Virus Attack (15 page)

“Because nothing in life is easy! Not if it's worth
doing. My plan is foolproof and
will
see us victorious!”
With you in a box
, Basilisk added silently.

Toby was now through the door and he dragged himself behind the central steel column. He stood upright, careful to keep his paper-thin edge toward the villains. For a frightening moment, he thought he caught Worm glancing over, but the villain didn't seem to notice him.

“And what about the other two? I don't like them.”

Basilisk was secretly plotting to use Viral and Trojan to assault Villain.net as well, but that was a future plan that didn't concern Worm. “After this is over you can deal with them.” Basilisk resisted laughing out loud—Trojan and Viral would tear Worm apart.

Toby looked at the machine's controls in front of him. He had been expecting to find Pete tied up, and was shocked to see his friend's face on a monitor. Heart sensors steadily beeped indicating he was alive, and Toby somehow knew he must be contained in the column in front of him.

“Very well. I allow you to continue,” said Worm.

“Most generous,” purred Basilisk, who wanted nothing more than to pulverize the little fiend into dust.

“I will charge up the
Nematode
so we can proceed with the second phase.”

Toby watched as Worm strode toward the panoramic opening at the top of the pyramid, which wasn't visible from the outside, camouflaged by a holographic screen.
Worm suddenly dissolved into fine sandlike grains that cascaded down the side of the pyramid, reforming into the villain once the grains reached the jungle floor.

Toby grinned. If they waited for the bad guys to leave they would have no problem freeing Pete. Basilisk spun around and headed for the door.

That was when Toby saw the flaw in his plan. He had no time to shout out before Basilisk yanked open the door.

Lorna and Emily froze when they saw the villain. Basilisk stopped in his tracks too, stunned to see them.

Chaos erupted.

“Intruders!” he roared.

Toby took a step forward, intending to distract Basilisk, but then noticed a large red button amid the old dials on the control panel. It was such an obvious button to press, and Toby rationalized that it would probably have been a stylish design sixty-odd years ago when the machine had been constructed. With the villain momentarily distracted this was his chance to release Pete.

He hit the button.

An alarm squawked out, drowning Basilisk's voice. Yellow warning lights rotated on the cryogenic chamber and an icy high-pressure mist shot out of the machine.

Basilisk's eyes blazed malevolently. Both Emily and
Lorna screamed in agony as they felt their skin tightening across their bodies. The sensation vanished the moment Basilisk broke eye contact to twist around to see the dry ice flood the room behind him.

“Who's there?” he yelled in obvious confusion.

Emily and Lorna turned to retreat but froze when they saw Trojan and Viral running up the corridor behind them. The villains slowed their pace when they saw the intruders were trapped.

Viral grinned evilly. “Lost, little girls?”

Lorna grabbed Emily and shouted something. Toby saw all this through the dry ice filling the room. He watched as Emily and Lorna stabbed their wristbands and then vanished in a cloud of smoke that mixed with the vapors in the room.

Basilisk turned and ran toward the console, still oblivious to Toby's presence. Toby circled around him and slammed the door closed, pulling a heavy bar across it to prevent Viral and Trojan from entering the room.

Basilisk spun around and finally noticed Toby, who stood like a two-dimensional cartoon character. Behind, the cryogenic chamber rose to reveal an unconscious Pete strapped to the chair, covered in a sheen of ice.

“You don't give up, do you?” Basilisk snarled when he recognized him.

Toby was well aware that he was on his own. Emily and Lorna must have teleported away. Half of him
resented the fact they'd left him on his own while the other half understood that they had been trapped with only one escape route.

“I just came for my friend, Basilisk,” said Toby, raising his wafer-thin hands for a fight even though he looked ridiculous. A passing thought made him wonder if a single punch from the supervillain would tear a hole through him. That would surely kill him.

“Then come and get him, boy.”

Toby took a step forward and wondered how he could avoid the villain's gaze. Trojan suddenly appeared in the room with a flourish of her cape; Viral walked out from the folds of the material as it swished around the girl. Trojan wasn't wearing her mask, and Toby thought for a second she looked very attractive, until she gave him a cruel smile. He was outnumbered.

And he was probably going to die.

Emily and Lorna reappeared with a sucking noise. They felt dizzy from their quick escape. They were standing on the broad flat top of the pyramid opposite the one they had just fled. Dawn illuminated the jungle. Lorna was momentarily struck by how beautiful the landscape looked.

Moments before, she and Emily had been examining the options on their wristbands and thought they'd
identified one that could be useful—when Basilisk had opened the door. Once the other villains appeared behind them they had little choice but to select the new power, and to hope.

Their bodies atomized in a cloud with a sensation that felt like being tickled all over. Although their bodies were no longer larger than a particle of smoke, they could still see around them. They zoomed past Basilisk and circled the chamber like ghosts before spotting the opening outside. They shot through and banked across to the pyramid opposite just as the power wore off.

Emily pointed back at the pyramid. A solid-looking wall was blocking the opening they had escaped from. She stared for a couple of seconds, and then noticed the image glitch as if it was a looped video image.

“It's a fake wall! A hologram or something.”

“We've got to go back and get Toby.”

“We can't fight with just defensive powers.”

“What do we do?”

“Give me a second, Lorn. I have an idea.”

Toby grunted in pain. His power abruptly wore off and his entire body reinflated like an expanding balloon. It felt like being punched all over.

Trojan watched in surprise. “Nice trick.”

“Thanks.” He gave her what he thought was a charming smile, before remembering the danger he was in.

“Can we just kill him already?” snarled Viral.

Basilisk nodded. “Yes, he's of no use to us.”

Toby took a step back and felt the iron door blocking his path. Viral opened his mouth to say something snotty.

Then he was blasted off his feet by a fireball that slammed him against the ancient Mayan wall. Trojan and Basilisk spun around to see Emily and Lorna swoop through the archway. Emily landed next to Pete and immediately began unfastening his restraints. Lorna unleashed another fireball between Trojan and Basilisk—forcing them to leap aside.

“Tobe! We are
leaving
!” she screamed.

Toby didn't have time to ponder where they had found these powers; instead he darted forward and helped Emily free Pete.

The three downed villains were all trying to rise at the same time. An energy blast erupted from Basilisk's hands—Lorna darted aside as the beam punched a jagged hole in the ancient brickwork. She retaliated with a fireball that hit Basilisk firmly in his chest and rolled him into Viral. She spun around with another fireball aimed at Trojan—but it exploded harmlessly against Trojan's cape as she pulled it up.

Pete was a dead weight and still unconscious when
Emily and Toby pulled him from the chair. His skin was cold to the touch, but they had no time to check him over.

Lorna dropped to the floor. “Oh no! My flying's out!”

Toby and Emily dragged Pete across to the opening and Lorna smashed the cuffs from his hands before sending another fireball into the room—this time targeting the cryogenic column. It exploded into chunks, forcing everybody to duck.

“We're trapped again,” Emily commented with forced calm.

Toby looked down the steep, stepped side of the pyramid. It was a long way down, and a difficult climb. Without a flying power they were stuck.

“What was your plan for getting out?”

“I hoped we could still fly,” said Lorna.

An energy blast from Basilisk clipped the wall next to them, stone shards cutting Toby's face. Trojan and Viral joined him, wiping debris off their clothes.

“Why don't you jump and make it easier on yourselves,” snarled Viral. “Because when I'm finished with you there's not going to be much of you left.”

Toby advanced as Basilisk raised his arms to fire again. He hit an icon on the wristband that he'd been dying to try out. There was a bright flash—and then there were suddenly ten Tobys facing the villains. Each duplicate looked at the other and smiled.

Basilisk fired at the target that
had been
the real Toby. The duplicate vanished with a popping noise.

“What is this?” snarled Basilisk, clearly at a loss as the army of Tobys advanced.

The real Toby had been teleported several yards to the side as the duplicates appeared—it was like the old trick of trying to find a ball under a cup. He still had no attack powers, but hoped Basilisk didn't know that. And when he spoke, his eight other images spoke too.

“Time for
you
to run. I have nine times the power right here!”

Viral kicked out at one image—it popped away like a soap bubble.

“Unlucky,” grinned Toby.

“If you could attack us,” said Basilisk slowly, “then you would have done so already. You can't do it, can you?”

The expression on the eight Tobys' faces betrayed what he was feeling. Then he heard Emily shout out.

“Toby! Let's go!” She and Lorna had picked Pete up between them.

The eight Tobys turned and sprinted for Emily. Toby could feel Basilisk unleash a blast of energy behind him and the stone slabs on the floor were torn away like a rug. He flailed forward and landed at Emily's feet, flat on his face.

She thumbed her wristband and a spherical shield
enveloped the four of them. Basilisk fired again. The blast ricocheted from the shield.

“You won't leave here alive!” bellowed Basilisk in fury, and his eyes seemed to explode in a fluorescent blue flash.

Toby screamed as he felt his skin begin to harden; the moisture was being sucked from it. Despite the pain, he had a sudden idea. Like a hamster, he pushed the curved inside of the ball—and the four of them rolled off the edge of the pyramid!

One time on vacation, Toby had tried an extreme sport known as zorbing, which involved being strapped inside a giant inflated ball and kicked down a hill. It was an exhilarating experience. And one they were copying now.

The energy ball bounced recklessly down the stepped pyramid slope, gaining momentum. Everybody inside was jostled around—heads butted and bodies painfully clashed.

Basilisk dived straight down in pursuit. Unable to fly, both Trojan and Viral stopped at the edge and watched as the energy ball bounced from the bottom step and vaulted into the jungle.

With little else to do, Toby screamed as they pinballed through the jungle, bouncing from tree to tree in sudden direction changes. At one point they burst into a clearing where Worm was inspecting the fuselage of
the
Nematode
. The diminutive villain barely had time to hit the deck as the energy ball slammed into the side of his machine and rebounded into the thick jungle. Seconds later Basilisk flew through the clearing at breakneck speed, following the sphere in a wide arc.

Just as Toby thought he was going to be sick, the ball made a final bounce—and didn't seem to hit the ground again. He became aware they were falling from a great height.…

They had dropped from a cliff edge and plummeted to one of the few rivers on the Yucatan peninsula. Mr. Grimm's briefing rattled through his mind at light speed. Worm had been imprisoned in Yucatan because the whole peninsula was built on limestone. It might have been a soft rock but it was dense enough to foil his powers. The limestone meant that there were few lakes or rivers on the main peninsula because the rocks acted like a sponge, forming giant cenotes—or sink-holes—that held the water. What few rivers there were led out to the ocean and were infested with crocodiles.

Toby remembered all of that as they fell toward the river—just as Emily's power died and the shield vanished.

They landed with an enormous splash, and Toby felt himself being dragged toward the bottom of the river. He frantically kicked toward the surface and emerged, spluttering, next to Emily. Lorna was not too far away.

“Where's Pete?” he shouted, spitting out a mouthful of water.

Pete suddenly popped to the surface, gulping air and yelling so much that Toby couldn't help smiling; at least it meant he was alive.

A gentle current tugged at them.

“Make for the shore!” Emily shouted.

Before she could move, Basilisk shot through the trees and hovered over the wide river, spotting the figures immediately. He was so angry that he didn't even pause to deliver a mocking epitaph. He just fired his energy bolt straight at them.

Emily and Toby submerged and saw the blast smash into the water above them, creating a torrent of bubbles. The residual force from the energy rippled across the water and struck Lorna. She immediately fell limp.

Toby kicked toward her and broke the surface just as Basilisk fired again. The bolt landed wide, allowing Toby to support Lorna above the water. She looked pale, but was coming around. Toby scrambled for her wristband to activate the shield she had used. The pad was missing.

“Where is it?”

Lorna was too weak to answer. Toby glanced up to see Basilisk swooping low—and Emily was right in his path.