Super Human (27 page)

“We had a deal!”

“So we did. Duh! Supervillain, remember? Good luck saving the world.”

He took off, moving with surprising speed for someone so huge. He bounded over the fields and in seconds had disappeared into the woods. Abby was tempted to chase after him, but she knew that there was no way she could force him to work with her.
Now what do I do?

Keeping to the trees that lined the road, she started back toward the town.
Maybe Thunder or Roz is still around.
On a whim, she said, “Thunder? Can you hear me? Hello? Abby calling Thunder? Are you there?”

There was no response, and she felt like even more of an idiot.
Great. Not only did I break a dangerous supervillain out of prison, now I’m talking to myself. Some hero I turned out to be.

She stopped, ducked down behind a tree. From somewhere ahead came the rumble of approaching engines. Seconds later a small convoy of armored vehicles roared past—Boxers, the same make as the one that had chased her out of the town.

The last Boxer skidded to a stop. Its steel doors rolled open and five of the silver-armored men jumped out. One of them shouted, “Those trees!”

Farther along the road, the other Boxers were already turning back.

Abby turned and ran, still keeping to the trees. She ducked under a low branch, leaped over a fallen trunk, and was debating whether it would be faster to move out into the field when she heard gunfire behind her.

Ahead, four silver-clad men were approaching on foot.

Abby darted to the right, across the road, and into the field on the opposite side.

More men.

Then a low roar came from overhead, and she looked up to see a sleek black helicopter bearing down on her.

Back into the trees—but they didn’t provide much cover. The one advantage she had over the soldiers was her speed, but the helicopter took care of that.

She knew there were only two options: surrender or fight.

Then a bullet clipped the left shoulder of her jacket, and Abby knew that surrender was no longer on the menu. She pulled the sword from its scabbard and darted in a straight line toward the nearest trio of men.
They won’t risk shooting me in case they hit their own—

There was another
bang
from somewhere behind her—one of the soldiers clutched his neck and fell backward.

They don’t even care about their own men!
Abby zigged and zagged through the trees as she rushed at the remaining two. They opened fire.

Abby dropped to the ground, rolled, came up running. She leaped onto a large granite boulder and somersaulted over the soldiers’ heads, landed in a crouch behind them and swung the sword.

It sliced into their armored legs and they collapsed screaming to the ground.

She felt like she was going to throw up, but she forced herself to keep going. She’d never hurt anyone before. Now those two men may have lost the use of their legs.
God forgive me, what have I done?

Then gunfire erupted again and she reminded herself that they’d been trying to kill her—she was only acting in self-defense.

Ahead, the line of trees was coming to an end—beyond that, the open road leading into the town. The copter was almost directly overhead now, its rotors’ down-blast whipping the treetops, and Abby knew that as soon as she left the cover of the trees it was all over.

She remembered the last words she’d exchanged with Thunder: “If we don’t make it, then we’re going to take down as many of these guys as we can.”

Too right,
she said to herself. She slowed, looked up at the copter. Pulled her arm back.

And threw the sword.

The heavy weapon streaked into the air, struck the copter close to its rear rotor, embedded itself deep into the fuselage. The copter shuddered, began to spin out of control. It dipped and wavered, lost height for a moment, and almost recovered before it suddenly tilted to the side and plummeted.

Abby threw herself to the ground and covered her head with her arms. The ground shook as the copter crashed down. Its main rotors sliced into the dirt field before shattering and filling the air with razor-sharp fragments.

The men inside were still screaming as Abby scrambled to her feet and ran toward the copter. One of them opened fire, but his aim was off and the bullets plowed harmlessly into the ground to her right.

She pulled her sword out of the copter’s fuselage and immediately threw herself backward onto the ground—the copter was raked with large-caliber bullets and the men inside were silenced. Abby rolled underneath the copter, got up, and ran.
They killed their own men just to get to me!

Behind her: the roaring engines of the Boxers, shouting and screaming from the soldiers, gunfire.

Ahead: the open road. Nowhere to hide.

She kept her head down and ran.
Any second now,
she thought.
A bullet in my back or my head. I wonder if I’ll feel it.

Then something else roared, and it wasn’t an engine. There was a crash, terrified screaming, more gunfire.

Abby reached an abandoned car and ducked down behind it, peered around it to see what was going on.

Two soldiers raced down the road toward her, but they were clearly unarmed and one was even tearing off his armor as he ran. They darted past Abby’s spot and kept going, though she was sure they must have seen her.

A Boxer rocketed at full speed in her direction, weaving from one side of the road to the other as its occupants leaped clear. One of the soldiers clung desperately to its swinging door and let go seconds before another vehicle—enveloped in a ball of flame—soared through the air and crashed down on it. The tangled mass of steel and rubber scraped along the road for fifty yards and came to a stop in front of Abby.

Then past the smoke and flames she saw something massive and blue approaching.

Brawn stepped around the burning Boxers, almost casually dragging a struggling man behind him. His huge blue fist was locked around the man’s head.

The giant circled slowly around the ruins. “Now,
that
was a good shot! Did you see that? Pow! Hit it dead-on!” He turned to Abby. “I saw you take down the copter—nice work.”

Abby swallowed. “God, those men . . . They shot their own people!”

“Yeah, well, don’t shed any tears over them. They were trying to kill you. Plus, y’know, there’s that whole thing about the plague and trying to take over the world and stuff.” He lifted up his right arm, and the soldier’s arms and legs twitched and flailed. “I kept this one in case we need to interrogate him or something.” He opened his fist and the man collapsed to the ground. Abby didn’t know what to say.

“So, anyway,” Brawn rumbled. “I came back. You were right. We had a deal. So . . . Let’s break bits off this guy until he tells us what we need to know.”

Abby started to protest, but Brawn reached down to the soldier’s head and covered the man’s ears with a thumb and forefinger. Quietly, he said, “We’re not
really
going to torture him. I may be a villain but I’m not a monster. But we want him to
think
we’ll do it so he’ll talk.”

Abby nodded dumbly.

“Cool!” Brawn said. He released the man’s head and straightened up again. “Um . . . What exactly
do
we need to know?”

 

“You need to create some sort of sonic vibration thingy to loosen the knots,” Lance told Thunder.

“Thanks. I’d never have thought of that on my own.”

“I’m just
saying
,” Lance said.

“Already tried it,” Thunder said.

Lance sighed. “They haven’t come to interrogate us yet.”

“What, are you disappointed?”

Lance ignored that. “Here’s an idea. . . . You have complete control over all forms of sound, right? Does that mean you can mimic voices?”

Thunder nodded. “Yeah. Anything I hear, I can replicate.” His voice changed. “Like this. No one would be able to tell the difference.”

“Who’s that supposed to be?”

“You, you idiot.”

“Get lost! I don’t sound anything like that! That was all . . .”

“Nasal and whiny? Trust me, that’s what you sound like.”

“Whatever. So here’s what you do: There’s a guard outside the door, right? You pretend to be the old woman talking to him on his walkie-talkie, order him to let us go.”

“That’s nuts! It’ll never work.”

“You won’t know until you try. Go on, give it a shot. And let me listen in.”

Lance watched Thunder as the older boy frowned in concentration, then there was a quiet static-filled beep.

The guard’s voice said, “Talbot.”

“Have you checked on the boys, Mr. Talbot?” Thunder said. To Lance he sounded exactly like the old woman.

“Not scheduled for another fifteen, ma’am.”

“Did I
ask
when it was scheduled? They’re no longer of any use to us, nor are they any danger. Release them.”

“Ma’am?”

“You heard me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Seconds later, the door opened and the guard entered. “All right, kids. We’re letting you go.” He pulled a small knife from his belt, crouched down next to Thunder, and cut his ropes. “Come on. Get up.”

Thunder sat up and began to massage his calves. “Give me a minute to get some feeling back.”

The guard walked around to the back of Lance’s chair. There was a series of snips, and Lance’s arms and legs were free. He jumped up and stretched. “About time!”

Lance glanced at Thunder, tilted his head slightly toward the guard. A tiny voice next to Lance’s ear whispered, “What now? How do we get out?”

Lance thought for a moment, then froze. “What was
that
? Sounded like gunfire downstairs!”

The guard began, “I didn’t hear—”

The building was suddenly rocked by gunfire and explosions. The guard’s radio squawked into life. “This is Remington—we’re under attack! Every man to his post—now!”

The guard ran from the room and pounded down the hallway.

“Nice one,” Lance said. He reached down and helped Thunder to his feet. “Was that just for him or the whole building?”

“Just for him, but I can extend it.”

“Not yet. Pretend to be Remington again. Tell him that it was just a weapons malfunction and that he has to . . . go on patrol on the roof. Oh, and he has to maintain radio silence. We can’t have him mentioning to the real Remington that he’s cut us loose.”

Thunder nodded. After a moment, he said, “Done. Now we sneak out?”

“Yeah. But I still can’t see too well—you’ll have to watch out for me.”

“Now I’m your guide dog too?” Thunder moved toward the door. “This is turning into a very one-sided partnership. What exactly are
you
bringing to the party?”

“My brains,” Lance said. “And certain other skills.” He raised his hand. Protruding from the sleeve of his jacket was the guard’s knife.

Roz tried not to think of the brand-new camper van she was driving as stolen. She had only borrowed it. Besides, if anything happened to it she’d get Max to buy the owners a better one.

On the drive back to Oak Grove she didn’t encounter any other traffic—with her foot on the gas the whole way the journey took under fifty minutes.

A few miles outside the town she passed the prison.
No point stopping there now. Pyrokine is long gone.
A minute later she slowed the camper down. Something large and coal-black was blocking the road ahead. “What on earth . . . ?” The air was heavy with the pungent odor of burning rubber and scorched metal.

As the camper slowly maneuvered around the burned object, Roz saw that it was the front half of an armored vehicle, a GTK Boxer. She couldn’t see the other half anywhere.

Then she saw the cause: Next to another burning Boxer a thirteen-foot-tall blue man was crouched over something on the ground.

Brawn looked up as she approached, and put out his arm with a thumb raised as though he was hitchhiking. It was such an ordinary action from someone so extraordinary-looking that Roz couldn’t help slowing down.

And then Abby stepped out from behind Brawn. “Roz!”

“Abby?” Roz couldn’t stop staring at Brawn. “What . . . um . . . what’s going on?”

“Pyrokine was already gone when I got to the prison. The Helotry have him. But I found another ally. Brawn, this is—”