Taking to the sky on his fireboard, Chad came up behind the aircraft. One of the wings was severely damaged, but, amazingly, it was still airborne. The pilot in the cockpit appeared unconscious. Chad drew level with the fighter just as the wing began to disintegrate and fall away.
Then, as Chad was about to make a grab for the plane, the wing fell off, and the plane went into a spiraling dive. Chad dashed after it. He poured on more speed to try to grab the rear of the craft. The plane was aimed directly for the city. There was no telling what damage it would do if it struck.
Chad grabbed the rear, then continued to keep hold of the plane as he climbed along the side to where the wing had fallen off. The plane had stopped spinning. It started to level out, but that wasn’t enough. Focusing on the underneath of the aircraft, Chad created a fireboard. The concentrated heat lifted the plane. It stopped falling.
Now he used his powers to freeze the cockpit glass. He shattered it with a punch and unbuckled the pilot. The plane was headed in the direction of Chesapeake Bay. Chad could allow the fighter to land harmlessly in the water. Pulling the pilot free, Chad flew back toward the city to the nearest hospital.
Landing on the roof, he carried the pilot down several flights of stairs to the emergency wing. He pushed through a pair of doors to see injured people everywhere. They were lying on the floor, on makeshift stretchers, on seats. One person had even been brought in on a shopping trolley.
Getting the attention of a doctor, Chad asked where to put the injured man.
‘Wherever you can,’ the doctor said.
Chad gently placed the pilot beside a family who promised they’d look after him. Returning to the roof, Chad spotted more robots dashing across the city.
This is hopeless, he thought. They’re everywhere.
He contacted Axel on his wristcom. ‘I’m not sure we’re achieving anything.’
‘I agree. I think this is just a diversion.’
‘To draw us away from Twelve?’ That made sense. ‘Then let’s head back to the hive.’
Axel agreed. Chad scanned the sky once more as he took to his fireboard.
I just hope we’re not too late.
Forty-One
I looked across President’s park, amazed that the White House still stood. Everything around it was a disaster zone. Tanks, artillery, army helicopters, and various superheroes had tried to stop Twelve. None had been successful.
A year ago, he’d taken a mixture that gave him all our powers. Back then, he’d been inexperienced in using them. He’d also been insane. I could only imagine what had gone through Twelve’s mind over the last year as his hatred of both us and the human race had increased.
I hovered at the far end of the battlefield as two superheroes battled him. Both of them, I knew slightly. One was a man named Jacobi. He had super strength as well as the ability to fly. Another was named Millimus, a woman who could shrink and enlarge inanimate objects with only a wave of her hand. Both were hurling objects at Twelve, but he was deflecting them easily.
Chad arrived on his fireboard at my side.
‘He’s still got all our powers,’ Chad said, as Twelve turned a car into oxygen. ‘Including Ebony’s ability to transmute substances.’
‘Any thoughts on how to beat him?’ I asked.
‘We worked as a team then.’
I doubted we’d be so successful now. He’d had time to plan his revenge.
Time.
I hit my wristcom. ‘Ferdy,’ I said. ‘Is time within the hive still moving at a different pace?’
‘It appears to be, friend Axel.’
‘You know your other self sent through the code to hack the hive’s defense system? What other codes did he send?’
Ferdy ran through several systems before mentioning the hive’s entry codes.
‘There is a code that will allow entry to the hive,’ Ferdy explained. ‘But not to the world inside. Essentially, it will trap anyone who enters into the place between.’
This gave me an idea, but I’d need the rest of the team—including Ferdy—to make it work. I put a call through to everyone on my wristcom and had them assembled in minutes. By then, both Millimus and Jacobi had been injured and withdrawn from their battles with Twelve. I also put through a call to General Clarke and told him what we had planned.
‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘Nothing else has worked.’
We advanced on Twelve. By now, he was stationary in the midst of all the chaos. Fortunately, he wasn’t able to fly. That had taken me weeks to master; it would have made him even more dangerous.
He watched emotionlessly as we drew near. Only then did he nod to himself.
‘I’m glad you survived your time in outer space,’ he said. ‘I regretted sending you out there alone to die. It was foolish on my part. To watch your enemies die in person is so much more gratifying.’
‘Really?’ Chad said. ‘I prefer some light TV myself. Maybe the odd movie.’
‘You joke now, but you won’t be laughing when you die.’
We slowly fanned out around him.
‘All those hours I spent in this molten suit of armor,’ Twelve continued. ‘I thought and planned and dreamed about your demise.’
‘Really?’ Brodie said. ‘We never thought about you at all.’
‘Of course, it wasn’t just your demise. It was the demise of this world. The destruction of every living thing on this planet.’
We surrounded him now.
‘Then I suppose sitting down and talking it over is out of the question,’ I said and turned to the others. ‘Now!’
We attacked. I fired air cannonballs at Twelve as Chad hit him with blasts of fire. Brodie threw pieces of debris as Dan hurled chunks of metal. Ebony created spears in the air and tossed them at him. All the while, Twelve deflected them with ease.
Building up a tornado wind, I smashed it down on him, but he responded by taking control of the wind and turning it on us. The others retreated as Chad and I took to the sky.
‘I will be master of this world for all eternity!’ Twelve screamed.
‘You ever notice these guys all sound the same?’ Chad said to me. ‘They must all go to the same supervillain school.’
‘We’ve got to keep him distracted,’ I said. ‘Come on.’
Chad created an enormous chunk of ice and brought it hurtling down. Twelve turned it to water before it could reach him. He fired shots of ice at Brodie. One hit her, knocking her to the ground.
‘Brodie!’ I yelled.
She waved a hand. ‘I’m okay!’ she said. ‘Keep going.’
We retreated from Twelve as he advanced. He kept shooting ice and fire at us as we fell back. When he was some distance from the hive, I yelled into my wristcom.
‘Now, Ferdy!’ I said. ‘Do it now!’
The hive took off and headed across the debris-ridden field toward Twelve. His focus was so much on us that he didn’t notice. It was only at the last instant that he turned in astonishment to see his vessel.
‘What?’ he said. ‘It’s not possible. I gave no order—’
As the vessel lurched for him, Twelve turned back to us. ‘No!’ he screamed. ‘This is my vessel. You can’t—’
‘We didn’t,’ I said. ‘Ferdy did. He accessed the security codes for your hive and used them to control your ship.’
Twelve gave a final shriek as he was sucked inside.
‘Now, Ferdy!’ I yelled. ‘Now!’
The hive hovered motionless in mid-flight before tumbling to the ground. I was ready to attack again if our plan didn’t work, but the hive remained stationary as we drew closer. We cautiously circled the spaceship.
Dan turned to us. ‘Did it work?’
‘Ferdy?’ I said.
His voice came over our wristcoms. ‘Ferdy was able to use the hive to capture Twelve,’ he said. ‘He was dragged into the hive but only got as far as the transition point. Ferdy locked the entrance to the interior world.’
‘So he’s stuck in b
etween?’ Ebony said. ‘He got through the first doorway and didn’t get as far as the world beyond?’
‘That is correct. The exit is also locked, so Twelve can’t get back out again.’
‘He’s jammed in there,’ Brodie said. ‘Forever. He can’t go forward or backward.’
I tried to imagine what that would be like. Twelve had crossed the threshold but was trapped in that area of darkness. He would be stuck there forever. I shivered. It was a horrible outcome. I had no idea how long Bakari lived, but I imagined it was for centuries. It wasn’t a fate I’d ever wish for anyone, and yet he’d given us no alternative.
‘Twelve did say he wanted to be master of his world for all eternity,’ Chad said. ‘I think that’s what he got.’
Silence fell over the scene. A bird flew overhead. A sheet of newspaper danced across the grass. A distant siren rang out. I nodded towards the city where Twelve’s remaining robots were still causing havoc.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We’ve got work to do.’
Chapter Forty-Two
It took a few weeks, but life finally got back to normal.
The first few days after disposing of Twelve were spent getting rid of his robots. The things seemed to have been programmed to cause as much destruction as possible—which is what they did. Several hundred people were killed, and thousands injured, by the time the last of them were brought under control.
Then the long clean up began. The White House had been spared, but the Washington Monument was gone. It was vowed that a new monument—bigger and better—would be built as soon as possible.
The hive, containing Twelve, was taken to the secure Dante area in the South Carolina branch of The Agency. We were allowed to see it put into storage. To make doubly sure that Twelve would never escape, concrete was poured all around the hive. Nothing was getting in, and nothing was getting out.
Our lives back at The Agency continued as they had. There was always some superpowered villain to combat or some crazed maniac to catch. In this modern world, strange was the new normal. Chad continued to date Quinn. I was glad. They were well-suited. Quinn reminded Chad that he was only human; he needed reminding sometimes.
I made sure I paid plenty of attention to Brodie. This meant going out on dates and spending more time together. We were returning from an afternoon in Coney Island when Ferdy put a call to us, asking us to gather in one of the meeting rooms.
It was the first time he’d ever called a meeting, and we all turned up, not really sure what to expect.
‘Hey Ferdy,’ Chad said, as he settled into one of the seats. ‘What’s up?’
‘Yeah,’ Brodie said. ‘Your message sounded kind of urgent.’
‘Not really urgent,’ Ferdy said. ‘But Ferdy is curious as to why you have not continued to pursue our origins.’
Our origins?
‘You mean, who are parents are?’ I said. ‘Ferdy, we hit a dead end. I thought you understood.’
It worried me he didn’t understand our efforts had led to nothing. Ferdy was a genius, but sometimes he missed the obvious stuff that the rest of us took for granted.
‘Understood what?’ Ferdy said.
‘We needed the three books,’ Dan said. ‘And the three readers. Without all three, there was no way to work out what was written in the books.’
‘That is not strictly true, friend Dan,’ Ferdy said. ‘We needed the readers—
‘Which we’ve got,’ Ebony said.
‘—but we only needed copies of the three books.’
I frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Ferdy and his friends retrieved the three readers. One of the books was destroyed in the blast at the cabin, but we only needed the book’s text to crack the code.’
‘Which we don’t have,’ I said, patiently.
‘But we do,’ Ferdy said. ‘You left the book in Liber8tor when we traveled to the past. Ferdy asked his other version of Ferdy to make a copy of the book.’
My mouth dropped open. So did Chad’s. The others looked utterly stunned.
‘You…’ Dan’s voice trailed away. ‘You made a copy of the third book? That means you have copies of all three books and the readers.’
I felt dizzy. ‘What do they say?’ I asked. ‘What does it all mean?’
‘To give an accurate answer,’ Ferdy began, ‘we must first backtrack to the purpose of The Alpha Project.’
‘Okay,’ I said.
‘For centuries, the Bakari had been modifying humans to turn them into superheroes. It had been a reasonably successful procedure. The powers the humans acquired relied upon the latent abilities in their genes.’
‘We know that, Ferdy,’ Chad said. ‘Just tell us how we find our parents.’
‘The process was less than perfect,’ Ferdy continued. ‘There was no guarantee what powers the humans would display. The Bakari may have wanted a human with superstrength, whereas they ended up with a shapeshifter. If they wanted one that could fly, they might end up with one who could live underwater. It was inefficient—and sometimes dangerous. Occasionally, the humans they modified turned against them and were difficult to control.’
My impatience was killing me. ‘Okay, Ferdy,’ I said. ‘So they wanted a better process.’
‘Not just a better process,’ Ferdy said. ‘The perfect process. Complete control over the end results of what they could create. No more accidents. No more guesswork. Total and complete genetic manipulation of the human genome to create designer humans.’ He paused to allow this to sink in. ‘That’s what was contained within the hive. It was a factory where humans could be created, modified, and improved upon over time. The facility had to be secure—hence the time lock—because the technology was so completely immoral.’
Brodie shook her head. ‘So completely immoral?’ she said. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Creating humans from individual genes means that a million choices can be made about the person being created. Everything that makes up a human—race, sex, intelligence, creativity—and, yes, even superpowers, could be selected. A society with this power could decide who should live and who should die. Anyone considered different, or abnormal in some way, would have no place in such a society.’ He paused. ‘Someone like Ferdy, for instance, an autistic savant who was unable to function in the world, would never exist in such a society. People like Ferdy or anyone deemed different would have no right to live. Such genetic manipulation would create a ‘perfect’ society. Still, that idea of perfection would ultimately rely on a small number of people.’
My heart sank. It was horrible to hear of such a plan. I felt even more sorry for Ferdy.
‘Ferdy was a mistake,’ he said.
‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘You’re not a mistake.’
‘We love you, Ferdy,’ Ebony said.
‘Yeah,’ Chad agreed. ‘I’m not the sort of guy who says that kind of stuff, but…yeah, we love you, man.’
‘And Ferdy loves you,’ he said. ‘But when Ferdy says he was a mistake, he is speaking about the process. It was almost perfected, but not quite.’
We sat in utter silence. I felt like I was on the edge of a cliff and might fall off at any moment. Beyond the cliff lay an enormous truth. It was within my grasp, but I couldn’t quite reach it. Not yet.
Chad looked spooked. ‘Ferdy,’ he said. ‘Come on. Who are our parents?’
I swallowed. ‘I think it’s more complicated than that.’
Brodie seemed ready to burst into tears. Ebony had gone white. Dan just looked confused.
‘Ferdy,’ I said. ‘What are you saying?’
‘Yeah, Ferdy,’ Chad persevered. ‘Who are our parents?’
Ferdy finally spoke. ‘We were created in test tubes in a laboratory in the hive. A mechanism was used to make us grow at super speed. We went from eggs to fully grown teenagers in a matter of a few weeks. Computers taught us languages and gave us rudimentary identities.’ He paused. ‘We don’t have parents—and we never did.’
Cha
pter Forty-Three
Stunned silence met this announcement.
‘But…’ Chad started. ‘No…we are human. Axel can remember his brother…and Dan remembers a grandmother…’
‘Those are memories contained with some of the strands of DNA. They’re valid memories, but they’re not our memories. Those memories belong to other people.’
‘Other people?’ Ebony said. ‘What other people? You mean we’re test-tube babies? Like some DNA was taken from one person and combined with another?’
‘No,’ Ferdy said. ‘DNA was taken from thousands of people. Many thousands, as a matter of fact. That DNA was combined to create people who have never existed before. Individuals without parents, without any kind of history. Individuals created solely to become superheroes.’
I thought about the memories I had of a farmhouse, and the boy I thought was my brother. Ferdy was saying he wasn’t my brother. The memory was real, but it was someone else’s memory.
‘What about Glen Johnson?’ I asked.
‘He was part of the same experimental batch,’ Ferdy said. ‘He was identical in appearance to you—because he was constructed from virtually the same DNA.’
Dan shook his head. ‘The addresses in the books?’ he said. ‘What were they?’
‘The homes of the places where DNA was taken. Blood and tissue samples—which contain DNA—are routinely taken from people when they have operations. There are millions of such samples available, and accessible, if an organization had the power to access them.’
‘Which The Agency did,’ I said.
‘Exactly. We were created from scratch and even given identifying marks to make us look completely human: the scar on both Glen and Axel’s chins, for example.’
I’d always thought the scar was the result of an accident from my previous life. It seemed it was merely a ruse to make me look more human.
But I am human—aren’t I?
Teen Superheroes Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 111
