The Awakening (11 page)

21

D
ANNY
C
OOPER WOKE UP TO FIND THAT
he was half-naked and strapped to a table in a large white room. Around him, half a dozen men and women in doctors’ coats were working on electronic instruments.

One of them looked at Danny. “Rachel? He’s awake.”

The young woman walked over to the table. “Impossible! He should be out for another three hours!”

The last thing Danny could remember was being escorted from the Lear jet into the car, when a soldier wearing medical insignia had pushed a needle into his arm.

“They must have screwed up the dose,” Rachel said. She took out a penlight and shone it in Danny’s eyes.

“Who are you? What is this place?”

“My name’s Rachel.”

“What are you doing to me?” Danny asked.

“Just a routine checkup. How are you feeling?”

“Like I want to go home.”

“You’ll be home soon enough.”

“You’re lying.”

Rachel shrugged. “Any dizziness? Nausea?”

“No.” Danny strained against the straps holding him down. “Let me out of here!”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Orders, you understand.”

“Who’s giving the orders?”

“We’ve been told that you displayed an incredible burst of speed a couple of days ago. Was that the first time such a thing has happened?”

“I’m not answering any of your questions, unless you answer mine.”

“All right. But I should warn you that I don’t know all the answers.”

“Who’s in charge here?”

“I don’t think you should be concerned about that. Any prior indications that you have enhanced speed?”

“No. That was the first time. Where are we?”

“I’m not allowed to answer. Have you displayed any other unusual abilities?”

“Yes,” Danny said. “I can cause anything within a hundred meters to spontaneously combust. Want a demonstration?”

Everyone in the room backed away from the table, then a voice came out of nowhere: “He’s lying, Rachel.”

Danny looked around to see a speaker set above a large mirror.
That has to be one-way glass,
he said to himself.
Someone’s watching this.

Rachel smiled and stepped back to the table. “Very funny. Has your friend…” She checked a clipboard. “Colin. Has he shown any signs of unusual abilities?”

“No. Why? What has any of this got to do with him?”

Rachel ignored the question and flipped through a couple of pages on her clipboard. “Well, he’s a little younger than you. Could be another year or two before his abilities begin to manifest.”

“You’re saying that one of Colin’s parents was a superhuman too?”

She nodded. “Yes. Now that you’re awake, we want to check your visual and aural acuity.”

“What?”

“Your sight and hearing.” She reached down beside the table and flipped a switch, and the table rotated about its center until Danny was almost upright, with only the straps keeping him from sliding off. “Now, look toward the chart, please, and read the third line.”

Danny looked at the eye chart, which was pinned up on the wall about five meters away. “The third line? S. C. R. E. W. Y. O. U.”

Rachel squinted at the chart. “No, that’s not right.” She paused. “Ah. Very funny. So, you’re not going to be cooperative?”

“Would
you
be?”

Rachel reached into the pocket of her white coat and took out a small device, about half the size of a pen. She pressed it against Danny’s shoulder.

Danny gasped as a powerful electric shock coursed through his entire body.

“Now,” Rachel said. “The third line on the chart. Please.”

This time, Danny spelled out a much ruder phrase and was shocked again.

Victor Cross and Façade watched from behind the one-way mirror. “Impressive,” Victor said. “But not very productive.”

“He’s not going to break easily. Especially since he knows that Colin is still free.”

Behind them, the door opened and Rachel entered.

“Who wants him to break?” Façade asked. “I thought you wanted him to cooperate.”

Rachel said, “I really don’t think that he
will
cooperate. He’s too stubborn. We might have better luck with the girl.”

“What’s the deal with her?” Façade asked. “Who
is
she? Where did she come from?”

“Her name’s Diamond,” Victor said. “And she’s been here all along. She can put herself in an immovable, invulnerable state. She was like that when Ragnarök’s power-damper was used. She just stayed that way. We thought it was permanent.”

“So how come she’s back now?”

Rachel said, “There was a power surge yesterday when the nucleus was being tested. That must have triggered something.”

Façade thought about this. “So if you have her, you don’t need Danny, right? You can do all your tests and calibrations and whatever on her?”

Victor slowly turned to look at him. “You need an extra pair of socks, Façade?”

“What?”

“Sounds to me like you’re getting cold feet.”

“Don’t push me, Cross! I’m as committed to this as anyone! I gave up eleven years of my life for this!”

Rachel said, “If you two are done seeing who can spit the farthest? We still have a situation to deal with. We need Danny’s cooperation. I don’t think that forcing him or threatening him is the right way to go. I think we need to send in Joseph. Right now, he’s explaining everything to the Wagners. Or trying to, at least. He’s still a little confused.”

Danny heard someone enter the room and opened his eyes to see Façade standing in front of him.

“You’re going to have to cooperate, Danny,” Façade said.

Danny raised his head a little, looked down at the bruises and scorch marks on his arms. “They’re torturing me and you’re letting them do it!”

Façade bit his lip. “All they want to do is figure out the extent of your powers.”

“Why? What do they need to know that for?”

“I can’t tell you that. Do what they say and everything will turn out fine. Trust me.”

“Trust you?
Trust
you? You pretended to be my father for the past eleven years! I don’t even know what happened to my
real
father! I don’t know whether he’s alive or dead.”

“Danny, I’m sorry about having to pretend that I was your father, but it was necessary.” He paused. “And…I know you won’t want to believe this, but it was
his
idea.”

“Whose?”

Façade walked over to the door, opened it and left.

Seconds later, a tall, thin bearded man walked into the room. His skin was pale, lined with age.

Danny watched as the man approached the table and smiled nervously at him. “Hello, son.”

22

D
ANNY WATCHED AS THE THIN MAN
dragged a chair over to the table and sat down.

“Aren’t you going to say hello?” the man asked.

“Who
are
you?”

“I’m your father.”

Danny swallowed. “You’re…” He stared at him. There was definitely a strong resemblance between this man and Façade.

“I can only guess how you must be feeling. I’d be surprised too. I don’t expect you to call me Dad. You can call me by my middle name—Joseph.”

“What…What’s this about?”

“It’s about a prophecy…Danny, there were times when I could see the future. Not always. I couldn’t control that ability. In fact, usually when it happened I couldn’t actually
see
the future, but I got a sense of it. Do you know what I mean?”

Danny shook his head. “It’s not possible.”

“Oh, it was possible. It’s just not something I could control.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s not possible that you’re really my father.”

“I promise you, it’s true.”

“And you were Quantum?”

“That’s right.”

“But you were one of the good guys.”

“I still am, Danny.”

“You’re working
with
these people! For God’s sake! Can’t you see that they’re evil? They kidnapped me and Colin and his parents!”

“They’re not evil, Danny. Look, you don’t know the whole story.”

“Then tell me. What is this all about?”

Joseph smiled. “It’s all about you, Danny. Right from day one, it’s
always
been all about you.”

Danny tried to roll away, to get off the table, but the straps were holding him tight. “If you are my father, then get me out of here!”

“I can’t do that, Danny.”

“Then tell me what’s going on! Why did you let Façade replace you?”

“He was the only one who could do it. If Titan and the others had figured out what we were planning, they’d have tried to stop us. The only way we could succeed was for Façade to take my place. He…” Joseph smiled. “He took some persuading, but in the end we found out what Façade wanted and we were able to offer that to him.”

“What was it?”

“A chance to stop running, to have a normal life. A lot of superhumans never used their powers, did you know that? We don’t know how many of us there were—hundreds, maybe—and some of them chose not to become superheroes. It’s not natural, you see. That’s what we realized. The powers were—
are
—something we were never meant to have. The human race isn’t ready for that sort of responsibility.”

“But that’s like…like not letting
anyone
drive a car just because a couple of people are dangerous behind the wheel! You can’t just
decide
to take everyone’s powers away!”

“Yes. We can and we did. But not just for that reason. No one knew for sure how the powers worked,” Joseph said. “Where did they come from? Why did some people develop powers and others didn’t? The only one who had any kind of grasp of it was Ragnarök. We knew that because he’d once learned how to temporarily boost his own strength.
How
he did that, we were never sure.”

Danny said, “You keep saying ‘we.’ Who else was involved?”

“Do you want me to tell you this story or not?”

“Go on.”

Joseph started to speak, then frowned. “Where was I?”

“Ragnarök.”

“Right. We had to remove everyone’s powers. That way everyone would be safe. But the only way to do that was to work with Ragnarök. He was smart, you see. A genius. But completely mad. The point is, Ragnarök was the only one who could build the power-damper. He thought that the machine would take away every other superhuman’s powers and then—at some stage in the future—he’d be able to reabsorb that power himself.”

“But…why didn’t Ragnarök just use the machine? Why did he build the battle-tank?”

“Because the power-damper works by stripping the superhuman energy and absorbing it back into itself. But the amount of power it absorbs is relative to the distance. The closer a superhuman is to the machine, the more of their power it will take.”

“So he built something big enough and dangerous enough that it would bring every superhero running?”

Joseph nodded. “And not just the heroes. He wanted the villains’ power as well. He recruited everyone he could think of. He didn’t know that we knew what he was up to, though. He’d designed a force field to protect himself from the effects of the power-damper, but I’d sabotaged it. It would never have worked. Titan breaching the force field didn’t make any difference from that point of view.”

“And while you were working with Ragnarök…”

“Façade took my place. Exactly. Façade was the best choice—the only choice—to take my place and look after you.”

“So what does this have to do with me?” Danny asked. “I was only four years old then!”

“We hadn’t anticipated that Titan would do so much damage to the battle-tank. The tank exploded seconds after the power-damper was activated. The machine was destroyed and we had no way to build another one. We’d intended to keep it active forever, to strip your powers when they manifested.”

“But
why
?”

“Because the day you were born,” Joseph said, “well, it was the best day of my life. And the worst day. It was the day of the prophecy.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were only a few minutes old when I held you in my arms for the first time. I saw something then. I saw the future. The vision was clearer than any I’d had before. It…Danny, I saw what you would become. I saw an army gathering on the horizon; hate in their eyes; blood on their hands; death in their hearts. And leading them was you. My son.” He closed his eyes. “I can’t touch the future anymore, Danny, but I can remember what I saw then. I saw the day coming when all the world’s heroes will stand against you and be destroyed. There will be no one left to protect the world. In your hatred and anger, you will lay waste to the Earth.”

Joseph opened his eyes and stared at Danny. “Billions of innocent people will die.”

Danny shook his head. “No! No, that’s not true! That won’t happen!”

“It
will
happen,
if
we don’t strip you of your superhuman powers. You said that these people here are evil. You’re wrong, Danny. They’re not evil. They’re trying to save the world—they’re trying to save it from you.”

23

V
ICTOR
C
ROSS SANG QUIETLY TO HIMSELF
as he strode along the dusty corridor, a mug of coffee in one hand, a palmtop computer in the other. A trio of passing soldiers gave him an odd glance, but Victor ignored them.

Victor’s multitasking mind was working overtime.

As he walked, he was mentally assembling the power-damping machine, deciding what his next move with Joseph would be, wondering what to do about Diamond, calculating the compound interest his savings would earn if he moved them to a high-yield account and working out the next ten moves in the thirty-one games of chess he’d been playing over the Internet for the past three weeks.

Victor stopped outside a guarded room, showed his pass-card to the guards and unlocked the door.

Inside, four white-coated technicians, two men and two women, were assembling and testing various electronic and mechanical components. Huge blueprints were pinned all around the walls and one of the technicians was examining one of these very closely.

“Problems?” Victor asked, looking at the blueprint.

“Nothing we can’t handle, Mr. Cross.”

Victor sipped at his coffee. “Now, that’s not true, is it, Mr. Laurie? You’re lost in a sea of cables and components. You want to tell me where you’re stuck?”

Laurie turned toward one of the workbenches. “We’re having trouble with the miniaturization. Ragnarök’s force field generator was the size of a Buick. We’ve been able to get it down to this.” He pointed to a piece of equipment that was a little larger than a backpack.

“That’s not good enough.”

“I know. We haven’t been able to get it any smaller.”

“It works?”

“I think so, yes. Look, if the others found out what we were doing…”

“Don’t worry about what
they
might do,” Victor said. “Worry about what
I’ll
do if you let me down.”

Laurie swallowed. “Look, we don’t know how to reduce it any further. I’m sorry, but this is as small as it gets. It will work, though. It’ll shield anyone within a four-meter radius from the effects of the power-damper.”

“No. It needs to be much, much smaller than this, and it has to run continuously. Our benefactor can
not
afford to lose his abilities. Either we perfect this shield, or we sabotage the power-damper. Which is not going to be easy, because since the null-field went online it’s practically invulnerable.”

“It might help if we knew more about how the power-damper works…” Laurie glanced at Victor. “I know you don’t want us to know too much about it, but the more we know the easier this will be.”

Victor thought about this. “All right. Everyone? Attention, please!”

The other technicians stopped what they were doing and looked up.

“The power-damper works by stripping the superhuman energies, right?”

They nodded.

“No, wrong,” Victor said. “Ragnarök was able to build
his
machine because he understood what the powers are and how they work. And more important, why only some people are affected by them. The truth is that it’s not just a power-damper. It’s a siphon, a capacitor. It strips the energy from the superhumans and draws that energy into itself.” He smiled. “Beginning to understand? Yes?”

Victor sighed when he saw their blank expressions. “You people are supposed to be the best physicists on the planet! Laurie, tell us about the conservation of energy.”

“It’s the principle that the sum of the total amount of energy and mass in an isolated system will always be constant.”

“Which means?”

“It means that if you remove energy from something, the energy doesn’t just disappear. It has to go somewhere.”

“Right. The power-damper strips and it stores. Ragnarök built it that way—but he wanted to steal the other superhumans’ energy and then find a way to use it himself.” Victor paused. “He never got a chance to work out how to do that, but the machine itself was sound. It
did
strip all the superhumans’ powers.”

“How strong does the force field need to be?” the other male technician asked.

“The key is not the
strength
of the field; it’s the frequency. It has to operate at exactly thirty-two point seven-five-four femto-hertz.”

One of the women said, “I think we can do it. We can make a miniature force field generator that will operate permanently at the right frequency. It’ll be ready before the power-damper is, and it’ll be undetectable.”

Victor grinned. “Now,
that’s
what I want to hear! Excellent! I couldn’t be more proud.”

Laurie said, “Mr. Cross…wouldn’t it just be simpler to sabotage the power-damper? Then your benefactor wouldn’t lose his powers.”

“And neither would Danny Cooper or any of the new heroes. You don’t understand. Our benefactor wants to be the
only
superhuman. And more than that…It
is
possible for the superhuman powers to be reabsorbed by someone else. Ragnarök just couldn’t figure out how to make it work. He wasn’t smart enough. I am.”