“Oh man… I hope you’re wrong.”
“Me too.” Lance tapped the side of his head with his index finger. “Need to let the old cauliflower ponder on that one for a while, see if there’s a way we can turn that into an advantage. We’ll certainly need all the advantages we can get, if we’re going to take this to the next level.”
“What do you mean?”
Stephanie said, “I know what he means. He’s saying that it’s time to stop reacting. It’s time that we brought the fight to Victor Cross.”
Chapter 16
Wearing a towel around her neck and with her hair still wet from the shower, Renata opened the doors to Sakkara’s gymnasium and saw that she was the last to arrive.
Colin was carrying a steel bench over to one wall, while the newcomer—McKendrick—instructed him on exactly where to put it.
McKendrick leaned on Colin’s shoulder as he stepped onto the bench. “Find a spot to sit, Ms Soliz. Quick as you can, huh?”
Brawn said, “Now you sound like a teacher.”
“I was, for a while.” McKendrick said. “Taught a semester of computer skills in a high-school in Oklahoma, until someone checked my qualifications and discovered that they were fake.”
Renata sat on the floor next to Danny, then Colin came over and sat between herself and Stephanie.
McKendrick saw this and smiled. “Ah, young love! See how they blush and fidget—it’s enchanting.” He straightened up as he looked around the room. “We don’t have time for ‘enchanting.’ We don’t have time for young love or old love or the petty squabbles and grudges that inevitably form in teams this size. From this point on, I don’t want to hear, ‘But I miss my mommy’ or ‘I don’t like the color of my uniform’ or ‘he’s sitting in my chair’ or anything of that nature. You people have been at war with Victor Cross and he’s winning because, until now, he was the only one who knew that.”
Warren Wagner called out, “That’s unfair, Lance!”
Without looking in his direction, Lance said, “Warren, I’m sorry, but this isn’t your show any more. Your days of being the big hero are over. That goes for all of the adults here, with one exception. But I’ll get to that in time. We don’t know where Cross is, because we haven’t looked. Why would we look for someone we believed to be dead? But that’s the crux of the problem. We believed him to be dead because a body with his DNA was found. Who shot down his plane? Who examined the wreckage to determine that it really was shot down and wasn’t just a staged crash? How could someone as smart as Cross put himself in a position where he could be shot down? Cross is alive, and until someone can prove to me otherwise, I’ll continue to believe that.”
Renata took Danny’s hand and gently squeezed it. He glanced back for a moment, and she could see that he was worried.
If McKendrick is right, Renata thought, then we can’t stop Cross. If he made one clone as powerful as Colin, he’ll have made more. Could be hundreds, for all we know.
Lance continued, “Last year Cross’s people practically set the world on fire. Luckily Renata Soliz was there to put it out. What she did scared the heck out of everyone on the planet in the process, but it worked. So well done, Renata. Your prize is that you get a gold star, your photo up on the Employee of the Year board, and the chance to keep fighting. I know you don’t have your powers any more, but you’ve shown you can operate the Paragon armor so you’re still on the team. And that’s another thing we’ll be getting back to. Stephanie Cord? Front and center, Ms Cord. That means I want you to come up here.”
Stephanie got to her feet, grumbling, “I know what it means.” She walked up to Lance’s bench.
“Your dad was my personal hero and my best friend. That almost makes me your brother. And I had a crush on your aunt, too. So that nearly makes me your uncle, or something. Your job is to make sure that Uncle Lance doesn’t get killed. Are you OK with that? Say ‘Yes, Uncle Lance,’ because you don’t have a choice.”
Stephanie nodded. “Uh, sure.”
“Close enough. Now, you don’t have your father’s technical skills, but Razor does. You’ll also be working with him. I want one of your fine suits of armor specially modified to fit me. Bear in mind that a large portion of my left leg is probably still in a landfill in Cambodia, so some sort of robotic replacement would be nice.” He handed her a folded sheet of paper, and said, “Here are the specs I came up with. It’s a bit rough, but you’ll make sense of it.” He nodded to Razor. “Time to get back to work, kid.” He paused for a moment. “I don’t mean, ‘When you feel like it’ or ‘After this meeting is done.’ I mean right now. And don’t worry about losing progress on the big machine, because I’m recalling all the other techs from the Substation.”
As Stephanie and Razor were leaving the room, Façade said, “The techs are civilians. You’re putting them in harm’s way.”
“I know that,” Lance said. He turned to Colin. “Col, you and Renata are going hunting.”
“What will we be looking for?” Renata asked.
“Colin knows. We talked about it earlier. But don’t go just yet. Danny? See me after class. I’ve got a job for you, too.” Lance took a few deep breaths. “All right, folks. Here’s the plan. The enemy has taken Cassandra and Mina. We don’t yet know why, but we do know how they achieved it, which is because we were careless. I should not have sent Stephanie and Cassandra out on their own. My mistake. I won’t make that one again. Aside from Colin and Renata’s hunting trip, from now on we do our best to stick together. It’ll make it a lot harder for Cross’s people to take us out. In the past, you’ve been spreading yourselves too thin. That’s going to work in our favor now, because it’s a pattern that you’ve established and people like Victor Cross love patterns. They make people predictable, and if you’re predictable, you’re giving your enemy an advantage. You know the old line about turning up for a knife-fight with a gun? That’s what he’s been doing. To continue that same analogy, next time Cross declares a knife-fight, we don’t show up at all. Instead, we go to his house and burn it to the ground. Am I making myself clear?”
Façade said, “You are. We play dirty.”
Lance grinned. “Spot on. We play dirty, because that’s the only way the bad guy plays. If it comes to it, we will lie, cheat and steal to make sure we get the upper hand. In the past couple of days he’s killed one of us, taken two, and seriously wounded two more. So we stand united against him. I know you’re all concerned about putting the world to rights after the Trutopian war, and repairing the damage to your reputations. But that’s peanuts. They’re distractions.”
He looked at Danny. “Yes, it’s very, very sad that people are saying that you somehow caused the war. Time to get over it and grow up.”
He turned toward Warren. “In Berlin, you encountered another band of Trutopians, right? They’re another distraction. I know you want to catch them all, but you have to let it go for now.”
Warren said, “Lance, they’re killers. If we don’t stop them, who will?”
“The police. The armies. You remember them? The people who are paid to stop killers. Your band of Trutopians infiltrated the city as far as Kulturforum because someone is letting them in. Someone paid by Cross, perhaps. You’ve been mopping up the water instead of plugging the leaks. And mopping up the water is not our job. We’re superheroes, not janitors.”
“If we don’t keep going after the Trutopians, innocent people will be killed,” Warren said.
“I know. I don’t like it either. But stopping them is a task that others can and should be doing. Not us. We stick together, we train, we arm ourselves, and then we go after Cross.”
Colin said, “Lance, you keep saying that we have to stick together, but you left Alia and Grant in Berlin!”
Lance looked down. “Yeah. I know that too.”
Façade said, “Because they’re the weakest, right? The least effective members of the team.”
“Right.”
Renata jumped to her feet.
“No way. Seriously, you can’t do that!”
“We have to, Renata. This is war. If we’re going to stop Victor Cross, we’re not all going to get out of this alive.”
Danny stood up next to Renata. “What are you saying? That the others were left behind because you want Cross to focus on them instead of us?”
Lance nodded. “Yes. Don’t say anything to Stephanie, but her sister and Grant are decoys. They’re bait.”
In his base in the Arctic, Victor Cross smiled. “Now, that guy’s a challenge. I like the way he thinks. Wonder where they dug him up?”
Shadow cracked his knuckles. “This is all great fun,” he said, his voice laced with sarcasm, “but we should be on the attack, not sitting around listening in.”
“We have to wait until your brothers are up to speed. Besides, the New Heroes are a crackle on the soundtrack, nothing more. They’re not actually important. And they’re hardly a danger to us, now that we have you. You really think you can take them all on?”
“With Tuan, yeah. I’ve already beaten Colin, and he’s the strongest. The others won’t be a problem. Not even Cooper. He’s faster than me, but fast is no good when you’re dead. The other superhumans… There’s the African girl, Kenya.”
“Chinese-African,” Cross said.
“Whatever. She’s nowhere near a match for me. Maybe Cassandra could eventually learn how to read my mind and anticipate my moves, if she was still with them. Renata Soliz lost her powers, and the rest are just humans in body-armor. No danger at all.”
“What about Brawn?”
“He’s not a superhuman any more. He doesn’t have the strength he once did.”
Cross got to his feet. “He’s still extremely strong, and he has a lot of experience, so don’t underestimate him. Or any of them. Now let’s go check on our prisoner.”
Cross pulled on his padded jacket and walked out of the room, with Shadow flying behind him. At the end of the long, sloping tunnel they emerged into the base’s main cavern, where Evan Laurie was serving the other boys their evening meal.
Laurie looked up. “Are you eating with us today, Victor?”
“Depends. What’s in the pot?”
“Stew. Again. Made with re-hydrated vegetables and baby food that’s well past its sell-by date. It’s time we took a shopping trip.”
Victor looked at the seven boys sitting around the long table. Apart from the length of their hair and a few inches in height, they were identical. Even he sometimes found it hard to tell them apart. If everything had happened according to the original plan, the boys would still be toddlers. Cross had known that the artificial growth-accelerants would help them to age more quickly than normal humans, but he hadn’t anticipated it would work so vigorously, and for so long. Not a mistake, he told himself. An unexpected opportunity.
The biggest problem they faced was the shortage of supplies. Nine teenage boys consumed a lot of food, though that problem had eased a little when Shadow, Tuan and Roman came into their powers. Like their progenitor, they mostly fed off heat and light energy. Solar-powered people, Cross thought. That would really simplify things. “Shopping trip,” he mused aloud. “Maybe that’s not a bad idea. But not today. Today, you’ll all be pleased to learn, we’re doing another round of tests.”
A chorus of “Aw no!” erupted from the boys.
“Has to be done,” Cross said. He nodded to Shadow. “Let’s go.”
They left Laurie and the boys complaining, and passed through another corridor. They were half-way along when Shadow moved in front of Victor.
Victor smiled at that. Shadow’s programming was so ingrained that he didn’t even need to think about it. There was possible danger ahead, so Shadow automatically went into bodyguard mode.
The corridor led to a series of metal gantries and stairways that surrounded the second-largest cavern in the glacier. Shadow drifted ahead of Victor at all times as they descended, constantly watching the enormous pods below. The twenty-four pods were ten feet tall, six in diameter.
They had once served as artificial wombs for the clones. Now, all but one was empty.
They stopped in front of the occupied pod, and looked in through the glass at Mina Duval.
Strong cables around her upper arms suspended her in a thick, red-tinted fluid. A face-mask supplied a constant trickle of oxygen. Just enough to keep her alive, but not enough for her to wake up. Her black New Heroes uniform was torn in places, showing cuts and abrasions on her arms and legs.
Shadow said, “You know that she’s the first real live girl I ever talked to?”
“I know. How do you feel about that?”
Shadow shrugged. “I’m not sure. I know that I should be interested in her, but I’m not. You changed us, didn’t you? You made it so that we wouldn’t have the same desires as ordinary people.”
“I slowed that down a little. Just until the work is done. Can’t have my boys unable to function because they’re heart-broken over some girl.”
“And she’s a clone too, right?”
Victor nodded. “Yes. Ragnarök made her. She’s one of two who survived out of a possible six. That we know of. I guess Ragnarök could have taken the others away and left Mina and Yvonne behind, but his notes are pretty clear that the others didn’t make it. A shame, really. The girls have very different abilities. It would have been interesting to see what powers their siblings might have developed, if any.”
“Why Colin?” Shadow asked. “Why did you make us from his DNA and not Cooper or Soliz?”
“Because Colin is the only one who’s the product of two superhumans. I figured the odds were better that I’d get what I want.”
“But you haven’t.”
“Not yet. We’ll see what the tests show up.” Victor moved away from the pod, back toward the stairs, and Shadow floated after him.
“Are you ever going to tell me what your super-secret plan is? I know it’s something to do with that missile.”
“Shadow, when the time comes you’ll know all you’ll need to know.”
“But when is the time coming?”
“Soon, I promise.” He looked back down at Mina’s pod. “Very soon. Now come. It’s time for your lessons. Languages again, I think. And then maybe tactics. Our enemies are gathering their forces. We need to be prepared.”
Chapter 17
Colin checked the new computer fixed to his wrist and said to Renata, “Ninety-one kilometers per hour!”
Flying alongside him, Renata said, “Really.”
“Yep. We’re one thousand and six meters above sea-level, on a south-south-east heading. This thing is so cool! Let’s see how long I can fly at exactly one thousand meters.”
“What fun. Knock yourself out,” Renata said.
“Ah, you’re just jealous.”
“I’ve already got all that stuff inside my armor. So what do you think of Lance’s big plan to get us all killed?”
“It’s not like that,” Colin said. “I think he’s right. We’ve been fighting Cross on his terms. If we’re going to win we have to go on the offensive.”
“We’re kids. We shouldn’t have to do any of this. I wish I was normal.”
“You are normal, now.” He increased his speed to bring himself level with Renata again. “You could quit.”
“No, I couldn’t.” She sighed, then let out a groan of frustration. “We don’t even know if this is going to work!”
“It’s worth a shot.”
“Colin, suppose we do win, supposed we capture Victor Cross… What’ll you do?”
“You’re asking me if I’m going to kill him.”
“Well?”
“No. I’m not going to kill anyone. Ever. And I’m not going to let anyone else do it, either. Brawn said that the best way to deal with a criminal is to rehabilitate him. It worked for him, and it worked for Façade. It even worked for Razor. If we had someone like Victor Cross trying to help the human race rather than hurt it, just imagine what we could accompli
sh. We could save the world. If we do catch him, the first thing I’m going to do is ask him about the powers. How do they work, and why are only some people affected?”
“You think there really is an answer? Maybe it’s just magic.”
Colin laughed. “Yeah, well, I guess that’s as good an answer as anything, until we know better.”
“I’m more interested in where the energy comes from. You’re flying, so what’s keeping you up? It takes energy to defeat gravity, so where’s it coming from? And when I had my powers, where did my strength come from?”
“The blue lights,” Colin said.
“Yeah, so you say. But suppose they are balls of energy that somehow make us superhuman, then where did they come from? Why do they only affect a tiny number of people? And why is it sometimes hereditary, and sometimes not. I mean, my folks aren’t superhuman, and neither are my brother or sister. So how come I am? Or was.” She pointed ahead. “City.”
Colin consulted his computer. “It’s Shreveport. Man, I love this thing. Look, I can even link it into Wikipedia. It was founded in 1839, and population is about one hundred and eighty thousand. It was almost two hundred thousand before the war. There’s tons of stuff here.”
“What does it say about flying without looking where you’re going?”
“I’m hardly likely to crash into a tree when I’m exactly nine hundred and eighty-nine point three-five meters up in the air.”
“You could hit a plane.”
“I’d hear it coming from miles away. Anyway, with this thing I can tap into the Air Traffic Control systems. Want to see?”
“Not especially.”
“Well, what you do is hit the menu button, then…” Colin slowed down, and looked around. “Renata, we’ve got company.”
Renata curved back to meet him. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. Something coming in fast.” He glanced at his screen. “It’s not on the radar.” He looked around wildly. “I’m not seeing anything, but I can feel it. Getting closer. Faster.” Colin shuddered. “I don’t like this. Why can’t I see it? I can’t hear anything either.”
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