The Superhero's Son Omnibus Volume 3

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

That night, I slept like a baby. I hadn’t realized it, but I had been so exhausted from the prison escape that I fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow. Blizzard shared my bed with me, while the others got their own rooms in other parts of the mansion. Before I went to sleep, though, I did worry that some of the other escapees might try to kill me in my sleep, but Ivan slept in the room next to ours and I knew that the others were still afraid of him, so I felt pretty safe.

In the morning, our weird alliance of heroes and criminals finally broke up. The first to leave was Mimic; in fact, he must have left very early, because we didn’t even know he was gone until we went to his room and found that it was empty. Then Jawtooth and Intellect left, followed by Steel Skin and Firespirit, thus leaving Blizzard, Ivan, Rime, and I alone in the house.

That left us with the problem of figuring out how to get to California. We discussed it over breakfast … well, I called it ‘breakfast,’ but it was really just a very sparse meal. Due to the fact that no one had lived in this mansion for a few months, there was practically no food in it whatsoever. And what little food was here was old and moldy; about the only food that was any good was an unopened jar of peanut butter we found in one of the kitchen pantries, which was supposed to expire a month from now, but a jar of peanut butter wasn’t very filling for four people. But it was pretty much all we had, so we just made do with it.

“Okay,” I said, licking peanut butter off my knife. “How are we going to get to California?”

Rime—who sat across the kitchen table from me with a large spoonful of peanut butter—said, “Y-You can fly, right? Why don’t you just f-fly us to California?”

“True, I can fly, and the powerless gas wore off in the night, so my powers have completely returned by now,” I said. “But even with my super strength, I’d have a hard time carrying all of you for long periods of time. And, of course, that would make it easier for the G-Men to see us.”

“What about your dad’s teleportation technology?” said Blizzard. “I remember that your dad had a belt that could teleport him almost anywhere.”

“He did, but I don’t have access to it right now,” I said. “It’s back in our home in Texas.” I patted my jumpsuit. “Also, I don’t even have my costume. The government still has it.”

“Oh, I almost forgot,” said Blizzard.

She stuck a hand in one of the pockets of her costume and withdrew something, which she then held out for me to take. “I got this for you before I left Hero Island.”

It was another suit-up watch, much to my surprise. I took it from her hands and turned it over, looking it over in astonishment. “This is a suit-up watch.”

“Yeah,” said Blizzard, nodding. “It was an extra one that was in the House’s storage room. I also got you an extra copy of your costume, which is stored inside the watch. I thought you might need it.”

I was about to thank her for it, but then I froze. “Wait, what if the G-Men use it to track our movements?”

“I had Shell disable it before I left,” Blizzard said. “So it can’t do anything except store your costume. That’s really all it needs to do, if you think about it.”

I sighed in relief. “Good. Thanks for getting it for me. I was worried about getting some new clothes, since Burn Shot created this hole in my jumpsuit. This will do.”

So I put on my new suit-up watch and pressed a button on its side. The watch’s screen flipped open and a second later I was suited up in my costume once again. It felt good to be back in my costume again; in fact, I felt like I was back to being a superhero and not a prison escapee currently on the run from the government.

I stood up and moved my arms and legs around in it. “This feels great. Should be useful for whenever I fight White Lightning.”

“You’re still going to fight him?” said Blizzard. “I thought that you wanted to go to the INJ first.”

I shook my head. “I’m not going to fight him right away. I want to go to the INJ first and then look for that guy. Now that I’m out of prison, he’s probably going to start waiting for me to come out and show myself, so it’s not like I’m in a hurry to fight him or anything.”

That wasn’t exactly the truth. I was still thinking about what Grandfather had told me, about Grandmother’s vision of the battle between the gods. I didn’t want to walk into what might be my death. I didn’t know if it was possible to subvert Grandmother’s visions or not, but I had to at least give it a shot, because I liked living better than dying.

“Kevin is right,” said Ivan. “Right now, we need allies, as many as we can get. It would be unwise for us to fight White Lightning in our current condition. Better to find allies who can keep us safe from the government and give us time to come up with a plan of action to take him down.”

“Yeah,” I said. I sat back down in my chair at the table. “But that just brings us back to our old problem: How do we get to California without being seen or caught?”

“M-Maybe we don’t need to,” said Rime. “Maybe we can find help right here in New York.”

I looked at Rime in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, doesn’t the INJ have a-agents all over the c-country?” said Rime. “M-Maybe all we need to do is search for the nearest INJ agent and ask if they can help us.”

I stroked my chin in thought. “The INJ isn’t as big or spread out as the NHA is, but they do have agents all over the country, like you said. But I wonder if they still have any after San Francisco; last I heard, they were all supposed to be in California helping in the rebuilding efforts.”

“True, but what other choice do we have?” said Ivan. “Besides, it is possible that they may still have someone around here, even if it is just one person. We just need to find them.”

“How, though?” said Rime. “We don’t know of the locations of any nearby INJ agents.”

“Actually, we do,” said Blizzard. “Or, at least, I do.”

“Really?” I said. “How?”

“After the Summit earlier this year, when the INJ and NHA agreed to work together, I took it upon myself to figure out where the nearest INJ agents were,” said Blizzard. “My research indicated that there were about fifty INJ members in the state of New York.”

“Fifty?” I repeated. “That’s great.”

“It isn’t nearly as great as it sounds, though,” said Blizzard. “For one, the vast majority of them are located in or near New York City, because that is where most criminals and supervillains in the state tend to hang out.”

“It would be unwise to go near a major city like that,” said Ivan. “The government will probably be watching NYC in case we try to go there. It would be like walking into a trap.”

“The other agents are few and far between,” Blizzard continued. “But from what I remember, there is one agent who is only a couple of hours away from here. She might be willing to help, if we go to her and tell her who we are.”

“Great,” I said. “Who is she?”

“She’s—” Blizzard was interrupted by loud, incessant knocking that came from the front door of the mansion.

All four of us tensed and shared alarmed looks. Who could possibly be at the door? It couldn’t have been one of the other escapees, since they had all left already, but they were the only other people who knew where we were. Had the G-Men somehow tracked us down? If so, we were about to be in for the fight of our lives.

“I’ll go check who it is,” I muttered to Blizzard. “If it’s a G-Men agent, I’ll take him down.”

“And I’ll back you up,” Blizzard said.

I nodded and made my way out of the kitchen and to the parlor, where the front door was. Thanks to the curtains drawn down in front of the the windows on either side of the door, I couldn’t look outside and tell who was there, but the knocking had become incredibly louder. It sounded like the knocking of someone who was trying to get to safety, but I had no idea who that could be. Maybe it was just someone who got lost in the woods and was looking for help.

I stopped in front of the door. I wished it had a peephole, but unfortunately my grandparents apparently had not seen fit to put one on this door.

So I said, in a loud voice, “Who’s there?”

“Bolt, is that you?” came a familiar gruff voice. “Open the door, damn it, it’s me, Triplet!”

“Triplet?” I said.

I didn’t hesitate to yank open the door. I expected to see Triplet standing there in his trench coat, looking as cool and focused as he usually did, perhaps about to stride in and tell me to shut the door so no one would hear what he had to tell me.

What I didn’t expect to see was his face bloodied and bruised and his left hand clutching what looked like a bullet wound in his abdomen. Leaves and twigs stuck to his coat, thanks to the blood splattered all over it, and even just standing there seemed to be taking all of his strength.

His eyes met mine and I saw fear and pain in them.

“Triplet?” I said again. “What … what happened to …”

“Mastermind,” said Triplet in a hoarse voice. “He’s … I … the G-Men …”

Triplet immediately collapsed onto the floor, but I caught him before he could crack his skull against the hardwood floor. I checked his pulse and found that it was incredibly low, so I looked over my shoulder and shouted, “Blizzard! Ivan! Rime! Triplet needs medical attention now!”