When the stray prisoner had gotten back in line, Frank looked away again, before Sara opened her eyes and caught him staring.
About halfway up the gently ascending corridor, he saw the ceiling-mounted machine guns which hung in their cradles as they passed below. He remembered his briefings. They were supposed to fire at anything bigger than a rat that moved down here. But with the backup power gone, they were just ugly, expensive ornaments.
When, twenty minutes later, the group reached the huge steel double doors that stood between them and freedom, Frank stopped, unsure of what to do. He stood back as two huge guys took one side each and, putting their shoulders against the steel, bent their knees and pushed.
The doors made a grating sound as they shifted a few inches, then stopped.
"Wait."
The four men looked at Sara. She closed her eyes, as did everyone in the group behind her. Frank turned back to the men at the doors. Their eyes were also closed. They bent to their task, and, with no drama, the doors moved. A long shaft of bright sunlight widened as the landscape beyond came into view.
The group shuffled forward, squinting.
They were out.
It was like waking from a vivid dream, but it had none of the stuttering, lurching twitches that Daniel associated with the transition between deep sleep and alertness.
Perhaps, he thought, it was more like being a method actor. They dressed, spoke and thought like the characters they played, on and offstage. When the job finished, the actors went back to being themselves. Maybe that was closer to this experience, emerging from a state of consciousness unique, as far as he knew, in human experience.
He had stepped away from individuality, shed his unique personality and been partially subsumed by the web of light around Sara. The boundaries separating him from the others didn't so much disappear as reveal their illusory nature. There had been something seductive about the experience. No longer Daniel, but Daniel/Sara, then Daniel/Sara/TripleDee, then more than that, personalities he didn't recognise. Then, still more expansive, no names, but a deeper bonding, and a shared purpose.
Sara was the guiding consciousness, and, for the linking of minds to work, each halfhero had to submit to her. It was easier for some than others. Daniel and Gabe had been the first. TripleDee had followed, and those who knew him were next. Subjectively, it seemed a laborious process, glacially slow. And yet it must have been done in one night, because by the time Frank Decroix arrived for his shift at six am, the webmind, as Daniel thought of it, was coherent enough to reach out and control him.
Less than three hours later, they were out.
But where the hell was out?
Daniel looked away from the blinking, confused group of halfheroes and took in the landscape. They were standing on an artificial plateau carved into the top of a mountain. Or a very high hill. He never could remember the difference between one and the other.
He shook his head, trying to clear it, and looked again, studying the land for clues. Gorman was American, the guard was called Frank, and he'd caught fragmented thoughts of New Orleans as they followed him out of the interior. Assuming this was America, he thought Arizona was a fair bet for their location.
Yellowed stone had been exposed where Gorman had cut into the mountainside to make his bespoke prison. Sand-like dust swirled at Daniel's feet, and the only vegetation he could see were coniferous trees, clinging defiantly to rocky outcrops. There were no buildings in sight, no towns in the valley below. As he turned, putting the sun in front of him, he stopped in surprise, shading his eyes.
"Is that snow?" He was looking at a large, white area in the middle distance. The sight was surreal, as if someone had lifted a ski resort and dropped it in a desert.
No one answered, and he realised he had spoken too quietly, his voice unused to projecting further than the gap between two cell doors. He licked his dry lips, relishing the gritty breeze on his face and the already burning sun on his neck.
"Is that snow?"
Sara, taking in the view with a slow smile on her face, answered him.
"According to our guide here, that's a national park. It's white because the minerals making up the sand are mostly calcium sulphate and gypsum."
Daniel raised an eyebrow.
"Frank read a book about it," she said. "Most of the land is open to the public, but fifty square miles are fenced off and inaccessible. The locals think it's some kind of research lab, and since the owner has made some generous donations to local communities, no one asks too many questions."
"Titus Gorman," said TripleDee.
Sara nodded.
"Yep. It's about a twenty-mile hike, so take on plenty of fluids from the restroom up here."
Daniel looked round the group, many of whom had either had a run-in with him, Sara, and Gabe, or knew they were on the IGLU list for the same treatment. They had a common enemy now, but the cooperation between them wouldn't last. The webmind they had formed, whatever it was, had been fragile. Sara had needed to stop the group many times to repair damage done by someone detaching from the shared mind, fighting to regain their individuality.
Someone spoke.
"Let's go kill this guy."
Sara shook her head. "No killing. We're taking him in."
There was enough residue left from her dominance to suppress any real dissension. A woman shouted, "at least let us hurt him a little."
"No argument from me," said Daniel, thinking of how close he'd come to losing his mind in his stone cell.
Gabe was looking across at the bizarre white dunes in the distance.
"Where the hell is that, anyway?"
Sara smiled that small, grim smile of hers Daniel had seen before every mission.
"That, people, is the imaginatively named White Sands. Welcome to New Mexico."
32
Daniel, Gabe, and Sara formed the vanguard of the group hiking across the dry, rocky, and sandy terrain between the prison and White Sands. Daniel felt the dull ache in his left foot that always accompanied a long walk. His missing toes needed scratching. He needed to think about something else.
He thought about Abos. Daniel didn't expect her to react like a human parent to his absence, but he knew she would look for him. But how could she come after him when she had another Abos growing in the lab? Maybe more than one by now - she had been planning trips to Russia and Egypt. She might have three blobs of slime growing new bodies in the farm's outbuilding. She could hardly leave them to look for Daniel. He would have called her, but the first thing Sara had done when they'd got out was to crush the guard's mobile phone.
"I'm sure we all have someone we have to call, but it'll have to wait."
She'd pointed to a mast near the bent doors leading out of the mountain's interior.
"It can't be hard for a technological genius to monitor calls. No. Business first. Then call whoever you like."
After the first hour's walking, to Daniel's surprise and annoyance, TripleDee joined them.
"Well, they're all spoiling for a fight, like, but I don't think there's a snowball's chance in hell you'll ever pull that Jedi mind trick on them again. Half of 'em reckon we should kill you now. I mean, not only are you with IGLU, you're a witch."
"What about the other half?" Sara was smiling.
"They want to wait until Gorman's dead before killing you."
"That's sweet of them," said Sara.
The first three miles were downhill. The next ten miles crossed flat, almost featureless, desert. Then, as the sand transitioned from a dirty brown to a pure white, the terrain changed, and they climbed again, heading up the side of a pale mountain in a heat haze. Three miles short of their destination—its high fence clearly visible—Sara stopped the group. She turned to a terrified Frank Decroix, who had taken each step towards Gorman's headquarters thinking it might be his last. Even if the psychos who'd taken over his mind didn't kill him, he was sure Robertson would shoot him when he figured who'd led them to his front door.
"Okay, Frank, you're free to go. It's about fifteen miles to that gas station you pointed out."
Frank leaned forward. His lip-reading should be better by now, but he'd never practised much. She'd definitely said his name, and, he thought, something about Idaho and damnation, which was weird. It had been easier when she could speak to him inside his head. Freaky, but easier. When Sara mimed walking away with her fingers, he got it. Frank took a few steps, then looked over his shoulder, hardly daring to believe they would let him go. Most faces were turned his way, and it was plain the majority didn't agree with Sara about letting him go. He broke into a jog, taking a quick look back every few paces. No one followed. He figured once he got to the gas station, he would steal a car, drive across the border and disappear forever.
Gabe hadn't said much since they'd got out. Now he rolled his neck, stretched his arms overhead and cracked his knuckles.
"Here's how I see it, boss. We're in the middle of a desert. We are about to turn up, unannounced, at the headquarters of the richest guy in the world, who rounded up every halfhero we knew about, and a few we didn't. He got us out of the country and into a prison we shouldn't have been able to break out of. Not without that spooky mental shit you pulled, anyway. Right?"
"Good summary." Sara was still smiling. Daniel hoped it was because she had a brilliant plan ready, but he suspected she was still on a high from controlling the webmind.
"I'm not just a pretty face," said Gabe. He waited for Daniel to comment.
"Saving my energy," said Daniel. "I guess you think Gorman won't be unprotected. And he's surprised us once."
Gabe reached up and patted Daniel's broad back.
"Our pet gorilla is on the money, Sara. You sure just breaking down Gorman's door is gonna work?"
In answer, Sara nodded towards something behind him in the sky. Squinting in the bright sunlight, Gabe turned in time to see a man drop from the sky and land ten yards away.
"Well?" said Sara.
"Two exits. The main one in front of us, and another to the south-east. One SUV outside. There may be more vehicles in the garages. No aircraft, but there's an airstrip about fifteen miles further west. Two hangars, and the runway's in fair condition. The road between there and here looks like it gets used. That's his way in and out, guaranteed."
"Thanks. No helicopter or helipad?"
"No. There's plenty of space for one to land, though."
"Good. Looks likely that he drives up from the airstrip, then. TripleDee?"
He looked at her, surprised.
"Yeah?" A few of the halfheroes he'd fought alongside in Newcastle looked up sharply, waiting to see if he would take orders from Sara.
She was aware of the potential problem.
"What do you think we should do?"
He paused. He knew she could take charge, but that would increase the risk of them losing cohesion as a fighting unit. If that happened, they might end up turning on each other before the job was done.
"A few of us could wreck the second exit, make it impossible for him to get out that way, right? That's what I would do. Then one group can storm the front door while the other covers the south."
She waited. TripleDee nodded, almost imperceptibly.
"Tell you what, pet. I'll take some volunteers, go round the side. In thirty minutes, we'll hit that entrance while you hit the front. We meet in the middle and take him."
"I agree," said Sara.
Daniel was impressed by Sara's leadership. Not that it would make the slightest difference once Titus was in custody as he was ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure the others would kill Gorman then turn on them.
"Great," said Triple. "Come on, let's go and get the little Globshite." He waited for a response to his witticism. When none was forthcoming, he picked out nine halfheroes, and they jogged away.
Daniel put a hand on Sara's arm.
"Something doesn't feel right about this. I mean, he's got security fences, a few cameras, but even normal humans could get through them. What else has he got?"
Sara waved away his concern.
"You worry too much. Remember, he doesn't know we're coming, and he thinks he's locked up every halfhero. Look around you."
Daniel looked at the group, many of whom looked steadily back, the promise of future retribution clear in their expressions.
"Hmm."
"Daniel, we have strength like yours, some of us can fly short distances, others can bend metal with their minds. How can he defend himself against that?"
The question was meant rhetorically, but it was categorically answered twenty-seven minutes later.
Half an hour after TripleDee had set off, Sara led the rest of the group to the front gate. Six cameras covered the approach. Anyone coming by road would be seen half a mile away.
Of the twenty-two halfheroes jogging towards the gate, two could fly. They waited until the last second before taking to the sky. Even after the feast at the prison, they were still suffering from three weeks of malnutrition. Best to save their abilities until they were absolutely necessary and use them for as short a time as possible.
The flyers, one male, one female, were quick to report.
"There's nothing to see," shouted the woman, scanning the road inside the gates for defences. "You're clear."
The cameras crumpled, their lenses shattering as they were crushed. Sara had divided the group according to their abilities, and the telekinetics, who could manipulate matter, were at the front. With the cameras out of commission, they turned their attention to the gates. The steel held for a few seconds as the second line of halfheroes, with enhanced strength, moved up and added brute strength to telekinesis. Then, with a sharp crack, something broke inside the locking mechanism. The gates jolted backwards.
As they jogged the exposed quarter of a mile from the gates to the low, white building beyond, a series of bangs and crashes from the west confirmed TripleDee's group had done their job.
Titus Gorman's hideaway was a masterpiece of minimalist design. Perched on the side of a mountain, its white, concrete walls blended with the sand surrounding it. From the air, it was almost invisible. Seen from the ground, it was unimpressive. One storey, windowless at the front like a warehouse, the interior was all the more stunning because it was so unexpected.
Coming in through an unlocked front door, shrugging in surprise as she did so, Sara motioned Daniel, Gabe, and the rest to join her. When they did, they all stood in silence for a moment, awed by the sight.
The low building seen from outside was not the ground floor of the building. It was the top floor. The halfheroes stood on a marble surface that stretched out about thirty yards either side, and maybe twenty yards in front. It ended at a wood and chrome bannister, beyond which, after a gap of another fifty yards, was the biggest window Daniel had ever seen. The space in between was filled with sculptures. Ranging in size from a few feet to towering, thin figures twenty feet high or more, they were abstract, modern pieces in metal or stone. Daniel knew nothing about art, but Sara's eyes widened in disbelief.
As they walked into the huge room, no one said a word. There was something cathedral-like about the ambience. At the bannister, they looked out at the view, the same view they'd seen behind Titus Gorman's desk on the Globlet in their cells.
Stairs from the mezzanine on which they were standing created wood and metal Xs down to the bottom level, three floors below. But it wasn't just depth. Doors led off into the mountain itself.
"A super-villain with a lair inside a mountain?" whispered Daniel to Sara. "You couldn't make this stuff up."
"Super-villain?"
TripleDee and his crew joined them at the railing.
"Speccy twat, more like. Now, where is the little wanker?"
Gorman's office was easy to spot two flights down, with its brushed-steel desk and abstract artwork. No one was sitting in the massive chair. The office, and other rooms—a gaming area, a gym, a communications centre with dozens of screens an
d maps—seemed to hang in front of the massive windows. They were reached by staircases peeling away from the main stairs. Daniel tried to work out how the structure worked, with these platforms that appeared to float in space. The architect may have earned his fat cheque after all.
It was Gabe who said what everyone was thinking.
"Something ain't right."
A door opened somewhere out of sight below, and footsteps echoed around the space. Daniel felt himself tense, adrenaline flooding his system. Everyone around him shifted into readiness, breaths becoming more shallow, feet moving into fighting stances.
A figure walked into the area at the bottom of the staircases, three floors down. A man wearing dark overalls. A face tilted up towards them. No glasses, but it was Titus Gorman.
"Alone?" said Daniel.
Behind them, the front door opened. They looked away from Gorman and swung their attention towards the newcomer.
It was Titus Gorman. Again. He was followed by four other figures. They were all Titus Gorman.
TripleDee broke the silence.
"There's something off about them. Something wrong."
Gabe shot him a look. "Apart from the fact that there are, what, six of him, you mean?"
"Yeah. Look at them."
They all looked back at the Gormans, who were standing in a line either side of the door. It was Sara who noticed it first.
"Oh, shit. The size of them."
Then Daniel saw it. The door had been high enough that even he hadn't needed to duck to get in, but the figures who had followed them had done just that. They were at least seven feet tall.
As he looked, one figure in the group of halfheroes turned back to face the window. Daniel recognised Ray, the man who could see a few seconds into the future. He turned and saw the Gorman from the ground floor rise to their level. He had golden eyes.
"Oh, fuck," said Daniel. "Fuckity, fuckity, fuck."
33
There were thirty-two of them, the biggest number of halfheroes ever gathered in one place. There must be a handful more that Gorman hadn't rounded up or didn't consider a threat. Daniel knew of at least one - Saffi's friend, the woman who gave the IGLU a pre-cognitive advantage on their missions. Other than her, and perhaps a few others that had escaped attention, this building in White Sands, New Mexico currently contained The Deterrent's known children.
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