Stronger: A Super Human Clash (25 page)

As I was pushing myself up, Abby threw herself at the machine, but its many complex arms were just a blur, striking out at her at the apex of her jump. It knocked her to the side and then rushed at me again.

The machine was so intricate and contained so many constantly shifting parts that I couldn’t easily tell what shape or
size it was. There was no obvious “head” or central mass, nothing specific to aim at.

I crouched, ready to tackle it, and its top half tipped forward and planted its claws and arms on the hard floor. Suddenly it was coming at me upside down, its three massive legs spinning and whirling.

One of the legs clipped my chin at the same instant another slammed into my stomach. I managed to grab the third with both hands, but before I could do anything else, the machine’s claws darted out and grabbed hold of my ankles, and its other arms pushed hard against the floor.

Suddenly I realized I was supporting its entire weight.

Another of the legs smashed into the side of my head, so I let go with one hand and grabbed that one just as the remaining leg started to pummel me in the face, a couple dozen short-sharp jabs in a handful of seconds.

Enough!
I said to myself. I tightened my grip on the two struggling legs, tensed my arms, and pulled, forcing my arms as far apart as possible.

And then, as though it were learning from me, the machine did the same thing with the heavy claws locked onto my ankles.

Unbalanced, I toppled forward right onto the machine, and it again reconfigured itself: Its arms and legs twisted and shifted, locking onto my own limbs. A thick steel cable shot out of somewhere inside it and snaked around my neck.

I could feel the cable flexing and squirming like it had a mind and purpose of its own. Tiny points of pain scurried
across my throat, and I realized that it was not actually one piece, but dozens of thumb-sized machines all locked together, each segment with its own set of clawlike legs, crawling around and around my neck and getting tighter by the second.

A second cable darted across the small of my back, holding me tight as the whole machine began to fold in the middle, its top half forcing my torso up, the rest of it pushing my legs back.

Do something!
my brain screamed at me.

I tensed my stomach muscles and tried to force myself forward, pushing against the machine’s strength.

Then a third cable blasted out, striking at my face. I flinched, but I was too slow: The cable found its way into my mouth, and I gagged on the sharp metallic taste. Its claws dug into my tongue and the inside of my cheeks as it tried to climb down my throat.

But my enhanced strength wasn’t just in my limbs: I bit down. Hard. My teeth pierced one of the cable’s segments, crushing it, and the remainder of the cable pulled back.

I had a brief glimpse of sparks bursting from the severed end, but now all I could focus on was the half-dozen segments already in my mouth that had broken apart and continued clawing their way down my gullet.

And that was when I really began to panic. I started to struggle wildly against the machine’s grip, my arms and legs flailing. It responded by tightening the cable around my waist and pushing harder against me, trying to snap my spine.

I managed to get one leg free, and as its claws grabbed for
me again, I planted my foot on the ground and kicked out as hard as I could, launching both myself and the machine several feet into the air.

We crashed down hard, and the machine readjusted itself to compensate.

That was the first mistake it made: It loosened its grip on my left arm.

I locked my fingers around the cable at my throat and pulled, severing it from the machine and scattering a dozen segments across the floor.

The claw darted out again, seeking my left arm, but I was able to grab onto it instead. I pushed back against it and heard its powerful motors whining in protest. Then something snapped inside it and the claw went limp. I formed the fingers of my hand into a point, and jabbed down into the mass of whirling metal.

Just as I hoped it would, the machine grabbed onto my hand. I continued pushing, and it continued struggling against me.

I jerked my still-trapped right arm back, and it shifted its weight to compensate.

I pushed my right arm forward and pulled the left back. Again, the machine had to readjust to match my movements. Then I squeezed my left hand into a fist and pulled my arm down toward my side, stretching the machine’s arms to their limits.

There was a sharp
ping
as something else inside it snapped, and then the fingers of my right hand touched the ground.

I shifted my own weight onto my right hand, and the machine began to tip over. It reacted by letting go of my legs.

I kicked down, hard against the floor, flipping over so that I landed on my back with the machine above me. I was hoping that this angle would give me an advantage.

But the damage it had sustained wasn’t enough to slow it down. Now it was slamming its legs over and over into my head, chest, and stomach.

Two of the legs locked onto my head as the third rose, then came down hard, striking me in the forehead and sending a shock wave of pain through my skull. Dazed, my vision blurring, I saw it coming again, and couldn’t even flinch as it struck the same spot.

When it pulled back this time, the sharp, heavy edge was smeared with blood.

Then the leg shifted and its internal mechanisms readjusted, forming the end into a narrow point like the tip of a pickax.

I closed my eyes as it streaked down toward my face.

There was a
swish
of something moving fast through the air, a sharp clash, but nothing hit me.

I heard something heavy and metal crashing to the floor beside me, and opened my eyes to see the sparking stump of the leg flailing.

There was a blur of glistening metal and another sharp clash, and one of the limbs holding my head in place suddenly went limp.

Abby’s sword sliced through the cable around my waist,
and I pushed up against the machine, forcing it to my left as I rolled to the right.

I got up onto my knees and looked at the jumble of twitching, sparking metal, and at Abby, now casually poking at it with her sword.

“I think it’s dead,” she said. “You OK?”

“I will be.” I wiped the blood away from my eyes, then felt something rise in my throat.

Abby made a face. “Oh man, you’re not going to throw up, are you?”

I pitched forward onto my hands, and felt myself retch and gag. Five of the segments from the cable clattered wetly onto the ground. “I don’t think that’s all of them….” Another cramp from my stomach. “Nope, here comes the last one….”

My stomach heaved and fresh bile burned my throat as the last of the segments was forced up and into my mouth. I coughed as it passed my tongue, then barfed the bile onto the ground.

“Ew,
gross
!” Abby said.

I started to speak, but my lower lip felt numb.

Abby made a face. “Uh, Brawn … It’s still there. It’s hanging onto your lip.”

I pulled the tiny machine free and held it between my thumb and forefinger as it waved its tiny claws uselessly in the air. “Nasty little fellas, aren’t they?” I closed my fist around it and crushed it.

But Abby wasn’t listening. She had rushed over to Thunder and was moving him into the recovery position.

“What happened here?” I asked. “And where’s Max?”

“They were waiting for us,” Abby said. “Like they knew we were coming. They hit Max and Thunder with something.” She pointed to a cluster of small darts that protruded from the left side of Thunder’s neck and face. “They fired at me too, but I saw the darts coming.”

“What about Max?”

“They took him. Five guys, maybe six. I was busying fighting Frankenstein’s Erector Set over there.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Max should have read their minds, and Thunder should have been able to hear them.”

“I know. I’m guessing that they had one of those portable power-damping machines that Casey invented in Krodin’s world.” She held up her two-way radio. “This thing’s dead too. Yours?”

“Uh, I think I left mine in the helicopter. So what do we do?”

Before Abby could answer, there was a blur to my left, and Quantum was suddenly crouched next to Thunder, checking his pulse. “Seems OK, just unconscious. No other obvious injuries. Brawn, pick him up. We’re out of here.”

“They took Max,” Abby said.

“I know—Titan and Energy are following them.”

I squatted down and scooped up Thunder, and lifted him onto my shoulder. As I straightened up, I heard the familiar whine of Paragon’s jetpack approaching from outside.

Quantum looked around the warehouse. “Nothing here … And by the looks of the dust, there hasn’t been much of anything here for a long time, just that pile of debris.”

“That pile of debris was a
robot
,” Abby said. “It nearly killed me and Brawn!”

“But it didn’t,” Quantum said, still looking around. “So it was a ruse. Max was led to believe that this place was Ragnarök’s main facility….” He turned to me. “Your part is done, Brawn. Take Abby and Thunder back to the copter, and return to Max’s base in New Jersey.”

We heard the
thunk
of metal boots on concrete, then Paragon strode through the doorway. “Quantum, you’re needed. Northeast, about twenty-two miles. Look for Energy’s flare.”

Quantum nodded, and then he was gone.

“You kids OK?” Paragon asked.

Abby said, “Yeah, but … That’s
it
? Our part is over?”

He nodded. “Sucks, I know. But if Titan and Energy had gotten their way, you wouldn’t have been here at all.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Let’s move. The Rangers are on the way. They’ll pick up the pieces and secure the area.”

Roz, Thunder, and Abby sat opposite me in the helicopter. Thunder was lying stretched out across the bench with his head resting on Abby’s lap and his legs on Roz’s. He’d told them he was fine, but they’d insisted he take it easy.

“I can’t believe we just got sidelined like that,” Abby said.

“I can,” Thunder said. “They’re older than us. They think they know better.”

I said, “They’re not
that
much older.”

“We need our own helicopter,” Abby said. “Roz, are you rich like your brother?”

“Rich? Not even close. It’s not like Max inherited anything
from Mom and Dad. He earned everything himself. Are you saying we should have our own team?”

“I am,” Abby said. “The four of us, plus Lance.”

Thunder sat up. “How? We’re all still in school!”

“I’m not,” I said. “But you’re right. There’s no way we can do anything like that without Max’s help. Besides, if some supervillain went on the rampage and we were somehow able to get to him, I guarantee you we’d find that Titan and his buddies had got there first. And even if we persuaded them to set us up as junior members of their team, we’d end up, like, bringing them coffee or taking their costumes to the cleaners, or some dumb tasks like that. They don’t take us seriously. I mean, Roz, you didn’t even get to leave the chopper this time!”

“That’s just because Max is so overprotective of me.”

“Yeah, but the point remains. They don’t think we’re good enough.”

Abby said, “Well, they’re wrong. We’re just as good as they are. And we’ve got a good balance of skills too. Telekinesis, sound control, weapons, and strength. Plus Thunder can fly!”

“You can probably fly too,” Thunder said. “We should work on that. In Krodin’s world when we were looking for Brawn and we were flying and you were holding my hand … I let go for a few seconds, just before we found that freeway sign. It didn’t even faze you.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“Well, it’s worth looking into. And you too,” Thunder said to Roz. “If you can raise other objects into the air, then I see no reason you shouldn’t be able to raise yourself.” He smiled,
then nodded to me. “If we can figure out a way to get
you
flying, then we won’t need a helicopter at all.”

“Ask Paragon to build you a jetpack,” Abby suggested.

“Yeah, I can’t see that happening,” I said. “The public would love that. They’re already terrified of me as it is. Imagine how much fun I’d have when they started blaming me for interfering with air traffic.”

Thunder jumped to his feet. “Hold it….” Suddenly the copter was filled with the usual bone-shaking roar of the rotors—he’d had us wrapped in a cocoon of silence so that we could talk. He frowned for a second, listening to something, and then the noise of the copter’s engines was again cut off. “They got him. Roz, your brother’s fine. Energy was able to trace the residual heat from their transport halfway across the state to another base, then the four of them went in. Quantum went first and took out the guards, and then Paragon grabbed Max while Titan and Energy captured Casey Duval.”

“Great,” Abby said. “So we got nearly killed, and they get all the glory.”

I started to say something, then cut myself off. A thought had occurred to me, and if I said it out loud, then at some stage Max Dalton would be able to read it from the others’ minds.

Tremont’s people—or Casey Duval’s people, depending on who you believed was running the organization—had been waiting for us, which obviously meant that they had known we were coming. Their power-damping machine had enabled them to capture Max and take out Thunder. But that machine
hadn’t affected me, so clearly it had been gone by the time I’d arrived.

They had to have taken it with them. If that was the case, then how come it hadn’t affected the powers of Titan and the others?

There was only one answer that made sense to me: Casey Duval
wanted
to be captured.

“HOW’D YOU LIKE
my little toy?” Casey Duval asked me, a sly grin spreading across his lips. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“You mean the pile of scrap back in Pittsburgh? Hope it didn’t cost you too much.”

It was three in the morning, and in Max’s base in New Jersey only Casey and I were still awake.

Thunder and Abby had been flown home to Midway, Max and Roz had returned to their Manhattan apartment, and Lance was asleep in his room on the other side of the base.