Council of Evil (17 page)

The president reached across and booted up a computer on the corner of his desk. He typed in a sixteen-digit password, and moments later he accessed a program that decrypted the incoming transmission. It showed a silent video clip of the terrorist's demands.

“Both the picture and audio were digitally altered,” continued the voice. “But by a complex process of reversing the algorithms used, we have this.”

The pixelated image shifted; millions of tiny pixels moved into the correct position like a rapidly assembling jigsaw. Within seconds the face of a young boy with pale features and spiky blond hair stared out at them. The president inhaled a deep breath.

“It's only a kid! This can't be right!”

“We assure you it is. Since the attack in India we have been tracking this new threat. Chameleon found him.”

A school photo of the boy appeared, along with his education record, which the president noticed was poor, and his name: Jake Hunter.

“He's a known troublemaker,” the voice continued. “Although nothing on this scale, of course.”

The president glanced at a family photo perched on the edge of his desk; he focused on the face of his daughter and a smile flickered across his lips. It was thanks to Chameleon that she was alive, so if that superhero had gathered this intelligence, then he knew it was reliable.

“But this scheme is beyond the skills of a kid, surely?” asked the president.

The voice now sounded reproachful. “No, sir. That would be underestimating the enemy. And Enforcers don't do that. Chameleon has had several skirmishes with our target, and he's had the opportunity to collect DNA samples to authenticate identification.”

The president frowned; he was starting to get a little uncomfortable without his team of advisers. “And what did that prove?”

“It proved that Jake Hunter is not who he appears to be. It seems he is a much older villain we've tackled in the past. He's a Prime. You may be familiar with the name Basilisk?”

A chill ran down the president's spine at the very mention of that name and the memory of Basilisk kidnapping his daughter during his first term in office. During the incident he had come face-to-face with Basilisk. And he had seen the menace was an adult. Not this boy.

“Are you saying that this boy
is
Basilisk? That's impossible,” he sputtered through dry lips.

“The DNA match is exact. Jake Hunter
is
Basilisk.
The intriguing thing is that they have been seen together. So we're thinking the child may be a clone.”

“A clone? Is that possible?”

“That's the only theory that fits right now, since they both share the same DNA. Even twins have separate DNA codes. Chameleon thinks that this boy is displaying powers beyond what ordinary superheroes are supposed to possess.”

The president was out of his league. “I don't understand.”

“The Hero Foundation wants to bring him in for research. They think he could be a valuable asset. And from our limited intelligence, it seems that the Council of Evil thinks so too. Basilisk has broken away from the Council and is acting independently.”

“Good God, that's all we need!”

“We have a positive ID on their location. An air approach is not an option, so to launch an assault we need to request equipment from your Navy Seals, the Sea Crawlers. The navy is giving us static so we need your authorization to get them.”

The president peered at the kid's innocent-looking face on the screen, and nodded his approval before realizing he was still on the telephone.

“Of course, yes. Do whatever it takes to stop this threat. I want him and Basilisk wiped off the face of the planet once and for all!”

* * *

Basilisk paced the room, a habit that Jake now recognized as a nervous one.

“I have told you about Primes. They are people gifted with a range of superpowers from birth. Nowadays they tend to have only three or four abilities at the most, although there are occasional Primes with many more, like there were just decades ago. A private foundation was created to research these powers. They discovered a system that allowed them to band together the incredible gifts and deliver them to people with no powers whatsoever.”

“People like me?” said Jake. “So they formed Villain.net?”

“Not initially. The Primes who developed the Web site did not think as grandly as you and me. They were the heroes, intent on spreading their gift to young people in order to develop a new generation of heroes. They created a Web site called Hero.com.”

“Hero.com? That name's almost as bad as ours!”

“The name came from the foundation's acronym: the Higher Energy Research Organization. We couldn't think of anything more original for our site, so Villain it was. Like I've said before, these heroes are nothing of the sort. Their Web site serves to spread their propaganda—and they don't seem to mind making a profit from it either!”

Jake could see Basilisk was getting angry, and drifting from the subject.

“They charge to download the powers—and they call
us
the crooks! At least with us you get them free.” Basilisk shook his head in disbelief. “But they do have a good system; it weeds out the competent from the incompetent, the heroes from the villains. Needless to say, this left the bad guys lagging behind. So the leading villains of the age grouped together to form the Council of Evil. I was once part of that.”

“And you stole Hero.com?”

“Why go through the effort and hardship of creating something new when it's much easier to steal one and put your own name on it? The problem lies in the fact that we do not know the limitations of our own site, since we didn't create it. We really just put a new interface on the front, stole a research lab that stored their powers, and added our own.”

“And where is all that now?”

“Villain.net is with the Council in their, ha,
secret
location. While the Primes pooled their existing powers, the Council experimented and discovered methods of creating
new
powers, harnessing the very core of what makes any superpower possible.”

Jake frowned as the potential of controlling all the possible superpowers struck him. “So you mean you discovered how to grow your own powers?”

“An interesting phrase, but yes, in the same way you can breed dogs that are smaller or have longer ears or shorter tails. Powers can be cultivated.”

Silence filled the room. It was so deep that Jake could hear the blood pounding in his ears and the gentle throb of the air-conditioning. He thought about the implications of what he had just learned. If you could develop your own powers then surely there would be no limit to what you could do. You could become … a god.

“Combine our unstable home-brewed powers with the fact that we have a site that we don't truly understand the workings of, and you have the potential for side effects. Like the reactions you are experiencing.”

“What's wrong with me?”

Basilisk paused, and Jake was beginning to wonder if he had been editing the story, leaving out key bits of information.

“The powers from Villain.net are more potent than its heroic rival,” Basilisk continued. “They had to be, because we needed an edge over those irritating do-gooders. So we offered more powers at a stronger dosage, with a downside: they didn't last quite as long. Early test subjects who displayed side effects usually blew apart after a couple of hours.”

“They blew up?” cried Jake. “Is that going to happen to me?”

“No, no. At least, I don't think so. That was merely a
teething problem with the Web site.” “Some teething problem,” thought Jake. “We don't have time to study the site properly, not since we have a constant battle between the sites for dominance. If only we could figure a way of crushing Hero.com.”

An idea occurred to Jake, thankfully guiding his overactive imagination away from the fact that he might self-destruct. “Why not create a virus to bring the site down?”

Basilisk stopped pacing and turned to face Jake. His eyes flared bright blue, and excitement made his voice tremble. “What did you say?”

“A computer virus. I used one in school to crash the school computer network.”

Basilisk placed a hand on Jake's shoulder in a sign of admiration. “Hunter, that is a genius idea. All this time the Council has been using brute force and stealth tactics to topple the Foundation. And all the time there were villains out there with the necessary skills like Trojan and the dreaded Viral. What a team they would make!” Basilisk's voice sounded dreamy and he seemed lost in a world of plotting.

“Anyway, what has all that got to do with me? Why am I having a reaction?”

“It appears you are becoming addicted to the powers. Your body is thriving on the energy you have with each successful download. And when that power fades your
body craves more. In fact, it starts to slowly shut itself down until you download more powers. You have been unconscious for two hours, and during that time our doctor has had to slowly feed a variety of powers from Villain.net into you, just to keep you stable.”

“So, if I don't keep downloading powers … I'll die?”

“We don't know for sure … but that seems likely.”

Jake was appalled. In one week he had lost his family, become an international terrorist, been betrayed by his friends, and now he'd become addicted to a superpower drug that he had to keep using to stay alive.

He sat back down on the bed. “Why me? Why did you recruit me in the first place?”

“It's … complicated.”

“Try me!” snarled Jake. There was an edge to his voice that had never been there before; something hinting at primal rage.

Basilisk took a tiny step back. Jake wondered if the supervillain was actually afraid of him.

“I raised objections with the Council over their methods of recruiting new talent and their insistence that any villain who wishes to cause chaos must first obtain a permit from them—just in case your plan clashes with somebody else's. They said, what is the point in robbing gold from a vault in Switzerland, only to find out some other villain is about to launch a death ray and destroy that country, and you with it, at the same time!”

“They have a point,” said Jake.

Basilisk raised his voice, causing Jake to jump. “It's a stupid system! Are you saying, if I want to take over the world I need a
permit
to do so? How villainous is
that?
It was bureaucratic red tape—an insult to chaos and mayhem!”

“So they threw you out?”

“I
left
their precious rules and guidelines behind. I had my own ambitions. Ambitions that require the removal of any interference from the Council.”

“I still don't get what any of this has to do with me.”

“You were one of those reasons I left, Hunter.” Jake's surprise registered on his face, prompting a terse chuckle from Basilisk. “Are you familiar with the term ‘feedback,' when a microphone or guitar is placed against the loudspeaker it is plugged into and you get an ear-piercing noise? That is because the same signal is caught in a loop. And each cycle produces a distorted version of the original.”

Jake's favorite band, Ironfist, made constant use of feedback. Their guitarists were always posing in front of monolithic speakers. But the analogy made no sense to him.

“Look, stop talking in riddles and just tell me.”

“There is part of you
already
in Villain.net, and by downloading from it you have created a feedback loop with your superpowers.”

That made even less sense to Jake. “How can I be part of a Web site I've never seen before? That's crazy!”

“I was instrumental in creating Villain.net. Unfortunately for you we share something in common. Our DNA.”

“That's impossible!”

“Believe me. You and I are related in ways that would stagger you.”

“Related?” shrieked Jake in amazement.

The entire chamber suddenly shook. Stones skittered from the roof, and the furnishings bounced across the floor. At first Jake thought it was the volcano erupting, but then a whooping alarm sounded and a technician's voice shouted over the PA system.

“Intruders in base! Intruders in base! We're under attack!”

Basilisk led the way through a series of corridors that were unfamiliar to Jake. He was completely lost, and was surprised when they suddenly ran into the hangar. The SkyKar sat right in front of them, partially blocking their view of the Core Probe in the center of the cavern.

Three technicians, still in plain white lab coats and toting small snub-nosed Uzi machine guns, crouched behind the Probe. They fired concentrated bursts across the hangar, taking care to avoid striking the nuclear warhead that was now mounted on top of the Probe. Their target was crouching behind a stack of metallic flight cases. The heady sound of staccato gunfire combined with the chunks of stone falling off the walls, reminded Jake that these were lethal bullets.

“Show yourself!” bellowed Basilisk.

A pair of silver energy bolts leaped from behind the cases and struck two of the gunmen. A fine crystalline coating smothered the men, freezing them in position—one with a bullet hanging midway from the barrel as though caught in amber.

Jake instinctively ducked behind the SkyKar, which he noticed was sporting additional damage from the combat.

“A superhero!” snarled Basilisk. He raised his hands and hurled an intense energy blast from his finger. The stack of flight cases exploded in fiery shrapnel that bounced against the walls.

“Not just anyone, Basilisk.”

Jake heard a gasp from Basilisk before he recognized the voice himself. The mere thought of the name made his blood boil.

“Chameleon!” roared Basilisk.

“Now it's payback time,” hissed the disembodied Chameleon.