Stronger: A Super Human Clash (9 page)

We watched for a while. There were ten of them, all men, in two-man teams. One pushed the lawn-mower-like machine, and the other took notes on a clipboard. They were there for almost two hours, going back and forth over the ground, and when they were finished, they were led out through the northern gate, far from the prisoners.

In the afternoon, every prisoner assembled in a ramshackle cluster in the open space in front of Hazlegrove’s office.

Finally, Hazlegrove emerged, bullhorn in hand, DePaiva and Swinden flanking him, and all the other guards watching us carefully.

“Quiet!” Hazlegrove barked into the bullhorn. “All of you … Settle down and listen up! The ventilators will be back working in a couple of days. In the meantime, you all get some time off.” He paused. “Thank me later. Now, in the past couple of months you’ve seen some improvements. Larger rations, more water. Healthier conditions. That doesn’t come free. Not free at all. When Brawn negotiated the deal, I told him there would be a price. He didn’t know what the price
was, but he agreed anyway.” Hazlegrove barked a harsh laugh. “And this is the man you’ve chosen as your
leader
?”

A lot of people looked at me, and I shrugged. No one had chosen me, not really. It had just happened. And I didn’t care what he had to say about me—I was more concerned with the price he was about to announce.

“Our visitors this morning used ultrasonic probes to scan deep beneath the surface. That technology didn’t even exist the last time this mine was silent—and it’s only
because
the mine is silent that the probes were able to work.” He pointed to a spot past the mine-shaft entrances but still under cover of the dome. “The scans showed two large, and
very
rich, seams of platinum ore right over there. So enjoy your brief rest, because once the ventilators are back online, we’re opening up two new shafts. It’s going to require a lot more manpower. But since we don’t
have
any more manpower, we’ll just have to make the most of what we do have. From now on, we’re operating on fifteen-hour shifts.” Hazlegrove grinned. “Have a nice day. But don’t get used to it.”

The anger that rippled through the crowd was almost palpable, a wave of hatred that washed over Hazlegrove and was as effective as the wind pushing against a ten-ton steel pylon.

Hazlegrove gestured to me, beckoning me to approach.

As I broke free of the crowd, he also called to Keegan and Cosmo. They came to a stop beside me.

He had to shout to be heard over the noise, but I think that was what he wanted. “Jakob Luke Winquist. Your friend. Remember him?”

I nodded. I had a sick feeling I knew what he was going to say.

“He and his team were caught yesterday morning trying to cross the border into Kazakhstan. The three of you lied to me. You participated in—and covered up—the escape of eight prisoners. I’m sure that others were involved, and I’m equally sure that you won’t tell me their names, so I won’t bother asking.”

Hazlegrove walked slowly around me, staring first at Keegan, then at Cosmo. Then he stopped once more in front of me, looking up. “The escapees are, of course, now dead.” He glanced at Keegan, whose eyes were beginning to tear. Either from sorrow or hopelessness. Maybe both. “Don’t cry for them. They don’t deserve your tears. They broke the rules. Rule breakers must be punished.”

He nodded to DePaiva and Swinden. They came forward, their guns held loosely in their arms. “By way of punishment, we are going to shoot two of you, in the head, one shot each. The other one will merely be locked up in the hot box for a week. Because I’m not
completely
without mercy, I’ll allow you to advise me which two will be shot.”

“Me,” I said instantly. “Shoot me twice.”

“Twice? No. It doesn’t work that way,” Hazlegrove said. “Because
you
know you’ll probably survive a shot between the eyes.” He looked from Keegan to Cosmo. “Brawn and one other.”

“Why choose me at all if you know I’ll survive?” I asked, even though I knew the answer. I was stalling for time, desperately trying to think of a way out of this.

Hazelgrove said, “The other prisoners look up to you. Seeing you wracked with guilt will help remind them who’s boss around here. So choose. The woman or the skinny freak.”

“Me, then,” Cosmo said. “You know that makes sense, Hazlegrove. I can’t work as hard as Keegan. I’ve probably got only a couple more years left, at most.”

Keegan started to speak, but Cosmo said, “No! No, you get to live.” He stepped up to her. “You have to live. Brawn and I, we’re superhuman—or we were. But you should
never
have been brought to this place. You have to live so that one day you can get free and work to put an end to this.”

She put her arms around him and pulled him close—but still she was careful not to crack his fragile ribs. “There has to be another way!”

“You know there isn’t.” He smiled at her then, and for a moment I thought he was going to tell Keegan that he had always loved her. But he said nothing. Maybe he figured it was better that way. Instead, he just kissed her on the cheek, then stepped back and resumed his place beside me. He reached up and put his hand on my arm. “When you get out … Give them hell, big guy. Avenge my death, and all that.”

“Yeah, I will. They’ll pay for everything that they’ve done to—”

I stopped: DePaiva and Swinden had cocked their rifles. “No. Not
here
, Hazlegrove! Not in front of the kids!”

“Of course here! How are they supposed to learn the lesson if they don’t
see
you being shot?” He nodded to Swinden.

There was a sharp
crack!
and I was staggering backward before the pain of the bullet even registered.

I stumbled, reeling, blinded from the pain, and the second shot rang out as the crowd started screaming, panicking.

I dropped to my knees, gingerly probed my forehead until my fingers brushed against the bullet, then pulled it free.

And then, beside me, Cosmo’s voice whispered, “Oh God, no …”

I looked up to see Keegan lying on the ground, her lifeless eyes staring up at the inside of the dome.

Hazlegrove was standing over her body, but looking at me. “You can advise me. Doesn’t mean I have to listen.”

ON THE MORNING OF
my fifteenth birthday, I woke up in a tree.

That wasn’t unusual, because I’d woken up in a tree every morning for the previous two months. Except for that one time about three weeks earlier when the branch on which I was sleeping proved to be too weak to support my weight: That morning I’d woken up thirty feet above the ground and falling fast.

Something caught my eye, and I saw that a millipede the size of a hot dog was meandering its way up my arm, which struck me as more odd than creepy, because usually insects gave me a wide berth. I picked it up in my other hand, and—for a moment—wondered whether it might be breakfast. But then I thought of all those legs scuttling down my throat and changed my mind. I was hungry,
but not
that
hungry.

I put the millipede onto a nearby branch and allowed myself to topple sideways. It was quicker than climbing down, and I was only about forty feet up. I crashed down through the lower branches and landed on my feet.

The jungle was deep in shadow, with the sunlight coming from my right, which told me I was facing the right direction: north. I started walking.

It had taken me two years to walk from Tierra del Fuego in southern Argentina through Bolivia and to my current location, Yapacana National Park in Venezuela.

After rescuing me in the Antarctic, my new Argentinean friends brought me to their base, a weather research station on the Ronne Ice Shelf. There were ten people in their party, all men, all scientists, and for the first week most of them were terrified of me: They kept me in the large shed that housed the dogs, which suited all of us just fine. The dogs seemed to love curling up on top of me and falling asleep.

But gradually the scientists’ natural curiosity overcame their fear, and I was accepted into the group.

They were smart and funny, and the sixteen weeks I was with them passed quickly. They put a lot of time into teaching me Spanish and poker, though in truth I wasn’t much good at either. I earned my keep by looking after the dogs and helping out around the base.

Of course, the Argentineans wanted to know all about me, but I refused to tell them my real name: I no longer wanted my parents to find out that I was still alive. It had been more than a year since the incident in the First Church of Saint Matthew.
I figured it was better that they continued to believe I was dead, because knowing the truth would put them in danger from my former captors.

After having been held prisoner for so long it came as something of a shock to be with people who treated me like a human being. And I received an even bigger shock the first time I squeezed myself into the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and saw my face for the first time. There hadn’t been a mirror in the prison, and the cell had always been too bright for me to properly see my reflection in the glass. I’d already known that I was completely hairless—I didn’t even have eyelashes—but I never expected to see pure white eyes looking back at me. Solid white, no iris or pupil.

The leader of the group—a very laid-back and cheerful older man called Enrique—later examined my eyes very closely and declared that he had absolutely no idea why I wasn’t blind. “The color white reflects light. There can’t be enough light getting in for you to be able to see.” He sketched a diagram of an eye on a sheet of paper. “Photons—particles of light—pass through the eye’s lens and are focused here, on the retina, which is composed of light-sensitive cells. When the photons strike them, the cells transmit signals to the brain via the optic nerve. If there’s no light getting into the eye to trigger those cells …” He shrugged. “You should be blind.”

Enrique was also fascinated with the color of my skin. “There is a medical condition called argyria that causes skin to take on a blue or gray tint. It’s caused by the long-term inhalation of silver compounds…. But its effects are nothing like this.” As I sat cross-legged before him, he poked my upper
arm with his finger. “This
feels
like flesh, but it’s much stronger, more resilient.” His probing fingers found a scar on my biceps. “This wound … When we found you, it was a few days old. Now it has almost completely faded.” Enrique patted me on the forearm. “You are a fascinating creature. I’m glad we found you before anyone else did.”

I think that was one of the reasons they liked me: Aside from monitoring the weather patterns and occasionally venturing out to drill core samples of the ice, they didn’t have a lot to keep themselves busy. But now they had a giant blue kid to exercise their scientific minds. They took samples of my skin and spent days analyzing them. They got me to spit into a beaker to see if my saliva was the same as everyone else’s. Everything about me was a puzzle, and scientists love puzzles.

The Argentineans never told their superiors about me. At first, it was because they didn’t think they would be believed, but pretty quickly they realized how much danger they would be in if the Americans found out.

At the end of the sixteen weeks, Enrique arranged for a Russian Mi-10 helicopter to come to the base to collect a sealed container of “samples” and deliver it to a research ship waiting off the Palmer Archipelago.

Through a series of called-in favors and, I suspected, one or two hefty bribes, Enrique managed to set everything up so that the container would be unloaded from the ship once it reached Tierra del Fuego, about seven hundred miles to the north, and then left unwatched overnight.

I never saw any of my Argentinean friends again, but in the years that followed it was sometimes very comforting to think
that somewhere in Antarctica is a research station that houses a large photo of me laughing and joking with them, surrounded by a dozen huskies who wanted nothing more than to curl up in my lap.

I’d like to be able to say that I spent my two years in South America doing something useful and heroic, like saving impoverished villagers from ruthless gang lords or greedy corporations, but the truth is that most of the time I just stuck to the shelter of the jungles and did my best to avoid anything to do with civilization.

Aside from occasionally encountering a road that I couldn’t easily go around—in which case I usually waited until nightfall before crossing—during the first two years I came into contact with people only once, and that was in southern Bolivia, just north of Cañón Seco.

It was early morning, and I was daydreaming as I marched through the forest when I walked straight into a clearing in which there was a ring of six two-man tents around the smoldering remains of the previous night’s campfire.

Before I could retrace my steps, I realized that I was only a few yards away from a very sleepy-looking freckle-faced man who was relieving himself behind a tree. When he saw me, his mouth dropped open in shock.

I decided that the best approach would be to act as though I were nothing out of the ordinary. “Morning,” I said, and kept walking.

“What … ?” He very quickly finished his business and raced after me. “Wait!”

Don’t turn around!
I said to myself.
Just keep going!

“Wait, stop!” he yelled.

A woman’s voice called from one of the tents. “Andreas? What is it?”

“There’s a … a giant blue man! You’ve
got
to see this!”

The sounds of mild panic and confusion came from the other tents, and almost as one, six tent flaps were unzipped and the campers came scrambling out, six men and six women in total.

One of the men screamed when he saw me, and fainted, but most of the rest were more curious than scared.

They rushed up to me, then stopped when I turned to look at them. “Camping, huh?” I asked. I couldn’t think of anything else.

The first man—the one with a fresh pee stain on his jeans—said, “You … You speak
English
?”