“Ahem,” Smart said, holding up a shiny silver microchip. “That will do.”
“Finished?” Jack asked.
“Let’s see.” Trea snatched the chip away from him. He tried to grab it back, but she handed it off to the second Trea. She gave it to the third Trea, who then handed it back to the first. She plugged it into a holo-tablet computer and
projected a schematic of the chip into the air. Its rotating image hovered above the operating table. Jack and the three Treas studied it intently.
“Careful with that,” Smart said, reaching for the chip. “It’s extremely delicate!”
“I just want to get a look first,” Trea said.
“We don’t have time for this,” Smart said. “Look.” He held up his handheld. It read: “Infection Level: 48.9%.” “Once the infection covers more than half his body, it’s going to be too late.”
Jack coughed a couple of times. He tasted blood. “It’s all right. I see what he did. It’s fine. Let’s get this done before it’s too late.”
“Forty-nine point two and climbing,” Smart said.
“Bring it over here. Quickly,” Jack told Trea. “We only need one of you for this part.” Trea pulled herself together and brought the chip over to Jack. He could feel Khalix pushing as hard as he could, racing like an Olympic sprinter trying to beat him across the finish line. “Right here,” Jack said, tapping the glowing light in his chest. “The infection is buried in my heart. That’s where you have to load the chip.”
Trea straightened her back. “In your heart? How do I—?”
Jack groaned in pain as he “opened up” the machinery in his chest. He arched his back up off the operating table and pushed Revile’s power core up out of his body. His chest split open as the core rose up. “Here. There should be an open data port on the flip side.”
“Forty-nine point six,” Smart said, still reading the numbers off his handheld.
Trea swallowed hard and reached into Jack’s chest with the chip. She fished around with her hand, looking for the data port, but couldn’t get at it. “I can’t reach it,” she said. “The angle’s no good.”
“You have to,” Jack said. “Keep trying.”
As Trea struggled to press the chip into place, Jack’s mind wandered a moment, thinking about someone who would have had no trouble reaching his heart. Allegra. Her liquid metal fingers would have found the mark easily. He couldn’t let the Rüstov have her. He wouldn’t. This had to work.
“I think I’ve got it,” Trea said.
“I’m not going anywhere, Jack,” said Khalix. “I’m still going to be the last one standing when this is all over.”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Jack replied.
“Hurry, Trea,” Smart pressed.
Trea found the data port and pushed the chip into the back of Jack’s heart. She retracted her hand, and for a moment, the lab and everyone in it were completely still. A clock on the wall counted the seconds in silence. Jack held his breath. His body convulsed. He shook like he was having a seizure, thrashing about violently. Trea tried to hold him down, but Smart pulled her back. Jack flailed about for another ten seconds, then suddenly, every muscle in his body tensed up. He relaxed a second later, dropping his back flat against the table. He took a few deep breaths. Waiting. Listening. Nobody said a word. It was as if someone had just turned the volume on the room all the way down.
Jack sealed himself back up and got off the table. He nearly fell over when he put his feet on the ground. “Whoa.” He shot his arms out and caught his balance like a surfer riding on a wave.
“Jack, are you all right?” Trea asked. She looked at Smart. “What’s the infection level at now?”
“Forty-nine point eight,” Smart replied. “And holding.”
“So . . . it worked?” Trea said.
“We don’t know that yet,” Smart replied. “I’m running a full diagnostic scan.”
“Talk to us, Jack,” Trea said. “What are you feeling? Is Khalix blocked out? Can you use your powers against the Rüstov now?”
Jack felt around the machinery in his chest as a ray of blue light from Smart’s scanner washed over him. “This . . . this is unbelievable.”
Suddenly, alarms started going off all over Smart’s lab. Trea jumped. “What is it? What’s going on?”
Jack doubled over and grabbed his chest. The pain was incredible.
“It’s not working, that’s what’s going on!” Smart said. “Look.” He called up a holo-screen projection of the nullifier chip inside Jack’s power core. It was flashing with red light. “Khalix is still drawing enough power from the Magus to strain the device. The nullifier is burning out.”
Trea backed away from Jack, her eyes darting left and right. “What do we do?”
Smart shook his head slowly. “There’s nothing we can do.”
Jack staggered back to the operating table and fell onto it. The infection level readout on Smart’s holo-screen ticked up one point to 49.9. Jack’s body shook as it hit 50 percent and kept going. The numbers rolled up toward 100 percent at a rapid pace. Jack’s infection attacked his system completely unopposed, and Rüstov technology poured out of his chest.
Revile Resurrected
The Rüstov infection worked fast. Nanites flooded Jack’s brain. His bones vibrated as they transformed into metal, and he felt his veins turn cold as they morphed into lengths of wire and cable. His organs shook inside his body as they turned into machine parts. His blood flow slowed down as his bodily fluids thickened and became a sticky black oil. Jack’s Rüstov infection was unlike any other. It didn’t simply stop growing once the parasite had taken over his body. It kept going until every inch of him had been replaced with Rüstov technology. Metal grew out of
Jack’s chest and covered his body like a ramshackle suit of armor. He could hear Trea screaming as his muscles gave way to iron and rubber tubing.
“I told you. I warned you!” Smart shouted. “Now we’re all doomed!”
A rusty iron mask grew over Jack’s face, and the last traces of his identity vanished. For all intents and purposes, Jack Blank was gone. He stood before Smart and Trea as Revile.
“Jack?” Trea asked, her eyes streaked with silver tears. “Are you in there? Please tell me that’s still you in there.”
The iron giant gave no reply. He simply charged forward, crashed through the window, and launched himself out into the sky. Broken shards of glass fell down like rain as he soared high above the towers of Empire City.
He went straight for the airfield in Galaxis where the Calculan fleet was parked. Five thousand unmanned attack ships sat below them, all lined up in neat little rows. He swooped over the first row of ships, firing away with his plasma cannons and lighting them up. Explosions ran down the line, building in force like a giant wave crashing into the shore. He made another pass, and a crescendo
of fire ripped through the airfield in the opposite direction. Thunderous booms shook the city as the remote-controlled fighters went up in flames. Minutes later, the Calculan fleet was destroyed, and its destroyer flew away into a night sky that was filled with smoke and fire. He had left some of the Calculan ships intact, but the bulk of their fleet had been decimated in a terrifying display of firepower. It was just as the footage from Jonas Smart’s TimeScope had predicted.
The Rüstov supersoldier left Empire City behind and flew to Wrekzaw Isle as dawn approached. Its once deserted surface now bustled with activity. Legions of Para-Soldiers raised their fists in the air and cheered him on as he passed over their heads. He touched down at the edge of a pit of fire. He’d been there before. In a way, he’d never left. The pit was Revile’s grave, a slow-burning cauldron of flames that never went out. Up until the most recent Rüstov attack, a pair of Valorian Guards had been placed here at all times, just in case the time-traveling supersoldier was still alive in there somewhere. The guards were now host bodies for Rüstov troops, a fate many in the Imagine Nation would soon share.
He reached out to the downed mothership that made up the foundation of Wrekzaw Isle and powered down its Infinite Warp Core engine. The flames went out, and deep within the pit, there was darkness. Moments later, a flicker of light flashed in the pitch-black hollow. A circular red crystal drifted up from below with globs of molten metal trailing behind it. The fragments hovered in the air above the pit and began to cool, drawing themselves together around the crystal core. They were forming the shape of something, bit by bit. Machine components from the junkyard landscape of Wrekzaw Isle were attracted to the molten mass of metal and got pulled in from all sides. A figure began to take shape. The end result was a mirror image of the Rüstov supersoldier standing at the edge of the pit. The Revile of tomorrow had come face-to-face with the Revile of today. The Imagine Nation’s troubles had just been multiplied by two.
A resounding cheer rose up from the Rüstov forces that had gathered around Revile’s grave. The noise echoed across the barren plains of Wrekzaw Isle as thousands of Para-Soldiers stomped their feet and fired their weapons into the air. The raucous celebration was enough to chill
the heart of even the bravest hero. Sure enough, the reaction of the Rüstov rank and file was the polar opposite of that of the prisoners in the holding pens. Blue, Zhi, and the rest of the prisoners taken in the Varagog raid huddled together in fear as the second Revile emerged from the fiery pit.
The second Revile appeared disoriented, but he was coming around. He flew a few feet away from the crater that had been his prison for the last two years, moving in an erratic, clumsy path. He took a moment to steady himself and get his bearings straight. He looked at his hands, flexing his fingers and reaching his arms out in front of him. He felt at his chest, examining his newly regenerated and very intimidating form. After being trapped for so long in the warp core engine, melting and reforming over and over in an endless loop, he was suddenly whole once more. Turning his head slowly, he scanned the surrounding area, familiarizing himself with his dreadful surroundings. The dull orange-brown hue of rusted shrapnel burned with a hideous glow beneath glaring fluorescent lights. An army of Para-Soldiers stood below him, applauding his arrival. A sea of Shardwing fighters hovered above
him, filling up the sky and blocking out the stars. Judging from his reaction, it was what he saw across from him that bothered him most—a hulking mechanical soldier that might as well have been his clone. He straightened up with a jolt.
“No . . . NO!”
He instantly regained his coordination and rushed down toward his doppelgänger. He clutched him by the shoulders and looked him up and down with frantic, jerky motions.
“I’m too late,” he said, letting go and pulling his hands back. “They did it. I failed.” He balled up his fists and drifted away from his twin, shaking with anger. “I
told
you this would happen. I warned you!” He turned away and grabbed at his head in tortured anguish. “We’ve lost. All is lost . . . again.”
He had come from a future where the Rüstov had not only won the war but used him to do it. He’d come back in time to prevent that future from ever happening and himself from ever existing. Seeing what Jack had become made it painfully clear that his time-traveling suicide run had not changed a thing. His mad dash through time was
all for naught. As he mourned the loss of his only purpose in life, Glave arrived at the pit, marveling at the unexpected development.
“Two of you?” Glave asked. A second later, he snapped his fingers. “Of course, the one from . . .” Glave trailed off, putting it all together. “He was still in there!” The Rüstov general clapped his hands together. “Sire, you are a genius! Congratulations, Lord Khalix. Your father’s faith in you has been rewarded. Your destiny is about to be fulfi—”
Glave was interrupted by a hand at his throat. He gagged and looked with shocked eyes at the newer giant supersoldier who had just grabbed his neck and locked it in a viselike grip. “Khalix, what are you doing?” he sputtered out, gasping for air. Glave thought his master’s son was underneath all those layers of armor, but when the supersoldier took off his mask, there was a human face hiding behind it.
“You keep calling me Khalix. The name is
Jack
.”
Glave’s eyes bugged out. “Impossible!”
Jack shook his head and flashed a devil’s grin. “Sorry. No such thing. I keep saying that, but I feel like nobody
listens.” He lifted Glave off the ground. “Roka, I know you’re still in there, so I want to apologize for this in advance. I’m going to put things right, I promise.”
Glave clawed at Jack’s fingers, trying to pry them from his throat. “Khalix! Wake up! Stop him!”
Jack shook his head. “Khalix isn’t home right now. Have fun telling the Magus that his son didn’t make the cut.” He turned and threw Glave as hard as he could. The Rüstov general went sailing through the air like a home run ball flying out of the park. He landed well out of sight, beyond the scrap-metal hills in the distance, and the Para-Soldiers suddenly lost every ounce of their swagger. They looked at each other in confusion, searching for answers none of them had. The old Revile, too, looked completely bewildered. He approached Jack with extreme caution, as if he were a mirage that might blow away in the ocean breeze.
“I don’t understand. What is this?” he asked.
“It’s simple. I’m just like you.”
“Just like me . . . ?”
“I’m still in control,” Jack explained. “I beat them. I just did it sooner than you did.”
Despite Jack’s explanation, Revile continued to share
the Para-Soldiers’ confusion. He looked around, assessing their numbers. “I thought this was an occupying army.”
Jack shook his head. “It’s an invasion force. They attack at dawn. It’s not too late. You and I can stop them.”
Revile pondered Jack’s words carefully. He looked across the sea and saw that Empire City was still largely intact. “Earth has not yet fallen?”
“Not yet it hasn’t.” Jack offered Revile his hand. “What do you say? Partners?”
Revile placed his hand on Jack’s chest and listened. “You didn’t beat your infection. The parasite inside you is fighting to live, even as we speak.”
Jack frowned. “You can hear him?”