Freddy gave a low whistle. “Now that’s a blade.”
From both sides, the darkened streamed into Times Square and encircled Team Thirteen. They filled up the streets, packing in with unexpected efficiency, until there was no space left. The entire darkened crowd stared at Team Thirteen. They stood, swaying slightly, like large cats ready to pounce.
“We can’t take them all at once,” Asha warned. “I’m going to funnel them. It’s our only chance. Ready?”
The darkened advanced toward them. Asha sprayed a wide circle of ice around them, ten feet thick and two stories high. She left one opening, a gap ten feet wide facing uptown. They could only see the street north of them now, and the tops of the buildings all around them, and the horde of darkened ahead of them.
“One opening!” Asha shouted to the others. “We take them as they come. This is our last stand!”
Freddy held out a closed fist toward Voss. “Last stand, bro.” Voss bumped fists with him.
The first of the darkened came in. They funneled into the opening of the icy fortress like wolves into a sheep pen. Team Thirteen raised their blades. The heat from the blazes made the ice walls glisten. As one unit, they attacked the enemy.
Jack swiped his black blaze across the chest of the first darkened that came at him. The blade’s impact blasted the darkened against the ice wall. The monster’s eyes widened as it shrieked and crackled. Then the exoskeleton shattered into dust.
Jack stared in wonder at the Silo Blade. The speed and strength of it caught him off guard. It followed his every thought, but it also accelerated in the air as he swung it, multiplying Jack’s strength.
Freddy had gotten the hang of his rune blade immediately and had already blazed three darkened in the entrance of the fortress. The darkened reacted like trapped animals. One leapt at Freddy, catching him from behind. Voss snatched the beast off Freddy and slammed it to the ground. Its hardened exoskeleton cracked the pavement before Asha blazed it.
Jack braced himself as a darkened woman ran at him. As she lunged at him, something flashed. Jack felt a blast of heat and heard a deafening crack. The woman was flung back against the ice wall. The pavement where she had stood was blackened. Jack turned around to see Claire with her palms together.
“Finish her off!” Claire hollered. “I’m going for more.”
To his right, Asha and Voss fought back-to-back. Across the fortress, Freddy seemed to hardly touch the ground as he dodged the darkened, then eliminated each attacker. Their training and their gifts were taking over, and their rune blades flashed quicker than their old blades ever had.
But Jack could see beyond the line of darkened coming into the ice fortress. Thousands more waited outside. Eventually, Team Thirteen would make a mistake. Somebody would slip. They’d get tired, then exhausted, and then they would be overrun. It was a matter of time and probabilities.
“Jack!” Asha pointed up at a wide hotel balcony over a yellow-and-red Kodak sign. A lone figure stood watching. “She’s up there.”
Thayer. And Wyeth would be with her. Jack knew it.
But the information alone did little good. Jack couldn’t leave the fortress. Even with their rune blades, they were only barely holding back the darkened now. Losing one of them would be catastrophic.
“We have to figure out a way to hold them off first,” Jack said.
“Asha!” Freddy shouted. “On the wall!”
A hand appeared over the wall behind them. A darkened pulled itself up. Asha conjured a flight of hardened snow-block steps. Jack and Freddy dashed up. Freddy slid across the top of the wide icy wall, blade out, and blazed the darkened before it could get all the way up. “There are too many!” Jack said.
But Freddy was pointing south, up at the half-built skyscraper. “We may have some help!”
The massive steel beams of the construction site were shaking. The entire structure collapsed onto itself, sending up a mushroom cloud of pulverized concrete. Even the darkened paused as the ground shook.
With an earth-rattling roar the mass of debris rose into a colossus five stories high—a monster with the head of a bulldozer clutching long steel beams in its fists like drumsticks. The shovel of the dozer dropped, and the beast whooped like a celebrating rock star as it slammed the beams down into the crowd of darkened over and over. The giant’s bulldozer head kept time with the beat.
Half a block away stood the Bulgarian, chest heaving from exertion but grinning. The darkened that had been piling up on the south side of the fortress now set upon the Bulgarian like jackals. The Bulgarian’s monster continued to slam the steel beams down like drumsticks, keeping them at bay.
“He’s distracting them,” Jack said. “Maybe I can get to the hotel!”
“Jack! Freddy! We need you.” Voss shouted up to them.
The darkened from the north side of the square had intensified their attacks at the opening. Jack and Freddy slid down the steps to join the others. The darkened were charging through the fortress’s entrance. Thirteen was trapped.
Suddenly a heavy jet of water firing across the opening blew back the darkened, momentarily clearing the entrance. Then a blur of black passed across the opening.
“What the . . . ?” Claire started.
From the corner of his eye, Jack saw something above them on the ice wall. It leapt down into the mouth of the fortress. Jack drew up his blade. But it wasn’t a darkened. It was a woman in black. She tore off her hood and a shock of spiky blue hair appeared.
“Is this what recruits are doing these days?” Operative Zhang asked with a wild grin. “Trying to get a closer look at the darkened?”
Operative Chandle appeared behind Zhang. Her eyes widened at Asha, and her glasses magnified the action. “Quelle folie!” She looked to her left. “Hey, Flood, mon ami! C’est la fille qui survived the Pit. The ice girl!”
“I’m busy, Pulse!” Flood shouted back.
“What are you doing here?” Jack asked the operatives.
“We left through the portals, but we couldn’t get back. We’ve been fighting the darkened ever since,” Zhang told him quickly. She spun and blazed a charging darkened before spinning back around. “Saw the commotion here, thought we’d come see.”
“We need to get Jack to that hotel across the square,” Asha told them. “No time to explain, but it’s critical. Think you can help?”
Zhang glanced around, found the yellow-and-red sign on the hotel, and nodded shortly. She touched her ear. “Flood! Pulse! Blur! To me, now!”
The Kinetic was standing next to her before she finished the command, orange blaze lighting the wall of the fortress. Flood came around to the entrance, still blasting back the darkened. Pulse—Operative Chandle—raised her hand behind Zhang. “Je suis ici!”
Zhang pointed her blue blade to the hotel across the square. “We cut a path, straight through. One-way ticket out for Mr. Carlson.” She looked around at Team Thirteen and shook her head. “First challenging operatives to a Death Match. Now taking on a hundred thousand darkened.” She laughed. “Brave and stupid. You will make excellent operatives.”
Zhang turned back to Jack, her eyes alight with excitement. “We leave in ten seconds. You stay right behind us. You may want to say good-bye to your team. None of us have much chance at surviving this.” She turned to the others. “Team Thirteen’s best chance is in this fortress. We will try to draw the darkened north. The Bulgarian will take the south.”
Jack nodded. Team Thirteen huddled up.
“Survival? We’re gonna do better than that. We’re gonna rock this!” Freddy exclaimed. “Jack, you just make sure you kill Wyeth. Kill Wyeth and he won’t control the darkened anymore. Kill Wyeth and we have a chance.”
“One Life for Many,” Voss said, punching his shoulder. “Jack, just make sure that Wyeth’s is the life that gets sacrificed.”
Asha just hugged him tight.
Claire took him by the wrist. “Keep breathing, Jack. You got this.”
�
��Okay, Jack Carlson,” Zhang shouted back. “Train is leaving!”
Jack gave them all one last look, then lined up behind Operative Chandle. They were off before he knew it. The sheer firepower between the four operatives was staggering. They blazed through the darkened at such a clip in front of him that Jack never had to slow his run. As they reached the hotel, Zhang and her team peeled off, cutting north to draw the darkened away from the ice fortress.
Jack shouldered his way through the revolving doors of the hotel, into the unlit empty lobby. He found a wide staircase and sprinted up, the sounds of the battle outside still ringing in his ears.
On the fourth floor he tumbled out of the stairwell and raced down the hall, through a bar, and out onto a wide balcony of low tables and cushioned couches.
Cynthia Thayer stood near the edge of the balcony, her back to the battle below. She stared at Jack curiously. “You came.”
Jack stopped. “You knew I would come?”
“I believed you would.” Her face hardened. “Now let her go,” she said. “Stop those monsters, and let Asha go.”
It was the last thing Jack expected her to say. “What are you talking about?”
Behind Thayer, down below, the darkened regrouped. They pushed Zhang and her team back and out of sight on the north end of Times Square. In the ice fortress Asha had created a localized blizzard in the mouth of the funnel, which slowed the attack of the darkened. But they were coming in greater numbers now.
“Where’s Wyeth?” Jack deployed his blade, holding it straight out at her throat and advancing. Every second counted.
Thayer’s expression went from anger to puzzlement. Then a look of wonder drew across her face. “You don’t know,” she said quietly. “How could you not know?”
“Tell me where Wyeth is, Thayer!”
Cynthia Thayer lowered Jack’s blade with her hand. “He’s right here,” she said. “You’re Wyeth.”
Something in Jack’s brain froze. His mind felt like it was collapsing into itself. “What are you talking about?” His jaw felt heavy. It was difficult to speak.
“You don’t need to hide anymore. We’ve done it,” she said. “But please, you have to stop them from killing Asha. The darkened are still attacking her. She’s in the square.”
Jack could hardly hear her. His hilt hung by his side. “I’m not hiding,” he said stupidly.
Thayer snatched him by the chest. “You need to come out. Jack is still here. You need to come out and stop them. You can save my daughter, but you have to do it now!”
One of Jack’s hands shoved Thayer backward. The other hand extended out toward the battle. An invisible surge of power cannoned out of him. Thousands of darkened below froze in place.
Jack was falling down a dark sinkhole. Somewhere in the back of his mind he recognized the feeling. He was having a blackout. But this time it was happening in slow motion. Bit by bit, the blackness swallowed him. He was at the bottom of a pit made of nothing but darkness.
“I won’t save her, Cynthia. I can, but I won’t.”
Jack said that. He heard himself say it.
Somewhere beyond the dark, Thayer’s voice echoed down to him. “I gave you everything. You swore that—”
“No. I didn’t.” Jack’s voice was calm. “You believed that I would. And if you truly wished your daughter to be saved, you would have saved her yourself. But you are stronger than that. That is why I chose you.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“You cannot both rule a civilization and remain beholden to your love for a single person. You have to say good-bye to her. It’s time.”
“You saved Claire Lacoste that night. You stopped the darkened from killing her.”
“I did not save Claire Lacoste. Jack Carlson saved her.” Jack heard his voice emit a putrid, cruel laugh. “Claire Lacoste will die with your daughter in that ice tomb. We begin again, together, unbound to our past. Let her go, Cynthia.”
There was a long silence before Thayer’s voice came through the dark. “You’re right. I’m ready.”
Jack had been swamped by a wave a thousand feet tall, and there was no up and no down. He had no control over his physical body. He had no way to struggle. There was nothing but fear. Still he fought the darkness.
In the distance was a pinhole of light. He willed himself toward the last tiny glimmer of light. He could just barely see out into the world, a world that suddenly felt foreign.
“End it quickly, then.” Thayer’s voice was flat.
Jack could see her, blurry, as if looking through water. And then he could see the square below, filled with the darkened.
He felt his arms rising. Wyeth’s arms. This was Wyeth’s body. He felt another surge of energy and hate. More darkened flowed from side streets and out of buildings. They all poured down into Times Square.
The Bulgarian’s monster was toppling under the weight of the darkened. The steel beams collapsed one by one, like a statue crumbling in an earthquake. The darkened were swarming the ice fortress now. They were no longer just coming in the funnel but piling up against the walls, higher and higher, a mass of darkened humanity. Then the ice walls disappeared underneath them. The darkened spilled inside. They came over the walls of the ice fortress, down on top of Team Thirteen.
From the depths of the pit that trapped him, Jack screamed. He screamed like he had never screamed before. And still the darkened tumbled over. They flooded the fortress, more and more and more.
Then the movement below stopped. There was nothing left but crushed humanity. And still Jack screamed. With no lungs and no breath, he screamed into the darkness.
Wyeth stared at the carnage. “You saw it,” he whispered. “You found a way to see it, didn’t you, Jack?”
Jack was empty. He was nothing.
“Good,” Wyeth said. “I’m glad you did.”
Cynthia Thayer gazed for a long moment at the sickening pile of darkened below. She squeezed her eyes closed. Then she opened them, inhaling a long breath before looking back at him. Her expression was calm. “It’s you now?” Thayer asked. “You took yourself back?”
Wyeth turned around. “Jack was not a person. He was a disguise for thirteen years. He was no more real than a mask. And yes, he’s gone.”
“What are your orders, Wyeth?” Thayer asked. “We have control of US military equipment and all the administrative structures. We have replaced military personnel with the darkened, all under your control. We have injected almost thirty million civilians with the vaccine. But Hadley still has assets on Elk Island, including the Dome and some powerful instructors. We can’t take any chances.”
“I don’t intend to. I will return to Elk Island as Jack Carlson and finish them off.”
“The portals are still closed. Do I need to ask my people to restart the power grid?”
“I have the coordinates of Elk Island,” Wyeth told her. “If you have a pilot who will do exactly as I say and land a plane on an invisible island, I can get back.”
“I have a pilot who flew for a Colombian cartel. He’s done far more dangerous landings than that. For what we’re paying him, he’ll land anywhere we ask him to.”
“Then as Jack Carlson I will tell the Council what they need to hear. He has their trust. I will signal you to restart the power grid. You will open the portals, and the darkened will overwhelm Elk Island. We have to do it before they shut down the portals permanently.”
Thayer nodded. “What happens when we take control?”
Jack felt Wyeth smile. It was cold, just an emotion of involuntary anticipation. “Destroy any remaining improbables and raze Hadley to the ground. Where is your plane?”
“LaGuardia Airport. We have a transport ready, as long as you can clear the darkened out of the way. We lost soldiers setting up our central command here, as you requested.”
“I will clear a path.”
Jack felt Wyeth stare over the edge of the balcony, down to the heaving ocean of darkened below. “T
he Order of the Grays never understood that this was the only way to save a fallen, diseased world. You tear it down and start again. Everything will be different now. Humanity will finally evolve. They will be strong, indestructible. We will finally make the world perfect.”
Wyeth turned back to Thayer. “There is one last thing standing between us and that moment: The Hadley Academy. Today I will destroy it forever. Today I end the Reaper War.”
CHAPTER 32
ONE LIFE FOR MANY
Jack felt them leaving Times Square. Down the steps. Out the door. Back into the square.
The ice fortress was melting. His friends were gone. He couldn’t bring himself to think their names.
Jack sobbed. It was all he was, and it was all he could feel. His emotion hadn’t left him. Maybe that’s all he was now, an emotion. He wondered if Wyeth felt it inside him.
From the darkness that held him, Jack caught glimpses of the outside world. An armored vehicle taking them over the East River to LaGuardia Airport. A heavily fortressed wall with tanks and weapons pointed out to fend off the darkened. A long, snaking line of people. A large twin-propeller plane.
Wyeth outlined the plan to Thayer. Jack heard his voice as through a tunnel. Wyeth would crash-land the plane in the East Clearing. The blast suit would protect him—the blast suit that Alexander had given Jack, the thing that would have saved Jack’s life from the grenade blast on the boat would save Wyeth now. Wyeth had planned it all from the very beginning. If the pilot didn’t survive the crash, so be it.
As Jack, Wyeth would tell the Council that the rest of Team Thirteen had been darkened. Then he would get to the Workshop and open one of the portals using an outside power source. He had set everything up when he was Jack Carlson.
Wyeth had accomplished much during Jack’s blackouts. There had been gaps in time that Jack had been unable to account for over the last months. There had been odd moments when Freddy had asked where Jack had been, and Jack couldn’t remember. He had made lame excuses to Freddy, not wanting to worry him. It was only an hour here, an hour there, after all.
The Hadley Academy for the Improbably Gifted Page 27