The general patted Paragon on the shoulder. “You did good work here today, son.”
“General, you’ve got to keep all this secret. We can’t let people know that the superhumans have lost their powers. It might only be temporary. But if not…”
“There’d be chaos. I understand. Every crook on the planet would think that all his birthdays had come at once. Max Dalton said the same thing.”
A soldier approached. “Sir? Dioxin…”
“What about him, soldier?”
“He’s…” The man looked sick and pale. “He’s gone, sir. There’s nothing left of him. Dissolved by his own acid.”
“Can’t say I’m sorry to hear that,” the general said. “All right. Get a crew on to it and start mopping up. Treat it as a level-one biohazard situation. I want every remaining particle of that man’s body bagged and labeled.” He turned to Paragon. “So what next?”
“Someone has to follow that tank’s path, find out where it came from. I want to know how something that big could have come this far without anyone noticing it. Then we’ve got to find Ragnarök and finish this once and for all.”
1
COLIN WAGNER RUSHED TOWARD THE burning toy store. Even from a hundred meters away he could feel the heat of the fire.
It was late December, a little after five-thirty in the evening, the streets packed with rush-hour traffic, the pavements blocked with shoppers carrying bags.
Colin and Renata had been on the other side of town, just about to start their Christmas shopping, when Colin heard the screams. They’d run to a deserted alley and changed into their costumes; Colin was wearing his father’s old Titan costume, which his mother had repaired and cut down to size. Renata was wearing black jeans, a black long-sleeved T-shirt under a short red leather jacket she’d bought for a fiver in the local charity shop, and a mask.
Now the two teenage superhumans pushed their way through the crowds. From far away, Colin could hear the sirens of half a dozen fire engines, all slowly trying to get through the dense Christmas traffic.
“Excuse me!” Colin said to a large man who—like hundreds of others—had stopped to watch the fire engulf the toy store.
The man glanced at Colin, then did a double take when he saw his costume and mask. “You’re Kid Titan! I saw you in the paper!”
Out of the corner of his eye, Colin saw that Renata was having better luck: she had leaped over the crowd and was now running across the roofs of the slow-moving cars, straight toward the burning building.
Colin ducked past the man, spotted a gap in the crowd and ran for it. He jumped on to the hood of a taxi, then on to the roof of a stalled Toyota. The Toyota driver beeped his horn in anger.
Ahead, Renata had reached the building. A frightened-looking, soot-covered woman in a scorched store uniform was talking to her. As he ran, Colin listened:
“We got everyone out of the ground floor, but there’s still people trapped upstairs. Part of the ceiling collapsed! The stairs are burning and there’s no way for them to get out!”
“OK. Get everyone back as far as possible. See if you can get someone to clear the way for the fire brigade.”
The woman nodded and turned back to the crowd.
Colin reached Renata just as she kicked her way through the remains of the burning wooden doors. “What happened?”
“She didn’t know. Said she was working in the storeroom at the back when the alarm went off. She got everyone out of the ground floor. But there’s—”
“More upstairs. I heard that.” Colin squinted around, trying to peer through the thick black smoke. “Stairs are over that way.”
“That woman said the stairs are burning.”
“We don’t have a choice,” Colin said. “Take a deep breath and run for it, OK? I’ll go first.”
“No, let me. I can always turn myself solid if the heat gets too much.”
They ran through the blackness toward the stairway, tearing their way through the displays of burning teddy bears and melting model kits. Renata took the stairs three at a time, with Colin close behind her.
Ahead of them was a wall of flame; Colin could feel the heat beginning to singe his costume. Without hesitating, Renata plunged into the fire. Colin followed and seconds later he crashed into something cold and hard.
Renata had turned herself solid.
Darn it! Colin thought. The heat was too much for her! They were still in the middle of the flames. Colin grabbed Renata’s solid form around the waist and picked her up. He continued up the stairs, moving a little slower now.
He emerged from the flames at the top of the stairway and took a moment to breathe. Ahead was a locked fire door and he could hear something pounding on the other side of it. Knowing that time was crucial, Colin didn’t waste any looking around for something to smash open the door. He muttered, “Sorry about this!” to Renata, then ran straight for the door, using her solid form as a battering ram.
The door crashed open and Colin saw a scared, red-faced man on the other side, holding on to a baseball bat. His name-badge read, “Hi, I’m Dave!”
Colin let Renata drop to the floor and pushed the door closed. “You can’t go that way! The fire’s too hot!”
“What are we going to do?” the assistant screamed. “The sprinklers didn’t come on! We used the extinguishers but they didn’t make much difference.”
Colin looked around. The room was thick with smoke, the only light coming from the fire at the far end of the room. A small bunch of people were huddled together in the middle of the room, coughing, keeping low to the floor, where the air was a little more clear. “How many others up here?”
“Five, including me,” the man said. “I tried to break the windows with this…” He waved the baseball bat. “They’ve got wire mesh in them.”
On the floor beside them, Renata turned back to her human form and got to her feet. Colin could see that her hands and arms were covered in large white blisters. “Sorry,” she said. “I panicked.”
“Punch out the windows,” Colin said. “I’ll try to find something I can use to lower everyone down.” To the assistant, he said, “Dave, round up everyone. Get them over to the windows. Tell them to keep low.”
All right, Colin said to himself as Renata ran toward the windows. What’s on this floor? Dolls, action figures, books, puzzles…Nothing I can use.
There was a crashing sound as Renata punched and tore her way through the wire-mesh glass.
What can I do to get everyone out? Need a rope or something… He yelled out to the assistant, “Dave! Jump ropes!”
“Downstairs, next to the register!” the man called back. “Actually, there’s a special on this week…Sorry. Force of habit.”
“Great,” Colin muttered. He listened carefully: the fire engines were still a few minutes away. Then, from the floor below, he heard a series of small explosions. The paint for the model kits, he realized. It’s flammable! “We have got to get out of here now!” he yelled to Renata.
“It’s too far for them to jump!” she called back.
With a crack, the roof at the far end of the room collapsed, showering them with white-hot sparks.
“You jump!” Colin said to Renata, running over to her. “I’ll drop everyone down to you!”
Renata nodded, then vaulted out of the window. As Colin lifted up the nearest woman, he caught a glimpse of Renata’s skin and costume glistening as she turned solid. Seconds later, he heard her call, “I’m ready!”
The woman in Colin’s arms began to panic as he lifted her over the window ledge. “No! It’s too far!”
“Just close your eyes,” Colin said.
“Can’t you just fly us down? What the hell kind of superhero are you?”
“The kind who can’t fly,” Colin said, then dropped her. Below, Renata was waiting with her arms outstretched. She caught the woman and lowered her to the ground. The watching crowd clapped and cheered.
“Next!” Colin yelled.
A second section of the roof collapsed, sending the flames surging toward them. Colin turned back to see that Dave was lifting a teenage boy—not much older than Colin—in his arms. Dave dropped the boy down to Renata.
A coughing, wheezing elderly man was next. As carefully as he could—knowing that old people’s bones could be very fragile—Colin lifted the man up. “Hold on to my hands, OK? Can you do that?”
Still coughing, the man nodded.
Colin lifted the old man out and—gripping on to his hands—leaned out of the window and lowered him down as far as he could go.
“Do it!” Renata shouted. “I’m ready!”
Colin let go, but the old man twisted somehow at the last second, swung away. Renata made a grab for him…And missed.
There was a gasp of shock from the crowd when he hit the ground. The man’s left leg was bent at an unnatural angle. Renata crouched beside him, but he waved her away. “No, help the others!”
A young woman was next. Renata caught her easily, helped by the teenage boy.
Colin looked around. “Who’s next?”
“Me,” Dave said. “I’m the last one.” He was already climbing on to the ledge. “Kid Titan, isn’t it?” He smiled. “We’ve been watching you on the news…Just this week we must have had thirty people coming in looking for action figures of you and Diamond!”
Before Colin could respond, there was a loud creak from the roof above them. He lashed out, pushing Dave out of the window just as the rest of the roof collapsed on top of him. At the same time, the floor gave way.
Colin coughed and blinked rapidly. Blacked out for a second. He was flat on the floor, facedown, covered in burning toys and ceiling tiles. He could feel a heavy steel girder across the back of his legs.
Then he heard Renata rushing into the store. She pulled the girder off him, threw it to one side, then lifted him to his feet. “You all right?”
Colin groaned. “I’m never shopping here again. How’s Dave?”
“The assistant? He’s OK. I caught him.” Renata suddenly jumped. “Your arm’s on fire!”
Colin slapped the flames out, then looked down at his costume. It was covered in burns and rips, and his cape was in shreds. “My mother’s going to kill me!”
“Come on, let’s get out of here before the rest of the place caves in.”
“Wait! Is my mask on straight?”
“It’s fine.”
They made their way out of the shop and into a sudden flurry of camera flashes. The crowd was cheering wildly, shouting, “Kid Titan! Kid Titan!” over and over. A few—mostly teenage boys—were trying to drown the others out by shouting, “Di-a-mond! Di-a-mond!”
“My fans are here,” Renata said.
“What, both of them?” Colin said, his white grin spreading across his soot-blackened face.
A TV reporter rushed up. Without asking their permission, he pushed his way between them, turned to face the camera and began speaking. “Barney Macintosh here with the new heroes known as Diamond and Kid Titan, at the scene of a daring rescue. Diamond, if I can turn to you first…What were your thoughts as you selflessly entered the burning building?” He pushed his microphone up to her face.
Renata said, “No comment,” then turned and walked away.
“Er…Kid Titan! Do you have anything you’d like to say?”
Colin nodded. “Yeah. My name is Titan, not Kid Titan!” He turned his back on the reporter and followed Renata.
As they were making their way across the rooftops, to the alley where they’d stored their civilian clothes, Renata said, “We did good tonight.”
“We shouldn’t have let that reporter talk to us. The camera was pretty close.”
“Col, you’re wearing a mask and your face is covered in soot. No one would be able to recognize us.” Renata paused. “Sorry about what happened on the stairway. The heat was just too much for me.”
“That’s OK. Sorry about using your head as a battering ram,” Colin said as he used the end of his cape to wipe his face.
She laughed. “Danny’s going to love that one!” They approached the edge of the roof. “Where are we now, exactly?”
“Bishop Street.” It was an easy jump to the building on the other side of the alley, not much more than the length of a large car. Colin stepped back, took a short run and cleared the gap.
Renata landed next to him.
“So you think Danny’s ever going to get his powers back?” Colin asked.
“How would I know?”
“Well, you’ve been a superhuman for longer than we have. Besides,” he added cautiously, “you and he have been spending a lot of time together.”
“Yeah, well…He needs us around. It’s not easy for him. I don’t mean about his powers or his arm. All that stuff with his dad.”
“You mean his real dad or Façade?”
“Façade. I don’t think he should have told Danny’s mother the truth.”
“Renata, he wasn’t legally married to her! He pretended to be her husband for years!”
“If he hadn’t told her, she’d never have thrown him out of the flat.”
“Can you blame her? No relationship can survive that sort of lie! What if you were her, and you found out that for eleven years you’d been living with a former supervillain who…” Colin paused, listening.
“What is it?”
“A scream, somewhere behind us. Come on!”
They turned and ran back the way they’d come, racing across the flat rooftops, jumping across the alleyways and narrow streets.
“There!” Colin said in a loud whisper. He pointed down into a dark alley, six stories below. “Four men, mugging a young couple. Think you can jump down there?”
Renata didn’t bother to answer: she just threw herself off the edge.
Colin watched as her skin suddenly glistened and turned transparent. There was a crash as she hit the ground. He saw the four large men spin to face her, one of them holding a knife.
Colin stepped back, took a deep breath and ran. He launched himself across the alleyway and landed on the metal fire escape three floors below, then vaulted over the edge and dropped to the ground next to Renata just as the knife-wielding man charged.
Renata lashed out with a side kick, knocking the knife from the man’s hand.
There was a moment’s pause, then Renata yelled at the muggers’ victims: “Get out of here! Phone the police!”
The man grabbed the woman’s arm. “C’mon, Jackie! Let’s go!”
“No, but…”
“Come on!”
The couple rushed past Colin and Renata, and stopped when they reached the street. “Great,” Colin muttered. “They’re hanging around to watch.”
“Forget about them,” Renata said. “Let’s just sort these guys out.”
One of the men—large, muscled, bald—advanced on them. “What’s this? It’s a little late for Halloween, kids. Turn around and go home.”
“No,” Renata said. “We’re taking you in. Citizen’s arrest.”
The men laughed. The one nearest Renata—a short, stocky man in his early twenties—reached out to grab hold of her arm.
Renata spun about, knocking his hand aside.
“Hey, that hurt!”
There was a brief pause, then the stocky man shouted, “Get ’em!”
Something crashed into Colin’s back, almost knocking him off balance. The bearded man had rushed him from behind and locked his arms around his chest. The one with the shaved head swung his fist at Colin’s face. There was a loud crack and the man gasped.
“Oh God! My hand!” He collapsed to his knees.
Colin had felt the force of the punch, but no pain. He grabbed hold of the bearded man’s arms, quickly ducked down and flipped the man over his shoulder, slamming him heavily to the ground.
Colin looked around to see that Renata was holding the fourth man by the throat. On the ground next to her, the stocky man was groaning and clutching his stomach.
“Are you going to play nice?” Renata asked.
“Please don’t hurt me! I’ll do anything you want!”
“Good.” She opened her hand and he dropped to the ground. “Stay put and keep quiet!”
“What exactly are you trying to do?” Colin asked the bearded man, who was now repeatedly punching him in the face. He grabbed hold of the man’s fist and twisted his arm around, forcing him down.
The stocky man suddenly scrambled to his feet and made a run for it. “I’ll get him!” Renata yelled as she chased after him.
Colin let go of the man’s hand and stepped back, pleased with himself. Not a bad night’s work, he thought. Now comes the tricky part. He’d have to keep these men here until the police arrived, then get away before they could ask too many questions.
He looked around to see that the young couple were still at the entrance to the alley, peering in. The woman was using her mobile phone. “Yes! Four of them! And these two kids flew down out of the sky and just beat the hell out of them! No, I am not making this up!”
There was a groan from the ground beside Colin. He turned to see the bald mugger slowly getting to his feet.
“Stay down if you know what’s good for you,” Colin said. He put his foot on the man’s neck and applied a little weight.
The man coughed into the dirt. “Who…who are you?”
“Who am I?” Colin replied. He had been waiting for this moment. “I’m the one the bogeyman is afraid of. I’m the new face of justice. I’m your worst nightmare.”
He crouched down, leaning closer to the man. “You’d better warn the rest of your low-life friends that there’s a new hero in town. You and your kind won’t be tolerated any longer.”
Colin stood up and folded his arms. He wished there was a breeze that would make his cape flap about a little. “Who am I? I’m Titan.”
And that was when one of the other muggers hit Colin across the back of his head with a plank of wood.
Colin felt someone slapping his face and he shook himself awake. “What? What happened?”
Renata pulled him up into a sitting position. “Looks like your powers took the wrong moment to desert you. You OK?”
The Gathering Page 2
