Hero

by Michael Grant

  Brianna.

  All the while Vector burned. The bugs that made him up fell in a rain of shriveled bodies, bouncing like hailstones as they hit marble. And Vector did nothing. He did not threaten, he did not try to escape, he just hung there in the air as the flamethrowers burned on and on.

  Shade’s flamethrower was the first to run dry. The ring of flame she’d run around Vector sputtered and died.

  Francis reached the saber-tooth, tripped and plowed into it, and fell hard, elbows and knees slamming the edges of the stairs. The tiger creature spun around, leaving Armo gushing blood, and reached for Francis. Crawling, then flipping over and scooting back on her rear end, Francis tried to grab the claw that raked inches from her face, but couldn’t get a hold.

  But the tiger had made a fatal mistake: in chasing Francis, it had exposed its rear.

  Dekka aimed carefully for the creature’s rear end, farthest from both Francis and Armo. There was a feline howl and a noise like a meat grinder, and the creature’s back legs disintegrated. They looked like they’d been jammed into a blender. Flesh and fur, bone and sinew dissolved, fragmented into bloody bits, and now it was the saber-tooth who roared in agony as parts of it slopped down the steps.

  The tiger creature crawled away, trying to dig its claws into waxed stone. Blood poured from the stumps of its legs, and it had not yet begun to de-morph, return to its human form.

  It doesn’t know!

  Francis jumped up, her face a furious mask, and avoiding the desperate, flailing claws of the beast, got behind it and grabbed a handful of fur. Seconds later, she was gone, and so was the beast.

  Simone was still having all she could handle with the hovering girl. Neither of them was a boxer or martial artist, and a fistfight in midair was by its very nature a hard way to land a serious blow. They careened together into the black tote board, splintering it.

  Oh, God, we’re winning!

  Now, though, Dekka’s flamethrower was weakening; the jet that had been a straight line of fire became a downward arc.

  “Poison!” Dekka cried, shut down the flame, and shrugged out of her harness.

  Cruz and Malik, too, now both armed with insecticide, came at a run, bounding up the stairs trailing clouds of poison from spray cans. Their feet crunched on the dead bugs, lying two inches deep, like the aftermath of a hail storm.

  We’re actually winning!

  So why don’t I feel . . .

  And then, Dekka knew why she didn’t feel victorious. Her folly, her blindness was suddenly horribly clear: Markovic wasn’t trying to get away.

  Vector had a plan.

  CHAPTER 30

  . . . The Enemy

  SHADE HAD SEEN the same thing as Dekka and had come to the same queasy conclusion. She skidded to a halt and tried to slow her speech enough to be understood.

  “Vector’s not running!”

  “I know,” Dekka snapped. “He’s not even fighting back!”

  Shade spun, taking in the whole room. The downed humans. The fish girl who Simone now had backed against a pillar, thirty feet up. Armo bloody but on his feet again. Francis and Malik spraying aerosol cans like a pothead spraying Febreze before his parents come for a visit. Cruz hugging a pillar, no longer as the mayor but as herself again.

  Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

  And then, Shade saw why Markovic had not fled. From inside the long rank of ticket windows they came: an insect horde. They spilled out of the change slots like copper and silver coins flowing from a slot machine jackpot.

  Hundreds of thousands.

  Millions.

  A dozen rivers of insects. Many times what had formed Vector on the balcony.

  Their flamethrowers were dry. Their insecticides would be soon. They had nothing left to throw against this wave.

  And then, something just as bad. Because as Shade was gaping in shock at Vector’s counterattack, something stopped directly before her.

  A reflection. Of herself.

  A perfectly clear reflection standing not ten feet away.

  The only observable difference was that Shade had a flamethrower on her back, and her reflection did not. But the flamethrower was empty now, so Shade dropped it.

  “Who are you?” Shade demanded, not needing for once to slow her speech.

  Her doppelganger grinned and said, “I’m calling myself Mirror.”

  “Oh, good, another Rockborn nut with delusions of comic-book heroism.”

  “I sent in an application for a trademark,” said the voice identical to Shade’s own with an identically ironic tone. “It’s going to be tough figuring out an action figure since I always mirror someone else, but, hey, small price to pay, amiright?”

  “Why are you backing that piece of shit, Vector?”

  “Because you can’t bring it all crashing down. And he can.”

  “And you think it’s a good idea to bring everything crashing down?”

  Mirror shrugged. “Why not? We could use a revolution.”

  “Read some history, dude. Revolutions almost never work out well.”

  “Working out fine for me, so far,” Mirror said. “See, I look like you right now, Shade Darby, but I’m not you. I’m not some entitled, rich white girl looking for thrills. In real life I’m a middle-aged paraplegic vet with a hajji bullet lodged in my spine. I haven’t walked in nine years. Then I’m in my apartment minding my own business, and bang: the rock!”

  “Congratulations. But if you fight for Vector you’re going down.”

  Mirror shrugged and smiled with Shade’s own smile. “You can try.”

  The entire conversation had not lasted five seconds of real time. And from Shade’s point of view, it wasn’t going well.

  In one fluid move Shade snagged the strap of her flamethrower and whipped it at super speed at a target a few feet to Mirror’s left. A normal person would not even have seen the big tank flying, but Mirror did and instinctively leaped away from it.

  Just as Shade had expected. She made a single leap, intersected Mirror’s path, and hit him like a football blocker, shoulder to gut, carrying all the irresistible momentum her speed afforded. She slammed him into and over the balcony’s railing, and together they fell.

  But they fell at normal speed, a fall that because it was at the speed set by gravity, would take less than two seconds in real time. Plenty of time for Mirror to punch Shade straight in the nose, sending blood droplets flying. Shade counterpunched almost simultaneously, catching Mirror in the neck. Mirror kicked; Shade shifted to avoid the blow and grabbed a handful of Mirror’s hair to pull herself into direct contact with him. Shade grabbed at his throat, hoping to choke him, but she couldn’t get purchase. Instead Mirror got his arm around Shade’s neck and twisted her around to face away, ready to snap her neck.

  They hit the floor. Hard. Hard enough to knock the wind out of Shade and make her head swim, but worse for Mirror, who had landed on the bottom so that he not only slammed into unyielding marble but was pistoned by Shade’s momentum.

  Shade was up before she could make her lungs work. She knew the smart move was attack, attack, and finish him. But she was feeling dizzy and weak and instead retreated, zooming away to the far side of the concourse.

  Cruz saw nothing of Shade’s struggle, but she had seen the oncoming swarm and she ran. This was not a fight she could contribute to, and if she stayed she would just be someone the others had to protect when they needed to be protecting themselves.

  She ran, and as she ran the fear grew and she ran faster, heedless of where she was going, but suddenly she had a companion, Simone, flying beside her.

  “Follow me, Cruz, I have an idea!”

  Any idea was better than none, and any company was better than being alone, so Cruz followed the blue girl as they ran/flew beneath the eastern balcony and found themselves in something like a very upscale supermarket. There were stalls of food on both sides, seafood, coffee, gourmet stores with little jars of mustard and balsamic vinega
r.

  It had all been looted, thrown about, trampled, but Simone kept going until she stopped in midair and pointed.

  “There!” Simone cried, pointing at a chocolate shop.

  “You want chocolate? Now?”

  “Come on! Get some shopping bags. Grab anything sweet.”

  This involved crawling around and using fingernails to pry stepped-on chocolates off the floor.

  “What the hell are we doing?” Cruz asked, but Simone had gone behind the smashed glass service counter into the back room. She emerged with two five-pound bags of sugar.

  “Forget the chocolate, this will do it! There’s more back there, grab it!” And Simone flew, right back toward the concourse.

  Cruz, not knowing why but responding to the urgency in Simone’s voice, raced past the counter and on a shelf found a third bag of sugar, powdered, as it happened. She ran after Simone, who was already back out in the main concourse.

  The bugs came crawling, a tide of bugs. They came flying, like horizontal rain. And Dekka’s heart died within her.

  They had done nothing to hurt Vector.

  Nothing. He had waited patiently until the only weapon that mattered—the flamethrowers—had become useless. He had waited patiently as they burned some small portion of him, and now . . .

  A mass of the insects swirled into the air and again formed the “face” of Vector.

  “Don’t feel bad,” Vector crowed. “You did well. You did very well. And I’ve learned something from this: Don’t bother with humans. Malik can take them out too easily.”

  “Stop it, Markovic!” Dekka yelled, though her voice sounded weak in her ears. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Why are you?’ Markovic countered. “Join me. Serve me. We can rule the world!”

  “Great, a garden-variety megalomaniac.” This came from Malik.

  The Vector face formed a hideous smile. “Ah, Malik. Do you know, Malik, that I can see through your morph? Eh? Do you know that I see what you really are? My God, the pain you’ve endured, young man. And for what? You’re powerless against me.”

  “We’re still standing, Vector,” Malik said defiantly.

  Vector moved his millions of wings and his millions of mouthparts and let go a long sigh that seemed to come from everywhere at once. “Last chance, Rockborn Gang. I could have exterminated you long before this, but I wanted to see what you had. I’m impressed. Really, I am. But it’s decision time for you. Now or never. Join me, or die.”

  The insect army was coming on, but at a measured pace, threatening but not yet attacking. Dekka knew that the instant she refused Vector’s demand, they would attack, and by sheer weight of numbers would find their way into eyes and ears and nostrils. Maybe their disease organisms would work against Rockborn, or maybe they wouldn’t, but either way, they would lose.

  The choices now were submit or flee.

  And then Simone came zooming in at about ten feet above the floor, zoomed over and through the storm of bugs, holding two big bags and trailing white powder.

  “Come on,” Markovic said impatiently. “With me or against me? I could use the Rockborn Gang, truly I could.”

  “We don’t get used,” Dekka snapped.

  There came a whispery laugh. “Then what is to follow is on you.”

  Then, Vector’s insects attacked, swarmed with violent purpose—not in an attack on the Rockborn Gang but in a frenzy of sugar addiction.

  “Run!” Simone shouted as she passed. “The sugar won’t last long!”

  Dekka didn’t have to be asked twice. “Shade! Malik! Cruz! Francis! Retreat, retreat, retreat!”

  Even now she knew she shouldn’t order Armo, but he got the idea anyway, and together they pelted down the stairs. Shade zoomed past carrying Cruz in her arms as Cruz dribbled out another bag of sugar.

  “This way!” Simone yelled.

  They burst through the doors out onto Forty-Second Street, shaking, panting, all of them terrified. And they kept running until they had put many blocks between themselves and Grand Central Terminal.

  It was a mile back to the armory, and they ran the first half of it before slowing down. Panic. There was no better word for it. Dekka was leading a panicked army in full retreat.

  Defeat. Again.

  Simone had caught a brief glance at Detective Williams in the early stages of Vector’s terrible attack. She’d had a much closer view of the person roped atop the information booth.

  Maybe she could have tried to excuse Williams as a panic move, an instant reaction by her father when he found himself surrounded and under attack. Maybe.

  INT: Grand Central Terminal. Evening. Move in on a creature writhing in torment. Slowly we reveal that this is a human being.

  But there was no possible rationalization to explain doing horrifying things and then putting them on display. It was barbaric. It was inhuman. No, that wasn’t right, it was very human, the worst of humanity. It was very human cruelty. It was human vanity and human contempt and very human greed for power.

  It was very human evil.

  She flew along now, not wanting to be down with the others where she had to interact, where she had to hear their careful efforts not to offend her by saying something harsh about her father.

  Her father: a monster.

  Simone felt as if her body was filled with a poison, as if she were contaminated, as if she were one of those touched by Vector’s revenge. His acts had rubbed off on her. How could they not? It was his DNA as well as her mother’s that had designed and built Simone in utero. She was his child. She was the child of a man she had once admired, relied on . . . loved. She had known her father was a predator, but had assumed that his greed extended only to money. But now . . .

  Her strength failed, and she had to drop to her feet and lean against a stoplight post as stifling rage built inside her.

  Montage: life events where Markovic had been present. Cut to Simone crying.

  Simone was breathing in sobs, sharp noises on each inhalation, the opening notes in a symphony of despair and self-loathing. She felt a hand on her arm, and through eyes she only now realized had filled with tears, she saw Dekka.

  Simone tried to talk, but the words were strangled in her throat.

  “It’s hard,” Dekka said. “You have to give it time.”

  “Hard?” Simone managed to ask, her mouth in an ugly sneer.

  “Yes. It’s hard seeing bad things. It’s in your head, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it being engraved on your memory.”

  “Jesus Christ, he’s my father! He’s my father! That . . . that . . . filthy, murdering . . . he’s my father! What he did . . .” A sound came from her that was almost a laugh, a tumble of words tinged with hysteria. “That bastard! How did I . . . God damn him, I hope there’s a God, I hope that’s real, I hope hell is real, I hope he burns. . . .”

  Without willing it, Simone found herself wrapped in strong arms. Human arms: Dekka de-morphed, a big black girl who had never struck Simone as a hugger. And to her own amazement, Simone buried her face in the crook of Dekka’s neck and heaved sobs.

  After a while Dekka gently disengaged and started Simone moving again. “We have to keep moving. He may come after us.”

  “Ask me again,” Simone said, her voice like gravel.

  “I don’t know what—”

  “Ask me again,” Simone said, voice now savage. “Ask me again if I’ll kill him. Go on, ask me again!”

  Dekka did not.

  Fade to black.

  CHAPTER 31

  Run Away! Run Away!

  BY THE TIME they reached the armory, Dekka had already begun to plan, but this was a plan for defeat, for withdrawal. They could get away from New York. They could find some distant place, some cabin in some faraway, frozen wilderness. Maybe they could regroup there. Maybe they could attract more Rockborn. Maybe somehow they and the government together . . .

  She had comforted Simone as a way of comforting herself. She had lost. They’
d been beaten, and badly. She, Dekka Talent, had led them to a second defeat.

  They filed into the armory, and Dekka began handing out orders. “Shade? Check the doors and windows, would you? And where’s Edilio?”

  A door opened and Edilio appeared as if by magic. There was someone with him.

  Someone . . .

  Dekka’s heart stopped.

  “Sam?”

  “Afraid so,” Sam said, smiling.

  Dekka felt the last of her strength dissolve. Her knees almost buckled, and then Sam was there with his arms around her, as she had embraced Simone.

  “Oh, God, Sam.” She pulled away, brushing furiously at tears. “Sam, this is Cruz, and Malik. Francis. You know Armo. And Shade . . .” She looked around, momentarily forgetting that she’d sent Shade off on an errand. “And this is Simone Mar—”

  “Simone,” the girl interrupted. “Just Simone.”

  Shade’s errand had been one she could carry out in mere seconds, and she vibrated to a stop and began to de-morph.

  “Hi, I’m—”

  “I know who you are,” Shade said, in the kind of voice you might use on being introduced to your sports hero or a saint. “I’m Shade Darby.”

  “Edilio,” Dekka said, “we need more flamethrowers; they’re all that works. Sam. Oh, God, Sam, am I glad to see you.”

  “Can you bring me up to speed?”

  They were in the middle of the great hall of the armory, a space that seemed almost cozy now compared to Grand Central. All the chairs were against a wall, so they sat down on the floor, cross-legged, in a circle.

  And Dekka narrated. She told Sam about Vector. About the New Jersey killing field. About their first failed effort to take him down. And with bitter words she detailed her own failure to prevail at Grand Central.

  Sam waited quietly through it all. From time to time, he nodded or raised an eyebrow, but he seemed to understand that Dekka needed to make this public confession.

  When Dekka was done, no one spoke for a while. Even Shade had nothing to say, quiet for once in the presence of the boy, the man, who she had studied for years.

  Finally, Sam said, “Tell me something, Dekka. How dangerous is Vector compared to Caine?”