The Gathering: Quantum Prophecy 2 (6 page)

Danny quickly glanced about: a lot of people had heard Niall and turned in their direction.

Niall kept talking: “It’s Dad and Mr. Wagner! Danny, it’s saying that they used to be—”

Pushing Niall ahead of him, Danny said, “Just shut up and run!”
How did this happen? How could someone have found out so quickly?

A man stopped to block their path. It was Mr. Leopold, who lived in a neighboring flat. “Danny and Niall! Did you see that? About your dad? It’s not true, is it?”

“No,” Danny said. “Of course not!” He tried to dodge past his neighbor. “We’ve got to go…”

“Is that why your mother threw him out? She found out about his past?”

Danny looked around. More and more people were stopping
to stare at them. They knew his father was the manager of the local supermarket, and everyone would have heard about how P. J. Cooper’s son had lost his right arm in an accident.

“Your friend Colin,” Mr. Leopold was saying, “he’s Kid Titan, so then that cousin of his must be Diamond. What’s her name again?”

Niall stepped closer to Danny as the crowd advanced.

“It’s all just some stupid hoax,” Danny said, thinking quickly. “There’s a guy who works in the TV station who used to go to school with our dad. They’re always playing pranks on each other.”

Someone said, “You expect us to believe that?”

If I had my powers
, Danny thought,
I’d just pick Niall up and run away from this group faster than they could see.

A woman Danny didn’t recognize pushed her way through the crowd. “Listen…I’m having some trouble with gangs of kids in the area, always hanging around. Maybe your dad could do something about it?”

“I don’t like this,” Niall said in a low voice. “I want to go home.”

Me too
, Danny thought. Aloud, he said, “It’ll be OK, Niall. Just stick close to me.”

Then an elderly man approached. “Quantum saved my life, about fifteen years ago! Pulled me out of the way of a speeding truck. I never got a chance to thank him!” He stretched out his right hand, offering it to Danny to shake, then instantly pulled it back when he saw that Danny didn’t have a right hand of his own. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Please,” Danny said. “Let us go! It’s all a mistake! My father is
not
Quantum!”

A man asked, “You’re Quantum’s kids? For real?”

“No, we’re not!”

“Ten years since the superheroes all disappeared,” the man said. “Ten
years
! We all thought they were dead, but now…” The man’s face took on a snarl. “I
know
P. J. Cooper! I used to work for him in the supermarket! Four years back my sister was knocked down by a couple of drugged-up joyriders. She’s going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life! If Quantum had been around, he never would have let things get that bad.”

The man next to him yelled, “Where the hell were your dad and his mates when my estate was being terrorized by junkies? Did they just decide that normal people weren’t worth saving anymore?”

“Of course not!” Danny said. “I’m telling you, this is all a mistake!”

“That’s what happened, isn’t it?” a young woman asked. “They gave up on us. They think they’re better than we are!”

Mr. Leopold said, “All right, everyone just calm down! I’ve known the Coopers for years! They’re good people and taking your anger out on these boys won’t solve anything!”

“Yeah!” someone in the crowd yelled. “Quantum and Titan and the others saved the world dozens of times! They don’t owe us anything! We owe them!”

Danny looked around. He and Niall were completely surrounded.
There’s hundreds of them!

Then a large man pushed his way to the front of the crowd, shoving people aside. He stopped in front of Mr. Leopold. “Outta my way!”

Mr. Leopold swallowed. “What do you want?”

The man pointed at Danny. “His old man owes
me.
Caught me breaking and entering. I was inside for four and a half years! Do you have any idea what that was like, Cooper?” he roared at Danny. “It was
hell
! Day after day of eating the same tasteless crap, sleeping in a cramped, rat-infested cell, knowing that at any minute you could be stabbed in the back by some moron who’s got a grudge against you!”

Danny said, “You can’t blame my father for that! If you were stupid enough to break into people’s houses then you deserved to be in prison!”

“So it
is
true!” The man stepped closer. “Don’t think that just because you’re missing an arm I’m going to go easy on you!”

There was a gasp from the crowd, but the man ignored it.

Oh God, this guy is going to flatten me!
The man charged, his powerful fists raised. Danny pushed his brother to one side.
Come on
, he told himself.
Use your superspeed! The power might not be completely gone!
He tried to remember what it had felt like to switch into slow-time mode: a prickling sensation at the back of his head, the way everything else seemed to slow down, the way the sounds became quiet and low.

It wasn’t working.

He quickly stepped aside, out of the man’s reach for the moment, and glanced around. There was a ripple of excitement running through the crowd, but the people closest to him didn’t seem inclined to help.

Only one thing for it
, he decided. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and stared the large man in the eye. “Before you do anything, I have to warn you.”

The man snarled at him. “What are you talkin’ about?”

“Yes, my father was Quantum. He could move faster than anything you can imagine. He was able to move so fast that he could pass through solid objects. And superhuman powers can be inherited. Now, I understand your anger, so I’m willing to let this go. You turn around and walk away right now and we’ll say no more about it. But if you really want to return to prison, then go ahead. Hit me, in front of all these people, if you can. If you’re willing to pay the price.”

The man hesitated.

“Or you can do the wise thing, the
right
thing, and turn away now.” Danny was vaguely aware of a greater commotion in the crowd, but didn’t want to take his eyes off the large man.

The man barked a short, cruel laugh. “You little punk! You almost had me going there for a second! And for that, you’re going to pay!” He lashed out at Danny with his fist.

Danny flinched and closed his eyes, but the fist didn’t connect.
Did I do it? Did I just dodge his fist?
He opened his eyes and saw that the large man was now lying on the ground, facedown. Standing over him was a tall, powerful-looking man in steel armor.

The crowd of people had backed away considerably, but now it began to surge toward the armored man.

“Stop right there!” the armored man’s voice boomed out.

Everyone froze.

“These boys are under my protection! Anyone who wants to hurt them will have to go through me first!” The armored man turned to Danny. “Mr. Cooper? Pick up your brother and hold on to him.”

Danny did so, then the metal-clad man scooped the two of them up in his arms. There was a brief flare from the man’s jetpack and suddenly they were soaring away from the crowds.

The armored man looked down at Niall’s terrified face. “Hi there. You must be Niall. My name is Solomon Cord. Or, if you like, you can call me Paragon.”

“G
OD
,
IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG FOR THE
word to get around,” Renata Soliz said, peering through a gap in the sitting-room curtains.

Outside, the normally quiet street was filled with people: friends, neighbors, reporters and police officers trying to hold everyone back. An enterprising ice cream man had stopped his truck across the road and was doing great business despite the freezing weather.

Mr. Wagner had been forced to disconnect the doorbell, but that hadn’t stopped people from banging on the doors and windows. It was only when the local police sergeant had stationed two officers outside the front door and another two in the back garden that the crowd had finally calmed down a little.

Renata turned to Colin. “Bags all packed?”

“Yeah. Everything I could think of. You know what’s going to happen, don’t you? Once we’re gone and the police leave, that lot are going to break in and look for souvenirs. Someone’s going to make a lot of money flogging our stuff on eBay.”

She smiled. “I think we might need a good lawyer.”

“
I
was thinking that what we need is a good agent.”

Renata collapsed into the armchair and turned on the television set. Almost every channel showed a different view of the Wagners’ house. “Hey! He’s not a reporter! He’s the weatherman! They’re
all
getting in on the action!”

Colin’s mother entered carrying two small bags. “Is this all you have, Renata?”

“That’s everything, Mrs. Wagner. For once I’m glad I don’t have much stuff.”

“How did they find out about you and Dad?” Colin asked his mother.

“I wish I knew.”

“You didn’t wear a mask when you were Energy,” Renata said. “Maybe someone
always
thought that you looked like her, and when they found out about Colin…” She pointed to the television set. “Col, isn’t that one of your friends from school? He’s giving an interview!”

“Yeah…And look: that kid in the background. That’s little Peter what’s-his-name from down the road. God, I hope they don’t let
that
slimy little turd on television.”

Renata turned up the sound. Malcolm O’Neill was talking to the reporter and kept glancing at the camera. “Yeah, I’ve known Colin for years and years. I’m probably his best friend.”

“Some friend,” Colin said. “He nicked half a Mars Bar from me last year.”

“And did you know about his powers?” the reporter asked.

“I always suspected that he was different,” Malcolm said. “Colin can’t kick a football to save his life, you know? I mean, he’s definitely the absolutely worst player in the whole school. Ever. Which is saying something because nearly all of them are crap, except me. So what Colin was probably doing was just pretending to be rubbish so that no one would suspect that he’s a superhuman.”

“That’s not true!” Colin said. “I genuinely
am
rubbish!” He paused and frowned. “No, that’s not what I meant.”

The reporter asked, “And what can you tell us about Diamond, Kid Titan’s girlfriend?”

Renata and Colin both yelled,
“Girlfriend?”
at the same time.

“I only met her once,” Malcolm said. “Her name is…uh…Romana, I think. She’s supposed to be Colin’s cousin, but she puts on, like, a really fake American accent. As if anyone would be fooled by that.”

Renata turned off the television set. “Idiot,” she muttered.

“You OK?” Colin asked.

“I will be, once we get to the States. I’ll finally be able to go home.”

Caroline said, “We’ve been over this before, Renata. It’s not going to be that simple. Your parents don’t know that you’re still alive.”

“We have to tell them at some stage!”

“I know, love, but not yet. Maybe when all this calms down.”

“If it ever
does
calm down,” Colin said.

Mr. Sheng’s bodyguards stepped aside as the scarred man strode into the office. They knew he was unarmed; they also knew that being without weapons didn’t make him any less dangerous.

Sitting behind a polished ebony desk with nothing on it but a large flat-screen computer monitor, a keyboard and a mouse, Mr. Sheng smiled. He was old and extremely thin, with an abundance of loose, hanging skin around his neck, the sign of someone who had lost a lot of weight much too quickly.

Behind him stood Junior, pale and nervous, unable to look Dioxin in the eye.

“All is well,” Mr. Sheng said. “The meeting was abandoned. Our rival failed to appear. This has made her appear uninterested in the agreements. We will capitalize on this, use it to our advantage.”

“Glad to hear it,” Dioxin said, “considering the stupid stunt your son here pulled this morning.”

“He will be punished accordingly.”

“And?” Dioxin asked.

The old man frowned.

“I’m waiting for an apology for his actions.”

“My son has already apologized to you. I do not believe that an apology from myself is necessary.”

“It wouldn’t hurt,” Dioxin said. He leaned forward, spreading his scarred hands on the desk. “Look, Sheng. It’s business. I understand that. But your son not only tried to kill me—which is bad enough—he also insulted my intelligence
and
my reputation. So…don’t apologize if you don’t want to. I don’t care. But you should at least thank me for allowing him to live.”

“Then you have my thanks, Mr. Dioxin.”

“And can I have my money too?”

At a signal from Mr. Sheng, one of the bodyguards handed Dioxin a slim white envelope.

“Two million U.S. dollars, as agreed,” Sheng said. “Plus one thousand dollars to pay for the damage to your automobile.”

Dioxin opened the envelope and pulled out a single slip of paper on which was printed two seventeen-digit sequences of letters and numbers. He pulled the keyboard closer and swiveled the computer monitor so that it was facing him. The screen already showed the website of the international bank Sheng used
to transfer funds. Dioxin quickly entered his details, then keyed in the two sequences of numbers. Seconds later, the balance in his account increased by two million one thousand dollars.

“A pleasure doing business with you, Sheng. Next time, the price is doubled.”

The old man nodded. “Of course.”

Using the mouse, Dioxin clicked on the website’s “Log-off” button, and was about to push the monitor aside when he spotted something in the corner of the screen, in a small box labeled “RSS News.” Among the Chinese characters there was a single English phrase: “Titan Unmasked.”

“What the hell…?” Dioxin clicked on the link and a window opened to show an old photograph of Titan and Energy side by side with the wedding photograph of a young married couple.

Dioxin turned to Junior Sheng. “What
is
this?”

“Internet.”

“I know that. What does it say? Translate for me.”