The New Heroes: Crossfire

by Michael Carroll

  “How?”

  “Simple. You’re the god of time. You reach back into the past and prevent Krodin from being taken in the first place. That’s the true time-line, Danny. What we’re living in now is no more valid than the alternative reality in which Krodin took control of the United States. You see, that’s why there are superhumans. We’re… like antibodies. The universe knows that something is off-kilter, and it created us to fight the infection. To make right that which is wrong.”

  Chapter 28

  “Take them!” Renata Soliz screamed. She slammed her jetpack into full-thrust, arched her back to dart up and around the ChampionShip as one of the clones of Colin Wagner darted after her.

  The display on her visor showed that Kenya and Stephanie were having a tough time escaping their own pursuers.

  They’ve got to be faster, she thought. If the clones even lay one hand on them, they’re dead.

  The clone was only yards behind her. She had to fight the urge to lead him away from the ship—protecting it was her top priority right now. If she left then the others would attack it.

  She had already taken down one of the clones, the first to attack. His colleagues had called him Warwick. He had launched himself directly at her, fists clenched, and if she’d been anyone else his punches would have snapped her in two. Renata had solidified her body just as he struck. The force of his blow knocked her more than a mile away from the ship, and he had chased after her.

  She’d allowed herself to crash to the ground, to let Warwick believe that she was unconscious or dead. He had swooped in, coming down feet-first at great speed, aiming to slam her deep into the ice.

  Renata had reached up, grabbed one of Warwick’s feet in each hand, and forced them apart. At the same time she’d kicked up, shoving her boot deep into his stomach—while still holding onto his feet.

  He’d collapsed to the ice, but recovered before Renata could press home her attack. She barely dodged a punch that, had it landed, would have pulverized the skull of an ordinary human.

  The realization that Warwick was trying to kill her was as much of a shock as the ferocity of his actions.

  She’d dodged a second blow, locked her hands around his wrists and turned them solid.

  He’d struggled, screaming, trying to break free. His eyes were wide, specks of saliva spraying from his mouth and instantly freezing in the Arctic air.

  She’d slammed his own fists back into his face, staggering him, then—still holding onto his arms—she kicked out at his chest.

  He’s stronger than me, she’d realized. He’s not going to quit!

  Warwick had grinned at her then. “Maybe I can’t hurt you—but that just means you’ll still be alive to watch me tear out your friends’ spines!”

  Renata had pounded his skull with her invulnerable fists until she was sure that he’d be out of the fight for several minutes. An injured colleague is a double-distraction for the others, she’d realized. They’ll see what I’ve done to him and at least one of them will lose time trying to help him!

  She’d left Warwick slightly twitching and bleeding into the snow and darted back to the ship—by which time the other three were speeding toward her.

  Now, this second clone—Oscar—wasn’t so easy to trick. He was faster than her jetpack could propel her, and more maneuverable, but didn’t seem to be able to anticipate her moves. No one ever taught them how to fight, she realized.

  She changed direction abruptly, heading toward Kenya who was zipping and darting through the air, her agile body twisting and spinning with fluidity and grace as the clone futilely attempted to grab hold of her.

  “Kenya! I’ve got one behind me—switch!”

  Renata steered herself at Kenya’s attacker, and at the same time Kenya darted beneath her and came up directly in Oscar’s path.

  Renata crashed her fists into the other’s face, smashing his nose, and immediately zoomed away, curving in a circle that brought her back to him just as he was recovering from the shock. A sharp jab to the side of his head sent him reeling, cart-wheeling down through the air.

  Somewhere behind her, Kenya was racing away with Oscar in close pursuit. Renata figured she had enough time to get to Stephanie, who had two of them chasing her.

  Stephanie wasn’t as agile as Kenya or anywhere near as strong as Renata, but she was an expert with the jetpack, and knew how to use the environment to her advantage. She kept low, darted around one of the massive boulders that littered the landscape, forcing the clones to split up, one coming from the left, the other from the right.

  As Renata approached, Stephanie zoomed straight up from behind the boulder. The two clones crashed into each other in a tangle of kicks and punches, each one momentarily convinced that the other was Stephanie.

  “Go help Kenya!” Renata shouted. “I’ll take care of these two!”

  The display on her visor showed that the ChampionShip was now only a mile from the base. Almost there. A few more minutes. Hope we can last that long.

  In Sakkara, gathered around the screens in the Operations Room, Cassandra, Razor and Lance watched the video and audio feeds coming back from the ChampionShip, and from the cameras in the New Heroes’ armor.

  Razor said, “It’s no good. Cross is scrambling all our signals and I can’t figure out how. He could have set up a ring of white-noise generators around the base, but then how are the transmissions from the suits getting out?” He looked up at the other monitors. “The clones are toying with them.”

  “True,” Lance said, nodding. “Cross pumped the clones’ brains full of knowledge, but that’s no substitute for experience. They’re infants, remember. These guys have only been alive for a few months.”

  Cassandra said, “Roman’s mind is a mess. If the others are the same, then they still don’t really understand the difference between reality and imagination, or between right and wrong. That’s how Cross was able to instill loyalty—he and that guy Evan Laurie are the clones’ parent figures: they’ll do whatever they’re told.”

  “So what can we do to help?” Razor asked.

  “We’ve done all we can, for now,” Lance said. He turned to the screen showing the feed from Danny’s armor. “What do you think, Razor? What can we do to get past the null-field?”

  “There’s no way to know without being there. Danny could go under it, but Cross will have thought of that.”

  Another screen showed an almost complete map of Cross’s base, constructed from the data sent back by the sensors built into Danny’s armor, and the information Cassandra had taken from Roman’s mind. Lance tapped one point on the map. “So the missile’s there… We could just tell Danny to go for it. In fast-time he’ll be able to wreck it before Cross can even blink.”

  Cassandra said, “And then Cross would kill Colin and Mina.”

  “Yeah.” Lance stroked his beard. “Tricky. There is a solution, of course. We let them die.”

  “No way,” Razor said, jumping to his feet. “No way!”

  “Relax, son, I’m just musing. Though you have to be prepared. It might come to that. The other problem is that we just don’t know how the missile’s payload is expected to work. An attack on the missile might be enough to trigger it… Clearly, Cross wants the payload delivered to a specific location—otherwise it wouldn’t be a missile, it’d just be a bomb—but I reckon it’s wise to assume we don’t want it triggered at all.”

  Razor said, “So if we’re going to stop it, we have to wait until it’s in the air?”

  Lance nodded.

  “That’s… less than ideal.”

  “I know. We have to gamble here… We have to take the risk that Cross will let the attack continue until the missile is ready to launch. Which by the looks of things won’t be too far away. The alternative is to cut and run and hope that it doesn’t work. I’m not a fan of that one.” He paused for a moment. “But just in case… Cassandra, phone your mom. Don’t tell her what’s happening. Don’t say good-bye or anything like
that. Just tell her you have a few minutes to chat. Ask her about her day. That kind of thing.”

  “Because I might not get another chance?” Cassandra asked.

  “Exactly.” When Cassandra had left the room, Lance said, “You too, Razor. I know you haven’t spoken to her in a while, but do it anyway.”

  The young man shook his head. “No, if I phone her she’ll know something’s wrong.”

  “Hah, yeah, that’s true. I don’t know. Make it sound like you’re asking her for something. Or…” Lance looked at Razor. “You could tell her you’ve finally met Hunter Washington.”

  “Who?”

  “Your real father. Me.”

  Razor was still for few seconds, then he slowly turned to face Lance. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “It’s true. I even checked your DNA profile against mine. You’re my son.” Lance scratched at his beard and stopped when he realized that Razor was scratching his own. “You’ve got the same thing as me that makes you almost superhuman. Whatever it is, it has a tendency to bring us together. I figure that’s why you and Colin found yourselves drawn to each other the first time you met. Same as with me and Paragon.”

  “So you’re my real dad.” Razor stared at him. “You picked a great time to finally show up!”

  “Not my fault. I didn’t even know you existed until Impervia contacted me and I started investigating everyone’s backgrounds. Your mother and I didn’t even have a chance. Max Dalton…” Lance stopped. After a moment’s pause, he said, “It wasn’t meant to be. I never saw her again.”

  Razor slumped in his chair. “Oh man…”

  Lance smiled, and patted him on the shoulder. “Just call her. Go on. Tell her about me if you want. If you don’t, it doesn’t matter.”

  Razor wouldn’t look at Lance as he left the room.

  Lance moved in front of the monitors. “All right,” he muttered to himself. “That was awkward.” He turned to another screen, where Danny was still talking to Cross. There has to be a way to get through to Danny. If we could figure out how he’s scrambling our signals… I can still communicate with the ChampionShip, so the signals aren’t scrambled at this end.

  He watched the screens for a few more minutes, and gradually became aware that he’d been avoiding an important task. He reached for the phone and keyed in a number.

  The call was answered on the second ring: “Yeah?”

  “Warren, it’s Lance.”

  There was a tiny pause. “OK.”

  “Colin did it. The clones captured him, stripped his powers… And they brought him right into Cross’s base. The GPS tag worked—we know exactly where they are. The fight’s on. Our guys are doing OK, so far.” As he spoke, Lance was typing on one of the keyboards. “Warren… I’m sending transport your way. Enough to get you all out of the Substation. The copters will take you to the peak of Denali, Alaska. Highest point in the USA. I’ve already got some people on the way to establish a base there. If things go bad—”

  “No,” Warren said. “We talked it over. We’re staying. We’ve got a better chance of survival here.”

  “You’re sure that’s what you want?”

  “Yeah. Lance, no matter how this turns out… If Colin dies, so do you.”

  “Back when you were Titan you were arrogant, but you never would have made a threat like that. But I understand… And I’ll promise you this: If we win, and Colin does survive, I won’t tell him how far you’ve fallen. He still thinks you’re a hero.”

  “It’s all on you now, Lance.”

  “I know. Warren, if this goes bad, this could be the last time we ever speak. So I want you to know that sometimes you can be a real jerk. But then so can I. And that’s why I’ve always liked you.”

  Warren laughed. “Good luck, McKendrick.”

  “You too. Give my regards to Caroline and Vienna and the others.” Lance ended the call, then made another. It was answered by Alia Cord.

  “What’s up, Mister McKendrick?”

  “Not a lot. Just checking in. I hope you and Grant are keeping out of trouble. Oh, and stop ordering room-service, will you? We do have a budget, you know. Would it kill you to make your own sandwiches for lunch every now and then?”

  Alia said, “Um… By the sound of your voice, things aren’t going well, are they? We should come back. We already figured out why you left us here. It’s because you think we’re not good enough, isn’t it?”

  “Let’s just say you’re not quite good enough yet.”

  “But Kenya is?”

  “She has ten times more experience than the two of you combined. Plus she’s superhuman. Sorry, Alia. I know that’s a blow to the ego, but I figure that hurting your feelings is less important than saving your lives. Stay there, Alia. Take the night off. Go to a movie or something. Enjoy yourselves.”

  “Oh man… It’s that bad?”

  Lance smiled to himself. She’s a lot more intuitive than I thought. “It’s worse.”

  “Mister McKendrick… Tell me what’s happening.”

  “Right now, the New Heroes are all that stands between us and the end of the world.”

  Danny said, “You know, I can wait a long time. You think you’re safe in there, but the fact is you’re trapped. And you’ll die when your missile detonates and floods the planet with lava.”

  “Except that the lava will vanish when it hits the null-field. I’ll be safe.”

  “You’ll be alone. Well, apart from Colin and Mina and the clones, if they survive.”

  “Danny, I’m so far ahead of everyone else I might as well be alone anyway.”

  “If you don’t suffocate, you’ll starve to death.”

  Cross shrugged. “I’m sure I’ll think of some way to survive. But we don’t want it to come to that, do we? You stop Krodin from being pulled through time, and it’ll all be over.”

  “And how am I supposed to do that? Even if I knew how, I wouldn’t. If I could reach back in time and change something in the past, I’d change it so that your parents never met. Without you, we’d all be a lot better off.”

  “You could do that. You could do anything. Buy yourself last week’s winning lottery ticket. Go back to some time when you embarrassed yourself by saying the wrong thing to a girl you really liked. Pull Solomon Cord out of the past so that he was no longer dead. Fix it so that you didn’t lose your arm inside my power-damping machine. Anything at all.” Cross walked forward, stopping only inches away from the edge of the circle. “You’re the god of time.”

  “So you keep saying. But I don’t know how to do any of those things.”

  “It should be relatively simple. Concentrate on what you want to happen, and the time-line will flow around you, adjusting itself.” He smiled. “You can remake the world any way you like, Danny. Whatever you want, you can have. And yes, you can even thwart my plans. I can’t stop you.”

  “Then why are you helping me? Or are you just stalling for time?”

  Cross laughed. “Stalling for time, that’s a good one coming from you. Think about it. Concentrate on what you want most, and it’ll happen. If you do it right. If…” He looked past Danny, and his smile grew wide. “No, you’re right. I was stalling.”

  Danny turned around to see four of the clones entering the hangar. They were badly beaten, their faces and hands bruised and bloodied, their clothes torn. One of them was cradling his arm, which looked broken. The others were carrying the limp bodies of Renata, Kenya and Stephanie.

  “Oh look,” Cross said. “I won.”

  Lance swore and slammed his fist down on the desk. “No you haven’t, you blasted psycho! Not yet! All right. You want to play hard-ball? I’ll show you what a real fight is like!”

  He picked up the microphone. “You there?”

  “I’m here,” Brawn’s voice rumbled.

  “Go.”

  Chapter 29

  “They dead yet?” Cross asked.

  Shadow threw Renata to the floor, and she tumbled to a stop in
front of Danny. “Not yet. Thought you’d want to see it happen.” He looked at Danny. “I definitely want this guy to see it. She broke Alex’s arm and pounded the tar out of Warwick! We left him out there—I gotta go back for him.”

  “No, leave him. A wounded soldier is just something else to worry about.” Cross turned to Danny. “You be mindful of this situation, Danny. Resist the temptation to attack. I’ve still got Mina and Colin here, remember.”

  Danny turned back to face him. “Give up, Cross. You don’t stand a chance.”

  “What’s wrong with you, kid? I’ve already won. My boys have beaten your crew. Their powers are gone. Shadow? Show them.”

  The clone held up a small hand-gun that resembled a toy. Its casing was patched together with duct tape.

  “That’s my Extractor,” Cross said. “A handy fit-in-your-pocket version of Ragnarök’s power-damper, with some improvements. We can target a specific person and drain their power without affecting anyone else. As you can see, it works. Right now, Renata and Kenya might as well not be superhuman. Same with Colin and Mina. Their powers will recover eventually, but until they do you and Cassandra are the only ones left with any superhuman abilities. The New Heroes have been utterly defeated. You’re beaten.”

  “Not all of us.”

  “Oh, you have a hidden ace? I doubt that. You’re forgetting who you’re dealing with, Danny. I’m—”

  Overhead, the ceiling trembled.

  Cross took a step back, and looked up. “What was that?” Tiny particles of ice drifted down.

  “Brawn, dropping from our ship.”