GEN13 - Version 2.0 (18 page)

Reverb and Knockout stood there for a bit, gazing impassively at the mess that had been Grunge as they checked their kill. Satisfied, they nodded to each other and headed off to make sure the rest of Gen
¹³
was under control.

... And the pieces started to move.

Little by little, the bits of slush oozed, flowed, and trickled back toward the spot where Grunge’s feet had been. Slowly at first, but then more quickly, the mound grew until it resembled a filthy, brownish snowman.

A filthy, brownish snowman that looked a lot like Grunge.

The snow-Grunge pumped his dripping fists in the air. He threw back his head and shouted: “Who da man!”

Grange’s desperate, last-ditch plan had worked! He knew that if he let himself be blown apart in his rocky form, all of the bits would have to be pieced together perfectly before he could have a prayer of returning to human form. And that wasn’t likely to happen in his lifetime.

But water and slush don’t work that way. They flow and mix. Grunge had prayed that merely getting the bits back in contact with each other would be enough to let him reshape himself. From all appearances, it looked like he was right.

Snow-Grunge looked up to see Rainmaker hovering just above him. “Yo, Sarah!” he called. “Let’s go kick some underage butt!”

Rainmaker gestured. Instantly, a howling storm appeared from nowhere, pelting Grunge with a heavy downpour of driving rain. “Sarah, no! Stop!” he cried. “When the water hits me ...”

But it was too late. Grunge was already melting. The rain was literally washing him away.

The strategy that had saved Grunge’s life was working against him now. He’d managed to re-form his body because the nature of the watery slush was to flow together and blend. However, if this new water mixed in with the water molecules in his body, Grunge wasn’t sure that he’d be able to separate himself back out. Ever.

Rainmaker watched the scene without any visible sign of emotion. On the outside, anyway. Deep in the recesses of her mind, Sarah was screaming. Ever since Override had taken control of her body, that was all she could do.

Grunge struggled mightily to hold his body together. At the same time, he was also fighting to revert to flesh and blood before he reached the point of no return. Slowly, painfully, Grunge regained his human form—

—just in time for a hurricane-force wind to blow him off his feet. He tumbled helplessly through the air, smashing into the side of a commercial van that was parked at the side of the road. The side of the van crumpled under the impact. Grunge fell onto the street, unconscious.

Rainmaker’s stolen body looked around to see how the rest of the battle was progressing. Burnout had already passed out from lack of oxygen by the time Riptide dropped him on the ground. Freefall was still sprawled motionless across the sidewalk where Growing Boy had left her.

Only Fairchild was still on her feet, reeling under Rave’s sensory assault. Rainmaker called down an immense bolt of lightning that lit up the sky for miles around. The bolt struck Fairchild with an electrical blast that could be measured only in megavolts.

Still under the effects of Rave’s powers, Fairchild never felt a thing. But that didn’t prevent her body from suffering the effects. She went rigid, and her red hair stood on end. The air smelled of smoke as Fairchild lit up like a lightbulb, then went dark and collapsed. Her breathing was shallow as she lay there in the gutter. But at least she was breathing.

Rainmaker and Highwire exchanged a nod. There was just one last piece of unfinished business to wrap up.

Rainmaker summoned up one last bolt of lightning.

This one was aimed at herself.

CHAPTER 12

Slowly, Roxy opened her eyes and brought them into focus.

“Hey, babe,!’ said Grunge. “You feeling okay?”

Roxy thought she was okay, but she was still struggling to get coherent thoughts to gel. As she drifted, little by little, back into consciousness, the numbness was replaced by a soreness and a dull ache that crept over her whole body.

Why did she hurt so much?

She fought through the cloud of cotton balls that filled her head and searched her memory. The last thing she could remember was ...

Was...

Oh, right. Flying headfirst into a brick wall.

Yeah, that would do it,
she thought. Fortunately, Roxy had managed to cut down Growing Boy’s weight just before he stomped her flat. Otherwise, she knew, she’d be hurting a lot worse—if at all.

Roxy needed a cigarette,

“Who, me? I’m just spiffy,” she told Grunge, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Grunge paused for a moment. He listened to her words, then her tone, and his eyes lit up. “Hey!” he exclaimed.
“That’s
my sweetie! You’re back!”

It took Roxy a minute to figure out what he meant. But then she got it. Despite Roxy’s physical pains, time and a taste of oblivion had left her in better mental shape than she’d been in all night. Thanks to her earlier fit of blind rage, she was pretty much past the helpless terror that came with Bogeyman’s attack. As long as she didn’t think about it (or so she realized, quickly pushing the thoughts away), all that was left was a tinge of anxiety floating around the edges of her psyche. Meanwhile, the bout of unconsciousness had mostly dissipated the rage itself— helped along, of course, by the memory of how stupidly she’d acted.

Roxy still felt a bit peeved, but she’d get over it. Besides, all things considered, she figured she was entitled.

Now that she was more fully awake, Roxy looked around at her surroundings. She was relieved to see that the rest of her friends were there, too. Most of them had awakened before her. Only Sarah’s eyes were still closed. Roxy could see that Sarah was breathing quietly, though, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

Then, Roxy did a double-take as her mind registered the older, black-clad figure beside Grunge.

“Mister L!” Roxy cried. “You’re alive!”

It was indeed their mentor. There were manacles around his wrists and ankles. His numerous cuts and bruises indicated that he’d been through a phenomenal beating. But he was alive.

“Funny, that’s what we all said, too,” Bobby remarked.

“Nice to know you all care,” Lynch said, deadpan, as his eyes studied the edges of the room.

That was the good news.

The bad news was that, while it was true that they were all together, they were all together in a small, dirty cell with concrete walls and a reinforced steel door that didn’t have so much as a keyhole, let alone a knob or window. The floor of the cell couldn’t have measured more than about eight feet by eight feet, hardly enough room for six people. And that was assuming you could even see the floor through the thick layer of dust that covered it like a shroud.

The only things that weren’t covered with dust were their shackles. The manacles circled each of their wrists and ankles, and gleamed under the fluorescent lights. A short length of thick chain connected each manacle to the wall, leaving each prisoner suspended a couple of feet above the floor. No wonder Roxy felt like her arms had been through a taffy pull.

They hung in a row that wrapped along two walls of the cell: Roxy on one end, followed by Sarah, Bobby, Grunge, Lynch, and Kat. Dangling there, they looked like someone’s twisted idea of a series of family photos. Or maybe a set of animal heads, stuffed and mounted as trophies.

Roxy looked up to see a small video camera that was mounted near the ceiling. It was angled downward, watching them with an unblinking eye.

“Anybody wanna tell me where we are?” Roxy asked.

“Wish we could,” Bobby said with a shrug. Or as much of a shrug as he could manage while hanging by his arms.

“And I don’t figure anyone’s thought of busting out to go take a look?”

“I wish we could do that, too,” Kat replied. “Our powers aren’t working. It’s the restraints.”

Roxy took a closer look at the manacles that circled her wrists. Woven through the links of each chain, Roxy •noticed, was a cable that led from the cuff into the wall.

Experimentally, Roxy tried to make herself float. But despite her efforts, she only managed to rise an inch or so—not nearly as much as it should have been.

Kat was right. The manacles were some kind of power dampeners. It wasn’t the first time that Roxy had encountered the technology. They’d been locked up in these kinds of things before. Back when ...

Oh.

Suddenly, everything was starting to make sense.

Roxy turned toward the others. “I know who’s behind this ...”

As one, the others all gave a matter-of-fact nod. “Yeah.” “Uh-huh.” “Yes.”

“You too, huh?” she said.

“Yup. Any other questions?” Bobby asked with a wry smile.

“Yeah,” Roxy said. “How’d we get in our costumes?”

It was true. Roxy’s and Grunge’s Gen
¹³
uniforms weren’t all that different from their typical street clothes. For Roxy, it came down to a halter top, mini-skirt, and leather jacket, while the muscular Grunge opted for skintight pants with no shirt. However, everyone else had gone through a complete change of wardrobe. Kat’s T-shirt and biker shorts had been replaced by a green-and-purple outfit that resembled a French cut bathing suit with long sleeves and boots. Bobby was dressed in a tightly-fitting red top emblazoned with a triangle that pointed down toward his yellow tights. And Sarah, though still unconscious, was now wearing a red-and-turquoise span-dex leotard that left both arms and one leg bare. It was accented by the knee-high, fringed leather boots that she wore as a reminder of her home on the reservation.

The only detail that was missing from any of their uniforms was the metal armbands that Sarah usually wore. In fact, she’d been wearing them before the change of clothes, and Roxy could see them lying on the floor. It was no surprise that their captor had neglected to put them back on Sarah’s arms, though. The high-tech bands intensified both the power and the precision of the lightning blasts that Sarah controlled.

The notion that their captor had undressed them and re-dressed them like playthings disturbed Roxy, but it didn’t surprise her. If her suspicions about their captor’s identity were correct, it wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. It was just one more piece of evidence to support her theory.

Sarah started to stir. “... Where ... ?” she mumbled.

Lynch looked at Roxy as he gestured toward Sarah with a tilt of his head. “Your questions should be answered soon. Now that all of us are conscious, I’d expect a personal visit in approximately three ... two ... one .. *

The heavy door slid open.

“Oh, hey, Ivana,” said Roxy. “What’s up?”

Ivana Baiul stood in the doorway in a mock pout. “Tsk,” she said. “No shocked gasps of recognition? No cries of, ‘You! It—it can’t be you?’

“Weren’t you surprised by my little revelation?” “You’re getting predictable, Ivana,” said Lynch. “Just like your love of dramatic entrances.”

Ivana’s choice of clothing didn’t particularly make her look like the former head of International Operation’s sci-tech division. She was dressed in a clingy, black leather jump suit that showed off her figure to full advantage. Her jet black hair was pulled back in a tight bun. The stiletto heels of her high-top boots added six inches to her height.

However, one glimpse of Ivana’s dark eyes and the hard lines of her face would have been enough to convince anyone of the sheer, unflinching ruthlessness that lay not very far beneath Ivana" s surface. Ivana had learned long ago that she could use her looks to divert and manipulate the men around her. Even her playful tone was heavy with menace.

Gen
¹³
knew what Ivana was like firsthand. When I.O. first brought them together, Ivana had overseen the gauntlet of tests and treatments that was designed to activate the superhuman abilities that came with their gen-factors. As the team struggled to endure the grueling regimen, it quickly became all too clear that Ivana didn’t care whether they lived or died. All she cared about was creating her own super-powered, personal army.

Now, apparently, she had.

“Sorry to spoil your surprise,” said Kat. “Once we had the chance to think about it, it was pretty obvious. Your fingerprints were all over this thing.”

“Who else could crank out gen-active kids?” Bobby said. He chuckled dryly. “And who’d
want
to?”

“How many people would know enough to come after us? Or know enough what each of us can do to pair us up individually against kids who counteract our powers?” Kat added.

“Who else would wait to kill us so she could show off first?” said Roxy. Then, she thought about it for a second. “No, wait
—everyone
we fight does that.”

“And who else would fill out that leather S&M suit in all the right—” Grunge looked at Bobby. Now that he wasn’t so busy worrying about Roxy, Grunge suddenly remembered their bet. “Um . .. who else would ... um ... trash our place?”

Lynch studiously ignored Grunge as he spoke to Ivana. “You even gave your pawns personalities as scintillating as your own.”

“Personalities are overrated, Jack. Too much personality in an operative can prove to be more trouble than it’s worth,” Ivana replied. She gave Gen
¹³
an icy glance before looking back at Lynch. “As you well know.”