The Gathering

by Michael Carroll

  “You’re going to go home even if my parents and the others don’t think you should, aren’t you?” Colin asked.

  “They wouldn’t be able to stop me; I’m probably the strongest person in the world. You’re the only one who even comes close and I know you won’t try to stop me. Will you?”

  Colin shook his head. “Of course not. But you have to…” Colin froze. His superhuman hearing picked up a familiar sound from far away. “Transport’s here.”

  They ran back downstairs, Renata still clutching the bear. “It’s here, Dad!” Colin shouted from the hall as he picked up the largest of the suitcases.

  He opened the front door and ignored the sudden onslaught of camera flashes and the cheering. The two police officers turned to look at him.

  “Thanks,” Colin said.

  “That’s what they pay us the big bucks for,” one of them replied. “But I should be thanking you. My wife’s cousin Dave was one of the people you rescued from the toy store tonight.”

  “The shop assistant?”

  “That’s him. You and Diamond saved his life.”

  “Is he OK?”

  “Cuts and bruises, a few minor burns. He’s a lot better than he would have been if you two hadn’t been there…” The police officer’s voice trailed off as he became aware of a low rumbling noise. He glanced upward and saw a large black vehicle descending slowly from the night sky. “What on earth is that thing?”

  “That’s a StratoTruck,” Colin said.

  “I want one of those!”

  The StratoTruck was about the size of a transport helicopter, but shorter and wider. It had short wings at the back, and was powered by four large turbine engines that could pivot to provide forward thrust as well as lift.

  As Colin’s parents and Renata filed out behind him, the StratoTruck gently settled on the road, the downdraft from its powerful turbines blowing dust over everything. The craft was immediately surrounded by neighbors and reporters, all taking photographs or trying to touch it.

  The StratoTruck’s hatch opened, and a burly man wearing combat gear and full body-armor climbed out and strode up to Warren. “Titan?” he asked, his voice gruff and low.

  “That’s me,” Warren said, shaking hands with the man. “So you’re house-sitting for us?”

  The man nodded. “Four tours of duty with the marines. I’m an expert in weapons and security. I’m the best man for this job. I give you my word that while I am here, no unauthorized person will gain access to your home.”

  “That’s nice to hear,” Caroline said. “There’s food in the fridge and I’ve left a list of phone numbers just in case anything happens.”

  Colin said, “You can use the video if you like but you’re not allowed to have your friends around.”

  Renata laughed, but the soldier didn’t.

  “Get in,” Warren said to the teenagers.

  Colin climbed on board and saw that Danny’s mother was already there. “Where’s Danny and Niall?” he asked as Renata passed the bags to him. Mrs. Cooper didn’t reply; she looked extremely angry about something.

  Then the StratoTruck’s pilot turned around and said, “We’re going to pick them up next.”

  Colin almost dropped one of the suitcases. “Façade? What are you doing here?”

  “Don’t worry, I know how to fly this thing.”

  “That’s not what I meant! I just thought…”

  “I’m as much a part of this as you are, Colin. Now get the others on board and strap yourselves in.”

  Warren and Façade exchanged reasonably courteous nods, but Caroline refused to even look at him.

  “All right then,” Façade said. “Everyone ready?”

  As the hatch swung closed, and the StratoTruck’s powerful turbines whined into life, Colin peered out through one of the little windows and realized that he was almost face-to-face with Brian McDonald, who was staring back at him with a betrayed look on his face. Colin felt a knot twist in his stomach. Oh God…I should have told him!

  The police officers began to usher everyone away from the StratoTruck.

  Colin looked at Brian one last time and mouthed the words, “I’m sorry. Good-bye.”

  Then the StratoTruck lifted off the ground, spun about and soared into the night.

  6

  AFTER DANNY, NIALL AND PARAGON HAD been picked up, Façade piloted the StratoTruck to the west and ramped it up to full speed.

  The interior of the vehicle was not large, but it was just about able to accommodate all the passengers, including Niall, who had fallen asleep shortly after takeoff and was now stretched out across two seats.

  “How fast is this thing, Dad?” Danny asked. He noticed his mother glaring at him and quickly added, “I mean Façade.”

  “Top speed is a little over Mach two,” Façade replied. “Mach one is the speed of sound at sea level: seven hundred and sixty-one miles per hour. We can travel twice that fast.”

  Renata asked, “What’s our destination?”

  “Kansas.”

  “So what’s in Kansas?”

  Solomon Cord said, “You’ll find out when we get there. Until then, no more questions!”

  “Just one,” Colin said. “Why did you decide to become Paragon again?”

  Solomon Cord stared out of the hatch’s tiny window. “I thought I could escape the past, Colin. I was wrong. After Max Dalton betrayed us, I realized that he knew everything about me. Everything. He knew where my daughters went to school, who their friends were, where my wife’s mother lived, what my brother did for a living.”

  “But you told me you’d destroyed your armor.”

  Cord nodded. “I did. It was practically ruined after the last battle against Ragnarök anyway. This”—he thumped the armor on his chest—“is just a prototype.” He smiled. “The new version will be much more powerful. Now everyone get some sleep! We’ve got a long journey ahead of us.”

  Ignoring his mother’s disapproving look, Danny climbed into the copilot’s seat. “Façade…How do you know how to fly something like this?”

  Façade smiled. “I used to be in the U.S. Air Force. I was a test pilot.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “But—”

  “Danny!” Solomon Cord said. “I said no more questions.”

  Gradually, Colin became aware that someone was saying his name. He opened his eyes and looked around. Danny was staring at him. “What?”

  “We’re almost there.”

  Colin looked out of the StratoTruck’s window, but all he could see was darkness. He concentrated, focusing his eyes. He still wasn’t sure how his night-vision worked, but somehow it did: the landscape outside became brighter, almost as though a weak sun had suddenly appeared.

  “What can you see?” Danny asked.

  “Everything’s covered in snow. It’s pretty flat out there…There’s a lot of fields, a couple of lakes, a few small hills.”

  Façade’s voice called out, “Hold on tight! We’re about to bank to the right! You should be able to see the lights of Topeka on your left, about twenty-five kilometers away. That’s a little over fifteen miles.”

  Colin climbed into the copilot’s seat. “There are some hills ahead. Can’t see much else. Wait! There’s a platform in the middle of them and there’s a guy standing on it. He’s freezing. Stamping his feet to keep warm.”

  “You can see him?” Façade said.

  “Sure.”

  “Amazing…But that’s not a platform. That’s a roof.” Façade picked up the radio. “Josh…Hit the lights.”

  The StratoTruck crested the top of a small hill just as the building ahead was illuminated. Through the thick flurries of snow, the passengers could see their destination: an enormous snow-covered stone structure with sloping sides. It looked almost like an Egyptian pyramid with the top third removed. Close to the top of the building were two rows of large windows, and far below, at ground level, was a covered entrance.


  Maneuvering slowly and carefully through the snowstorm, the StratoTruck touched down on the wide, flat roof. “All right,” Cord said. “It’s freezing out there so no hanging around! Grab your bags and let’s go, people!”

  The hatch opened and the wind howled through the vehicle. Colin was the last to leave—it didn’t seem all that cold to him—and he took a few seconds to look around. He guessed that the roof of the building was about the length of a football field in each direction. It was almost featureless except for a wide stairway that led down to a set of steel doors and a hangar that was just large enough to take the StratoTruck.

  “Come on, Colin!” his father shouted from the top of the stairwell.

  Colin hurried over to the others and followed them down to the doors.

  As he got closer, he saw that the man he’d spotted from almost a mile away was wrapped in a thick coat. He was smiling at them, his cheeks red with the cold.

  “Hi, I’m Josh Dalton.” Josh was in his early thirties, with thinning hair and a touch of flabbiness around his face and neck. “So everyone’s here? Great!” He pointed to a glowing glass panel next to the doors. “Handprint reader,” he explained. “These doors are impossible to open to anyone not registered on the system. Right now, you’re all being scanned to check your identities. It’ll take a couple of minutes.”

  “What other security does this place have?” Warren asked.

  “Very thick walls,” Josh said, with a sly smile. “Seriously. The whole shell of the building is four-foot-thick concrete reinforced with steel beams. Its pyramidal shape means that structurally it’s very sound. The windows are two-inch Plexiglas, completely bulletproof. Nothing short of a nuclear weapon is going to breach this building. This is the only way in; the doorway on the ground level is fake. Inside, every room has only one doorway and all the doors can be sealed remotely. In the unlikely event of someone breaking in, we just seal all the doors and they’re trapped.”

  “What about people? I mean, actual human security guards?”

  “We have two security specialists; they’re the men currently guarding your homes.” Josh smiled. “With our system, we don’t really need security guards.”

  Rose Cooper said, “That’s all very well, Mr. Dalton, but locking all the doors doesn’t sound too safe if there’s a fire!”

  “Every room is equipped with at least two CDH delivery systems. CDH is Carbon Dioxide Hydrate. If a fire is detected the system shoots out hundreds of tiny CDH pellets. They react to the heat and release water and carbon dioxide.” Josh smiled again. “Trust me on this, Rose…Your boys will be safe here.”

  The glass panel beeped once and a green light came on. Josh pressed his hand against the panel and the doors slid quietly open. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to your new home, headquarters and general base of operations. Welcome to Sakkara.”

  7

  WHILE THE OTHERS WERE BEING SHOWN to their rooms, Solomon Cord took Colin, Renata and Danny on a brief tour of Sakkara.

  Their first stop was what Cord called “Nostalgia Central”—a large, mostly empty room that contained a dozen life-sized mannequins, each in its own glass case. Most of the mannequins were bare, but three of them wore replicas of the costumes once worn by The High Command.

  “Josh says he’s been planning to turn this room into a sort of superhero museum,” Cord explained. “If you ask me, it’s a little self-indulgent.”

  Colin stopped in front of the mannequin wearing Max Dalton’s costume. “Doesn’t look much like him.”

  “Yeah,” Danny said. “Shouldn’t it be wearing a prison uniform?”

  Renata walked around the blank mannequins and said, “Hey, most of these things have names on them! Apex, Titan, there’s Energy over there! What’s this empty one for…? Oh.” Her face fell.

  “What is it?” Danny asked, walking over to her.

  “It’s me.” Renata pointed to the small plaque on the base of the empty glass case. “Diamond. Real name unknown. Why is there no mannequin in it?”

  Solomon Cord said, “When you got frozen, everyone thought you were dead. Josh was going to put you there.”

  Renata shivered. “God, that’s just creepy!”

  “Max had put your body into storage. Josh said that he’d never been able to figure out a way of getting you back without alerting his brother as to what he was up to.”

  “So Max didn’t know that Josh was involved?”

  “No,” Cord said. “Max was too well-known to be brought in. With a place like this, even the slightest hint that something is going on and it would become public knowledge.”

  Cord led them back out into the stark, empty corridors. “Josh knows a lot more about the history of Sakkara than I do. But I can fill in some of the background for you…A little over forty years ago the U.S. government established a facility for research into superhuman activities. They tried to understand why some people developed powers. Was there any connection between these people? Perhaps some similarities on a genetic level? Had any of them been exposed to unusual radioactive or biological substances?”

  “And that’s this place?” Colin asked.

  “No. After the attack on Ragnarök’s battle-tank, when the superhumans all lost their powers, that facility was officially disbanded. The people who ran it were blamed for everything that Ragnarök did.”

  “Right,” Renata said. “Because he was their prisoner and they let him escape.”

  “That’s just the official story,” Solomon said, then paused. “The man who became Ragnarök was not a prisoner. He worked for the facility. He was the only one who had any real understanding of how the powers worked. He was involved in certain experiments—I’m not sure exactly what, Josh won’t tell me—and he wanted to take those experiments further. When he was refused permission, he left. Disappeared for years before resurfacing as Ragnarök. At some stage before the last battle, much of the research carried out at the facility somehow found its way into Max Dalton’s hands. It’s generally assumed that the information was stolen by Quantum, under Max’s control.”

  Danny cringed.

  “Regardless of how it happened, the truth is that the facility was not disbanded. This place was built and everything was relocated here. Outside of those who work here, only a handful of people in the political and military world know of Sakkara’s existence.”

  “Sakkara…,” Renata said. “The name sounds familiar.”

  “Well, it’s not a name I would have chosen,” Cord said. “About four thousand years ago Sakkara was part of the necropolis of Memphis, the Egyptian capital during the first and second dynasties.”

  “A necropolis,” Danny said. “Remind me again what that is?”

  “A tomb. Whoever chose the name Sakkara was obviously a fan of ancient Egypt. Either that or they didn’t know the names of any other pyramids.”

  “So how did Josh get involved?” Colin asked.

  “He’s a smart guy, plus he used to be a superhuman, which made him doubly qualified.” Solomon paused. “He wasn’t their first choice. I was, but I didn’t want the job. Until a couple of years ago, Sakkara was run by an air force man, General Scott Piers. When he retired, Josh was appointed chief of operations. His primary goals are to continue his research into the superhuman phenomenon, and to track down and investigate any other potential superhumans.”

  Renata said, “Mr. Cord, I don’t like the idea of working for a government.”

  “Right now there’s no other option,” Solomon replied.

  “There’s the Trutopians. That guy Kinsella wants us to work for him.”

  “You don’t know anything about him, Renata.”

  “We don’t really know much about this place either,” she replied.

  “At Sakkara we have resources and equipment you wouldn’t believe. We will train you three and the others. Trust me: this is the best approach. Between myself, Warren, Caroline, Josh and Façade we have a lot of superhuman experience.”

  Their nex
t stop was a large dining hall that took up half the top floor of the building. Some of the tables were occupied by people in white coats who couldn’t help staring at the teenagers as they stood in the doorway.

  “Dining hall,” Cord said. “All the meals are served here. There are forty-six people in Sakkara, so it can get pretty crowded at times.”

  Danny walked over to one of the large windows and looked out. He could see the lights of Topeka, the capital city of the state of Kansas. The heavy snow clouds above the city were orange and yellow from the city’s lights. “Sol, I can’t believe that a building this large—and this close to a city—could stay a secret.”

  “The people who designed this place were smart; they landscaped the entire area so that unless you’re right next to it, the building can be seen only from the air. And if anyone does see it from the air, it looks just like a water-treatment plant. In fact, part of the facility is given over to that function, just in case anyone ever investigates. We take a minimal amount of power from the local grid; the rest of it is supplied by a geothermal energy converter.”

  “A geo-what?” Colin asked.

  “It takes the heat from deep within the Earth and converts it to electricity.”

  Renata asked, “Couldn’t someone just find the place by following the StratoTruck?”

  “We’re right in the heart of a no-fly zone; any aircraft coming within two miles will be ordered to change course by air traffic control.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “Then there’s an air force base not far from here. The ATC people think that’s what the no-fly zone is protecting. Everything we need—food, clothing, electronics, whatever—comes to us through disguised channels. Basically, unless you actually work here, there’s no way to tell that it exists.”

  Colin said, “I know I’m going to hate myself for saying this, but…what about school?”

  “We have a full-time tutor,” Cord replied. “And your mother’s a teacher too, right? She’ll be able to make sure you get all the education you need.”