She and Dylan still had no idea where Goulden was, but the activity in the streets below assured her that he hadn’t dropped his bombs yet. There was still time, even if it was running out fast.
Suddenly, Dylan spotted their prey. “There!” he said.
Goulden’s plane was flying just ahead of them, less than half a mile from the city centre. The pair raced through the sky until they caught up with the jet.
“We need to get aboard,” Dylan yelled over the sound of the engine and propeller.
Scarlett could only see one way in, so she telekinetically ripped the plane door open, causing the aircraft to swerve for a second before getting back on track. A furious Goulden poked his head out, his face contorted into a frustrated and petulant scowl.
“You!” he appeared to shout, but the sound never reached them.
He grabbed a gun from his pocket and shot a stream of bullets at the pair, and Scarlett deflected every single one. Goulden screamed as he clicked away on the trigger only to discover he’d run out of ammo. He grabbed one of his men by the jacket lapel and plucked a new gun from his pocket. The PM then raised the firearm and took aim at Dylan. He was determined to hit his target this time.
Dylan flew towards Goulden, hoping to knock the gun from his hands and storm the plane, while Scarlett watched intently, ready to deflect any bullets the Prime Minister fired her boyfriend’s way.
But Goulden called her bluff.
At the last second, he raised his arm and shot at Scarlett instead, taking her so by surprise that she didn’t have time to respond. The first bullet bounced off her watch as she raised her hand in defence. Before she could thank her lucky stars for such a fluke, the second bullet hit her, sending her reeling backwards. She screamed in agony as cold, hard metal tore through the flesh of her right shoulder.
Dylan looked towards her in panic, tears shining in his eyes.
“It’s only my shoulder,” she mouthed, gesturing towards her wound to reassure him.
Blood was streaming down her arm and she felt like passing out, but there was no time to feel sorry for herself, so she ignored the pain and flew back towards the plane.
Goulden raised his gun again, causing Dylan to see red. He had to put this plane out of action to save the city and Scarlett. He couldn’t let her die. His face set with determination and rage, he grabbed water from the clouds above and froze the window of the cockpit to weaken it, then created a large shard of ice and smashed it through the window and at the pilot, hitting him hard in the chest. That should stop him.
And it did. It killed him instantly.
The plane started freefalling and plummeted towards a cluster of apartment blocks below. Scarlett and Dylan sped after it to stop it crashing into a crowded area, which could hurt thousands of people as well as triggering the devilpox bomb. Scarlett had never telekinetically moved something as large as an aircraft before, but she had to give it a go. She used her mind to get a grip of the plane, then whooshed her hands through the air, sending it spiralling back up into the sky.
The jet began to rapidly descend again, so she tried to get another hold on it, but Goulden appeared at the door and shook open one of the briefcases of devilpox. She watched in horror as he went on to empty the other three cases, before shooting them an evil grin.
“Stop that!” he said over the roar of the engine, as the plane veered towards the ground.
There was no time for Scarlett and Dylan to worry about saving the plane now, they had to stop the disease reaching the ground and killing millions.
“It’s too late,” Dylan shouted as he watched the cloud of devilpox falling past them.
Goulden may not have had time to load the germs into an actual bomb, but he had released them into the atmosphere, which was every bit as dangerous. Now the disease was no longer safely frozen, it was drifting down in a gas form, ready to infect anyone it came into contact with.
“No! No, it isn’t,” Scarlett said.
She telekinetically grasped the devilpox, slowing its descent and holding it in one place for now. She was also preventing the two of them being infected, but she couldn’t hold the germ cloud forever. Then an idea struck her.
“Freeze it!” she shouted to Dylan, thankful that they could hear each other now the plane was gone.
“Freeze it?”
“Yes! And be quick about it; I can’t hold onto it for much longer.”
“Of course, it’ll be harmless if it’s frozen. Scarlett, you’re a genius!”
Dylan worked his way through all the drops of devilpox within the cloud, making sure he froze every last one of them. At the same time, Scarlett kept pushing the iced particles together to form a large ball that she could easily control.
She flew down below Dylan so she could catch any droplets he missed and fling them back towards the cloud. Before she knew it, she had reached the ground, so she gently manoeuvred the huge ice ball down through the air as Dylan landed next to her.
“I think that’s all of it,” he said.
“Great, fancy helping me hold onto this then? It’s kinda heavy.”
The devilpox was safe now it was frozen, but Scarlett was still worried that allowing it to smash to the ground would release the disease. She was struggling to hold it up because she felt weak from the strain she’d put her body under and the pain of her gunshot wound. She could feel the blood seeping through her clothes, but she tried to push the thought from her mind.
Dylan added his powers to hers and helped her raise the ball a few more feet from the ground. “What do we do with it now?” he said.
“I’m still trying to figure that one out. We can’t throw it or drop it in the rivers. It’ll poison everyone.”
“Can we bury it?”
“It might still contaminate the water supply when it melts.”
“What if we bury it in the middle of nowhere?” a voice said behind them.
They both turned around slowly so they didn’t lose their concentration and drop the ball.
“Alex!” they said in unison. Their teleporter friend had appeared along with Neelam, Lucy, Aaron and Isabella.
“I told you lot to get far away,” Dylan said.
Trust him to be stern instead of pleased to see them.
“Yeah, well, we disobeyed you for once,” Neelam said. “I take it this is the devilpox.”
“Yeah, I froze it and Scarlett meshed it together, but we don’t know what to do now.”
“Allow me,” Alex said.
He took both their hands and teleported them away before reappearing at the top of a tall, rocky mountain. It was dark here, so Scarlett didn’t have a clue where they were, but she could tell that they were by the sea. She had telekinetically pulled the mass of disease here with her, but she was struggling to hold it up now.
“Throw it into the volcano,” Alex said.
It was only then that she realised they were, indeed, at the top of a volcano. She peered over the edge into the cavernous hole below. It wasn’t spewing lava as she expected, but it looked scarily bottomless nonetheless.
“Down there?”
“Yes!”
Scarlett and Dylan hovered the huge ice ball across, then let it fall down into the crater below. Within seconds, it disappeared from sight and out of harm’s way, swallowed up into the depths of the earth below.
They’d done it.
“Alright!” Alex shouted.
He took their hands and teleported them back to Manchester, where their friends were awaiting their return.
“Well?” Neelam said the second they appeared.
“Mission accomplished,” Dylan said. “The devilpox is now at the bottom of a very deep volcano. Out of interest, Alex, where was that?”
“Vesuvius in Naples. I visited it once on a family holiday, so it popped into my head when I was trying to think of somewhere to bury that stuff. At least this way, we didn’t have to dig.”
“I like your thinking.” Dylan slapped him on the back.
“So is it over?” Lucy asked. She was staying protectively close to her brother.
“It’s only just begun,” Scarlett said.
She looked towards The Shield, which was about a mile from where they were standing. They might have won the battle and saved millions of lives, but there was still a long fight ahead of them.
“We’ve stopped Goulden this time, but we have a lot more to do if we want to beat him for good.”
“Oh my goodness, Scarlett, you’re bleeding,” Neelam said as she spotted her friend’s wound.
Scarlett glanced down at her right shoulder, where the blood had made its way through her clothes and was soaking her bomber jacket. The adrenalin rush of saving the world had blocked out the pain until now, but the second she remembered her injury, the agony was beyond unbearable. She also felt drained and dizzy from telekinetically moving that ball and the plane. She needed to sit down.
“I’m OK,” she lied. She reached to grab Dylan’s arm and steady herself. “Goulden tried to kill me that’s all.” She forced a laugh, then passed out.
Chapter 27
Scarlett felt the pain before she opened her eyes. She glanced at her shoulder, which had now been patched over with a medical dressing. She was also wearing new, blood-free clothes, but where was she? A quick look around told her it wasn’t a hospital, the Salford hideout, Rachel’s attic or their old London home. As bland as this room was with its magnolia walls and beige blinds, she knew she’d never been here before. She tried to prop herself up on her arms to sit up, but the pain seared through every nerve in her body, causing her to scream out in agony.
She heard someone running outside the room, then watched as the chrome door handle started to turn. As the door opened, she willed it to be someone she knew, not a strange nurse or doctor. When Dylan popped his head into the room, she breathed a sigh of relief.
“You’re awake,” he said with a smile. He walked over to the bed and perched on the edge of it.
“Guess so. Have I been out of it for long?”
“A few hours.”
“Where are we?”
“Still in Manchester, near the hospital. Neelam got in touch with her second cousin who’s a doctor there and he tended to your wounds.”
“Is this his house?”
“No, Neelam didn’t want to put him at risk. This is some abandoned place we forced our way into, but I think we should move on as soon as you feel well enough.”
Now they’d made their presence known in Manchester, it would be a wise idea to leave town, but Scarlett was torn; she also wanted to stay for many reasons. She was keen to see what effect The Shield would have on the city and she wanted to keep an eye on Goulden’s arms operation too. If they could disrupt the manufacturing of weapons, that would go some way to preventing him killing people at war. She was too tired to think clearly now, but she knew they had to discuss this fully before deciding where to go next.
For now though, she wanted to know how Dylan was feeling. He’d killed Goulden’s pilot and that was something he’d sworn he’d never do. She knew it must be eating him up inside, even though he’d done it for all the right reasons.
“How are you doing?” she asked.
“Me? Fine. You’re the one who’s been shot.” He got angry just mentioning it. “I should have killed Goulden for that. Unless he’s dead already.”
“I doubt that. He’ll have survived somehow.”
“Yeah, sadly, I think you’re right. At least you’re alive; that’s all that matters.”
“Just! I feel like I cheated death today.” Scarlett stared at her watch. “A bullet bounced off this, you know. It’s lucky that Lucy made it super strong and bullet proof.”
“That silly little thing saved you?” Dylan laughed half-heartedly. “That is pretty incredible.” The smile disappeared from his face as he fell silent and seemed to retreat into his thoughts.
“What about the pilot?” Scarlett asked. “Are you OK about, you know, what you did to him?”
Dylan studied his hands carefully as he wrung them together.
“I dunno. I’m not sure how I feel about it...”
“You did the right thing and you stopped millions of people dying. Don’t beat yourself up.”
“I know, but I still feel guilty. I said I’d never kill anyone and that I wouldn’t stoop to Goulden’s level. It’s like everything I stand for has changed and I’m a different person now. I’m not who I thought I was…”
His voice trailed off as he looked up from his hands and stared at the wall, then towards Scarlett.
“I went blind with fury when he shot you. I thought that was it. I couldn’t let him hurt you, so I did what I could to take Goulden out. I slipped up when I let The Echidna kill the Super Soldiers and I wasn’t willing to do that again. Not when it was your life at stake.”
“I understand.”
“That doesn’t give me a right to kill someone though. That pilot could have had a girlfriend, wife or kids.”
“That pilot was helping Goulden kill all of Greater Manchester. I hardly think he’s a model citizen. Dylan, you did the right thing under the circumstances and if you hadn’t done it you’d be sitting here beating yourself up even more. In fact, we might not be sitting here at all. So forget about it. OK?”
He gave her a thankful smile and slid across the bed to give her a hug.
“I’m so pleased you’re alright.”
“Of course I am. It takes more than a crazy Prime Minister and his henchmen to kill me; no matter what the prophecies might say.”
Dylan pulled back from the embrace and stoked her face.
“Knock, knock,” Neelam said as she walked in, followed by Isabella, Alex, Lucy and Aaron. “Can we come in?”
“I think you just did,” Dylan said. He seemed miffed about being interrupted as he jumped away from Scarlett and stood up.
“How’s the patient?” Lucy asked.
“I’m OK, thanks.” Scarlett smiled. Lucy and Neelam sat down on the edge of the bed, while Alex, Isabella and Aaron stayed standing up.
“It’s good to see you awake, Scarlett,” Aaron said.
“And it’s good to have you and Isabella back with us,” she replied.
“All thanks to you,” Lucy said.
She blushed. “What me? Nah.”
“You hit them with that antidote. They’d still be brainwashed if it wasn’t for you,” Lucy added.
“Like poor Jay,” Dylan said. “He’s still one of Goulden’s Super Soldier puppets.”
“We’ll get him back,” Scarlett said.
“Damn right we will,” Dylan agreed. “And we’ll free the rest of them too.”
“At least we won this battle,” Neelam said. “That was a huge thing we did today. We, well you mostly, saved millions of lives.”
“Dylan told us that Goulden’s plane went down,” Alex said. “I hope he’s dead.”
“Sadly, I doubt it.” Scarlett said.
“Oh come on, surely even he can’t survive a plane crash.”
“He could. He’s put too much work into his plans to risk not being around to see them through.”
Scarlett was sure they hadn’t seen the last of Goulden. It wouldn’t be long before they were fighting him again along with his Super Soldiers and the Detectobot-like androids. Then there were the workhouses, the Cities Of The Future and his wars to deal with too. They still had a lot of work to do.
“I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough,” Dylan said. “He never stays quiet for long.”
“For today though, let’s be happy,” Scarlett said. “We managed to stop Mason’s visions coming true. I’m still alive and so is the rest of Manchester and that’s a hell of a lot to be pleased about if you ask me.”
“You’re damn right there,” Dylan said. He sat back down next to Scarlett and took her hand. “It looks like we can change our fates after all. The future isn’t set in stone.”
“Does that mean I can ’port out to get
celebratory milkshakes and burgers?” Alex said hopefully.
“Yes,” Scarlett laughed. “I think we’ve definitely earned it.”
Epilogue
Several hours later, more than 200 miles away, Prime Minister Adam Goulden awoke in his luxurious bed at No 10 Downing Street, London. He blinked as he looked at the bright contemporary light feature in the middle of the room. It was just one of many expensive items his wife, Clarissa, had chosen for the home and it complemented the rest of the designer décor perfectly.
As he sat up in bed, his body felt broken. Those cursed teenagers had a lot to answer for. Rage surged inside him as he remembered how they’d sabotaged his plane, causing it to crash on the edge of Manchester city centre. He’d barely had time to grab the one parachute and scramble to save himself. His landing had been far from soft though; he’d smashed onto the roof of a row of houses, then rolled down to the road with a huge bump. No wonder he was in so much pain.
“Sir, you’re awake,” his Chief Of Staff, Charlie Walker, said as he rushed in the door. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been in a plane crash and rolled off some terraced houses backwards.”
Charlie laughed. “Good to see you still have your sense of humour. The doctors have been working hard to take care of you. We had you brought down here by ambulance as soon as you were found. I knew you’d prefer to be treated in your own bed.”
“Yes, thank you, Charlie. So, what’s the damage?”
“Amazingly, you escaped with a few cracked ribs and a broken ankle and they should all heal in a matter of weeks. The rest of the injuries are mostly bruises and strains. You’re as resilient as I would have expected sir.” Charlie gave him a sycophantic smile.
“So I can get straight back to work?”
Out Of Time (Book 2): Heroes and Villains Page 20
