The Doomsday Device (Teen Superheroes Book 2) (10 page)

“Three minutes till jump,” a military man yelled from the open doorway.

“One last thing,” Agent Palmer said. “They know you are mods. You will encounter other mods at the jail. It might get hairy in there.”

“Hairy? What do you mean?” I asked.

“Jail is a tough place,” the agent said. “You may have to prove yourselves.”

“Two minutes,” the military man yelled.

He and the agent did one last check of our gear.

“I have a nephew your age,” Agent Palmer said. “We shouldn’t be sending kids like you out there.”

It was the closest any of The Agency staff had come to a sincere desire for our safety.

“We’ll be okay,” I told her.

“All this is going to change soon,” she said enigmatically.

“What is?”

“One minute.”

There was no time for Agent Palmer to further elaborate. She simply pursed her lips and led us towards the rear door of the aircraft. Seconds later we jumped, assuming the position we had been taught by Agency personnel. Below us lay the sea, a wide open shimmering planet of azure blue. The chutes opened normally and before long both Chad and I were floating gently towards the water.

It was only as we landed that I saw a naval ship approaching us flying a red, white and blue flag decorated with a single star. The ship pulled up alongside us and we were dragged aboard.

“Hey fellas!” Chad greeted them. “Going our way?”

The soldiers glared at us.

“No sense of humor?” Chad asked.

The unsmiling military personnel silently handcuffed us with our hands in front and put us in a cabin below deck. I felt nervous. Chad still had his powers intact. Mine seemed to be in a state of flux, ready to turn on or off at any time.

“You’re quiet,” Chad said.

“I’m worried.”

“No need to worry,” he said. “I’m here.”

“That’s one of the things I’m worried about.”

The ship pulled into a dock. A warm wind swept across us as we disembarked. The sky was overcast. It looked like rain. We were led up a pier towards a waiting truck and pushed into the back. The engine revved and the vehicle started. There were small windows on both sides of the truck so we stood up and gripped the bars. The vehicle trundled through a small village.

“Oh no,” I said softly.

Even Chad was speechless. We saw villagers walking past dressed in rags. They looked like they were starving. A dead body lay by the side of the road. It looked like they had been there for several days.

“What’s going on?” Chad asked.

“Famine,” I explained. “Like Agent Palmer said, this country is under the thumb of a brutal dictatorship. Add to that an embargo by the United Nations and this place is completely isolated from the rest of the world.”

It started to rain. A sweeping wind plastered the landscape with moisture. More bodies lay by the side of the road.

A huge complex lay at the end of the road. It had no windows. It almost looked like it was made from a single block of concrete. The only entrance to the place seemed to be a single gate guarded by half a dozen military personnel. The truck slowed down as the gate drew open. We entered an internal courtyard and drew to a halt. The gate closed.

The back door of the truck opened and Chad and I stepped out. We were surrounded by a dozen guards.

A door opened in the main building and a man walked down a short flight of stairs. He crossed the courtyard to where we were standing.

“My name is Ro Chin. I am the commander of this prison facility.” He grinned at us without a trace of humor. “How is it you foreigners say it? Oh yes.” The smile fell from his lips.

“Welcome to Hell.”

Chapter Nineteen

“The American soldiers must have been most important to your government,” Ro said. “They were of little assistance to us; the information they supplied was virtually useless.”

We said nothing.

“Your names have been supplied to me, as have your abilities,” he continued. “Despite your talents, I assure you we can make your time here most unpleasant. If you follow the rules, you may survive. Yodak has a mortality rate of ninety percent, even for mods such as yourselves.

“Most of those deaths occur in the first year of incarceration before the inmate learns our rules.” He drew closer to us. “Those rules are simple. We will not tolerate disobedience. You will follow our rules to the letter or you will pay the price.”

“I have a question,” Chad said.

“Yes?”

“Can you order takeout?”

The military commander drew a hand back and slapped Chad across the face, knocking him to the ground. Chad’s hands were still handcuffed behind his back. He looked so furious I thought he was about to make Ro Chin burst into flames. Somehow he kept his powers in check as two of the guards hoisted him to his feet.

“You have a sense of humor now,” Ro Chin said. “We will see how your humor survives over the days, weeks and years that lie ahead.”

The commander turned his back and a group of soldiers led us across the small courtyard. Another gate opened. We passed through it into another courtyard; this one was larger and for the first time we could see the full extent of the prison. It was a massive facility with hundreds of tiny windows looking out onto the courtyard.

A long scream, terrifying and pitiful at the same time, rang out across the courtyard. It was impossible to tell from which of the many cells it originated. The cry finally ended and a helpless sobbing reverberated around the inner walls.

In the centre of the courtyard lay a small windowless cinder block building with a metal entry door. A soldier stood on each side of it. They opened the door wide and we were led down a flight of stairs. The door slammed shut behind us. Another set of doors lay before us. These were of the high tech variety and consisted of a retina scan. One of the guards placed his eye against the scanner and the door quietly clicked open.

We passed through this and descended down another flight of stairs. It had been warm above ground. Now it grew even hotter. We reached another set of doors. This was activated via a code entered into a keypad.

“You really don’t want us to leave,” Chad said to one of the guards. “Do you?”

“No-one has ever escaped Yodak Prison,” the man said.

“The accommodation’s that good?”

“No-one has ever escaped,” the guard repeated.

The door opened and this time a hot fetid smell swept up from the steps below. Smoke filled the air. We descended the steps to the floor far below. At this level we could see the underground chamber had been divided into two main cells. Darkened alcoves containing men in rags lay along the rear of both sections. Many of the men were Caucasians. Some were Asian. Most of them had beards. Some of the men looked old and worn out, although I suspected their appearance, on closer inspection, could be mostly attributed to malnutrition rather than age.

A gate opened up and our cuffs were removed.

The same guard who had spoken to Chad relocked the gate.

“My name is Lee. You will deal mostly with me during your time here. The conditions here are harsh, but it is only what you deserve. You must be punished for your capitalist imperialist western notions. We are aware of your powers, but you will not use them against the guards.”

“I can’t promise anything,” Chad said. “I’m an impulsive kind of guy.”

“Your impulses will only cause you difficulty here,” Lee said. “If you assault a guard we will not discipline you. We will discipline your fellow prisoners.”

He let this thought sink in. “Even a boy such as yourself can appreciate how your fellow prisoners will feel about you should you be the cause of their distress.” He leaned close to Chad’s face. “You will be most unpopular. We are placing you into the section with the other modified humans. You may notice you can reach the human prisoners through the bars.”

So this is how it is
, I thought.
There are mods and there are humans.

Suddenly I’m not human anymore. I’m a mod. A different life form.

“I advise you not to eat the humans,” the guard said. “Many of them are diseased.”

The comment was so ridiculous I expected the guard to suddenly burst into laughter. To my surprise his face only grew more serious.

“Food will arrive tomorrow morning,” he said. “I advise you to remain alert. Twenty percent of new inmates do not survive their first night.”

Lee turned his back and the guards relocked the gate. We watched them as they mounted the stairs. The door above opened and they exited through it. The only sound was that of a fire burning somewhere in the open chamber.

Chad and I glanced at each other. We had to find Zachary Stead, but we could not simply go around asking for him. We had to make his acquaintance and gradually gain his trust. This would be a slow process, but we had to speed it up as much as possible.

I looked into the shadows all around us. There were men in the shadows. Most of them looked filthy and unwell although a few of them were larger and fitter. A long, drawn out cry came from the human section. It was cut off mid breath. From somewhere in the mod section – a dark corner to our right – we heard a laugh.

The person laughed for about a minute before the sound developed into a wail and finally the sound became weeping.

“Not the happiest of places,” Chad commented.

“Not really,” I agreed.

Slowly I realized three men were making their way from one of the dark recesses. The middle of the three was a small, scrawny looking man with long, thin hair and a small stubble beard. It was impossible to tell his age. His companions were larger than us, maybe aged in their thirties. The closer they drew the more I realized they were built like wrestlers. It crossed my mind that maybe the story of cannibalism wasn’t so crazy after all.

“I’m Becker,” the man in the middle said. “We like new blood in this place. New people bring in new things. Things we can use.”

“Like what?” I asked.

He looked down at our feet. “Shoes are good,” he said. “I like shoes.”

“You should get out and buy some,” Chad said.

We were ready for anything. Despite the size of this guy’s friends, Chad had his powers and – hopefully – I had mine.

“I don’t think so,” Becker said. “Anyway, you won’t be needing shoes.”

“And why is that?” I asked.

“Why would someone with no feet need shoes?” he asked.

Suddenly I realized I was looking up at Becker from the ground.
What was going on?
Then I looked back towards my legs and a scream caught in my throat. Both Chad and I were on the dirty ground. Our legs were gone. Just below our pelvises, our legs had been removed and the wounds neatly cauterized and expertly treated. All we had left, where our legs used to be, were stumps.

I looked up at Becker in horror. He had both our pairs of shoes in his hands.

“Thanks boys,” he said. “Welcome to Yodak.”

Chapter Twenty

Ethan Craddock was as good as his word. When Brodie and Ebony turned up to meet the FBI agent, he appeared from behind a clump of trees and drew them to one side away from the rubbish area.

He spent the next twenty minutes explaining to them about the Doomsday virus and Jeremiah Stead’s intention to release the weapon into the atmosphere. By the time he finished speaking, both girls were stunned into silence.

Finally Brodie said, “But surely he’s going to kill everyone inside the compound as well. After the virus spreads -.”

“The virus has a very short life,” Ethan said. “It dies quite quickly. Once it wipes the planet bare it will extinguish itself. Jeremiah and his people will leave the compound and repopulate the earth.”

Brodie felt sick. “We have to stop him.”

“We have to stop Ferdy,” Ebony said. “The virus is safe as long as the canister remains closed. If Ferdy opens it -.”

“How likely is that?” Ethan asked. “I’ve been told you teenagers have some special sorts of powers.”

Brodie turned to Ebony. “You know Ferdy better than me. What do you think?”

“He’s smart,” Ebony said thoughtfully. “Very smart. And not just in a memory retention type of way. I found one of those Rubik’s Cubes at a market and gave it to Ferdy to solve.”

“Anyone can solve those,” Ethan said. “The instructions are on the net.”

“He had never seen one before,” Ebony said. “And he did it without looking at the net. It took him about a minute.”

One minute, Brodie thought. If he could do that in one minute then in a few hours or days…

“We need to stop your friend,” Ethan said. “But I need to get out of here.”

“Why haven’t you left already?” Brodie asked, looking around. “It looks like the security is pretty lax.”

“It looks that way,” Ethan said. “But there are cameras in all the trees. They monitor all the foot traffic for miles around. If I tried to leave here without a good reason they would kill me.”

“Just for trying to leave?” Ebony asked in amazement.

He shook his head in dismay. “I’ve seen people killed for not cleaning their weapons properly. I’ve seen them killed for playing inappropriate music inside the compound. Stead rules with an iron fist. He allows no dissent. These people are completely brainwashed. They see him as some kind of God.”

“That’s terrible,” Ebony said. “Does the FBI know where you are?”

“No. I joined the Sanctuary group in Ohio and was brought here before I could get a message out.”

“I wish we had phones,” Brodie said. “It would be so easy to simply ring someone.”

“There are no phones,” Ethan said. “Likewise, there is no news from outside allowed into the complex.” He hesitated. “I assume, for example, that Canada has not been invaded by the UN?”

“Huh?” Brodie said.

“I thought as much,” Ethan said sadly. “Jeremiah gave a lecture the other day telling everyone the UN had invaded Canada. Toronto and other major cities had been bombed with nuclear devices.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Brodie said.

“You’ll hear some pretty ridiculous things here,” Ethan said. “Whatever you do, don’t contradict Jeremiah.”