Stronger: A Super Human Clash (11 page)

“Gethin, you have to come with me.”

“So you can figure out a way to kill me? You’re out of your mind!”

“We have no intention of killing you.”

“Yeah, well, a few days ago—”

She cut me off: “Things have changed in the past five days. We’re not here to kill you, or capture you. The Powers That Be have decided that you’re significantly more useful alive than dead. We’re giving you a job.”

TIME SEEMED TO STOP
. All I was aware of was that every-
one in the mine was watching me, wondering what I would do next.

I had a strong feeling that Hazlegrove was hoping I’d attack him: That would give him the perfect excuse to kill me right there and then. I wasn’t nearly as strong as I had been before my powers disappeared. One bullet to the head would only slow me down, but if all of the guards fired simultaneously … I wasn’t sure what would happen, and I didn’t want to find out.

Keegan was dead. Nothing I did would change that.

The only logical course of action would be to keep my head down and watch for a better opportunity to escape.

“Your fault, Brawn,” Hazlegrove said. “You created this situation. No one escapes. You got that? No one.”

I felt the fury subside a little as I looked at Keegan. She would want me to remain calm. I could almost hear her voice telling me not to do anything I would regret later.

I climbed to my feet, and slowly walked over to my friend’s body. The guards had not taken their eyes off me, nor had their aim faltered. They were ready for anything I might do.

Still moving slowly, I turned to look down at Hazlegrove.

His grin slipped, and I saw a single bead of sweat run down his forehead. He swallowed. “Well?”

“A few minutes ago you told us that we’d have to work harder. This is how you intend to encourage us? What if we drop our tools now, and never work again? Will you kill
all
of us? How would that look to the warden, and to whoever is pulling his strings? Do you think they would be pleased with you, or angry?”

“I don’t think you’re in any position to lecture—”

“She has to be buried. A proper funeral. Keegan was a Christian, a Catholic. We’ll need a priest.”

His usual smug composure returned. “That’s not going to happen.”

“A funeral,” I repeated. “With an ordained Catholic priest. And it has to happen within three days.”

Hazlegrove shook his head. “Keep dreaming. You can perform your own funeral service, but you are
not
getting a priest.”

I took a step back, and looked around at the other prisoners.

Beside me, Cosmo crouched down next to Keegan and gently closed her eyes. “Brawn…,” he said softly, so that only I could hear. “We … we have to
do
something.”

He was right. But what
could
we do? It was taking every ounce of my control not to grab Hazlegrove and rip his spine out through his chest, but I had to hold myself back. If I attacked Hazlegrove, the guards would open fire and a lot more people would die.

I looked back at Hazlegrove. “When the ventilators are repaired, we’ll go back to work. Like you said earlier, we work and you feed us. But this back-and-forth power play … these petty, cruel actions that you think make you a big man … that all ends now. No more games, Hazlegrove. Because this whole place is teetering on the edge, and if you push any harder, it will all come crashing down. Believe me, you do
not
want to be caught in the middle of that.”

Hazlegrove sneered. “You think you can get away with threatening—”

“It’s not a threat!” I roared, and Hazlegrove jumped back. “It’s a
warning
, and unless you’re the biggest moron who ever walked the Earth, you’ll heed it!”

He paused for a few seconds, looking at me, then nodded once and turned away.

Part of me wished he hadn’t, that he had tried one more thing to reinforce his sense of power, because I
would
have snapped. I would have locked my hands around his puny head and crushed it to jelly.

But I saw in his eyes that he knew how close he had come to death, and I hoped that this was a turning point, that some good would come from Keegan’s murder.

* * *

The following morning Keegan was buried. All of the prisoners gathered in the small patch of ground just outside the dome that served as a cemetery, the last resting place of twenty-seven other prisoners whose lives had been lost while working in the mine.

There was no priest, but we did our best to remember how a funeral should be conducted. Prayers were said, speeches made, and as I lowered my friend’s cloth-wrapped body into the grave, Cosmo said, “I’ve got something to say. Everyone, please … If you’ll bow your heads for a moment?”

Everyone lowered their heads.

Cosmo cleared his throat. He hesitated for a second, then said, “When someone we love dies, it breaks all of us. We’re damaged, fractured, but we’re not weakened—never that. Instead, we’re united in grief, in love, in hope. That unity gives us strength, and we will need that strength to survive.”

Cosmo glanced back over toward the dome, where many of the guards were watching with vague interest, then continued: “Keegan believed that the taking of human life—no matter
what
the reason—is an unforgivable sin. Even in a situation where the only way to survive is to kill another. Even then. Unforgivable. I ask you to honor our friend by living as she would. I know that many of you are filled with rage over our situation here, and that our freedom seems an impossible goal without more blood being shed, but you must never,
never
take the life of another.”

He knelt down beside the grave and tossed in a handful of dirt. “Rest in peace.”

Cosmo straightened up, looked at me for a moment, then
backed away into the crowd. A line formed, and one by one, everyone present said their good-byes.

I had my head down, my thoughts on Keegan, when I heard one of the guards raise his voice: “Where d’you think you’re goin’?”

I looked up to see Cosmo walking past the guards. “I need to talk to Mr. Hazlegrove,” he said.

As he passed through the doors, I thought,
Whatever you do, Cosmo, don’t be a fool. If you antagonize him, you’ll end up in the hot box, or worse.

I could picture Cosmo marching up to Hazlegrove’s office and tried not to think of him as “the Mouse That Roared.” A stick-thin figure barely strong enough to stand upright, raging at the man who cared so little about other people that he ordered a woman to be killed and then only grudgingly allowed the woman’s friends to use a shovel to dig her grave.

Whatever argument you have with him, Cosmo, you’re not going to win
, I thought.

And then another thought struck me:
What if he’s
not
going to Hazlegrove to argue with him? What if he’s planning to—?

I was already running, the startled guards darting out of my way and reaching for their guns at the same time.

Normally I had to crouch way down to get through the doors, but on this occasion I didn’t have the luxury of taking my time: I made a low jump, throwing my legs forward and my head back, skidding through the open doors like a baseball player sliding into home plate.

Then I rolled forward onto my feet and ran, ignoring the shouts of the guards behind me.

Ahead of me, just outside Hazlegrove’s office, Swinden and Donny DePaiva had just grabbed hold of Cosmo, pulling something sharp and metal from his skeletal hands.

“No!” I roared. “Let him go!”

Hazlegrove emerged from his office, and Swinden said, “Caught him, sir. Coming for you. Had this in his hand.” Swinden held up the metal object, a small piece of plating from one of the carts that had been sharpened to a point.

I slowed as I reached them. “Let him go—he’s not thinking straight! He wouldn’t have done it!”

Cosmo turned to look at me. “I would! I was gonna slit that monster’s throat!”

Hazlegrove said, “You better talk some sense into your friend, Brawn. Otherwise there’s going to be another grave out there before the day is out.”

I crouched down in front of Cosmo. “Listen to me, man! This is not the way! All that stuff you said outside about not taking a life …”

“That was Keegan’s belief, not mine!” Cosmo bared his teeth. “He has to die. He deserves to die!”

“Maybe, but what then? The warden will just bring someone else in. Someone worse.”

“Coward!” he spat. “That’s what you are, Brawn. A coward! You’re so scared of them that you’re
letting
them treat us like dirt!”

“Yeah, I’m scared! But not for
me
. Cosmo, they can’t hurt me. But they can hurt you and everyone else. These people … They’re not human.” I looked at DePaiva and Swinden, then at Hazlegrove. “They’re scum. And they
know
they’re scum.
Swinden’s a barely literate moron who in the outside world would have a hard time telling the moon from the sun. DePaiva is the biggest—and laziest—brownnoser who ever lived. And Hazlegrove … he’s just a weak-minded, evil, petty little man.”

Hazlegrove said, “You mind your words, Brawn. You’re not—”

“Shut
up
!” I turned back to Cosmo. “We will get out of this place, all of us. But it’s better that we leave on our feet than in a box. So we have to stick together. You said it yourself. We’ll need our strength to survive. Because above all, we have to be around to watch these men get the justice they deserve.”

Cosmo looked down at his feet. “One day, Hazlegrove. One day it will happen. You’ll get what’s coming to you.”

Hazlegrove said, “Take him away. Two weeks in the hot box.”

I stood up. “No, you can’t do that. He might not survive that long!”

Hazlegrove considered this. “Hmm … You’re right. Better make certain, then. A
month
in the hot box.”

“That’s a death sentence! You might as well shoot me now!” Cosmo yelled.

“If you wish.” Hazlegrove reached for his gun and pulled it from its holster.

I grabbed his hand, squeezing my fist around his just as he pulled the trigger.

The gun exploded, and Hazlegrove screamed. He staggered back with blood pumping from his charred, misshapen right hand.

“YOU ARE TO BE
our secret weapon, Brawn. Our last resort.”

I was, finally, back in America, in a decommissioned military base somewhere in northern Texas. Still far from home, but at least it was the right continent.

Harmony Yuan’s people had reconditioned a corner of an old aircraft hangar as my quarters. It wasn’t that much different from the cell in Antarctica, but it had the illusion of freedom. And it
was
only an illusion: I was not allowed outside the hangar during the day, and at night I was supervised at all times.

Right now, Harmony was in my quarters talking me through a slide show of other superhumans. Most of the photos were blurred, and sometimes there was nothing but a sketch. In all, more than forty superhumans featured on Harmony’s list.

“The rest of the team won’t even know about you unless it’s absolutely necessary. Now, some of these people we are certain we can trust. They—so far—have worked only for the good of humanity. We’re aiming to recruit as many as possible. But there are
others
…”

The screen switched to a photo of the ugliest guy I’d ever seen. His skin was completely covered in red and yellow sores, like the world’s worst case of acne. “This is Dioxin. He’s a few years older than you. The sores on his skin constantly seep a viscous, poisonous acid. His strength and speed are maybe a little above average, but it’s the acid you need to watch out for: It can burn through pretty much anything.”

Another picture: a woman. Very good-looking, but stern. “Slaughter. We figure she’s about twenty-one, but that’s only a guess. We know nothing about her background. She can fly under her own power, and she’s strong and
very
fast. And utterly ruthless. She’s a killer, Brawn. Dioxin has also killed, but Slaughter actually enjoys it.”

Another woman’s face appeared. “Impervia. As far as we know, she has pretty much the same abilities as Slaughter, although she isn’t a bloodthirsty killer. She hasn’t yet done anything that puts her on one side of the law or the other, but we’re watching her.”

The screen changed again, this time showing nothing but a silhouette with a question mark. “This man is potentially one of the most powerful. A telekinetic we call Terrain, because that’s what he can control. His ability allows him to move soil and rocks and sand in great quantities. If he put his mind to it,
he could sink a continent, or create earthquakes or volcanoes. That’s an incredibly potent ability in anybody’s hands.”

“But you don’t know his name or what he looks like?” I asked.

“Not yet.”

The next picture showed an extremely thin man with deep-set eyes and mottled gray and white skin. “This man’s real name is Ferdinand Nikolai Cosby, known as Cosmo to his friends. Eighteen years old. American born of Russian descent. Like you, he was perfectly normal until he hit puberty. But unlike you, his change was more gradual.”

“What powers does he have?”

“None, that we know of.”

“Well, what’s he done?”

Harmony raised an eyebrow. “Done?”

“If he’s one of the bad guys, he must have done something bad, right?”

“So far, he’s not done anything. He’s on the list because he’s a superhuman. And lastly …” Again the picture showed only a silhouette. “The shape-shifter. A photo of him would be useless. He can become anyone, and that makes him very hard to find, and potentially very dangerous. All that we know is that he calls himself Façade.” Harmony walked over to the screen and tapped it with her forefinger. “He’s one we’re very eager to find.”

“How come?”

“Because he’d be the ultimate spy.”

“You really think you can build a team from these people?”

“We do. We have access to almost limitless resources, and we operate totally off the books. We don’t cost the taxpayer anything.”