“I don’t think it’s like that, Lance. It seems to me that there were never actually two of each of us. We haven’t gone anywhere; the world changed around us.”
Lance considered this. “But why didn’t we change?”
“I’m guessing it’s because we were all caught up in the blast when Pyrokine attacked Krodin. That affected us, probably.”
“Probably? That’s not a lot of help! You can read minds, you should—”
“That’s useful only if I can access the mind of someone who knows the answers.”
“What does any of this have to do with finding Paragon?”
“Everything. That’s part of the problem. Even if we can find him, he’ll be our Paragon, not the one who put all this together. Our Paragon is a mechanical and electronic genius, but he’s human, with human limitations. I’m not certain, but I’d lay down good money that the one from this reality was a superhuman.”
“Wow…Wait, that can’t be right,” Lance said. “You people get your superhuman powers when you reach puberty, don’t you? Well, if the world only changed a few years ago when Krodin appeared, then both Paragons should be the same. They should both be human.”
“That’s the other part of the problem, and one I haven’t been able to figure out. Something—or someone—turned this reality’s Paragon into a superhuman.”
James was able to pinpoint Brawn’s location from the sound of the giant’s breathing, but he was still thankful for the powerful searchlights beaming down from the Praetorians’ flying craft. He counted at least twenty Raptors hovering in place in a wide circle above a shallow valley.
The commanding officer’s voice said, “Everyone in position? We don’t know what this creature can withstand, so I want everything to hit it at the same time.”
James threw his voice into the cockpit of her Raptor and added a background hiss to make it sound like it was coming from the radio: “Just one minute, ma’am. We’re reading a minor power imbalance in the engines. Running a check on it now.”
Without having to carry Abby he’d been able to increase his speed by half, and was now approaching Brawn’s position at what he estimated to be more than a hundred miles an hour.
“Make it fast!” the officer said.
“Roger,” James responded. He was closer now, almost there. Time to add some more confusion to the mix. He had heard enough of the commanding officer’s voice to be able to mimic it. He directed his voice to every Raptor but hers. “All ships, stand down and withdraw. New orders from the Chancellor—the creature is to be left alone. Repeat: You will stand down and withdraw immediately. Return to base and await my instructions. I will follow shortly.”
This had better work, James thought. If it doesn’t…
There was a chorus of acknowledgment from the other Raptors’ commanders, and the ships began to depart.
He threw a cocoon of silence over the commander’s ship to prevent her from countermanding his orders, then darted in directly toward the giant’s location. “Brawn, can you hear me?”
He heard a muttered grumble in response.
“Brawn. Wake up!”
“Aw…five more minutes, Mom.”
He heard the rustling of bushes as the giant rolled over. “Wake up! Now!”
James could see him now, in a small clearing among the trees. He was sitting up, rubbing his eyes, the dew on his blue skin glistening in the starlight.
James came to a stop a few yards from him. For a second James was unsure just how far away Brawn was: His great height made him seem a lot nearer than James’s hearing was telling him. Part of James’s brain was telling him to run away: Nothing that big could be safe. He took a step closer. “Brawn, you’re in danger.”
The giant’s colorless eyes turned in James’s direction. “What? Who are you?”
“Thunder. We met at Windfield, remember?”
“What do you want? If you’ve come to take me back to Oak Grove, then you’re going to have a fight on your hands.”
“We’ve already got one. Look up.”
Brawn raised his massive head and did a double take when he saw the cluster of Raptors. “UFOs! I knew there was life on other planets!”
“They’re not UFOs. They’re called Raptors. They’re crewed by the cops of this world, and they’re hunting you.”
“Oh. I’m guessing that’s not good.”
“You need to get out of here, right now. They’re planning to use napalm on you. I’ve distracted them, but there’s no guarantee it’s going to work for long.”
Brawn jumped to his feet. “You strong enough to fly me out of here?”
“Maybe, but not fast enough to escape the Raptors. We might have to fight our way past them.”
“That’s not going to be a problem. I can take them.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Come on.”
Brawn began to stride off through the woods, and James had to run to keep up with him.
“What did you say your name is?” Brawn asked. He stepped over a meter-thick fallen log that James had to climb over.
“Thunder.”
“Oh, right. You were the dude in the wet suit.”
James stopped. “Hold it…. They’re slowing down, turning back.”
He lifted the cocoon of silence in the commander’s Raptor. There was no one talking, but he could hear the rapid clicking of a keyboard. “She’s figured it out already. She’s smart. Sending them instructions over the computer.”
“Right.” Brawn stomped over to the nearest tree. He wrapped his massive arms around its trunk and ripped it out of the ground. He held the trunk over his head and, just as he was about to throw it, stopped and looked at James. “Wait, are we allowed to kill these guys?”
“Uh, no.”
“Even though they’re trying to kill us?”
“Right.”
“No fair.” He threw the tree trunk anyway. It sailed into the air and slammed into the side of one of the Raptors in a shower of sparks and splinters, shunting it a good hundred yards back before it steadied itself. “Yeah, they’ll probably survive that. C’mon!” He took off again through the trees, his heavy footfalls crashing through the undergrowth.
James rose into the air and followed. He directed his voice toward Brawn. “Where are you running to?”
“Away from those things! I don’t know what’s going on. One minute I was in my cell in Oak Grove and the next…It wasn’t a cell, it was a storeroom. With an ordinary door instead of the bank-vault door that used to be there. So I punched my way through it and ran. The prison was…different. They all acted like they’d never seen me before. Running and screaming and all going like, ‘Aah! It’s a monster!’ Which is all anyone ever does when they see me coming.”
There was a splintering crash as Brawn chose to run through a small oak tree instead of going around it.
James raised himself over the treetops and turned around so that he was flying backward. “They’re coming.” The remaining Raptors had deactivated their searchlights, but James could tell where they were from the sound of their engines and the faint glow from the circular lights on their undercarriage.
Behind him Brawn’s crashing footsteps came to a stop. “I’m gonna sort these guys out!”
“Wait…”
But Brawn wasn’t listening: In the dim light James saw him leap high into the air to land on the upper branches of a tree—and he was carrying a boulder the size of a car.
James winced as he watched Brawn throw the boulder—it plowed straight through one of the Raptors, clipped a second, and sent it spinning into a third.
“Three in one go! Did you see that? Tell me you saw that!”
“I saw it,” James said.
Then something flared on one of the other Raptors, and a bolt of light streaked toward Brawn.
“Missile!” James yelled.
At the last second Brawn jumped, soared over the missile, and came crashing down on top of the attacking Raptor. Th
e craft juddered, tilted to the left, and Brawn punched one massive fist through the hull.
As the Raptor began to fall, he leaped for another one, caught its edge with one hand, swung his left leg back, then kicked out at the hull.
The entire side of the Raptor came away in his hand. “Uh-oh.”
Brawn fell, crashing through the branches of a fir tree. The ground trembled when he landed, but he instantly rolled to his feet and jumped again, hauled himself onto a thick branch, then reached up and easily grabbed hold of another that was at least fifteen feet higher.
How can something so big move so fast? James wondered.
Brawn leaped from the tree and snagged another Raptor, but this time he punched his fist through the cockpit glass, grabbed hold of one of the crew, and hauled the man out. “Can you fly, mister?”
James heard the man shriek, “No!”
“Well, let’s find out!” Brawn casually tossed the man over his shoulder, then reached into the hull for another one.
He’s nuts! James thought. He darted through the air after the thrown man. He snagged the soldier’s foot moments before the man slammed facefirst into the ground. James pulled back, slowed the man’s descent almost to a stop, then let go.
He returned too late to catch the second soldier: Brawn threw the man straight through the cockpit of an approaching Raptor.
“Brawn, take it easy! You’ll kill them!”
“Like I care!”
“Well, which is better? A bunch of dead guys here, or a bunch of wounded, terrified men scaring their colleagues with stories about how powerful you are?”
“They were going to kill me. In cold blood. I really don’t see the problem here!”
The remaining Raptors began to peel away. Is it over? Have we…?
Then James heard the voice of their commanding officer. “All ships—lock on to the monster and fire!”
Another voice said, “Ma’am, our men are still—”
“That’s an order!”
“Brawn!” James yelled. “Incoming!”
The giant looked around. “Incoming what?” Then he saw the approaching missiles—twin streaks of fire from each of the remaining twelve Raptors. “Aw, rats on a raft!”
Brawn let go of the damaged Raptor and allowed himself to plummet toward the ground.
The missiles altered course to follow him.
James didn’t have time to warn Brawn to cover his ears: He blasted the area with a long, sustained shock wave. It ripped out from him at the speed of sound, striking Brawn, the Raptors, and the missiles and knocking them all clear out of the valley.
He felt suddenly drained of energy, barely able to keep his eyes open. Too much…Got to rest, recover, and…
The ground seemed to be moving up to meet him, and he puzzled over this for a second before he realized that he was falling.
Got to wake up…Wake up!
A branch struck his right leg; another caught him in the face and scraped a deep cut from his eyebrow to his hairline.
He hit the ground hard.
CHAPTER 22
IN THE NEW JERSEY resistance cell’s meeting room, Roz turned to look at the older man. “I’m number three on your hit list?”
He nodded. He was maybe fifty years old, she guessed, of average height and build. Quite handsome in a stern, emotionless way.
“Who are you?”
The man turned to Ted. In a strong, crisp Scottish accent he said, “Thank you, Silvestri. We can carry on without you.”
Ted nodded, and as he was leaving the room said to Roz, “I wish you luck.”
As soon as he was gone, the older man looked at Roz. “General Christopher Westwood, formerly of Her Majesty’s Special Air Service, currently assigned by Unity to assess the situation here.”
Joe Ward said, “Krodin’s got this country sewn up so tight that nothing can get in or out. Or so he thinks. He doesn’t know about Suzanne—he thinks he has control of every surviving superhuman. Suzanne’s been able to fly in a few specialists like the general here.”
Westwood continued: “Your arrival has changed everything, Ms. Dalton. We had certain plans in place that must now be abandoned. To get to Krodin we needed leverage. We had teams in place to take out two key people. A man called Solomon Cord—the prime architect of Krodin’s latest weapon—and yourself. The only person Krodin really needs is your brother. Without him, Krodin would have to rely on brute strength and fear to hold on to power. But of course your brother’s abilities mean that he is almost impossible to reach.”
Roz said, “You were going to get to him through me. Kidnap me, threaten to kill me if he didn’t do as you asked.”
“Correct.”
Joe said, “Tell her the rest of it, General.”
Suzanne Housten cautioned, “Joe…”
“No, she needs to know the whole story. No more secrets. Roz, we were going to go after your little brother too.”
“But that’s…! You can’t do something like that—Josh is only ten years old!”
“This is war,” the general said. “More than a hundred thousand people have already died at Krodin’s hand. He now has the weapons and technology he needs to wage war on every nation on Earth. We will do whatever it takes to prevent that.”
Then, cheerfully, Joe said, “But sure that’s all in the past now. It’s all water that never went under the bridge. Now we have a new plan. We’re going to infiltrate the Citadel.”
“But even if you can get to Krodin, you’re not strong enough to stop him,” Roz said.
“It’s not him we’re after. Krodin’s day-to-day operations are run from the Citadel. You think he oversees everything that happens in this country? No, he delegates to a whole bunch of advisers and lieutenants. They’re human. With them gone, the whole infrastructure will fall into chaos. And while the rest of them are running around in a panic trying to sort out the mess, our counterparts will strike at the base in Louisiana.”
“Louisiana…,” Roz said. “That’s where Max was—the other Max—when he disappeared. What’s there?”
Housten said, “Something that we cannot allow them to use. Until you arrived, we didn’t know how they got it to work, but now…It’s already working. You saw the evidence of that yourself.”
“What are you talking about?”
Joe said, “That guy from your world, Pyrokine, was a superhuman who had the ability to convert matter into energy. The Helotry hooked him up to the output of a nuclear reactor and used his power to punch a hole through time and take Krodin out of the past.”
“Right. Max said it’s called Quantum Mechanical Tunneling. I know all this.”
“I know you do. But let me finish, ’cos there’s a good bit coming up at the end. When Pyrokine tried to kill Krodin, he released enough of that stored-up energy to partly reverse the effects of the time-travel process. So Krodin reappeared just about six years ago. And the reason we figure it didn’t send him all the way back to his own time is that Krodin’s ability to adapt prevented that from happening. He put the brakes on, so to speak. Are you following me so far?”
Roz nodded.
“Good stuff. So, Krodin twigged what had happened, and he figured that since he was in the past, he was free and clear to do whatever he liked without you and your pals messing it all up again. He recruited your brother, whose mind control and telepathy no longer worked on him. He built his little empire bit by bit, bringing in Solomon Cord and his brainy assistant Casey. And all the while Krodin and Max had a plan. See, at the base in Louisiana they’ve built the one thing Krodin needs to complete his takeover of the world. They built a teleporter. You know what that is, right? A machine that can instantly transport something from one place to another without having to cover the intervening distance.”
There was a sharp knock on the door and a young man rushed in, whispered something to Housten and the general, and then left.
“Where was I?” Joe asked.
“They built a teleporter,
” Roz said. “And?”
“And? Roz, if what we’ve heard is true, then this thing is capable of sending anyone or anything to wherever Krodin wants. Anywhere at all. Our guess is they nicked the idea from the way your version of Pyrokine took Krodin out of his own time. Nowhere in the world is safe from Krodin. Think about that. Krodin throws a dart at the map and says, ‘We’re invading that country today.’ His people in Louisiana gather their soldiers in groups and send them right into the heart of the target country’s most sensitive areas. Then he sends another group, and another. And he can keep doing it as long as he has soldiers to send.”
Suzanne said, “Roz, their teleporter works. Yesterday morning Krodin’s people teleported him from one side of his base to the other, about three hundred yards. Then they teleported a platoon to capture you. They didn’t know it was you, they just saw the alert and figured it would be a good test. We are up against a deadline here: We have to find a way to destroy that machine before Krodin can mobilize his men. If we can destroy it, it’ll set back Krodin’s plans for years.”
“But he’d just make another one,” Roz said.
General Westwood said, “We don’t think he can. The Solomon Cord who built it is gone, replaced by yours.”
“What about the assistant?”
“Casey’s dead. Daedalus killed him almost a year ago.” The general looked down at his clasped hands. “Ms. Dalton, Krodin’s teleporter was triggered for the first time yesterday at exactly eleven-forty-two Eastern Standard Time. Do you know what else happened at exactly eleven-forty-two Eastern Standard Time?”
She shook her head.
“You and your friends arrived in this reality.”
Abby didn’t need super-hearing to locate Brawn and James—the sounds of the giant’s screams echoed through the entire forest—but as she crashed through the undergrowth and the low branches whipped at her face, she wished she had enhanced vision. Or a flashlight, she thought. Never going anywhere without one again.
Her neck and her left side were aching from her collision with the ground, and she’d badly wrenched her right foot. She tried to ignore the pain, but that would have been difficult enough over flat ground. The forest floor was uneven, spongy in places, tangled with roots, bushes, and fallen branches.
The Ascension: A Super Human Clash Page 18