Virus Attack (11 page)

Toby shouted to his mother that he was awake and
getting dressed, then picked up the phone and dialed Lorna's cell number. Several seconds passed before Pete picked it up, and spoke with a groggy voice.

“Yeah?”

“Pete, it's Tobe. How're you? Everything okay?”

“Uh … I … I was asleep.”

“Is Basilisk safe?”

Toby heard a loud yawn before Pete answered with a flat, unenthusiastic voice. Not the usual Pete. “He's still in my shed if that's what you mean.”

“Look, man, I'm sorry I didn't call last night. I fell asleep. But I talked to Chameleon. They're coming to pick Basilisk up today. I'll come over.”

“Today? Uh … “

Toby frowned. “What's wrong?”

There was an unusually long silence broken by a loud snuffling as if Pete had just blown his nose. “My … uh … my parents. They said they're splitting up. I don't know what to do. Don't tell anyone, okay?”

Toby froze. Pete's parents constantly argued—it was the usual background noise to life in the Kendall household. But this was a bombshell, and Toby knew Pete would not take it well. Coupled with the fact that a supervillain was held prisoner in his shed and a platoon of Enforcers were coming to retrieve him—well, that was not going to help the situation.

“Okay, I'm coming over. See you in half an hour.”

He ran downstairs at a more normal speed and started putting on his sneakers. He looked up to see his mother and father staring at him. They seemed overdressed in business suits.

“Where do you think you're going?” Sarah Wilkinson asked firmly.

“Pete's. He needs me to—”

“No you're not. Today is the first day of your father's exhibition, remember?”

Toby rolled his eyes. “Aw, no!”

John Wilkinson wagged his finger. “We never ask you for much. You can at least come along for my first day and show some support.”

Sarah nodded. “And since you're conveniently out of school, you're going to be there.”

Toby had completely forgotten the public opening. “Oh, Mom! It's a day off!”

“You don't get something for nothing,” warned his dad. “You've got tomorrow all to yourself.”

“I really can't. I have to see Pete.”

“You can see him in the afternoon,” snapped Sarah in a voice that indicated the discussion was over. “But right now you can support your father! Lorna has already flitted out this morning leaving a note saying she's on a date. A
date
! And so early in the morning! I'll be having words with her tonight. She is going to be grounded for being so inconsiderate!”

Toby was furious. He wished that he could snap back with the fact that
he
had saved her from the deadly clutches of Doc Tempest in Antarctica, and how
he
had saved his father's life by ensuring his plane could land. But of course they wouldn't believe him. He sighed deeply—just when his friend really needed him, he couldn't be there. He knew Pete would be mad at him—no, scratch that,
furious
—but he had asked Toby not to tell anyone. Toby couldn't face an argument over the phone. He decided to text Pete instead—but it wasn't until he was on his way with his parents in the car that he remembered he'd lost his cell phone.

Worm looked across the jungle canopy and listened to the chorus of insects that called it home. He heard footsteps on the stone floor and saw, from the corner of his eye, that Trojan had joined him. The humidity had caused her to pull her hood off, and her fine bobbed blonde hair fell to her shoulders as she examined Toby's cell phone.

“This fell out of the kid-hero's jacket pocket.”

Worm glanced at it and frowned. “What on earth is it?”

Trojan sighed. Worm was still learning about the twenty-first century. “It's a cell phone … a telephone,” she corrected herself.

“A telephone? But what about the wires? The exchange?”

“It's wireless,” she sighed. “It uses … it's magic, okay?”

Worm snatched it from her. “How intriguing.” He twisted it in his hands, almost snapping the clamshell screen off. “But so what? I have wireless communication equipment here at my base.”

“What? A pigeon? The stuff you have here is ancient! And none of us know Morse code. We can't do
anything
with your stuff. Look, with this phone we can track the kid down. Find out where they've taken Basilisk.”

Worm handed back the phone, then turned his gaze back across the jungle in thoughtful silence.

Trojan folded her arms and stared at the back of his head. “I mean, that's the plan. Right? He is the leader of this operation. Not you.”

Worm whirled around, his blunt face red with anger. Trojan momentarily thought that his face almost did resemble a worm, albeit a worm with beady eyes and a thin mouth. “He is my
prisoner
! I should never have listened to his nonsense. And now I'm left babysitting you and Viral!”

Trojan gave him a crooked smile. She controlled her anger amazingly well for a villain. Then again, she preferred cunning theft rather than blatant action.

“Chill out before you give yourself a heart attack, Gramps.”

“I'd ‘chilled out' long enough in this damn suspended animation chamber.”

He kicked a central steel cylinder that dominated the ancient stone room. It was surrounded by control desks sporting huge dials and valves. State-of-the-art equipment for the 1940s, but now it looked like something out of an old black-and-white horror film.

Trojan shrugged. “You don't appreciate just how ingenious Stone Head's plan is.”

“You know the full plan?”

“Not every detail. But with the three of us together and his knowledge of the enemy, it's a no-brainer. The Hero Foundation and the Council of Evil are the biggest threats we face in our profession. Paperwork is what's killing us now, not secret weapons or special powers. By assembling Viral and me, and even a geriatric like you, Basilisk has put into motion events that can really change the shape of history.”

Spittle shot from Worm's mouth. “Geriatric! How dare you?” He stepped threateningly toward Trojan, but she just laughed at him. Being taller, she stopped his advance by pushing against his head.

“When Stone Head's plan brings down the cowering heroes we can form our own rival Council, helped by freeing those unfortunates held in Diablo Island. The real greats of our time like Lord Eon!” She blinked at Worm's lack of reaction. “Of course, he was after your
time. The only Prime who can manipulate time! I always thought he was cool. Think what we could do if we freed
him
. Under our guidance, of course.”

Worm calmed down; it was not wise to show any weakness in front of this calculating woman. Anger was a weakness; that was what had got him captured so many years ago.

“So, Old Timer, if you're tired of babysitting, and Stone Head neglected to reveal the intricate details of his plan to you … I don't think we have much of a choice than to go and save him. Do we?”

Worm nodded. “How do you propose we locate him with a mere telephone?”

“You'd make a lousy detective. The boy has a few friends in the address book stored in his phone. We can track their phone signal down and that will lead us to the boy and Basilisk. We should start with the last number dialed. Some girl named Lorna.”

“You can track a cell phone signal?” asked Worm incredulously. He was bewildered by how much information was available through technology.

Trojan raised a perfect eyebrow. “Police do it all the time. It will lead us
right
to our target.”

It was stiflingly warm inside the museum and it was packed, adding to the claustrophobic atmosphere.
Normally Toby enjoyed walking around the exhibits, examining nasty-looking Viking or Indian weapons, marveling at the cool hieroglyphic texts of the ancient Egyptians, or staring at the dinosaur skeletons and imagining the beasts stamping around the countryside.

Unfortunately, today he was confined to the special exhibit hall that was showcasing his father's latest discovery. It was all very impressive the first time around—but the hundredth time around of hearing
exactly
the same story was tiring Toby. Plus a museum wasn't the place to be when you knew the fate of the free world hung on your shoulders. But how do you explain that to your parents?

He gazed at the photographs of the huge stepped pyramid that his father had discovered, hidden by foliage deep in the Mexican jungle. Its sides reached over the tree line, but were covered in so much vegetation that they blended into the jungle like a hill. It was just part of a lost city his father's expedition had uncovered, so new that it still hadn't been given a name. The surprising thing was that such a structure had remained hidden in this day and age. But then again, Toby knew that marvels could still be found in the world.

Toby stood at his father's side. His dad was giving an enthusiastic summary of the exhibition to a small knot of fascinated visitors. His zeal hadn't waned in the last
three hours. Toby had even caught his mom hiding a yawn on more than one occasion.

“We only made it into the outer chamber. The secrets of the inner chamber still remain for our next expedition. You can see from the aerial photographs that it resembles the site at Chichén Itzá, except here we have two symmetrical pyramids that … “

Toby zoned out. He had always liked the stories of the ancient Mayans, especially their version of basketball called
Pok-ta-pok
, which was played with a small rubber ball that the players had to keep off the ground using any parts of their body, except their hands. They had to get it through tiny sideways stone hoops on a wall. And sometimes the losers were killed. Gruesome, but great.

Toby sighed and glanced at his watch. Only two more hours to go. He hoped that Pete was okay and that the Enforcers had already taken Basilisk from him. He felt sorry for Pete and wished that he'd paid more attention to the fact his friend had not been himself the last few weeks. Then there was the problem of tracking Worm down. Chameleon had given him no help at all on that. He glanced at his watch again to double-check the time … then his eye was drawn to something on an exhibition photograph.

Something familiar.

Frowning, Toby squeezed between a couple of artsy
types to get a better view. It was an enlarged still of the pyramid's door. Toby had seen it dozens of times on his dad's jerky video diary. But here it was much clearer, a familiar swirling logo that had been incorrectly identified as a snake.

It was the
same
logo as the one on Worm's brooch, the one that had momentarily hypnotized Toby on Diablo Island. Mr. Grimm had warned them about Worm's old-school techniques, but Toby and Lorna had not paid any attention to such a small detail.

A horrible realization dawned on Toby. It was his own father who had discovered Worm's resting place; his own father who had unwittingly unleashed the supervillain, leading to events that would ultimately topple the Hero Foundation and destroy the world.

Toby felt sick.

Now more than ever he needed to talk to Pete. He just hoped there was not going to be any more bad news.

Pete sat in his dark bedroom and stared at the posters on his wall; some of them were fading with age. He had cried most of the night, but then had abruptly stopped as the sadness he had been feeling was replaced by numbness. He slipped Lorna's phone into his pocket since it was clear that Toby was not going to show up or
even bother calling. After a two-hour wait, he finally realized his friends were about as reliable as his parents.

The only good news of the day was that his parents had left the house that morning. His mother was going to see friends and his dad was going to a bar, so it was quiet for a change and he wouldn't have to explain the arrival of the Enforcers to them. Whenever
they
bothered showing up.

Pete went into the kitchen for a glass of water. He slipped a straw in and went out to the shed, hoping that his prisoner hadn't died of thirst.

Basilisk's head shot up when Pete entered. Pete put the straw under the rim of the sack and Basilisk emptied the glass in one gulp.

“I heard shouting last night. I was worried you had been hurt,” said Basilisk in a concerned tone.

“It's none of your business,” snarled Pete. “And why would you be worried about me?”

“Because if you died, then maybe I would die alone in this cell?” Pete glanced around the flimsy wooden shed. “Your friends never came to interrogate me. So I presume without you, I would be alone in this place.”

“Huh,” said Pete. One person had bothered to call last night, Emily. But when Pete had seen her name on his caller ID he'd hesitated too long before answering and she hung up. As lonely as he was, he'd felt too miserable to speak to anyone.

“So how did you become leader of such an irreverent group of heroes?”

“I'm not their leader,” Pete snapped back, again silently cursing himself that he'd said too much.

“Surely somebody as talented and brave as you would be an inspiring leader, not a follower?”

At some level, Pete knew that Basilisk was just trying to butter him up. But right now the one thing he needed was positive encouragement.

“I agree with you. But I wouldn't let it worry you too much because the Enforcers are on their way as we speak. You're going to have a nice long time to think about it in Diablo Island. And when Hero.com is back online I will be the one making a difference and calling the shots.”

Basilisk's voice echoed his concern. “Enforcers? Coming here?”

“When they bother showing up,” said Pete, looking out of the dirty window.

“Did you know there's another way to get powers other than that juvenile Web site of yours?”

“Yeah, I know. Villain.net. I heard about that. But it's not as good as our site, rip-offs never are. You just end up with a poor quality copy,” Pete mocked.