Stronger: A Super Human Clash (14 page)

I resumed walking, pushing myself through the dense tangle of tough branches as countless thorns scraped uselessly against me. They snagged the material of my shorts, but it was strong stuff and resisted well.

Harmony’s voice came over the radio. “Good work, Brawn. Keep—”

“Hercules,” I corrected her. I was getting to like the name more and more.

“We can talk about that later. Ignore what the colonel said—keep the pace down. Slow and steady, make sure they know you’re coming. That way they’re less likely to start shooting in panic.”

The bushes were thicker and taller as I neared the wall, and I could hear muffled voices from inside the fortress.

The wall was composed of large, crudely cut stone blocks, easy enough for anyone to climb, but the razor wire strung along the top was off-putting, even to me. I didn’t think it would do me much damage, but I decided not to take the chance: It looked a lot tougher and sharper than the thorns.

So instead I drew back my right fist and slammed it into the wall with all my strength.

That was the first time I’d not held back when using my fists, so I was expecting to shatter a block or two.

I
wasn’t
expecting to find that the wall was reinforced with steel girders all along the inside.

And I certainly wasn’t expecting my fist to do more than crack a few blocks: It pulverized one of the blocks and hit a girder square-on, smashing it free of its concrete foundation and causing a thirty-foot-wide section of the wall to topple inward, leaving the dense coils of razor wire to dangle ineffectually overhead.

As the dust settled, I heard Harmony’s voice whisper over the radio, “Good
Lord
… !”

I walked through, stepping over the broken stone blocks. And then gunfire erupted from within the fortress.

I snatched up one of the girders and raced forward: I knew I could survive being shot, but it still stung like crazy.

Bullets plowed into the ground all around me. One clipped my left leg, another two sparked off the girder.

Ahead was a set of large double doors, big enough for me to pass through without having to crouch too much.

But if there was one thing I had learned from watching action movies, it’s that when you’re storming your enemy’s base, you don’t go in through the main door…. To the left of the door was a window with thick metal bars fixed on both the outside and the inside.

I skidded to a stop next to the window, ducked down beneath it, grabbed hold of the bars, and pulled, tearing them right out of the wall and shattering the glass in the process.

There was a roar of rapid gunfire from inside, and a stream of bullets passed over my head. Then I slammed the girder against the inside bars, knocking them back into the room.

The gunfire stopped, replaced by a series of short, sharp clicks: The gun was empty.

I heard heavy, nervous breathing, shuffled footsteps, the rustle of thick robes. It was easy to picture the shooter desperately trying to change the magazine in his gun with sweat-slicked hands.

I tossed the girder aside and grabbed hold of the window frame, pulling myself up and in with one movement, landing in a crouch right in front of two terrified young men. They were wearing dark gray military fatigues. Their heads were shaved, and they wore beards with no mustaches, which is always weird. I don’t care if Abraham Lincoln did it, it’s still creepy.

I plucked the machine guns from their trembling hands and threw them out through the window. “Where can I find your boss? Misseldine or whatever his name is.”

The one on the left darted for the door, but he was much too slow. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back, then took hold of his companion. I pulled them close so that my head was almost touching theirs, and snarled, “Stay here. Got it?”

They nodded dumbly, and I shoved them over to the corner farthest from the door.

The door was going to be tricky: It was built for average-sized people. There didn’t seem to be a way for me to pass through with any dignity.

I was saved from having to worry about it by a burst of gunfire from the corridor and a line of bullet holes instantly puncturing the door. I decided to go through the wall instead.

One kick was all it took and the corridor was a mess of plaster dust and splinters.

Three more guys were waiting, shooting at me. Bullets raked across my chest, and before I could reach the men, they turned and ran.

The corridor was so narrow that my shoulders were brushing pictures off the wall as I raced after them, half running, half crouched. They darted through another door at the end of the corridor and slammed it shut behind them.

I launched myself at the door, crashed through and rolled to my feet, and saw that I was now in a large gymnasium with thirty men and women all aiming their guns at me: It was a trap.

But I didn’t think it was a very
good
trap, because rather than instantly opening fire, they all just stared at me in shock.

I took a deep breath and bellowed, “
Drop your weapons!
”

They threw their guns to the floor and stepped back.

“Misseldine—where is he?”

One of the men pointed a trembling finger at a door on the far side of the gymnasium.

“All of you—on the ground. Facedown, hands on your heads!
Now!
” I strode toward the door. “Stay put and stay quiet!”

One hard kick took the door off its hinges—

—and suddenly the floor beneath my feet collapsed.

I plummeted straight down and landed hard, shoulder-first on packed dirt. I looked up to see that I was in a large square pit, and twenty yards above, the men and women gathered around to peer at me.

Then some of the crowd parted, and an older man wearing a white hooded robe was looking down. “The blue giant. I read about you last year. So you’re working for the U.S. military now?”

I stood up and looked at the walls. Like the floor, they were made of packed dirt. I figured it wouldn’t be hard to punch a few handholds and then climb up. There were already some holes close to the top of the pit.

“I’m Norman Misseldine,” the man said. “We figured they’d send in a specialist, and had a feeling it might be a superhuman. Lucky
our
specialist is also a superhuman.” He gave a signal to one of his acolytes, who saluted before darting away.

From all around me came the sound of machinery, powerful enough that the walls of the pit started to tremble.

Misseldine shouted over the noise: “Fella called Terrain. Charged me twenty thousand dollars to create that island, but it was worth every penny. And for free, he made that pit for us. Made it happen just like
that
.” He snapped his fingers. “The dirt just flowed away like water in the sink when you pull out the plug. And then he told us how to make
this
stuff.”

A liquid started to spill out of the series of holes near the top of the pit. It was thick and gray and glistening. With a loud
thump
the first stream of the liquid splattered onto the floor of the pit. It piled up a little before spreading out. The second and third streams hit, and within seconds I was up to my ankles in the viscous fluid.

“Try fighting your way out of that!” Misseldine shouted down to me. “The pit’s twenty yards deep, five yards across. That’s five hundred cubic yards of concrete. Weighs about one and a half million pounds.”

“You think concrete’s gonna stop me?” I yelled up at Misseldine.

“See, it’s not
just
concrete. It’s sand, cement, and gravel, but instead of water, it’s mixed with a huge quantity of
Caulobacter crescentus
. You know what that is?”

“Never heard of it.”

He smiled. “It’s a bacterium. Pretty common stuff, but it produces a natural adhesive that’s three times as effective as the strongest superglue. I figure you’ve got three, maybe four minutes before it sets.”

I had to admit, that one
was
a good trap.

THE HOT BOX WAS
a small windowless shed made of black-painted sheets of corrugated iron. The sheets were overlapped to eliminate any gaps that might allow a breeze to blow through. Instead, a thin slot in the door, about a foot above the ground, was the only form of ventilation.

The hot box was outside the huge dome that covered the mine, on the south side to catch more of the sun. Even in mild weather the heat inside the box was overwhelming before noon, and it continued to rise throughout the day.

In the depth of winter the name became ironic: It was so cold inside the box that anyone unfortunate enough to be locked inside it had to keep his eyes closed to prevent them from freezing over.

The box was large enough to accommodate six people
standing up, or one blue giant sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest.

I was ordered into the box after the incident in which Hazlegrove’s right hand was damaged. Food and water were delivered once a day, in the hottest part of the afternoon, and the guards made sure that I didn’t have nearly enough and that the food was always laced with strong spices to make things even more uncomfortable for me.

I could have smashed my way out of the box at any time, but I’d been warned that if I tried anything, the other prisoners would suffer.

DePaiva told me that I should consider myself lucky. Hazlegrove had wanted to kill me for what had happened, but the warden had intervened: I was more useful alive than dead. I was also fairly certain that they didn’t know
how
to kill me.

But at least Cosmo was still free. That was the one thought that kept me sane for the four weeks I was locked in the box. If anyone else had been in my place, Hazlegrove would have left him to rot, but with two new shafts being opened, they needed my strength, so I knew I’d be freed eventually.

When my time was up, Hazlegrove himself was waiting for me. His hand had been repaired, but by the looks of things the surgeon had been using a knife and fork. He was missing part of his index finger from just above where the nail should have been, the rest of his fingers were swollen and misshapen, and the skin halfway to his elbow was covered with thick red scars.

As I crawled, blinking, into the sunlight, my arms trembling,
my whole body slick with sweat, Hazlegrove said, “You did this to me!”

I didn’t have the strength to respond.

“You listening to me, you freak? You nearly cost me my hand!”

I briefly looked at him, then put one hand on the roof of the hot box to push myself up to my feet.

“You think you had it bad before, Brawn? That was nothing!
Nothing!
” he spat. “I’m going to make your life a living hell!”

All I could say was “Why?”

“Why?
Why?
Because you ruined my hand! I can barely even hold a pen now!”

“You pulled the trigger. It wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t been trying to shoot Cosmo.”

His lips curled in disgust. “Get inside. Hope you got some sleep in the box, because your next shift starts in an hour. If you miss the start of your shift, or if I think you’re not working hard enough, I’m going to pick another worker at random and execute them.” He leaned closer. “You can’t beat the system, Brawn. But the system sure can beat you.” Then he raised his ruined hand. “Remember this. Every time you think I’m pushing everyone too hard, you remember what you did. My son is only a year old and he’s completely freaked out about it. My own son, and he runs crying to his mother whenever he sees me. That’s what you did to me.”

That came as a surprise. I’d had no idea that Hazlegrove was even married, let alone had a child. I couldn’t imagine any woman being foolish or desperate enough for a husband to choose a monster like him.

But then maybe he was the sort of guy who didn’t take his work home with him. Maybe at home he was the kindest husband, the most devoted father, a loyal and generous friend.

Even if he’s all that, and more,
I said to myself,
that doesn’t excuse the way he treats us. It actually makes it worse.

I knew from my own experiences and from the way others had reacted to me that there are very few people who are truly evil. But there sure are an awful lot of jerks.

I still had hope that Hazlegrove was merely one of the latter. As we walked back to the dome’s entrance, I asked, “Mr. Hazlegrove, what would make you happy?”

“What?”

“If we were all dead, would that make you happy?”

He didn’t respond.

“I don’t think it would, because the mine would then either shut down, or the warden would be forced to get real miners in and pay for them. He’d blame you for that.”

“What’s the matter with you? Did you lose your mind in the hot box?”

“No, I didn’t lose my mind. But I gained some perspective. We will work harder and more efficiently if we receive better treatment. We’ll give you less trouble and make your life easier. Everyone wins. It really is that simple.”

“The only thing simple around here is you.”

“Just think about it, that’s all I ask.” I smiled. “We don’t have to like each other to work well together.”

* * *

My words to Hazlegrove must have had some effect, because a few days later he called me, Cosmo, and three others to his office. “I’m sick of looking at all you freaks every day, coming to me whining about your dumb problems, so things are going to change. I’m dividing the workforce into five teams. Each one of you will lead a team. That means your people come to you, you sort out their problems, and you come to me only when it’s absolutely necessary. It also means that you’re responsible for what happens to them, and for what they get up to. You understand me? Brawn?”

“We understand. You’re making us trustees.”

“Call yourself whatever you like. You can be ‘Champions of the Oppressed’ if that makes you feel better about it. Just do your job.”

“What about rations?” Cosmo asked.

Hazlegrove gestured to his underling, Swinden. “
He’ll
talk to you about that. Now get out of my sight.”

Swinden followed us back out to the mine, then beckoned us to follow him away from the louder machinery so that he could more easily make himself heard. “From now on, rations will be tied to the yield. The more ore your team extracts, the more food you get to divide between them. Same goes for all the other privileges.”