The Last Hero (Book 2): Rise of the Ultras (16 page)

I
looked
up into the gun and waited for it to blast through my skull.

I closed my eyes. Held my breath. Tried to shift out of the way. But it was worthless. The ULTRAbot above me was holding me down, suppressing my powers in some way. Or perhaps it was something to do with the force I’d hit the ground. My back ached. I could taste blood. The smell of smoke filled the air as the sounds of battle above rallied on.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t break free.

This was it.

I saw my family flash before my eyes. Saw Mom and Dad. I saw Ellicia, Avi, Damon. And I saw my sister, Cassie, too. I knew I’d be with her soon. I didn’t want to fail her, but I wasn’t strong enough for this. I wasn’t strong enough to be Glacies. The ULTRAbots, they were too powerful. Nobody could stop them. It was just a horrible reality I had to accept.

I opened my eyes and saw the ULTRAbot was gone.

In its place, Vortex.

She grinned at me. And this time, as she chuckled, I really did see her blackened tongue, her yellow-toothed smile.

“Told you I’d get you back,” she said.

I wanted to jump up there and throw her miles away from here. But I couldn’t because I was relieved as it was. In the distance, I could still see the rest of the ULTRAs, Orion included, fighting away in the sky.

“Now’s not the time for that shit,” I said, standing up and dusting myself off.

“You’re only saying that ’cause you’re blushing under that little mask of yours.”

“Is that the thanks I get for saving you?”

Vortex raised her hands. I noticed her long unpainted fingernails then. “Hey. You put me on my ass at the hands of an ULTRAbot, I figured I’d better return the favor. Now hurry up. You’ve got a job to do.”

She patted me on the back, and it was only then that I realized what job Vortex referred to.

The doorway to the ULTRAbot facility was open. Wide open, waiting for someone to go inside and do what we came here to do.

Reach the switch.

Shut down the ULTRAbots.

I heard a blast up above. When I looked up, I saw Orion. He was surrounded by ULTRAbots. I was in awe of him. He moved just like he used to move, only slightly more sluggish, his actions more forced and pained. But I still couldn’t believe this was him. This was actually him, and I was here fighting for him.

No, not
for
him.
With
him.

I turned back to the door. Took a deep breath as the battle in the sky raged on.

Then, I stepped inside.

The corridor was long and dark. There was a total stillness about this place. So still that it was impossible to believe there was chaos unfolding outside.

I kept my footsteps slow. And even though I knew the ULTRAbots could see through it, I stayed camouflaged, too. It just gave me an extra layer of security. For my own peace of mind, more than anything.

I walked down the corridor. The doors to my left were made of solid metal. The windows were tinted. I had no idea what was inside, but it felt like there was something living in there.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to see it for myself.

I kept on walking down the corridor. Every step I took, the more it felt like I was being watched, the more it seemed like I was walking into a trap. I kept my breathing cool, as sweat rolled down my face under my mask. Every little movement in the darkness, my eyes picked up on, even if they weren’t there.

I went to turn the corner when I saw three ULTRAbots standing there, looking right at me.

I jolted back. Pressed up against the wall. Had they seen me? I couldn’t hear them, so maybe they hadn’t. Maybe I was okay. Damn, I hoped I was okay.

I swallowed a lump in my throat and edged closer towards the side of the wall. The ULTRAbots looked even more stationary and rooted to the spot than the ones outside. They were holding heavy guns, too. Like, really heavy. The kinds of guns I didn’t think it was possible for a human frame to hold on to.

But then these weren’t humans, were they?

I peeked around the side of the corner at them.

One of the guns was pointed right at me.

It fired.

I jumped out of the way just in time. And it was a damned good job because whatever ammunition was in those rifles, it blasted a hole in the corridor wall opposite.

I heard the footsteps coming towards me then. I knew I needed to get past them. Not just that, but I had to deal with them. I had to get rid of them or they’d never stop hunting me down.

I waited until the ULTRAbots’ footsteps were just inches around the side of the corner.

Then I shifted through the wall.

Right behind them.

I put my hands on the back of one of them.

Immediately, the other two turned.

Pointed their guns at me.

I let out a cry as I forced the largest blast of power I’d ever created.

But that didn’t stop me.

I’d created two wormholes right in front of each of the ULTRAbots. Two wormholes that led out through the walls behind the ULTRAbots.

So the bullets just flew through the ULTRAbots.

Flew from one gun, and then out of the wormhole in the wall, and into the ULTRAbots’ backs.

I flew back with the force of the explosion as it ripped through the corridor. I lay there, looked at the flames, gasping for air. Whatever I’d done with that wormhole thing, it was definitely the most power-taxing ability in my locker. I felt exhausted. All out of fight.

But I had to keep on going.

I limped further down the corridor. And as I moved, it seemed to narrow. Curve. Steps appeared below me, but it all led in one direction. And once again, I started to consider that maybe this was some kind of trap. Some kind of tunnel that led to nowhere.

And then I saw it.

It was quite comical, really. So comical that it made me smile. When Orion told me there was a switch-off button rumored to be inside this place, something powering the ULTRAbots, I didn’t
literally
think he meant a switch-off button.

But there it was. A big, red button, flashing light.

By its side, loads of empty containers, like the ones rich people are frozen in when they die. Some of them were empty. But others were sprouting new life. New ULTRAbot life.

I tried not to look at the containers. It was too creepy. I just walked over to that red button. Hovered my hand over it.

I knew what I was doing if I committed this action. I was ending the potential lives of thousands of ULTRAbots. I was officially committing a terrorist act—an act that would turn humanity against Glacies for good, no matter how unfounded that was.

But was it unfounded? I’d seen what ULTRAs could do. I’d seen how dangerous they could be.

Was I being selfish by destroying these ULTRAbots?

Was I really thinking about humanity, or was I thinking about myself?

I breathed in deeply. Looked down at row upon row of chambers, at all the potential life they held.

No. I was doing this for the future. For the future of ULTRAs, and the future of humanity.

I was doing this for the right reason.

I took another deep breath.

Then I pressed down on the red button.

Hard.

A
qua had never trusted
the new ULTRA on the block called Glacies. Not really.

But after he’d saved her from almost certain destruction at the hands of an ULTRAbot not long ago, well, her opinion of him might just have changed.

Just a little.

The ULTRAbots were still in full force. Aqua raised her hands whenever one of them came near her, sent a strong blast of water right into them. It wasn’t just any old splash of water. It was a powerful punch that Aqua had first discovered just three years ago while in the shower. She’d been convinced it was something to do with a burst pipe at first. And then she considered the possibility she was haunted or possessed.

It was Vesper who finally convinced her that she had the abilities of an ULTRA, and that ULTRAs were very much alive in the world. Alive, and required more than ever.

“Where the hell’s he at?” Slice shouted.

Aqua looked and saw Slice cutting the ULTRAbots out of the sky. There were still so many of them, their bodies droning on like killer bees. Aqua wasn’t sure what’d gone wrong for all these fully charged ULTRAbots to reach their position, but the ‘what’ honestly didn’t matter so much anymore. It was the way things were, and it’s just something they had to deal with.

“He’ll come through,” Vesper said. He bolted between two ULTRAbots, sent them crashing into one another, malfunctioning on the spot.

It was good to see Vesper fighting like he supposedly used to during his Orion days. But there was something sad about it, too. Something bittersweet. After all, he didn’t look at his strongest. He had to take a moment to gasp, to catch his breath, whenever he took down an ULTRAbot.

But he was fighting. He was their leader, and he was fighting. Aqua wasn’t sure what it was about Glacies that awakened this new determined focus and drive in him. Sure, Glacies was powerful, but this seemed like something more. Something deeper.

Whatever it was, it had to be good news.

“Just be patient,” Vesper shouted, hands on his knees. “He’ll come through.”

The wave of ULTRAbots was never-ending. It seemed like, for every one they fought off, another two arrived in their place. Aqua wasn’t sure how long she could go on like this. She could see the exhaustion on Vortex’s face too, as well as Ember’s, Slice’s, Stone’s and Roadrunner’s, who had joined them in the greater battle now. There was only so long they could fight. Only so long they could hold on. Right now, they were faced with one of two certainties—death, or victory.

And it didn’t look like the odds were stacking in victory’s favor.

“I wish he’d hurry up, whatever he’s doing,” Aqua cried as she dodged the extended spear of an ULTRAbot, blasted water into its face.

And then she felt a sharp pain on her left side.

“Agh!”

She felt herself tumbling. Tumbling to the ground below. But when she looked down, she didn’t see the ground. She saw a carpet of ULTRAbots. A carpet of ULTRAbots waiting for her to fall, getting ready to drag her away from here.

She tried to fire water at them, but the pain on her side made her too weak, made the process too hard. So she kept on falling. Kept on falling down to this mass of ULTRAbots below.

She closed her eyes. She couldn’t beg anyone to help her. They’d helped her enough these last few years.

She’d lost her battle. She was going to be taken away, and then that’d just be the start.

Glacies had failed.

Glacies had…

She saw something strange.

The ULTRAbots below her lowered their heads.

Fell to their knees.

And then before she knew it, as she fell onto their stationary bodies, she saw the rest of the ULTRAbots above no longer engaged in battle. Falling from the dark sky to the ground below.

“He… he did it,” Aqua mumbled.

“He really god-damned did it,” Stone shouted.

The group of them watched as the ULTRAbots, hundreds of them, rained down onto the ground below. They watched as they hit the hard concrete. As their bodies went still, like they’d never had any life in them at all.

And despite the pain in Aqua’s side, she couldn’t help smiling.

She couldn’t help cheering.

Glacies really was their hero after all.

W
hen I heard
the muffled cries outside the compound, I knew the off switch had worked.

I turned around from it and walked away, a spring in my step. Another reason I knew the ULTRAbots in here were dead? The whirring noise I’d heard earlier had faded completely. The ULTRAbots being produced and charged in these cryogenic-like containers had suddenly lost their rigidity, a murkiness building in the water around them.

I felt a shred of guilt for them. Sure, they weren’t humans, and they weren’t ULTRAs. In fact, they were practically robotic. But they’d been tools. Tools used in a war to hunt down my kind. They had no say in what they did. They had no power, not really.

I’d done what I had to do. And as grim as it was, as hard as it was to carry out, I’d done the right thing.

I walked out of the massive ULTRAbot breeding room beneath the compound. Climbed back up the stairs, towards the corridor where I’d fought off the gun-toting ULTRAbots not long ago. I walked down the darkened corridor towards the door, the way out. I wondered what the rest of the Resistance would be like with me after this? Surely they’d be happy with me. I’d proven myself. Done myself proud, I hoped.

Just had to pray Vortex didn’t leave me on my ass again.

I was about to step out of the door and into the grounds of the compound when I noticed something.

The door on my right was open. The steel door with the tinted windows.

I swore I could hear mumbling coming from inside.

I turned around. Walked over to it, slowly. Triggering the switch must’ve opened it up. As I got closer to it, I smelled something remarkably like sweat. Human sweat. Just like before, when I’d sensed something was alive in here, I felt that worry again.

I should just walk away. I should just turn around and leave.

But I couldn’t, because I wanted to see what it was.

I reached the door. Pushed it open. I tried to move it gently, but it was rock solid, so I applied a little extra force with the help of my ULTRA abilities.

When the door opened, I saw a large room. It was like a medical experimentation room, with a table and metal slab in the middle of it. There was nobody on there. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had been there at some stage.

All around the room was medical equipment. Medicines. Tools. All kinds of devices that scared me. I wondered what people had been through in here. What they’d been through to make the ULTRAbots possible.

Whatever it was, I didn’t want to stay in here anymore.

I went to step away when I heard the muffled voice again.

It froze me, right there. Made me stop dead in my tracks. There was somebody in here. Someone, or something.

I looked around. Tried to figure out where the voice came from.

And then I saw it.

The metal locker door at the other side of the room.

Again, I wanted to walk away. I wanted to leave this place. Whatever was behind that door could not be good news.

But I had to know what it was. I couldn’t just disappear. Not now.

I moved slowly towards it. And as I got closer, I saw I could just pull that handle using my telekinesis from afar. I’d just been delaying the inevitable, that I was going to have to open it at some stage or other.

I stopped a few meters from the door. My heart pounded, and I heard my pulse racing. I cleared my dry throat. Lifted my hand. I needed to know what was in there. I needed to see.

I pulled the door open.

When I saw what was in there, I nearly ran the hell away from this place.

It was a man. A man with long, dark hair, bearded. And he wasn’t in a locker at all. No, the space behind the cupboard was a little white-tiled room. In there, I saw a toilet, which explained the smell. Stacks of dishes as high as the man himself, dirty and uncleaned.

The man was dressed in a suit, but it looked way too baggy on his frame. His lips quivered, as he looked at me with bloodshot eyes.

“What…” I started.

And then it clicked.

As this man stumbled out of this room, his legs weak and shaky, I looked past the beard, past the gauntness of his face.

I saw who it was.

This man was Mr. Parsons. The same man who’d declared an ULTRAbot war against the remaining ULTRAs. Who promised to destroy every last ULTRA in two days time.

But it couldn’t be. He couldn’t look so different in the space of a week. It couldn’t be the same person.

Could it?

“My wife,” Mr. Parsons gasped. He dropped to his knees, tears rolling down his face. “Haven’t—haven’t seen her. Three whole years. Three wholey-moley years. Please take me to her. Don’t let the bad man in the suit get me again. Don’t let him!”

“You’ve been here three years?”

“Three whole years and a moon after moon. In here, he tells me. In here, at the top of his voice, my wife! My wife!”

I listened to the hysterical ramblings of Mr. Parsons—undeniably Mr. Parsons—and a sense of dread built up inside me.

“The… the ULTRAbots,” I said. “All of this. You don’t know anything about it?”

He looked at me with bleary-eyed terror and insanity. I took that as my answer.

I felt the nerves growing. Felt myself feeling dizzy and sick. One question spun around my mind. One question that I feared I wouldn’t really like the answer to. One question that changed everything.

If this was Mr. Parsons, which it clearly was, then who was the man pretending to be him?

Who was the man behind the ULTRAbots?