The Ascension: A Super Human Clash

by Michael Carroll

  Worse, she was running in almost complete darkness. The only light came from the Praetorians’ Raptors, hovering overhead half a mile away.

  The air was thick with the cloying scent of moss and sap, the tang of burning plastic and scorched metal.

  She heard Brawn bellowing, the crash of metal on metal, then felt as though she’d slammed into a brick wall—a moving wall that smashed into her, forced her backward.

  Abby lost her footing and toppled onto her back as the invisible force washed over her.

  A second later, and the forest was still, silent except for the rustling of branches. She glanced up: Most of the lights of the Raptors were gone.

  Shock wave, she thought. Thunder’s blasted them all with a shock wave! But if it was powerful enough to take down the Raptors…

  She jumped to her feet and ran, no longer caring about the cuts and bruises, the aches and pains.

  In moments, she heard a low, constant moan. It was deep, rumbling, so strong that she imagined that even the ground was trembling. And then she saw him. Brawn, lying faceup, sprawled over the crushed trunk of a massive tree.

  Abby leaped over the tree’s shattered branches and onto the trunk, ran to Brawn, and crouched down next to his oversized head.

  “Brawn, it’s me, Abby. Are you OK?”

  He didn’t respond, but in the half-light, she saw his eyelids flickering open. She couldn’t tell whether he was looking at her: His eyes were solid white, lacking both iris and pupil.

  She patted him on the cheek. “Can you hear me? Brawn, where’s James?”

  A weak voice right beside her said, “Abby…”

  She jumped, spun around. There was no one there. “James, where are you? I can’t see you.”

  “Over here. I’m trapped. Follow the sound. And quickly—I can hear them regrouping.”

  Abby gave Brawn a last look, then scrambled back down to the forest floor. She was about to ask, “What sound?” when she heard it: a soft beep that seemed to be coming from the bushes to her right.

  When she reached the bushes, she heard the sound again, a few yards away, leading her deeper into the forest.

  She leaped over a recently fallen tree, pushed her way through a thick bush, and saw the front half of a downed Raptor protruding from the ground. Her first impression was that the back half was buried deep in the ground, but then she saw the ragged torn metal along the lower edge and realized that its hull had been split in two.

  Something inside the craft was burning, providing enough flickering light for her to see James. He was lying facedown, his legs trapped under the Raptor. The ground in front of him had been swept of debris, and there were deep finger marks in the soil.

  “Trying to dig myself out,” James said. “Give me a hand, will you?”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I’ll live. It’s not crushing me, but I’m pinned. See if you can find something to use as a shovel. Dig out the ground under me. Quick as you can—they’ll be here in a couple of minutes!”

  Abby got down on her hands and knees beside James and peered at the torn edge of the Raptor’s hull. “You were lucky. Another couple of inches and it’d have cut you in two.”

  “I know. We’re running out of time here, Abby! Just dig!”

  Abby smiled back at him. “No need.” She shifted forward, reached out to the edge of the hull, and pulled.

  There was a ping from beneath the hull. Then another, and a third. The Raptor’s armor plating shifted in her hands, warped as though it were nothing more substantial than a sheet of copper, and the craft rose by a couple of inches. “That enough?”

  “Think so…” On the ground next to her, James squirmed free.

  She let go and the Raptor crashed back to the ground.

  As she reached out her hand to help him up, James’s grateful expression collapsed. “Oh no.”

  Around them the trees’ upper branches began to rustle, the sound growing steadily. “It’s raining,” Abby said.

  “That’s not rain.”

  A long red-tipped dart hit the Raptor’s hull with a soft clink. Another landed on the ground close to her right foot.

  In seconds the darts were coming down all around them. Abby grabbed James’s arm and pulled him up. “Come on!”

  A dart struck James’s back, and he instantly collapsed.

  The Raptor! Abby thought. I’ll be safe there!

  She had barely gone two steps when she felt the sting of a dart hitting her arm.

  CHAPTER 23

  HE’S DOING IT AGAIN, LANCE thought as he watched Max Dalton issuing instructions to the pilot of the Shrike. Using his mind control. Man, I’d love to be able to do that!

  “As soon as I leave this craft, you will take this boy to my home,” Max said. “You may answer any question the boy asks, but do not allow him to countermand my orders. Stay with him at all times, understood? Top speed, Brandon.”

  Max had departed the craft at a disused airfield somewhere in Minnesota, and as the Shrike ascended, Lance spotted another, much larger craft approaching. The pilot had told Lance that it was the Carrier, Krodin’s personal craft and mobile command center.

  That had been thirty minutes ago. Now Lance was alone in the back of the Shrike as it zoomed eastward toward New York.

  “How fast are we going?” Lance asked.

  “Four hundred and four miles per hour,” the pilot said.

  “Can you go faster?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, right, he told you to go at top speed. So how long have you been working for Max Dalton?”

  “About six months.”

  “Do you like him?”

  “No.”

  Interesting, Lance thought. “Why not?”

  “I’m afraid of him. He can read my thoughts, make me follow any orders without question. And he’s friends with the Chancellor.”

  “Tell me Max’s darkest secret.”

  “I can’t do that. He’s previously ordered me not to reveal anything that could compromise his safety or position.”

  “Pity. What’s your name?”

  “Brandon Santamaría.”

  “OK, Brandon. So where are we now? How long before we get where we’re going?”

  The partition between the pilot’s compartment and the back of the Shrike began to rise.

  “Hey, he ordered you to answer my questions!”

  “Vice-Chancellor Dalton told me that I may answer your questions, not that I must. The dividing partition also acts as a display.”

  The screen flickered to life and showed Lance a map of the eastern United States. The pilot’s voice came over a speaker: “The red dot indicates our position. The green dot is our destination. ETA is displayed at the bottom of the screen. The map is interactive—there’s a control panel in the armrest of your seat.”

  Lance spent the next couple of minutes playing with the controls and watching the map zoom in and out, then he panned it over to his hometown of Fairview, South Dakota, and zoomed in on the places he knew. “This is cool. Brandon, can I use this to find where someone is?”

  “Sure. Select the Search option and type the person’s name to locate them on the map.”

  Lance entered “Krodin” and the map pulled back to show the whole of the USA, then zoomed in on the airfield where they had left Max. A series of blue dots appeared, each one labeled with a person’s name. “Nice. How do I order your death-ray satellites to zap Krodin with a laser beam or something?”

  “We don’t have any death-ray satellites.”

  “Worth asking. Here’s a thought, though…. What weaknesses does Krodin have?”

  “None.”

  “Yeah, I know he’s invulnerable and all that. I mean, is there anything we can do to hurt him? Like take away his favorite toys or something?”

  “I believe the Chancellor is completely without sentiment. He doesn’t have an emotional attachment to anything or any person.”

  “So it wouldn’t bother him much if we we
nt to his house and keyed his car?”

  “The Chancellor doesn’t have a house. He lives in the Citadel.”

  “That’s where we’re already going, right? Cool. We’ll break in and spray-paint ‘Krodin chews his own socks’ all over the walls.”

  “That wouldn’t be easy,” the pilot said. “It’s the strongest, safest structure ever built. It was designed to be completely impregnable.”

  “Aw, rats.”

  Then the pilot added, “Or it will be when it’s finished.”

  Abby woke up to muffled voices and blurry images. And pain—her whole body ached, her joints felt stiff and twisted, and when she tried to move, a wave of blinding agony coursed through her skull.

  Then the jumble of voices faded to silence, and two dark figures filled her vision.

  “She’s waking,” a voice said.

  She tried to sit up, but a firm but gentle hand pressed down on her shoulder, and a second voice—closer than the first—said, “No, you need to rest.”

  “James?”

  “Shh. You should sleep, little warrior. Recover your strength.”

  “You’re not James…. Who are you? Where is he?”

  “Your friends are alive. Safe and—like you—recovering from the effects of the Cataxia.”

  Abby blinked rapidly to try to get her eyes to focus, and again asked, “Who are you? Where is this place?”

  She was lying on a bed. At its foot, directly in front of her, was Max Dalton. He was holding a small spherical device—not much bigger than a softball—down by his side in his right hand. A thin chain connected the device to a bracelet on his wrist.

  Sitting forward in a chair beside Abby was a strong-looking man with bronzed skin and sharp features. He was wearing black jeans and a white shirt open at the collar.

  The bronzed man smiled as he spoke: “We’ve met before, Abigail. My name is Krodin.”

  She rolled off the other side of the bed and landed on her feet, fists clenched.

  He smiled at her. “You’re not in any condition to fight, little warrior.”

  Max said, “Abby, stay calm. Assess the situation before you do anything.”

  She quickly looked around. They were in a small, sparsely furnished room that contained only a bed and a chair. The walls appeared to be made of metal, and to her left was a closed door that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a submarine. She caught the crisp scent of ozone in the air, and could feel a very slight vibration in the cold floor beneath her feet. “Where are we? What have you done with James?”

  Krodin said, “Hmm. I can tell by your stance and the pitch of your voice that you’re stalling for time while you think of a way out. Don’t bother.”

  Abby glanced at Max; he was shaking his head, wearing an expression that seemed to say, “You don’t stand a chance.”

  “As for your friend,” Krodin continued, “his injuries are a little worse than your own. He’s being seen to—he should make a full recovery.” The Fifth King stood and moved toward the door. It hissed open—sliding into the wall—as he reached it. “Walk with me, Abigail de Luyando. You and I have much to discuss.”

  Abby’s right foot still ached, and she had to almost hop to catch up with Krodin as he strode out of the room.

  They were close to the end of a narrow metal-walled corridor. On Abby’s left, two Praetorian guards—one male, one female—stood side by side, their powerful rifles cradled in their arms, watching her. To the right was a large picture window. Krodin stood in front of it with his arms crossed, looking out.

  “You’re terrified of me,” Krodin said without looking at her. “I understand that. But for the moment you have nothing to fear.”

  Abby stopped ten feet away from Krodin. “What do you want from me?”

  “You’re a warrior, Abigail. Strong, proud, skilled, courageous…I need people like you.” He beckoned her closer. “Stand by me, Abigail. You asked where we are. See for yourself.”

  Still keeping her distance from him, Abby moved to the far edge of the window. Several hundred feet below, gnarled tree trunks grew on the banks of a gently rippling lake, their roots visible as though someone had been in the process of pulling them out of the ground. Their long, drooping branches and wide leaves cast intricate patterns of moving shadows on the surface of the water.

  Her first thought was that they were on the upper floors of a skyscraper that overlooked the swamp, but then the scenery ahead of her gently banked and shifted to the left and she realized that they were in some kind of aircraft.

  “The bayou,” Krodin explained. “The swamps of Louisiana. Beautiful, isn’t it? I love this place. It’s one of the most remote and inaccessible parts of America, not counting the wilds of Alaska, of course—but much of Alaska’s not exactly habitable after the destruction of Anchorage.”

  I should run, Abby told herself. Jump through the window. It’s a long way down, but I can do it. I’m strong enough to survive. He won’t follow me—if he wanted me dead, he’d already have killed me.

  Krodin said, “I believe that everyone superhuman has been given specific abilities to perform specific tasks. I’m not a great believer in destiny, but there is surely more to the universe than we can perceive.” He shrugged. “I don’t know the truth. I don’t think we can know the truth. But we can still believe.” Then he pointed down and off to the side. “There! Can you see that?”

  “It’s a tree.”

  “In front of the tree…It’s gone now. But you couldn’t see it. So few of us can. A ball of blue light. They fade in and out of existence. Where they come from and where they go, I have no idea. But I know what they do. They make superhumans.”

  “Superhumans are born, not made,” Abby said.

  “Superhumans are made, Abigail, by those blue lights. But they affect only certain people. So it would be true to say that we are both born and made. There was a young man who once worked for me who had the ability to predict the appearance of the lights. He had an understanding of them that he couldn’t express—he just knew. Through his knowledge we were able to use the lights to turn an ordinary human—a man called Solomon Cord—into a superhuman. Cord’s intelligence and intuition were increased a hundredfold. He invented the gravity-nullifying engine that powers this Carrier and our other flying craft. He did it in a single afternoon. What is odd, though, is that he couldn’t always do such things. He often spent a huge amount of time working on a problem—with very little progress—and then all the answers came to him at once.” Again, Krodin turned to face her, smiling. “I believe that he had the ability to steal knowledge from the future.”

  “That’s…”

  “Impossible? Incredible? Perhaps. But it is the only explanation that truly fits. Cord is gone now, replaced by his lesser counterpart from your reality, but much of his work has been completed. We are almost ready.”

  “Ready for what?”

  “War. My enemies are gathering.” Krodin stared out at the bayou. “They know about Cord’s latest creation, a teleporter. Abigail, in war the single greatest impediment to success is distance. Troops, supplies, and equipment all have to be moved, and that costs money and takes time. With my teleporter, distance is no longer an issue. In an instant, I can send an army to anywhere on Earth. This terrifies the forces of Unity—very soon, they will come here to destroy me. They won’t succeed, of course, but better that they try here than in a populated area.”

  “I don’t understand you,” Abby said. “You’ve turned America into a prison and now you don’t want people to be killed?”

  “I’m not a murderer, Abigail.” Krodin sighed. “Think of the world as an apple tree. To get the best apples from it you have to cut away the diseased branches, even if that means such heavy pruning that you’re almost starting from scratch.” He straightened up and raised his head, searching the sky outside. “With the teleporter under my control I can—and I will—seize control of every nation on this planet, and my enemies have done much of my work for me.”


  “I get it. They form themselves into one huge organization and then you just take it over.”

  “Yes, it’s so much easier and quicker that way. But you and your friends seem honor-bound to try to stop me. I’m asking you now not to do that. If you do, you will all die.” Still not looking at her, Krodin said, “You have to accept that this is how things are meant to be. You cannot stop me. Your only options are to join me, or to run and hide. I suggest the former—with you and your friends at my side, the coming war will end considerably sooner. Far fewer innocent people will lose their lives.”

  Abby shook her head. “No. I will never work alongside you. What you’re doing is…beyond evil.”

  He suddenly turned to her, and his expression seemed to suggest that he was impressed. “Exactly. It is beyond evil. I am…a force of nature, if you like. You can’t blame a hurricane for destroying a village, or a flood for wiping out crops. Yes, people will die in the coming days—but then people die anyway. When I’ve taken control of Unity, there will be peace. Take the long view, Abigail. I will live forever. This will be the last year a human being need ever fear war, or famine, or plague, or poverty. Think about that for a moment. My conquest of the Earth will be almost bloodless. Almost.”

  Abby moved away from the window. “You can spin this around any way you like, but you’re still wrong. You don’t have the right to decide how any other person should live, let alone the whole world.”

  “Yes, I do have that right. Every herd, every pack has a leader. I am that leader.”

  “No! I don’t care how strong you are—we’ll find a way to stop you!”

  Krodin sighed. “You’re welcome to try, but all you will achieve is the deaths of innocent people. Do you understand that, Abigail? Can you understand it? No matter what you do, I can wait it out.”

  “You’ve got the whole world terrified. How can you justify that?”

  “Because that’s what unites them. The people of the world really should be thanking me for what I’ve done. Right now, they’re too worried about me to fight amongst themselves. Think about that, Abigail. For probably the first time in human history, there are no wars.” He leaned back against the glass, looking at her. “You can’t escape from this Carrier. Dalton is currently chained to a small device in his right hand. It’s only a prototype, constructed a year ago by the same friend who turned Cord into a superhuman. While it’s active, the machine saps the energy from any superhuman within an eight-hundred-yard radius. Myself excluded, of course. It worked on me once, so it will never work on me again. Right now, you and your friends are no more powerful than ordinary human beings.” He grinned. “And just as fragile. It must be strange for you, Abigail. You no longer feel the coiled strength in your muscles. And for James the silence must be almost deafening. And poor old Max, eh? Without his abilities what is our Vice-Chancellor? A dull, unimaginative shell of a man with all the personality and vitality of a lawn in the winter.”