The Doomsday Device (Teen Superheroes Book 2) (16 page)

He growled. Not an angry growl, but something approaching an almost human sound. Then he blinked and the sudden pain in his eye seemed to settle it. A peaceful resolution and any chance of a game of Monopoly were out of the question. He let out an unearthly roar and charged towards me.

I tried to put up a shield, but nothing happened. The creature hit into me at full pelt and I literally went flying into the air. It was like being hit by a car. My head hit the floor hard. I was dazed for a few seconds. It was all Domain needed to pick me up again and hurl me across the room.

Crouching into a ball, I rolled across the floor, but at the last instant hit my elbow. Excruciating pain ran up my arm. It was so bad my entire arm went numb. It felt like my arm was broken. I stood and started to babble something to try to reason with Domain. It was pointless.

He advanced on me and now I saw a new expression in his face. A look of knowing. He now realized whatever powers I had were gone and he finally had the upper hand.

All he now had to do was deliver the death blow.

He charged at me again as I tried to bring up my shield.

Nothing happened.

It was time to die.

Except at that instant a burst of flame poured through the air and engulfed Domain in one mighty explosion. He continued towards me like a rampaging bull, but I threw myself out of the way. He flew past me, fell and hit the floor. Blinded, engulfed in fire, he rolled around as he tried to extinguish the blaze, but it was all to no avail.

I turned around to see Chad stumbling into the chamber. He fired another blast at Domain and the creature let out a last scream of rage and terror before its lungs were engulfed in flame. Then it became impossible for it to make another sound as its world was reduced to pain and oblivion and finally death.

Chad took one more single step forward before he collapsed face first into the floor.

I raced towards him and tried to bring him around, but he was unconscious. The wound in his shoulder was seeping some sort of puss. We had to get out of there. We had to escape Yodak and find the plant to save him or he would die.

Footsteps sounded from behind me.

Zachary and the others were carefully entering the enclosure. I felt like making a cutting remark, but I stifled the impulse. I could hardly blame them for holding back. I certainly hadn’t wanted to enter this terrible place.

“Is it over?” Drink asked hesitantly.

“It’s over,” I said. “Domain’s dead. Now we need to find a way out of here.”

The whole place stunk of burnt flesh. It was sickening. I grabbed Chad in a fireman’s lift, balanced him across my shoulders and followed the others towards the back of the chamber. I had been right about one thing. Where Domain had been lying asleep was a tunnel. The only problem for me was that he had been blocking it.

Recoil had another flaming torch with him. He held it aloft as we rapidly made our way down the passageway. After a moment I felt something move against my face.

Wind.

This seemed too good to be true.

Which proved to be the case after walking through the tunnel for another minute. The tunnel thinned out more and more until we were walking single file along the rift. Obviously it was little more than a crack in the earth. Zachary’s story about it being caused by an earthquake seemed correct. Finally we saw the end. A thin crack in the rock that had been rather inexpertly sealed with concrete.

“There’s wind on the other side,” Recoil said.

He lowered the torch and now I could see light seeping through the tiny gaps in the rock.

“We need to break through, but how are we going to do that?” Zachary asked.

“Leave this to me,” Drink said. “That’s only sandstone around the concrete and water is a powerful element. Given time it can wear mountains away to dust.”

He squeezed past Recoil and pushed his hand into the gap. It turned to water, but it did not simply remain still. In that tiny space I saw the liquid rotating around as if a mighty whirlpool were located in the tiny gap. Within seconds the gap was larger.

“Think of the Colorado river,” Drink said. “A body of water tumbling across the countryside for millions of years until eventually you end up with the Grand Canyon. That’s what I’m doing.” He continued to swirl the liquid around in the gap faster and faster. “Millions of years of landscaping in a matter of seconds.”

The gap grew larger and larger. Within a few minutes it was large enough for someone to crawl through. Drink went first. Then Recoil. I passed Chad out to him and then Zachary with myself in the rear. We were in a thin crack in the earth. The ground beneath our feet was an uneven mound of dirt and rock. Ahead of us lay a thin crevice in the rock. We pushed through it until we found ourselves on the side of a hill. A barren landscape of scrub and rock lay ahead of us.

In the distance I could see the ocean.

We were free.

Chapter Thirty-Two

“We have a problem,” Jeremiah said. “It’s with your friend Ferdy.”

Ebony and Brodie looked at each other. They had been summonsed into Jeremiah’s office a few minutes before thinking they were about to be questioned about Ethan Craddock. If the leader of the Sanctuary compound knew about their conversation with the FBI agent, he gave no indication. Instead, he seemed almost conciliatory.

“What sort of problem?” Brodie asked.

“Your friend Ferdy will not co-operate,” Jeremiah said carefully. “As you are well aware, as much as he is a genius – and he is one of unparalleled abilities – he also suffers from some defects in communication. He does not understand what is at stake.”

Maybe he does
, Brodie thought.
Maybe he understands all too well.

“So what do you want from us?” Ebony asked.

“I want you to speak to him,” Jeremiah said. “I want you to encourage him to break the Barricade code.”

“Why would we do that?” Brodie asked. “You want to kill everyone on Earth and you want our help to do that. Why would we help you?”

“Think of it as buying time for yourselves,” Jeremiah said smoothly. “You may all continue to live for as long as you are prepared to be part of our family.” He spread his hands. “We want you to be part of our glorious future in the New Era. I know Jason has taken quite a liking to you, Brodie.”

“So I understand,” she said.

“You will be married,” Jeremiah said. “As will you, Ebony. There is another boy who has expressed interest in becoming your husband.”

Brodie cast a glance at Ebony. Whatever the quiet girl thought of her impending marriage to a complete stranger, she kept to herself.

“That is the future that lies ahead for you now,” Jeremiah said.

Brodie was thinking along quite different lines. She was thinking about taking this whole scenario in a brand new direction, starting with ripping off one of Jeremiah’s arms and beating him with it until he took her to Ferdy. Then she would grab the virus and get all of them out of this mad house.

It all seemed like a plan until Jeremiah turned on the monitor on his desk.

“We have another means of persuasion,” he said.

The monitor flickered to life. It took Brodie a moment to understand what she was looking at. It was a room and in the room was what appeared to be a table. On the table was -.

“Dan!” Ebony cried. “What are you doing to him?”

“Nothing,” Jeremiah said. “Yet.”

Dan lay on the contraption. Jeremiah and his people had been quite clever in building the contraption out of timber. Dan’s powers could only be used against metal. As they stared in horror at the device, they realized it was a rack, a medieval torture device used to stretch a person until their limbs dislocated from each other and their body was torn apart.

Ebony felt sick. She swallowed hard and tasted vomit in her mouth.

“Leave him alone,” she said, but her voice sounded distant in the small room. “You people are monsters. You -.”

She wanted to reach across the table and touch Jeremiah and turn him to oxygen or carbon or granite and then he would be finished. But the people stationed next to the rack would start to turn the wheels on the rack and how quickly could they stop them?

Not quickly enough.

“I’ll help you,” Ebony said.

“Ebony!” Brodie said. “No! You can’t -.”

Ebony turned on her. “Shut up!”

Brodie had never seen such a look of dismay and rage on the quiet girl’s face. She looked like she wanted to kill someone. Brodie could understand the sensation. Right now she wanted to put Jeremiah on that rack so he could get a feeling of what it would be like to be so completely helpless.

“Okay,” Brodie said. “We’ll help you.”

“I’ll speak to Ferdy,” Ebony said with tears in her eyes. “I can get through to him.”

Jeremiah raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t it be better if both you girls -.”

“No,” Brodie interrupted him. “Ebony is closer to Ferdy than I am. She can get through to him if anyone can.”

Jeremiah seemed to accept the explanation. “Then let’s get started.” He pushed an intercom button on his desk and an assistant came in and Brodie was led out of the room and back to the common area. Ebony found herself being taken down a winding corridor deep into the earth. She longed to cause Jeremiah some terrible pain, but that had to wait. Now she had to cooperate and convince Ferdy to help these maniacs.

They arrived at a metal door. Jeremiah entered a code and the door swung open. They stepped through and Ebony found herself in a large chamber with paintings on the walls. Ebony was relieved to see it was a pleasant room with wildflowers in vases. It contained a bed and a table and chair.

Ferdy was sitting quietly at the table. His eyes lit up when he saw Ebony.

“Ebony!” he said, rising to his feet and running towards him.

Ebony gave him a hug.

“Not too tight,” she had to remind Ferdy.

Not only did Ferdy have an incredible brain, but he also had super strength. He could lift a car without raising a sweat. He could probably punch the door down that had locked him in here, but he was unable to work that out for himself.

“I love you,” Ferdy said.

Ebony realized tears were running down her cheeks. “I love you too Ferdy,” she said. “And I’ve missed you.”

She looked around and realized for the first time that a pair of handcuffs, broken in two, lay on the floor nearby.

“Did you try to restrain him?” she turned to Jeremiah in fury.

He raised a hand. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am, but he would not cooperate with us. As long as you help us now we can all be friends.” He peered at Ferdy. “You want that, don’t you Ferdy?”

Ferdy looked like he would rather be friends with a brick than with Jeremiah. He glanced over at Ebony.

“My friend is Ebony,” he said. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou are more lovely and more temperate.”

“I think that’s Shakespeare,” Ebony said.

“The eighteenth sonnet,” Ferdy said. “Shakespeare lived from 1564 and died in 1616.”

“Thanks Ferdy,” Ebony said.

“I’m going to get Barricade for us,” Jeremiah said. “In the meantime, I hope you can make Ferdy see reason.”

Jeremiah left the room. Ebony asked Ferdy if he was okay and if he had been eating alright. It seemed the Sanctuary people had been feeding him, but had not been giving him chocolate which was his favorite food.

“Ebony, friend,” he said. “Do you have chocolate?”

“I don’t have any,” she said.

“Chocolate is made from cocoa,” he said.

“I know,” she said, looking around the room. She hated this place. She hated Jeremiah. He had locked poor Ferdy in this place and treated him like some sort of criminal. How could someone treat a harmless person like Ferdy with anything less than love and compassion?

She was just wondering this when Jeremiah returned. He had a long, metal tube in his hand about three feet in length. A digital display ran along one side of it with a keyboard set into the metal below it. Jeremiah laid it on the table before them.

Ebony looked down at the display. A meaningless row of letters and numbers filled the display.

“E794GB5…” her voice trailed off.

“I’ve shown this to Ferdy before, but he just looks at it without comprehension,” Jeremiah said. “This is the Barricade device. The display is the code that I want your friend Ferdy to crack for me. If he doesn’t, then young Dan is going to be sorry.”

“Dan,” Ferdy said. “Dan is one of Ferdy’s friends.”

“That’s right,” Jeremiah said. “One of Ferdy’s friends is going to suffer.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

We continued towards the sea. I told the group we had a sophisticated aircraft waiting on the shoreline for us. Some friends had arranged to supply it for us in case an escape became available. After about a mile, Recoil bade us farewell and wished us luck. Considering he would have happily killed us the previous day for a piece of moldy bread, his farewell was surprisingly good natured.

He followed a ravine away from us. We didn’t see him again.

Zachary pointed to a plant growing on a hillside.

“That’s the plant your friend needs,” he said. “He needs to eat it as well as applying it directly to the wound.”

I broke off a piece of the plant and used a makeshift rock and pestle to crush it. After a few minutes I had a sizeable quantity. I divided it in half and combined some with water seeping through a crack in a rock face. I tried feeding the mixture to Chad, but he could barely swallow.

“I’ll put some in the wound,” Zachary said.

While he smeared it across the cuts in Chad’s shoulder, I wondered if we may have already been too late. He was very pale. His fever had broken and now his breathing was shallow.

“Come on Chad,” I said. “Don’t give up now.”

I tried feeding some of the liquid to him. He started to cough and I stopped.

“Just a little at a time,” Drink said, looking around.

I could understand his concern. We were in a tiny valley. No-one was around, but that could change in seconds.

“We’d better keep moving,” Zachary suggested.