By Stoney M. Setzer
If there was one thing that Iris City had in surplus, it was abandoned buildings. In his Icebird guise, Houston Haas circled over a block full of them, trying to localize the lady’s cries for help. At last, he pinpointed a rusting building that had once been a warehouse, surrounded by a graveyard of other similarly decrepit structures.
Houston eased his jetpack in for a landing. A loading dock door gaped halfway open. The screams echoed from within. Clutching his freeze ray pistol with sweaty palms, he ducked inside. A mildewy smell hung in the air.
Got to be ready for anything. These could be kidnappers, or human traffickers, or…
The overhead door crashed shut behind him. A trap! Houston spun around, his freeze ray whining as he pulled the trigger, but he saw no one under the light of a single fluorescent bulb. The lady’s cries reverberated, making their source hard to pinpoint.
“Greetings, Icebird!” a robotic voice intoned.
“Show yourself! Who are you?”
“Someone who thinks it’s past time you took a permanent vacation!”
A kaleidoscope of blinding lights exploded around him.
When his eyes finally readjusted, Houston’s heart sank. In place of the warehouse stood thick jungle foliage. “Where am I?” He scanned the greenery.
The trees rustled, and the ground shook. A thunderous roar pierced the air.
I’ve heard such a roar before, but only in the movies…
A Tyrannosaurus Rex burst through the branches and bellowed once more.
Houston’s mind raced as the dinosaur charged forward. He had never tried to freeze anything that big before, but a workable idea flashed. He fired his freeze ray ahead of the creature’s feet. The T-Rex slipped on the newly formed patch of ice, crashing to the ground and shaking the landscape. It glared at Houston and bellowed in impotent fury.
“A time machine—in an old warehouse? Can’t believe I fell for…” He looked around. “How am I supposed to…?”
Two more creatures popped out of the foliage—velociraptors.
“Great, the more the merrier,” Houston muttered.
For a second, it looked as if they would converge on the T-Rex—until one of them noticed Houston. As one, they approached their new target from different directions. Fortunately, their smaller stature made Houston far more confident in his weapon.
Zap! Two quick shots, and the velociraptors became prehistoric popsicles. Something crunched behind him. As Houston spun, a third raptor leaped at him. He squeezed off another shot and dodged as the freshly frozen predator collapsed with a thud.
Still roaring, the T-Rex had rolled over onto its belly and was working its way back to its feet. The woman screamed for help again from somewhere in the jungle.
Strange that she was sent here too. I need to find her and get out of here before we become extinct.
Hoping for a better view and to get out of the T-Rex’s reach, Houston activated his jetpack and began to rise, slowly at first…
…and hit something solid, thirty feet up.
“What?” The superhero felt around overhead. It extended as far as he could reach. “I wonder,” he muttered, readying his freeze ray while still keeping an eye on the T-Rex. He hadn’t actually touched anything except his Icebird gear since finding himself here. What if…?
He worked back and forth with his freeze ray, watching as it revealed a ceiling like the one in the warehouse.
On the ground, the T-Rex floundered again, flopping down onto one of the frozen raptors. Something popped like a firecracker. Smoke arose from the thawing body. Houston recognized the smell of an electrical fire just before the two dinosaurs burst into flames.
“Robots?” Houston wondered aloud. “What in the world?”
The jungle itself flickered, with the warehouse alternating with the greenery. None of this is real, Houston realized. Robots against a virtual reality backdrop…
What about the lady calling for help? Is that part of the illusion too?
Houston flew toward the screaming. The foliage was only holographic, blinking in and out without substance. Finally, he found the source—a bluetooth speaker.
So all of this was just a ruse? But who in the world would go to all this trouble? And why?
***
“You’re not seriously showing this tripe to our students, are you?” Ms. Ogilvie asked.
Dr. Dedmon peered over his thick spectacles at her, showing his cybernetic left eye. “Absolutely! My Tactical Cybernetics class is already analyzing the footage so that they know how to improve the 2.0 models…”
“But he was never in any real danger! All he did was freeze a bunch of robots! Nothing more than a glorified escape room, if you ask me.” She crossed her arms and prosthetic mechanical legs, angling her body away from him. Although they had not crossed the line between professor and assistant, Ogilvie acted like their relationship was something more, especially when she was mad at him.
Dedmon placed his hand on her shoulder, playing into it. “I promised you I would make him pay for what the Cataclysm did to us. Thanks to today, we’re a step closer to that.”
“How so?”
“We’ve learned how to lure him.” He smiled, turning on the charm. “By the way, you do an excellent imitation of the proverbial damsel in distress.”
Ogilvie softened her stance, smiling coquettishly. “Thanks.”
“We have also discovered that when he thinks he is coming to someone’s rescue, he will rush into a situation without assessing it first.”
“His gadgets and his resourcefulness got him out of it, but he shouldn’t have even gotten into it in the first place, right?” Realization pitched Ogilvie’s voice higher. Her artificial legs whirred as she uncrossed them. “And his resourcefulness wouldn’t have helped him if he didn’t have the gadgets.” She squeezed his hand and batted her eyelashes.
“Very good.” Dedmon smiled. “Vital information that will help us when we go for our real revenge.”
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Great to see Icebird again!
Thank you! Already planning his next adventure!