Accidental Hero (Jack Blank Adventure) (22 page)

“It’s good to be here,” Jack replied. “I don’t know if we can really say I’m advancing through the program yet, though. I’ve only got one vote so far. The other two are still undecided.”

“Better undecided than decidedly against you,” Prime told Jack.

Jack agreed that was true, but at this point he wasn’t even 100 percent sure what he was being tested on anymore. He told Prime about Smart’s extra tests, including how he’d spent the entire morning in a high-powered centrifuge, rocketing around in a circle at five hundred miles per hour.

“My test will be much more straightforward,” Prime assured him. “Here we test for one thing only, an indispensable quality shared by every hero, everywhere: courage.”

Jack asked Prime if he knew anything about his comic book alter ego. Were his exploits in the pages of
Unreal Tales
true? Did he really fight the Rüstov out there in space? Did he ever fight off a Rüstov infection?

Prime smiled. “Many an artist and writer have come to this island over the years, son. When they come, they want to know everything. When they leave, they pretend that they do. They tell stories.” Prime patted Jack’s shoulder. “They embellish.”

While they waited for Skerren to arrive, Prime told Jack that he and his men were once universal defenders of all planets who could not defend themselves. Earlier, when Jack had guessed that Prime seemed like a general, he wasn’t far off. Prime was more than a superhero code name—it was his title as a commander of the Valorian Guard. He wore the same blue uniform as his men did, save for the addition of a white circle with black lines in the center of his chest, signifying his rank. The Valorians were a dignified, brave, and mighty people. They were also all but extinct.

Many years ago, Prime’s home world of Valor had been destroyed by the Rüstov. Prime and his battalion had been off-world when it happened, answering the distress call of an allied space colony. The call had been a ruse perpetrated by the Rüstov to draw out Valor’s defenses while the Rüstov Armada laid siege to the planet. By the
time Prime’s men had returned, there was nothing left to defend. Valor had been wiped out. Prime had organized the remaining Valorian forces and led them after the Rüstov. They had followed the Rüstov all the way to Earth, arriving just in time to fight in the Battle of Empire City.

“I want you to know that while I have every reason to hate the Rüstov, I don’t group you in with them,” Prime told Jack. “Infection or no, you had nothing to do with what happened to my planet. I won’t hold their actions against you.”

Jack was incredibly appreciative of Prime’s fairmindedness. It was very refreshing, and especially gracious given his tragic and bloody history with the Rüstov.

“Are you and your men the only Valorians left?” Jack asked.

“We used to think so, but then one day Allegra arrived here on a refugee ship. That is reason enough to hope that other sons and daughters of Valor are still out there. If fortune smiles upon us and we are reunited, my men and I will teach them of their Valorian culture and history, just as we are trying to do with Allegra.”

Jazen asked Jack to go wait with Allegra while he spoke
privately with Prime. Jack walked over to where Allegra was standing and took in the view from the roof. Galaxis was futuristic in a different way from Hightown. It had more flavor. Alien architecture was very creative, and the buildings were multicolored and designed in irregular shapes. Orbs, pyramids, and other geometric figures lit up the skyline with a variety of bright metallic shades.

When Skerren arrived, Jack was surprised to see his king was with him. Hovarth lumbered onto the roof, letting out an unfriendly grunt as he passed by Jack. He was a grizzled mountain of a man, more than seven feet tall and at least three hundred pounds in weight, most of it muscle. He had a beard as thick as steel wool and a fur cloak that was even thicker. The iron battle-ax he carried was as tall as Jack.

Hovarth announced his intention to join his test with Prime’s, as they were both looking to see the exact same thing from the candidates: courage, or as Hovarth liked to call it, heart. Jack was actually relieved to hear that, considering Hovarth had voted against him back in the sphere. Jack had figured that when the time came, he’d go into Hovarth’s test with two strikes against him. If Hovarth and
Prime’s test were going to be one and the same, he could trust it to be fair. Still, Jack was surprised Hovarth would agree to test the students in Prime’s futuristic borough. Sure enough, the Circlemen soon revealed that the test would not take place in Galaxis at all.

“What do you mean?” Allegra asked. “Where are we going?”

“There,” Prime said, pointing out across the waterfalls. “Wrekzaw Isle.” Jack followed Prime’s pointing finger. Floating in the air over the rushing water was a charred hunk of rusted metal and jagged rock.

“Wrekzaw Isle?” Skerren exclaimed, unable to hide his surprise.

“Not Wrekzaw Isle…” Allegra groaned.

“What’s Wrekzaw Isle?” Jack asked.

“Get in,” Prime said, motioning toward an Air-Speeder waiting on the roof, ready to fly. “We’ll tell you on the way.”

As the group raced over the chasm that separated the Imagine Nation from the open sea, Prime explained that Wrekzaw Isle was the spot where the Rüstov mothership had crashed twelve years ago, effectively ending the Battle
of Empire City. After Legend had flown Revile into the ship’s main engine, it had dropped like a stone and collided with a rocky outcropping on the cliffs at the city limits. The ship had exploded with enough force to break off an entire piece of the island, and burned with enough heat to melt its way around it permanently. The result was Wrekzaw Isle, an unusable, abandoned landmass that orbited the Imagine Nation like a ghost ship.

“If you three make it to the School of Thought, I will teach you everything I know about space travel and galactic warfare,” Prime told the children. “About capital ships, starfighters, and infantry troop deployments. About alien science, starmaps, and wormholes.”

“And I will make you strong,” Hovarth added. “Other Circlemen will no doubt tell you that knowledge is power. I say power is power. You all have your own special abilities. They are not enough. You must train and learn combat. Hand-to-hand fighting! Tactical ability! Endurance! Those of you who pass this test… we’ll find out just how powerful you can be.” Hovarth poked Jack in the chest and Jack coughed. It felt like someone had jabbed him with the skinny end of a baseball bat.

“But first, you must show your courage and face the fear that everyone in the Imagine Nation seems content to live with, especially lately—fear of the Rüstov,” Prime said. “You must spend the night here on Wrekzaw Isle.”

“Spend the night?” Allegra cried. “Alone?”

Prime nodded, and Skerren stifled a laugh. “Just one night?” he asked. “That’s all?”

Allegra’s skin rippled. “Shut up,” she told Skerren. “That’s plenty!”

Jack was looking around quietly as Prime’s men set the AirSpeeder down on a clearing in the middle of the floating wasteland. This place gave him the chills. Wrekzaw Isle was a fearsome mass of twisted metal fused with hard stone. Dirty orange rust covered the saw-toothed edges of shrapnel and debris that were literally everywhere. Old wires and tubing sprouted out of the ground like weeds, and the imprints of overloaded circuits were burned into the landscape. A massive crater in the ground told the story of the battlefield, marking the path that Legend had forced Revile down so many years ago.

“Is it true that Rüstov soldiers are still hanging around here?” Jack asked.

“Many Rüstov were rumored to be left behind after the invasion, hiding out right where you three are standing, tunneled deep in the heart of Wrekzaw Isle,” Hovarth said. “Who can say for sure?”

Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t. Either way, Allegra didn’t like being there one bit. Jazen told her not to worry. “Revile’s grave is the safest place on Wrekzaw Isle,” he whispered. “Left-Behinds don’t like to go anywhere near it. At least, not usually.”

“We’re at Revile’s grave?” Jack asked, decidedly not reassured.

“That is correct,” Prime replied. “And if you want to pass our test, this is where you will spend the entire night.” Prime handed each of the children little remote controls to wear around their necks. “These are distress call beacons,” he explained. “If at any point in the night this becomes too much for you, simply press that button and all of this will end.” Prime looked each child in the eye. “All of it.”

Jack tucked his beacon inside his shirt. Under no circumstances was he going to press that button. He understood that doing so would mean more than just the end of
this field trip—it would mean the end of his chances at the School of Thought. He told himself that there were probably no Rüstov around, anyway. Jazen paced the landing area with two fingers pressed against his temple, scanning the area with those robotic eyes of his. When he was through, he nodded to Prime, which Jack hoped meant “all clear.”

“Farewell, candidates,” Hovarth said, stepping back onto the AirSpeeder with Prime. “I hope to see you all at first light and not a moment before.”

Jack noticed that Jazen had a slight mechanical twitch as he boarded the AirSpeeder with the others. He looked over at Jack and Allegra. Likely Jack’s nervous energy was giving him a minor glitch again. “Be strong for each other,” Jazen told them. “You can do this.”

Skerren rolled his eyes. “Please. It’s going to take more than a creepy campsite to scare me. I’m actually hoping to see a few Rüstov here tonight.”

As the AirSpeeder drove out of sight, Jack thought about the old saying “Be careful what you wish for—you just might get it.”

* * *

Wrekzaw Isle would have been an eerie and haunting place even in broad daylight. When Jack and the others had arrived, it was already dark. After the adults left, taking with them the headlights from the AirSpeeder, there was no light at all.

The ever-roaming Imagine Nation was still passing through tropical waters, so the children weren’t cold, but they weren’t exactly comfortable, either. Since they hadn’t planned on camping that night, they had no tents, sleeping bags, or flashlights. Skerren suggested building a fire.

“Maybe it’s better if you don’t,” Allegra said.

“The moon is new and the stars aren’t getting any brighter,” Skerren said pointedly. “Unless you can see in the dark, I’m going to make a fire.”

There was no wood on Wrekzaw Isle, but Skerren traced a mixture of oil, coolant, and fuel that was running around Revile’s grave like a miniature moat. It filled grooves in the rock and lined the area like a little river with random tributaries splitting off and dead-ending in dried-out shallows, or pooling up in deep pockets of stone. Skerren produced a flint from a pouch on his belt and started a fire the old-fashioned way.

“Skerren, don’t!” Allegra said as Skerren clapped a stone against the flint. Sparks flew into the oily channel and with a whoosh, flames ran around the perimeter like horses at the track. After the initial flare the flames calmed to a slow, even burn, lighting the area nicely.

“Let there be light,” Skerren said as the rusted junkyard glowed in the light of the fire. Jack realized he was standing right at the mouth of the pit that led to the infinite warp core. He backed away from the edge.

“Perfect!” Allegra said, a bit on edge herself. “Now every Left-Behind for a hundred miles will see that fire and know we’re here.”

“So what if they do?” Skerren replied. “Activate your beacon if that bothers you.” He threw his own beacon into the fire and jumped up onto the ridge to see if anything was out there. “Honestly, Allegra. You could at least try to put on a brave face. I can’t believe Prime lets you call yourself a Valorian.”

Allegra’s face rippled, and for a second, Jack thought she was going to cry. Instead, she stormed off to the other side of the campsite. She went as far away from Skerren as she could safely go.

Jack looked at Skerren. “Why do you have to be such a jerk all the time?”

“Don’t test me, Rusty,” Skerren sneered at Jack. “It’s not my fault if she can’t handle the pressure.”

“You don’t have to make it any worse than it already is,” Jack replied.

“Really? Look who’s talking,” Skerren countered. “I’m not the one who threatened everyone about Revile coming back to life.”

“I never threatened anyone,” Jack answered back. “Warned, maybe, but never threatened.”

“Why did you even say you fought him? What’s your game? Trying to psyche out the enemy? I bet that’s it. I bet you just love how everyone in Empire City suddenly thinks they see the Rüstov every time they turn around.”

“I’m just telling the truth,” Jack maintained. “I don’t know about these other Left-Behinds everyone’s talking about, but I know I saw Revile.”

Skerren scoffed at Jack. “Whatever you fought back before you came here—if you really fought anything at all— it wasn’t Revile. If it was, you’d be dead. It took Legend flying him into this ship’s engine to stop Revile. If that
explosion didn’t kill him, how could anything you have in your New Jersey do it?”

“It couldn’t,” Jack agreed. “That’s exactly what worries me.”

Jack walked off to check on Allegra. He found her sitting by a pocket of fire with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs. Her shoulders bounced lightly up and down as she cried. Jack gave her a minute and then came up behind her slowly.

“Hey, forget about him,” Jack said. “He thinks he’s so tough, but nobody cares what he says.”

“That’s just it,” Allegra said, wiping away tears that she didn’t want anyone to see. “I care! I’m not supposed to be scared. But I am. I’m scared all the time and I hate it. I hate it.”

“This is a scary place,” Jack told Allegra. “Even the SmartCams wouldn’t follow me here.” That was the truth. When Prime had started talking about Wrekzaw Isle, the SmartCams had taken off in the other direction. “It’s totally normal to get a little creeped out here. You’re only—”

“Don’t say
only human,”
Allegra interrupted. “Because I’m not, you know. I’m Valorian. And a true daughter of
Valor knows no fear.” She said the last part mimicking Prime’s deep baritone.