“She…she got past me. Didn’t know she could teleport.”
“No one did,” Razor said.
“How’s Butler?”
“He’s coming round, I think.”
“Who else do we have?”
“Just the three of us. The rest of them evacuated. I kinda got left behind.” Razor jerked his thumb over his shoulder, towards the ground far below. “We lost.”
Danny peered over the edge.
The Trutopian soldiers had completely overwhelmed the army base. The ground was strewn with the bodies of the dead and injured. Vehicles and gun emplacements were destroyed, some burning furiously.
“They didn’t stand a chance,” Razor said. “The Trutopians have weapons like I’ve never seen. Big things, no recoil, no sound. They just pull the triggers and people die. Either they don’t know we’re up here, or they don’t care. They already took Brawn and Dioxin. A few of the others.”
“They’re starting to pull out,” Danny said. “They…The kids from the mine! The Trutopians are loading them into a truck!”
“You’re going to have to stop them,” Razor said.
“No kidding.”
“Well? Go!” Razor said.
“Just give me a couple of minutes, will you? I just beat the crap out of my best friend, ran the best part of a thousand kilometres and got beaten up by a girl who can move almost as fast as me and disappear at will. I’m not exactly having the best day ever. And on top of that…”
“Renata?”
“Yeah. She’s sick, Razor. She can use her power to change other people and things, but it’s doing something to her.”
“She’ll be OK, Dan.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
A voice came over Danny’s radio. “Danny? This is Impervia.”
“Great. What do you want?”
“This is not the time for attitude. I’ve been trying to get through to Razor.”
“Yeah, he’s here with me. His radio’s gone.”
“Tell him that the countdown has begun.”
Brandishing the Trutopian soldier’s hand-gun, Stephanie Cord broke cover and darted down to the ground, next to the huge crater in the middle of the town’s square.
She’d spent the past few minutes staring at Colin’s unmoving body before finally deciding it was safe to check him out. Her infrared display showed that he was still alive, but she wanted to be sure. She had to see with her own eyes.
She touched down next to him and shut off the jetpack. “Colin?”
His face was a red mass of cuts and bruises. His nose was swollen and looked like it had been broken. His left eye was caked in blood, and a razor-sharp piece of shrapnel had embedded itself in his cheek. His breathing was shallow, but regular.
That’s good enough! Stephanie said to herself.
She ran to the edge of the crater and half-jumped, half-slid down to where Renata was lying on her side, in the same sitting position she’d been in when she’d turned solid.
Stephanie moved herself into Renata’s line of sight. “Can you hear me? Come on, Renata! Move! Change back! Do whatever it is that you do!”
Then Renata’s body shimmered, the crystalline substance rippling as she turned back to her human form.
She immediately rolled into a ball, clutching her head and moaning.
For a moment, Stephanie just stood there, not knowing what she should do, then Renata uncurled herself, and opened her eyes. “Steph…”
“I’m here. What do you want me to do?”
“We need…to get to Yvonne. Have to find her.”
“I think I know where she is, but I can’t get close.”
Renata raised her hand. “Help me up!”
Stephanie grabbed Renata’s arm, and pulled her to her feet.
“Show me.”
“It’s that way, a couple of blocks. Big apartment building. But it’s defended. Anything that gets near it is shot down.”
“Where’s Danny?” Renata asked.
“I don’t know. Colin’s up there, unconscious, but I don’t know what happened to him.”
“He was caught right in the explosion. The Trutopians planted motion-sensitive mines all over the StratoTruck, probably hoping to kill me if I ever woke up.” She began to climb up the sides of the crater. “We need to get inside their HQ and sort out that psycho once and for all.”
Stephanie activated her jetpack and flew up to the edge. “Yeah, but how?”
“We’ll think of something.”
“Stephanie? You there?” Danny’s voice said over the radio.
“I’m here, Danny. And so’s Renata. She’s…She’s OK.”
“Good – you can carry her. The two of you need to get out of there! The army is pulling out. You’ve got less than twenty minutes to get at least five miles away! I’m not going to be able to get to you in time.”
“Danny, what is it? What’s going to happen?”
“Impervia’s just told me: they’ve got a missile ready to disperse a payload of VX nerve gas directly over the town. Steph, she told me what it does…Exposure to just a fifth of a milligram is fatal. That’s smaller than you can even see!”
Stephanie shook her head. “No way. I can not believe that someone authorised the use of chemical weapons against US citizens.”
“But that’s just it, Steph. The Trutopians are not US citizens any more. They declared independence.”
31
DANNY HAD REACHED Sakkara’s roof by running so fast he was able to charge straight up the building’s sloping walls. After the last of the Trutopian soldiers had departed, he left the roof by the same method.
He raced along the deserted highway, following the path of the truck that was carrying the children and teenagers from the Lieberstanian platinum mine.
The speeding truck was guarded by two soldiers on the rear footplate, and one hanging out of each door.
They might as well not be there for all the good they’re going to do.
Danny ran up to the truck, grabbed hold of the nearest guard’s gun and snatched it from his hand. The man didn’t even have time to register what had happened before Danny swung the gun by the barrel and clubbed him in the stomach with it.
He had disabled the second and third guards and was racing for the fourth before the first one even hit the ground.
The guard hanging out of the passenger-side door was facing the driver. Danny grabbed hold of the man’s belt and pulled him backwards, leaving him skidding and rolling on the road.
Danny tore open the driver’s door and pulled the man out of the truck, then climbed into the driver’s seat and shifted back to real-time. “Razor! I’ve got the truck but…How the hell do I stop this thing?”
Razor’s voice said, “OK, calm down.”
“Calm down? Razor, I can’t drive!”
“First things first, Dan. Hold the steering wheel steady…As long as the truck is going in a straight line, and so is the road, you won’t need to turn the wheel. Now, prepare yourself for the complicated bit.”
Danny took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
“Take the keys out of the ignition.”
“Oh.”
He reached down and removed the keys. The truck’s engine cut out, and the enormous vehicle began to slow down.
“Thanks, Raze!”
“Get the kids back here as quick as you can. If I can wake Butler, then he’ll be able to shield them.”
The copter roared through the sky, heading south, away from the worst of the fighting. Caroline Wagner sat clutching her unconscious husband’s hand. “We shouldn’t have left them behind.”
“We didn’t have any choice,” Façade replied.
Niall said, “Why won’t anyone tell me what’s going on?”
“It’s a war,” his mother said. “And we’re going somewhere safe until it’s over.”
Niall turned his head to look at the others. “But…This lot are superheroes! Why aren’t they fighting?”
>
“We…We’re not superhuman any more, Niall,” Caroline said.
“I know that,” Niall said. “But Paragon wasn’t a superhuman, and he was still a superhero.”
“Yes. He was.”
“I heard some of the soldiers talking about what Colin did to his Dad and Danny and Renata and Butler. Is he one of the bad guys now?”
Caroline said, “It’s not that simple. He’s—”
The helicopter suddenly shuddered, lurched and began losing altitude.
“What the hell…?” Façade unclipped his seatbelt and scrambled to his feet. “Something hit us! The pilot…”
Caroline and Façade reached the bullet-ridden cockpit at the same time. The pilot was slumped sideways in his seat, a trickle of blood running down the side of his face.
“He’s alive. Just. Can you fly this thing?” Caroline asked.
“Yeah, I can fly her. I can fly anything. Just sit back down and strap in.” Façade hauled the unconscious pilot out of his seat and climbed in. He grabbed the joystick and eased back, settling the copter’s path. “I can’t tell how much damage she’s received, so I’m going to have to set her down.”
“Just take it as far away from Sakkara as you can.”
Then she heard Rose Cooper’s voice saying, “Oh my God!”
Caroline turned to see Mina standing in the copter, next to the passengers.
The blond girl smiled at her, then reached out her hand and placed it on Niall’s head.
The two of them disappeared, leaving Niall’s seatbelt to drop back to the seat.
His mother screamed.
Colin Wagner opened his eyes. What happened to me…? Oh. Right. The explosion.
He floated up into the air, pivoted about and landed on his feet.
He looked around, and could see nothing but devastation.
Yvonne’s voice came over the radio. “So you are alive. We weren’t sure.”
Furious, Colin reached up to pull the radio headset from his head, but stopped. She ordered me not to do that, so I can’t. “What do you want now, you psycho?”
“Danny went back to Sakkara. Go after him and stop him. And this time, kill him.”
“No.”
“At least rip that damned mechanical arm off him, then!”
Colin didn’t want to fight Danny, but he knew that he had no choice. I have to obey her commands. But unless she’s specific, I can take my time about it, give Danny a chance to stop all this.
He began to walk.
“Fly there, Colin. As fast as you can,” Yvonne added.
Danny led the freed children and teenagers across the rough ground, and over a low hill. “Come on, for crying out loud! Move! They’re going to be coming for us!”
Don’t be so hard on them, he said to himself. Most of them can barely walk. They’ve spent their entire lives in the platinum mine. They’ve absolutely no idea what’s going on.
“Please!” He shouted. “You have to trust me!”
One of the children nearby said, “Sir?”
He turned to look at her, and realised that this was the same little girl he’d met in Lieberstan. “Estelle? Is that you?”
She nodded.
He did his best to give her an encouraging smile. “Well, look at you! All cleaned up and out of those rags.”
“Mr Danny, The bad people are coming. A lot of them.”
Danny paused. “Why do you think that, Estelle?”
She pointed back the way they had come, towards the trucks. “They’re coming from over there. Cassandra told me.”
“Cassandra?”
One of the older girls moved closer to him.
“Are you Cassandra?”
The girl nodded, and inside Danny’s head her voice said, I am.
Got to be telepathy, Danny thought. She’s about my age, so she’s old enough to have powers.
Cassandra nodded again.
“All right, everyone. Run! If you’re strong enough, carry the smaller ones!” Danny scooped up Estelle in his arms.
He desperately wanted to go into slow-time, and carry the little girl to the relative safety of Sakkara, but that would mean leaving the others behind.
One of the smaller boys stumbled. He was grabbed by two others, not much bigger than he was, and hoisted back on to his feet.
They must have learned how to look after each other in the mine.
That’s right, Cassandra’s voice said inside his head. It was the only way to survive.
God, I wish she wouldn’t do that!
“Sorry,” the girl said. She moved closer to Danny. “Let me take her. You have work to do.”
Danny pointed east, towards Sakkara. “Lead them that way!”
He watched as the children and teenagers streamed past.
A line of Trutopian soldiers appeared over the crest of the hill, carrying large, powerful-looking weapons.
What are those things? Something familiar about them…
Cassandra’s voice said, They think of them as rail-guns. I don’t know what that means.
I do, Danny thought, and it’s not good. He remembered the power of the rail-guns protecting Victor Cross’s power-damping machine back in California. He prayed that these hand-held versions weren’t anywhere near as dangerous.
He looked back towards the others. Cassandra, the kids are all grouped too close together! Get them to spread out!
Why? she asked.
Because then they’ll be harder to hit. The way they are now, they could all be wiped out with a single burst from one of those guns.
Danny looked around. We are not going to make it.
Then he felt something wash over him, like a cool breeze.
Oh God, the Trutopians aren’t even bothering to run! They know they can stop us with those things! I could run now, but the longer I stay here, the better chance the kids will have to get away. In slow-time I might be able to disarm some of them…But I can’t take the risk that one of the others would have a chance to fire at the kids.
He glanced around, and for a moment he thought he saw one of the teenagers standing right behind him. He shuddered.
One of the soldiers shouted, “Shoot him!”
Danny instinctively raised his arm to protect himself, though he knew that it wouldn’t do any good. He slipped into slow-time, and everything fell silent.
God, I hope Renata can get away from the town before the VX gas hits – I hope she comes back here and beats the living snot out of these guys!
I hope she can stop Colin.
I hope she doesn’t miss me too much.
I hope she lives a good life, a long and happy one.
The soldiers fired.
And I really hope it doesn’t hurt.
Danny Cooper closed his eyes.
32
“ANYTHING THAT GETS anywhere near that building will be ripped apart by the guns,” Stephanie said.
She and Renata were standing on the roof of a tall building a block away from the Trutopian headquarters.
“The army launched rockets right at it, and they were shot down before they got close to it. How much time do we have left?”
“That depends on how long it would take you to fly me out to the five-mile limit.”
“About three or four minutes, but—”
Renata interrupted her. “Then we have about twelve minutes to get in and stop Yvonne.”
“The nerve gas will stop her.”
“We can’t be certain of that. But even if it does, then how are we going to reverse the brainwashing she did on all the Trutopians? They’ll just keep on fighting! Are you sure there’s no way past their guns?”
“I really can’t see it. I don’t think they’d be able to damage you when you’re completely solid, but then you can’t move.”
Danny opened his eyes.
In a perfect semi-circle around him, the ground was littered with thousands of small silver pellets.
The Trutopian soldiers were still shooting at h
im, the pellets from their rail-guns bouncing harmlessly off an invisible shield.
Thank you Butler Redmond! Danny said to himself. I’ll never call you Bubbles again.
Over the radio, Butler’s voice said, “Good thing I followed you. You OK, Dan?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” He looked around: in the distance, the teenagers and children were huddled on the ground, with Butler standing in the middle of them. “You’ve got the force-field around the kids too?”
“Yeah, but if I release it to let you out, then they could be hit.”
“Extend it outwards, push the Trutopians back. You just need to knock them off-balance for a second, then I can take them out.”
“You’re sure?” Butler asked.
“I’m sure. As soon as you see me disappear, put the force-field back around the kids.”
“All right…Now!”
The Trutopian soldiers were suddenly knocked back, some of them losing their grip on their weapons.
Danny shifted into slow-time, darted towards the nearest Trutopian, grabbed the barrel of the rail-gun with his mechanical hand, and crushed it, then punched the man in the face.
He moved on to the next one, and did the same thing, and the next.
From Danny’s perspective it seemed to take forever to defeat them all, but he knew that less than a second had passed.
He move back to real-time and watched with satisfaction as each of the Trutopians crumpled to the ground.
Then something slammed hard into his legs, grabbing them at the same time, pulling him high into the air.
Panicking, Danny looked up to see Colin holding on to his feet at the ankles. The ground raced away from them.
Six hundred miles to the north-west, Renata Soliz was also being carried through the air.
“Anyone tries to get out of that building—” Renata shouted to Stephanie.
“I’ll stop them. You ready?”
“Do it!”
Stephanie let go of Renata’s wrists.
Renata curled herself into a ball, and turned solid, praying that Stephanie’s judgement was accurate. This is the only chance we’re going to get. If I miss…
Absolute Power (The New Heroes, Book 3) Page 20