The Gathering

by Michael Carroll

  Renata turned to him. “Mr. Cord, how long are we going to be here?”

  Cord shrugged. “I don’t know. Come on, I’ll show you the rest of the place.”

  He led them to a dark, windowless room in the heart of the building. It was filled with large white metal objects, each over two meters tall. “The computer room,” Cord explained. “Seven custom-built machines linked to a bank of Cray XD4s. I’m told that this is the single greatest concentration of computing power in the country.”

  “Wow!” Colin said, walking around one of the featureless white boxes. “What do you need them for?”

  “Number crunching and data processing. We have permanent high-speed links to NASA and most of the large universities in the U.S. Josh tells me that’s one of the ways this place can keep running: we process their data for them and charge them for it. There’s stuff that goes on here that even he doesn’t have access to.”

  “Yeah, but can you play games on them?” Danny asked.

  Renata walked over to one of the computer terminals. On screen was a complex, rotating three-dimensional image. “What’s this?”

  “DNA analysis,” Cord said. “That’s one of Josh’s pet projects. They’re still trying to figure out whether superhuman powers come from your DNA or somewhere else.”

  “Where else could the powers come from?”

  “Aliens,” Danny said. “At least, that’s what Niall thinks.”

  “Hey, look at this!” Colin called from the far side of the room. “There’s lots of videos of the old superheroes back when they had their powers!” He used the computer’s mouse to select a video from the list. “It’s…” He looked up at Danny. “It’s your father. It’s Quantum.”

  Danny and Renata watched over Colin’s shoulder. The computer monitor showed a paused video of a dark room with a single white-clad figure sitting in the middle. Quantum’s hood had been pulled back and he bore a startling resemblance to Danny.

  “How old is this?” Danny asked.

  Colin checked the date in the corner of the screen. “Fourteen years and…” Colin paused. “This is the day you were born.”

  Cord said, “Wait a second! That terminal should have been locked!” He leaned over Colin’s shoulder. “Danny, if that video is what I think it is, it might not be a good idea to watch it. It concerns the prophecy.”

  Danny bit his lip. “The one about me?”

  Cord nodded.

  Colin looked at Danny, his finger hovering over the mouse’s button.

  Danny nodded. “Play it!”

  Colin hit the button and the video began to play.

  On screen, Quantum was rocking back and forth. A voice from an unseen person asked, “What happened?”

  “Twenty-two minutes ago,” Quantum said, his voice weak. “Eight pounds exactly. A boy. He’s perfect. Ten fingers, ten toes. He didn’t cry. That’s strange, isn’t it? Don’t all newborn babies cry? He’s…”

  “He’s what?”

  “We have to do something, Max. My son…I saw something when I held him.”

  “What did you see, Paul?”

  “The end. The end of everything. He was there, leading them. None of us were there. None of us. Do you understand what that means?”

  “I’m afraid I…”

  “You should be afraid, Max. We should all be afraid. The end is coming and my son is at the heart of it.” Quantum stopped rocking, leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “There’s war and death. The skies are black with smoke and dust. The ground is red with blood. The seas are burning. There’s anger in him, a raging fury that nothing can stop. No, his friends are there. They fight for those who can’t fight back.”

  “When will this happen?”

  Quantum shook his head. “Difficult to say…He’s tall, strong, muscular. A teenager at least. But not much older than that. Why can’t I see his eyes? No, he’s gone now…But there’s something else. A rip.”

  “A rip?”

  “A chasm. Something is torn.”

  “Paul, that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Ah…I see him again. He knows, Max. The war is coming and he knows that he’s at the heart of it. Billions of deaths on his hands.”

  “How can we prevent this?”

  “We can’t,” Quantum said. He paused, then added, “We can’t. We won’t be there.”

  “Is this war inevitable?”

  Quantum frowned. “I can’t see anything beyond the war.”

  “Tell me about your son, Paul! What can we do to prevent him from starting the war?”

  “He doesn’t start the war, Max, but in some ways he’s responsible for it. We all are.” He opened his eyes. “Especially you.”

  “Paul, you’ve got to concentrate! What else can you see? Where does the war take place?”

  “Everywhere. Cities in flames, the survivors starving to death, people killing each other over scraps of rotten food. The human race…” He laughed. “The race will be won, but you and I will be dead before that happens. The writing is on the wall. Literally.”

  “Paul, is there anything we can do to prevent this?” Max’s voice asked, sounding desperate.

  “The future is already there, Max. We just haven’t caught up with it yet. We can’t change it. I know that. Just like I know that you are going to die in absolute agony and I’m going to die at my son’s hand.”

  “So if we…” Max hesitated. “If we were to…”

  “No. You cannot avoid this by killing my son.”

  “If this war is as bad as you say it will be, then what choice do we have?”

  “Take the powers away. The energies that make us superhuman…The blue lights. They drift about, cluster around certain people, enhance our abilities.”

  “Where do these energies come from?”

  “The chasm.”

  “Again, what does that mean? Where is this chasm?”

  “I don’t know. That’s all he will tell me.”

  “Who?”

  “Ragnarök. He’s the only one who knows how to do it, Max. He understands the superhuman energies. He will build a machine that will strip all of us of those energies, make us human again.”

  “Will that work?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’ll prevent the war?”

  Quantum shrugged. “I don’t know. But if there are no more superhumans…” There was a blur, then Quantum was standing on the other side of the room. Another blur and he was standing directly in front of the camera, staring into it. “He’s watching me now. In the future.”

  Danny jumped back. “Oh my God!”

  “He’s there with three others. A black man…It’s Paragon. Did you know that Paragon is black, Max? I never knew that. I couldn’t tell underneath that armor. His name is Solomon Cord. He’s not a superhuman. I didn’t know that either. You have to find him. He’s going to be important. And there’s a boy there. My son’s best friend. He hates you, Max. He really hates you.” Quantum frowned. “And a girl. That’s strange…She’s…She’s powerful, Max. She doesn’t know yet just how powerful.”

  Then there was another blur and the room was empty. A few seconds later, the video ended.

  Colin turned to look at Danny. “You OK?”

  “Not really, no.” To Cord, he said, “He knew I’d be watching him! Is there any more like that?”

  “I don’t know.” Cord pushed past Colin and began tapping on the keyboard. The words “Terminal Locked” appeared on the screen. He stepped back and said, “All right…The three of you, look at me. Look at me!”

  They looked.

  “Do not talk about what you’ve just seen, not even among yourselves. We are not meant to know the future. That’s what pushed Quantum over the edge.” Cord glanced at his watch. “All right. There’s something I have to show you now. Come with me.”

  Silently, they followed Cord to a set of doors on the far side of the building. “This is the gymnasium. You’ll be spending a lot of your spare time in th
is room.” He took a deep breath. “Ready?”

  Renata said, “We’ve all seen a gymnasium before, Mr. Cord!”

  “I know. But the gym itself isn’t what I want to show you.” He reached out and hit the switch on the wall, then the doors unlocked and slid open. “Go in.”

  With Renata leading the way, the teenagers walked into the brightly lit room. A voice said, “Oooh! They’re here!” and Renata looked to see two girls of about her own age approaching. They were followed by a tall, well-built teenage boy.

  “You’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other properly,” Cord said. “But for the moment I thought I’d just introduce you.”

  The six teenagers looked each other up and down.

  Colin began, “So, uh…”

  “I’m Yvonne,” the nearest girl said. She was short, slim and—Danny and Colin couldn’t help thinking—extremely good-looking. She had a pleasant smile and a massive shock of jet-black hair. “You’re Colin, right? We saw you on the news. This is my sister, Mina, and this is Butler.”

  Mina was slightly taller than Yvonne, with short blond hair. She nodded briefly and looked down at her feet.

  Butler was about Danny’s height, but had a much broader build. He had close-cropped black hair and dark eyes.

  “Nice to meet you,” Colin said. “This is Renata and Danny.”

  “Quantum’s son, right?” Butler said. He stretched out his hand to Danny, then pulled it back. “Whoa, sorry, kid!”

  Renata said, “So who are you guys? What are you doing here?”

  Solomon Cord said, “They’re here for the same reason you are. They’re superhumans.”

  8

  DANNY AND NIALL WERE GIVEN ROOMS on either side of their mother’s. Danny’s room was stark and functional, containing only a bed, a chair and a single built-in wardrobe. Aside from one small mirror, and two white boxes marked “CDH” that were fixed close to the ceiling, the walls were completely bare.

  As Danny was unpacking his suitcase, Colin appeared in the doorway.

  “The exact same as mine,” Colin said, giving the room a quick once-over. “Except mine has a telly.”

  “This room had one too, but Niall wanted it.”

  Colin paused for a second. “So we’re not the only superhumans around.” He shook his head. “I suppose it makes sense, but it’s still a bit weird. I wonder how many others there are out there. For all we know, there could be dozens of us.”

  Danny shrugged. “Maybe.” He stopped what he was doing. “I’ve got a weird feeling about this place.”

  “Like what?”

  “It just doesn’t feel right. I’ve been wondering about what Sol said, about how the old facility used to run experiments. I hope he didn’t mean that they were experimenting on superhumans. Do you trust him?”

  “Sol? Absolutely. I’m not sure I trust Josh though. I’d still like to know how the press found out about our parents. The information had to come from somewhere. Not all of Max’s people from the mine were caught. One of them might have sold the story to the newspapers. Listen, about what Quantum said on that video…”

  “Sol said we weren’t to talk about it,” Danny said.

  “I know. But I wouldn’t worry about it if I was you. I mean, the war won’t happen now. And anyway, who’s to say that it wasn’t all just…well, insane ramblings?”

  “He knew we would be watching him, Col.” Danny sighed and closed his suitcase. “Unpacking can wait. Let’s go exploring.”

  Closing the door behind them, they walked along the brightly lit corridor. “It’s like being in a hospital,” Colin said. “Everything’s so clean and lifeless.”

  “I was thinking the same thing. Which way is it to the dining hall? I’m starving.”

  “Down this way and then up the stairs.”

  They rounded a corner and almost bumped into the other teenage boy, Butler.

  “Hi,” Colin said. “It’s Butler, right?”

  The boy nodded, but didn’t speak. He was staring at the stump of Danny’s right arm.

  A little uncomfortable at the silence, Danny said, “So, have you been here long?”

  “A few months,” the boy said.

  “What’s your last name?”

  “Redmond.”

  “What can you do?” Colin asked.

  “I’m strong, fast. I can make an invulnerable force field around myself.” With that, a thin, transparent bubble appeared around him and spread slowly outward.

  Colin pressed his hand against the force field. It was cold and yielded a little, but the harder he pushed the stronger the force field became. “That’s pretty cool,” Colin said. “How did you discover your powers?”

  The boy shrugged and the bubble disappeared. “Gotta go.” He stepped around them and walked off down the corridor.

  “Nice talking to you,” Danny muttered. To Colin he said, “He’s going to be a barrel of laughs to have around.”

  “Speaking of laughs,” Colin said, “I can hear Renata in the dining room and she’s talking to…It sounds like the two girls.”

  They resumed walking. “That always freaks me out a little bit,” Danny said. “You can hear anything you want to, all the time!”

  “Not all the time,” Colin said. “I have to sort of switch it on. Any sign of your own powers coming back?”

  “No. I made my arm intangible and pushed it inside a machine that was designed to strip superhuman powers. They’re not going to come back, Col. Probably just as well too. If I’m not a superhuman anymore then that means that Quantum’s prophecy can’t possibly come true.”

  They pushed open the doors of the dining room and saw that the large room was empty except for one table in the corner, which was occupied by Renata and the two teenage sisters, Mina and Yvonne.

  “Can we join you or is this a girls-only meeting?” Danny asked. He was about to sit down when he noticed that the table contained five mugs of coffee. “Who else is here?”

  Colin froze. He could hear the heartbeats of two people behind him and turned around to see two other girls approaching.

  Yvonne said, “Alia and Stephanie Cord. Solomon’s daughters.”

  Stephanie gave Colin a smile that made him instantly blush. “So you haven’t forgotten me then?”

  The coast of Oregon was still in darkness when an ancient fishing boat pulled into the harbor of a small town ninety miles southwest of Portland. The fishermen began to unload their catch, then one of them slipped away.

  Wearing a heavy overcoat, and with a woolen hat pulled down to cover as much as possible of his scarred head, Dioxin slung his bag over his shoulder and silently and quickly made his way through the port and on to a quiet street.

  Ahead of him, standing next to a large expensive car that was parked beneath a streetlight, a short, nervous-looking man was watching him.

  Dioxin slipped his hand into his overcoat’s pocket and took hold of his gun.

  As he neared the car, the short man said, “I was sent to meet you.”

  “You’ve got the wrong man, buddy.”

  “No, no I haven’t. You were smuggled out of China on a private jet. You parachuted out twenty miles from the coast and rendezvoused with that fishing boat. That’s how Mr. Sheng operates.”

  “So who are you and what do you want?” Dioxin asked. He pulled off his hat and stepped into the light.

  The nervous man gasped at Dioxin’s face, then quickly looked away. “My employer has a job for you, Mr. Dioxin.”

  “I’m here on personal business. I’m not taking on any work right now.”

  “We know everything about you, Dioxin. We know all of your secrets. We know all the details of every single crime you’ve committed since you disappeared ten years ago. What would happen to you if all of that information became public knowledge? Think about that: all of those people you helped put into power, all of those terrorists you’ve worked for, the crime lords, the drug barons. They would all know that you were the one responsib
le for airing their secrets.”

  Dioxin considered this. “For a little guy you sure talk big.”

  “Do I have your attention or not?”

  “I haven’t killed you yet. That means I’m interested.”

  The man opened the car’s passenger door. “Then get in. We’ve got a jet waiting for us.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Evan Laurie.”

  “Never heard of you.”

  “No reason you should have. But like I said, we know everything about you. You’re here to kill Paragon. Ten years ago, you lost your superhuman abilities. You were no longer immune to your own acid. If Paragon hadn’t slowed you down, you could have washed the acid off before it scarred you. How many operations has it taken, Dioxin? Twenty? Thirty? If it hadn’t been for Paragon, you would be able to live a normal life without people flinching when they saw your face.”

  Dioxin said nothing.

  “So you will work for us and we will give you something invaluable in return.”

  “And what’s that? You can give me back my face?”

  “No. But we can tell you where Paragon is.”

  9

  AT BREAKFAST ON HIS FIRST FULL DAY at Sakkara, Colin made his way to the dining hall, which was half filled with people he hadn’t seen before. He realized that most of them were in their thirties or forties, which made him feel even younger.

  He spotted Renata and Danny sitting in one corner, and was about to wander over when he heard his father’s voice. “Colin? Come here a minute!”

  As he walked over to his father’s table, he saw Façade sitting on his own. He was the only person in the whole room not sitting with someone. If he hadn’t helped us in California we’d all have died, Colin thought, and in return he lost his family and his friends.

  “Colin,” his father said, “you’ve met Sol’s wife, Vienna, haven’t you?”

  “Not officially,” Colin said. “We were never introduced.” He shook hands with her. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  Mrs. Cord smiled. “Aren’t you the polite one?”

  Warren said, “Lock them in the coal shed for a week at a time and they learn manners soon enough.” He tilted his head in the direction of Renata and Danny. “Go on, join your friends. I’m sure you don’t want to be stuck here with the old fogies.”