The Ascension: A Super Human Clash (14 page)

“What are they doing?” Lance asked.

“Looking for bombs, contraband, that kind of thing.”

Lance watched the men as they quickly and efficiently checked the patrol car.

Lance could feel the panic begin to rise.
If they search me, they'll find the lock picks!
He squirmed about in the seat. “My arms are cramping. Can you unlock the cuffs? It's not like I'm going to be able to escape.”

“Just sit still, kid.”

“You can lock them again in front of me.”

O'Meara looked at Lance over his shoulder. “What are you up to?”

“Nothing. I'm just…Look, how am I supposed to do any work if I've got cramps in my arms?”

The officer pointed ahead, toward the far side of the compound. “See those prisoners over there? Repairing the wall? You'll be with them. But you're too small and skinny to be much use. They'll probably just have you sweeping up or something.”

Lance stared at the prisoners. There were maybe a dozen of them, all wearing orange one-piece suits much like his own. Three of them were clearing away rubble from the shattered wall, and the rest had formed a chain carrying fresh cinder blocks from the back of a flatbed truck.

In a semicircle around them eight guards stood watch, powerful-looking rifles at the ready.

“What happened here?” Lance asked, though he already knew the answer.

“This is where the blue guy appeared,” O'Meara said. “Twelve feet tall, at least. Just appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the prison and smashed his way out.”

So this is Oak Grove Prison
, Lance thought,
where Max and the others left Brawn after the battle with Krodin.
“They, uh, they catch him yet?”

“Not that I've heard. Only a matter of time, though. Someone that big can't hide for too long.”

One of the gate guards slapped his hand down on the hood of the car, stepped aside, and waved the car forward.

O'Meara had driven barely two yards when one of the other guards stopped them. “Prisoner's name?”

“Lance McKendrick.”

The guard examined a clipboard, and nodded. “All right. You waiting around to take him back?”

“Nah, boss said to leave him here until the work is done. No sense me driving back and forth every day.”

The guard tilted his head to the side and peered in at Lance. “All right.”

The inner gates rattled open, and O'Meara drove the patrol car through, then got out and opened the rear door. “Well, this is it, McKendrick. You keep your head down and do what you're told, and the time'll pass before you know it.”

“If I have to stay here, they'll kill me,” Lance said. “I mean, I know I'm not exactly one of the good guys, but the gangs in here will rip me apart!”

O'Meara frowned. “Gangs? There
are
no gangs, kid. You spent most of the journey criticizing our judicial system, but you didn't take into account that it
works
. You said that everyone on the planet was insane to accept things as they are, but let me tell you, they're still smarter than
you
are.” He pointed toward the prisoners working on the wall. “These are the only guys in here.”

 

Abby and James were halfway across Minnesota when he suddenly dropped out of the sky.

Sitting on James's back, with her hands resting lightly on his shoulders, Abby felt a moment of panic.
He's fainted!
“James!”

“We're in trouble. We've been spotted. Two Raptors coming from the south. They've been ordered to capture us if possible. If not, they're to shoot to kill. We're not going to be able to out-fly them.”

“Use your power—make them deaf or something.”

“I can't, not right now. It's all I can do to get us down in one piece.
Two
pieces. Hold on. I'm heading for that field.”

They swooped in low over the land, toward a large copse of fir trees, and then James slowed to a stop a few feet off the ground. Abby jumped down, landing in the long grass. “I think this used to be a golf course…. Look, that's a sand trap, right?”

“Could be,” James said. “Man, I'm exhausted.” He swiveled so that his body was horizontal, then floated down until he was lying flat in the grass.

“How long do we have before they reach us?”

“A couple of minutes.”

“We could run,” Abby suggested.

“I can't. I'm wiped, and I'm freezing. I feel like I've spent a week lifting weights inside a fridge.”

“Oh, thanks a bunch! I'm not
that
heavy!”

He smiled. “I didn't mean that. You think you can take down two Raptors with your bow?”

Abby looked to the south. She couldn't see anything yet. “Maybe, yeah. But I'll have to wait until they get really close—I don't want them to crash and kill the crew. You could blast them with shock waves until they give up.”

James raised his head a little. “I'm not sure I'll have the strength. I can hear the crews talking…. They know we're the same people they were chasing in Midway.” He reached out his hand to Abby. “Help me up. They're almost here.”

She grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet, then unclipped her bow and set it up. “How many arrows do I have left?” she asked as she drew one from the quiver.

“Lots. About thirty-five, forty maybe. So how do we do this? You shoot first and I hit them with shock waves, or the other way around?”

“Let's take one each.”

“Here they come.”

The Raptors came in much lower and faster than Abby expected, their undersides crashing through the trees' upper branches.

She immediately loosed her arrow—it punctured the first Raptor's fuselage close to the edge without doing any apparent damage.

It shot up and over them while the second Raptor veered to the left, banked full circle as it dropped, then came out of the turn only a few yards above the ground, racing straight toward them.

“Into the trees!” Abby yelled to James. “They won't be able to follow us!”

As she turned to run, James grabbed her arm. “No! That's where the other one is heading…. They're going to crash straight down and rip up the forest if they have to. I'll go after it—you stand and fight, Abby.”

They looked into each other's eyes for a moment, then James ran for the trees.

Abby whipped out another arrow. The Raptor was almost on her now, and showed no sign of stopping. She loaded the arrow into the bow, aimed it…

Under her breath, she muttered, “Please don't make me do this!”

It wasn't going to stop. Abby released the arrow.

It punctured the craft's cockpit glass, passed through the shoulder of one of the pilots.

The Raptor kept coming. Abby ran toward it, jumped up at the last second, landed hard on the top of the hull, rolled, and spilled to the ground on the other side.

The Raptor swerved to the left so sharply that it almost tipped over, then zoomed toward her again.

They are
not
trying to capture us!

Abby ran to the left, but the craft adjusted its course.
Come on, then! A little closer…

She shot another arrow at the cockpit—it clipped the upper arm of the second pilot. For a brief moment she could see the man jerk back in pain, then the Raptor was almost on top of her. Abby dropped flat to the ground.

It passed over her so close that she could feel it brushing the fletching on her arrows. As the rear of the craft approached, she stabbed upward with an arrow and held on.

She was dragged on her back through the grass for a hundred yards and crashed through the damp sand of a long-disused bunker before the Raptor slowed to a stop, hovering almost silently two feet above the grass.

A voice from inside said, “Did we get her? We musta got her.”

A second voice said. “Don't see anything back there, Captain.”

“We'd better have got her. The little cow coulda
killed
me!”

Well, you were trying to kill me
, Abby thought. Quietly, she let go of the arrow and began to climb along the underside of the Raptor. There was no heat or downdraft from the underside's white lights. Whatever it was that allowed the machine to fly, it was far in advance of the technology of her own version of Earth.

“That's one,” the captain said. “How's the other ship doing?”

“I can't raise them.”

Abby kept clear of the windows as she climbed onto the side of the vehicle, then crawled across the top.

“Got a transponder signal?”

“They're a mile away, on the ground. Not moving.”

“Take us there. High arc—give the perps a smaller target. And contact the Alpha team, see if there's any trace of the blue giant yet.”

Abby grabbed onto a steel rail that ran across the top of the hull, and the craft surged into the air once more. Then she pulled herself forward, hand over hand, until she reached the cockpit. She held on with one hand and swung herself over the edge.

She stared in at the crew's astonished faces and grinned.

The captain jumped forward, slammed his hand down on the control panel.

Immediately the craft stopped. Abby was flung forward. She lost her grip on the hull. And fell.

 

James heard the trees crashing and snapping ahead of him as he ran. He had no idea what he was going to do when he saw the Raptor, but he was determined that neither he nor Abby would be captured.

Through a gap in the forest he saw it. It bore down on him like a massive misshapen bulldozer, ripping saplings out of its path, smashing through tree trunks in a shower of splinters, branches, and leaves.

He stood his ground and hit the Raptor with the most powerful shock wave he could muster.

The invisible shock wave struck the Raptor like a tornado: The craft shuddered and bucked, its prow rising several yards into the air before it came crashing down, trembling to a halt in an explosion of shattered glass and jagged fragments of steel paneling.

Oh man…Didn't know I could do that.
James blocked the sound of his own footsteps from reaching the crew as he slowly approached the Raptor.

The craft's entire hull was dented and warped, as though it had been flown at top speed into some massive, impenetrable wall.
This thing is never going to fly again
, James thought.

There was a groan from inside, and the hatch on the starboard side slid partway open. One of the soldiers tumbled out onto the forest floor and lay still.

James walked up to the soldier and looked at him for a moment before reaching down and pulling the man's gun from its holster. Then he peered in through the hatch.

There were three other soldiers inside. Two—the pilots—lay slumped across their control panels, their faces, hands, and uniforms covered in small cuts from the shattered cockpit glass. The third soldier was feebly attempting to get up off the floor, but as James watched, the man's arms gave way and he collapsed facedown onto the deck.

No one dead. That's good.

Then he heard a scream from somewhere behind him: “Thunder! I'm falling!”

He stepped back from the downed Raptor and soared into the air, arced toward the source of the sound.

As he cleared the trees, the second flying craft bore down on him, forcing him to rise suddenly to get out of its path.

James spotted Abby a few seconds later, plunging headfirst toward the ground, and knew he wouldn't reach her in time.

He reacted without thinking: He hit Abby with a shock wave that knocked her off course. She tumbled through the air and came crashing down into a large bunker, showering the green with glistening sand.

By the time he reached her, the sand had settled, and Abby lay still and unmoving on the edge of the bunker.

James dropped down next to her, listened for her pulse and breathing.
She's OK, she's OK.
“Abby? Are you hurt?”

Abby groaned and opened her eyes. “Only my pride. And my back and my arms and my legs. What happened?”

“You fell. What, were you on top of that thing?”

She sat up. “Yeah. What about yours?”

“Destroyed.” He straightened up, listening. “Your one seems to be leaving.”

“They'll come back for us. And there won't be just two of them next time.”

“I know.” He helped her to her feet. “Let's go.”

“Give me a minute to get my breath back.” Abby looked around, then shook her head slowly. “This is impossible, you know that? We were barely able to defeat Krodin last time. Now we'll have his whole army against us.”

“What else can we do? Sit back and let things go on as they are?”

“No. But it's going to take more than the two of us. How far are we from Oak Grove?”

“A couple of hundred miles at least,” James said. “In the wrong direction.”

“Because I'm thinking that we need backup. We need to find Brawn.”

ROZ DALTON WAS FINDING the going tough. Walking halfway across Manhattan on the surface was one thing, but it was considerably more difficult in the subway tunnels.

After Victoria had said a tear-filled good-bye to her family, the girl collected her few belongings—a man's baseball hat and a stained Cabbage Patch doll with only one arm—and then put her hand in Roz's and led her through the tunnels.

Now Victoria was getting tired, and Roz was carrying her in her arms.

“Don't fall asleep, honey,” Roz said. “I don't know the way.”

“Jus' keep goin' this way,” Victoria said, without looking. Her head was resting on Roz's shoulder.

In her free hand Roz was carrying a flashlight she'd found in another maintenance room, on a shelf that had been too high for Victoria to reach. The beam bobbed and weaved ahead of them, occasionally startling a scrabbling nest of rats.

“I bin all th' way to th' link tunnel, but I never went in it.”

“What does it link to?” Roz asked.

Victoria raised her head. “What?”

“Where does the link tunnel go?”

“Dunno.”

“But it'll get us off the island, right?”

“We ain't on a
island
, Roz. It's a tunnel.”

Roz smiled. “OK.” Then the flashlight beam caught something in the distance that she hadn't expected: The tunnel was blocked. It looked as though the roof had collapsed. “Aw
no
.”

She set Victoria down while she examined the debris. Tons of bricks, huge slabs of rough concrete, tons of packed dirt, and several foot-thick girders blocked their path.

“We can go through there,” Victoria said, pointing to a small gap at the top of the pile.

“You can, maybe, but I think I'm too big,” Roz said. She scrambled up the debris and examined the gap. “Yeah, there's no chance I'm fitting through that.”

“But you hafta. Th' link tunnel is on th' other side. This is th' only way to get there.”

Roz let go of the flashlight and allowed it to float next to her as she pushed against a large slab of concrete wedged close to the roof.

It shifted a little, and Roz heard pebbles spilling down the other side. “It's moving! Victoria, catch the flashlight and keep the beam on me, OK?”

Roz sent the flashlight drifting down to the girl, then pushed again, this time using her telekinetic shield to try to lift the slab at the same time. With a scrape of stone against brick, the slab jerked forward, then collapsed to its side, still at the top of the debris pile but now allowing Roz enough space to get through.

“Yes! Climb up, Victoria—we can get through now!”

But then she noticed her shadow trembling and looked back to see that the girl was staring up at her, shaking.

“How'd you do that to th' flashlight? You made it fly!”

Roz sat down at the top of the rubble. “I'm a superhuman. I have special powers.”

“Like a witch?”

“No! Well, maybe. But if I am, then I'm a
good
witch.”
I hope
, she added silently.

 

Lance's arms and back were aching. His hands were covered in small, stinging cuts and bruises, the injuries not helped by the too-big prison-issue gloves; the coarse fake leather had rubbed his skin raw in places.

His only consolation was that the prison guards hadn't searched him well; his lock picks were still tucked into his right sock.

Around him, the other prisoners had worked steadily and constantly, usually breaking silence only when they needed to check something with the guards.

Brawn's escape from Oak Grove Prison had caused a considerable amount of damage. On their first rest break the other prisoners told Lance that the superhuman giant had materialized inside the main prison building. He'd reacted with confusion at first, looking around at everything and wondering how and why everything had suddenly changed.

Two of the guards, believing that they were under attack, had opened fire. Brawn had rushed at the nearest wall, smashed his massive fists straight through the two-foot-thick concrete, and torn a hole big enough to climb through.

“You shoulda
seen
him,” one of the prisoners said. “They was shootin' an' the bullets was just, like, bouncin' offa his back an' he didn't even react or nothin', jus' kept pullin' chunks outta the wall, and then he got out here inta the yard and jus' ran at the fence an' jumped clear over it, easy as you or me hoppin' a garden gate. Disappeared across the fields. They're gonna catch him soon enough; fella that big musta left footprints a blind man could follow.”

To repair the wall, the prisoners first had to clear away the debris and then pull down the shattered bricks and chunks of mortar that had been left behind. Lance, being by far the smallest of the prisoners, was quickly deemed too weak to shift the rubble or lift the new blocks, so he was put in charge of the cement mixer.

On any other day, Lance would have been delighted. He'd always wanted to operate a cement mixer.

For two solid hours he shoveled sand, cement, and water into the rumbling machine's rusted and battered drum, tipped the mixture into a wheelbarrow when it was ready, and hefted the squeaking barrow back and forth between the mixer and the wall.

When the sun set, the work slowed a little, but didn't stop. A trio of portable spotlights were set up to shed glaring light and confusing multiple shadows on the scene.

At midnight, one of the guards blew a whistle. “Awright. Tools down. Ten-minute break.”

One of the prisoners moved toward the guards, his hand raised to his forehead to shield his eyes against the spotlights behind them. “Need the restroom, boss.”

The guard named Coleman—Lance assumed he was in charge—jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Be quick about it. Krejci, go with him.”

The prisoner moved to climb through the hole in the wall and into the prison, but Coleman shouted, “Not
that
way, ya numbskull! Mortar's still wet! Go 'round the corner ta the door!”

Another prisoner said, “I gotta go too, boss.”

“'Course ya do. Anyone else?”

All the other prisoners raised their hands. Coleman told the rest of his colleagues to accompany them back inside the prison, leaving him alone in the yard with Lance. “What about you, kid?”

Lance leaned back against the cement mixer and shook his head. “I'm OK.” He pulled off his oversized gloves and flexed his fists to try to get some feeling back into them.

“So what're ya in for?”

“I'm just awaiting my arraignment. A cop accused me of lying to him.”

“They ain't cops, kid.”

“Sorry. Police officer.”

“They ain't that, either. They're Praetorians. We're about the last bunch they ain't taken over yet. So
did
ya lie ta him?”

“No.”

Coleman lowered his rifle to the ground and rested it against his knee, then removed his cap and mopped at his balding head with a stained handkerchief. “Gotta be more to it than that, kid. Lying ta them is bad, but they don't lock ya up for it. Got priors?”

Lance shrugged. “Nothing big. Never been actually arrested before.”

“Well, ya picked a good day ta start. So what are ya, some kinda moron?”

Lance started to protest, but caught himself at the last moment. It wouldn't do to have another officer of the law on his bad side. “I was just unlucky.”

“I'll say ya were.” Coleman looked at his watch. “Ya sure ya don't gotta go use the bathroom? 'Cos we got five more hours a this, an' next break ain't 'til two thirty.”

“Maybe I will,” Lance said, straightening up. He started to move toward the corner, following the path the other prisoners had taken. “Which way…?”

Coleman snatched up his rifle. “Hold up there, little buddy. Ya don't go inside unaccompanied.” He fell into step beside Lance.

They rounded the corner and had almost reached a darkened doorway when Lance stopped and stared at the steel-plated doors. “I…I've never been inside a prison before. I was in the cell in Northlands station, but not a
real
prison.”
Come on!
he thought.
How long can it take them all to have a pee?

Coleman raised his eyes. “Fer cryin' out loud, kid, it's just a building! It ain't haunted.”

“Yeah, but…I shouldn't even
be
here! I didn't do anything wrong!”

The officer reached out with his free hand and grabbed hold of Lance's arm, tugging him toward the doors.

Lance said, “Wait!” and shrugged himself free. “I'll do it myself. My dad always said that a man's got to face his own responsibilities, and he's got to do it on his feet, and do it alone. Otherwise he's got no business calling himself a man.”

Coleman considered that. “Yeah, awright. Yer old man was kinda makin' sense there. Pity he didn't think ta teach the diff'rence between right an' wrong, ain't it?”

“He taught me,” Lance said. “I…I guess I should have paid more attention. You know something? He was never once in trouble with the law. Not even a parking ticket.” Lance stopped. He could see from the expression on Coleman's face that he wasn't going to be able to stall the man any further.

Lance took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and began to stride toward the doors.

Just as they reached the doorway, the doors burst open and the other guards and prisoners began to stream through. Lance saw Coleman step to the left to avoid them—so he stepped to the right.

A group of three prisoners came out in a bunch. Hidden from Coleman's view, Lance ran.

He had just reached the corner when he heard Coleman screaming, “Stop him!”

Lance threw himself at the nearest portable spotlight. It toppled over, crashed into another. Before they had hit the ground, Lance snatched up the shovel and threw it at the third: The head of the shovel struck the spotlight's glass.

Now moving in almost complete darkness, Lance kicked at some of the recently laid cinder blocks, toppling them into the hole.

Then he scrambled toward the cement mixer and hauled himself up and into its massive drum just as the running footsteps rounded the corner.

“Flashlight!” he heard Coleman shout. “Someone gimme a flashlight!”

Making as little noise as possible, Lance began scraping the wet mortar from the inside of the drum and plastering it over his face and body. His hope was that anyone taking a quick glance into the mixer would see nothing but mortar. The drum's opening faced away from the hole in the wall, reducing the chance of someone seeing inside by accident.

“Dumb kid's escaped
inta
the prison!” Coleman said, laughing. “Where's he think he's goin' ta go?”

Another guard said, “So, what, we go after him or leave him? I mean, not much he can do in there. It's all locked up. And he's practically useless out here.”

Uh-oh
, Lance thought.
If they start loading the mixer…

“Whadaya think we do, Morrison? We put the rest a these guys back inside. Then we go find the little punk! Kid thinks he outsmarted
me
, he's sorely mistaken. And
you
, Morrison, ya can wait out here in case he decides ta come back out this way.”

Lance heard their footsteps moving away and slowly exhaled a deep breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
OK. One left. How am I going to get past him? Maybe I can reason with him.

Then he heard Coleman's voice floating back. “Y'all know the drill, men. Escaped prisoner. If ya hafta, shoot ta kill.”