The Gathering

by Michael Carroll

  Have they seen me? Or have they just finished what they came here to do? He increased his speed, then flipped over on to his back and grabbed one of the copter’s landing struts.

  He clawed his way across the underside toward the starboard hatch, then pulled himself up. This is why I need the new armor! I’d be able to just tear the hatch off! Holding on with one hand, he removed a small magnetic grenade from his belt and attached it to the door. He set the timer for three seconds and then let go, allowing himself to drop.

  Paragon activated his jetpack just as the grenade exploded, ripping the helicopter’s door from its frame. He increased his speed, angled himself correctly, then flew straight through the open doorway.

  He collided with a large man, knocking him to the floor. Instantly—and with no care for their colleague’s safety—two other men opened fire.

  The bullets ricocheted off Paragon’s armor. “Cease fire!” A rough voice yelled.

  Paragon leaped at the nearest mercenary and smashed him against the bulkhead. “Drop your weapons and set this thing down!”

  Dioxin stepped out of the shadows and yelled to the pilot: “Move it! We’ve got what we came for!”

  “Who are you? What do you want with me?” Paragon demanded, advancing on him.

  Dioxin laughed and held up a small black device. He pressed a button on it…

  …and Paragon’s armor instantly powered down.

  “We don’t want you, Paragon. We want your armor.” He pressed another button and the armor began to unseal itself.

  Paragon darted for the doorway, but two of the men grabbed hold of him. He lashed out, hitting one of them in the face with his steel-gloved fist. He jabbed his elbow at the second man’s solar plexus, but the man sidestepped and the blow did little damage.

  As Paragon struggled, two more men jumped on him and began to remove his armor. “Who are you people?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? We’re the bad guys,” the scarred man said. “But you know who I am, don’t you, Paragon? After all, you’re the one who did this to me!” He indicated the extensive scarring on his face and hands. “You turned me into a monster. Children scream when they see me. Children like Alia and Stephanie.”

  Solomon Cord stared at the scarred man. “Oh God.”

  “God won’t save you now, Cord! I had a chance for a normal life and you ruined that! You destroyed my future. Now I’m going to destroy something you value just as much!”

  “You’re a psycho!” Cord yelled. “I’ve never seen you before!”

  Through gritted teeth, the scarred man said, “Ten years ago…I could have washed the acid off my skin. You slowed me down. I had third-degree burns over eighty percent of my body. It’s taken nineteen skin grafts for me to look even this good. You did this! You stopped me from getting to that fountain!”

  “Dioxin. We…Everyone thought you were dead. Dissolved by your own acid.”

  For a moment, Dioxin’s snarl vanished. “There were times when I wished I was dead. But…there were many more times when I wished you were dead. And guess what, Cord? Sometimes, if you believe in them strongly enough, wishes come true.” He nodded toward the doorway. “Throw him out. Let’s see if this superhero can fly without his jetpack.”

  “I see him!” Colin yelled. “He’s falling!”

  “At this height, he’ll hit the ground in about thirty seconds!” Façade said.

  Colin gripped the back of Façade’s seat. “Get after him! We can catch him!”

  “But…”

  “Quiet!” Colin concentrated.

  Faintly, he could hear Solomon saying, “Colin, wherever you are I hope you can hear me. It’s Dioxin! He was after the armor! Tell Razor he has to find a way to disable it!”

  The StratoTruck pitched and staggered as Façade manipulated the controls, attempting to match the speed at which Cord was falling.

  Colin stood in the hatchway, one hand gripping so hard it was biting into the metal frame. “Closer…Closer!”

  As he fell, Solomon Cord saw the StratoTruck approaching and realized what they were trying to do.

  He stretched his arms and legs out, trying to slow his descent as much as possible.

  The ground rushed toward him.

  The StratoTruck was pointing straight down now, inching closer and closer to him. He could see Colin in the doorway, his hand outstretched.

  Come on, come on! Solomon said to himself. He took another look at the ground. Too late! They’re not going to make it! “Pull up!” He shouted to Colin. “You’ll be killed!”

  His fingertips brushed against Colin’s for a brief moment.

  “Pull up!” he yelled.

  Below, he could clearly see the lights of cars on the busy highway. Oh God, I hope it’s painless! He closed his eyes. “Vienna…”

  Then he felt a strong hand grip his and roughly pull him on board the StratoTruck.

  17

  VICTOR CROSS, EVAN LAURIE AND DIOXIN examined the disassembled Paragon armor, spread out on a workbench in front of them.

  “We’re trying to reverse-engineer the armor’s control systems,” Laurie said, “but it’s not going to be easy…Not even counting the unique alloys it’s made of, this thing is an absolute masterpiece. You’re sure that Cord doesn’t have any superhuman abilities?”

  “He doesn’t,” Cross said. “But he has a tremendous aptitude for mechanics. Plus they have a hell of a lot of resources and experts at Sakkara.”

  Dioxin asked, “How long will it take to get it working?”

  “A few weeks, maybe a month,” Laurie said. He indicated the circuitry on the inside of the armor’s chest plate. “If they’d used off-the-shelf components it would be a lot simpler, but this is all custom-built, right down to the microprocessors. I’ve never even seen anything like this before. It’s got a lot of sensors and technical data-streams, all feeding into the helmet, where the information is projected on to the inside of the visor. Infrared, enhanced night-vision, audio pickups, targeting, fuel optimization…”

  Dioxin interrupted him. “Forget all that crap. Just make the damn rocket-pack fly.”

  “It’s a jetpack, not a rocket-pack,” Laurie said, looking almost offended that Dioxin didn’t know the difference. “A jet engine mixes its fuel with the air. A rocket uses only the fuel it can carry.”

  “So what?”

  “So if you want to increase the range of either of them, you have to add more fuel. Obviously. But doubling the fuel of a rocket wouldn’t get you double the range because the heavier something is, the more fuel it needs to fly, and the fuel itself adds weight, whereas—”

  “Did I ask for a science lesson?” Dioxin snarled. “Make it fly! You can do that, can’t you?”

  “The fastest way to get it all up and running would be to rebuild the circuitry from the ground up.”

  Cross said, “I want to know exactly how they built it as much as you do, Laurie, but we don’t have time for that. Strip out everything you can’t get working immediately and concentrate on the jetpack. And I want weapons. This armor…it’s a flying computer. And we don’t need a flying computer. We need a flying gun.”

  As Cross turned to leave, he added, “Commandeer any personnel or equipment you need, Laurie. I want this armor ready for action by tomorrow morning. Dioxin is going to war.”

  Laurie muttered, “Thought we already were at war.”

  Dioxin laughed at that. “You mean all that destruction, all those deaths? Laurie, that was a light rain compared with the storm that’s about to hit them.”

  Renata Soliz let go of the underside of the speeding truck and crashed to the ground. She tucked herself into a ball, rolled and landed on her feet.

  She walked to the edge of the freeway, then dropped the five meters to the road below and walked toward her hometown of Breckin Falls.

  It had been a tough journey. Paragon had flown her to the airport south of Topeka, twenty miles away from Sakkara. Booking a flight would have been impossible, so
Renata had sneaked through the airport’s access corridors until she was able to make her way through to the runways, then hid in the undercarriage of the first plane she could find that was going to Cleveland.

  Now, at almost two o’clock in the morning, she was walking down Thorndale Hill for the first time in over ten years. Fresh snow had begun to fall and Renata couldn’t help thinking of a huge snowball fight she’d had with her sister the previous winter. No, it wasn’t last winter, she corrected herself, that was eleven years ago.

  Solomon Cord had told her that her parents had only recently joined the Trutopians. “They just signed their house over to them,” Cord had said. “In exchange, they were given a small apartment inside the gated community. Your mother now works for the organization, tending the grounds. Your father still has his office-cleaning job, but he’s had to abandon his clients outside the community. They pay fifteen percent of their earnings to the organization. That’s on top of the usual income taxes they pay to the government.”

  The Trutopian section of the town was not hard to find. A high fence ran the entire length of Mull Avenue, cutting right across what had once been a busy road. Now, recently erected signposts pointed to alternative routes.

  Keeping to the shadows, Renata made her way along the undergrowth next to the fence until she reached the main gate. Two uniformed men stood outside the closed gates, occasionally stamping their feet to keep warm. Private police force, Renata said to herself. No easy way past them.

  She briefly considered walking up to the guards and just telling them who she was, then demanding to see her family, but dismissed that idea: her family didn’t know that she was still alive, and the last thing the new heroes needed was their enemy finding out anything else about them.

  She looked up at the fence. Probably electrified. The current won’t hurt me but it might set off an alarm. She quietly made her way back along the fence until she found a spot out of sight of the guards. The fence was about three meters high. I can’t jump that high without a run-up, and I can’t take a run-up because then the guards would see me.

  Renata looked around: farther back, right next to the fence, there was a high ridge of packed snow, created by a snowplow that had recently cleared the road.

  She ran for the ridge, leaped on to it and vaulted over the fence, clearing it by only a couple of centimeters.

  Landing softly in a snowdrift, Renata looked around. She was on the edge of a narrow road. This wasn’t here ten years ago. Looks like it circles the whole community. As quietly as she could Renata darted through the streets, hoping to find a signpost directing her toward the hospital.

  The whole place was eerily silent. In a wide pedestrianized street, a few stores had their Christmas lights on, turning the snow alternately green and red.

  As she made her way toward what was once the town square, Renata heard footsteps crunching through the snow. She looked about for cover, but couldn’t see anything.

  Then she spotted a podium that supported a life-sized ice sculpture of Santa and his elves, and ran over to it, hoping that the falling snow would cover her tracks. She jumped on to the podium and turned herself solid just as two of the private police officers rounded the corner. They looked cold and miserable. One of them glanced at Renata as they passed. “Nice sculpture,” he said to his colleague.

  When she was sure they were gone, Renata turned herself back to normal and continued her search for something—anything—that would point the way to the hospital.

  As she passed an apartment block, she almost walked right into another guard, this one on his own.

  The guard had just enough time to say, “Curfew violation!” before Renata jabbed a sharp punch at his jaw. The man keeled over into the snow.

  “Sorry,” Renata muttered as she checked his breathing. He’s OK, but I can’t just leave him here. He might freeze to death. Then she heard more footsteps approaching and she looked around desperately. There’s nowhere to hide!

  Thinking quickly, she called out, “Is someone there? Help me!”

  A second security guard came charging around the corner.

  “Oh thank God!” Renata said. “I looked out the window and saw him just lying here! He must have slipped on the ice!”

  The policeman examined his colleague. “You should have called it in, miss. You’re breaking curfew.”

  “I know. Sorry. I panicked.”

  “You go on back inside and I’ll forget about the violation.”

  “Thanks. I hope he’s going to be all right.” She ran toward the apartment block’s entrance, then, making sure that the policeman wasn’t watching, she ducked down under a bush and waited.

  A few minutes later an ambulance pulled up. Two paramedics checked the unconscious guard, then lifted him on to a stretcher and loaded him into the vehicle. The fallen man’s colleague climbed into the back and closed the door.

  As the ambulance began to move away, Renata darted after it. She dived to the ground headfirst, skidded on the packed snow until she was right under the vehicle, then flipped over on to her back, gripped the undercarriage and allowed herself to be dragged along.

  18

  SOLOMON CORD—BATTERED, BRUISED AND aching, but still alive and intact—climbed painfully out of bed and made his way to the machine room, where the labcoats had been working around the clock on the new Paragon armor.

  Razor looked up when he saw Cord approaching. “You were advised to take it easy.”

  “I’m not known for my tendency to follow advice.” Cord stood on the far side of the bench, looking down at the device on which Razor was working. “What are you doing? This isn’t part of the system.”

  “Yeah, this is just a little side-project I’m playing around with.” He pushed the device aside.

  “Razor, we don’t have time for side-projects!”

  “If you say so, boss. So what was it like? Scary?”

  “Terrifying,” Solomon said.

  “Good thing Colin was there.”

  “Yeah. You know what I’m thinking?”

  “That we should build jetpacks for all of the new heroes?”

  “No, but I like that idea. I was thinking that maybe the new armor is too complex. Maybe we should abandon it for now and just go back to the old design.”

  “What does Josh think of that?”

  “I haven’t approached him about it yet.”

  Razor ran his hands through his long hair. “Between you and me, Sol, I don’t entirely trust him.”

  “Nor do I. Not after what happened with Max.”

  A voice from behind them said, “I don’t blame you.”

  They turned to see Joshua Dalton standing in the doorway. He walked over to them. “But I’m not my brother.” Josh dragged over a stool and sat down. “Believe me, there aren’t many things worse than finding out that your own brother almost condemned thousands of people to death.”

  “Have you seen him since his arrest?” Solomon asked.

  “No. Neither has my sister. We don’t want anything to do with him.”

  “What happened to all his money?” Razor asked. “Isn’t he, like, a multibillionaire?”

  “All of his personal assets were seized by the Justice Department. They’re the ones who gave us the StratoTruck. His companies were taken over by their boards of directors. Most of them are still operating as normal. Though their stock took a pretty big hit when the news broke that he was being indicted for tax evasion. The shareholders lost a lot of money.”

  Razor shrugged. “No big deal. It’s not like it’s real money.”

  “Josh,” Solomon said. “Dioxin knows where we are. We have to do something about that.”

  “When we’re back up to strength, we’ll go after him. In the meantime all we can do is sit and wait.”

  Razor said, “Back up to strength…Josh, that’s asking a lot. We have no Paragon armor, and Yvonne and Butler and Mina have almost no experience. The only functional superhuman we have left is Colin. We ca
n’t put everything on his shoulders.”

  “There’s also Renata.”

  “I thought you were saying that she might be the traitor.”

  Josh shrugged. “You sure you have no idea where she is?”

  Solomon said, “Give her time. She’ll let us know when she wants to come back.”

  Renata hid in a storeroom on the hospital’s ground floor. Only a couple of nurses were on duty, and from what Renata could tell, there were very few patients.

  She pushed open the door a fraction and peered out. OK, the coast is clear! She ran silently to the nurses’ station and quickly flipped through the clipboards, checking the patients’ names. Her heart almost missed a beat when she found what she was looking for: “Maria Soliz, Room 418.”

  She put the clipboard back and looked around at the signs suspended from the ceiling. 418—has to be the fourth floor…Can’t risk taking the elevator. Renata ran toward the stairway and quietly raced up the stairs.

  The door leading to the fourth floor had a small glass panel, and through it she could see one of the private security guards sitting outside room number 418.

  There’s no way I’m going to be able to get past him.

  Steeling herself, Renata stepped out into the corridor.

  The officer noticed her immediately and got to his feet. “Stop right there, missy! Restricted area.”

  Renata kept walking.

  “Did you hear me?”

  She ignored him.

  “I said stop!” The man put his hand on his gun. “This is your last warning!”

  Renata lunged forward, grabbed him and slammed him against the wall. She let him drop unconscious to the floor, then pushed open the door to her mother’s room.

  Inside, a middle-aged woman was lying on the bed. Her face and arms were covered in bandages, and she was hooked up to a heart monitor and an oxygen tube.

  That can’t be her, Renata thought. She looks so…old.

  Then she glanced at the woman’s left hand and saw her wedding ring. She sat on the edge of the bed and whispered, “Mom? Mom, can you hear me?”