Stronger: A Super Human Clash (31 page)

And then … Well, then there would be a mass outcry of rage at the inhumane conditions, and all of the guards would
be arrested and put on trial. By ingratiating himself with me, DePaiva would be spared.

OK, yeah, I was
definitely
reading too much into it. But it still didn’t hurt to have at least one of the guards pretending to be on our side.

“What sort of expert?” I asked. For months the mine had only barely been processing enough ore to keep it open. If this had been any ordinary mine, where the workers had to be paid, it would have been abandoned long ago.

DePaiva shrugged. “Some geologist guy, I think. Thing is, though, he’s not coming in as a surveyor or anything like that. He’ll be an inmate. Until a couple of days ago he was locked up somewhere in the States.”

“So it’s another mouth to feed,” I said. “I hope he’s good at his job. What do they expect to achieve, anyway? We’ve pretty much picked the land clean.”

“Last hope, I reckon.” He glanced at his watch. “Copter should be here any minute.”

“Right.” I gave him a friendly nod and headed off to where my friend Edmond was replacing a drill head.

“Don’t know why you bother talkin’ to that bleedin’ slimeball,” Edmond said, straining to lift up the massive drill so he could turn it over.

“It’s always good to have a man on the other side,” I said.

“Right. That’s how he sees
you
, y’know.”

“Yep.” I picked up the drill and held it in place while he extracted the splintered head.

Edmond looked up at me for a second, then returned his attention to the drill. “A few of us’ve been talkin’.”

“It’s not gonna work,” I said. “You know where we are, right? Lieberstan. There’s not a single village for three hundred miles in any direction. We’re more than a thousand miles from the nearest sizeable body of water, and that’s the Caspian Sea—it’s landlocked. Where would you go?”

“Anywhere that’s not here.”

“Edmond, we’ve been through this before. You can ask anyone who’s ever tried to escape from this place. You won’t get much of an answer, though, because they’re buried outside the dome.”

“Better to die in the mountains as free men than to die here as slaves.”

“No, it’s not. As long as you’re here, you have the hope of being rescued. But when you’re dead, you’re dead.”

“I’ve been here nearly eighteen years, Brawn. Imyram’s been here fifteen. Our daughter’s spent her whole
life
in this place. I don’t want her to die here too.” He hoisted the heavy drill onto his shoulder.

“Let me—” I began.

“I got it.” Without another word, Edmond turned and walked away.

I heard the low roar of an approaching helicopter, and looked over toward the dome’s western entrance. DePaiva and Hazlegrove saw me and beckoned to me.

The expert climbed down from the copter with some difficulty: His hands and feet had been tightly chained. He looked to be a few years older than me—in his forties, maybe early fifties—with thinning dark hair and bronzed, weather-beaten skin.

“You show him the ropes,” Hazlegrove said to me as he unlocked the man’s chains. “He’s gonna be with us a long time.”

When Hazlegrove and DePaiva left, the chains dragging behind them, the new prisoner looked around slowly. “Platinum mine, huh?”

“They didn’t tell you?”

“Didn’t tell me nothin’. Judging by the age of the machinery, it’s been here, what, thirty-five, forty years? How come I never heard of this place?”

“They don’t let the outside world know about us.”

“Figures.” He looked up at me. “Also figures
you’d
be here. Man, we had some times, huh?”

“Do I know you?”

“What? Sure you do. Leonard Franklin.
Lenny
.” He spread his arms as far as his chains would allow. “It’s me. The artist formerly known as Terrain. You remember. We worked together a coupla times, with Ragnarök’s crew. We were there when everything went south.”

I nodded. “Right. Didn’t recognize you. So that’s why they brought you in, because you’re an expert in geology?”

“I kinda got a feel for it back in the day.” He looked over the mine again. “Man, time was I coulda extracted all the platinum outta the ground in one go, just like
that
.” He snapped his fingers. “Can’t do anything like that now, but I can kinda remember what it was like. The warden said I gotta look at the last survey scans. That’s what they got me to do in my last place.”

“That was a mine too?”

“Nah, it was just a prison. But they’d bring in satellite photos and ground scans. You know, sonar images. I’ve got a knack for reading them. I can tell you where you’re most likely to find new deposits.”

“All that’s kept in Hazlegrove’s office,” I said. “I’ll show you.”

As we walked to the office, we passed three other prisoners straining to lift a recently repaired cart back onto its tracks. I lifted it up and set it down single-handedly.

We resumed walking, and Terrain said, “You’re still pretty strong. Didn’t you lose your powers like the rest of us?”

“I did. But my muscles are eight times the size of anyone else’s.”

“So, you’re some kinda trustee, right?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, what are you still
doing
here? Man, with your strength you shoulda been outta here years ago!” An expression of disgust appeared on his heavily lined faced. “Don’t tell me you
like
it here. You got it easy or something?”

“I hate it here,” I said. “And I definitely don’t have it easy. I work sixteen hours a day, every day. But I can’t leave.”

“Why not? You’ve been—what’s the word?—institutionalized?”

“If I leave, Hazlegrove will order the execution of the other prisoners.”

“So he says. But if he loses you, he won’t wanna lose anyone else.”

“I can’t take that chance. He’s already had more than a
dozen other prisoners killed, some of them just because they knew me.”

If anything, Terrain’s expression of disgust seemed deeper. “Right.”

His opinion of me made no difference. I didn’t care if he thought I was a coward any more than if he thought I was a ballerina.

Back when we still had our abilities, Terrain—like so many others—saw me only as a thug, a giant blue brute who specialized in destruction. I like to think that was just the media’s portrayal of me, that those who knew me were aware of the truth.

But the fact is, for a while I
was
like that. Shortly after I returned to the USA from Canada, certain events collided and triggered a phase in my superhuman career that I’m not proud of.

It started in New York, when I put my fate in the hands of the public.

IT TOOK ME SEVENTY DAYS
to reach Manhattan from Canada. More than two months of traveling only during the quietest hours of the night, moving as fast as I could and with each step praying that I’d find somewhere to hide out until the next night.

The last night was exhausting: I’d traveled south through New Jersey—coming far too close to Max Dalton’s base for comfort—and then took to the water. The Hudson was cold and not particularly clean, but it was safer than the streets and I was much less likely to be seen.

I wasn’t a strong swimmer, but—as I had learned in Norman Misseldine’s fortress—I could hold my breath for a very long time.

It was almost dawn when I reached Pier 86, and my first
instinct was to hide out for the rest of the day, but that would have defeated the point.

So I hauled myself out of the water and began to walk east, along 45th Street.

Early-morning commuters stared, and there were a few gasps, but far fewer screams than I’d expected.

A crowd formed behind me—at what they imagined was a safe distance—and I had to force myself not to smile as they all bumped into each other when I stopped to use the crosswalk on 9th Avenue.

A police car pulled to a stop ahead of me, and the two officers jumped out and crouched behind their doors with their guns aimed at me.

They didn’t shout a warning, so I ignored them and kept walking.

The crowd grew, many of them coming within a few yards of me. Cameras flashed and car horns beeped. Then there were more cop cars, some with their lights and sirens blaring. The police tried to keep the crowds back, but they had little hope of that.

By the time I reached Times Square, the crowd must have been several hundred strong, blocking the traffic and generally causing chaos.

It was a little awkward, because I hadn’t expected to get that far without being questioned by the police, so I just stood there and looked around while the police quickly and nervously erected barriers and attempted to herd the crowd in.

Then, finally, a police officer felt brave enough to attempt
communication: From across the square he used a bullhorn to blare out, “You are causing a public disturbance!”

“Me? What have
I
done? Not my fault if these people are following me!”

“What do you want?”

I couldn’t resist it: “What have you got?”

And then the press came: helicopters, TV vans, lone reporters armed with cameras and microphones.

A TV reporter and her camera crew darted up to the officer with the bullhorn and started badgering him with questions. “What are you going to do? Will this man be arrested? What’s the NYPD’s official position on blue-skinned people?”

The officer scratched his head with the edge of the bullhorn. “Uh, right now I’m not prepared to comment. Please, get back behind the barriers for your own safety.”

“Brawn is a known supervillain—why aren’t you arresting him?”

“Don’t have cuffs big enough. Now get behind the barriers!”

“Can I say something?” I asked.

It seemed like the whole square fell silent.

I crouched down and beckoned to the reporter. “C’mon, I don’t bite.”

She moved about an inch closer, and I figured it was the best I was going to get.

“You’re recording?”

“We’re going out live.”

“Live? Wow. Hey, everyone watching, sorry if this interrupts
your cartoons or your sports bulletins or whatever. I just wanna say that I’m tired of running, tired of hiding. And sure as anything I’m tired of living in forests and eating leaves.”

“So … What is it you
want
?”

That caught me out. “Um, a job? Somewhere to live that has walls and a roof? What does
anyone
want?” I looked straight into the camera. “I’m twenty-three, didn’t finish high school, can’t drive, and have no experience. But if you need anything
heavy
lifted …”

Then a loud voice from above said, “Coward!”

I looked up to see Titan floating above me, his arms folded to better show off his muscles, his blue cape gently flapping in the breeze. He always did know how to make an entrance.

“You bring the fight to one of the most crowded cities on the planet—using the public as human shields!”

“
What
fight?” I shouted back. “What have I ever done to you?”

“You freed Ragnarök!”

“Yeah? Well, he wasn’t Ragnarök
then
, was he? He was just a guy. But he was Ragnarök all the times you fought him and weren’t able to catch him! So don’t blame me for
your
failures, you overhyped jerk!”

Another voice, deeper and stronger, laced with authority, seemed to come from everywhere at once: “Everyone—clear the area. Now.”

I was amazed to see that it worked. Almost immediately, the crowd began to disperse. Some of them took a few last photos, and quite a few of the reporters retreated several dozen yards. Even the police fell back.

Titan touched down on the street in front of me. A blur whipped through the air, and then Quantum was standing next to him.

They were joined by Energy, drifting down from the sky with crackles of electricity sparking from her eyes and fingertips.

“So,” I said. “It’s going to be like that, is it? Where’s your other pal? Where’s Paragon?”

Energy said, “Paragon is otherwise engaged.”

I nodded. “Maybe because he knows the truth.”

“And what’s that?” Titan asked.

“He knows that I’m not who you all think I am. I’m not a monster.”

The deep voice came again. “Oh, you
are
.” I realized that the voice was coming from behind me, and I turned to see Thunder—his build was even bigger than last time I’d seen him—standing next to Abby and a dark-haired teenage boy who looked vaguely familiar.

“Six against one,” I said. “But you’re going to have to throw the first punch. Which you probably will if Dalton has your brains sufficiently scrambled.”

The young man frowned and said, “If I
what
?” and I realized that he must be Joshua Dalton, Max and Roz’s younger brother. The last time I’d seen him, he was ten. But that was seven years earlier. I couldn’t help wondering what power he had developed.

“Josh, right? You’ve grown up. So, where’s your sister and brother? They decide not to play today?”

Abby said, “Brawn, stand down. This is your only warning.”

“How can I stand down when I haven’t done anything yet? If you want to talk, Ab— I mean, Hesperus, then we’ll talk. You and me. Thunder will listen in anyway.”

She drew her sword and her ax, and walked toward me.

I sat down cross-legged on the ground. “This isn’t a fight, Abby,” I said softly. “I’ve come to make peace.”

She stopped in front of me. “Peace. After what you did?”

“This was the only way I could think of to get your attention without being arrested. The cameras are still rolling. If you and your friends attack, the whole world will see that I’m not fighting back.” I smiled. “Max won’t be able to mess with
all
of their minds.”

Her grim expression melted. “Brawn, you’ve got it so wrong! Max isn’t like that. He never was. Can’t you see? You spent hours talking to Ragnarök that night—
he
got inside your mind, not Max!”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

Abby came closer still. “All these powers, all these things we can do … It doesn’t change who we are deep down. You’re still just a kid, aren’t you? You’re still twelve years old—you never had the chance to grow up.”