Super Human (25 page)

She knew that her mother would be sick by now. Maybe her sister too. Vienna was just about old enough to be affected by the plague. Her brothers were too young to be able to cope on their own, and they certainly weren’t capable of looking after their mom and older sister.

She thought of the sick woman in the car on the side of the road, of Lance and Thunder and Roz.
They could all be dead by now. And I don’t even know Thunder’s real name.

They’d pinned everything on Lance’s idea of recruiting Pyrokine. It had been a risk, but one that had seemed worth taking.
We were idiots—he was in prison! How could we
not
have expected him to side with the bad guys?

Abby left the staff room and returned to the main part of the building. She leaned over the rail and looked down at the ground floor—none of the guards or prisoners had moved.

One of the prisoners had looked familiar as she was tending to him, and now she remembered who he was: the Scarlet Slayer, arrested a year earlier by Titan. On the TV news, the Slayer had looked menacing. He was tall, gaunt, almost skeleton-thin, with a shaved head and a long beard. He’d dressed like a cross between a pirate and a samurai warrior. His powers were basic; flight, enhanced strength, and speed, and he’d never seemed to be particularly smart.

Abby was about to move away when it occurred to her that a prisoner who could fly wouldn’t be allowed out of his cell without some sort of restraint, but she hadn’t seen anything like that on the Slayer.

She looked around. The cells appeared to be no different from those in any prison she’d seen on TV. Walls on three sides, barred door on the other. Nothing that would be strong enough to stop someone like Dioxin, whose acid-dripping skin could easily burn through steel bars.

Unless the really dangerous ones are held someplace else. This place
couldn’t
keep Dioxin prisoner.
She made her way back to the staircase.
But Pyrokine was here. . . . At least, he was in this prison, but maybe not in this part of it.

On the ground floor at the far side of the building she found a corridor sealed by a set of locked doors. The lock snapped with one blow from her sword, and as she was pushing the doors open she thought she heard a voice cry out.

“Hello?” Abby shouted. “Anyone there?”

A moment later a deep, rumbling voice called back, “Yes! Yes! In here! Thank God, I thought I was going to starve to death in this place!”

“Where are you?”

“Third room on the left. There’s a steel door!”

Abby found the circular door and stopped. It was easily seven feet in diameter and looked like the door to a bank vault. A massive wheel was connected by heavy levers to eight bolts that sealed around the edges—the bolts were almost as thick as her arm—but there didn’t appear to be a lock.

“Hello?” the voice called. “You still there?”

“Um . . . Listen. . . . Do you know what’s going on?”

“A plague, right? Pretty much everyone who’s over the age of twenty is infected. It was on the radio before it went off the air. Is that what’s happened?”

“Yeah,” Abby called back. “Look, it was done deliberately. There’s an organization called The Helotry who’ve done this for, well, it’s too complicated to get into it now. But I need to stop them, and I can’t do it on my own. So I need two things from you before I let you out. First, I don’t care what you’re in here for, but if you’re a superhuman then I need your help. The Helotry’s plague is going to kill millions of people if we can’t stop them. So you have to swear that you’re going to help me.”

“I swear!”

“OK. And the second thing . . . You’re definitely a superhuman?”

“No doubt about that.”

Abby turned the wheel counterclockwise, three full revolutions, and the heavy bolts drew back with a grating squeal.

She pulled the door open, and looked inside. Four mattresses were lying side by side on the floor, and getting up from them was the largest person Abby had ever seen. He was at least thirteen feet tall, heavily muscled, and completely hairless. His eyes were colorless—lacking even a pupil—and his skin was a deep blue.

She swallowed hard and stepped back into the corridor. “Remember the deal?”

The giant awkwardly squeezed himself through the round doorway. “I remember,” he growled. “You know who I am?”

“Of course I do. You’re Brawn.”

“That’s what they call me in the papers. Who are you?”

Abby started heading back up the corridor. “Um . . . Well, I don’t have a superhero name yet. I haven’t thought of one.”

The ceiling was too low for Brawn to walk upright—he crawled on his hands and knees after her. “You should pick something from Roman or Greek mythology. I was going to call myself Hercules but . . .” He faltered. “Things didn’t turn out the way I thought they would.”

Abby couldn’t help glancing back at him, half expecting him to grab hold of her and tear her apart. “Are you able to . . . change back?”

The giant shook his head. “Nah. Stuck like this forever, probably.”

Abby pushed open the doors at the end of the corridor. “Better watch your step here.”

Brawn squeezed through the opening, and was finally able to stand upright. He looked around. “Oh man . . . I know some of these guys! Are they all dead?”

“No, but the plague hit them pretty bad.” Abby stepped back and looked up at Brawn. He was naked except for a pair of crude orange trunks that looked like they’d been handmade from one of the prison jumpsuits. On TV he’d always looked ferocious, a barely human monster fired by rage and hatred, but now she could see compassion and concern on his face.

But there was still an air about him that set her nerves on edge. A small part of her mind told her that something so huge couldn’t be human, that he was dangerous and she should run.

Brawn crouched down next to one of the guards and gently placed his massive hand on the man’s chest. “Mr. Chapman . . .” To Abby, he said, “He’s the only one who didn’t treat me like an animal. God, I hope he pulls through. Mr. Chapman doesn’t have a sense of smell, see. Some accident when he was a kid. So he’s not afraid of me.”

Abby didn’t know how to respond to that.

Brawn sighed. “Apparently sometimes I give off a scent that triggers people’s fear reflex. You can’t detect it consciously, but it’s there. I mean,
you’ve
been keeping your distance, right?” He stood up again, and shook his head. “The people who did this . . . Who are they?”

“A group called The Helotry. Slaughter is with them—”

“Aw, not
her
! I
hate
that woman!”

“And a guy we think is Pyrokine.”

“Never heard of him. So who’s this
we
?”

“Me, Max Dalton’s sister Roz, a guy called Thunder who can control sound waves, and a guy called Lance. He’s not a superhuman, though. And as far as we can tell, all the other superhumans are infected. Which reminds me . . . Why aren’t
you
infected?”

Brawn looked down at her, spread his arms. “I’m tall for my age.” He shrugged. “I’m only sixteen.”

Lance only realized he’d been left alone in the dark when the overhead lights came on, and he winced at the sudden brightness. He blinked rapidly, shook his head. His vision was definitely recovering. The shifting red and green afterimage was still there, but through it he could now see the room in which he was being held prisoner.

He’d imagined it was a dungeon of some kind, but instead it looked like a room in an ordinary apartment. In front of him was a closed wooden door and there were blind-covered windows to his left, but otherwise the room was bare.

The door opened, and one of the guards entered.

“Who’s there?” Lance called. The longer they believed he was still blind, the greater his chance of escaping.

“Shut up,” the man said. Lance recognized his voice as the one belonging to the man called Remington. The man moved to the left, but Lance kept his eyes focused straight ahead.

“Look, I’ll tell you everything I know. But the old woman was right—I don’t know much.”

“Bring him in,” the guard called out.

Lance heard footsteps and scuffling out in the hallway, and it took all his willpower not to react to what he saw: Thunder was dragged into the room, facedown, by two of the guards. They dropped him just inside the door.

Lance jumped at the sound. “What was that?”
Oh man, please don’t let him be dead!

Thunder’s mask was gone, his costume—the black and green wet suit that had seemed so funny earlier—was ripped and covered in scorch marks. His hands were tied behind his back—his gloves had been removed, revealing blood-covered, bruised knuckles. His legs were tied at the ankles.

“What’s going on?” Lance said. He sniffed the air. “Smells like something’s burning.”

One of the guards said, “This one
still
hasn’t shut up?”

“He will soon enough.” Remington approached Lance. “Kid, we’ve got your friend here. Thunder. Two down, two to go. What do you think about that?”

“No,
six
to go,” Lance said, staring just to the left of Remington’s face. “What, you thought there were only four of us? God, you people are such amateurs. There’s eight of us. The other four are . . . Well, I’m not telling. But you guys really ought to get yourself some padded pants because pretty soon now the others are going to be kicking your butts all the way from here to San Jose.”

On the edge of his vision Lance saw the blow coming and forced himself to keep staring straight ahead. Remington’s fist slammed into his jaw, sent him sprawling—chair and all—onto the floor.

Lance groaned. He tasted blood again, and was sure that some of his teeth had been loosened. He coughed. “Proud of yourself, are you? Hitting a blind kid tied to a chair . . . What do you think your mother would say if she could see you now? When she phones you and asks how your day was at work, what are you going to tell her? Of course, that’s assuming that your mom hasn’t been infected by the plague that you morons created.”

The man strode over to him, grabbed his arm, and hauled him upright. He took hold of Lance’s chin and pressed his face close. “
Shut up, you snotty little punk!
I have had it up to
here
with your mouth! One more word and I swear to God I’ll choke the life out of you!”

The other two guards grabbed his arms and pulled him back. “You’re letting him get to you,” one said. “That’s exactly what he wants—to get us off guard.” They ushered him toward the door and out into the hallway.

As they were pulling the door closed, Lance cheerfully shouted, “Bye! Tell your mom I said hello!”

Remington hesitated for a second, then slammed the door.

Then Thunder’s weak voice said, “Lance, you
really
know how to get under someone’s skin, don’t you?”

“Aren’t you dead yet?”

“Getting there.” Thunder awkwardly rolled onto his side. “Man, that guy Pyrokine is an absolute maniac. The whole time he fought me he didn’t say a word. Just kept coming. First he melted the ground ahead of the motorbike, then he zapped the tires. I nearly broke my neck coming off it. I hurt him, though. Hit him with a high-pitched squeal that sent him running for a few minutes. Then he came back and started pounding me. I got in a couple of good punches but they didn’t slow him down.” He stared up at Lance. “You were pretending to be blind?”

“Wasn’t pretending. When they attacked the truck and melted off the doors the glare was . . .” Lance shook his head. “I was afraid it might be permanent. My eyesight’s only just starting to come back.”

“I guess that explains why you haven’t escaped yet.”

“Yeah. That, and the fact that I’m tied to a chair. Plus I’m not a superhuman, unlike some people. So . . . is this a rescue or what? ’Cos if it is, I can’t quite see how it’s going to work.”

“Wish I could say it
was
a rescue. I thought you were still back in Oak Grove.”

“What about Abby and Roz?”

Thunder did his best to shrug.

“Great. Why’d it have to be you? Why couldn’t they have captured someone with
useful
powers?” He sat up straighter. “Hey, why don’t you just blanket this whole building with your sound-damping trick? If they can’t speak to each other they’ll all freak out and stuff.”

“And then they’ll come in here and put a bullet in my brain. Now shut up a minute. I’m trying to listen in on them.”

“Cool. Fire the sound my way so I can listen too.”

Instantly it seemed to Lance that the room was filled with invisible people, their voices all chattering at once, the sounds overlapping, fading in and out.

He heard the old woman ask, “Mr. Remington . . . Everything is ready?”