I’d deal with the moral implications of that later. Right now, we had to see where all this was taking us. Brodie and I took the front seat, and I drove while Dan focused on trying to locate the building. It was like driving around with a human metal detector. We spent the next half an hour with Dan saying things like it’s getting warmer, and now we’re moving away.
Finally, I pulled over, feeling both stressed and frustrated. All we’d done was drive around in circles and use a lot of gas. I was also worried that the cops would pull us over at any moment for car theft.
‘I think you need to focus,’ I told Dan.
‘I’m trying.’
Brodie frowned. ‘Can you move out of the minds of the kids?’ she said. ‘Maybe latch onto someone else’s mind. Someone nearby?’
‘Okay,’ Dan said, thinking. ‘I’ll try.’
Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and focused. For the next few minutes, he said nothing. Then he finally cleared his throat. ‘I’m with someone in the elevator,’ he said. ‘It’s a guy. He doesn’t know Ravana or his organization. He just works in the building. The elevator’s slowing down. It’s stopping. It’s at ground level. He’s getting out. Leaving the building. I can look back. I can see…’ Dan’s eyes opened wide. ‘I can see it! I can see the building! It’s the Roxton building on East Seventy-First Street!’
‘Yes!’ Brodie punched the air. ‘You’re incredible.’
Dan wiped the sweat from his brow. ‘I know.’
‘Modest, too,’ I said, laughing.
We drove through the city. It didn’t take long for us to reach the place. It was a tall, modern-looking office block surrounded by similar buildings. It was hard to believe two kids were being held here.
The thought turned my stomach as I remembered Ravana.
I will ask you questions, and you will give me answers.
Climbing from the car, I felt more than a little inadequate. I was the spare wheel in our tiny team of do-gooders. Brodie could single-handedly battle an army. Dan could move objects with the power of his mind and get into people’s heads. I could—
Well, I know how to drive, I thought. Maybe I’ll be like Alfred in the Batman comics.
I could dust the apartment and make hot chocolate when required.
‘I know this is probably too much to expect,’ I said, eyeing the building. ‘But any idea which floor they’re on?’
Dan shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to wing it from here.’
Entering the lobby, we crossed to a chart of the building’s occupants. There were a lot of them, and we spent the next few minutes perusing the list before finally turning to each other in frustration.
‘Nothing stands out,’ Brodie said, frowning. ‘Why can’t bad guys identify themselves as such?’
‘You mean, like Evil Inc?’ Dan asked.
‘Yeah,’ I say, reading the list. ‘Or Bad For U?’
A guy entered and disappeared into an elevator. Dan frowned as he watched him go. The elevator departed.
‘I picked up something from him,’ Dan whispered.
‘The flu?’ I said.
‘I couldn’t get a clear picture, but it was a negative vibe.’
Well, it was better than nothing. We wandered over to the elevators and watched the changing display. The elevator stopped on the twenty-fifth floor.
‘Stanley Imports,’ I read. ‘What do you think?’
Brodie shrugged. ‘We’ve got nothing to lose. Let’s go.’
It seemed strange standing in the elevator as it ascended. My throat was dry, and my heart was beating like crazy. I glanced at Brodie and saw that a sweat had broken out on her brow. Only Dan seemed confident.
It’s because he’s younger than us.
A chill ran down my spine. How old is Dan? Maybe fifteen. Brodie and I weren’t much older. How stupid are we? We were about to launch an attack on Ravana and his cronies, and we didn’t have a plan.
The idea made me dizzy. We aren’t prepared for this. I was about to speak up when the elevator drew to a halt and the doors opened.
One thought kept bouncing around in my head.
This is a bad idea.
Chapter Thirteen
The first thing I saw was a big empty semi-circular room with a reception desk about twenty feet back from the elevator. Behind the desk sat a solitary chair. On the wall behind it, at eye level in a white, italic font, were the words Stanley Imports. A lounge chair for visitors sat on one side. On the other was a lonely pot plant.
Brodie and Dan strode into the middle of the room. Instead of following, I jammed myself between the doors to stop them from closing.
My stomach felt like it was full of jelly. There’s something wrong here. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something didn’t make sense. Something about the furniture…
Brodie stopped and glanced about for a door. Dan marched straight up to the reception desk. He looked ready to start picking up pieces of furniture with his mind and hurling them around the room.
The elevator door wanted to close. It hit my back and then slid back into the recess. Brodie turned at the sound and gazed at me. What are you doing? Then her eyes swept the room again and she frowned.
‘Where are these turkeys?’ Dan demanded. ‘They’re afraid to take us on.’
His eyes met mine, and I glimpsed a tiny shred of uncertainty in his face. It was hard to look tough when there was no one to show it to. The door of the elevator tried to shut again. There was probably someone on the fiftieth floor looking at their watch and wondering who was holding up the elevator.
Let them wait.
‘Something’s wrong,’ I said.
Brodie looked at me worriedly. ‘I think you’re right.’
Leaning out into the foyer, I was just about to tell them to get back into the elevator when slots appeared in opposing walls. Machine gun muzzles appeared.
Dan looked confused. Brodie took a single step towards the elevator.
‘Run!’ I screamed.
The guns opened fire.
One second there was silence. The next, there was an explosion of sound loud enough to make your eardrums hurt. I threw my arms out, yelling, but my words were drowned by the rapid-fire of the weapons.
Brodie and Dan were both caught between the two guns.
It was certain death.
They threw themselves to the ground, but then bullets started slamming into the carpet, ricocheting off the ceiling, and cutting the reception desk and lounge chair to pieces. It should have been a bloodbath, but somehow, they were able to start crawling towards the elevator. A bullet ricocheted past my ear and smashed the mirror at the back of the elevator. Drywall dust filled the air, so much of it that it was almost impossible to see the others.
Brodie reached the elevator first. Dan was a few feet behind. She reached for him and dragged him into the elevator. Only then did I slam the button for the ground floor, wondering if Ravana and his men had some exclusive control over the elevator. If they did, then they could stop it from moving, and it was game over for us.
The elevator seemed to take an eternity, but the doors slid shut, and the elevator started to descend. A piece of mirror on the back wall fell off and broke.
Brodie looked at me, her face filled with disbelief. ‘It was…it was…’
‘A trap,’ I said.
Dan was in a fetal position. Kneeling beside him, I searched for blood and didn’t find any.
‘Dan?’ I said. There was drool around his mouth. ‘Buddy? Can you hear me?’
‘He’s in shock,’ Brodie said.
So was she, but I suspected she was better at hiding it. Still, her hair was everywhere, and she’d turned ivory white.
‘Are you hit?’ I asked.
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Get him on his feet. We’ve got to move.’
Nodding, I somehow physically lifted Dan into a walking position and looped one of his arms around my shoulders. He was as pale as Brodie. I
wiped the spittle from his mouth and got Brodie to recheck him. There was no blood. Somehow, they’d both escaped without a scratch.
He might be a mess now, I thought. But he sure came through back there.
The elevator doors opened, and Dan’s legs started working on their own accord. His conscious mind was non-functional—shock, obviously—but his automatic functions—breathing, circulation, walking—all worked. The only evidence in the elevator that anything happened was the broken mirror at the back. Apart from that, there was no sign that someone had just tried to cut us to pieces in a hail of gunfire. The floor that Ravana and his cronies occupied was obviously soundproofed; otherwise, dozens of cops would have been pouring into the building.
Five minutes later, we were back in the car, and I was pulling into the traffic.
‘It was the furniture,’ I said.
‘What?’ Brodie said.
‘I had a strange feeling about that reception area,’ I explained. ‘The lounge chair was brand new. No one had ever sat in it. That whole office was just a front…’ My voice trailed off. It wasn’t important now. I continued checking the rearview mirror to see if anyone was following, but there was no sign of anyone.
Up till now, Dan had been sitting in the backseat staring into space. He looked incredibly tired. Maybe it was delayed shock. Sleep was probably the best thing for him. Maybe for all of us.
‘Things got pretty hairy back there,’ I said, trying to buoy his spirits. ‘But you came through, Dan. You saved our skins.’
He shook his head. ‘No,’ Dan said. ‘That wasn’t me.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘You saved the day back there.’
‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I was a mess. Bullets were flying everywhere. I couldn’t do a thing. Couldn’t focus. Couldn’t even think.’
‘Well,’ said Brodie. ‘If it wasn’t me and it wasn’t Dan…’
It didn’t need to be said. Up till then, I hadn’t displayed any abilities. Nothing. The gunfire back at the building had been a turkey shoot, but someone had saved them from certain death.
Was it me?
Chapter Fourteen
It was a beautiful day in the park. The sun was warm on our shoulders. There were clouds in the sky, but no chance of rain. People flew kites. Kids played with dogs. Someone pushed a pram around the lake. A couple sat on a park bench holding hands.
But we were there for entirely different reasons; we wanted to see if I had superpowers. A day had passed since our aborted rescue of the kids from Ravana’s lair. Dan had climbed out of bed embarrassed, though grateful to be alive. Brodie looked stressed but determined. She took charge, ordering us big breakfasts from room service, which we ate like starving people. Finally, Brodie told us to shower because we had a lot of work to do.
‘Like what?’ Dan asked.
‘We’re taking a drive to a park,’ she said. ‘To test Axel’s powers.’
Three hours later, we were in a large parkland area on the outskirts of the city. After wandering around, we finally found a secluded patch surrounded by trees. A rock, about the size of a football, sat in the middle. It looked like the perfect target upon which to practice. We sat around it in a tight circle.
‘Try moving the rock,’ Brodie suggested. ‘Focus on it. Get a sense of its size, weight, and dimensions.’
‘Okay,’ I said.
‘Now try to lift it.’
I stared at the rock, willing it to rise up off the ground. I imagined myself under it, lifting it off the grass, into the air, and high above the trees. Unfortunately, it did nothing, and just sat there like a rock.
‘Really focus on it, Axel,’ Dan said.
‘I am.’
‘Imagine you’re surrounding the rock. Trying to lift it.’
‘Yeah, I am.’
‘You’re making it rise—'
‘Yep,’ I said, getting annoyed. ‘That’s what I’m trying to do.’
‘Be the rock,’ Dan urged, his eyes wide. ‘Be the rock.’
‘I am a rock,’ I told him, frustrated. ‘I’m lumpy and bored, and nothing’s happening. It won’t move.’
‘You need to concentrate on it longer,’ Brodie said. ‘Really get into it.’
Get into it? How do you get into a rock?
‘This makes no sense,’ I complained. ‘Why do I need to focus now? Last night I could deflect bullets with ease.’
Neither of them had an answer.
‘Maybe you need a smaller rock,’ Dan suggested.
‘Maybe.’
My eyes searched the field for a smaller boulder, but instead, I found myself staring at the sky. The weather was changing again. More rain was on the way. The breeze was tossing the trees around more ferociously with every passing second. I focused on one of the trees. If I could make the branches stop moving—
They stopped.
It was an eerie sensation. All the other trees were still moving in the wind. My tree was stationary. In fact, the longer I looked at it, the more I could see a kind of cocoon around the branches, like a transparent bubble surrounding them.
I pointed. ‘Can you see that?’ I asked.
They couldn’t see the cocoon, but they could see the branches weren’t moving.
‘How are you doing it?’ Dan asked.
I let out a deep breath. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I was looking at the branches and sort of willed them to stop moving.’
‘And they did,’ Brodie said.
I nodded.
‘Try lifting the stone now,’ Dan said.
I gave it another attempt, but it still wouldn’t move. I even tried lifting it with my hands to make sure it wasn’t cemented into the ground. No. It was just a plain ordinary uncooperative rock. Holding it tightly, I focused on the rock until my head hurt, and still—nothing.
Brodie frowned. ‘Axel,’ she said. ‘I’ve got an idea. Try the trees again. Make the branches move.’
‘That’s right,’ Dan said, nodding. ‘You could be a new type of superhero. You might be Tree-man.’
‘Tree-man?’ I repeated.
I hoped not. Dropping the rock, I turned my attention to the trees again, this time focusing on making the branches move. I was on a roll now, and I didn’t want it to stop.
Except it did. The trees ignored me completely. They moved in the breeze, but no different to any other trees around them. ‘Okay,’ I said, sighing. ‘This is no fun.’
Come on, I thought. Just move in the breeze.
Wait a minute.
This time I focused on the wind in the branches, and the effect was instantaneous. The branches pushed away from us, gently at first, but then I concentrated harder. This time, boughs cracked and broke, and branches snapped free and flew out of sight.
‘Holy—’ Dan begins.
‘It’s the air!’ I said. ‘I can control air!’
I turned back to the rock. This time I didn’t think about moving the rock; I focused on making the air do the work. The boulder trembled, shook, and lifted off the ground. A final mental push sent it flying at high speed into the nearby bushes.
‘That’s amazing,’ Brodie said, thoughtfully. ‘Air is powerful. Think of hurricanes. Tornados. They can slam pieces of straw into timber like nails.’
‘And knock down houses,’ Dan said. ‘Flatten towns.’
‘And lift things,’ I said. ‘They can make things airborne. Carry things away.’
‘You’re not thinking…’ Brodie’s voice trailed away to nothing.
I gathered the air around me.
A moment later, I was flying.
Chapter Fifteen
Brodie and Dan stared at me in astonishment.
‘That’s awesome,’ Dan said, his jaw-dropping. ‘Do it to me! Make me fly too!’
‘Hold on,’ I replied. That was way too Peter Pan for me. I was only a few feet off the ground, but I was already terrified. I’d forgotten in the excitement of the moment that I didn’t like heights. I’d discovered that when Brodie
wanted me to jump from one building to the next.
Flying was disconcerting enough; there was no way I was taking passengers.
Not yet, anyway.
Looking down, I saw the same transparent bubble under me, lifting me up off the ground. Now I focused on making it lift me even higher. Within seconds I was six feet off the ground and rising.
‘Pick up a rock,’ I told Brodie. ‘Throw it to me.’
She picked one up the size of a coin and hurled it. I formed a shield; it bounced off and hit Dan on the head.
‘Ouch!’
‘Sorry.’
This was all beginning to make sense. That’s how Brodie and Dan were kept safe when the guns opened fire. I formed a wall of air between them and the bullets. The physics of it was beyond me, but I knew air could be compressed so tightly that it was impenetrable.
I’m Air Man!
Hmm. Maybe not.
Might need to work on the name.
The sensible thing would be to land again, but I was so elated by the experience that I had to keep going. My fear of heights was disappearing as quickly as my common sense. Brodie called to me from below. She looked scared.
‘I’m okay,’ I yelled.
She replied, but I couldn’t hear her. Instead, I began working on how to control my movement. Imagining a bed next to me, I tried lying on it, which didn’t achieve anything. I ended up leaning against a wall of air. Then I imagined the bed beneath me. I knelt and then laid down flat, my heart pounding crazily. Staring straight down, I saw Dan and Brodie gazing back up at me in astonishment. I felt the platform beneath me. I could even see it shimmering slightly.
I stuck my arm out ahead of me.
Maybe it worked for Superman, but it didn’t for me.
I willed myself forward. For a few seconds, I thought nothing was happening. Then I realized I was slowly moving away from the clearing. I aimed for the nearest cloud. The wind tore at me as I went higher, and mist whirled around me. I should have been worried, but I was beyond fear.
I’m flying.
And then I made the mistake of looking down. I was so far off the ground I couldn’t see Brodie and Dan. The park was a maze of shapes. Green ovals. A pond. A river. The suburbs around the city had turned into a patchwork quilt. In the distance, the city skyline cut across the horizon like a cathedral of steel and glass.
Teen Superheroes Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 5
