The Strike Trilogy (11 page)

“Your father and I made hundreds of trips to your world,” Orion explained, “and we always made sure while we were there to have as little contact with your people as possible. But, on one of our last trips…well, you’ll see.”

Tobin watched the book:

The pages showed New York City at nighttime. Orion was standing atop a skyscraper, scanning the horizon with a pair of high-tech binoculars. Scott was standing next to him, and they were both in their late-thirties.

Suddenly, on the street below, Scott saw something of interest. Grabbing the binoculars from Orion’s neck, he pressed them against his eyes, nearly pulling Orion over in the process. Confused, Orion peered over the edge of the building to see what Scott was looking at, but then laughed, shaking his head.

Scott was watching a beautiful woman walk down the street with her friends.

The woman was Tobin’s mother.

“From the very first moment he saw her,” Orion said, “your father fell madly in love with Catherine Richards.”

On the page, Tobin watched as his mother laughed at one of her friend’s jokes, and the image froze. Tobin remembered how he had acted the last time he saw her.

“Against all of my advice,” Orion said, “your father began going out of his way to speak to your mother. Then, very much against all of my advice, he asked her out on a date. He fell in love, so did she, and it wasn’t long at all before he was spending almost all of his free time on Earth.”

In the book, Tobin now saw photographs of his mother and father, from the period when they had just started dating. He even recognized some of the photos as ones his mother had back home.

“After a couple of months,” Orion said, “your father and I agreed it was best for him to move to your world full-time, where it was clear he was meant to be. At the same time, I stayed here on Capricious, continuing on as a superhero on my own.

“It was a wonderful time for your father, and I truly never saw him happier in his life. We—all of your dad’s friends—were so happy for him, as strange as it was, that he could have this new life on Earth. However, three years after you were born…” Orion waited a moment. “Three years after you were born, our worst enemy, a man named Vincent Harris who calls himself the Rantamede, reappeared on Capricious and again plotted to invade your world.”

Tobin looked to the floor. Next to him, Scatterbolt glanced up at Orion. The old man motioned for the door, and the robot quickly headed in its direction.

“I faced Vincent alone this time,” Orion said, “but I failed, and Capricious was nearly destroyed. Before I went to face Vincent again, your father insisted on helping me. Together, we were able to stop him, but…”

Orion took a breath. His next words were quiet, careful.

“Your father pushed his powers to the limit. It was too much for him. Shortly after we stopped Vincent’s invasion, your dad passed away on that July morning, just as the sun was rising and the rain stopped.”

Tobin tried to look away from the floor but found that he could not.

“I wish I would have known that,” he said. “I wish my mom would have known that.”

Orion nodded. “She never knew anything about your dad’s past, or the truth about where he was from. I think he was finally planning on telling her that morning, but...”

Tobin stood up and walked away. He didn’t want anyone to see him this way.

“You were everything to him, Tobin,” Orion said. “You and your mother. You were his entire world, the reason he risked it all, the reason he gave up his life. He did it to save Earth, but really, to save you and your mom. That’s the only reason he did it—because he knew that way you and your mother would be safe. And that’s why it hurts me so much to have to tell you what I am about to tell you.”

Orion waited for the boy to turn around, but he didn’t move. The old man knew he could wait no longer, so he said it.

“Tobin, Vincent Harris has returned.”

Tobin still didn’t turn around.

“How?” he asked quietly. “I thought you and my father killed him already. This is so…”

The boy ran his hand through his hair. He could feel a deep anger growing inside of him.

“No,” Orion explained. “We were only able to imprison him. I had hoped he was imprisoned for good this time, but now he is back, and he is planning to—”

“I won’t do it,” Tobin said.

Orion sat up, surprised by the blunt response. “You—I’m going to help you, Tobin. It will be the three of us, Keplar, Scatterbolt, and myself, and we will help you to—”

“No,” Tobin said again. “I won’t do it.”

Orion stood and walked to Tobin, standing in front of him.

“Tobin, Vincent has tried to attack your world before, and at those times, my friends and I were able to stop him. But now…my friends are gone. It is just me, and I am old and crippled and useless. There is now only one person who even has a chance of surviving a confrontation with Vincent. Only one person, out of two entire worlds.” The old man paused. “You cannot throw that away. I won’t allow you to.”

But the boy said nothing. He only looked at the ground.

“We need your help, Tobin. I need your help.”

Tobin walked away, toward the gallery’s entrance.

“I have no help to give you,” he said. “I’m sorry. Just take me home.”

Orion stepped toward Tobin and turned him around by his shoulders.

“I know you’re scared, Tobin. I would be, too. I’d be thinking that I’d lost my mind, and wishing for this all to end. I’d be hoping that this stupid old man would just shut up and let me leave, instead of begging me to go off and fight a monster. But you are my best friend’s son, Tobin. I will not allow you to get hurt. I would rather die myself than see you get hurt.”

Tobin reached up, wiping the tears from his eyes.

“Your father was incredibly reckless, to be honest,” Orion said with a laugh. “He never took anything seriously and he never stopped telling jokes, even in the middle of battles. But he
lived
to protect people, Tobin. It’s all he ever aspired to do. And now we must do it, because he isn’t here to.”

The boy breathed in deeply. His voice betrayed him and cracked. To cover up the nerves racing through his body, he laughed at the hopelessness of it all.

“And how exactly do you plan on doing this?” he asked.

“We will train here,” Orion said, “with Keplar’s and Scatterbolt’s help. While Vincent is still planning his invasion, we will teach you and we will guide you, and when you are ready, you will go to Vincent and you will stop him, at all costs necessary.”

Tobin looked up, surprised at the last detail.

“He doesn’t know it, but I have found Vincent and his team,” Orion explained, “in a secret place he has created, on one of the moons of Capricious. When you are ready, you will go there, and you will end this invasion before it ever begins.”

Tobin thought it over. It was all so insane, so ridiculous, so much more than he could understand. But he kept thinking about one thing over and over.

“I think about my mom,” he said. “And my friends. And Bill. And the people I work with. And then I think about that place we visited, Gallymoora, and how that could be my friends’ houses and their families’ houses. I think about that, and...” He took in a breath. “I’ll try.”

The old man smiled, proud and relieved. “Yes, you will. And you will succeed.”

As Orion put an arm around Tobin’s shoulder, the two of them walked back into the main hall of the museum.

“I knew you would help us, Tobin. I never had any doubt.”

“Well, that makes one of us, then, ‘cuz I’m pretty sure I just made the worst decision of my life.”

Orion laughed. “Then we’ll have to change that. Come on, let’s go and find the others. We have a lot of work to do.”

As the boy and the old man walked out of the museum, they passed by a giant glass case holding the remains of what appeared to be a ten-foot-tall praying mantis.

“By the way,” Tobin asked, “what the heck is that thing?”

“Oh. Your dad and I stopped that once from destroying Quantum City. There were three of them, actually.”

“Is Vincent as terrifying as that?”

“No. He’s about a million times more terrifying.”

Tobin shook his head. “Great. What the hell have I gotten myself into?”

The small boy looked around the massive auditorium. There were thousands of other people seated around him, and many of them had lightly green-tinted skin, just like him: he recognized his teacher and his next-door neighbor and the grocer from down the street. They were all gathered, anxiously but excitedly, in front of a stage with a podium at its front. There were also black banners on the stage, and each one of these banners had the head of a green, tiger-like beast on it, which the boy knew represented him and his home. But they were so far from that home now, in this strange new world, and the boy was confused with all the seriousness and commotion.

“Who’re we waiting for, Grammpa?” he asked. “Why are all these people here?”

“I told you,” his grandfather said with a laugh, sitting up to get a better look. “We are here, just like everybody else, to see the man I have been telling you about. The man who is going to change everything for us.”

The boy remembered the stories his grandfather had told him back home, about the man who used to lead their home country of Rytonia.

“And that’s why we’ve moved all the way here? Just to see this man?”

“Well, in a way. We’ll only be living here for a short while longer, because this man is readying a new home for us. It is going to be safe and wonderful, even more wonderful than our old home, and we will be free to live there exactly the way we want to, with nobody telling us what is right and what is wrong.”

“But how do we know it’ll be so much better?”

“Because he has promised this to us. Never once has he failed to live up to his word. He is a great leader and has been ever since I was a young man.”

The opening notes of a song were heard, and the boy knew this song as the one they used to play back home before sports games. The people around him stood up, so he did, too, but he was too small to see the stage.

“Here,” his grandfather said, lifting him onto his shoulders. “Get a good look. We may never get this chance to see him in person again.”

From his new perspective, the boy saw a hulking, giant, red-skinned man walk onto the stage. He knew this man’s name was Rigel, and that he was very important, but he was not the man they were waiting for. They were waiting for a different man, and when he walked onto the stage, the people in the auditorium erupted into applause. It was the loudest cheers the boy had ever heard.

Vincent Harris, wearing his black-and-green uniform, walked to the podium, smiling and waving. As the people clapped and hollered, he waved his hands up and down, motioning for them to quiet. When they finally did, he lowered the microphone toward his mouth.

“People of Rytonia. I know how long you have been waiting for this moment, because I, too, have been waiting for it. It has been difficult, and long, and tiring, and I know this is not what many of you expected, to make this long journey here only to hide and wait.

“But it has all been worth it. In only a few more days, all of our waiting will be rewarded. We will all find a new home.”

The people cheered. The boy saw that many of them were crying.

“This has strengthened us,” Vincent said. “We have sacrificed, and we have suffered, but we have done it together. We have taken hardship and turned it into determination, and now we will use that determination to build each other up. At the most crucial of times—this time—we have come together to help our fellow people reach for heights that we didn’t even know existed. These heights are within our grasp now, waiting for us to seize them.”

The cheers came again, and this time Vincent was still, waiting for them to fade.

“I believe in us,” he said. “I believe in Capricious, and I believe in what that world once stood for. And even though that place as we knew it is gone, we can now work together to recreate that once great world. As we carry the memories of the old Capricious with us, we will bring light, strength, and unity to this new world—to this New Capricious. The wait is over: the dawn of a new day is here!”

The people stood and applauded. The boy realized that his grandfather was right—this man, this Vincent Harris, was a great man.

“It will not be easy,” Vincent said. “The people of this new world will resist us. They will fear us. Many of them will even fight us. But it will be a fight worth fighting. We will face it—together—and we will triumph.

“We will bring the Earth truth. Fairness. Honor. We will bring it the future.”

The people leapt with joy, hugging one another and raising their fists in celebration. As the boy walked out of the auditorium with his grandfather, he looked back to the stage, to get one more glimpse of the man who was changing everything.

When the final person left the auditorium, the doors closed, and Rigel and Vincent were left alone.

“So,” Vincent said, “all of our planning comes to this: a fistfight with a world that doesn’t even know we exist, full of people who won’t understand why we are there.”

Rigel opened his mouth to say something, but stopped. He let Vincent think.

“The army must be ready,” Vincent said. “Have we received the Gores from Capricious yet?”

“Yes, sir,” Rigel replied. “They arrived here early this morning.”

After leaving the auditorium, Vincent and Rigel traveled down an elevator into the lowest level of the skyscraper. At the end of a long corridor, they reached a reinforced metal door.

The room behind the door was cold and open, with concrete walls, damp floors, and metallic walkways crisscrossing overhead. Up and down the room, in row after row, there were dozens of cages filled with quick-moving creatures. These creatures were five feet tall and wearing hooded cloaks, with no facial features visible in their hoods except for glowing, red eyes and the occasional glimpse of a blunt, lizard-like snout. As they hissed at each other, they were gripping the bars of their cages with their two-clawed, vulture-like hands.

Vincent and Rigel walked down the rows of creatures.

“The Gores are ready at any moment,” Rigel said, “and the Eradicators only need to be awakened.”

Vincent and Rigel reached another room; this one was clean and white and filled with silent robots dressed in black armor. The robots were as tall as a man, with gas masks on their faces and laser blasters equipped on the tops of their hands. As they stood motionless, the bright glow of the fluorescent light bulbs around the room was gleaming off of them.