MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

Part II: Rat Poison

By Hunter Lambright

Three Years Ago

Gertrude Yorkes stepped somberly through the back door into the kitchen. She could hear her parents’ voices as they whispered something in the next room. The pudgy girl felt something close to hatred for her parents because, after all their assurances, they had forgotten about her seventh grade graduation.

Just as she was about to trudge upstairs without a word, an inhuman snarling noise came from the same direction as her parents’ voices. Gert retraced her steps and watched the scene in awe from the shadows. Her father’s curses were the most audible as he dragged the collar of what had to be a real, live dinosaur down the steps to the basement. He finally managed to coerce it along as her mother ushered it from behind. Both of them wore some kind of ridiculous costume. The two disappeared for a moment into the basement.

Gert had long since figured out that her parents had a secret basement entrance through the library. In fact, she found it ironic that they’d placed it behind a sliding bookcase because Gert knew if she was looking for a hidden staircase, trick bookcases were the first things she’d check for. Then again, her parents had always done things in clichés like that, as if they had issues keeping up with the times.

As they came up the stairs, Stacey muttered, “What if it gets free? Will the Abstract have anything about that so we can prepare?”

“We may as well check,” Dale said as he reached the top of the stairs. He pulled a dusty old volume from the top shelf of the case directly behind his desk and flipped through it. Somehow he seemed to know exactly where he needed to stop, even though all Gert could see were squiggles and shapes that meant nothing to her at all.

Stacey wore a concerned look on her face. “What does it say?”

Dale narrowed his eyebrows before flipping his goggles down. “I give up; I never was able to translate the damn thing without the goggles on very well anyway. It may as well have been written in musical notes, or Mayan.” His eyes moved back and forth as he scanned the page. “There’s nothing in here about an escape in the future, but that doesn’t mean too much since the only ones each Abstract doesn’t tell about is the family who possesses it. Honestly, I think we’re fine, darling. Just make sure Gert never finds out about it—it’s going to be her high school graduation present.”

“Just make sure you turned it on so that its portico is time-stationary,” Stacey retorted. “It’d be as much use if we give her those bones in a few years as if we gave her the fossil instead. Except the fossil would have cost less thanks to the genetic engineering we paid for on that thing.”

“I did, and that’s the second time you asked,” Dale said hotly. “Now let’s get these things off before Gert gets home. No point in getting the Hayes to erase seeing us in costume from her mind again.” They began stuffing their costumes in another compartment behind another bookcase, including the goggles.

Minutes later, the Yorkes walked into the kitchen in time to see Gert walking home from the graduation they would constantly apologize for missing. They were surprised by how well Gert took it, but that was merely because she had other things on her mind, like how she was going to sneak out of bed that night.

Her parents were doing something shady, and all the dirt on it was in that Abstract…

The Vivarium
Now

Still clutching their parents’ fallen forms, it took several moments for the Runaways to look up and realize that the Gibborim had fallen not only silent but also inert. It was as if all the life had been drained from them, and they now had a cold appeal to them, like their bodies were made of metal. Nico Minoru was the first to look up from her parents’ now-cold eyes and, upon realizing that so much Minoru blood had already been shed, bit her tongue to shed just a little more.

There was a sudden flash of light in the underwater building. A deep, monotonous voice issued from Nico’s throat as she exclaimed, “WHEN BLOOD IS SHED, LET THE STAFF OF ONE EMERGE!” Then the light went from her eyes, and instead of sorrow, there was now anger.

“You!” Nico screamed, pointing her Staff like a gun at the woman who had appeared after their parents had been murdered by a hail of bullets from the shadows. “This is your fault!”

The woman looked up, put her tape recorder in one of the many pockets around her waist, and smiled. “Oh, no. You heard the Gibborim. They did this to themselves. You break the rules, you get what you deserve.”

“Then what was this about some experiment?” demanded Karolina Dean, tears streaking down her pretty face. “You were using them! Those things are freaking robots!” She stripped the bracelet from her wrist, releasing the rainbow-colored aura of her powers that it held in check. “You murdered our parents!”

“Why’d you hurt my mommy and daddy?” asked Molly, stepping back from her parents’ corpses. Her eyes glowed pink, and the strands of her cat-hat twirled in the air in a violent telekinetic show that Molly likely didn’t know she was putting on.

“And what have you done with Alex?” Nico added in a steely tone, her eyes glazed over in rage.

“And, most importantly,” added a dry voice, “who the fuck are you?” Gert Yorkes stood to join the rest of the girls, standing defiantly against the short-haired woman.

The woman paused to build up the suspense. “You know, I wouldn’t attack me if I were you,” she said. “Those gunmen are still up there.”

“Like we care?” asked Nico, jabbing the Staff of One closer to the agent. “Answer us.”

The woman shrugged. “Your choice,” she said snidely. “I am Agent Tanner of a group that none of you have likely ever heard of. We call ourselves Control.” Her eyes focused on Gert’s. “But you of all people should know that better than any of us.”

Gert couldn’t suppress her rage. “You bitch! You set them up to be killed!” She turned to her fellow Runaways. “Our parents were never going to get twenty-five years in paradise—this bitch was taking the soul our parents brought and giving it to the real Gibborim so that she could get all the glory for herself!”

Nico held the Staff of One at Tanner’s throat. “Is it true?” she growled.

Tanner shrugged. “Of course it is, dear, but why don’t you ask your friend how she knows all of this?” Her face was smug. It was taking everything Nico had not to wipe that grin off it by force.

Nico looked at Gert with a cocked eyebrow. “Well…?”

The Inner Chamber

Alex awoke to an intense pain beneath his skin. His body was covered in a cold sweat that slicked down the metal table. His wrists and ankles were raw from the shackles that held him down. He had been traded by his father for this, he knew, but he still didn’t know why.

Dr. Harrow peered over at the boy. “Ah, you’re awake now. Good.” Harrow walked over to the corner, where various screens depicted his vital signs. All the while, Alex writhed on the table from the feeling of something foreign inside his body. “Yes, you should be feeling a little discomfort from the acceleration discs, but they’ll soon fit right into place. It may take some getting used to.”

Alex gritted his teeth and looked at Harrow. “What—the fuck—did you do to me?”

Harrow slipped a set of files into a large messenger bag. “I’ve done to you what I did to the Kangaroo, Will O’ the Wisp, and everyone else I’ve been allowed to experiment on, child. I tested my theories and I made you into something more. I implanted acceleration discs into your body at key nerve clusters. The discs absorb ambient energy throughout the day—energy your body might otherwise dispel as heat. It absorbs and reconverts it to body chemicals such as ATP that let off the impulses that make your body move. However, as soon as adrenaline levels spike, the acceleration discs pump into overdrive, essentially giving you superhuman speed—nothing on the level of Quicksilver or Northstar, but most definitely superhuman. You never know, Alex, you may enjoy it.”

Alex coughed. “Those other guys you mentioned—aren’t they all losers?”

Harrow grabbed Alex by the neck and pushed downward, threatening to crush Alex’s windpipe. “They were all failures—all failures! Do yourself a favor, boy, and do not make me a joke, Alex. It would not do either of us any good.”

He backed off and continued putting files, discs, and other equipment into the bag. “Where are you going, Dr. Frankenstein?” Alex asked, craning his head. He was lucky that Harrow had the thought to give him his glasses back at the end of the “experiment.”

Wearing a sly grin across his face, Harrow said, “Ah, you were out for the gunfire, weren’t you, Alex? These people owed me a favor after the last of my creations, so they gave me a warm body—that is, you, Alex. But your parents were the anchor to the ship, and now that they’re sleeping with the fishes, I think it’s time I…jump ship.” He laughed, amused at the number of boat metaphors he’d managed to come up with. Harrow scooped up one last item into the satchel before opening up the door on the other end. The muggy air that came from it suggested it led to a boat-way or dock. “Goodbye, Alex.”

“Wait—what happened to my parents?!” asked Alex frantically, though he knew the truth in his heart. Suddenly there was a mechanical buzz from within his body. The discs inside were jolting at the spike in adrenaline from the fear for his parents Alex struggled against his bonds, loosing them fractions each time, but at multiple times per second now. The seconds blurred past, but when he could see each limb individually once more, the room was trashed from the air movement generated by his actions.

That didn’t matter to Alex, though. As much as he wanted to follow Harrow, he knew that the door the mad scientist had taken led only to escape. The other one had to lead to his parents. The only question in Alex’s mind now was whether he would find his parents dead or alive on the door’s other side.

The Antechamber

“Watch out, Primo!” Matti cried as the guard golem brought its fists crashing toward his twin brother. The sentry stood at least twenty feet tall, towering over the boys with its glowing red eyes and monstrous form.

Just as the golem’s hands prepared to crush him, Primo’s body exploded with green light. When it cleared, two enormous wings held back the fists shakily. Primo’s nose was bleeding from the effort it took to hold the monster back.

“You don’t want him!” cried Matti in an attempt to distract the golem. His own body became surrounded by that of a giant yellow serpent. It slithered around the giant’s legs, trying to annoy the golem enough to stop its assault on Primo. His plan succeeded all too well. The golem reached down to its feet and grasped the snake at both ends. It then stretched its arms wide in an attempt to pull the snake in two.

Primo’s falcon ripped at the golem’s eyes, but it was no use. Matti screamed in pain. “It’s killing me!” Matti screamed, as if it weren’t obvious.

“Call the snake back! I’ve got an idea!” Primo shouted.

Matti wasn’t so sure that it was such a great idea considering the fact that he would land on granite as soon as he fell from the sentry’s grasp. The thought fled as the golem renewed its attempt at pulling Matti in twain. He called the snake back to its tattoo and plunged downward. His falling body was suddenly clipped by the falcon’s wing, pushing him out over the water. Matti plunged downward, sputtering back to the surface only to be instantly gripped under his armpits by the falcon’s talons.

“When I let go, call the snake out again!” Primo shouted. “Like a Fastball Special, but cooler!” He already fancied calling the move the Dive-Bomb, but figured they ought to wait until they survived to talk about it. The falcon streaked back around the antechamber toward the golem. “Now!”

Matti called upon the snake, which coiled up as soon as it appeared. The yellow body of energy knocked the golem backward, causing it to crash into the furthest back wall of the antechamber. Primo then careened into the golem atop Matti, adding the last bit of force necessary for the golem to crumble backward through the wall into the main chamber of the Vivarium.

Agent Tanner looked up in shock. She’d expected the golem to hold the intruders at bay; she’d had no idea that the boys were powered. “Hold your fire!” she called out to the gunmen in the rafters. She wanted to avoid the blood of children on her hands. Adults were guilty as sin, but children still had a chance in the world, as dirty as reality was.

The golem reached up from its back and grabbed onto Primo’s falcon wings and began pulling them apart in much the same manner as it had tried with Matti earlier. Primo’s screams of pain mingled with the falcon’s shriek.

Molly had seen enough. Her parents had given her a so-called “keyword” for a time she got into deep trouble and, as Primo’s shouts grew louder and more desperate, she cried, “Stop hurting my friend! Philopro…philo…”

“Philoprogenitiveness!” shouted Cyanide, pulling his Lightning Rod from his belt. He fired off a concentrated bolt of electricity at the sentry, knocking its arms away from Primo just as the keyword shut the golem down so that gravity didn’t finish the job. Slowly, Primo and Matti emerged, limping, from behind the rocky body. Matti looked at Cyanide gratefully. “Thank you.”

“No,” said the boy inside the armor as he flipped down his hood. “I almost took your lives a few weeks ago. I was misled, but now…now we’re even.” Chase Stein let the Cyanide suit fall to the ground, cradling the electric staff in his flame-spewing Fistigons.

“Chase?” Karolina’s voice came forth timidly. “You’re Cyanide?”

He raised a single eyebrow. “I don’t know, Gert. D’you think the Wo-Man in Black has time for an explanation?”

Gert looked at Agent Tanner. “You asked for it, and the chips fell where they fell. I think it’s time to answer my friends’ questions, whether you like it or not.”

“I’ll remind you that I’m in charge,” Tanner said coldly, “but you’re right. I asked for this, and it’s all so entertaining.” In all honesty, she was amused by the situation. More than that, however, the entire scene was being recorded for later viewing under the jurisdiction of Control’s social department. The Pride experiment may have failed but that didn’t mean they couldn’t glean the reactions from the children, which was mostly a blank slate for Control’s operatives. In the end, everyone won, except for the kids.

Gert took a deep breath and began to tell her story.

The Stein Residence
Several Weeks Ago

Victor Stein pored over his computer screen, his actions moving with increasing fervor. He was close to discovering the kids’ new lodgings as he cross-referenced video from traffic lights with his maps of hideaway locations. One match had already come up that Stein considered unlikely—the supposed location of the sunken mansion. Still, it was possible Chase had come across the book about the mansion in Victor’s library, so he hadn’t ruled it out.

Gert watched all of this from outside the window. She wore the Minorus’ discarded Anonymity Cloak, a magical device they had deemed obsolete after Nico picked up the first Harry Potter book. The cloak had disguised her appearance and voice well enough against the boys at the Little Shoppe of Horrors. She was confident it would keep her anonymous in the Steins’ security tapes as well.

In her palm, Gert held a creature capable of killing nearly any being in existence with the potency of its venom. Nice Boy was a vicious little thing; it had only earned its name from the words the Falcone brothers had used to calm it when it was in their shop. “Nice Boy,” Gert whispered, stroking the potato-shaped creature along the back. It had no eyes, but it more than made up for that with its mouth of bristling needle-like teeth. “Nice Boy,” she repeated, “that man is very bad, and he will do bad things to me unless you bite him for me. Would you do that, Nice Boy?”

The creature purred eerily. Of course it would. Gert tapped on the window twice. Victor perked up and peered outside, but couldn’t see anything in the gloom. He cracked open the window to see what had made the noise just enough so that Nice Boy could fit in. The little beast bit into Victor’s neck. He fell backward into his chair and slumped immediately.

The man never had a chance, but Gert made sure she would leave that part of the story out when she confronted Chase later…

The Vivarium
Now

“You killed my dad!” Chase shouted accusingly, igniting the gauntlets threateningly. “You made me vulnerable enough to let Wilder’s dad make me torch their mom! You made me into a murderer!”

“Not directly,” Gert said quietly. “Your dad would have died here tonight instead, and you’d have been tied up and seen it happen instead. I saved you some trauma.”

“That wasn’t your plan and you know it,” said a new voice. From behind the mechanical Gibborim stepped Alex. He wore an orange-and-yellow jumpsuit. Every step he took, he grimaced with pain—or was it simply unease?

“Alex, are you okay?” asked Nico in concern. He finally made it over to the group, but dismissed Nico’s question with a wave. “Tell you later.” He looked at Gert sternly, shaking his head. “I should’ve figured it out. Arsenic and Cyanide? Both kill rats easily enough. It makes sense.” He shrugged. “Well, Miss Damned-If-You-Tell, Damned-If-You-Don’t? I think you have a story to finish.”

The Stein Workshop
Hours Ago

“…and you’re the only one who can help me make sure nobody dies tonight,” said Cyanide. Gert was sweating inside the futuristic suit she had found in her parents’ basement. It seemed to work both as a scare tactic as well as insulation for an invasion on another planet, which suggested it might have even been an artifact given to her father by the Deans. She removed the helmet.

Chase raised an eyebrow. “And how’s that going to work, Mr. Cyanide? I mean, Gert. Seriously, do you have some kind of time teleport thing like your parents? I can’t be in two places at once.”

“Yes, you can,” said Gert sternly. “My parents have a time-belt that lets you jump around, but only a few hours back in time. Because of that limitation they tossed it into the pile of stuff that doesn’t work well enough in our basement. But it does work well enough for what we need.”

“And what, exactly, do we need?” Chase asked. He still held the Lightning Rod pointed at her in case this was a trick. He’d learned not to trust anyone in the past few days, and he was more worried about trusting the girl trying to take his dad’s spot than anyone else.

“They’re going to round us up and take us to meet the Gibborim tonight, you excluded. I have to be knocked out with the rest of the kids and in the Cyanide suit. That’s impossible. I’ve done it every way in my head and it doesn’t work. I need you to be in the suit,” Gert said quickly.

“Forget it,” Chase said. “I don’t need to be joining the Pride in my dad’s place. I’ve already been convinced of that.”

Gert stood there for a moment. “It’s the only way you get to make sure your mom is safe down there.”

Chase considered that. “I just have to wear the damn suit?” he asked.

Gert nodded. “You won’t even need the time-belt.”

“Good,” said Chase. “I hate time-travel stories. They give me stomachaches.”

Stepping out of the suit, Gert raised an eyebrow. She couldn’t tell if he was serious or not, so she decided on saying something on the safe side. “Thank you.” Then she pressed the return button on the time-belt and, in a flash of green light, disappeared.

The rest, of course, was history.

The Vivarium
Now

“Well, your plan didn’t fucking work,” Chase spat. “Can I strangle her now?”

“Not yet,” Alex said. He was trying to remain calm, but his own temper was rising, taking the adrenaline level with it. He gasped as he felt the gears in the discs whir again, but remained still.

Nico eyed Alex worriedly again. “Are you sure you’re fine?”

Alex grinned. “I got experimented on, and the crazy doc implanted me with something that’s really uncomfortable…” He then pointed to the ground behind him, where dozens of ammunition clips seemingly materialized behind him. “But he made me fast enough to disarm about twenty-five gunmen in the rafters. Take ‘em—NOW!”

Those who had already figured it out jumped at the chance. Nico and Karolina were among the first to begin the assault on Tanner’s assassins, but they were quickly joined by the Falcone brothers, Chase, and Molly. “These guys aren’t so scary when they’re out of bullets,” Molly reasoned.

Chase knocked two of the armored bastards out of the rafters with bolts from his Lightning Rod. He turned to see Gert standing there, her thumbs rubbing against what looked like a little purple tiki totem. She held the little tchotchke as she muttered under her breath. “Alex was right,” she whispered. “Damned if I do by death, damned if I don’t by my friends…”

“Gert…?” Chase asked. He may not have been the brightest of the bunch, but he recognized magic when he saw it.

Gert pretended not to hear him. She smiled, as if she were finally happy, making the last choice of her life. “Damned if I do…” she decided, before a deeper voice issued a new order. “I want—revenge…”

Gert’s body disappeared beneath the undulating flow of purple magic. The fighting in the room stopped for the moment as, suddenly, everyone realized that their chosen enemies were no longer the greatest threat in the room. Where Gert once stood, there was now a beast twice the size of the golem. Its scaly skin rippled, and green mist issued from its wide, cavernous mouth. Gert’s eyes had also turned green, and two horns had sprouted from the sides of her head.

“Revennnnnge!” repeated the monster, as it took one fateful step. Agent Tanner looked up hopelessly as her bright career in Control ended at what amounted to a mosquito under the beast’s footprint.

At the sight of their boss’s demise, the remaining gunmen hastily retreated. This was no longer their fight, nor was there anyone left to hand out the paychecks at the end of the day. For that matter, to them, it didn’t look like there was going to be an end of the day.

For just a moment, the Runaways stared up in shock at what Gert had become. Then, once the room became completely silent, Alex pointed at the beast that had once been Gert and shouted, “RUNAWAYS, ATTACK!”

Though they had never called themselves that as a group before, they all later realized that it was perfect for nearly all of them, for in one way or another, they were always running from something. Now, for the first time since the night their lives went to hell, the Runaways ran toward their fear.

Nico crossed herself before looking at Gert and shouting, “LOCK AND LOAD!” The Staff realigned and became more bazooka-like, much like Chase’s Lighting Rod. She fired a blast of raw magical energy at the monster, but the attack didn’t seem to faze Gert whatsoever.

Karolina and Primo took to the air, using beams of light and talons alike in an attempt to take our Gert’s eyes. Alex and Matti dashed and slithered about on the ground, struggling to find a way to trip Gert up. Molly brought two pint-sized fists upon the monster’s big toe, the only attack that managed a cry of pain from the monster’s throat. “Keep doing it, Mols!” screamed Nico in encouragement, but already the preteen girl was swaying. Her powers took a lot out of her, and it wasn’t like she’d had a quiet night.

The Vivarium suddenly filled with a blinding turquoise light. For just a moment, Alex believed that Gert had somehow imploded and taken them out with her in the process, but as the light dimmed he saw that that was no longer the case.

If the Runaways hadn’t felt like mere gnats before, there were now three other beings that stood at Gert’s height, matched alongside their robotic duplicates. The three brothers looked at each other and nodded in unison. The lead Gibborim held out a hand silently. The first wave from the hand knocked the Runaways away from Gert. The monster let out a surprised gasp as the second wave, an all-consuming fire that touched only its body, reduced what had once seemed so powerful to just as many powerless ashes.

Then, standing among the fallen bodies of the kids’ parents, the inactive golem, Gert’s mound of ashes, and the lifeless robots, the lead Gibborim spoke. Its voice was nothing like its robot’s. Instead, the voice seemed to echo from in and around each and every one of the kids, yet from nowhere at all.

The true Gibborim held out its hand as it spoke. “IT IS MIDNIGHT, AND WE HUNGER. TELL US, CHILDREN. WHERE IS THE SOUL?”

The End…For Now