“It bloody scared me.”
Renata laughed. She focussed on Yvonne and turned her back to human.
Yvonne screamed. She backed away from Renata and started to run.
“Where are you going to go?” Renata called. “It’s hard to find a hiding place in a glass world.”
Yvonne skidded to a stop and looked around. “Oh my God, Renata! What have you done?”
“I did the only thing I could do to stop the fighting. I froze the world.”
“Everything?”
Renata nodded.
“How long…?”
“A couple of hours, I think.”
“But that’s…This could cause irrevocable damage to the eco-system!”
“What, more damage than your war has caused? I don’t think so.” She walked over to Yvonne. “I’m going to change it all back, and you are going to order your people to stop fighting. Understand me?”
“What if I don’t?”
“Then I will solidify you and leave you. You will be a crystal statue, aware of everything around you but unable to eat, or sleep, or move. The war will come to an end one way or the other. In about five billion years, the sun will burn itself out, and turn into a red giant, forcing the Earth out of its orbit. You’ll remain on this spot, drifting through space on a dark, dead planet, until the universe itself comes to an end.” Renata shrugged. “After that…Who knows?”
Yvonne sank to her knees. “All right. I’ll do it. I’ll end the war.”
On the plateau in Arizona, Danny and Colin collapsed into a heap.
“What the hell just happened?” Colin said, rolling aside.
Danny zipped away. “Renata…She must have changed us.”
“Not just us,” Colin said. “Everything.”
They looked at each other for a moment.
“Wow.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Colin said. He started to move towards Danny, then frowned and raised his hand to his communicator. “Getting a message…” He grinned. “Yes!”
“Yes what? Should I be worried?”
“Yvonne’s just cancelled her orders!” Colin ripped the communicator from his head and crushed it in his hands.
Danny realised he’d been holding his breath, and let it out suddenly. “Oh thank God!”
Danny’s own radio came to life. “Danny? Can you hear me?”
“I hear you, Steph. What’s the situation?”
“We’ve got Yvonne. It’s over.”
In Sakkara’s half-destroyed infirmary, the New Heroes were crowded around Renata’s bed.
Colin Wagner asked, “And you’re sure you’re all right now?”
“Yes!” Renata said. “I wish people would stop asking me that!” She glanced at Mina, who was staring at her. “What?”
“Your aura…”
“What about it?”
“It looks normal,” Mina told her.
“Well, that’s good to know,” Renata said.
Mina frowned. “No, I mean—”
They looked up as Colin’s father entered the room. Warren was leaning heavily on his crutch. His right leg was encased in a tight plastic frame that held it immobile. The base of the frame was fitted with a small wheel that allowed him to move around using only one crutch: his broken left hand prevented him from using two.
Warren limped over to the chair. “Up, Danny. I’ve got a broken arm and a broken leg, you know.”
“Sorry, Mr Wagner.”
Warren carefully lowered himself into the chair and turned to Renata. “We got the results of the scans back. Apart from being exhausted, you’re in perfect health. We didn’t see anything that indicated the source of the pain. A couple more days in bed and you’ll be fine.”
Renata said, “There was no pain when I changed everything back. Maybe I just needed to get used to using the power that way. But I tried to turn myself solid this morning and it didn’t work. And I don’t seem to be strong any more.”
“You probably just overloaded something in your brain,” Danny said. “Like blowing a fuse.”
Colin said, “Yeah, it’s just temporary. Your powers will come back, like Danny’s did.”
Then Mina said, “It’s not temporary.” She looked at Renata. “When we were in the Trutopian headquarters I told you I could see your aura, and that every time you changed something you were making your condition worse. And now your aura is normal.”
“That means I’m not dying or anything,” Renata said.
“No, it means your powers are not coming back. Ever. You’re no longer a superhuman, Renata. You’re normal.”
The silence that followed was finally broken by Renata. “I see.” She glanced at Mina. “You’re certain?”
Mina nodded. “Every superhuman – even former ones like Mister Wagner – have an extra twist to their aura. You used to have, but not any more. You’re just like everyone else.”
After a moment, Warren reached out his good hand to Colin and pulled himself up. “She needs rest, and a lot of it. Everyone out. Now. You too, Danny.”
“No,” Renata said. “He can stay.”
“All right. But everyone else, get out. Move!”
Colin followed Mina, Razor and Butler from the room, then stopped at the door and looked back. “If you need anything…”
Renata smiled at him. “I know. Thanks.”
Colin closed the door and turned to see that his father was standing a few metres away.
“You’d better get that broken nose seen to, Colin.”
“Yeah, I…” He looked away. “Dad, I’m sorry! I couldn’t help myself!”
Warren nodded. “Come on, I’ve got something to tell you.” He turned and began to slowly make his way down the corridor.
They reached Sakkara’s dining hall, where Colin’s mother was talking to Vienna Cord.
Caroline jumped to her feet and ran to Colin, throwing her arms around him. “Do you have any idea what you put us through?”
Colin stepped back. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t me! Yvonne was controlling me.”
“Before that. No one’s blaming you for what she made you do. But she didn’t make you run away, Colin. You did that by yourself. God only knows what could have happened.”
“I’m able to look after myself. I’m more powerful than you and Dad ever were. There’s no one else who has two superhumans for parents.”
“That’s only going to be true for the next few months.”
He frowned. “What?”
“Some time around the start of October, you’re going to have a little brother or sister.”
Colin stared at his mother’s stomach. “Seriously?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
Warren said, “So no running away again, got that? We’re going to need you to help out.” He raised his plaster-covered left hand. “In fact, if this hasn’t healed by the time the baby comes you’re going to be doing everything around the apartment.”
“OK,” Colin said, then froze. He could hear a familiar sound approaching the building’s roof. “I’ve got to…I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Colin left the dining hall and made his way to the stairs. He didn’t bother walking up them: stairs seemed kind of pointless now that he could fly.
He emerged on to the roof and looked towards the west, where a figure was zipping through the sky.
Stephanie Cord switched her jetpack to hover mode as Colin approached. She removed her helmet and held it by her side. “Hey.”
Colin floated in place a couple of metres away from her. “You OK?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I…Colin, I’m sorry about everything I said to you after my dad died. I shouldn’t have blamed you. Cross didn’t give you any choice.”
“I don’t blame you for being angry with me. I shouldn’t have promised you that I’d get him back. Sol was…He was a great man. He was the only one of the old heroes who didn’t have any powers, but he never let that stop him. I’ve only ever met one person with as much c
ourage as he had.”
“Who?”
He smiled. “You.”
Stephanie returned the smile. “What do we do now?”
Colin looked around. On the horizon, fires were still burning. On the ground below, in front of Sakkara, some of the younger children from the platinum mine were using Brawn as a climbing frame. The giant seemed to be having the time of his life.
“Now we have to clean up this mess,” Colin said. “Put everything right.”
“I mean, what do we do now? What happens to you and me?”
“Let’s just see what the future brings us.”
EPILOGUE
EVAN LAURIE STOOD on the gantry, looking down into the cavernous room. He was wrapped in a thick coat and gloves. That was one problem with living inside a hollowed-out glacier – it wasn’t easy to keep the place warm.
Almost five months had passed since the war broke out, and it still wasn’t really over.
Every day for the first month, every television and radio channel in the world broadcast a live message from Yvonne, ordering the Trutopians to stop fighting.
Then, somehow, an unknown assassin had managed to get close enough to Yvonne to put a bullet in her throat.
Yvonne survived the attack, but she would never be able to speak again.
Laurie made his way along the gantry, down the treacherously slippery metal stairs, and into the huge room.
Some days he wished that the superheroes would just find this place and arrest everyone. A warm prison cell seemed like a very attractive alternative.
He walked up to the nearest steel pod. It was three metres tall, almost two metres in diameter. He checked the pod’s read-out.
Victor Cross strolled over to him. “Have you picked one out yet, Mr Laurie?”
“What difference does it make?” Laurie asked. “They’re all identical.” He tapped the pod beside him. “This one.”
Victor attached a small keypad to the pod’s control panel and entered a sequence of codes. There was a sharp hiss as the metal casing split open.
Inside the pod, suspended in an artificial amniotic fluid, was a fully-formed baby.
Victor said. “The data on Ragnarök’s technology that Dioxin’s men stole from Sakkara was a good starting point, but we’ve surpassed it in every way.”
“He’s perfect,” Laurie said.
“And he’s ready to be taken out. The accelerated growth means that he’s now the equivalent of a three-week-old baby.”
“How long can he stay in there, Victor?”
“Until he gets too big for the pod. Which won’t be for quite some time yet. All right. Good job. Seal it up.” Victor turned his back on Laurie and walked away.
Evan Laurie climbed back up the staircase and stopped again on the gantry.
He looked down at the pods.
All twenty-four of them.
Each one containing a rapidly-growing clone of Colin Wagner.
If you enjoyed Absolute Power, check out these other great Michael Carroll titles.
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Copyright
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2007
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers
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Copyright © Michael Carroll 2007
Michael Carroll asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2014 ISBN: 9780007369935
Version: 2014-01-02
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Absolute Power (The New Heroes, Book 3) Page 22