”

“I’m saying that I don’t
like
secrets,” Blue said, interrupting Skerren. “It’s hard to trust people who keep secrets. Especially people who keep as many as they do.”

Jack froze up at Blue’s comment. He shifted from one
foot to the other, hoping that someone else would back up Skerren’s point, because he wasn’t going to touch it. Fortunately, Midknight chimed in and broke the silence.

“Easy, big fella,” Midknight said to Blue. “You’re just not used to working with them yet. When you’ve been through as many of these Real World jobs as Ricochet and I have, you’ll see it’s no big deal. The Secreteers are harmless. We just have to take care of these people until they get here.” Midknight clapped his hands and started giving orders again. “Let’s go, team. First aid kits are on board the glider. Let’s break ’em out and make sure everyone’s okay.”

At Midknight’s direction, Jack and the others tended to the train’s wounded passengers while they waited for the Secreteers to arrive. Everyone was pleasantly surprised to find that the train’s crash-safety measures were just as advanced as the engine Jack couldn’t talk to. A few ugly bruises and scrapes aside, the riders were all doing fine. Almost too fine. They were all well enough to work their cameras and were snapping pictures and recording video like tourists in a theme park. Having grown up as a comic book fan in the Real World, Jack sympathized with their
desire to take away some proof of an encounter with costumed superheroes, but he figured the Secreteers had enough to clean up already. He used his powers to delete all the pictures as they were taken. Jack was amazed that the Secreteers managed to keep the Imagine Nation hidden, with all the high-tech gadgets people had these days. He was excited to finally see one and find out how they did it.

Once all the passengers were taken care of, Skerren pried open one of the broken shipping crates that had been thrown off the train in the crash. “‘Intelligent Designs,’” he read off the stylish blue and white boxes that spilled out and piled up at his feet. “What’s that?” he asked Jack.

Jack picked up one of the boxes and examined its sleek corporate logo. He knew the brand well. “They’re a big company out here,” he told Skerren. “They make computers. High-tech toys. Things like that.” Jack looked around and saw more of those very same toys scattered around the crash site. There were smart phones, desktop computers, laptops, and more. Were these what Speedrazor’s gang had been trying to steal? That didn’t seem right.

“What’s wrong?” Allegra asked Jack, picking up on his puzzled expression.

Jack shook his head. “Nothing. I’m just surprised the train’s technology was so advanced. Intelligent puts out some real high-end stuff, but this train … this was another level. Either they’re way ahead of themselves or I’m falling behind.”

Allegra nodded. “I guess that explains it.”

Jack turned to look at Allegra. “Explains what?”

“You getting frustrated and going nuclear out here. When I told you ‘just do it,’ I didn’t think you were going to blow up the whole train.”

Jack tilted his head and smirked at Allegra. “I didn’t blow up the
whole
train,” he replied, smiling. “I just blew up the most valuable thing on it.”

Allegra laughed. “Right. That’s
much
better.”

Jack laughed along with her. “I had to do something. My powers were getting me nowhere on this mission. It was embarrassing.”