Violet froze, but only for an instant. Self preservation overrode the part of her mind that was trying to yield.
"Show yourself. Become visible," Vice-Principal Nero commanded.
Again Violet felt an inner struggle, but she was able to resist the temptation to obey.
"Hal, are you sure the person is still here?" Nero asked.
"Yes, Mr. Nero. My infra-red sensors detect a heat signature to my left," said Hal.
"It's true, then," said Nero. "Children of two supers develop resistance to the conditioning."
He moved toward her, arms outstretched. "You might as well give up, Violet Parr. I've got you cornered."
Violet created a force-field around herself. She walked out from behind the desk, forcing him back step by step.
"You won't get far," Nero said. "I'll call in agents..."
Suddenly the outside wall crashed in. Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl burst into the room.
"Oh my, would-be rescuers," sneered Nero. He played the violin notes again. "Break through the force-field and kill her."
Instead, Mr. Incredible clobbered Nero with a powerful punch that smashed his violin and knocked him out.
"Dad, Mom! You're yourselves again!" Violet rushed to them and hugged them. "How did you resist him?"
Bob Parr grinned. He reached up and removed something from his ears. "Earplugs," he explained.
Helen Parr also removed plugs from her ears. "Your father's old boss used that same violin music against us on the plane. We figured that Nero must know something, so we came here. I'm so glad you're safe!"
"Is everyone else all right?" Violet asked.
Dash zoomed in, carrying Jack-Jack. "Yeah! All the good guys made it. It was awesome."
"Zooper!" agreed Jack-Jack.
Fiona flew in behind him. "Except my stepfather. We won't know for fifteen years."
KitFox came in also, along with myself.
"This is my brother The Lemon," she said. "I called him to join us since it seems something major is going on that affects us all."
"We'd better get out of here," said Helen. "People may come to investigate the noise."
"Just a few minutes," said Violet. "I came here to get the sugar bowl secrets read, and I don't want to leave without that. I hope Hal the computer can read it."
"You saved the sugar bowl?" asked Dash. "Cool!"
"Dusowandwun?" asked Jack-Jack.
"Hal, were you named for the computer in '2001, a Space Odyssey'?" Violet translated.
"I was named after Halley Hogenson. She collects information for me in the Library of Records and tags it with key words to train my A.I. program," said Hal. "I hope she is all right. I have not received new input from her for days."
The Incredibles didn't have the heart to tell Hal that the Library of Records was burned down along with Hemoglobin Hospital.
Violet took the sugar bowl out from under her costume and brought it to Hal.
"Hal, there's a microchip embedded in the base of this sugar bowl. Can you read what's on it?"
"Yes, I have worked with such devices before," said Hal. "Place it on the inductive reading pad to my right." After Violet did this, Hal said, "The latest file added to the directory is called the Super Snippet File. Should I read that first?"
"Go ahead," said Violet.
"The Primary Weakness of Supers," Hal read aloud the words that also appeared on the screen. "Besides ordinary vulnerabilities that vary from super to super, all supers have been conditioned to respond when they hear a series of violin notes: B-sharp, A, C, and E-flat. They will obey when given commands, and they will forget about it completely afterward."
The next page showed the faces of Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl. "Here are two of our best subjects. They have been used for numerous covert ops against foreign and domestic enemies."
"NO!" Helen cried. Mr. Incredible looked horrified.
The next page showed a masked face of a young man. "This is Flamethrower, our only known failure. He had a resistance to memory-wiping and as a result turned against us. His ability to do flame-projection was inhibited by removing his hands. He would have been executed except that Count Buddy Pine spoke up for him and took charge of his retraining."
"Fernald!" said Fiona.
The next page came up, "For reasons discussed in other sugar-bowl files, the government decided that supers must be eliminated. We started by isolating them and getting them out of the public eye. Our agent, Jerome Sansweet, heroically risked his life in a 'suicide attempt' that Mr. Incredible would be sure to stop. The lawsuit Sansweet filed set off a wave of others, paving the way for the Super Relocation Act."
Next page: "The work of eliminating supers has been contracted to Pine Industries, with Count Buddy Pine as the lead contractor. For deniability, he will locate the supers and lure them into traps without our assistance. He may have tendencies toward grandstanding and he has a personal grudge against Mr. Incredible for not being allowed to be his sidekick fifteen years ago, but his parents assure us he is under control."
Next page: "The extermination of supers has been very successful so far. Many major supers such as Universal Man, Gazerbeam, and Vectress have been terminated. Some currently uncertain cases are circled on the next page."
"The next page is missing," Hal reported.
"I know what it was," said Violet. "It was the page we found in the Library of Records. It showed supers with their faces circled and it said 'There is at least one more survivor'. Now we know why."
All the supers had come into the room by this time, and all were in open-mouthed shock.
"We're puppets, maybe assassins," moaned Mr. Incredible.
"The government wants to kill us," said Quigley, "Why?"
"Hal, it said the reasons were in the other files," Violet said. "Would you open that one for us?"
"I'm sorry," said Hal. "Only the mainframe, Duchess R., has the key to read the encryption on those."
"Duchess R.?" I said. "She's a major V.F.D. sponsor. I just received an invitation to a masked ball at her home. I thought it would be too dangerous to go."
"We saw an acceptance to an invitation like that in Madame Lulu's files," said Violet.
"Who was it from?" I asked.
"There was no name, but I remember there was a little sketch of a dragonfly in the corner," Violet said.
"Beatrice!" I cried. "She's in danger!"