The Ascension: A Super Human Clash (13 page)

LANCE WAS JERKED awake by an unbelievably loud clanging sound that felt like it rattled through his entire skull.

He looked around to see the prison guard standing on the far side of the barred door, slamming his baton against the bars.

“Up!” the guard shouted. “You got two minutes to get yourself ready!”

Lance pulled the blanket to one side and rolled to his feet. “It's not eight o'clock already, is it?”

“Seven.”

“But the woman said work didn't start until—”

“Shut up. Hands behind your back, then walk backward toward the bars.”

Lance did as he was told. He felt the handcuffs ratchet into place on his wrists, and four minutes later he was outside the police station being steered toward a waiting blue-and-gold patrol car by another uniformed officer.

“Your first day, right?” the Praetorian officer asked. “Your counsel officer explained everything to you?”

“She explained that I don't have any rights, if that's what you mean,” Lance said.

“That's what I mean.” The officer opened the car's rear door. “Get in.”

Lance climbed into the backseat, not an easy task with his hands cuffed behind his back. “Where are you taking me?”

“No talking.”

Lance shrugged. “What difference will it make now? I'm already arrested.”

The Praetorian frowned for a moment, then said, “You've got me there.” He closed the door and climbed into the driver's seat, tossing the bag containing Lance's clothes onto the passenger seat, then unclipped his radio from his shoulder. “Dispatch, this is O'Meara.”

A voice crackled over the car's speakers. “Go ahead, O'Meara.”

“About to depart with suspect McKendrick. ETA one hundred minutes.”

“Acknowledged, O'Meara. You require support?”

The officer looked at Lance in the rearview mirror. “For
this
guy? No support needed, Dispatch.”

“Acknowledged. Dispatch out.”

As the officer started up the engine, Lance leaned forward and asked, “So what am I going to be doing?”

“There's a major national beauty competition and they're short one judge.”

“Yeah, that's hilarious. Look, can't you just let me go and pretend I escaped or something?”

“What do
you
think?”

The officer was in his late twenties, Lance guessed. He was a head taller than Lance and a little overweight.
Might be able to outrun him
, Lance thought,
if I can get out of the handcuffs. And out of the car.
He sighed. “I
hate
being captured.”

O'Meara laughed as he steered the car out of the lot behind the station. “Happens a lot, does it?”

“Feels like it, yeah. Hey, do you remember back a few years when America was a real country and we had real cops instead of you fascists?”

“What? We're not fascists. We're just doing our jobs.”

“Right. I was arrested because another officer thought I was lying to him. What sane society puts people in jail for telling a lie?”

“That's always happened, kid. Lies like ‘I never murdered that guy' and ‘I didn't steal all that money.'”

“Yeah, but they were imprisoned because of the crimes, not the lies.”

“McKendrick, you can't talk your way out of this. You did the crime, you do the time. You heard that before, yeah? Sure you did. Well, they don't make up cool phrases like that for no reason, you know.”

“Yeah, that's
real
cool,” Lance said under his breath. “What about parole?”

O'Meara laughed again. “Parole? There's a word I haven't heard in a few years. There's no such thing as parole anymore. It was a crazy idea anyway. You sentence someone to ten years, then ten years is how long they should serve. Letting them out early just doesn't make any sense.”

“I really don't want to go. I want to see my mom and dad again.”

“Oh,
here
we go. Try not to cry, kid. It's hard to wipe away tears with your hands cuffed behind your back.”

“In my world they were murdered.
And
my brother. Three weeks ago. I came here and suddenly they're alive again. You can't imagine how that feels. And now I'm locked up and it could be months before I even have a trial.”

The officer shook his head. “Now the sympathy card. You're really checking all the boxes, aren't you?”

“It's true. My family was killed by a supervillain.”

“Is that so? There aren't any supervillains anymore. They're all dead. Except for Daedalus, 'course. And they'll get him soon enough.”

Lance was about to ask, “Who the heck is Daedalus?” when O'Meara continued, “But I suppose there's that guy earlier today. The big blue guy. But they'll catch him too.”

“He was with me and the others when we fought Krodin. His name is Brawn. I think the same thing happened to him that happened to me. I vanished from where I was in my world and appeared in the same place in this one. In my world, Brawn was in a prison called Oak Grove. That's where he appeared, right?”

“Funny you should say that…”

“That's what it said on the news. And the me from this world vanished from school. Same time, same thing. We replaced this twisted reality's versions of ourselves.”

“I should let you know…Along with the abolition of parole, they did away with the insanity plea. So don't bother trying to pull a Section Eight on me, kid. It won't do you any good.”

“I'm not crazy.”

“Then you're lying to an officer of the law. Haven't you learned yet how bad that can be? I've heard you can be arrested for that.” The officer smirked and let out an annoying laugh.

After a few seconds, Lance asked, “Where are we going, anyway?”

“Emergency repair work. They need all the strong, able-bodied men they can get.” O'Meara took another look at Lance in the rearview mirror. “Guess they're
really
desperate.”

Lance raised his eyes. “Yeah, you're hilarious. Just drive the car.” Then he added, “But, y'know, feel free to take your time. I'm not in a hurry to get there.”

 

Roz sat side by side with the girl, Victoria, on the edge of the subway platform, their legs swinging free.

“They dint wake up,” the girl said in a matter-of-fact tone as she picked at a scab on her left knee.

Roz put her hand on the girl's shoulder. “Victoria…Please, you have to understand. They're gone.”

“No, they're still—”

“They died. Their bodies are left behind but not the…not the spark that makes them people. Do you understand what that means?”

Victoria shook her head.

“It's like…” Roz tried to think of a way to get the point across to the girl. “See that soda can over there?”

“Yeah.”

“It's empty. The can is still there, but the soda is gone. That's what happened to your family.”

Victoria sniffed, and dragged her bare forearm beneath her nose. “Daddy found some meat an' he cooked it an' I dint want any 'cos it smelt bad an' then they got sick an' they dint wake up.”

Could have been poisoned
, Roz thought,
set down for the rats. How long has she been down here? Must be years.
“Victoria, how old are you?”

“I don't know.”

“Well…Can you remember your last birthday party? How many candles were on the cake?”

“Four.”

“And was that in your house, or down here?”

“In th' house, I think.”

“And is there anyone else down here? Any other people?”

“I hear their voices, sometimes, but I do hide.”

Roz got to her feet, then crouched down and lifted Victoria into her arms. The girl was stiff, awkward, unused to being touched. “You really can't stay here. Do you want to come with me?”

“Mom an' Dad…” She sniffed again.

Roz hugged her tightly. “It's OK. You can cry if you want to.” This close, the odor from her clothes and body was almost choking, and Roz forced herself to breathe through her mouth. “You come with me. But first we'll go and say good-bye to your family, all right?”

“Will I see them again?”

“No, sweetheart, I'm sorry. You'll see them in your dreams, maybe, but not in the real world.”

 

James Klaus was freezing by the time he and Abby reached the outskirts of Midway. He'd managed to successfully float—he didn't really consider it flying—over the rooftops without too many problems. Once, an unexpected gust of wind caught him and sent him drifting far from Abby, but he was able to push himself back once he'd stopped spinning and tumbling.

Now they were resting on the roof of a grain silo. James rubbed his arms to keep warm. “It's cold up there. Or maybe using my power so much is just draining my energy.”

“Get over it, you big baby. It's going to take a long time to get all the way from here to the East Coast,” Abby said. “Unless you can fly me too.”

“I'm willing to give it a go if you are,” James said. “But it takes a lot of concentration just to keep myself up in the air. Two people could be tricky. It'll work better if you hold on to me as we fly.”

“Hmm.”

“What's that mean?”

“I'm sure your motives are honorable, James.” She stood up. “Want to try?”

“We should try from the ground. First rule of flying: Never jump off something high enough for the impact to drive your skull into your chest.”

Abby looked over the edge. “It's about, what, twenty-five yards? I can survive that easy.”

“I'm not sure
I
can.”

She turned back to him, stepped close, and put her arms around his waist. “Let's go.”

James concentrated and built a series of continuous shock waves around his body.

“It's working!” Abby said.

They rose slowly from the top of the silo, drifted over the edge and down toward the ground.

“James, we need to go
up
.”

“No, we need to go
forward
. Up is dangerous. And colder. Huh. You all mocked me before because my costume was made from a wet suit. Well, I wouldn't mind having it on right now. Good insulation in a wet suit.”

Abby said, “Hold on, this isn't very comfortable.” She began to squirm around him.

“What are you doing?”

“You're going to give me a piggyback. And that way I can have my hands free in case I need to shoot at anything.”

James shook his head. “This is embarrassing. I hope no one sees us. And I really hope that
Lance
never finds out.”

“I think he has enough to worry about,” Abby said.

“Could be. I wonder where he is. I'm assuming that the same thing happened to him. But he's probably OK—he can talk his way out of anything. He's probably having the time of his life, wherever he is.”

Abby said nothing for a moment, then, “You didn't hear, did you? James…Lance's parents and brother were killed.”

“Oh jeez…When?”

“The night we fought Krodin in Windfield. Slaughter escaped, remember? She went after Lance's family. When Paragon brought him back home, the house had been half demolished, and Lance's mother and father and brother were dead. Max arranged for Lance to be put in some secure place. I don't know where, but it wasn't with relatives or friends.”

“And Max didn't tell
us
?”

“Apparently he didn't consider us at risk. Slaughter didn't know who we were.”

“That's not the point! Lance is our friend. Well, kind of. Either way, we owe him our lives. I mean, he could have come and lived with one of us. Not me, though.”

“Nor me. We don't have the space.”

“We do, but my folks would never go for it.”

“Because he's white?”

“No, because they're miserable jerks. Anyway, my stepdad is white. Oh man…Slaughter just murdered them?”

“Smashed into their house and broke their necks,” Abby said.

“Poor kid. He…” James stopped. A thought had occurred to him. “Abby, in this world his family could still be alive. Krodin changed our past, which means that we never fought him and Slaughter at Windfield. She'd know nothing about Lance.”

“You could be right. If they
are
still alive, he'll be better off not finding out about it. Think what that would be like—to lose your whole family and then get them back. That could drive someone insane.”

 

The car hit a bump and Lance McKendrick flinched, sat up, and looked around. The car was coming to a stop in front of a set of tall, steel-mesh gates. Behind them, identical gates were slowly swinging closed.

“Where are we?” Lance asked, blinking furiously. With his hands still cuffed behind his back, he was unable to rub his eyes.

“So you're finally awake,” Officer O'Meara said.

“Didn't realize I was asleep,” Lance replied. “How long have I been out?”

“About thirty minutes. We're here.”

“And where's here, exactly?” Through the front windshield Lance saw three men wearing dark-blue uniforms slowly approaching the gates, each with their hands casually resting on their holstered sidearms. Beyond them was what Lance at first took to be nothing more than a large, featureless wall—at least five stories high—but then he shifted his gaze to the right and saw the edge of the wall, and realized that it was the side of a building.

“A prison? Oh
man
!”
So much for my escape plans
. Lance had hoped he'd find an opportunity to pick the locks on his handcuffs—but that wouldn't be much use if he was trapped inside a locked prison.

A door in the inner set of gates opened, and the three uniformed men stepped through. One was carrying a long steel pole with a mirror affixed to the end. The men signaled to Officer O'Meara to pop the trunk and the hood.