First War (Minimum Wage Sidekick Book 6) Read online

  Cyberkid stepped forward and shouted as loudly as he could, “Blast, you idiot!”

  Blast must have heard him, because he looked over his shoulder, but instead of frowning or scowling, he just smiled, which made him look very creepy, especially with those goggles covering his eyes.

  “Ah, Cyberkid,” said Blast as he rose to his feet and turned around. He had a nasally voice, but it didn’t make him any less scary. “Myster’s newest child slave. Er, I mean sidekick, of course.”

  Then he looked at me and his smile grew even wider. “And Rubberman’s brat? My, my. I came down here only to blow up this engine and turn this airship into a falling fireball of doom. I didn’t think I would get the honor killing the brat who put our leader behind bars.”

  “You won’t,” I said. I winced at my shoulder wound, but stepped forward beside Cyberkid. “You’re not going to blow up or kill anyone. Come forward quietly and we won’t have to get violent.”

  Blast threw back his head and laughed. “Ha! You kids really are brainwashed, talking like those damned fake heroes. I don’t remember talking like that when I was a sidekick, but I guess it doesn’t matter. I’ve already set up the bomb, as kids these days say.”

  Blast stepped aside, revealing a large, flat blinking device set on the foot of the engine. On the device was a five minute timer that was, to my horror, already counting down second by second.

  Cyberkid looked at Blast in shock. “Turn off that timer right now or else.”

  “Sorry, I can’t do that,” said Blast with a shrug. “It’s an automatic timer. Besides, even if I did turn it off, I would still be able to blow it up. I have the detonator right here, after all.”

  Blast held up a small device in his right hand, which had a single red button on it. His thumb hovered over the button threateningly, but did not press down on it yet.

  “The original plan was that I would come down here, set up a few well-placed bombs, and then leave before the timers finished,” said Blast. “Then I would tell Traveler—that’s our teleporter, if you didn’t know—and we’d all retreat. We’d trick you and your bosses into thinking you had won the battle right up until the moment the bombs went off and you all died; however, it’s clear that I won’t be able to do that now. Oh, well. Traveler has orders to teleport the other vigilantes away if I don’t return in two minutes, so even if I die, at least my allies will leave. Can’t say the same about your allies, however.”

  “Then we’ll disarm it,” I said. I looked at Cyberkid. “Cyberkid, have you ever disarmed a bomb before?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Blast. He waved the detonator above his head. “If either of you two brats try to stop the bomb before the timer is up, I’ll press the button on this detonator and blow us all to kingdom come. And, unlike those fake heroes you work for, I’m not lying.”

  I believed him. Blast looked and sounded completely serious about detonating the bomb before the timer finished. I could probably shoot the detonator out of his hand from a distance, but Blast probably expected me to do that, given how he knew who I was. And even if I did blast the detonator out of his hands before he could activate it, that didn’t mean we would be able to disarm the bomb itself.

  Blast glanced at the timer. “Three and a half minutes left. I should warn you that the blast will probably kill all three of us instantly when it goes off, but The Mystery will likely remain airborne for a bit longer than that. I could have made it sink immediately if I’d had set more bombs, but really, more bombs would have been a luxury rather than a necessity at this point.”

  I hated Blast’s rambling, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. I had a feeling that if I said anything, Blast would use that as an excuse to activate the detonator and kill all of us.

  I looked at Cyberkid, wondering if he had any ideas. He, however, looked just as helpless as me. He was scowling, his hands balled into fists, but it seemed like he had no idea how to stop Blast, either.

  “You two sure are quiet,” said Blast. “No witty banter to try to make me upset? Or are you coming to terms with your mortality? Perhaps your lives—as short and insignificant as they are—are flashing before your eyes. Maybe you’re even silently cursing your bosses for putting you in this situation in the first place.”

  I wanted to tell Blast to shut his mouth, but again, I was worried he was just looking for an excuse to activate the detonator. A glance at the timer on the bomb revealed we had only two and a half minutes to stop it. I didn’t know for sure how big the explosion was going to be, but if it was going to be big enough to cripple the engine and crash The Mystery, it would definitely be big enough to kill all three of us instantly.

  We didn’t have more time to waste. Our best bet was taking out Blast and then having Cyberkid disarm the bomb. And the only way to do that was to knock the detonator out of Blast’s hand, which I would have to do quickly, because if I hesitated for even a second, Blast would press the button and kill all of us.

  “Still very quiet,” said Blast. “That’s good, of course. Most kids are too noisy these days, especially teenagers like—”

  I didn’t let him finish his sentence. I fired my beams, aiming directly at his hand. Two lasers struck his detonator hand, knocking the detonator out of his grasp. Blast cried out in pain and grabbed his burned hand, but I wasn’t going to let him recover. I launched myself across the room, using the last of my previous energy boost, and kicked him in the jaw. My boot cracked against his jaw and he immediately collapsed onto the floor, unconscious.

  Landing on the floor, I grimaced and grabbed my shoulder, which was now bleeding worse than ever. Nonetheless, Blast was down, though the timer showed that we had only one and a half minutes left.

  I didn’t even have to say anything, however, before Cyberkid rushed over to the bomb and immediately knelt before it. He began examining the bomb, running his hands over its smooth outer shell as he attempted to look for some way to open it. At least, I assumed he was, because I didn’t know what else he could do be doing.

  “Cyberkid, have you figured out how to stop it yet?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard over the engine’s rumbling again.

  “Not yet,” said Cyberkid, his voice frantic. “If I could open it, maybe I could rewire it, but—Ah, here we go!”

  Cyberkid pried the outer shell off and threw it aside. Bunches of wires—red, blue, and green—were crisscrossed underneath the timer, which now showed about one minute and five seconds left. Cyberkid froze, staring at the wires as if he had never seen anything like them before.

  “Cyberkid, what the hell are you doing?” I shouted, not even bothering to hide my anger. “Cut the right wire, damn it, before it explodes!”

  “I …” Cyberkid shook his head. “I don’t know which wire is the right one! If I pull the wrong wire, it could set off the bomb early and kill us all.”

  I scowled and looked at the timer. Forty-five seconds. “Haven’t you disarmed bombs before? Shouldn’t you know which wires detonate it?”

  “You just assume I know how to disarm bombs because I’m a tech guy,” Cyberkid snapped. “Did it ever occur to you that I’m not a bomb technician? Just because I’m good with some tech doesn’t mean I’m good with all kinds of tech.”

  I gulped. The timer now said we had less than thirty seconds left. “Then what the hell are we supposed to do? Just sit here and pray for a miracle?”

  “I—” Cyberkid put his hands on his head and stared at the bomb uselessly. “I don’t know. I can’t stop this bomb. I can’t save us.”

  Cyberkid sounded so pathetic when he said that, which made me angry. But I forgot about my anger when I looked at the timer one last time and saw that twenty seconds had somehow passed already, leaving us with less than ten seconds left.

  I did not hesitate. I jumped forward, grabbed a fistful of wires, and, ignoring Cyberkid’s protests to the contrary, ripped all of the wires out of the bomb at once.

  I expected the bomb to explode. I expected a fier
y explosion of death to envelope all three of us and cripple the engine. I expected to be lying half-dead on the floor, feeling The Mystery falling to its doom,where I would die as soon as the airship crashed into the city below.

  None of that happened.

  Instead, the timer stopped beeping and froze at exactly five seconds before detonation. And I knew that it would not explode even if Blast pressed the detonator. I knew that The Mystery was saved.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Lowering the wires, I looked at the timer. I half-expected it to blow up anyway, but it appeared to be completely disarmed. My heart was racing, adrenaline rushing through my veins, to the point where I barely remembered that my shoulder was badly wounded. All I could think about was how lucky I had been to pull the right wire—or perhaps wires—and not kill us all. I wasn’t a big believer in God, but if you had told me that God had been guiding my hand at that moment to ensure I picked the right wire, I wouldn’t have argued against that in the slightest.

  I looked at Cyberkid. He was staring at the frozen timer with a stunned look on his face. He looked just as frozen as the timer itself, which I figured was just his way of reacting to the adrenaline that was no doubt going through his body at the moment.

  “Cyberkid?” I said, waving a hand in front of his face. “Uh, dude, are you still there? Hello?”

  All of a sudden, Cyberkid looked up at me, but he was not smiling, nor did he look grateful. He was scowling, scowling in anger, and I didn’t understand why.

  “You idiot,” said Cyberkid. He rose to his feet, glaring at me the whole while. “You goddamn, brain-dead moron.”

  “What’s got your panties in a bunch?” I said in annoyance. I waved the wires at him. “I disarmed the bomb, didn’t I? I saved the lives of every person on this ship.”

  Cyberkid, however, did not calm down when I said that. If anything, he became visibly angrier, his scowl tightening and his hands balled into even tighter fists. “You could have killed us all. You had no idea what you were doing. You just pulled a random amount of wires and miraculously didn’t blow us all into bite-sized pieces. You idiot.”

  “I still don’t see what you’re so angry about,” I said. “If you wanted to die, maybe you should have disarmed the bomb yourself, instead of sitting there staring at it like a moron.”

  “That’s because I—” Cyberkid shook his head. “God, why am I even bothering? You’re too thickheaded to realize just how lucky you got. There’s no reason that should have worked out the way it did. No reason at all.”

  I was about to say that I actually did understand just how lucky I got, but then the pain in my shoulder spiked at that moment, causing me to drop the wires and fall to my knees. I clasped one hand over my shoulder, gritting my teeth as the pain in my wound became as sharp as a knife.

  “Whoa, Beams, are you okay?” said Cyberkid. The anger in his voice was gone, temporarily replaced by surprised concern. “Your shoulder—”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “Just go back up to the top deck and get Rubberman. Tell him what happened down here. I’ll keep an eye on Blast.”

  Cyberkid hesitated, but then he nodded, tied up Blast with some metal cables he carried on him, and left the Engine Room immediately, leaving me all alone with Blast, who was still unconscious from when I kicked him in the jaw.

  Still biting my lower lip, I sat against the engine, feeling its vibrations go through my body. It was actually kind of relaxing and even took my mind off my shoulder for a little bit, but it was just for a moment. In the next moment, the pain was as bad as ever and all I could think about was how I wanted to go to the hospital more than anything right now. There was a decent chance that my shoulder wound was already infected by now, but it was also possible that the doctors might be able to heal it before it became infected.

  I looked at Blast. Man, he looked even worse than me, despite the fact that he hadn’t been shot in the shoulder like I had. A trickle of blood leaked out of the corner of his mouth and his body didn’t move at all, save for the slight rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. I kicked the detonator across the room; although I was sure that the detonator was useless now that the bomb had been disarmed, I didn’t want to chance it in case Blast woke up suddenly and tried to detonate it remotely.

  As I sat against the engine again, I noticed a piece of paper sticking out of Blast’s left pants pocket. It was not very noticeable, but the way Blast lay made it stand out. Curious, I grabbed the corner of the paper and slowly but gently pulled it out.

  Unfolding the paper, I looked down at it to read its contents. The paper was a printed out list of supplies that Blast needed to make his bombs. It was pretty long and I barely understood most of it, mostly because the pain in my shoulder made it hard to concentrate. I figured it was a checklist of some sort, perhaps something Blast consulted whenever he was making his bombs to make sure he hadn’t forgotten any important ingredients.

  But toward the bottom of the page was a sentence that caught my attention: Order more charcoal for Big Boy before EOM.

  I frowned. ‘Big Boy’? What was that? It sounded like some sort of bomb, but ‘Big Boy’ seemed like a strange name for a bomb.

  At that moment, Blast groaned and turned his head toward me. Though his goggles hid his eyes, I could tell he had awoken from my blow. He tried to sit up, but failed due to the metal cables tying him down, so he laid down again, frowning in pain.

  “Ugh,” said Blast, shaking his head. He looked around. “Huh. This doesn’t look like hell.”

  “That’s because it isn’t,” I said. I bit my lower lip to keep myself from groaning in pain, and then said, “I disarmed the bomb. You failed.”

  Blast glanced at the bomb. His frown became even bigger. “Amazing. I mean, I’m really pissed off that you managed to disarm the bomb before it exploded, but I have to admit that it is also pretty darn amazing. You got lucky.”

  “I know,” I said, nodding. “I thought you might be a bit more grateful, though, given how I basically saved your life.”

  Blast snorted. “Just so you could throw me in jail like a common crook. But that’s what happens to the real heroes in our society. They are arrested and thrown behind bars like petty thieves while the real criminals—like you and your boss—get praise and adoration from the general public. It’s disgusting.”

  “Not as disgusting as holding an entire elementary school hostage in order to lure out your enemy. Or murdering innocent people in cold blood to set up a ritual to bring back someone from the dead.”

  Blast chuckled. “The Vigilante Legion ain’t perfect, I’ll give you that. Still, at least we’re not glory-seeking hypocrites. I remember well how much of a hypocrite Myster was. In public, he’d pretend to be a selfless hero who cared about the innocent, but in private, he only ever thought and talked about money, money, and more money. No different from every other jerk in this industry, to be frank.”

  I had no idea if Blast was telling the truth about that or not. While I knew that Myster, like all superheroes, was interested in expanding his business and increasing his profits, Myster had always struck me as wanting to do the right thing. He had, after all, come to Golden City to warn Rubberman and I about ZZZ and even helped us fight him. That hardly seemed like the behavior of a mercenary entrepreneur who only cared about money, but at the same time, I didn’t care, because even if Blast was right, I’d had too many negative experiences with the Legion by this point to see him or them as anything more than enemies who were not to be trusted.

  Blast must have noticed the paper in my hands, however, because he frowned again and said, “Hey, is that my bomb ingredients checklist? Give it back. It’s mine.”

  I shook my head. “Nope. I’m keeping it. I’ll probably give it to Rubberman. He’ll know what to do with it.”

  “Oh, maybe he’ll use it to make new Rubber Bombs,” said Blast sardonically. “The bomb industry is growing explosively, haven’t you heard? I’m sure his Rubber Bombs would a big hit
with his fans. They’d have a real blast blowing up his—”

  “Enough with the stupid bomb puns,” I snapped. I held out the paper. “What is Big Boy?”

  Blast’s mocking smile suddenly turned into a surprised frown. He looked down at his pocket, where the paper had been, and then at me again, as if to confirm that the checklist I held was the same checklist he had been carrying on his person.

  “So?” I said. “We have plenty of time to talk. No need to act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “I know exactly what you’re talking about, brat, but that doesn’t mean I am going to answer your question,” said Blast. “It’s top secret.”

  I lowered the paper onto my lap. “Top secret, eh? All right. You should tell Rubberman and Myster that. I’m sure they won’t try to interrogate you to find out what Big Boy is or why you consider it important enough to hide from me. And even if they don’t, the police will definitely want to know what this is, and they aren’t exactly the nicest interrogators in the country, if you know what I mean.”

  This time, Blast bit his lower lip. He was probably trying to decide if my threat was serious or not; it was, because I fully intended to tell Rubberman about my findings and then let Rubberman and the other superheroes decide what to do from there. The only question now was whether Blast was more afraid of me or Rubberman or the police.

  Finally, Blast sighed. “Okay, kid. Big Boy is a bomb I built. A really big one, as you might have guessed from the name.”

  “I never would have figured out that a bomb called ‘Big Boy’ was big,” I said sarcastically. “Very unexpected.”

  Blast looked rather annoyed at my sarcasm, but he continued speaking anyway. “We were planning to use Big Boy to blow a hole in the prison where Iron Angel is being kept. That is how we planned to rescue him.”

  I nodded. “Uh huh. And where is Big Boy currently being kept?”