Super Human

by Michael Carroll

  Abby stepped out. The side wall of the prison had been split open from the ground to the roof. The courtyard was almost hidden under tons of dust, bricks, and concrete debris. Nearby, protruding from the rubble, was a man’s boot.

  She stared at it for almost a minute, afraid to check whether there was a leg attached. If there was, then she was only two yards from a dead man.

  She looked away. Whoever he is, I can’t help him now.

  Climbing cautiously over the rubble, Abby made her way inside the prison building, into a large open room lined on two sides with barred cells. The only sound was a faint drip of water from somewhere to her right. Overhead, neon lights blinked on and off in an irregular pattern, allowing Abby to half-see the carnage within.

  The floor was strewn with bodies, most of them wearing dark orange jumpsuits.

  The one nearest Abby—a gray-bearded man who looked to be in his fifties—twitched and moaned loudly. The noise set off a chorus of groans and weak cries from some of the others. The man’s eyes flickered open, turned to Abby. “Sick... Help me...”

  She moved a little closer—but kept herself out of his reach. His eyes, mouth, and nose were coated with drying mucus and saliva. Beneath a tear-streaked layer of brick dust his skin was a yellowish-gray, shot through with red and blue veins.

  “Who did this?” Abby whispered.

  The man groaned again, and his eyes closed. “Men . . . Woman in red. Strong . . . Help me, please.”

  “There’s nothing I can do right now,” Abby said. “But help is on the way,” she lied. “It won’t be long.”

  She stood up. The woman in red. Slaughter. She moved farther into the building, carefully stepping over and around the fallen prisoners and guards. A few of them made weak attempts to reach out to her.

  In one of the cells Abby saw a man she knew for certain was dead. He was lying on the floor, a ragged hole in his throat big enough to fit a fist. His silver armor marked him as one of The Helotry’s men. They weren’t tracking us, Abby thought. They’d already been here and were on the way back. So why did they come here? What was here that could be of any use to them?

  She ascended a metal staircase to the next level. Many of the cells’ doors were open, but they all appeared to be empty. They must have come for someone in particular. But the plague . . . No, they would have found a way to immunize him against it. Unless he was already immune.

  She stopped. No . . .

  “Hey!” she shouted. “Can anyone hear me? Anyone not sick?”

  There was no response.

  Abby knew now who Slaughter had come to find. An unbelievably powerful superhuman. Someone who didn’t need to be immunized against the plague because it wouldn’t affect him.

  And she’d already seen him back in the town. The burning man. Pyrokine.

  A key turned in the lock, then the door creaked open.

  Tied arm and leg to a chair, Lance heard heavy footsteps approach, then the canvas bag was removed from his head. He felt a rough hand grab his chin while another pulled the strip of duct tape from his mouth. He gasped, taking in deep lungfuls of warm, fetid air. “Who’s there?”

  A voice said, “He’s not faking the blindness, then?”

  There was a rustle of cloth, and a second voice said, “Didn’t even flinch. He’s not faking it.”

  “Look, what do you want from me?” Lance said. “I honestly don’t know what’s going on here or who you think I am!”

  There was a slight sharp hiss from one of the men. “Not too convincing, kid. We already know you’re not Jason Myers, so give it a rest.”

  “What have you done with Dylan?”

  “The little girl? Gave her a cheese sandwich and a glass of milk. Brought her home.”

  “I wouldn’t say no to a cheese sandwich and a glass of milk myself,” Lance said. “I’m starving.”

  “Maybe if you tell us the truth. How about it, kid? Ready to spill the beans?”

  “No beans for me, thanks—they give me gas. Look, who are you people?”

  Someone slapped him hard across the face, and he almost toppled to the side.

  “This is how it works,” one of the voices said. “We ask. You answer. Comprende? Now. Tell us everything. From the car crash in Fairview onward. You found Marcus’s briefcase. You opened it. You found the address of the warehouse. Marcus was dumb enough to write down the alarm code, so you went in, you took the jetpack. Am I missing anything?”

  “Not so far,” Lance said. “Carry on.”

  Another slap, much harder than the last. Lance tasted blood in his mouth.

  “He doesn’t know anything else, Mr. Remington,” the first voice said. “Just finish him.”

  “I know all about the Fifth King,” Lance said.

  There was a pause, and Lance pictured the two men exchanging a look.

  “That’s right,” Lance said. “One of your guys from the power plant talked. Told the FBI everything. Names, dates, places . . .” Then he forced a smile. “They know all about Windfield, and they know about the virus. They’re already working on a vaccine.”

  “Well, good luck to them,” one of the men said. “A vaccine is useful only for people who aren’t already infected, and by now everyone is. The whole planet.”

  “Why?”

  A third slap. Lance’s face stung from the pain. He shook his head to try and clear it. “I forgot. I’m not supposed to ask questions.”

  “Who else knows about the Fifth King?”

  Lance did his best to shrug. “Everyone, I think.” His arms had been secured behind his back with cable ties. Ropes wouldn’t have been much of a problem—Lance was sure he knew enough about knots to get out of any rope, but cable ties were made from plastic, almost unbreakable, and couldn’t easily be opened once they were fastened—they had to be cut. It didn’t help that he still couldn’t see. For all he knew, there was someone standing silently behind him.

  “The other kids with you . . . We know all about Roz Dalton. Who are the other two?”

  Lance hesitated. “Before I tell you, I want permission to ask a question.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Do you know anything about me?”

  “Your full name is Lancelot Aaron McKendrick, fourteen years old. Father is Albert McKendrick, mother is Karina. You have an older brother called Cody.” The man called Remington rattled off a list of facts and figures about Lance and his family.

  “Right, but that’s not the real me,” Lance said. “In the past two years I’ve pulled dozens of scams and earned over five thousand bucks from people who still don’t know they’ve been conned. I can get into and out of almost any building. I could list off a hundred standard alarm bypass codes if you were interested. I know how to disappear on an empty street. I can break into and hot-wire any make of car in under a minute. I know how to rip off cash ATMs so that the bank doesn’t find out about it for weeks. So as for Roz and the others . . . I’m with them, but I’m not with them, if you know what I mean. I’m with them because I have nowhere else to go.”

  The man farthest away—Lance pictured him standing in front of the door—said, “This is the part where you pretend you’re really on our side so that we’ll cut you loose.”

  “What good would that do me? I’m blind.”

  “So it appears. But you weren’t blind earlier. It’s probably temporary.”

  Lance heard soft voices and shuffling feet from somewhere beyond the door, then an old woman’s voice said, “Leave him, Mr. Remington. He is of little use to us now, except as bait to trap his friends.”

  That means they haven’t been caught yet! “Who are you?” he asked. Taking a chance, he added, “Oh God. You’re her, aren’t you? The one your men were talking about.”

  The woman made a “Hmm?” noise.

  “Yeah, they said . . . Well, I don’t want to tell you what they said. I’m not allowed to use that sort of language. But you should probably be nicer to them. I mean, I know they’re only the hired h
elp but they have feelings too.”

  The woman laughed, a long, wheezing throaty noise that grated through Lance’s nerves. “He has spirit,” she said. “The Fifth King will find him amusing.”

  A thought struck Lance. “So you’re bringing back the Fifth King. . . . How do you know he wants to be brought back?” There was no reply, so Lance continued. “He won’t know anything about this world. Things like cars and airplanes and television will seem like witchcraft to him. He might have been a great warrior back in his time but he won’t know one end of a gun from the other. He won’t be able to speak English either. Did you think of that? And even if he could, what are you going to say to him? ‘Hi there, Fifth King. We brought you back. Look, we’ve killed more than half the people in the world just for you. Isn’t that cool? Now you can rule over a desolate ruin of a planet.’ Yeah, he’s going to be really happy to get here.”

  One of the men started to speak, but Lance interrupted him. “And there’s more. . . . What about the people he knew back then? How are you going to explain to him that they’re all long dead and he’ll never be able to see them again?”

  The old woman finally spoke directly to Lance: “Young man, we have been planning this day for more than four thousand years. I think that by now we’ll have thought of everything.”

  “Yeah, but suppose he doesn’t want The Helotry following him around and worshiping him? You’re totally screwed then. Or what if the process of bringing him back from the dead drives him insane? Then what’ll you do?”

  She shuffled closer. “He was the first superhuman. The father of us all. The greatest warrior this world has ever known.”

  “Can’t have been that great if he got himself killed.” Lance prepared himself for another slap but it didn’t come.

  Instead, the woman said, “You talk a lot, boy, but you say very little. And I suspect you know even less. I have met people like you before, many times. You think you can talk your way out of any situation, that you are smarter than everyone else. You are not. You are a blind fourteen-year-old boy with no friends and no hope of rescue.”

  “So what are you going to do next? Set your flying monkeys on me?”

  One of the men laughed and hurriedly turned it into a cough.

  “You think that if you enrage me I will order your death. Dead, you will not be able to betray your friends. A noble thought, perhaps, but it will not happen.”

  “Why not? You’ve already sentenced billions of people to death. You do realize that if there’s a heaven you’re not going to be allowed in, don’t you? There’ll be a sign on the gate: Mad evil old ladies who stink of poo need not apply.”

  She sighed. “A tiresome child, but perhaps he knows more than we realized. Feed him, Mr. Remington. Give him water. He will need his strength if he is to survive the interrogation long enough to give us the information we need. Then start with his fingers. For every answer that does not satisfy you, remove one knuckle at a time.” She paused, then with a hint of amusement in her voice she added, “If that does not work, release the flying monkeys.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Roz didn’t know how long she had been fighting Slaughter. It felt like forever, but it might have been only a few minutes.

  She was exhausted. Her head throbbed from the exertion of using her telekinesis so much. Her back and legs twinged with pain every time she moved, and inside her gloves she was sure that her hands were bloodied and a bruised.

  Despite the situation, she was still unsettled by the dream she’d had when, half-unconscious from the ferocity of Slaughter’s attack in Oak Grove, all she could think about was a tremendous sense of loss. Or rather the memory of a sense of loss.

  But the feeling kept slipping away whenever she thought she was getting close to it. I can’t let myself think about that now. Whatever it is, it’ll come back to me. Right now there are more important things to worry about.

  No matter what she did, Slaughter kept coming. She was faster and much stronger than Roz, but Roz’s telekinetic shield had so far been able to deflect most of the woman’s kicks and punches. She hasn’t killed me yet. That’s got to be driving her crazy.

  Roz knew that she wasn’t facing Slaughter at her best: The woman’s face was normally starkly beautiful—though cold and unsmiling—but now she looked even more exhausted than Roz felt. Her eyes were bloodshot, rimmed with dark patches, the lids heavy.

  She looks like she’s been going for days without a break, Roz thought. Or maybe not even that long. . . . We all get wiped out if we use our powers too much, and it could be that Slaughter burns through her energy a lot quicker than the rest of us.

  That made sense. In top condition Slaughter was almost unstoppable. She blazed into action and any fight was usually over in seconds. Roz remembered one of her brother’s many lessons: “No one has ever fought Slaughter for more than five minutes at most. She has been beaten, but it’s always taken at least three of us. If you ever encounter her, run away. That’s the only sensible course of action. She seems to act without thought, always operating on pure adrenaline and fury—so she can be distracted.”

  Throughout the battle with Roz, Slaughter had been using the same tactic again and again: strike hard, retreat, build up speed, strike again.

  She’s actually helping me, Roz thought. Every time she goes away I get a few minutes to hide and recover.

  Now, Roz was in an old train station, hiding among the wooden rafters above the platforms. A few moments ago she’d spotted Slaughter soaring through the air, searching for her. OK, enough rest. Have to get back out there.

  It was a simple plan, and one that Roz knew would freak out her brother if he ever found out about it: Roz could have remained hidden, but kept emerging to confront Slaughter.

  When she was nine years old, when her parents were still alive and the family lived in a sprawling suburban neighborhood, one of the neighbors had a small nasty terrier that attacked the kids on the street every chance it could get. One day Roz decided she’d had enough: She went out on her bike and, as always, the dog chased after her, yapping and barking.

  Usually Roz would just pedal faster until the dog grew tired and gave up, but on this occasion she kept her speed down, allowed the dog to get within biting distance of the bike’s back tire, then sped up. Every time it looked as though he was about to quit, she’d slow down again. After twenty minutes of this the exhausted dog finally looked around and realized he had no idea where he was or how to get home.

  The terrier didn’t find his way home for three days, and after that his owners never let him out on his own again. For a while Roz was treated as a hero by the other kids.

  Right now, she wasn’t entirely confident of the same trick working on Slaughter, but it was all she could think of. She knew that if she stayed hidden, Slaughter would give up and go after the others.

  She climbed down from the rafters and quietly made her way along the eastbound platform. At the end she dropped down onto the tracks and realized that the sky to the east was no longer a solid black—dawn was breaking. That’s not good. . . .

  A loud squawk and fluttering of wings from behind Roz: She turned to see a flock of pigeons take to the air, startled by Slaughter as she skimmed over the trees.

  Roz crouched on the tracks, prepared herself for the assault. Slaughter would rush at her, Roz would form a telekinetic shield, Slaughter would collide with it, and the two of them would bounce apart.

  But this time the growing light would make going into hiding again more difficult.

  The solution hit Roz like a tidal wave: She can only chase me if she can see me!

  She reached out with her telekinesis and forced Slaughter’s eyelids shut. The woman panicked, lost control. She plowed into the tracks beside Roz, the impact tearing up the sleepers and showering the area with fragments of bedrock.

  Lying on her back sprawled across the tracks and half-covered in debris, Slaughter screamed, “What have you done to me?”

  “I�
��ve severed your optic nerves,” Roz said. “Now give up or I’ll do the same thing to your spinal cord.”

  Slaughter’s gloved hands probed her face. “Liar. . . . You’ve closed my eyes!”

  Roz had never imagined that superhuman strength would extend to the muscles in someone’s eyelids, but now Slaughter was forcing them open and it was taking all of Roz’s telekinetic strength to keep them closed.

  But her telekinesis could control only one thing at a time. There has to be a way I can . . . Roz smiled. I’ve got hands, don’t I?

  She scooped up a pile of pebbles and dirt from the side of the track, walked over to Slaughter, and allowed the pile to spill into the woman’s open mouth. She darted back as Slaughter coughed and spat, rolled onto her hands and knees.

  “I’ll kill you for that!”

  “Yeah, yeah. . . .” Roz lobbed a fist-sized stone that bounced off Slaughter’s head. “Good shot!”

  “You think a rock can hurt me? I’ve already taken a bullet to the head today!”

  “I know. That was funny.”

  The woman rose into the air. “How far can your telekinesis extend? All the way into the upper atmosphere?” Her speed increased. “I’ll kill you later.”

  Roz watched as Slaughter became a dot against the early morning sky.

  She collapsed onto the ground and realized that she was trembling. I won. For now.

  Abby de Luyando stood in the prison officer’s staff room staring up at the TV set bolted to the wall. She had the remote control in her hand and flicked through channel after channel.

  Most of the channels showed only static, but some displayed a message: “We are experiencing technical difficulties—please stand by.”

  How are we supposed to find out how far the plague has spread? Millions of people could have died already and we’d never know!

  She wanted to go back out to the prisoners, but knew that it was pointless. The majority of them were unconscious and the rest were too delirious to communicate with her. At first she’d considered blocking up the shattered wall with some sort of barrier, but quickly realized that there was no point: The prisoners weren’t in any condition to escape, and there were few people on the outside who were capable of breaking in.