H OME?” JACK ASKED. “YOU KNOW WHERE I’m from?” “I’m pretty sure I do.” “I thought I was born here in Jersey.” Jazen shook his head. “There’s only one place in the world where power like yours comes from. I’m taking you to the Imagine Nation. Let me guess, you’ve never heard of it.” Jack shook his head and Jazen shrugged. “I’m not surprised. It’s only the biggest secret in the world. A secret country on a secret island, hidden out at sea. It’s the most amazing place you can possibly imagine… a refuge for the extraordinary, filled with superpowered people, aliens, androids, medieval knights…” “Wait a minute… superpowered people?” Jack repeated. “Why me?” “Don’t you know?” Jazen replied. This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. ALADDIN An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 www.SimonandSchuster.com First Aladdin paperback edition April 2011 Copyright © 2010 by Matt Myklusch Previously published as Jack Blank and the Imagine Nation All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. ALADDIN is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc., and related logo is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Also available in an Aladdin hardcover edition as Jade Blank and the Imagine Nation. The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248- 3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com. Designed by Karin Paprocki The text of this book was set in Goudy Old Style Regular. Manufactured in the United States of America 0311 OFF 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1 The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows: Myklusch, Matt. Jack Blank and the Imagine Nation / Matt Myklusch.—1st Aladdin hardcover ed. p. cm. Summary: Twelve-year-old Jack, freed from a dismal orphanage, makes his way to the elusive and impossible Imagine Nation, where a mentor saves him from dissection and trains him to use his superpower, despite the virus he carries that makes him a threat. ISBN 978-1-4169-9561-6 (hc) [1. Superheroes—Fiction. 2. Identity—Fiction. 3. Robots—Fiction. 4. Giants—Fiction. 5. Orphans— Fiction. 6. Virus diseases—Fiction. 7. Science fiction.] I. Tide. PZ7.M994Jac 2010 [Fic]-dc22 2009023533 ISBN 978-1-4169-9562-3 (pbk) ISBN 978-14169-9563-0 (eBook) FOR REBECCA, WHO SAID, “MAYBE YOU’RE A NOVELIST.” Contents Prologue A BOY NAMED JACK Chapter 1 UNREAL TALES #42 Chapter 2 THE EMISSARY Chapter 3 SHADOW OF THE RÜSTOV Chapter 4 EMPIRE CITY Chapter 5 DEDICATION DAY Chapter 6 THE INNER CIRCLE Chapter 7 THE SCHOOL OF THOUGHT Chapter 8 POWERS Chapter 9 JONAS SMART: MAN OF THE FUTURE Chapter 10 VIRTUA’S REALITY Chapter 11 WREKZAW ISLE Chapter 12 THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY Chapter 13 KARATEKA KNIGHTS Chapter 14 THE ENEMY WITHIN Chapter 15 THE AWFUL TRUTH Chapter 16 DEADLY REUNION Chapter 17 SUPERFIGHT Chapter 18 THE LAST STAND Chapter 19 THE FUTURE IS NOW Acknowledgments THE ACCIDENTAL HERO PROLOGUE A Boy Named Jack The sign in front of St. Barnaby’s Home for the Hopeless, Abandoned, Forgotten, and Lost read CRUSHING THE SPIRIT OF CHILDHOOD SINCE 1898. Appropriately, the words were carved in stone because it wasn’t ever going to change. The faculty at St. Barnaby’s turned bright-eyed children into boring adults, and they did it quickly. Usually before the children finished kindergarten. Some of the kids managed to hold out a bit longer, but it was not a fun place to grow up. Not at any speed. St. Barnaby’s was planted not so firmly on a stretch of swampland near the New Jersey Turnpike. Every year like clockwork, the building sank a few feet deeper into the muck. The foundation couldn’t be fixed, but new floors and taller towers were constantly being added onto the roof to make sure the place stayed above swamp level. For an orphan growing up at St. Barnaby’s, staying above swamp level was about as much as you could hope for in life. From a window on what was currently the building’s top floor, a boy named Jack stared out at another icy, gray morning. It was that time of year again when Christmas was already gone, the new year was already here, and there was nothing left but winter. Any holiday spirit still lingering around the orphanage was being stuffed into cardboard boxes for storage in the basement, and the drab hallways of St. Barnaby’s seemed more bare than ever, now that their decorations were gone. With every box that disappeared down the cellar stairs, Jack wondered just how he was going to make it through another year in this place. It wasn’t Christmas presents that Jack was going to miss about the holiday season. St. Barnaby’s offered nothing beyond what little was donated, and bullies like Rex Staples always stole the good stuff from kids like Jack, anyway. No, what Jack would miss about the holidays was the way people acted during the month of December. The way everyone smiled more. People were nicer everywhere, even to him. It was like having friends for a couple of weeks every year. That was important because it was the only friendship that Jack ever really got to know. In every school there’s always one kid who gets picked on more than anyone else. At St. Barnaby’s that one kid was Jack. The teachers did nothing to stop this behavior. They even encouraged it, seeing it as payback for all the trouble Jack caused them on a regular basis. He wasn’t very good at doing what he was told and following the rules. Jack’s teachers often told him that was probably why his parents had abandoned him in the first place. Jack never knew his parents. He had been left on the steps of St. Barnaby’s twelve years ago and found in a cradle with the name “Jack” written on the handle. Nothing was known about him beyond his first name, and no one ever cared to ask too many questions either. Whenever Jack had to write his name on a test or homework assignment, he just wrote “Jack” and left the rest blank. Jack Blank. After a while the name simply stuck. Jack actually felt like he had a great deal less going for him than the other orphans at St. Barnaby’s did. None of them had any family, but Jack didn’t even have a name. He had no sense of who he was, even on the most basic level. He was a blank slate. The boy with the made- up name that didn’t mean anything. The other orphans at St. Barnaby’s had a few ideas about where Jack had come from. The latest theory was that Jack’s parents were sewer mutants who threw him away because he was too ugly, even for them. Jack wasn’t really ugly at all, but that didn’t stop the other children from calling him names like “Sewer Slime,” “Ugg-Boy,” and Rex’s personal favorite, “Weirdo Face.” No one ever accused Rex of being terribly creative or clever. Even so, the names didn’t have to be clever to hurt Jack’s feelings. Jack hated not knowing who he was or where he came from. He hated the stories the other kids would make up about him all the time. He never once suspected that the truth was something that would make even their wildest stories seem boring and tired. The truth about Jack was nothing short of extraordinary. The truth was a beacon calling out to things both terrible and wonderful on the far side of the world. The truth was the reason why that icy, gray morning was the last one Jack would ever spend at St. Barnaby’s Home for the Hopeless, Abandoned, Forgotten, and Lost.