The Last Hero (Book 2): Rise of the Ultras (5 page)

I
stormed
out of Pazza Notte and chased after Ellicia.

I pushed past people as I rushed down the sidewalk. Behind, I could hear Damon calling out at me, telling me to stop being an idiot, to come back. I’d sat with him after leaving the restroom just to cool off, calm down. Get to grips with what’d just happened. I’d been confronted by another ULTRA. I mean, she
had
to be an ULTRA with the ability to change her looks with the click of a finger, right?

I knew what this meant. I wasn’t alone. I’d suspected as much after the janitor attacked me, but this… this was different.

And oh. She’d asked me to join some weird secret club of hers.

But most importantly, Ellicia was leaving me. She’d spotted me and she thought something crazy was going on. That, I couldn’t take.

I didn’t want her to think I’d been unfaithful with… with
whoever
that woman who called herself “Angel” was.

I thought about her words. “
There’s a storm coming. And we need you there when it arrives.”
And I felt it. I felt it coming just as she’d said.

But I also felt my life as a seventeen-year-old falling apart. And for me, right now, that meant a whole lot more.

“Ellicia!” I called. More people looked at me like I was crazy as I rushed down Avenue of the Americas. I realized how weird I looked. Ellicia would be way, way ahead by now.

The sky was dark, the sun setting earlier and earlier as winter progressed. There was an icy chill in the air and patches of snow on the ground. Sprinkles of it fell from the sky. I knew it was only going to get snowier the further into winter we got. That was just the New York way.

“Ellicia!”I called again. I felt my cheeks heating up. Saw a group of tourists with cameras frowning at me, a few of them giggling. I realized then that I hadn’t even grabbed my coat from Pazza Notte before I left. No wonder I was so damned cold. Hopefully, Damon would pick it up for me.

I reached the edge of the sidewalk. Looked up and down, all around. No sign of Ellicia. Nothing but the bustle of a Manhattan winter’s night. I knew right then that I only had one choice. I had to go back to Staten Island. I had to go to her place. I knew her parents, and they were alright with me. But I saw myself as if from outside my own body—the weird boyfriend, no,
ex-
boyfriend begging his girlfriend not to leave him.

I didn’t want to be that guy. I never, ever wanted to be that guy.

But right now, I was going to have to be.

I couldn’t stop Ellicia leaving New York. That was just a hard fact I had to learn to swallow.

But I couldn’t let her leave thinking I was an enormous asshole.

I rushed down the steps towards the subway. It was so busy down here, the smell of hot metal rich in the air. I sat and waited for the train that’d get me to the ferry. Beside me, loads of people all shouting at the tops of their voices, laughing, singing. I felt my skin creeping. I just wanted to get out of this place. I just wanted to get the hell away.

Finally, the subway arrived. I saw the doors open up and… shit. The train was absolutely full. Absolutely jam-packed.

And it was only filling up more and more with the people from the platform.

I tried to push my way towards the door, to squeeze my way inside it. I had to get to Ellicia’s place. She couldn’t have got away from here long before me. Unless she’d got on the train as soon as she’d got down here. She could be on a ferry in no time.

“Sorry, man. Ain’t gonna fit on here.”

I looked ahead to see a chunky guy with short, dark hair and glasses holding up his hand. He was wedged right in by the train door, taking up the space of about four people.

I felt my fists hardening. “I’m sure I can—”

“No. You can’t. Step away.”

My stomach turned. In that split second, I wanted to grab this fatty. I wanted to throw him off the train.

“Maybe if
you
moved, another eight of us would be able to fit on there.”

I saw the man’s eyes narrow. Saw his face go red.

“Wow,” a woman beside the guy said, glaring at me. “What an asshole.”

I realized right then that I wasn’t going to get my way. I wasn’t getting on this train, whether I wanted to or not. And I really did want to.

The next train was in… shit. Twenty minutes. I didn’t have twenty minutes. I had to get to Ellicia’s
now
.

And there was only one way I was getting to Ellicia’s ASAP for sure.

I left the station. Walked back up onto Ave of the Americas. I looked around for somewhere dark, somewhere secluded. Places like that were hard to find around here in Midtown.

I cut across towards Central Park. That place got busy in the day, but people avoided the darker areas at night. Rumors of crime, general paranoia, things like that. It kept people away.

Which was exactly why I had to go that way right now.

I walked into the darkened Central Park. Little spotlights lined the pathways, the roads, but the fields and the woods were jet black.

They were the kind of jet-black I needed right now.

I started to cut off the road towards the field when I became aware of footsteps to my left. I didn’t look up. I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself. Besides, they weren’t coming towards me. The crime on Central Park thing was just a myth. A tourist scare story—

I felt something sharp press into my back. Felt someone grab my shoulder.

Then, a voice: “Your phone. Your wallet. Now.”

I felt my stomach sink. “I don’t have time for this shit right now.”

The voice behind me, sour breath accompanying it, chuckled a little. “Well, don’t you worry, boy. I got all the time in the wor—”

I swung around and cracked my fist into the guy’s face. Hard.

And then I kicked the knife from his hand. Jumped over to it before he could reach it. He rested there on the ground, startled, his eyes wavering.

“You didn’t see a thing here,” I said.

And then I held my breath.

Focused on Ellicia, on our breakup, on the way I’d felt when she told me she was leaving New York.

I felt the tingling sensation cover my body…

Clapped my hands together.

A bang.

And then I was there.

I stood outside Ellicia’s home on Staten Island. It was a nice little detached place with a picket fence, certainly in a much nicer neighborhood than mine. I saw a light was on downstairs, so I knew someone was home.

I just had to hope it was Ellicia.

Just had to hope she’d made her way back already. Getting to the park, fighting there, all of it had held me back. I hoped to God she was home already.

I swallowed a nauseating lump in my throat and walked towards her front door. As I walked up the garden path, my head spun with questions. What was I going to say to Ellicia? What would I say to her parents? What was I even doing here?

Damn. I was about to find out.

I raised my fist to knock on the white door.

Before I could knock, I heard the door lock clunk, then someone open it up.

“Oh!” Ellicia’s mom, Sally, stood at the door in her white dressing gown. She was a short woman with long, dark hair, and dark skin. “Kyle. You okay? Ellicia just got back. Wasn’t expecting you to be with her.”

I wasn’t sure what to say, how to respond, so I just nodded and smiled. “Can I, um…”

Sally nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, course you can. She’s just through there. Absorbing the news, y’know. Like we all are. Go on. Go through.”

The news that they were moving. The news that the pair of us weren’t going to be together much longer. If Ellicia was absorbing it, I supposed that was a good thing. It meant I could still win her round with an apology.

When I walked through into Ellicia’s living room, she wasn’t how I expected.

She was sitting right in front of the wall-mounted sixty-inch television, which I was insanely jealous of. Her eyes were glued to the screen, the rest of the room in darkness. Her dad’s eyes were also absorbed with whatever events were unfolding on there.

“Ellicia,” I said, walking towards her, “I’m sor—”

“Doesn’t matter anymore,” Ellicia said, not moving her eyes from the television. “Haven’t you seen the news?”

I couldn’t believe Ellicia. Couldn’t believe she’d just let what happened go, just like that. Still, she looked at the screen. So too did her dad.

And then I remembered what her mom said. About “absorbing the news”.

What had she meant after all?

Had she meant something else?

“What news?” I asked.

Ellicia lifted her hand. Pointed at the television screen.

It took me a few seconds to truly take in the information on the screen. To truly comprehend what I was looking at.

When I did, for not the first time in the last year, my life changed.

Forever.

I
t took
me a while to absorb the news report on Ellicia’s television.

And when I did absorb it, when the news finally sunk in, I still wasn’t sure I’d wrapped my head completely around it. I’m not sure anyone would be able to.

Especially not me.

The news report was of a cruise ship off the coast of Mexico. A British company, one of these Caribbean and Central American tours. A winter getaway to some place nicer.

Only it wasn’t nicer. Not anymore.

That cruise ship was on fire.

At first, when I saw that report, standing closer to Ellicia’s television screen now, I’d just assumed there’d been some accident. Some kind of disaster. Flames were coming from the ship. The entire mid-section of it had been snapped in two.

But it was those words rolling underneath the news story that caught me. That caught everyone.

ULTRA ATTACK DEVASTATES CRUISE VACATION.

I read those first two words over and over.
ULTRA attack
.
ULTRA attack.
It could only mean one thing. Yet another ULTRA was back. An ULTRA I didn’t know about somewhere else in the world. And, just like Nycto had, and Saint before him, they were attacking innocent people.

“They could be wrong,” I muttered, not really planning on saying anything to split the silence in Ellicia’s living room, but more thinking aloud.

“No,” Ellicia’s dad, Mike, said. He hadn’t once looked away from the screen since I’d stepped into the room. I was surprised he even knew I was there. “Look.”

I saw them chatting about the event in the studio, tons of panic in their voices. And then I saw them go back to that footage. Slow it down.

I didn’t need to focus to see it this time.

There was someone hovering above the cruise ship, no doubt about it. Electricity sparked from their hands. A man with dark hair.

They looked at the grainy camera.

They smiled.

And then they rained electricity down on that cruise ship.

I watched the explosion. Watched the panic and chaos it caused.

And then I watched as the ULTRA disappeared out of shot, away from the cruise ship.

“They’re back,” Mike said. “They… they’re really back.”

I felt like I could throw up. I didn’t know what to say or what to think, only that if there was another rogue ULTRA about, I had a duty as Glacies to stop it.

But by becoming Glacies, I was risking everything in my normal life. By become Glacies, I was…

“And we’ve got reports coming through of a
second
attack. A—a second attack at Disney World, Florida.” The newsreader put a hand to her ear as the news broke through to her, the news that stunned the whole living room—and probably the whole world—to silence once more. “I’m hearing news that it’s not the same ULTRA. I repeat. It’s a different ULTRA. There’s more than one ULTRA on the attack.”

I wasn’t sure what was said after that. Not on the television, not in this room. I saw the images, though. The grainy footage of the roller coasters destroyed. And then I saw the flames burning. Saw the shots of someone dressed in black throwing explosive balls of smoke into the theme park.

And that wasn’t the last incident.

Over the next hour, two hours, that followed, there were eight more attacks around the world. Eight places where people were just having fun, going about their business, joining the two places that’d already been attacked.

Ten paths of destruction.

And most importantly, ten different ULTRAs.

I could handle one, sure. I could probably handle two. But ten?

Ten plus?

“
There’s a storm coming. And we need you there when it arrives.”

I stood up, my legs weak and wobbly. “I need to, um, to leave.”

Mike looked around for the first time. “Sure you’re okay getting back? Need a ride?”

“No,” I said. “I’d better, um… better check Mom and Dad are okay. You know.”

Mike nodded, then returned to his television. Ellicia looked at me with concern in her eyes.

“You’ll be okay, won’t you?” she asked.

I swallowed a lump in my throat. Tried to smile as well as I could. If I looked as sick as I felt, I was amazed nobody had figured out I was an ULTRA already. “We’ll talk. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Ellicia said, nodding.

“Well shit. President’s out, and he’s gunnin’ for action.”

I was about to leave when I saw what Mike was talking about. President Marko was standing at his podium, the flags of the United States and the world behind his back. By his side, some people I didn’t recognize, all suited and all remorseful. One of them stared on, deathly and grave, a look in their eyes like they weren’t even human at all.

“Obviously,” the president started, “we do not understand what is happening. We do not understand how this awful sequence of events might’ve unfolded. But we can promise that we won’t sit back. Not again. After the chaos of the last two ULTRA battles, we can’t just wait for a false prophet to save us again. So that’s why we’ve been building something. Working on something in case a day like this ever arrived. I regret to say, ladies and gentlemen, that the day has arrived. I hand over my friend, Mr. Parsons, who’d like to talk you through an immediate change in global security.”

The president stepped aside, and a tall man with dark hair and glasses stepped up to the podium. Something about him made me shiver. Gave me the creeps. Something about him told me I’d met him before, seen him before somewhere. Probably next to the president during another of his speeches.

He looked down at the podium, as if glancing through lines, then he looked up at the onlooking media.

“The ULTRA threat has never been graver than it is today, right now, at this moment. I never thought we’d reach this point. I hoped we wouldn’t reach this point. But the truth of the matter is, the fallout from the Great Blast and the fallout from Glacies and Nycto’s showdown clearly started something. They created a threat far greater than any we could’ve imagined.”

I wasn’t sure what to make of his accusation that mine and Nycto’s conflict in some way created more of these ULTRAs. It didn’t seem… right.

“But we’ve been preparing. Not just the United States, but the whole world. Our allies in NATO, our friends in the EU. Even countries with values that differ to ours. All of us have sat down and recognized the need for a security overhaul in the worst case scenario that a day like today ever unfolds. I’m both honored and disappointed to be forced to announce our latest project. The ULTRAbots.”

Mr. Parsons raised his hand and pointed at the man that had been standing beside him that I noticed earlier. The one with the steely gaze, the amazingly neutral expression despite the circumstances.

The man stepped forward. He was tall, slim, and for the first time since the broadcast started, I noticed he was wearing a strange gray suit. Like a
hero
suit. On it, a silver crest, like a lightning bolt.

He stood at the podium. He stared out at the crowd, but it wasn’t like he was
really
looking at them. It wasn’t like he was really even there.

“We’ve embraced what we’ve learned from the creation of the ULTRAs and we’ve put it towards something new. Instead of the ULTRAs being able to make weapons of themselves, subject to their own moral and ethical standards, the ULTRAbots are
our
weapon. Humanity’s weapon against not just ULTRAs, but everything from petty theft to terrorism. Everything. They are the second generation of security. The ULTRAs—formerly known as Heroes—were the alpha project. This is the final model.”

I felt sick. I didn’t know what to think about any of this, but I could see where it was going. The janitor I’d fought at the school. The robotic way it moved. The way it malfunctioned. It was an ULTRAbot. It was one of these
things
.

I swore I saw a smile on Mr. Parsons’ face as he looked down at the podium once more. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I definitely noticed something.

“I understand your concerns,” he said, as the cameras flashed, as chatter picked up amongst the crowd of press. “I understand your fears. We made mistakes with the ULTRAs in the past. How will this be any different? Well, ladies and gents, this will be different because we can program the ULTRAbots. Just like a blank hard drive, we can install whatever OS we desire onto it. And right now, we’ve only got one thing installed on these ULTRAbots. Only one goal for them. One purpose.”

He walked around the back of the ULTRAbot. Put his hand on it. It didn’t even flinch.

“The ULTRAbots are programmed to hunt down every single ULTRA on the planet, whether we know their identity or not. They are programmed to capture and destroy, where possible, every single ULTRA. To keep the world safe.”

I saw a sudden shift in the eyes of the ULTRAbot. I saw it come to life, like it had an idea in its mind.

And then I saw it look directly down the camera.

Look directly into my eyes like it knew I was there.

“For the ULTRAs out there,” Mr. Parsons said, his hand still on the back of the ULTRAbot, “I have a message for you. The United States of America has a message for you. The whole world has a message for you. You will
not
defeat humanity!”

The press roared. People stood, applauded. Even Mike started clapping, and I swore I saw a smile on Ellicia’s face.

I needed to get away.

I needed to get out of here.

“And this is just one ULTRAbot,” Mr. Parsons said. “One ULTRAbot joining an army of hundreds. Thousands. An army that is growing every second; that is getting stronger every minute.”

Mr. Parsons looked into the camera this time.

“You can try to run. You can try to hide. But this time, you will not succeed.”

More clapping from the press. More applause. A big grin on the face of the president.

Mr. Parsons looked down the camera, right into my eyes.

“The ULTRAbots will destroy every trace of ULTRAs on this planet. Within a week.”

The ULTRAbot sprung to life, shot up, right through the roof of the press room, knocking dust and rubble down with it.

I listened to the cheering, to the applause, to the joy, and I wanted to disappear.