He turned to face his parents. “Sorry. We’re doing a report on the superhumans in school. Anyway. I’d better get going.”
When he reached the kitchen door, he turned back. “Dad? How far is Oak Grove from here?”
Abby had spent the past hour listening to Solomon Cord spinning lies to her mother about who he was and what he was doing in Midway. Cord had told her he was Jason Myers, an inspector for the school board. “If you are talking to anyone from Abigail’s school,” he’d told her, “please don’t mention I was here. Fact is I’m also checking up on them. If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you some questions.”
At first Mrs. de Luyando had been only too happy to answer anything Cord asked, and by careful manipulation he was able to build a better picture of how the world had changed. But now she was becoming suspicious. “Are you investigating me too, is that it, Mr. Myers?”
“Not at all. No, I just have a few questions, nothing too personal. So, Vienna is the eldest, then Abigail, then…?”
“Tyler and James, they’re eight. Twins. And then Stefan and Elvis. They’re seven. Also twins.”
Cord smiled. “Two sets of twins? Must be quite a handful!”
“At times, yes.” Mrs. de Luyando didn’t return the smile.
She’s not buying this, Abby thought.
“And their father…?” Cord asked.
“He’s gone, Mr. Myers. I’m sure that’s all in your files. He had an affair and I threw him out. Does that answer your question?”
Whoa… Abby sat back. Dad had an affair? She never told me that!
“Has he been providing any form of regular child supp—”
The phone rang and Abby jumped up. “I’ll get it!” She raced out to the hall and picked up the handset. “Hello?”
A man’s voice said, “Abigail de Luyando?”
“Who’s calling?”
“Just tell me—are you Abigail de Luyando?”
“Who wants to know?”
“This is Max. The real Max. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Yeah, I think I do. So it happened to you too?”
There was a sigh of relief. “The whole world has changed, and from what I can tell, the only ones who know about it are you, me, Roz, Paragon, and Brawn. Roz is being brought to me now. It’s likely that the same thing has happened to Thunder and Lance McKendrick. Thunder lives near you, right?”
“A couple of miles away. But I don’t know the exact address, or his real name.”
“That doesn’t matter. If you get close enough to him, he’ll hear you calling him. Take Paragon and go find him, then the three of you find somewhere safe and keep out of sight. Roz and I will figure out a way to get to you.”
“What about Brawn and Lance?”
“Brawn could be a problem. He’s gone to ground, but it won’t be long before they catch him. As for Lance…Last I heard he’d also gone on the run. We’ve no way of knowing where he was when the change happened. And he’s not a superhuman, Abby. We don’t have the time to go hunting for him.”
“But he—”
Dalton interrupted her. “Cord was supposed to be meeting you today. Is he still there?”
“Yeah, he’s here.”
“Get him.”
“OK, but—”
“Just do what you’re told, Abby!” Max roared. “Get him on the phone right now!”
James Klaus was still more than thirty miles from Midway when he was spotted by an army patrol.
As he traveled, he’d been using his powers to listen to the patrols. So far, he’d managed to avoid being seen by taking detours and hiding when necessary, but this time he was out of luck.
From what he had overheard, in this world traffic control was stricter than he’d ever imagined. Unless it was absolutely unavoidable, almost no one was allowed to use the highways or other national roads at night or between nine in the morning and five in the evening. This was supposed to be a security measure: The entire country was permanently in a state of high alert.
He was on a long straight stretch of road—a road he didn’t remember ever seeing before on his many trips to the farm—when he heard a vehicle coming up from behind. It was still two miles behind him, but the new road offered no cover on either side, and its slight downward slope didn’t give him much of a boost on the skateboard.
As the vehicle neared, he could hear the voices of the men inside:
“Satellites spotted him six minutes ago, heading south. Scanned and transmitted the biometrics back to Central. They’re backed up right now, but ten’ll get you one that the kid doesn’t have authorization to be out.”
“Farmhand, maybe?” another voice asked.
“On a skateboard? Unlikely. You want to apprehend him?”
A third voice, deeper and older: “What do we have him on?”
“We’ve definitely got him on Habzone breach and unauthorized mode of transport, Captain. If he’s been within six miles of the base, we might be able to get him on attempted infiltration of a military installation.”
The captain said, “Hmm. Identity?”
“It’s just coming through…. OK, biometrics give a ninety-six percent probability that he’s James Percival Klaus, age sixteen. Listed residence is eighty-seven Maple Towers, Midway. No known dissident connections. Son of Shawna Quillan Klaus, adopted son of Rufus Kenneth Halliburton. One half sister, Shiho, age seven.”
“What’s he doing out here on a school day?”
“According to school records he was logged in this morning along with the rest of the students. No idea how he ended up this far away…. Here’s something. His birth father is Darrien Tobias Klaus. Original owner of the land now occupied by the base.”
There was a pause, and then the captain said, “All right. I’m thinking we haven’t seen a Habzone breach like this in a long time…. Could be a diversion—I wouldn’t put it past Daedalus to use a kid. Contact Central. Tell them we need flyers—Skimmers and Jetmen should do it. Full-blanket coverage, twenty-mile radius of the base. They spot anything else unusual, they’re to go in with all guns blazing. We’ve had enough weird stuff happening already today. Maximum speed. Let’s see whether Klaus runs or surrenders.”
James cursed himself for not sticking to the back roads. All right, then. They know who I am, but they don’t know what I can do. There’s no way I can outrun them. And I’m sure not going to surrender.
He concentrated on the sound generated by the patrol vehicle’s engine, modified it, and sent it back with an underlying grinding noise.
“What the heck is that?” the captain asked.
“Uh, sounds like we’ve stripped a bearing, Captain.”
“Any change in our speed?”
“No, sir.”
“Keep on him.”
Rats! James thought. I was sure that would work. OK, try this for size.
He generated a sphere of silence around the vehicle: Now, no matter how much noise they made, they wouldn’t be able to hear each other. One disadvantage was that James could no longer hear the vehicle’s engines—he could only hope that the disorientation was slowing them down.
There’s no way I can outrun them—nowhere to hide.
What I wouldn’t give for a jetpack like Paragon’s right now, James thought. Dumb sound-control powers! Why couldn’t I have gotten flight or super-speed or something more useful?
I could blast their truck with sound waves—that might work.
Then he grinned. Or I could just generate shock waves right behind me, use them to push me along.
He crouched low on the skateboard, then concentrated, triggered a powerful shock wave in the air right behind him.
The force hit him like a sudden gust of wind, so strong it almost knocked him off the board. He crouched lower and gripped the edges, and tried again. There was another brief surge of speed. He followed it with two shock waves in quick succession.
Yes! Who needs a jetpack when you’ve got superpowers?
He let loose a steady burst of shock waves, and within seconds the skateboard was hurtling along the road at a speed far greater than its manufacturers had ever anticipated.
This must be what it feels like for Paragon, James thought.
For a moment he considered dropping the cocoon of silence from the pursuing vehicle, just to hear what they were saying about him, but realized that it was better to leave them confused and panicking.
So who’s this Daedalus guy they mentioned? A superhuman?
And if Krodin only reappeared a few years ago, what happened to all the other superhumans?
CHAPTER 7
SIX YEARS ago…
Krodin watched from the shelter of an abandoned store doorway as a terrified woman darted across the rain-slicked street followed by two cruel-looking young men. The sobbing woman passed Krodin without noticing him, heading for the entrance of the nearby dark alley, reaching it only a few seconds before her pursuers.
A few minutes later Krodin heard her screams. Then—less than a minute after that—the two men emerged from the alley, one of them tossing the woman’s now-empty pocketbook into the gutter as he handed his companion a share of the takings.
Krodin had arrived in Detroit a week ago. This was the tenth major city he had visited in the four months since his arrival in America, and he was quickly reaching the conclusion that the people of this era were considerably less sophisticated than those of his own time, forty-five centuries in the past.
They are reckless, lawless…. They lack guidance and discipline. Above all, they lack control.
The gleeful men boldly strode past the doorway, and one of them noticed Krodin. He flipped his long, rain-drenched hair away from his face. “Wotchoo lookin’ at, freak?”
Krodin ignored him. Their concept of democracy is flawed. Their leaders spend all their time in office either trying not to offend anyone or working only to secure their next term. And all the while the nation is stumbling along behind them. If the humans cannot understand that, then their race is doomed.
The young man’s friend stopped, came back to stand behind him.
“I aksed you, freak, wotchoo lookin’ at?”
Krodin tilted his head to the side as he examined the young man. He was thin, shorter than Krodin, but had a wild look in his eyes. He cannot honestly want to fight me, Krodin thought. He has no reason to believe I’m a threat to him.
The young man’s friend said, “Ferget ’im, Gino. Lookit this guy—he smells like he lives in a Dumpster.”
Gino’s eyes narrowed as a sly grin spread across his face. “Nah, I don’t like the way he’s eyeballin’ me. He thinks I’m scum. You think I’m scum, doncha, freakoid?”
Krodin considered this. “Yes.”
Gino faltered, and Krodin knew that the man had been expecting fear, or passionate denial. Anything but agreement.
“What?”
“I think you and your friends are scum. In a world of greedy, small-minded, cruel humans, you are surely among the lowest. You are utterly worthless. You bring nothing of value to this world. When you are dead, the quality of the human race will rise by a considerable amount.”
Gino’s left arm flashed out, as Krodin knew it would. But the four-inch blade in his hand didn’t reach its target.
Krodin locked his right hand around the man’s wrist, planted his left against his chest, and pulled.
As Gino lay screaming on the ground and his friend raced away into the night, Krodin thought, I have seen enough. If the human race is incapable of saving itself, then it falls to me to take control.
After the attack by Pyrokine, when his enemies seemed to disappear, Krodin had simply walked away from the suddenly empty field and located the nearest settlement, a town called Windfield. Despite his being unclothed from the waist up, and barefoot, few of the town’s inhabitants had given him more than a cursory glance as he strolled its streets listening to their conversations and learning more of their language.
For weeks, he had no idea what had happened to him, until he found a local newspaper that featured a drawing of a nuclear power plant that was scheduled to begin construction: It was the same building in which he had materialized after Slaughter and Pyrokine took him from his own time. Then, construction on the power plant had almost been complete. But according to the newspaper’s accompanying article, it was expected to be completed in six years.
Krodin knew then that he had traveled to the past—to a time when most of his attackers were only young children. He didn’t know their names, or how to find them, but he remembered their faces.
But there was one he did know, a young man he would never forget. The man had somehow linked his mind with Krodin’s, tried to control him. For a while it had worked, but Krodin’s defenses had adapted to the attack.
In this time he doesn’t know who I am. But if he truly does possess the power to control men’s minds, then I can use him.
Krodin tossed Gino’s severed left arm into the gutter as casually as Gino had thrown away the woman’s pocketbook, then stepped out of the doorway and into the rain.
As he passed the mouth of the alley, he saw the woman lying on the ground. Her face and hands were cut and bruised, her clothing torn to shreds.
She opened one bloodshot eye, stared at him. “Help…” Her voice was coarse, barely a whisper. “Please, help me!”
Krodin puzzled over this for a moment. “Why?” He turned away and resumed walking.
CHAPTER 8
WHEN ROZ HAD RECOVERED from the effects of Cataxia—the knockout drug contained in the darts—she was able to get her first good look at the vehicle in which she was being carried.
She had already guessed from the gentle swaying and dipping and the constant speed that it was flying. It seemed to be a larger version of the construction craft she’d seen working on the strange towering building in Central Park.
At the front of the craft two men were clearly pilots; the remaining four soldiers—three men and Agent Paquette—didn’t seem to have any part in controlling the vehicle.
“Feeling any better?” Agent Paquette asked.
“A bit. You said something about Max?”
The woman nodded. “He disappeared from the facility in Louisiana at the same time you materialized in that couple’s apartment. And you weren’t the only ones. The project’s controller disappeared along with your brother—we still haven’t found him. And one of the monsters…Well, I know it sounds crazy because they should all be dead, but one of them suddenly appeared in the middle of a prison.”
Roz was finding it tough to take all this in at once. One of the monsters? She said that as though I’m supposed to know what it means. “Is Max OK?”
“I believe so. Rosalyn, the Chancellor’s taking a direct interest in this phenomenon. He was with the team in Louisiana. The system seems to have worked perfectly—more than once, obviously—but if what happened to you and your brother is connected, then clearly something went wrong. Max was right there when it happened, so maybe that could be explained away as some sort of fluctuation in the energy field, but why would it affect you?”
None of this makes sense! “And the, uh, the monster?”
“Well, obviously he’s superhuman.”
“I know, but who is he? Is there any connection between him and the rest of us?”
Agent Paquette shrugged. “It doesn’t seem likely. Almost all of the creatures died in Anchorage with the rest of them. Or that’s what we believed until today, when this one suddenly showed up. He’s about thirteen feet tall, hairless, blue skin. Immensely strong and very fast.”
“Brawn!” Roz said.
“He certainly has that, and more. The guards shot at him a dozen times—didn’t even slow him down. None of the other monsters have reappeared, as far as we know. A blessing, really. You’ve heard about the one who dripped acid?” She shuddered. “I saw him once—he was ugly as sin and vicious with it.”
So that’s what she means by monsters—superh
umans whose powers have brought on a physical change. “The man who runs the project…I don’t think I’ve met him either.”
“No, you wouldn’t have. They keep him locked away. For his own safety more than anything else. He’s not quite one of us, but he’s got a remarkable brain.” Agent Paquette swept her arm in a gesture to take in the craft in which they were flying. “We wouldn’t have any of this if it hadn’t been for him. There has to be some connection between him and the rest of you.”
One of the pilots called, “Thirty seconds, ma’am.”
“Good. One more question before we land, Rosalyn…. At the apartment the Praetorians didn’t recognize you, which is understandable given what they went through. But why did you attack them? Why did you run? Surely you knew you weren’t in any danger.”
Uh-oh, Roz thought. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. I hope I didn’t hurt any of them.”
“No, but they’re being shipped back to boot camp for retraining. They made some dumb mistakes. Obviously they were rookies—we weren’t about to risk sending experienced troops through.” She smiled. “But the important thing is that it worked, right?”
Roz returned the smile. “Absolutely. Today’s a good day.”
The hum from the flying craft’s engines began to increase in volume. Then there was a slight bump and Agent Paquette opened a hatch in the side.
As Roz followed Agent Paquette out of the craft, a voice inside her head said, “Roz, say nothing. Just act like you’ve seen it all before.”
Max?
“Just keep calm, Roz. We’ve got to get away from here as soon as possible, but we won’t be able to do that if they suspect we’re not who they think we are.”
They had landed on a flat concrete expanse ringed by a large structure that was in the process of being constructed—or demolished. Hundred-foot-high metal beams protruded from the ground, many connected to each other by heavy crossbeams. To Roz it had the appearance of an enormous steel Stonehenge.
The agent led Roz—trailed by the three other soldiers—toward a low black-painted building at the north end. She glanced back at the craft: It was roughly rectangular, perhaps fifteen feet high, twice as wide, three times as long, painted a dark military green.
The Ascension: A Super Human Clash Page 6
