Frostburn (Ultrahumans Book 4)

by Niall Teasdale

  Life was just one, long shit parade. You could never catch a break. Many of his friends at school had fantasised about getting Ultrahuman powers, and so becoming rich and famous. Gary had entertained the idea himself a couple of times, but somehow he knew that if he turned out to be a mutant, life would twist it into shit. And he had been right.

  So, Gary Hopper lay awake in his bed and contemplated the American Dream. Work hard and you would better yourself in the Land of Opportunity. Yeah right. Opportunity could go fuck itself.

  San Jose, CA, 20th November.

  His name was Simon Taverner and he was a good-looking man used to the attention of women, the envy of men, and a certain amount of trouble. He had been in and out of jail a few times, largely thanks to his sister who really had it in for him, even if she tried to keep their relationship on the down-low. Like his sister, he had powers: both of them could manipulate sound, but Simon’s abilities were distinctly destructive and he had used them to rob a few liquor stores when his career as a musician failed to provide him with the right kind of lifestyle. There were a couple of assault charges against him too, because he had a tendency to try to pick up the wrong girls. ‘Wrong’ generally meant ‘has a boyfriend with muscles.’

  The blonde who approached his table in a short red dress was accompanied by a man who looked like he could bend iron bars with his teeth. On the other hand, the woman had a warm smile, if you ignored the hint of ice in her eyes, and she was smiling right at Simon.

  ‘Hey, babe,’ Simon tried. ‘Can I do something for you?’ He figured the implication of what he wanted to do for her was clear in his own, leering smile. She was gorgeous. Long blonde hair, generous tits, slim, fit. Her body was barely concealed by her dress and she had the face of a model, when Simon managed to pull his eyes away from her cleavage.

  ‘Why yes, honey, you sure can.’ Southern accent. Sexy as Hell. She slipped into the booth and the man took up position beside her, but still standing, facing out toward the room. A bodyguard? ‘I have a little proposition for you, Simon. I can call you Simon, can’t I? I have a feeling we’re gonna be friends.’

  ‘You know who I am?’

  ‘Oh yes. Rex here has spent quite a while tracking you down. You’re Simon Taverner. Sometimes you’re called Beatdown. Now don’t look like that. I said I was a friend, didn’t I?’

  Simon narrowed his eyes. ‘What is it you want, lady?’

  ‘Diamond. People call me Diamond. I’m organising a little party in San Francisco and I need a musician with certain talents.’

  ‘If I go near San Francisco, Lament will be on me like a bad paint job.’

  Diamond smiled again, brighter. ‘Oh, but that’s just the way I want it to play out, honey. I’ll lay out my cards. How would you like to make a lot of money, have a lot of power, and get your own back on your sister? Opportunity is knocking, Simon, honey. What do you say? Raise or fold?’

  Simon pulled himself up straighter. ‘Okay, you got my attention. What exactly are you planning?’

  New Millennium City, MD, 22nd November.

  As Jacob walked up to the front door of the house, the thought occurred to him that he was going to need to buy a car. He had always had a UID vehicle to drive… Well, worry about that when they finally took his keys off him.

  He pressed the doorbell and waited, looking around at the clutter which was occupying much of the normally clear area in front of the house. Three big crates were parked side-by-side near the trees and there were a few more metal boxes scattered about, blocking in the Honda which Jacob had always figured June drove. There was also a new structure which looked more permanent: a vaguely dome-shaped lump embedded in the ground a few yards out and surrounded by what appeared to be disturbed earth. A larger excavation had been back-filled and the little bell-building constructed toward the far end of it. It looked kind of like the radar domes you saw on battleships now Jacob thought about it. Andrea had said something about a computer, but what did you need that kind of building, or that kind of digging, for if you were having a computer put in?

  ‘Admiring the new architecture?’ Andrea said from behind him.

  Jacob turned and smiled. ‘Some sort of top secret UoU project?’

  ‘I could tell you, but then I’d have to feed you to a demon. Come on in. Hugh’s… I’d say he was ready for you, but you’ve met him, right? He forgot all about you until two seconds ago and now he’s champing at the bit.’

  ‘I remember.’ Jacob followed Andrea through to the lounge, which was fuller than usual. Adamantium and Brightstar had left, but there was Hugh and Alice Last, Cygnus and June, and another woman Jacob had not met before, all sitting around over coffee.

  ‘Okay…’ Andrea said. ‘The only one you don’t know is Elaine Ellis. Elaine, this is Jacob Dannon, my boyfriend. Elaine works for FTI in San Francisco and she happens to be the person who designed and built Ultramech.’

  ‘Backroom,’ Jacob said. ‘You’re a member of the Stars, right?’

  ‘Got it in one,’ Elaine replied, ‘but you just call me Elaine, because Hugh’s got a load of scanners he’s going to point at you and you don’t want to be worrying about names when he’s got you stripped to your boxers.’

  ‘Briefs,’ Andrea corrected, grinning and knowing that Jacob was going to be blushing.

  ‘And I don’t think we’ll need to see them,’ Alice added, giving Jacob a smile. ‘How have you been, Jacob? I understand things haven’t quite settled down, but otherwise?’

  ‘Never been fitter, Mrs… Um, Alice.’

  ‘Good boy.’

  ‘And my lovely Alice is right,’ Ultimate said, getting to his feet. ‘This equipment isn’t sensitive enough for clothing to make a difference. If, as I suspect, we will get little from further analysis with this, then we will have Andrea strip you and toss you into the scanner back at HQ, but that is for another day.’

  ‘Now we’re talking,’ Andrea commented, deadpan.

  ‘From what I’m told,’ Ultimate went on, ‘the episodes coincide with anxiety, stress, anger…’

  ‘That’s what it seems like,’ Jacob replied. ‘Uh, I’ve had a couple of cases of it happening following a nightmare. More localised than the interview room, usually, but it seems like the same thing.’

  ‘An adrenaline response?’ Alice suggested.

  ‘That would seem likely,’ Ultimate agreed. ‘I’ll run some genome simulations based on that theory.’ Ultimate pointed a handheld scanner at Jacob, his eyes on a small display screen. ‘Let’s be clear, your reaction to Excelsior is unique, Jacob. You possess a mutation of the EMX-one gene associated with Ultrahuman powers, but that variation is not one of the “mutant” ones. It is quite clear that Excelsior activated your genes rather than an accident of birth.’

  ‘But it usually just activates it, right?’ Andrea said. ‘Like the girl I found in the mall? She suddenly developed uncontrolled telepathy.’

  ‘I believe that “usually” is an inappropriate word for what Excelsior does to Ultrahumans. Unpleasant outcomes are more likely, certainly, but variation is far more common than initial evidence would appear to suggest. You, for example, Andrea, it killed, even if briefly, but it may also have contributed to your ability to take control of your shadow-side. In Jacob, it exhibited the “normal” effects for a non-latent, but then activated gene variations which almost never result in power development.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Jacob asked.

  ‘Very seriously. I won’t bore you with the details, but a pair of mutations to the gene are required for any Ultrahuman to develop. However, those two changes are extant in some eighty-three per cent of the world population. Genetic clock analysis suggests that those changes happened to a substantial portion of the population during the Second World War.’ Ultimate glanced at Andrea and then Cygnus. ‘Kopf identified them during his time working for the government. It’s highly likely that everyone in this room has them. I don’t know for sure about June and Elaine, but Alice does and I don’t
think she would have reacted to Excelsior as you have.’

  ‘Perhaps an environmental factor,’ Alice said. ‘They were trying to freeze both Jacob and Andrea to death when they were dosed with the disgusting stuff.’

  ‘Quite likely, but we may never know. Certainly, most people who develop powers as the result of an accident or experiment, the A- and S-class Ultras, have another mutation present which makes expression more likely, and includes them within the “latent” category. You, Jacob, do not. You are lucky to be alive, young man. I would suggest that your forced adaptation saved you from hypothermia.’

  ‘I’m not feeling so lucky right now,’ Jacob replied.

  ‘No, I would imagine not, and this scanner is giving me exactly what I expected. There is nothing here suggesting cosmic energy emission or absorption. I want to run a new bio-analysis to work with, but I think we’re going to have to put you in the big scanner.’

  ‘Awesome!’ Andrea said, grinning.

  ‘Yeah,’ Jacob said. ‘Awesome.’

  23rd November.

  Some said that anyone taking a night flight from the west coast to the east on a Saturday night had no life. Eric Hoffman preferred to think he had dedication and, now that he was back on the ground after an uncomfortable night on a plane, with his back aching thanks to his recent injury, he certainly had to believe it was dedication that kept him going.

  His doctors had not been happy with his decision to get back to work. They did not understand what drove him. They had said the vertebrae which had been cracked by his fall were healed and that was good enough. Someone was killing people in New Millennium City. Freezing them to death. The UID were on it, but they had procedures which got in the way. Night Shift had no procedures to get in his way. Night Shift did what was needed and the details usually worked themselves out later.

  There was, apparently, a suspect, though the evidence was not clear. A UID agent who had started exhibiting Ultrahuman powers. Bad cops were one of Hoffman’s hot buttons, but there was another reason he had flown thousands of miles with a bad back to work on this case: Twilight had told him to stay out of New Millennium City. No one told Night Shift what to do! Certainly not a woman who terrorised criminals and had been under investigation by the UID herself. A little investigation prior to leaving the Bay had uncovered that the suspect, Dannon, was in a relationship with Twilight, which was just icing on the cake. When Night Shift hauled the guy’s ass in, preferably after he resisted arrest, Twilight would be that extra bit humiliated.

  No, no one told Night Shift to keep out of their city. He could not wait to get into his armour and get to work. And he firmly ignored the part of his mind that was telling him that his desire to get into armour was partially because it provided a lot of support for his aching back.

  ~~~

  Elaine stepped back from the panel in the wall and considered her work. Then she nodded. ‘Okay, power couplings are set. We’re ready to throw the switches.’

  In the reactor room, Doctor Ultimate looked up from the diagnostic displays which were currently running on battery power. Charging the reserve power cells had been quite an exercise in itself… ‘Everything seems functional here,’ he called back. ‘Would you get Cygnus? I think she should be the one to do the honours.’

  ‘Okay,’ Elaine replied and set off into the computer room. You went through there from the central hub area to get to the hatch up into the vault. There were now rungs set into the plastic-coated walls which you could climb if you were unable to fly or teleport. Elaine climbed, and then ascended the steps. She poked her head up above the lounge floor and said, ‘Okay, girls, it’s Big Moment Time. Hugh thinks you should turn everything on, Cygnus.’

  ‘Is that in case it blows up?’ Cygnus asked as she got up from the sofa.

  ‘If it blows up, not being in the same room isn’t going to do much.’

  ‘You know, that’s not very encouraging, Elaine.’

  ‘Quit worrying. It won’t blow up. It might not do anything, but blowing up is pretty much not on the option list.’

  Cygnus did not climb down the ladder, she floated down, and Andrea still beat them all to the hub area by shadow-stepping down. ‘Show off,’ Cygnus commented and started for the right-hand door in the wall.

  ‘Hold up,’ Elaine said. ‘You should see this before we power everything up.’ She indicated the panel she had been working on. ‘We’ll be sealing this up behind that metal plate in a bit, but this is the main fuse box for the whole deal. I mean, “fuse” is a little low-tech for what it is, but it’s good enough. We’ve rigged the whole building so that you can switch back to mains power from here.’

  ‘Which is why we had no electricity for an hour yesterday, right?’ June asked.

  ‘Right. Mains power comes in on this circuit here, the one with the glowing green light. You flip this switch here and you cut out mains to the house. The one below it with no lights on, that’s the reactor circuit. When we turn the reactor on, we’ll get a red light. The circuit is rigged so that you can’t ever have both on green. You must switch the current supply off before moving over to the other. Don’t worry, now that we have all the circuits in, if both are off, the house goes to reserve power.’

  ‘With you so far, says the model.’

  Elaine grinned. ‘And on the other side here, we have three outputs. See you have a green light, a red, and both off. The top switch, with the green light, is the house supply, then you have the computer and force screen feeds. If you need to, you can run the computer on mains power so there’s a mains feed there, but it’s off. If you try that with the force screen, you’ll probably brown-out most of the city before the local substation explodes. Given that, we didn’t even bother putting a mains feed in. It gets its power straight from the reactor. And… That’s about it. On to the main show.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Doctor Ultimate said. ‘I’m afraid we lack a Big Red Switch to just turn the reactor on.’ He frowned. ‘We really should have thought of that. Alice, remind me to design in a Big Red Switch if we go into production.’

  Alice smirked. ‘I’ll make a note.’

  ‘Very good. Now, Cygnus, if you would step over here…’

  The reactor itself was a bulky cylinder about five feet in height and maybe three across, a metallic cylinder with little in the way of features to it. Thick, metal conduits emerged from it at various points, feeding into other boxes and cylinders set around the core unit. Some of those looked distinctly alien, while others were clearly of Earth design: power converters of various sorts to change the output of the reactor into separate lines for the house, computer, and screen.

  ‘Now then,’ Ultimate went on, indicating a panel set into the side of the reactor, ‘we have two switches and two buttons, and we operate them in order. So, flip the first switch down…’ Cygnus reached out and flipped a toggle switch from up to down. Nothing appeared to happen. ‘All good so far. Flicking that switch to up will cause an immediate shutdown. Remember that.’

  ‘Got it,’ Cygnus said.

  ‘Also got it,’ Andrea said. ‘Seeing as I could get here faster in an emergency, I figure I should know.’

  ‘Wise,’ Ultimate agreed. ‘Now, the first of the buttons. Press and hold until the second button lights up.’ Cygnus did as he said. ‘You’re charging the ignition capacitors. It should take… fifteen to twenty seconds.’ Now there was a sound, a soft hum from somewhere deep within the reactor pod that grew louder but never quite managed to achieve menacing. The light came on behind the second button. ‘And now you press that one…’

  Feeling like this was, indeed, the Big Moment, Cygnus moved her hand and pressed in the button which, despite Ultimate’s earlier assertion, was glowing red. Almost immediately, there was a loud thud as something happened inside the pod. This was followed by a high-pitched whine which died slowly away and then…

  ‘Is anything happening?’ June asked.

  ‘Wait for it…’ Ultimate replied. And a green light flicked on
over the last of the switches. Ultimate smiled. ‘We have ignition. The last switch cuts the reactor power through to the output circuits. Just let me check my instruments before we do that…’ He hurried about, checking handheld gadgets and diagnostic displays built into the equipment, nodding and smiling as he went. ‘All good. Flip the switch.’

  Cygnus flipped the switch. It was a somewhat anticlimactic experience, but Elaine said, ‘We’ve got a light on the circuit breaker. We’re getting power through.’

  ‘Then let us proceed to the next stage,’ Ultimate said.

  Just to try it, Cygnus reached up and flipped the reactor-feed switch down without turning off the mains. Nothing happened, and when she let go, the switch sprang straight back up. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Pretty fool proof. I don’t think I’m likely to mess that up.’

  ‘Not our first electrical system design,’ Elaine said.

  Cygnus grinned at her and flipped the mains switch up. The light went red and there was not even a flicker in the mains power light. She took a deep breath and flipped the reactor switch again. The light went green and the switch stayed down.

  ‘Welcome to the first house in the world to be powered by a cosmic energy conversion reactor,’ Doctor Ultimate said. ‘I suggest we try some cosmic coffee before we turn on the computer. I’m not sure my nerves can take too many of these events in short succession.’

  ‘He was just the same when he started his first fusion reactor,’ Alice said. She patted June on the shoulder. ‘Come on, let’s go boil some cosmic water.’

  ‘Cool,’ June replied. ‘I can’t wait to try cosmic cooking and take a cosmic shower.’

  ‘Personally,’ Cygnus said, ‘I’m holding out for the cosmic hot tub. I bet the cosmic bubbles are going to be awesome.’

  ~~~

  ‘I’m simply saying,’ Doctor Ultimate said, ‘that prefacing everything with “cosmic” is probably going to wear thin fairly rapidly.’

  ‘Probably before the end of today,’ Cygnus agreed. ‘But for now it’s funny.’