PART SEVEN: THE GANG’S VISIT WITH THE KELLER FAMILY, AND CRAIG REVEALS HIS FAVORITE HIDEAWAY TO NIKI

PART SEVEN: THE GANG’S NOW TRACKING THE KELLER FAMILY, AND CRAIG REVEALS HIS FAVORITE HIDEAWAY TO NIKI

THE KELLER HOUSE: THE BLACK CAR IS PARKED ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE HOUSE, AND COMING DOWN THE PORCH STEPS IS A YOUNG MAN AND WOMAN, HEADING OUT TO THE BOY’S CAR.

Tempe parted the curtains on the right side, glancing out the window at her son. Niki was with him, so at least now he’d be safe. Neither she nor her husband had breathed one word to Niki about Craig’s greatest secret, and as long as he didn’t say anything, neither would they. Secretly, in Craig’s mind, Niki wasn’t ready to hear it. No one outside of his own family was ready.

“Boss.”

A voice spoke from the interior of a black car parked across the street, a man’s voice.

“We’ve got a problem.”

Of course, no normal human being would have guessed that Invincible Man himself was less than five feet away, but the men were clever. They were part of the Anti-Hero Organization, determined to wipe out all individuals who had special powers; Invincible Man just unluckily happened to be the first one on their list. Bring the one who can heal down first, and then the others will follow; it doesn’t matter what order.

“Speak fast.” X’s voice sounded tinny. “I’m in the middle of an important duty.”

The Man Who Never Showed His Face was sitting at his desk in his office, a stack of papers next to him and his computer on. Two girls in black clothes were lounging across his lap, keeping him company.

“Okay, it’s like this,” said the voice in the black car, hurriedly.

Craig was stepping into his own car and slamming the door, and the girl who was with him, the “mystery girl with the black hair,” as Niki’s secret name was now, stepped in the passenger seat. The engine revved.

“I traced him the moment he left the hospital, and it led me here, although he was hard to trace at first,” the man explained. “It took a while, but I did it.”

“Traced who?” X practically yelled. “Who in the world are you talking about?!”

He seemed to stiffen in his seat.

“You know—him,” said the man in a soft voice. “The indestructible boy. I told you I followed him out of the hospital all the way over here. I saw him head into the house, and then someone else reemerged.”

The indestructible boy.

X’s mind raged. He knew exactly who his partner was talking about.

“Excuse me, ladies,” he said in a growl.

The girls got up from his lap.

“Where is he? I want him, and I want him now!” he raged. “I sent you bums out to kill him, and you couldn’t even do that one simple little thing! You’re cowards is what you are! I should have had the feeling before I trusted you to do my dirty work! You’re telling me Invincible Man is still alive!”

“But I did kill him,” the man in the car reasoned. “I plunged that knife straight into his back. It must’ve been a different one.”

“I’ll see about that!” X fumed. “What was he wearing?”

“Erm—an orange and red suit with a red cape,” the man said slowly, struggling to remember everything about that night. “Oh, and matching red boots. And a red mask. His outfit had some sort of silver letter ‘I’ on it that resembled a radio tower”—

“You fool!” Luckily the man in the car wasn’t there to see the look on his boss’s face. X was furious. “That was him! That boy you just described, with the red and orange suit...!”

“I know I killed him!” the desperate man pleaded, growing more eager to rush out the words. “I saw him! He was lying on that pavement with a knife in his back! My knife! I threw it at him as he left the store, and it wedged right through his heart! No one can live through something like that! I saw him fall!”

“You obviously didn’t kill him if he’s still alive,” X snarled, his voice now a low and dangerous growl. “Either the knife didn’t go in properly or he’s just so amazingly immortal that he gets right back up and walks away. Exactly who are you trying to kid, pal?”

“It won’t happen again; I swear it!” said the poor man. “I’ll—I’ll go visit with the family. He’s got to be living somewhere, after all. I’m right across from the house I saw him disappear into the day he came home from the hospital, and there was a couple with him, probably his mom and dad. He went in and sort of disappeared, because when the door opened again, it wasn’t Invincible Man at all, but a regular, mortal college student.”

“You fool!” X accused again. “He’s in disguise! He walks around in another body when he’s not fighting the bad guys, to escape the pressures of the media! It’s like the Superman story all over again.”

“So what are you saying?” his partner asked, “that he’s like Clark Kent by day and by the time night falls, he puts on the red cape and boots?”

“That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“But why?” asked the man in loud wonder. “And how? How did he just get up and walk? I had that guy on the ground, mask and all!”

“Because he’s immortal, you dolt!” snapped X. “What part of ‘Invincible Man’ do you not understand? The kid’s indestructible! He can’t get hurt, which means—he can’t die! Trying to hurt him is just wasting your time. You can’t physically attempt to kill a boy who can’t die. There has to be some other way to get rid of him.”

“Which way?” Both men were getting more desperate. “How did the bad guys kill Superman? If he had some sort of weakness, then this guy’s got to have one, too! Where do you find kryptonite for someone who can’t get hurt?”

“I’m thinking, you idiot!” X growled. “Just leave it! We’re not comparing this high-and-mighty to Superman, okay? I just brought him up as an example. We need to find out exactly what the weakness is for an indestructible college-age kid and then devise a plan to lure him to it.”

“Smart, Boss, just what I was thinking,” the man praised eagerly. “You’re too smart.”

“Oh, stuff it. Obviously, since you failed to bring him down the first time, I shall do it for this round. I will find old Immortal Superpowered College Geek’s weak spot, and then I will find my own way to use it against him.”

His partner knew he couldn’t argue.

“You’re the Man, Boss,” he replied slowly.

He clicked off his intercom and set it on the dashboard of the car. Craig and Niki had left long ago, but he knew that he could follow their tracks.

So—this guy shows up out of nowhere in a 7-Eleven downtown and takes on two of our men single-handed. Thinks he can show off his strength, eh? Just because he’s a superhero, that makes him so great? Ha-ha. Wait till you mess with The Big Boss, old Immortal Boy. Then you’ll see who’s really invincible.

A smile curved across his face at these words, and shortly after his thoughts had finished whirring across his head, he decided that it was time to pay a little visit to Mr. and Mrs. Indestructible.

CRAIG’S SECRET HIDEAWAY: HE LEADS THE WAY TO HIS MOST FAVORITE PLACE OF REFUGE, FOR EVER SINCE IT WAS FIRST DISCOVERED, IT STUCK WITH HIS MOST POWERFUL THOUGHTS.

Craig steered his parents’ car towards a dirt road that looked as if it had not been walked on in years, and then he hit the parking brake. Niki sat in the passenger seat, glancing out the window at the empty ghost trail.

“What’s over here?”

Craig didn’t answer right away, and instead got out of the car. She followed, slamming the door behind her.

“I thought I might show it to you while you were with me,” he said. “I’ve never showed anyone else, not even my parents.”

“You’re very mysterious, Craig Keller,” Niki muttered to herself.

The lights on the car flickered, and a strange beeping noise emitted from it. Craig had locked the doors with a remote attached to the car keys.

“You lead.”

Niki decided it was best not to say much, but rather to let him run his course. She walked close behind him, thoughts whirring wildly through her brain. Their feet crunched on the gravel road, and they walked most of the way in silence.

“Up there you should begin to see it,” he explained to her, pointing at something in the distance.

“It” turned out to be a darkened warehouse that seemed to have been abandoned years ago. Running along the front, above the door, was a wooden balcony.

“Gosh,” Niki muttered. “Look at the size of that.”

“It’s my place of refuge,” Craig told her. “My Fortress of Solitude.”

“I see that,” Niki answered, “but why a warehouse?”

“Like I said, I haven’t shown it to anyone,” he replied. “Not even Mom and Dad. I normally don’t go telling just anyone about my secret hideouts, which makes them so secret. I find it’s easier not to say anything about them because that way I can think smoothly with no interruptions.”

“I hear you there,” Niki responded.

Craig pulled open the heavy door, which made a loud squeaking sound. It was dark beyond the entrance, and the floor looked dusty.

“No one knows you come here, I assume.”

Niki had everything figured out.

“No one really crosses through here,” Craig responded. “It’s become dead. Once people move past the rusty gate, it’s like a whole new world. A ghost town. It’s just like they do things back home.”

“I like it,” Niki confirmed. “It’s a neat place.”

Craig walked through the door first and seemed to know exactly where the light switch was. The entire room was suddenly flooded in a dim orange light. Of course, it didn’t really make anything better, but at least there was enough light to see by.

“Whoa.” Niki blinked in the abrupt glow. “I didn’t know they even had electricity in here.”

“Some things are kept how they were,” Craig replied in a strange voice.

He walked out into the open.

“How do you like it?”

“Well, I definitely see why it’s a great place to think,” Niki observed, glancing around carefully. “It’s dusty and cobwebby, and I think I see rust forming on all the metal boxes over there.”

“That’s only just the beginning,” Craig told her. “We’re only at the start of the tour. You still have to open the secret door.”

Niki stayed where she was while he strolled over to something hidden behind an old storage bin.

“Ha-ha, I found you.”

He braced his body weight against the bin and began pushing it. It dragged slowly and loudly across the empty, dust-ridden floor. The absence of it in its usual spot uncovered, to Niki, what seemed like a blank wall.

“Where’s the door?” she asked.

“Just a second,” he called.

She saw him back up a ways, and then he thrust himself forward, kicking at the blank space. To her surprise, a door flew inward, and then he turned around to grin at her look of astonishment.

“I told you we needed to see the grand finale,” he said triumphantly.

Niki urged herself to walk towards him, still puzzling about how the door appeared and why she hadn’t seen it before. She knew that it wouldn’t help to challenge him, for she had been proven to that he was much more clever and mysterious than any of the other boys she knew.

“Come on,” he coaxed. “There’s nothing scary in here except for a few dust balls. We’ll be fine.”

Yeah, hissed the little voice in her head. We’ll all be fine, and then, before we know it, the door will slam shut on us and we’ll be locked in for all eternity.

Oh, stop, she snapped back. This isn’t a horror movie.

However, deep down, she wasn’t exactly sure what it was. It took her a lot of time to think it over, but when she did, she realized that she really didn’t know Craig as much as she thought. He was still a stranger to her. In her terms, any guy bearing a secret hideout that he failed to show most people was actually hiding a lot more than just that. The darkest secrets, she figured, lay on the inside, rather than the interesting and strange tales he strung out at her every day. She wanted so much to figure him out, to make him tell her his darkest secret, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t and she knew it. Girls who made mystery men tell them all their secrets appeared needy and clingy. She didn’t want to be “that girl.”

She walked into darkness, just as dark as the main warehouse had been before Craig flipped on the light. A beeping red light shone on the wall somewhere, blinking on and off at a moderate pace. Craig turned the light on here as well.

They were in another room, only this one was much smaller. Strange machinery surrounded them, also gathering dust and cobwebs. Craig was right, Niki thought. This place is deader than any ghost town I would have imagined. Most of the stuff here looks so old-fashioned it could have existed hundreds of years ago. What was all this stuff doing in a warehouse? Unless it wasn’t a warehouse, but more of a storage facility for museum pieces.

“Okay, tell me,” she said firmly. “Where are we?”

“We don’t need to walk any farther,” Craig announced proudly. “This is my place of refuge. This is the Fortress of Solitude I wanted to show you. I come here so much now, it’s like I’ve released all my thoughts into these machines around us. To me, it’s as if they’re still working, whirring and processing all my secrets as if they’re alive. I’ve never shared this place with anyone…until I met you.”