Danny did this. He changed the past so that I never activated the null-field. Incredible!
Victor shook himself, realizing that this was not the right time for such speculation. He reassigned that chain of thought to a secondary part of his brain, and continued making his way through the base’ corridors until he reached the missile silo. It all comes down to this. Years of planning, of manipulating, lying, cheating, stealing and killing. He sighed. Wonder what I’d be doing now if I was a normal person? Mowing the lawn, probably. Ordinary people are obsessed with the condition of their turf.
Out of breath, bundled in his thick parka with the hood up, Evan Laurie descended the last few steps of the gantry, with Nathan following close behind.
“It’s done,” Laurie said to Victor. “All the checks are green. It’s ready.”
“Yes. Good work. Excellent. But I don’t trust you not to mess up. Check it all again.”
“I’d tell you that I’ll hate you forever for this, but there’s not going to be a forever, is there?”
“Not for you, certainly. Nathan? Your brothers are in the hangar fighting Brawn. It’s quite spectacular. You might want to go look, or even help out.” He inclined his head back the way he’d come. “Go.”
Nathan took off at a run, and Victor watched him go. “Still doesn’t like me, but he has no choice but to obey.”
As they walked to the missile’s control room, Laurie said, “I wish I’d never met you. I wish you’d never been born.”
Victor laughed. “If wishes were horses, glue would be a lot cheaper.”
“There’s still time to stop this. There will be more superhumans. Or you could create a new batch of clones. Or you’ll find a way to build a physical teleporter like Krodin had and not have to hope for a superhuman who can do it.”
“The technology in Krodin’s alternate universe was a century ahead of ours, at least. I can’t wait that long.”
“So instead you’re going to destroy the Earth. Can’t you see how insane that is, Victor?”
Cross began to climb the stairs to the control room. “I keep telling you, Laurie. I can see everything. I plan for every eventuality.”
“You know what you remind me of? The cat I had when I was a kid. Sweet little thing. Used to swing out of the curtains, and sometimes he’d climb all the way up, walk along the rail, and sit on the top of the open door waiting to ambush my dad.”
“What a great story. And such a refreshing change to hear one mercifully free of relevance.”
Laurie said, “And with that, Victor Cross proved once and for all that the only thing he truly loved was the sound of his own voice.”
Cross stopped on the stairway, and looked back. “What?”
“You actually look offended!” Laurie grinned. “Wow. I managed to hurt your feelings. Well, now I don’t mind so much if I do die today. Anyway, the point is that now and then the cat would make a leap from the couch to the armchair, or from the counter-top to the table, and he wouldn’t quite make it. He would then instantly drop to the ground, lick his paw and rub it over his face. And he’d sit there with an expression that seemed to say, ‘That was what I meant to do.’ That’s you, Victor. You like to think that everything that happens is part of your great plan, but the reality is that you’re just navigating your way around a series of disasters. Being a genius doesn’t exempt you from being a fool.”
“Hah. I think you’ll find that—”
“Before the Trutopians picked Colin up in Romania, where was he going? Did you think to ask him before you knocked him out?”
“Shut up, Laurie!” Cross pushed open the control room’s door.
Laurie followed him inside. “You don’t know, do you? That must be eating you up inside. There’s information you need, but you don’t have it and don’t know how to get it.” Laurie stood at the window, looking out at the missile. “And this monstrosity… You want me to tell you what this really is? You can’t get your way so you’re throwing the biggest strop in the history of the human race.” He turned back to Victor, and pointed at the missile. “That is a tantrum. And you are a child.”
Victor brushed fragments of plastic and glass off the seat before sitting down in front of the replacement screens. “So… No luck hacking your way into its mechanisms, then?”
“What?”
“Yeah, I see it here in the code. You tried to hide a subroutine that would send the missile to where it would do the least amount of damage. Tch… Look at that. Sloppy. Evan, that’s not the most efficient way to compare a value against a list of numbers. With every loop, you’re checking the number and then looking to see if you’ve reached the end of the list. That’s two tests you’re doing for every number. Look.” Victor began typing on the new keyboard, aware that this wasn’t the time for a programming lesson, but unable to stop himself. “This is what you do. You add the number you want to find to the end of the list. Then your loop only has to check the numbers until it finds the right one. You don’t have to worry about running off the end of the list because you know you’re going to find it. If the one you’ve found is the last one on the list, then it wasn’t on the original list, so you mark it as ‘not found’.”
“Good lord, you really are insane!”
“No, look…” Victor picked up a pencil and grabbed a sheet of paper from the printer. “If you’ve got a list of, say, ten items to search, then—”
Laurie bellowed, “Enough! I understand the principle!”
“Then why didn’t you use it? That’s very disappointing.”
“In the name of all that’s good, Victor, look at what you’re doing! You’re on the verge of wiping out the human race and you’re peeved because the code I wrote to sabotage your plans isn’t efficient enough!”
“Right,” Victor said, nodding.
“Don’t you see? You’re losing your mind.”
Cross pointed at the screen. “Yes, but if your code was better written it would be twice as fast, and my diagnostic routine might not have found it. Your shoddy programming has prevented you from saving the world. So now who’s the fool?”
“Still you, Victor. Still you.”
In the hangar, Brawn was almost surprised to be still on his feet, still fighting.
The clones of Colin Wagner were strong and infuriatingly fast, but Brawn had fought alongside—and against—the most powerful superhumans the world had ever seen. He knew how to fight dirty.
There were seven of the clones, and normally they’d be almost impossible to tell apart. But now, with their torn clothing and wide range of different cuts and bruises, Brawn was sure he knew which was which. And the orders shouted by their leader, Shadow, helped him to work out their names.
Alex was the one with the broken arm. Brawn liked it when he was attacking because all it took was a swift kick to that arm to send the kid running away screaming. Brat still keeps coming back, though, Brawn thought, got to hand it to him. He doesn’t quit.
Shadow had a shattered nose and blood all over his uniform, and he was the one who most bothered Brawn. He was at least as strong as any of his brothers, and he was sly. He tended to attack only when Brawn was dealing with the others, darting at him from behind.
Brawn knew what Shadow was doing: he was saving his energy. He’s going to let them wear me down, then he’ll swoop in at the end to finish me.
Eldon and Oscar rushed at Brawn from the left, with Eldon on foot and Oscar in the air. Brawn let them get within arm’s reach then jabbed his fist at Oscar, pulling it back at the last second as the clone ducked down to avoid the punch. He crashed into Eldon and the two of them ended up in a squirming tangle at Brawn’s feet.
Brawn kicked out at them, the toe of his massive metal boot catching Oscar in the small of his back. The force of the kick sent them skidding away across the icy floor.
Nathan came next, leaping down from the ceiling’s support beams. Brawn snatched him out of the air and held tight, his fingers around the clone’s throat. As N
athan struggled to free himself, Brawn was struck in the chest by Shadow, who darted away almost immediately.
Tuan attacked from his right side. Flying in low and fast, he locked his arms around Brawn’s left calf and pulled back, trying to topple him. As he did so, he seemed to be growing larger, more muscular, and Brawn felt himself weakening.
Brawn bashed down at him using Alex as a baton. Their heads cracked together with a sound so loud that even Brawn winced. Man, that’s gotta hurt!
Tuan was knocked aside, but Alex stretched out his legs, bracing them against Brawn’s armored chest.
Brawn could clearly see the strain on the kid’s face as he tried to tear off his arm.
He opened his hand and Nathan half-fell, half-flew to the ground.
Then Zeke and Alex and Eldon were rushing at him at once, from different sides. I’ve got to even this out a bit!
He knew what he had to do. Reduce their numbers as quickly as possible. He focused on Zeke and Eldon, allowing Alex to come within grabbing range, then spun around and took hold of the clone’s broken arm.
Alex screamed as Brawn hauled him up into the air and violently shook him. “Don’t like that, do you, punk?!” The clone squirmed and kicked. Jeez, he’s still too strong for me!
Brawn noticed a flicker of movement off to his side, and spun around, holding Alex up as a shield.
Shadow crashed into his brother, and darted away again.
Nathan launched himself at him again. Brawn ducked to avoid him, dropped to one knee and slammed Alex into the ground. He pivoted himself up on the hand still holding the clone, and came down hard putting all of his weight into the other fist. It struck Alex in the groin, and he screamed louder than ever. Brawn hit him again in the same spot, while increasing the pressure of his grip on Alex’s broken arm.
The clone collapsed, passing out.
Good. One down.
Shadow came next, for once attacking when there was no else to act as a distraction. Still holding onto Alex, Brawn threw himself to the side, rolling onto his back, swinging his arm up to crash Alex’s limp form into Shadow’s side.
Shadow hit the ground hard, and was in the process of rolling to his feet when Brawn charged at him, slammed into him shoulder-first, pinning him to the ground.
Brawn threw Alex aside and pulled back his fist, but before he could strike he found himself being pushed up: Shadow was lifting him into the air.
Oh man... I hoped they wouldn’t think of that.
The others attacked all at once. Two of them grabbed onto his legs, another two took hold of his arms.
He tried to jerk his arms free, but they were holding on tight. Then the one on his right arm—Nathan—squeezed hard enough that Brawn heard his armor crack.
On the ground, looking up at him, Shadow sneered. “Got you now, you over-sized freak!”
The remaining clone, Oscar, limped over to join him. “Kill him, Shadow! Tear out his throat!”
“No, that’s too good for him. Without his armor Brawn’s just a human, regardless of his size. Fly him out of here and strip the armor off him. You go with them, Tuan. Find a nice spot and crack the ice. Drain as much power as you can from him, then dump his sorry butt into the sea. Let him freeze to death before he burns along with the rest of the world.”
Tuan flew up ahead of his colleagues, and opened the warped hangar doors. The chamber was flooded with a shocking rush of freezing air, and the clones continued to rise.
Brawn struggled and roared as they carried him, face-down, out into the sub-zero temperatures. His already-blue skin turned darker as Tuan flew around him and, piece by piece, tore away his armor.
Far below, through the hangars’ circular opening, he saw Shadow striding toward the New Heroes.
Cassandra felt her stomach churn as the lop-sided footage from the camera in Danny’s discarded helmet showed Brawn being carried away.
“That’s it,” Razor said. “Brawn was our last chance.”
Lance glowered at the screen. “Not quite. Cross hasn’t anticipated our next move.”
“What?”
“Not what. Who.” Lance turned to the girl on his left. “Cassandra.”
“Me? What can I do from here?”
“It’s time to read some minds.”
“Lance, they’re four thousand miles away!”
“True. But distance shouldn’t be an obstacle. You’re superhuman. Most of the things you people think of as limitations are only limitations of the imagination. You believe that you can’t reach that far, so therefore you can’t. For the first nine months after Colin’s powers kicked in he believed he wasn’t able to fly, so he couldn’t do it. Most superhumans only discover their powers by accident. Why do you believe that there’s a maximum radius to your mind-reading ability?”
“Because I’ve tested it. And superhuman minds aren’t easy to get into, especially the clones.”
“I’m not talking about the clones, or Victor Cross, or any of our superhumans. I’m talking about Stephanie. She was never a superhuman, so she hasn’t lost anything. You know her mind. Wake her up.”
Can I do it? Cassandra wondered. Stephanie’s tricky to read. She stretched out with her thoughts, slipping past the anxious minds of Razor and Lance. Out into the world beyond Sakkara.
A mental map begin to form, a lattice dotted with human minds throughout the region. To the west, a huge cluster of minds in Topeka drew her toward them, but she resisted. Further, she thought. Further.
North, into Nebraska. Each mind she encountered pulled her toward it, drawing her away from her intended course.
She opened her eyes, and looked at Razor and Lance. “It’s working… But there’s so many people. It’s getting harder to steer away from them.”
And then she glanced at the monitors and saw the globe of the Earth, and realized that there was a better way. Why am I sticking to the surface? It’s shorter to go straight to Zaliv Kalinina, and easier—there’s not going to be a lot of minds underground.
She visualized her power as a spear, piercing the Earth in a straight line from Sakkara to Cross’s base.
“Almost… Yes. I can sense their minds above me. Cross is… His mind is huge! Lance, it’s like a whole city of people inside his head. Most minds are simple, a large cluster at the center, with threads radiating outward. Cross’s mind has dozens of clusters.”
“Can you read his thoughts?” Razor asked.
“It’s too complex. I can’t even see where to begin.”
“All right,” Lance said. “Concentrate on Stephanie.”
“I see her.”
“Wake her.”
Chapter 32
Stephanie Cord opened her eyes. She was lying on her back, staring up at a beam-crossed ceiling far overhead. At the top of her vision—behind her—was a high wall cut from the ice.
A voice inside her head said, “You’re awake—good!”
What? Cassie, is that you? I told you I don’t like people poking around in my mind!
“Don’t move. Just listen.”
Stephanie’s skin began to crawl as Cassandra explained what had been happening. When she was done, Stephanie asked, So what can I do?
“Try to wake Renata and Kenya. Danny’s injuries are too much. He’s unconscious—leave him that way. The others… Steph, get out of there! Shadow is coming for you!”
Stephanie squeezed the fingers of her right hand against the pads inside her gloves that controlled her jetpack. The instant she felt herself move she pitched her head and torso forward so that her jetpack pushed her up against the wall at an angle rather than straight into it.
With her jetpack scraping the wall, its edges cutting long gouges into the ice and the heat of its exhaust evaporating the particles into mist, Stephanie soared straight up, cut the thrust before she hit the ceiling, then darted away from the wall, zipping in and out between the support beams.
“He’s following you,” Cassandra said.
Yeah, that’s the poi
nt. What do I do now, Cassie?
“Lead him away. I’ll try to revive the rest of the team.”
Will do. Stephanie checked the fuel gauge—she had a little over half a tank left. There was more fuel on the ChampionShip, but that wasn’t much use to her now.
Maybe it is, she thought. She dropped low and aimed for the far side of the room, all too aware that Shadow was right behind her.
Cassandra said, “I think that fighting Danny and Brawn has taken a lot out of him.”
Forget about me—wake the others! Stephanie zoomed up, aiming for the open hangar doors beyond the suspended aircraft. As she passed the craft she reached out and grabbed one of the chains.
Her jetpack still pushing her on, she swung around the chain and Shadow shot past her, moving too fast to adjust his speed before he passed out through the doors.
She carried the movement through, going full-circle, emerging from the hangar just as Shadow was darting back in.
Stephanie steered toward the ChampionShip, knowing that out here speed was more important than agility. Shadow would catch her within seconds.
On her left, she saw Brawn struggling as he was carried by four of the other clones, with a fifth standing on his back as he tore the giant’s armor apart. She resisted the instinct to go to his aid—it was essential to stop Shadow first.
On the far side of the ship its main hatchway was open. Stephanie swooped under it and in through the hatch, snagged one of the two spare jetpacks—its reassuring weight told her that its fuel-tanks were full—and zoomed back out again just as Shadow plowed straight through the ship’s hull.
Clutching the spare pack tightly to her chest, Stephanie flipped the auxiliary ignition switches on its side.
It burst into life, dragging her faster through the air, the exhaust from its powerful jets scorching the paint from her armor. It began to tremble violently in her arms, but she clung on tight.
The readout projected onto the inside of her visor showed that she was leaving Shadow behind. That was not what she wanted. If he gives up chasing me, he’s go after the others! She began to flip the switches on and off, hoping that the pack’s sputtering, sporadic thrust would convince Shadow that it was malfunctioning.
The New Heroes: Crossfire Page 25