Colin began, “H… How…”
“How long? I’m not sure. It’ll be different for everyone.” He smiled. “I’m not talking hours or even days, Colin. It’ll be months, maybe even as much as a year. That’s not going to be much use to you, because you’ll be dead long before that happens. So. There’s no escape, waste of time trying, blah, blah, blah. You know how it goes. When you’ve warmed up a little, we’ll talk. I have lots of questions for you. I’ll give you a taster so you’ll have enough time to come up with clever lies that won’t fool me for a second because I’m too smart for you. First one… What were you doing in Romania when my people picked you up? You were going somewhere. Where and why? Here’s another one. What is The Chasm?” Victor smiled. “I’m sure you don’t know the answer to that. No one does. Not even me. But I’ll find out one day. It has to be important—it cropped up so many times in Quantum’s visions. Third question: How—”
His entire body still trembling from the cold, Colin whispered, “I know.”
“What?”
“The Chasm. I know.”
Victor Cross took a step back, and raised a hand to his chin, stroking the day-old stubble. “You know. Colin, you can’t know. I’m a hundred—a thousand—times smarter than you. I’ve been studying Quantum’s visions for years tying to understand what The Chasm is.” Cross turned to Laurie. “Get this young man a seat. He looks like he’s about to collapse.”
Laurie darted to the side of the room and came back with a chair, and helped Colin into it.
Cross knelt down in front of him. “Tell me.”
“Let Mina go.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Then I can’t tell you what The Chasm is.”
Softly, Victor said, “Tell me, or Mina will suffer like no one has ever suffered before. She will die very, very slowly, in absolute agony. Then I’ll send my boys out to find your parents, and your sister. Do you want that, Colin? Do you want me to hurt your baby sister? Because I will. I’ll do it and I won’t feel the slightest qualm about it.”
Colin raised his head to look Cross in the eye. “Do you have a Bible?”
“Don’t try to frighten me with tales of eternal damnation. Just tell me.”
“I need a Bible to tell you.”
“I’ve memorized the Bible. Fifteen different editions. Where do I look?”
“King James edition,” Colin said. “Revelation. Chapter nine. Verse two.”
Victor sent a command to his memory to retrieve the quote, then paled when he realized what it was.
Laurie asked, “Victor? What is it?”
Victor recited, “And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.”
Colin stared at Victor. “The bottomless pit. The Chasm. And your weapon, your missile… that’s what creates it. It tears the Earth apart. It’s the end of everything, Victor. Even you. This is Armageddon, and you’re its architect.”
“They’ll see us coming. And they’re going to try to stop us.” Stephanie Cord looked at Danny, Kenya and Brawn, steadying herself as the ChampionShip was rocked by turbulence.
Renata called back from the cockpit: “Steph’s right. There are eight of them, plus whoever else Cross has on his side. They’re going to attack hard, and fast.”
Stephanie continued, “Our first goal is to get Mina and Colin out, if they’re still alive. Secondary goal is that we stop Victor Cross by any means necessary.”
“Any means?” Kenya asked.
“If we have to, we kill him. Are you OK with that?”
Kenya said, “If what you’ve told me about Cross is true… Because of him, I’ve already killed hundreds of people.” She pulled off her gloves and looked down at her scarred hands. “Yes. I’m OK with it. He deserves to die.”
“I hope it won’t come to that,” Stephanie said. “Cross murdered my father, but Dad never believed in like-for-like revenge, and neither do I. However…” Stephanie looked at the others for a moment. “I am willing to make an exception. Too many people have already died because of the Trutopian war, and if he does manage to rupture the tectonic plates, billions will die. All life on the planet could be wiped out.”
“What about Cassie?” Brawn asked from the back of the ship. “We should have her with us.”
“Lance says he has a different job for her.”
Danny said, “So this is it. Five of us against eight of them. And two of us aren’t even superhuman.”
“We also have Mina, if she’s still alive,” Brawn said. “Plus we’ve got the armor. That does make a difference.”
Stephanie said, “Danny, try out your new arm in fast-mode, make sure it works.”
Danny looked down at his metal-covered hands, and flexed them. As Stephanie watched, he seemed to blur for a moment. “Yeah, it’s working fine.”
“It’s stronger than your old one, and more precise. And it’s much better protected because of the armor. You’re going in first, Dan, as soon as we’re in range. You’ve never used a jetpack before so we’ll control it from here. That means you’ll be in real-time. If you prefer, we’ll set you down and you can run in fast-time.” Stephanie turned to Renata. “What’s our ETA?”
“Eighty-seven minutes.”
“All right.” Stephanie realized that her heart was pounding. She tried not to think of this as revenge for her father’s death, but the thought kept surfacing. We have to do what’s right, she told herself. That’s what Dad would have wanted.
Mina woke up lying in her side, shivering, her stomach clenching and her head thick and dizzy. A voice said, “You’re alive. You’ll be all right.”
She opened her eyes, but could see only a dark blur against a white background. “Where am I? Who are you?” Cold viscous liquid dripped from her face, and when she raised her hand to wipe it away, a sudden pain shot through her arm.
She blinked several times, and her vision began to clear. “Colin? Is that you?”
“No. My name is Shadow.”
Mina coughed and tried to sit up, but her arms trembled and she collapsed back onto the cold hard ground. “I don’t understand.”
“We found you in Berlin, remember? For a few seconds you thought my brother Tuan was Colin Wagner. Then you saw his aura, realized it didn’t match.” Shadow was standing over her, leaning down with his hands on his knees. “But a few seconds was all Tuan needed. Remember suddenly feeling weak? That was him. He can steal energy and body-mass from others, take it into himself.”
Mina frowned. She had a vague memory of seeing Colin approach her, then realizing too late that it wasn’t him; his aura hadn’t been quite right. Sometime after that she’d briefly regained consciousness to find herself being dragged through the air, too weak to break free. She remembered fumbling her phone out of her pocket to call for help, then the phone slipping from her numb fingers.
She looked around. They were in an enormous white-walled room, in front of a series of large metal-and-glass cylinders. The one behind her had been smashed open, its liquid contents already starting to freeze on the ground. “What is this place? Why is it so cold?”
“Northern Russia, a place called Zaliv Kalinina. We’re in the heart of a hollowed-out glacier.” Shadow straightened up. “Even at its thinnest point, the ice is five meters thick. Except for the hangar, because we need to be able to get in and out, right? But five meters is more than thick enough to block anyone from detecting us.” He reached out a hand. “I’ll help you up. C’mon, I don’t bite.”
Tentatively, Mina took his hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet. “Why do you look like Colin?”
“Like you, I’m a clone. I’m one of nine clones of Colin. We were created by Victor Cross.”
Mina pulled her hand away from Shadow’s, and stepped back. “No…”
“Tuan brought you here. Victor wanted you, you see.” Shadow shrugged. “Turned out that
none of us had what he needed. He thought you might. And also he wanted you out of the picture. Everyone thinks that Colin is the most powerful member of the New Heroes, but they’re wrong. You are. And it’s always better to disable your enemy before the fight begins, right? Except, maybe not this time.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your friends are on the way to try to rescue you and stop Victor from carrying out his plans. He sent me to kill you before they got here. You see, Victor didn’t get what he needed from you either. So, anyway, I could have just killed you while you slept, but I woke you up because I’m kinda interested in seeing how you fight when you are prepared for it. I know you’re very fast and very strong. You can read people’s auras which probably allows you to anticipate what they’re going to do. You’re an interesting challenge.”
“And you’re an absolute bonehead,” Mina said.
She teleported herself up to the gantry overlooking the room, and looked down at Shadow as, confused, he reached out and poked at the spot where she’d been standing.
How do I get out of here? She wondered. If we are where he said, there’s probably nothing but snow and ice for hundreds of miles.
The gantry led to a closed metal door, and, with her fingers brushing the ice-cold railing in case her trembling legs gave way, and her breath misting in the air ahead of her, Mina made her way toward it. She could teleport herself to any point within a couple of miles, but this was a location she didn’t know. She might end up materializing in the middle of a wall. Or right inside another person.
She pulled the door open and stepped through into a narrow, ice-walled corridor. Focus! She told herself. She reached out with her mind, sensing the locations of the other people in the area. Shadow was still on the floor of the chamber behind her. Somewhere ahead, four more, all with superhuman auras.
She slowly turned on the spot. Eight… Eleven people, she counted. Two of them were human, the rest superhuman. The humans seemed to be the safest option. One of them was a middle-aged man, the other was a clone who didn’t seem to have any superhuman abilities. No, wait… Is that Colin? His aura looks almost the same, but… If it is him, he doesn’t have any powers.
Mina walked quickly along the corridor, trying to build a mental picture of the interior of the base from the other people’s movements. She resisted the temptation to teleport herself directly to the humans’ location: three of the superhumans were with them, and the humans’ auras showed that they were both incredibly nervous about something. Nervous people have itchy trigger fingers, she reminded herself.
She wondered if she should risk teleporting to a mile straight up—that way she’d immediately know where she was. No, if this is the Arctic I’d freeze in seconds. And for all I know we could be more than a mile below the surface. How big are glaciers?
Above her and to her right, two of the superhumans were moving. She gave them a few seconds, then teleported into their previous location.
It was a small, barely-lit room containing three bunk-beds. On the far side of the mostly-closed door, she could hear the superhumans talking. They both had Colin Wagner’s voice.
The room smelled like sweaty feet and the floor was littered with piles of clothes: socks, t-shirts, underpants and jeans, none of which had been washed in a long time.
In a closet she found a fresh long-sleeved t-shirt, still in its packaging. A label on the package bore the name “Eldon” in crude hand-writing. Mina quickly pulled off her own damp shirt and replaced it with the new one. Isn’t there any sort of heater in this place?
Rummaging through the clothes on the floor she found a pair of jeans that fit her around the waist, though they were much too long in the leg. She put them on anyway, and rolled up the cuffs several times. Now there’s got to be a way out of—
She jumped as a siren blared in the corridor outside the room.
A man’s voice panic-filled said, “Uh, danger! The girl is loose—if you see her, stop her!” There was a sharp click as the message ended, then, almost immediately, “And don’t forget she’s a teleporter!”
Chapter 25
Victor Cross turned away from Shadow without speaking.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Shadow said. “It’s just… I mean, I didn’t think she’d do that. I thought she’d just fight!”
Colin said, “You didn’t breed them for intelligence, then?”
Cross ignored him. He snatched up a walkie-talkie from the charging cradle, hesitated and then took another. “Zeke, take Wagner to the lowest level and stay with him. If he tries anything, kill him twice.”
He ran from his office and made his way up the sloping tunnel, with Shadow following.
“Victor, please. We’ll find her and we’ll catch her. I’m stronger than she is, you know that. I’m smarter, too.”
“Clearly, you’re not.”
They emerged from the tunnel into the main room. One of the boys—Nathan—darted across from one side to the other and jumped through an open doorway.
“I’ll help find her,” Shadow said.
“No, you’ll stay with me. I don’t want to give that little witch the opportunity to take me down. Shadow, do you know the phrase ‘bitter disappointment’? Because that’s what I’m feeling right now. All you had to do was shut off the airflow to Mina’s pod. She’d have suffocated, and she’d now be dead. But you thought you knew better.” He stopped walking and turned to face the clone. “I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive you for this.”
Shadow’s shoulders sagged, and it seemed to Victor that he was on the edge of tears. Good. Let him cry, the little idiot. He could have ruined everything. As far as he knows, anyway.
“I won’t let you down again. Ever. I promise.”
“Well. We’ll have to see about that, won’t we?” There was a brief movement on the edge of his vision. Something hiding close to the ceiling, among the support pillars. There she is… How do I get her to come down?
Nathan reemerged from the doorway. “She was just in there! Did you see her?”
“No,” Victor said. “Nathan, forget her. Go help protect Evan. He’s not superhuman, and if he can’t get the payload into the rocket we’ve lost everything. Shadow, come with me.”
They ran for the far stairway, and raced up, with Victor’s feet pounding on the metal steps and Shadow flying after him. As he passed close to Mina’s position, Victor deliberately kept his eyes focused ahead. Good girl. Keep watching us…
Victor unlocked one of the store-rooms leading off the upper gantry. “Keep a watch out for the girl.” He stepped inside and stood with his back to the door, hoping that Mina didn’t also have the ability to see through walls. He pulled open a metal cupboard and snapped the seal on a cylinder of gas, then threw one of his walkie-talkies inside before he backed out of the room.
To Shadow, he said, “OK, we’re all right. The backup controls are secure. If she were to get in here and destroy them, it would set us back months.” He looked around. “Locking the door’s no good. She could teleport herself inside. Find something to put in front of the door. Something big enough to hide it. If she doesn’t know that the room is there, she won’t think to go inside.”
Shadow began, “Yeah, but…”
“Just do it, Shadow!” Victor leaned over the rail and pointed to a large sheet of corrugated metal. “That. Bring it up here, hide the door with it. Come on! Quick!”
Shadow vaulted over the rail and dropped down to the floor below, grabbed hold of the heavy metal sheet and carried it one-handed as he flew back up to the gantry.
“Good,” Victor said. “That should do it.”
“I should just wait in there for her,” Shadow said.
“And suppose she never finds the room? No, we’re better off looking for her. We could do a room-by-room search, but that power of hers is too useful. She could be anywhere. The only way we’re going to get her is if we can sneak up on her, and she can see our auras so that’s not going to be easy.” He g
estured back down the stairs. “Come on. Time’s fading fast.”
In one of the base’s narrowest corridors, certain that he couldn’t be overheard, Victor quietly said to Shadow, “She was watching us, and listening. When she goes into the storeroom, the gas will overpower her.” He held up his other walkie-talkie. “It’ll hit her fast—you’ll hear her falling. Then you go in and finish her off. Understood? No games this time. Just snap her neck.” He frowned briefly. “No. Don’t. A better idea has just surfaced. Take her to the hangar and wait there. The gas will keep her out for hours. Should be long enough.” He pushed the walkie-talkie into Shadow’s hands. “Don’t let me down again.”
Mina watched them go, then teleported into the now-hidden room. It looked like a storage room, with racks of shelving all piled high with boxes and crates. I’m not seeing any controls… She noticed a walkie-talkie on the floor and picked it. Nice! Now I can listen in on them.
She used the walkie-talkie’s belt-clip to attach it to her jeans, and walked further into the room. Ew, what’s that smell? It’s even worse than the boys’ bedroom!
Whatever the smell was, it was making her feel queasy. Her legs were still weak, and she held onto one of the shelving units for support.
Her knees buckled, and she collapsed to the ground.
The clone kept hold of Colin’s upper arm as he led him down the icy corridors and into an empty room about the size of a two-car garage. The room’s walls, floor and ceiling were crudely finished, with no attachments but a single low-powered bulb on the wall above the door.
“Cozy,” Colin said. “What do you usually keep in here, Zeke?”
“Nothing.”
“So we’re going to just sit on the floor? We’ll freeze.”
The New Heroes: Crossfire Page 20
