‘That’s not true,’ Mister Jones said. ‘Twelve was responsible for the abuses in The Alpha Project.’
‘What’s that old saying?’ Brodie asked. ‘Dead men—or dead aliens—tell no tales? It’s easy to blame things on dead people.’
It was interesting to see everyone’s reaction to Mister Jones’s suggestion. I understood how they felt. The Agency had been responsible for wiping our memories and making us into superheroes. Of course, those same drugs had turned other teenagers into dead teenagers and had turned Ferdy into—
‘Twelve took the original aims of The Alpha Project and twisted them,’ Mister Jones said. ‘He was a rogue among The Bakari. That project is finished. Now we want to move forward—’
‘So you’re not torturing and killing any more teenagers,’ Ebony interrupted, her cheeks filled with red splotches of fury. ‘No more destroying of lives. No more stealing kids from their parents.’
Mister Jones bit his bottom lip.
It was Mister Brown who spoke next. ‘We’re here because we need your help,’ he said.
‘What sort of help?’ I asked.
‘A canister of a deadly virus has been stolen. At the moment, the canister is secured with a sophisticated encryption code.’
‘Very sophisticated,’ Mister Jones piped up. ‘It’s virtually impossible to open.’
‘So?’ Chad said, sounding bored as he inspected his nails. ‘Why are you so concerned if it can’t be opened?’
‘I said it’s virtually impossible,’ Mister Jones said. ‘There is still a slight chance it could be opened.’
‘And what would happen then?’ I asked.
‘You may have heard of the H5N1 virus?’ Mister Jones said.
‘Uh, is that the bird flu?’ Brodie asked.
‘It’s commonly known as Avian Influenza or Bird Flu,’ Mister Brown confirmed. ‘It has a mortality rate of sixty percent.’
‘Sixty percent?’ Chad said. ‘That doesn’t sound so bad.’
It did to me. ‘That’s sixty people in a hundred,’ I said. ‘It’s six hundred million people out of a billion. Out of the current world’s population, it would be three-point six billion people.’
‘Wow,’ Chad said. ‘You can add. Can you multiply as well?’
I ignored him. ‘Is that what this is?’ I said to Jones. ‘H5N1?’
Mister Jones shook his head. ‘The weakness of H5N1 is that it is not airborne.’
‘Good for us,’ Brodie said. ‘Bad for the virus.’
‘Absolutely,’ Mister Jones said. ‘Unfortunately, scientists in Germany recently tweaked the virus to see how difficult it would be to make it airborne.’
‘What a clever thing to do,’ I said sarcastically. ‘Take a lethal virus and make it more efficient.’
Mister Brown seemed to be of a similar opinion. ‘The scientists claimed their reason to do so was to plan ahead in case the virus should ever mutate of its own accord.’
‘They were successful in their attempts,’ Mister Jones said. ‘Wildly successful. The resulting virus is known as Doomsday.’
I was wondering about the definition of wildly successful. It sounded a little like a doctor successfully removing a bullet from a patient—but the patient dying on the operating table.
‘Not only were they able to make it airborne, but they were able to make it far more lethal.’ Mister Jones paused. ‘One hundred percent lethal.’
One hundred percent lethal. That sounded like the same stupid thinking that had driven The Alpha Project. Let’s take some perfectly harmless teenagers, inject them with a weird combination of drugs, and see what happens.
Brodie began. ‘So if this virus gets free…’
‘It will kill every human being on Earth,’ Mister Brown said. ‘Every man, woman, and child.’
Chad shook his head slowly. ‘It sounds like you guys have got a real problem,’ he said. ‘I’m off to see what’s on the tube. I think there are reruns of CSI.’
‘Chad—’ I started.
He spread his arms. ‘We’re the victims, Leader man,’ he said. ‘You need to get that through your skull. All of you. We had lives before these clowns used us as lab rats.’
‘Rats are a type of mammal,’ Ferdy said.
‘I’m with Chad on this one,’ Ebony said. ‘I have no desire to return to The Agency or ever have anything to do with you people.’ She took Ferdy’s hand. ‘Want to play on the computer again?’
‘Ferdy likes chess,’ he said.
They left, and I turned at Brodie. ‘What do you think?’
‘I’m sorry.’ She stared at Mister Jones and Mister Brown. ‘I just don’t trust you guys.’
‘Dan?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘Not without the team.’
‘What about you, Axel?’ Mister Jones asked. ‘You realize the seriousness of this situation? Not just for you, but for every person on Earth?’
My eyes strayed to the dark desert outside. The wind had started to weave its way across the dry landscape. This was a place of contrasts. Stifling heat during the day. Freezing cold at night.
I thought again about the lapse in my powers back on the plane. The Agency could probably help me understand what was happening. I didn’t want to lose my powers, but I had to think about more than me.
‘We work as a team,’ I said. ‘Or not at all.’
Chapter Seven
Another airport, General Wolff thought. It seems I spend most of my life at airports.
Night had fallen, and he was at Henderson Executive Airport. It was smaller than McCarran International. Many single-engine planes were housed here—many private jets. There were times when it was better to remain under the radar, and this was one of those times.
The meeting with Jacob had gone well; his team were on their way from Mexico and would arrive at any moment. If the arrangement with Jacob hadn’t proceeded, there were other people Wolff could have contacted. Different mods with various abilities, some better than others. Jacob and his people just happened to have an excellent reputation for being both efficient and ruthless. Like all mods everywhere, they had remained secret over the years.
Now it appeared all that was about to change.
There had been talk among the United Nations Security Council members that the time had come for mods to come out of the closet. Wolff had his doubts about the wisdom of this course of action. Anonymity was a strength. Why give away such an advantage when it was unnecessary?
However, technology had increased so much—especially in the last twenty years—that keeping mods a secret was more difficult by the day. Everyone had a cell phone. Every second person had a blog. Combine the two, and it meant that everyone was a pseudo journalist. People were using Twitter and Facebook to start revolutions.
Maybe I’m getting old, Wolff thought. Maybe I’ll retire after this operation. Maybe.
Planes were arriving at the airport all the time, a long procession of small aircraft that were landing and being bedded down for the night or lifting off to continue to destinations unknown. Wolff watched as a twelve-seater plane appeared, first as a bright dot in the darkened sky. It grew larger until it came into land and taxied into the hanger where Wolff waited.
It seemed likely Jacob’s crew used the aircraft to carry out their operations around the country. An efficient method of operation. Fly in for the kill—so to speak—and then fly straight back out again while the hapless local law enforcement agencies searched locally for the criminals.
A few minutes passed, and the side door dropped down, and the occupants disembarked. Wolff drew a breath. There were five of them. Three men. Two women. They all looked to be aged in their twenties, just another ordinary group of executives, dressed in expensive suits and business attire. They looked like they could be lawyers.
Wolff had to hand it to them; they were professionals. There was nothing about the group to suggest they were anything other than a typical group of businesspeople traveling across the country t
o attend a meeting in Las Vegas.
‘I’m Anthony,’ the tallest of the group introduced himself. He had a soft voice and a firm handshake. ‘These are my associates. Michael. John. Ramona. Elizabeth.’
The General introduced himself.
‘Wolff,’ Anthony mused. ‘I knew a Ferdinand Wolff at the Battle of Chickamauga. Any relation?’
‘Possibly.’ Wolff reached into his pocket. ‘I have the address here for the operation.’
Anthony took the paper from him and read. ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘We’ll do this tonight.’
‘Tonight?’
‘Is that too soon?’
‘Not at all,’ Wolff said. ‘The sooner, the better.’
‘What are the abilities of these mods?’ Anthony asked.
Wolff described them.
‘Good,’ Anthony said. ‘It doesn’t sound like anything we can’t handle.’
Chapter Eight
I opened my eyes to darkness.
For a few confusing seconds, I thought I was still asleep. I’d been dreaming about wheat fields. The same dream had been returning night after night for months. I was in a wheat field, walking to a farmhouse in the distance. A boy was sitting on the front steps. As I drew closer, he stood and started toward me. His face blurred. The dream ended, and I awoke. I found myself staring up at the ceiling in the darkness.
My eyes shifted to the digital clock next to my bed.
3.14am
Great. I lay still and listened to the silence. I knew the sounds of the desert. The wind sweeping over the hills. A piece of metal that rattled on the porch. Tonight there was none of that, but I could hear something—a crackling sound.
Climbing out of bed, I threw some clothes on and wandered down the passageway. A light was on in Brodie’s room down the hall. She appeared in her doorway.
‘Do you hear that?’ she asked quietly.
‘What is it?’
‘Sounds like a fire.’
‘Out here?’
Another light snapped on down the hall. Chad blearily appeared with his hair askew. He never looked his best first thing in the morning; he looked even worse now.
‘Whassgoingon?’ he asked. ‘Whassthenoise?’
‘We’re not sure,’ Brodie said. ‘Sounds like a fire.’
Chad mumbled something and disappeared back into his room. I wasn’t sure what that meant, so we continued onto the porch. The night was dark, but the glow of Las Vegas still illuminated the night sky. Other nearby towns also bleached their glow into the sky.
‘What’s that?’ Brodie asked, pointing.
Another glow lay between nearby hills. I’d never seen it before. We started across the desert. After a few moments, Brodie grabbed my arm.
‘Wouldn’t it be faster if we flew?’ she asked.
‘I’m not sure if I trust—’
‘Let’s worry about that later. Someone might be in trouble.’
I formed an invisible platform, and we zoomed across the desert. Brodie was right. By the time we crested the hill, we could see what had caused the fire. A car lay overturned by the side of the road.
‘Oh boy,’ I said.
‘Bring us in close.’
We came into land directly next to the vehicle. Cars rarely came this way. This was one of those roads that literally led nowhere. Brodie and I had followed it one day. It trailed off after a couple of miles into the desert. I’m not sure it even had a name.
The car was alight and had been in flames for some time. Maybe this was what had awoken us; the sound of the car flipping on the road. There was no-one inside. Maybe they’d been thrown free.
We started searching for the driver but realized it would have been wise to bring flashlights. At that moment, the sound of footsteps crunching across the dry earth caught our attention.
‘Thanks for waiting!’ Chad yelled. Fortunately, he’d brought flashlights with him, so we started to methodically search the area by dividing it into a grid pattern. The minutes passed slowly as the car continued to burn. We extended the search area and covered that too.
This made no sense.
‘Where’s the driver?’ Brodie asked.
‘Maybe he was able to walk away, and he’s headed back to Vegas,’ Chad said. ‘People can walk away from nasty accidents.’
‘Maybe.’ I was still unconvinced. We returned to the car and searched for footprints around the wreck. If they existed, it was too dark to see them. The driver’s side door had broken off in the crash. I turned it over in the darkness.
‘Bring the flashlight over here,’ I asked Chad.
He shone it on the door. All three of us peered at a mark in the center of the door. There was no denying what it looked like, but that was impossible.
‘It looks like a footprint,’ Brodie said.
‘So the driver crashed his car,’ Chad said. ‘And then kicked the door off its hinges.’
‘That would take superhuman strength,’ I pointed out. ‘How is that possible?’
Chad frowned. ‘There’s something else that makes no sense either,’ he said. ‘What’s this car doing here? No-one comes this way in the middle of the day, let alone at night.’
‘Maybe someone wanted to draw us out here,’ Brodie suggested.
She could be right.
Our eyes searched the dark for attackers, but the desert was silent and still. There was only us out here.
A chill ran up and down my spine. ‘Not to draw us here,’ I said.
‘Then what?’ Chad said.
I turned back to the house. ‘To draw us away.’
Chapter Nine
Ebony had awoken in the darkness with no idea as to what roused her from her sleep. At first, she thought it was someone using the bathroom, but there was no sound of the toilet flushing. All the lights were out. The house was silent. She glanced at the clock.
3:30am
What the—
This was way too early to be awake. Turning over, Ebony closed her eyes again.
Time to sleep.
Except a noise was coming from the door.
Ebony always slept with her door open. She liked air circulating through her room at night. Her window was open too but locked into place, so it was two or three inches from the bottom.
The sound coming from her door sounded like scratching. Is it a rat? There were various types of small animals that lived in the desert. Maybe something had come in from outside. Tilting her head ever so slightly, she peered over to the door and saw only blackness.
Something bumped the side of her dressing table.
What the—?
Moving her line of sight away from the doorway, she tried to see her dressing table but found it impossible without moving her head. Now the sound seemed to move to the wall. It slowly ascended until there was another slight bump as it reached the ceiling. Ebony dared not move a muscle. She had no idea what it was, but it was big. She knew that by the way it collided with the ceiling.
Is it a bird? But no bird could be so large. What is it?
Only now did she allow herself to adjust her head in the darkness. She did so with infinitesimal movement, a tiny fraction at a time. Whatever it was in the room couldn’t possibly detect the slow movement.
Could it?
Her eyes moved to the ceiling above her dressing table. All she saw was darkness. One large patch of darkness. The longer she stared at the darkness, the more she thought it odd.
Why was that one patch so dark? It seems blacker than—
Something moved past her door.
It took every bit of control for Ebony to bite back a scream. Whoever—or whatever—it was that had moved by had done so in complete silence, without making a sound on the timber floors. It was like a ghost.
How is that possible?
Now Ebony returned her gaze to the space above her dressing table, and she felt a growing horror that chilled her to the soul. The patch above the dressing table was no longer in darkness. If anything, the ceili
ng looked uniformly dark. Ebony shifted her eyes again to the dressing table. Her bedside lamp was within reach. In the drawer lay a gun. Dan had been able to get it for her from a dealer in town. The poor man had thought he was selling it to a husband and wife from Tallahassee instead of a pair of teenagers with no identification.
Another sound came from the ceiling directly above her.
Ebony had never felt such terror in her life.
The dark shape that had hovered over her dressing table now hovered directly over her bed. It clung to the ceiling directly over her. To make matters worse, she thought she could make out some detail. In its own strange way, it looked like a spider.
An enormous spider.
She felt sick.
I have superpowers, Ebony reminded herself. I can turn a substance into anything of my choosing. I can turn a human being into salt if necessary. I can turn lead into gold.
She’d even spoken to Chad about how she could use non-lethal force against people if necessary. A person would be rendered immobile if she grabbed their clothing—their shirt, for instance—and transformed it into iron. They would be stuck in position, unable to make a move.
Think iron, she told herself. Think iron.
Just as she decided to reach across and snap her lamp on, the shape on the ceiling shifted position slightly. Two tiny red balls of light came to life directly above her. Ebony’s heart chugged like a steam engine as she felt her body grow rigid with fear.
Eyes. Those are eyes.
A pair of glowing red eyes were peering down at her from the ceiling.
Her left arm shot out and grabbed the light switch for the lamp. She snapped it on. At the same time, she reached up with her hand.
‘Iron!’ she snapped. ‘Ir—’
She got no further. A man lay back comfortably on the ceiling staring down at her. He was naked except for a pair of leather briefs. He appeared to be about twenty-five years of age, clean-shaven, muscular, and very pale. In the darkness, his eyes had burned bright red, but now the light was on, they were black. Even the normally white pupils were black. It was like looking at someone who had two black balls in their eye sockets instead of eyes.
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