My thoughts were cut off as I abruptly dropped like a stone down to the roof of the building, as did Jack. I landed on my side and pain lanced throughout my entire body as the wind was knocked out of me. (Much to my chagrin, Jack seemed to land on his feet.)
<What the hell, Mouse?> I cried telepathically. <Did you turn on the nullifier?>
Then I realized I’d answered my own question: if the nullifier were on, I wouldn’t have my telepathy. But in that case, why had I fallen? And why wasn’t I able to turn off my pain receptors? (And believe me, I was trying.)
<Listen,> Mouse said. <You have to inject Jack with the neural blocker.>
<How’s that?>
<When the nullifier came on before, that was the seminal event – the one Jack could see,> Mouse explained. <The neural blocker is now the second threat. It’s the one he’s unaware of.>
<So our whole plan’s backwards now?> I asked.
<Basically.>
<Okay, but there’s something weird going on with my powers. I can’t seem to fly or manipulate my bodily systems.>
<It’s the nullifier,> Mouse stated. <It’s not fully functional. Something took out the equipment on one of the corner buildings.>
The Bolt Blast! I realized with a start. Jack hadn’t been trying to hit me. He’d been taking aim at the nullifier equipment. For a moment I was worried, as Mouse was actually with the equipment on one of the other buildings. Thankfully, Jack had only fired the one blast (and from all indications, my mentor was okay).
<I’m working on a fix, but the end result seems to be that you won’t have your full slate of powers,> Mouse continued, <but neither will Jack.>
Because of the speed involved in telepathy, the conversation with Mouse only took a few seconds. Needing him to concentrate on the nullifier, I broke the mental connection to my mentor. I then turned towards my doppelganger and saw him bending down to retrieve something. It was the wooden box holding the syringe; I had apparently dropped it when I fell to the roof.
Somewhat panicked, I began trying to rise when I noticed two things. First, Jack turned the box upside down and shook it, but nothing came out. It was empty.
The other thing I noticed was the syringe. It was lying under an AC unit not far from my evil twin. It seemed that when I dropped the box containing it, the syringe had rolled free.
As I struggled to my feet, Jack apparently came to the same conclusion I did regarding the box’s contents, because he bent down, gripped the underside of an AC unit next to him with one hand, and ripped it up from the roof almost effortlessly, bolts and all. My eyes widened as I realized he still had super strength. Fortunately, the syringe was not under the unit in question.
Rethinking his strategy, Jack unexpectedly got down on all fours, peering under the structures near him. Seeing that, I became decidedly more anxious. Assuming he retrieved it, Jack wouldn’t know what the syringe contained, but it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that it wasn’t anything beneficial. More to the point, if he got his hands on it, I had serious doubts about my ability to take it away from him as long as he had super strength.
Feeling somewhat desperate, I quickly did a sound check of my powers as Jack came back to his feet – specifically, those that might let me get the syringe before Jack.
Telekinesis? No.
Teleportation? No.
Super speed? No.
Nothing that might help seemed to be working, and I grew a little anxious as Jack began moving towards the AC unit that was over the syringe. As he bent down and gripped the underside of the structure, I made a last-ditch effort. All of my prior attempts to use my powers were focused on getting the syringe into my hands; this time, I attempted to use a power that would keep it away from Jack: invisibility. Much to my surprise, it worked.
The expression on his face was classic as, after lifting the AC unit and expecting to find the syringe, he saw nothing. He then glanced around, looking completely befuddled – until his eyes settled on me.
Up until that point, Jack had seemingly forgotten about me. Maybe he thought that I was unconscious. Or maybe he believed that the fall had killed me. Or maybe he was just hyper-focused on the contents of the wooden box. Regardless, he had suddenly become acutely aware of my presence, and that was a serious problem.
“What did you do with it?” he asked, stalking towards me.
“Do with what?” I asked, feigning ignorance.
Rather than respond verbally, Jack growled and leaped at me. Anticipating something along those lines, I turned invisible, at the same time ducking and diving to the side. Luck was with me because I managed to evade his grasp, but just barely. I then scrambled away madly as he turned around looking for me, his face contorted with rage.
“Where are you?!” he demanded.
Oh yeah – like I’m gonna answer that, I thought.
I quietly slipped around a couple of AC units, heading for the syringe. My vision had switched over to the infrared once I became invisible, so I didn’t have any trouble spotting it. However, before I could get to it, I had my feet knocked from under me.
I landed on my backside, wondering what was happening since the entire building seemed to shake for a few seconds. An earthquake, maybe? Getting to my feet after the shuddering subsided, I looked around for Jack; he was standing in roughly the same area where he’d leaped at me, and as I watched, I saw him raise and then stomp his foot. In conjunction with his action, the roof shook again, and I struggled to stay on my feet.
So that
