Counterparts Page 10

  “Yes, but she’s still a supervillain,” said Talon. “And she’s demanding that we don’t try to put her in jail. Isn’t that insane? If the NHA finds out that we worked out a deal like this with a supervillain like her—”

  “I st-still don’t care,” said Rime. “I want my f-family back.”

  “Yes, but that’s because you are not a member of the Young Neos, like us,” said Talon. “You won’t suffer any punishments from the Leadership Council because you worked with a supervillain. Me, Stinger, and Bolt, though, we have a lot to lose by doing this.”

  “Talon’s right,” said Bolt. “Working with supervillains is not looked upon very kindly by the Leadership Council. I’m pretty sure it goes against the NHA Constitution, though I think it is allowable under certain circumstances. Not sure that this is one of those circumstances, though.”

  “Then y-you three can just go back to New York,” said Rime. “I-I don’t n-need your help any further. I can j-just go with Electrica myself.”

  “And let the Venetians get away with this?” said Bolt. “No, that’s not right. We’re tired of the Venetians getting away. No way we’re going to pass up this opportunity to catch one of those bastards red-handed.”

  “That’s nice and all, Bolt, but you were just saying that working with supervillains goes against the NHA Constitution,” Talon pointed out. “Won’t this hurt you especially bad, given how the Leadership Council is about to vote for your membership?”

  “I can talk to them about this later,” said Bolt. He patted Rime on the back. “Rime is a friend and I want to help him. I’m sure that Mecha Knight and the others will understand after I explain the situation to them later, when Rime’s family is safe and sound and Colombina is behind bars.”

  “And if Electrica’s lying?” said Talon. “If she’s leading us into a trap?”

  “Then we’ll deal with that,” said Bolt. “We’re strong. We can handle her, I’m sure.”

  Talon bit her lower lip in frustration. She was tempted to ignore Bolt’s decision, but at the same time, she realized that Bolt, even in his wounded state, would be able to stop her quite easily. Not to mention that both Stinger and Rime appeared to agree with Bolt’s decision, which meant that Talon was outvoted three to one. She tried to think of a good counterargument, but unfortunately the only counterargument that sprang to mind was ‘She killed my father,’ which didn’t sound very convincing even to herself.

  “All right, we’ve made our decision,” said Bolt. “Let’s let her know.”

  The circle broke apart and turned to face Electrica, who hadn’t moved from her spot between Bait and Switch.

  “Well?” said Electrica. “What are you going to do?”

  Bolt stepped forward and gestured at the others. “We accept your offer. This doesn’t mean we like you or anything; it’s just a temporary alliance until we rescue Rime’s family.”

  “Of course,” said Electrica. “Now, why don’t we get started? I’d rather not waste anymore time than I already have.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  According to Electrica—Stinger never really thought of her as ‘Mom,’ mostly due to the fact that she had abandoned him when he was so little—Rime’s family was being held hostage in a location far to the north of Rime’s house. In fact, she even claimed that she didn’t quite know exactly where the family was, but that they could find the family by going back to her base and using Electrica’s tools to locate them. Electrica said that she had a machine back in her base that could scan the DVD of Colombina and tell them where it was recorded.

  The idea of going to Electrica’s base was rather controversial, but at the same time, Stinger and the others didn’t have much of a choice. Rime, in particular, was adamant in going wherever they needed to go to save his family, even if that meant going to the lair of a supervillain that he once clashed with. Electrica claimed that they would not stay there very long—just long enough to locate Rime’s family—but Stinger didn’t like it anyway. Still, Bolt agreed to go with her, perhaps because he believed that they could handle themselves if it turned out that Electrica was luring them into a trap.

  To get to Electrica’s base, they used Bolt’s Teleportation Buckle. Electrica was reluctant about giving her base’s coordinates to Bolt, because that would mean giving them to a superhero who could use them against her at some point in the future, but when Bolt pointed out that it would be incredibly impractical to transport them all to her base by car, since it wasn’t very close, Electrica finally relented, but not before demanding that Stinger remove the paralysis from Bait and Switch. Stinger disliked the idea of letting those two go, but he ultimately complied, using his stingers to inject an antidote into his half-siblings that worked like magic, allowing Bait and Switch to jump back to their feet like they hadn’t been paralyzed at all, though they kept their distance from Stinger like they were afraid of being paralyzed again.

  Stinger still couldn’t believe that Bait and Switch were his siblings. As Bolt input the coordinates of Electrica’s base into his Buckle, Stinger glanced at Electrica and his half-siblings. Electrica was worrying over them, trying to make sure they were okay, and both of them looked rather embarrassed by Electrica’s incessant questions about their health. Stinger couldn’t help but feel a slight tinge of jealousy; he was just as much her son as they were, after all, but she didn’t seem to pay attention to his injuries or wounds.

  Wonder if she’s got any other hidden kids that she hasn’t even told them about, Stinger thought. For that matter, who is their father? He’s obviously not the same man as mine. Probably just some random douche bag she met at a club or something, I’m sure.

  Stinger shook his head. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Electrica wasn’t exactly the mother of the year, after all. He was surprised, though, that she hadn’t abandoned these two like she did to him. He didn’t know what that meant, but regardless of Electrica’s reasons for doing so, he didn’t like it.

  He looked at Talon. Talon still hadn’t spoken to him, but she was looking at Electrica as well. Unlike Stinger, Talon appeared to be analyzing Electrica for a weakness she could exploit. No doubt Talon intended to kill Electrica as soon as she got an opportunity to. Stinger hoped she would at least wait until they rescued Rime’s family, because at the moment, the last thing they needed was to fight among each other when their real enemy was still out there somewhere.

  I wonder if she will forgive me for being Electrica’ s son yet, Stinger thought. Doesn’t look like it so far.

  Finally, Bolt finished inputting the coordinates and called for everyone to gather around and hold hands so he could teleport them to Electrica’s base. This included Electrica, Bait, and Switch; Talon deliberately put herself between Stinger and Rime so she wouldn’t have to hold hands with Electrica or her kids. Again, though, Talon didn’t actually acknowledge Stinger despite holding his hand, which made Stinger somewhat annoyed, but before he could say anything about that, Bolt twisted the Buckle and suddenly their environment vanished and was quickly replaced by a new place that Stinger had never seen before.

  Instead of standing under the warm Florida sun, the seven superhumans now stood in what appeared to be a large cave, though it was thankfully lit by a series of lights hanging from the stalactites above. The air was fresh and cool in the cave, while the stone floor was as shiny and smooth as tile, like it had been waxed recently.

  They stood on top of a raised platform above the rest of the cave, which allowed Stinger to see a startling amount of things, including what looked like a supercomputer, a tennis court, and a small kitchen area, among others. A few entrances along the walls were closed, making it impossible for Stinger to tell if they led to other parts of the cave or if they led to the outside. A quick look around the cave showed no obvious exits, although there was a gigantic vault door not far from the platform, though what could be inside it, Stinger didn’t know.

  “Here we are!” said Electrica, stepping forward and spreading her arm
s wide. “The Electric Cave! My pride and joy.”

  “Y-You have a c-cave base?” said Rime. “I d-didn’t know that.”

  “Oh, I’ve only had it for the last five years or so,” said Electrica, turning around to face them again. “You four are incredibly lucky, you know. Very, very few people have ever been inside the Electric Cave, especially superheroes like yourselves. Even the G-Men don’t know where this is.”

  “I don’t suppose you will tell us the Cave’s location?” said Bolt.

  “Of course not,” said Electrica. “We may be working together, but that doesn’t mean I have to reveal all of my secrets to you. I don’t want such important information to end up in the hands of the Neohero Alliance or any other group that might threaten my freedom. Besides, I already gave you the coordinates for your belt; you can figure out its location from there, if you want.”

  “You’ve certainly put that freedom of yours to good use, haven’t you?” said Talon, the sarcasm dripping from her voice. “Wherever would society be without a woman like you?”

  “Much worse than it is now,” said Electrica without missing a beat. She held up the DVD. “Anyway, let me go pop this into the main computer. It shouldn’t take long for it to give us a definite location to check out. You four should follow me, but Bait and Switch, I want you two to go to your rooms and get some rest, okay?”

  “Okay, Mom,” said Bait, rubbing the back of his neck. “But once you find out where Rime’s family is being kept, let us know so we can help.”

  “Of course,” said Electrica.

  Bait and Switch then turned and walked away, down a staircase that led to another portion of the cave where the living quarters appeared to be. Not that Stinger had much of a chance to look at it, because Electrica immediately made her way down the bridge connecting the main platform to the rest of the cave, forcing Stinger, Bolt, Talon, and Rime to follow as closely as they could in order to keep up with her. Stinger was closest to Electrica, as his longer legs made it easier for him to keep up with her, but he still kept a short distance from her just in case she tried to attack him.

  Still, Stinger couldn’t help but ask, “Where did you get the money for this cave? It must be expensive to run.”

  Electrica flashed a smile over her shoulder at him. “I’m a successful thief. I’ve stolen and sold quite a few things in my time, such as valuable jewels and metals. It’s a great way to make a living, so long as you don’t mind being on the wanted list of every law enforcement organization on the planet, anyway.”

  “Is that what the vault is for?” said Stinger, glancing at the huge vault he’d noticed earlier. “For keeping your stolen goods safe while you find a buyer for them?”

  “Yes, but it has other uses as well,” said Electrica. “And anyway, that’s why I’m helping you. John Mann owes me money.”

  “He does?” said Stinger. He glanced over his shoulder at the others, particularly Bolt and Talon, who both looked just as surprised as Stinger. “What do you mean?”

  “Recently, Mann hired me to steal an object he called the Five Fingers from a museum in Brussels,” said Electrica. “I went ahead and did it, but Mann didn’t pay me even after I gave him the Five Fingers. And it was a rather difficult job, too; not the most difficult job I’ve ever done, true, but I’m not a charity. Mann has tried to pretend that I don’t even exist, but I know that he knows that he owes me money and I won’t stop until I get it.”

  “Uh huh,” said Stinger. “What, exactly, is the Five Fingers and why did Mann want it?”

  “I don’t know, nor do I care to know,” said Electrica as they passed a table covered with weapons that didn’t look quite legal. “It was an ancient gauntlet of some sorts, supposedly from some unknown civilization that scientists and nerds like to argue about. I think Mann wanted it because he’s a collector, but it doesn’t matter to me why he wants it. I just care about the fact that he didn’t pay me what he agreed to pay me, which is unforgivable.”

  Stinger heard Talon snort behind him, and he understood why, given how Electrica had done plenty of ‘unforgivable’ things herself. But Stinger wasn’t thinking much about that. He was wondering instead why Mann wanted that gauntlet. Perhaps Mann was just trying to sate his desire to collect things, but it seemed strange to Stinger that Mann would hire a known supervillain to steal such an artifact for him. Maybe it was part of Mann’s bigger plan, a plan that Stinger and the other Young Neos still didn’t entirely understand, though it could have just as easily had nothing to do with whatever Mann was doing. In any case, Stinger made a mental note to mention this to Mecha Knight when they returned to Hero Island after this mission; perhaps Mecha Knight would be able to make sense of it.

  “If this Colombina woman works for Mann, as you say, then I plan to kidnap her and hold her hostage until Mann gives me the money he owes me,” said Electrica.

  “That seems kind of harsh,” said Bolt.

  “The other option is that I kill Colombina and drop her corpse off in front of the Mann Corporation headquarters,” said Electrica. “I might still do that anyway, but only after I get paid.”

  Stinger would have felt disgusted by how casually his mom talked about kidnapping and murdering a woman, but Stinger knew Electrica well enough to know that that was just how she talked. Besides, Stinger didn’t really care if Electrica killed Colombina or not; after all, Colombina was one of the Venetians and had probably done a bunch of bad stuff already, not even counting how she had kidnapped Rime’s family and was using them to manipulate Rime into obeying her. Supervillains were usually pretty cruel toward each other anyway; that’s why it was so rare for supervillain teams to last long or even exist. All Stinger cared about at this point was making sure that Electrica didn’t try to double cross them at the last minute.

  A few seconds later, they stopped in front of the huge supercomputer that Stinger had noticed before. Electrica popped the DVD into the supercomputer’s hard drive, tapped a few keys, and then stood back, crossing her arms in front of her chest, watching as the computer’s monitor displayed a loading screen as the computer scanned the DVD.

  “How long are we going to have to wait before it finds Colombina?” asked Bolt.

  “Just a minute or two,” said Electrica. “So it shouldn’t be long before it has a location for us.”

  “How does that even work?” said Talon. “I’m not much of a tech person, but I don’t think that you can find out a person’s location by scanning a DVD they made.”

  “It’s something I bought from a friend of mine, a very smart, techie guy,” said Electrica. “He explained how it worked, but I didn’t really understand his explanation. All I know is that it does work; I’ve used it before to successfully locate a certain person who owed me money.”

  “That seems awfully convenient,” said Talon. “Especially for our situation.”

  “It is rather convenient,” said Electrica as she leaned against the computer console. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t question your luck, because I’ve found that can be a good way to lose it.”

  All of a sudden, the supercomputer made a small beeping noise, prompting Electrica to say, in a cheerful voice, “That means it’s done! Let’s see what it has found.”

  Stinger and the others looked at the computer’s monitor. It displayed a bewildering amount of numbers and letters that seemed totally indecipherable to Stinger; based on the confused looks on the faces of his friends, they were just as bewildered by the numbers and letters as he was.

  Electrica, on the other hand, showed no confusion or puzzlement toward the letters and numbers at all. She just tapped the keys a couple of times, saying, “Oh, it looks like the system ran into a couple of problems. Let me just re-scramble the message and—”

  All of a sudden, the screen went blank, and based on Electrica’s surprised face, she clearly had not been expecting that to happen.

  “What’s wrong?” said Talon. “Did you turn it off?”

  Electrica furrowed h
er brow and tapped a couple more keys, but the screen remained blank. “No. I was just trying to fix the message. I didn’t hit the power button or anything like that.”

  “Then why did it turn off?” said Stinger.

  “T-Turn it back on,” Rime said in a commanding voice. “I w-want t-to know where my family is and I w-want to k-know now.”

  “All right, all right, don’t worry, I’m working on it,” said Electrica. She was now tapping the keys with fingers from both hands, but still apparently not seeing any luck. “Ugh, I am not good with computers, let me tell you. Bait and Switch are so much better than me, but—”

  Abruptly, the screen turned back on, except this time it didn’t show the mess of letters and numbers from before. Instead, it showed Colombina again, as if it was playing the video, but Stinger could tell that this wasn’t the video that they’d seen back at the house, but rather a completely different video, based on the fact that the background was different; Stinger could see a few bookshelves behind the seated Venetian now.

  “Hello, Rime,” said Colombina, her voice as sleek and sexy as ever. “Or whoever happens to be watching this video, though it is probably you, given how you are the only one with access to this DVD in the first place.”

  Stinger looked at Rime. “Rime, have you seen this video before?”

  Rime shook his head, his eyes on the screen. “N-No, I h-haven’t.”

  “If you are watching this video, it is because you found some way to access it, most likely from some type of specialized computer system,” said Colombina. “Don’t worry. I’m not surprised. I even expected you to do this, because you would be so desperate to save your family that you would even hack this DVD to find out more information.” She smiled. “I admire men who sacrifice everything to save their families, to tell you the truth. It’s a reminder of a simpler, better time, but that’s irrelevant.”

  Colombina leaned forward, her eyes piercing through the eye holes of her mask. “If you are watching this hidden video, then you’ve proved that you can’t follow simple instructions. Which means that the deal is off and I can’t guarantee the safety of your family anymore. Bye.”