Chapter 6

Iggy entered the pass code to the base in a secluded part of Italy.

"Anybody home?" he called. There was no answer.

"Well, we can make ourselves at home," Nudge said. "Angel, they've got a great wardrobe. It's, like, a mile square! They have EVERYTHING. They're for disguise purposes, but, man, some of the outfits are hot!"

"This I gotta see," Angel said.

"Yep," Iggy said. "And Gazzy, they have a lot of stuff here for us to build and blow up and build again… and there's a big gym, with lots of weapons and an arena and stuff to provide lots of martial arts training for Fang and…" He paused before gesturing to me. "Just Fang," he muttered awkwardly. "Sorry, dude."

"No worries," I said. "I'll just… familiarize myself with the layout. You guys go play."

Angel and Nudge skipped down one hallway, and Iggy and Gazzy ran down another. I strolled around the entry room, looking around casually. The front room appeared to be the conference room. It was nicely furnished, with a large conference table and chairs, as well as hanging plants all over. I liked it a lot.

Down on one of the walls was a large photograph of seven people, standing all together looking miserable. It took up the entire wall—it was life-sized. I walked over to it and examined the people.

"I'm the blond," said a voice behind me.

I turned. It was Danny Brooks, the octopus-man. He had bright red skin, and like all of the mutants of the ICBG he had strikingly human eyes. He slithered forward on his octopus tentacles, dressed in a four-sleeved polo shirt and looking very much like… well, like a vaguely humanoid octopus. Nothing else to compare him to, really.

"Third from the end," he said in his whiny voice. "That's me. This was taken in 2001."

I looked at the photo again. He was short and slender, and appeared to be highly frail.

"Right," I said. "And I know this one is the Big Guy." I pointed to the elderly Hispanic man on the rightmost edge of the photo. "And over here are Felicia and Albert." Albert looked to be about six-four in height, and was pale with long black hair. Felicia was Asian with very soft features and short, cropped hair. The two of them were on the left side of the photo.

"Look how in love they were," Danny said wistfully. "We were never allowed to make physical contact with our fellow prisoners. That was never really a problem for anyone but the two of them. Look at them, even without making physical contact they're gravitating so strongly toward each other. And there's the twins, obviously."

The twins were dark-skinned, and completely identical, down to their outfits and haircuts. "They're really little!" I said.

"Yeah," Danny said. "Lethally intelligent, the both of them. They could do long division in their heads by the age of four. This was taken just a few months before the Big Guy's experiment and breakout. We've been on the run for eight years."

"Wow," I said. "But the Big Guy said you got the name 'International Conglomerate of Bad Guys' from an episode of Chuck. Chuck only started airing last year."

"We only started having a name last year," Danny said. "After so many years, we decided that we had to find acceptance somehow—for the sake of our sanity. Think about it. You could handle yourself for a year or two, living off the land, living in secret, but could you stand eight years of that?"

"Well, we never really got the opportunity to run for eight years," I admitted. "People found us, caught up to us. Acceptance came pretty quick after that."

"Yes," Danny said. "You see why we've been so jealous of you? We have none of the benefits you have. We were imprisoned already, even before we became mutants—they called us mad scientists, evil geniuses, all those labels. And as mutants go, we're not nearly as cute as you kids."

"Yeah," I said. "I remember, Laura said that. That you've all been working so hard for the betterment of the world, and then we got accepted out of nowhere."

"That's right," Danny agreed. "Laura." He pointed to the only person in the photo who hadn't been identified, a beefy red-headed woman standing between himself and the Big Guy. "Killed by your Max. She was my best friend… before."

"Before she was killed?" I said. "I'm really sorry about that."

"Before she lost her mind and her soul," Danny corrected. "No need to be sorry. The Laura that Max killed was not the Laura I knew. By that time, she was… evil."

"I noticed," I said.

"Not as evil as Jewel, though," Danny said. "Compared to Jewel, Laura had a heart of gold and a soul made of rainbows and moonbeams. Nothing's as evil as Jewel."

"I don't know if that's completely accurate," I said. "Ever hear of Itex? The By-Half Plan?"

"Uh-huh," Danny said. "Pretty nasty. But Jewel's plan makes the By-Half plan look like dandruff."

"Dandruff?" I repeated.

"I don't know. Dandruff. It was the first harmless thing that came to mind." He shrugged. "So… where is your Max?"

"Max?" I said. "Nobody knows where she is. No one will ever find her. Max will stay hidden until Keegan says otherwise. Keegan has all the powers in the universe, you know."

"Keegan?" Danny said. "Are you sure? Keegan, the little girl with the thick glasses?"

"You know any other Keegan with that kind of power?"

"Keegan is a powerful cosmic force… and she belongs to Jewel. How could you get that kind of assurance from her?"

"She's more than a powerful… thing," I said. "She's Max's best friend. She's a double agent. She gives us all the help she can, within her principles."

"Good to know," Danny said. "We were afraid that we were all doomed. Keegan has principles, then?"

"She absolutely does," I said. "How did you know that Keegan has powers?"

"Ray and Ram discovered it," Danny said. "They told the Big Guy, and Jewel's betrayal came pretty quick after that."

"Keegan was with Jewel already at that point," I said thoughtfully. "So he must not know."

Ray and Ram came out of the hallway. They were no longer identical—far from it. Ray was a spotted stingray 23 feet across, who moved by undulating across the floor, and Ram was a six-foot-tall bipedal mountain goat. Despite their ferocious appearance, it was pretty easy to tell that, truthfully, they were a couple of innocent 12-year-old boys.

"Good to have you onboard, Fang," Ray said. "You ready to take Jewel down?"

"How do we do that?" I asked.

"We can only hope that the Big Guy will figure something out," Danny said. "Jewel has a plan, you know. When he's through, there will be only a handful of humans in the world, every one of them with no purpose but to serve, and die, at Jewel's hand."

"Well, that ain't no good," I said.