The Accidental Hero Page 5

  “That’s a shame,” Jack said.

  “It is,” Jazen agreed. “But there’s always tomorrow. We may not get as many visitors as we used to, but the people who come still go on to do amazing things. I’m not just talking about people with superpowers, either. I’m talking about writers, musicians, philosophers… people you’ve probably heard of. People who changed the world.”

  “But if there are really superheroes and other stuff out there, how come I’ve never seen them or read about them?”

  “Haven’t you read about them?” Jazen asked.

  “Yeah, in comic books, but not in the news. Wouldn’t that change things? Wouldn’t more people believe?”

  “We have people who make sure we stay out of the news,” Jazen said. “Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely dream of a day when every man, woman, and child believes in the Imagine Nation, but we can’t serve up proof on a silver platter. The world isn’t ready for that. People have to discover it for themselves. We seed the world with the fantastic and new to change it little by little. Day by day.”

  Jack leaned forward on the railing and watched the waves roll by.

  “Do I have family in the Imagine Nation?” he asked. “Do they know about me? Are they superheroes?”

  “I don’t want to get your hopes up, Jack,” Jazen replied. “Your parents might be there and they might not. There’s a lot of different ways you could be tied to the Imagine Nation.”

  “Like what?” Jack asked.

  “Could be, your parents were normal people from New Jersey with distant relatives who come from the Imagine Nation,” Blue called out from over at the wheel of the ship.

  “Or you might have one parent who’s a superhero and another one from the outside world,” Jazen added.

  “Then again, maybe they’re both superheroes and they’re flying around Empire City right now,” Blue said. “Of course, if that’s the case, I gotta wonder how you ended up in New Jersey with the Rüstov chasing after you.

  Jazen put his hands up. “We could do this all day. You’re a mystery, Jack, but that’s all about to change. First priority when we get to the Imagine Nation is to run a DNA scan and find out everything we can about you, starting with your name.”

  “My name?” Jack asked. “Can we really do that?”

  “As soon as we get there,” Jazen said. “That’s a promise. Assuming, of course, you still want to go.”

  “Are you kidding? Yes, I want to go!”

  “I can’t guarantee it’s going to be easy all the time,” Jazen warned Jack. “Are you sure you’re ready to deal with it? With all of it?”

  Jack thought about what Jazen had said about the Imagine Nation not being very welcoming to new visitors at the moment. That meant Jack’s future was every bit as uncertain as his past, but he thought about the past he did know. About life at St. Barnaby’s with the likes of Mr. Calhoun, Mrs. Theedwheck, and Rex. A chance at something better had to be worth the risk. It had to be.

  “Going back isn’t an option,” Jack told Jazen. “I’m ready. I’m in.”

  “Then what are we waiting for? It’s time for you to take the wheel.”

  Jack’s eyes became saucers. “You want me to drive?” he asked.

  “You have to drive! You think I trust that big blue knucklehead to get us there?”

  “I heard that!” Blue shouted.

  Jazen laughed a little. “Besides,” he added, “how can I make sure you believe if you’re not the one driving us in?”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said, a little nervous. “Machines and I don’t usually work well together.”

  “Oh, I think you’re doing okay,” Blue said, giving Jazen a wink.

  “We haven’t sunk yet, have we?” Jazen asked.

  Jack followed Jazen to the captain’s wheel where Blue was steering the ship. Blue stepped aside, but he kept one hand on the wheel. “You believe, little man?” he asked Jack before letting go.

  Jack thought about it. Just the idea alone made him smile. “I do,” he said. “I believe in the Imagine Nation.”

  “Then take us home,” Blue said, bowing in deference to the ship’s new commander.

  Jack grabbed the wheel, and the ship lurched to the port side as he took the helm.

  “Whoa!” Jack said as he pulled the Vision back, righting the ship. She was a big boat. “Which way?” he asked.

  “You tell us, Captain,” Jazen replied.

  “Captain,” Jack repeated with a smile. “This morning I wasn’t even allowed on a school bus!” This was by far the coolest thing Jack had ever done. Jack looked out at the ocean before him. They wanted him to find his own way to the Imagine Nation, and he had no idea where to start.

  “Just follow your feelings,” Jazen said. “We trust you. Trust yourself.”

  Jack closed his eyes and let his heart tell him which way to turn. It wasn’t long before he had a heading that felt good. When he opened his eyes and looked around, something felt different. The water seemed cleaner. The air seemed fresher, even happier, if that was possible. The Vision was surging over the waves, and Jack knew it was time to kick things up to the next level.

  “How do you make this thing go faster?” he asked.

  Jazen sat down and buckled up as Blue pointed toward a lever. “That one, but—”

  Jack threw the lever to go full speed ahead, hurling the Vision toward the horizon and sending Blue straight into the back wall. Jazen laughed from the safety of his chair.

  “—But you might want to take it easy at first,” Blue grumbled as he got up.

  Jack had never been happier. The boat was going so fast, it was almost flying, and it wasn’t breaking down! What’s more, he seemed to be on the right track. After a little while, Jack started to see all kinds of clues that they were nearing the edge of the normal, ordinary world.

  “Thar she blows!” Jazen yelled, pointing off the starboard bow at one such clue.

  Jack turned to see a giant blue-green dragon surface next to the Vision and soar through the air. It was a long, winding sea serpent with scales, fins, and a beautiful woman riding it. She had aquamarine skin and a glittering, bright gold dress. She kept pace with Jack’s ship for a time, then waved good-bye and dove her mount back down below the waves.

  As they sailed on, they passed pirates, mermaids, and talking fish. Jack felt like he had crossed a line drawn between the normal world and the imaginary. Everywhere he looked, his own eyes confirmed that even if something was imaginary, that didn’t mean it wasn’t real. The walls between the possible and the impossible were breaking down, but the weather turned uglier the farther Jack sailed.

  Storm clouds started rolling in like angry spirits blocking out the sun. Jack could see them in the waters ahead, but he didn’t turn away. Emboldened by his success thus far, he headed straight for the storm. Neither Jazen nor Blue questioned him. Jack reached the squall, and within minutes the sun was gone. Despite the hour, the sky turned black as night. Between the heavy rains and even heavier fog, Jack couldn’t see anything. Still, he followed his heart. It had taken him this far. He just hoped it wouldn’t take him to the bottom of the sea.

  The fog was thick like smoke from a fire. After sailing completely blind for a few minutes, Jack spun the wheel to his left on instinct alone and just barely dodged a series of huge rocks jutting out from the ocean floor, large enough to scuttle the ship in an instant. Before he could even appreciate how close he had just come to death, something told him to jerk the wheel in the opposite direction, and he did. He followed that impulse, just missing a shipwrecked boat that was dashed upon more jagged rocks. There was danger all around as Jack weaved through countless near-misses in the fog, fighting the storm with nothing more than gut feelings and intuition.

  If Jazen and Blue were scared, they weren’t showing it. Their faces betrayed neither fear nor encouragement. This was all on Jack, and he steeled himself for what lay ahead. Throwing common sense out the window, he refused to change course. He was clo
se. He could feel it. The storm raged against the Vision as lightning crashed and waves rained down upon the deck. Hurricane winds rocked the boat as Jack sailed on blindly through the mist. Forward!. he thought. To the heart of the storm! To the edge of the impossible! To the shores of the Imagine Nation!

  To clear skies?

  Without warning, Jack cleared the mist, leaving the storm completely behind. The water turned dead calm. With the setting sun nearly gone from the sky, the Imagine Nation came into view.

  It was an astonishing, impossible sight.

  The island floated in midair over the center of a ring of waterfalls, a thousand feet in diameter, opening up like a giant hole in the ocean. The falls ran to the bottom of the sea, and the roar of the rushing water was tremendous. Cities, towns, and villages were scattered across the island’s lush green face. Countless airships bustled about in the skies overhead as well as on the rocky bottom below. A giant, translucent mountain with a razor-sharp peak and a wide base hovered behind the island like a crystal shard dangling in the sky.

  As the last rays of the setting sun shone through, the crystal mountain became a prism that bent the sun’s light in every direction, casting an image more beautiful than any rainbow Jack had ever seen. The massive, unstoppable waterfalls that surrounded the island roared with all the sound and fury of the seven seas. They called out to Jack, telling him that from this day forward, his life would be an extraordinary adventure.

  Jack had found his way. He belonged. It was every orphan’s dream. All the answers to his questions, everything he ever hoped for, was waiting on the island. Twelve years after he was born, his life was finally beginning. He didn’t have the words to express what he was feeling. Jazen had only two, but they were the right ones:

  “Welcome home,” he said.

  CHAPTER

  4

  Empire City

  Once Jack had had a moment or two to fully appreciate the mind-boggling view that was the Imagine Nation, it sunk in very quickly that he was headed straight for the world’s biggest waterfalls. Unless someone plotted a new course in the next few minutes, it wouldn’t be the only thing to sink very quickly.

  “Permission to take the helm, Captain?” Blue asked.

  “Permission granted!” Jack said, immensely relieved.

  Blue stepped into Jack’s place at the wheel of the ship, and Jazen reached out his hand. “Fine work, Jack!” Jazen said, giving Jack a vigorous handshake. “That was impressive. Very impressive!”

  “You mean it?” Jack asked.

  “Are you kidding? You went straight through the heart of a white squall! Are you sure you’ve never captained a ship before?”

  “I’m sure,” Jack said.

  “Okay, I’ll take your word for it,” Jazen replied. “Blue, how we doing?”

  “All back full,” Blue said, reversing the ship’s engines. “Activating tangital control panel now.”

  Blue flipped a switch, and Jack heard a series of beeps as several keyboards and display screens started appearing all around him. They were all semitransparent images projected in luminous reds, blues, and greens. Jack thought they were more holograms like the TV inside the ship, but when Blue started hitting their buttons, the images didn’t ripple—they clicked. They were solid.

  “Cool, huh?” Blue said, noticing Jack’s fascination. “These are tangitals. Tangible digital images. They’ve got all the computing power of your basic tech, but they take up less space because they’re holograms. We call ’em Hard-Light Holos for short.”

  Jack reached out to touch the controls. “Can I?” he asked.

  “Be my guest,” Blue replied. “Hit that one.”

  Jack hit the button that Blue had indicated, and a woman’s voice announced, “HOVER MODE ENGAGED.” On the main display screen a schematic of the Vision appeared with sections of the ship’s hull extending outward. Jack watched in wonder as hatches on the ship’s extended panels slid open to light up with a blue glow, and the ship began to rise above the water. Once the ship was a good foot and a half clear of the relentless current, the holo-computer issued an alert beep and the woman’s voice declared, “HOVER MODULES FULLY DEPLOYED.”

  Jack marveled at the futuristic technology all around him. “Minor modifications, you said?” he asked.

  Jazen shrugged. “More or less.”

  “Is this how we’re going to get across the falls?”

  Jazen shook his head. “The HoverPanels can only lift us about two feet off the ground. They have to be close to the surface or they won’t work. We’re going to need help to get across.”

  “FriendShips at ten o’clock,” Blue said.

  Jack looked across the water and saw two small ships flying toward them. They were pod-shaped one-wing aircrafts, each with only enough room for one pilot. As they got closer, Jack could see a powerful mechanical arm below each wing.

  The glow of the tangital communication display grew brighter than the other controls, and an official-sounding voice crackled over the radio.

  “FriendShips Beta and Zulu, hailing crew of the Vision. Welcome home, Emissary Knight. Do you require an escort?”

  Jazen tapped a holographic button to address the incoming pilots. “Thank you, gentlemen, that would be fantastic. We’re ready whenever you are.”

  “Very good, sir,” the voice replied, and the FriendShips swooped in and lined up next to the Vision, one on each side. The robot arms under their wings latched on to the ship and locked down tightly.

  “Here we go,” Jazen said as the FriendShips fired up their engines and lifted the Vision high into the sky. Within seconds they were flying the boat through the air like birds gliding on a breeze.

  “We call them FriendShips because they carry you wherever you need to go,” Jazen explained as they soared through the sky. “There it is up ahead. Empire City, capital of the Imagine Nation. That’s where we’re headed.”

  Twilight was setting in, and Jack got a good look. It was the most unusual city Jack had ever seen or even imagined. It was built on a hill that ran right up to the cliffside edge of the floating island, and Jack could see what Jazen had meant when he said that people brought their own cultures and styles with them when they came here. Looking at Empire City was like looking at six cities crammed into one. Jazen called out the different boroughs of Empire City, describing them for Jack as they made their approach.

  There was Galaxis, the futuristic spaceport, home to aliens from across the cosmos and beyond. Directly above that was Karateka, a singular fusion of modern and ancient China, where kung fu masters trained in martial arts disciplines long forgotten by the outside world. On the opposite side of the city the walls of Varagog guarded gothic castles, medieval villages, and ancient magic. Behind that stood the mysterious and ever-changing borough of Cognito, where the streets had no names and the residents answered no questions. Higher still were the smooth-lined towers of Machina, shimmering with data bytes and binary code messages that only the androids who lived there could read. And in the center of Empire City, towering over the wide expanse of SeasonStill Park and the majestic monuments of Hero Square, were the mighty skyscrapers of Hightown, the tallest buildings in the world. As the evening sky took on a shade that was equal parts purple, red, and pink, the shining towers of Hightown responded with an opalescent reflection that was so beautiful, it seemed to be singing the next verse in the sky’s favorite song.

  This was Empire City, capital of the Imagine Nation, and Jack’s new home.

  Below the edge of the city, built into the rocky underside of the island, was a hangar bay large enough for a thousand ships to land. The FriendShips pulled the Vision in safely, and Jack was finally there. It was an exhilarating moment. The Friendship escorts disengaged and waved good-bye as a team of men in blue and gray jumpsuits rushed out to load the Vision into HoverStorage. Jack jumped down from the deck of the ship as the flight crew carted the Vision off for safekeeping. He couldn’t stay inside the ship a second longer. He was
too excited to stay inside of anything now that he had one foot in a whole new world.

  “Holy cow,” Jack said, looking around in wonder.

  The flight deck was filled with all manner of space-age shuttles, ultramodern fighter jets, and flying saucers. Everywhere Jack looked, there were men and women wearing skintight supersuits and other brightly colored costumes complete with capes and masks. They were flying off into the sky and landing under their own power, and that was just the beginning.

  There were people wearing jet packs. There was a boy creating discs of light out of thin air and then throwing them like Frisbees at his little brother until his mother told him to stop. There was a man made out of electricity talking to a woman made out of solid rock. There was a ninja warrior arguing with a futuristic robot about a parking space. The myriad powers of everyone on the crowded flight deck were impossible to discover in a single glance around. Jack stopped dead in his tracks, hypnotized by the sight of it all. Jazen snapped his fingers to get his attention and keep him moving.

  “Jack. Jack, you okay?”

  Jack snapped out of his daze. “I don’t believe it.”

  “If that were true, you wouldn’t be here,” Jazen replied.

  “Is everyone here a superhero?” Jack asked.

  “Not everyone,” Jazen replied, leading the way through the hangar. “Remember, you don’t need superpowers to find the island, you just need to believe. But you name it, we’ve got it. Ninjas, sorcerers, aliens… even a few so-called ‘regular’ people. Emissaries like me are supposed to bring the gifted here to the Imagine Nation, but not every gift is a superpower, Jack. Not every superpowered person decides to become a superhero, either.”