The Reckoning: Quantum Prophecy Book 3 (14 page)

“How will I get out?”

“The United Nations will send in troops. They’ll pick you up.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because when the rest of the world finds out what’s been going on there, they’re not going to have any choice.”

D
ANNY
C
OOPER AND
R
ENATA
S
OLIZ
stood on the roof of Sakkara, sheltering from the heavy rain under an umbrella.

“You’re sure you’re all right?” Danny asked.

Renata nodded, and squeezed a little closer to Danny as the rain whipped around them. “It’s just an ordinary headache now. Barely there at all.”

“So Josh was right about you being able to use your power on other objects…. I wish I’d been there to see it!”

“I’m just glad that I was able to change them back. What if I couldn’t?”

“You’re sure there were no side effects?”

“Apart from me getting a splitting headache and them getting the fright of their lives, none that I could see.”

“What was the final outcome of the meeting? Any closer to a resolution?”

Renata shook her head.

Danny said, “Look, I know this probably isn’t the best time, but there’s something I’ve been wanting to, y’know, talk to you about…”

Renata stepped back a little and tilted her head so that her face was only centimeters away from Danny’s. “Go on.”

Danny swallowed. “I keep telling myself that you’ve got enough to worry about and the last thing you need is me making your life even more, well, complicated.”

“I can cope with complicated,” Renata said, smiling.

Danny returned the smile. “Colin and Brian used to think that this was so easy for me.” He paused. “I like you.”

“I like you too.”

“I mean, I like you a lot. More than just—”

Danny heard footsteps splish-splashing across the roof, and turned to see his eight-year-old brother approaching.

He sighed, and muttered, “Perfect timing.” He turned to face Niall. “What’s up, big guy?”

“Dinner.” Niall stepped up to the edge of the roof and peered over the low wall.

He was about to climb up on to the wall when Danny reached out and grabbed the back of Niall’s sweatshirt. “No you don’t!” Danny said. “You can fall off the wall when someone else is watching you, not me.”

“I wasn’t going to fall!”

Renata said, “That’s true. You probably wouldn’t
fall,
exactly. You’d just skid down the side of the building.”

Niall nodded. “Right!”

“And land in those bushes. Where the giant rats live.”

Niall leaned over the wall again, grinning. “Rats? Cool!”

Danny hauled him back, and pushed him toward the stairs. “Go on. We’ll be right behind you.”

Renata said, “You know, he looks just like you when he grins like that. It’ll be interesting to see how he turns out. You’ve got different fathers, but Façade was a shape-shifter, so does that mean that Niall will grow up to look like Façade or Quantum?”

“I’m more worried about which of them he
acts
like.”

•  •  •

The now-familiar sound of Grant Paramjeet’s approaching Reeboks snapped Stephanie Cord out of her daydream.
Oh, not now…

It was early evening, and the small bakery that Stephanie was passing would be open for another hour. She glanced at the display of pastries and muffins in the window, then at Grant’s reflection. “You again. You’re not tremendously good at getting the hint, are you?”

He smiled. “Anyone would think you didn’t love me.”

“Anyone would be right.” Stephanie resumed walking.

Grant fell into place alongside her. “So I asked that homeless guy if he wanted me to buy him that suit.”

“And?”

“And he said he’d rather have the money so he could buy it for himself. See? I told you he was lying. Anyway, I finished clearing out Grandma’s basement. And guess what?”

“No.”

“I told you my granddad was in the army, didn’t I?” Without giving Stephanie a chance to answer, he continued, “Well, maybe I didn’t. But anyway, I found his old army kit. Just the uniform and the kit bag, no weapons or anything.”

“Good. You and weapons would not be a good mix.”

“The bag is huge.” Grant stretched out his arms. “Like,
this
big. So I stuffed it with the uniform and a bunch of old clothes and hung it from the ceiling. It makes a great punching bag. You’ll see when you come over.”

“Grant, I’m busy. Please go away.”

“So where are you going?”

“None of your business.”

He let out a sigh of exasperation.

Stephanie felt a little pleased with that. It was the first time he’d expressed any sort of frustration at her rejection of him.
Maybe he’s finally learning.

“God, Erica. What can I do to convince you that we have to work together?”

“I want…A banana-nut muffin. A big one.”

He grinned, said, “You got it!” and ran back toward the bakery.

Stephanie knew that would keep him out of her hair for a while: When she’d looked through the bakery’s window she’d seen that the banana-nut muffin tray was empty.

She crossed the street and walked on toward the Shady Oaks Mall, where she found her twin sister Alia sitting on the edge of the outdoor fountain.

Alia looked up, and offered her smoothie cup to Stephanie. “Want some? It’s mango and pineapple.”

“No thanks. Let’s get inside. I had to ditch Grant again.”

Alia scooped up her bag and followed Stephanie through the mall’s open doors. “I think he likes you.”

“He’s just obsessed with being a superhero,” Stephanie said. “If I can’t persuade him to leave me alone we’re probably going to have to move.”

“I hope not,” Alia said. “I’m just getting used to everything in school. Oooh, shoes!”

After Alia had tried on and rejected a dozen pairs of strappy sandals, they bought sandwiches at the mall’s food court and sat at the only clean table.

“Oh great,” Alia muttered. “Right next to the TV. That means everyone’s going to be looking in this direction.”

The giant screen loomed over them, silently broadcasting a news report about the rapidly expanding Trutopian organization.

“Hate those guys,” Alia said around a mouthful of bread and cheese. “You’d think that the New Heroes would do something about them.”

“But they’re not doing anything illegal,” Stephanie said.

“I know, but still.” Alia shrugged. “Dad didn’t like them much either, Steph.”

“Erica, remember?”

“Right, right…But I remember him telling Razor that he thought the Trutopians were dangerous. And he said the same to Colin too.”

Stephanie involuntarily cringed at Colin’s name. “Don’t talk about him.”

“You can’t blame him forever, Steph—I mean Erica. Colin Wagner didn’t kill Dad. Victor Cross did. When Dioxin stole Dad’s armor and threw him out of the helicopter, Colin risked his own life to save him.”

Stephanie said nothing. She knew that Alia was right, but that didn’t make her feel any better.

She knew that sooner or later she’d have to admit that Colin hadn’t done anything wrong. But not right now. Now she was still angry. Not just at Colin, but at the whole situation.

She still believed what she had told Grant: Heroes get themselves—and other people—killed.

•  •  •

Dawn was breaking in Romania as a small, sleek-looking unmanned aircraft touched down on the hotel’s roof.

“This is a prototype Apache Arbalest,” Kinsella said as he and Colin approached it. “It’s the only one of its kind, and it is
the
fastest aircraft ever built. It’s almost completely invisible to radar and any other tracking device.”

“But there’s only one seat…. I don’t know how to fly something like this.”

“You don’t need to. You just sit back and enjoy the trip. We’ll control it remotely. Like I said, it’s a prototype—it wasn’t designed to ever carry a passenger, because no ordinary human could survive the acceleration. It’s about four thousand kilometers to Lieberstan, but this little beauty has got scramjet technology. It’ll take you from here to Lieberstan in about eighty-four minutes.”

“You have got to be kidding me! It’s definitely safe, right?”

“For you, yes. Not for anyone else.”

“When do I leave?”

“Right now. The Arbalest will drop you off three miles due west of the mine, then it’ll depart—we can’t leave it waiting around to pick you back up. The mine is huge: Just follow the sounds of the machinery and you can’t miss it.” He handed Colin a small headset communicator. “This will keep us in touch when you’re on the ground, but you won’t be able to initiate a call: You’ll have to wait until you hear from us. We want to keep radio chatter to a minimum.”

Colin nodded and put the communicator in place, tucking
the earphone into his right ear. Hesitantly, he climbed into the cramped cockpit.

“Mr. Kinsella, if what you told me about the platinum mine is true…”

“It is. I wish to God that it wasn’t.” Kinsella reached out his hand, and Colin shook it. “Good luck. And be careful.” He took a few steps back.

A moment later, the Arbalest’s engines whined into action and Colin felt a sudden, sickening lurch in his stomach as the roof of the hotel began to fall away.

Then the scramjet engines kicked in, and Colin felt as though something hard and heavy slammed into his chest as the aircraft raced toward the rising sun.

I
N
M
OATE
, I
NDIANA
, S
TEPHANIE
C
ORD
opened the front door of her house to see Grant Paramjeet standing there, smiling at her.

“You can’t ditch me that easily,” Grant said.

Stephanie frowned. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

His smile faded. “Ah. The wrong twin. Is, uh, Erica around? I wanted to…Hold on a second! It
is
you!”

“Worth a try,” Stephanie said. “What do you want now?”

“Work with me.”

“No.”

“Then train me.”

“No.”

“I’m going to do it with or without your help. People
need
heroes.”

“That’s what the police are for, Grant. You want to make a difference, join the police force. Become a doctor. Join the fire department.”

He stared at her for a few seconds, then said, “I know the truth. I know who you are.”

Stephanie swallowed.
No, he couldn’t possibly…
“What are you talking about?”

“I followed you to the mall. Saw you talking to a girl who looks exactly like you. I figured that either you’re clones, or twins.” He stared at her face. “You do look a lot like him, now that I know what to look for.”

“Now you’ve totally lost me.”

He grinned again. “Right.” After a second, he added, “I told you I can read lips, didn’t I? My sister lost her hearing when she was six, so we all learned sign language and lipreading. I watched you and Alia in the mall. Your real name is Stephanie Cord, and your father was Solomon Cord. Paragon. The greatest superhero who ever lived. Don’t try to deny it. Everyone knows that Paragon had twin daughters, and you’re the right age. And I saw your mom coming home from work earlier—she looks exactly like Vienna Cord.”

Hesitantly, Stephanie said, “Have you told anyone else?”

“Of course not! What sort of an idiot do you think I am?”

The dangerous sort,
Stephanie said to herself. “All right. But if you do tell anyone else, you’ll be putting my family in danger.” She stepped closer to Grant, and he stepped back. “Understood?”

“I would never do something like that.”

“I don’t want to see you again, Grant. Not ever. You see me in the hallway in school, you change direction. You look the other way.”

“Look the other way…Right. That’s
your
specialty, isn’t it?”

Stephanie glared at him.

“Your father could have done that, but he chose to be a vigilante. He saved hundreds of lives. Maybe thousands. And you could do the same. You
should
. You have the skills. Even if you only save one person, then isn’t it worth it?”

“My father had armor, and a jetpack and weapons. I don’t have any of those.”

Paramjeet’s large brown eyes narrowed in anger. “Paragon had something else you don’t have.”

“And what’s that?”

“Guts.”

Stephanie swallowed. “Go to hell.”

“He had the courage to help people who couldn’t help themselves. You think he’d be proud of you?”

Stephanie stepped out into the porch, pulling the door closed behind her. “My father died because someone else was trying to be a hero. Colin Wagner promised me he’d get my father back, but he didn’t.”

“No, he didn’t,” Paramjeet told her. “Nothing can get your father back now, Stephanie. He was a great man, and he tried to make the world a better place. But you’re willing to sit back and waste your skills because you’re trying to convince yourself that Paragon’s death was Wagner’s fault. Look, all I’m asking is that you help train me. Make me a better fighter. I’m not trying to replace your father—no one ever could—but I’m not just going to sit back and do nothing.”

For a long time, Stephanie simply stared at him, then she said, “Tell no one. Leave no record of what we are doing. You’ll need some old clothes. Tough material—leather and denim. Strong gloves. Boots. A full-face motorcycle helmet. A baseball bat. Paint everything black. No symbols or insignia. You will do everything I say, when I say it. And you do not go into action until I decide that you are ready. Understood?”

Grant Paramjeet grinned. “I understand. What should I call myself? I’ve been trying to think of a cool name, but all the good ones are taken.”

“This isn’t a game,” Stephanie said. “You’re going to strike at the muggers and gang members and then disappear. No one will ever know who you are.”

“But—”

“But nothing! You’ll be doing this for other people, not for yourself.
That’s
what being a hero is all about.”

In her secluded apartment in Wyoming, Yvonne was sitting on the windowsill, staring out at the town below, while she talked to Victor Cross on the phone.