Sub-Level Four, S.A.F.E. Room – Combat Chamber 3
Reni Moriarty, Kid Arachnid to his fan club, swung in closer and punched the last remaining MMD, Mobile Mannequin Distraction, hard in the chest as it was readying its attack. Technically, the ‘bots were rated as minions and bystanders, not serious threats, but how often did you get the opportunity to really let loose on ‘someone’ and do some serious GBH?
His blow tore through the breastplate and unfortunately trapped his hand inside the robot’s chassis, jammed in the servo-mechanisms. Damn, damn, damn! He tried to shake the robot loose and finally managed to drop it even as a laser materialised from the floor and fired. He corkscrewed his body round in mid-air, gestured his web spinners towards the roof to create a swing ‘rope’ and realised too late that the nanobots powering his spinnerets were running on empty. He found himself heading towards the ground at speed. Time to turn a frown upside down as granddad would say. He straightened his body out, legs first so that his body became a slim lined missile and slammed feet first into the cannon as it was preparing to fire again. The laser responded by exploding in a rather spectacular manner.
With that smashed, he relaxed his body and hit the ground in a somersault coming to a stop by the chamber wall. He twisted his body round and fired his stingers. Solidified strings of nanites shot out from the near invisible slits in his wrists, hammered into the target on the far wall and discharged. He spun round waiting to see what was going to materialise to attack him next only to hear the end-session siren sound and the lights flare into full luminosity. Seems his session advisor, Navigator had decided that she’d seen enough.
His recovery time was getting better but it was still annoying that his spinnerets had a limited capacity and it took so long for the nanobots in his body to convert air molecules and body fat into additional webbing. He’d been lucky, the slits and internal webbing generators were the only physical sign of his conversion at the hands of Labyrinth, unlike that poor bugger they’d renamed Tangleweb. He shuddered as he remembered witnessing his conversion, the multiple extra limbs, the mandibles… Ugh!
He turned and walked to the chamber door, passed Cadet, who nodded and the fourth year Firewall who seemed excited by the metallic alien android that was walking towards the Kid and signalled him to head with her for a debrief.
Navigator definitely had a female chassis even it wasn’t as spectacular or as revealing as Silver’s metal body and the featureless face took some getting used to. As he passed, he could hear Firewall whispering something about how he was now convinced that Navigator had to be the school’s sentient AI that had criticised and blocked his attempts to interface with the school’s computer network.
All the Kid knew was that Navigator might not be human, but she was a phenomenal hacker, a superb tactician and a skilled teleporter, apparently from an alternate Earth.
As much as he hated to admit it, he was beginning to enjoy his training sessions Down Below. His only real regret was that he’d been saddled with a cover name of ‘KID’ Arachnid! God, he hated being called ‘KID’ but he understood why the school had asked him to add it to his title while at school. The female that had escaped from the old railway station at the same time as he’d been ‘rescued’ had commenced her life of crime by referring to herself initially as Arachnid. Ant’ Andrews had felt they needed something to differentiate Reni from her and had insisted on adding ‘Kid’ to his codename. Kid, he was 16, almost 17 and in the same year as Cadet! Perhaps it was time to research another name for himself… For a second he tried out several variations but his heart wasn’t in it.
This had been his first training session under Navigator’s tutorage and she invited him to enter the lounge for his session debrief. “Before we start Mr Moriarty, it would be helpful to review how you gained your abilities. I would prefer to hear your story from yourself before I read your student notes… Where would you like to begin?”
Ah, that is the question, did he talk about being brought up as a spoilt, rich kid though admittedly one that had been primarily ignored by his parents, their own social lives taking precedence over his care but as long as he didn’t embarrass them he was pretty much free to do what he liked.
That went belly-up when he discovered his uncle Alexi was also THAT Alexander Helmes. When he asked his parents about him, they said he was actually a cousin and advised him to avoid being around him unless it was at a family celebration. I mean which teen was going to do that once they realised they were related to Alexander Helmes, CEO of Spartacorps and a billionaire in his own right.
Helmes maintained his public and private life as two separate entities; his public personae donated 10% of his income to a variety of charities and had a charitable foundation, which actively supported Meta-humans as well as financing youth activities in local communities. He was known to financially support the arts, had bought a number of high-profile artworks which he’d donated to public galleries and had written and published several popular books all on various academic subjects including a History of Meta-Development – which had been a No. 1 bestseller for over 18 months.
However, he kept his private life extremely private. Information about his childhood and upbringing, who he dates/dated, what he liked and what he did in his own time was not publicly known. He often used spokespeople to front his public work and gave the praise to Spartacorp rather than claiming it personally even when he has used his personal fortune to pay for it.
He was a mystery and Reni had the idea that there had to be some secret in his uncle’s life that he could use for his own profit. Not that he was going to admit that to anyone of course and especially not to an artificial person and teacher.
He was right, his uncle was definitely involved in something he wouldn’t want uncovered. He followed him covertly for a number of days and eventually discovered he had links to a criminal organisation called Labyrinth. It was when he followed him to a meeting in a warehouse1 that Reni had discovered just how dark that secret really was. No, that wasn’t something he was willing to share not least because he was pretty sure that if it got out, relation or not, he and possibly even his parents would be killed. He also had no idea how heavily involved Uncle Alexi was with Labyrinth but the guy in charge – the Professor they had called him, was scary as hell.
No, better just start at the warehouse…
“I was messing around, exploring an old warehouse in the Docklands when I uncovered a criminal organisation was experimenting on homeless people with stolen Silver Storm particles.2 I, I called the Police. Okay, I know I did so anonymously but I tried to do the right thing. When I realised they were moving sites and they had killed people in the warehouse I managed to follow them. I, ah hid my mobile in their vehicle and then using a tracker app to follow it.”
He paused, that his uncle was a criminal didn’t upset him, if anything it made him even more exciting. What he did not expect was that his uncle was involved with a criminal organisation that was carrying out human experiments on homeless people. They were even dissecting those that died.
“Anyway, I discovered that a number of missing people had been moved to the deserted Battersea Park Road railway station in South London3 and the people responsible were testing out some sort of gas on them. I assumed some of them were also at risk of being murdered.
I decided to check it out for myself and I, well I guess I broke in and when I discovered that the same group were again experimenting on people I contacted the Police who sent The Balance in. Do you understand, I helped to stop the experiments, helped free the captured subjects but in the process one of the treated canisters of the gas broke and I was infected and exposed to an overdose of specially treated nanobots? Two of the homeless people were also affected but thankfully survived. My powers? Labyrinth shaped my powers as they did for the other two by using spiders as the catalyst for our meta-human breakthrough!
Having subsequently discovered my new powers, I found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time and expected to be arrested and charged. However, in the end I was not handed over to the authorities but my parents wanted to cover up my indiscretions, so they quickly, excessively quickly, assumed I had done something wrong and they did a deal. That deal meant that I would come to Claremont Academy to learn how to better understand my new powers and the responsibility that comes with them.”
The latter part was what he knew they wanted to hear. In reality, he was a reluctant student at best, however after Saturday he had to admit he had liked using his powers for good, though if he could also get the public attention he adored and possible make some money out of it he might be happy to get involved. Somehow, though he doubted many heroes made a profit.
He found himself dwelling on the public attention he was now revelling in since his costumed presence had been captured by the customers in the coffee house as well as by other people at the zoo and the uploaded footage had received over thirty thousand likes and was still rising.
The rest of the session went by in a bit of a blur as he listened only half-heartedly to Navigator’s subsequent critique of his performance earlier. He then went and changed out of his costume. Unlike some others, he refused to wear it under his school uniform whilst on school grounds though in fairness it did help, having it with him the previous Saturday.
Above ground, Reni exited the Big House, walking casually across the deserted playing field despite being late for his next class. As he did so, he realised that he was no longer alone. In front of him stood a wild haired red-headed woman, her nails were long, her eyes sunken and her arms covered in scars. She looked to be in her early twenties, though one look into her haunted eyes would be sufficient to convince you that she was a lot older.2 Beside her, stood a young man in nondescript clothes. He gestured towards Reni who prepared to somersault out of the way only to find himself caught in a powerful suction that immediately pulled him towards the pair of them and into a circular light that had suddenly appeared in front of them both. The last thing he experienced was smelling a slight trace of sulphur and, of all things the liquorice smell of myrrh.
A second later all signs that Reni had ever been on the playing fields had vanished, only the ripped and flattened grass where he had been standing remained as a testimony that anything had ever happened.
As the next couple of classes poured out of the gym and headed onto the pitches the two strangers suddenly started to walk towards the reception block only to vanish unseen by anyone in a flash of light themselves.
It was several hours later before Reni was confirmed missing and sometime after that before the teachers were convinced he’d not left of his own accord. So what had happened to him?
1 see Episode 6 – Fee Fi Foe Fumes!
2 see Episode 4b – Nanites become you
3 see Episode 8 – London’s Calling
Growing up Meta, UK-Style! 
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