Chapter Thirty-One

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Ryder was running up the stairs until he reached the top floor. With heavy breaths, he opened the door and walked in. He looked around the room. The twenty-five-foot walls bent into a point in the center, where a large chandelier hung off a gold-colored chain that illuminated the entire floor. To his right, Ryder noticed an area covered off, like a machine shop. On the other side, he saw a table with plans and maps spread out on top of it. On the far wall, a purple throne with lion heads on the armrest sat on an elevated platform. It had golden trim pieces and the cat logo on the headrest.

Ryder looked around but didn't see anyone, which he found odd. He figured some soldiers, or even Harold Humdinger, would be around. Ryder crept over to the table with the plans on it. He scanned the plans. Some maps were of Thor City, and others were from Crystal Coast. They had arrows across the maps, going through main streets and roads. A few arrows went through the water. Ryder realized that they were mobility plans. The arrows represented the course the villains and their army would use to take over Thor City. All the arrows came from circles, which Ryder guessed were the groups.

Ryder pulled out his phone and took some photos. He moved the plans to the side to look at the other papers. There were order receipts, assembly plans, and scaled blueprints. Ryder looked through the items. They ordered wire conduits, mainframe boards, rolls of wires, and specialty parts. Ryder didn't see how they helped them conquer a city, but he knew it was valuable information.

Ryder was going to keep looking around when he heard a door open. "Take those boxes down to the storage space," a male voice said. "And careful, they cost a fortune." Ryder quickly ran over to the closed-off area and got in before they could see him. He stayed close to the opening to listen to what they were saying.

"Sir," another voice said. "The guards in the dungeon floor were taken out. And the newest prisoners have escaped."

The first man sighed. "You're a little late to the party, huh? The Copycat is already handling that."

Ryder wondered how the others were doing down there. He assumed that The Copycat had already broken out of the ice, but he trusted his team.

"Do you want us to help him?" the second one asked.

"Don't know how you can help when he has superpowers, but no. I need to finish the machine before the big day. It would be a lot easier with more than one crystal, but The Copycat kept the only one we have for himself. Yeah, sure. Just leave the genius with fewer resources. Honestly, it's not fair."

Ryder was now sure that the first man was Harold Humdinger. His question now was, what machine? Ryder turned around and almost fell through the opening. A ten-foot machine stood behind him. Ryder could tell that it was still in early development. Wires hung from the tall ceilings and connected to the machines. There were panels scattered across the floor. A laptop connected to the machine's wiring displayed charts of wavelengths and graphs. Ryder got closer to the computer and read the title of the graph.

Ryder's eyes shot open when he read the title, Molecular Transportation Device. Ryder used a similar name when he built the teleportation device back home. Harold was building a teleportation machine. Ryder thought back to the map. The circles he saw weren't the groups of soldiers but portals that would take the army to Crystal Coast.

Ryder knew that he had to tell Gabriel and the others about this. That's when Ryder remembered about his earpiece. "Gabriel, are you there?"

"I'm here, Ryder," Gabriel said. "I thought we lost you there."

"Not yet. Listen, I know how the villains plan to attack Crystal Coast. They are going to use..." His sentence got cut short when the separation blinds shot open.

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