The Reckoning: Quantum Prophecy Book 3 (26 page)

He passed a couple of guards lying on the floor, but couldn’t tell whether they were alive or dead, and didn’t have time to check. He turned left at the end of the corridor, heading for the machine room.

Then Mina’s elbow lashed out, catching him in the face. Danny stumbled, spilling Mina to the floor.

She rolled, then flipped on to her feet.

Danny shifted to normal-time. “Mina! What are you doing? It’s me! Danny Cooper!”

Mina lunged forward, landing in front of him before he had a chance to move back into slow-time.

She moved almost faster than even he could see. He tried to duck aside, but her fist still connected, clipping his jaw. Danny was slammed back against the wall.

Mina grabbed his mechanical arm and threw him over her shoulder.

He landed heavily, dazed. He pushed himself to his feet and saw that Mina was already at the end of the corridor.

He darted after her and jumped, twisting in the air so that his heavy mechanical arm hit Mina square in the small of her back.

Mina was knocked forward, but tumbled over and sprang to her feet, spinning around to face him.

She swung a punch and Danny raised his arm to block it, then hit her in the face with the mechanical arm.

How can she be reacting so fast?
Danny wondered.
She’s even faster than Colin is!

Mina swung another punch, and again Danny ducked.

Her fist plowed straight through one of the steel safety doors. As she struggled to get free, Danny saw his chance: He whipped around behind her, and planted a powerful kick in the back of her knees.

Mina collapsed, her arm still stuck in the door.

Danny shifted back to normal-time. “Mina! Please! You’ve got to stop this!”

There was a scream of tearing metal: Mina ripped the door from its hinges and swung it at Danny.

He leaped backward, the edge of the door barely missing the top of his head. The door slammed into the wall, and was wedged tight.

She’s stuck! I can—

Mina vanished and reappeared a few feet away, free of the door.

I did
not
just see that!
Keeping his distance, walking backward as Mina approached, Danny said, “Don’t you know who I am? It’s me. Danny Cooper.”

She hesitated for a second, then continued, glaring at him.

“Mina, you’ve been in a coma for the past four months. It was your sister. It was Yvonne. She did that to you!”

Mina stopped and stared at him, frowning.

“Mina…Do you remember me?”

“Danny?”

“Yes! Yes, it’s me!”

Mina’s shoulders sagged. “What’s going on? Why am I…My God! Did I attack you?”

He approached her cautiously. “You’ve been under Yvonne’s mind-control, Mina.” He reached out his hand. “Just come with me…. They’ll check you out, make sure you’re OK.”

Then Mina stared at his mechanical arm. “Danny, what happened to your real arm?”

Danny realized:
She never knew me before I lost my arm. It’s a trick!

He was too slow.

Mina’s fist collided with his jaw. Danny sailed through the air and crashed into the wall at the far end of the corridor. As he lost consciousness, the last thing he saw was Mina blinking out of existence once again.

Renata had watched, unmoving, as Colin approached the StratoTruck and detonated the mines. She saw the massive explosion rip the StratoTruck apart and tear into the surrounding buildings.

She knew that it was time to turn back, to track down Yvonne and force her to put an end to the war.

But she was scared.

In this form, having only changed herself, there was no pain.

The pain is still there,
she said to herself,
waiting for me to change back.

But I can deal with the pain. That’s not the problem.

The problem is that pain doesn’t happen for no reason. Pain is the
body’s equivalent of a fire alarm, and you don’t deal with a fire by just turning off the alarm.

Something’s wrong inside me. Something bad.

Clutching his swollen jaw, Danny slowly made his way to the roof of Sakkara.

Razor was slumped against the low wall that went around the edge. His face was covered in blood, and his left arm was limp by his side. “Danny? What happened?”

“She…she got past me. Didn’t know she could teleport.”

“No one did,” Razor said.

“How’s Butler?”

“He’s coming around, I think.”

“Who else do we have?”

“Just the three of us. The rest of them evacuated. I kinda got left behind.” Razor jerked his thumb over his shoulder, toward the ground far below. “We lost.”

Danny peered over the edge.

The Trutopian soldiers had completely overwhelmed the army base. The ground was strewn with the bodies of the dead and injured. Vehicles and gun emplacements were destroyed, some burning furiously.

“They didn’t stand a chance,” Razor said. “The Trutopians have weapons like I’ve never seen. Big things, no recoil, no sound. They just pull the triggers and people die. Either they don’t know we’re up here, or they don’t care. They already took Brawn and Dioxin. A few of the others.”

“They’re starting to pull out,” Danny said. “They…The kids from the mine! The Trutopians are loading them into a truck!”

“You’re going to have to stop them,” Razor said.

“No kidding.”

“Well? Go!” Razor said.

“Just…give me a couple of minutes, will you? I just beat up on my best friend, ran nearly a thousand kilometers and got beaten up by a girl who can move almost as fast as me and disappear at will. I’m not exactly having the best day ever. And on top of that…”

“Renata?”

“Yeah. She’s sick, Razor. She can use her power to change other people and things, but it’s doing something to her.”

“She’ll be OK, Dan.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

A voice came over Danny’s radio. “Danny? This is Impervia.”

“Great. What do
you
want?”

“This is not the time for attitude. I’ve been trying to get through to Razor.”

“Yeah, he’s here with me. His radio’s gone.”

“Tell him that the countdown has begun.”

Brandishing the Trutopian soldier’s handgun, Stephanie Cord broke cover and darted down to the ground, next to the huge crater in the middle of the town’s square.

She’d spent the past few minutes staring at Colin’s unmoving body before finally deciding it was safe to check him out. Her infrared display showed that he was still alive, but she wanted to be sure. She had to see with her own eyes.

She touched down next to him and shut off the jetpack. “Colin?”

His face was a red mass of cuts and bruises. His nose was swollen and looked like it had been broken. His left eye was caked in blood, and a razor-sharp piece of shrapnel had embedded itself in his cheek. His breathing was shallow, but regular.

That’s good enough.
Stephanie said to herself.

She ran to the edge of the crater and half jumped, half slid down to where Renata was lying on her side, in the same sitting position she’d been in when she’d turned solid.

Stephanie moved herself into Renata’s line of sight. “Can you hear me? Come on, Renata! Move! Change back! Do whatever it is that you do!”

Then Renata’s body shimmered, the crystalline substance rippling as she turned back to her human form.

She immediately rolled into a ball, clutching her head and moaning.

For a moment, Stephanie just stood there, not knowing what she should do, then Renata uncurled herself, and opened her eyes. “Steph…”

“I’m here. What do you want me to do?”

“We need …to get to Yvonne. Have to find her.”

“I think I know where she is, but I can’t get close.”

Renata raised her hand. “Help me up.”

Stephanie grabbed Renata’s arm, and pulled her to her feet.

“Show me.”

“It’s that way, a couple of blocks. Big apartment building. But it’s defended. Anything that gets near it is shot down.”

“Where’s Danny?” Renata asked.

“I don’t know. Colin’s up there, unconscious, but I don’t know what happened to him.”

“He was caught in the explosion. The Trutopians planted motion-sensitive mines all over the StratoTruck, probably hoping to kill me if I ever woke up.” She began to climb up the sides of the crater. “We need to get inside their HQ and sort out that psycho once and for all.”

Stephanie activated her jetpack and flew up to the edge. “Yeah, but how?”

“We’ll think of something.”

“Stephanie? You there?” Danny’s voice said over the radio.

“I’m here, Danny. And so’s Renata. She’s…She’s OK.”

“Good—you can carry her. The two of you need to get out of there. The army is pulling out. You’ve got less than twenty minutes to get at least five miles away. I’m not going to be able to get to you in time.”

“Danny, what is it? What’s going to happen?”

“Impervia’s just told me: They’ve got a missile ready to disperse a payload of VX nerve gas directly over the town. Steph, she told me what it does…. Exposure to just a fifth of a milligram is fatal. That’s smaller than you can even see!”

Stephanie shook her head. “No way. I cannot believe that someone authorized the use of chemical weapons against U.S. citizens.”

“But that’s just it, Steph. The Trutopians are
not
U.S. citizens anymore. They declared independence.”

D
ANNY HAD REACHED
S
AKKARA’S ROOF
by running so fast he was able to charge straight up the building’s sloping walls. After the last of the Trutopian soldiers had departed, he left the roof by the same method.

He raced along the deserted highway, following the path of the truck that was carrying the children and teenagers from the Lieberstanian platinum mine.

The speeding truck was guarded by two soldiers on the rear running board, and one hanging out of each door.

They might as well not be there for all the good they’re going to do.

Danny ran up to the truck, grabbed hold of the nearest guard’s gun and snatched it from his hand. The man didn’t even have time to register what had happened before Danny swung the gun by the barrel and clubbed him in the stomach with it.

He had disabled the second and third guards and was racing for the fourth before the first one even hit the ground.

The guard hanging out of the passenger-side door was facing the driver. Danny grabbed hold of the man’s belt and pulled him backward, leaving him skidding and rolling on the road.

Danny tore open the driver’s door and pulled the man out of the truck, then climbed into the driver’s seat and shifted back to real-time. “Razor! I’ve got the truck but…how in the world do I stop this thing?”

Razor’s voice said, “OK, calm down.”

“Calm down? Razor, I can’t drive!”

“First things first, Dan. Hold the steering wheel steady…. As long as the truck is going in a straight line, and so is the road, you won’t need to turn the wheel. Now, prepare yourself for the complicated bit.”

Danny took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

“Take the keys out of the ignition.”

“Oh.”

He reached down and removed the keys. The truck’s engine cut out, and the enormous vehicle began to slow down.

“Thanks, Raze!”

“Get the kids back here as quick as you can. If I can wake Butler, then he’ll be able to shield them.”

The copter roared through the sky, heading south, away from the worst of the fighting. Caroline Wagner sat clutching her unconscious husband’s hand. “We shouldn’t have left them behind.”

“We didn’t have any choice,” Façade replied.

Niall said, “Why won’t anyone tell me what’s going on?”

“It’s a war,” his mother said. “And we’re going somewhere safe until it’s over.”

Niall turned his head to look at the others. “But …Everyone here is a superhero! Why aren’t they fighting?”

“We…We’re not superhuman anymore, Niall,” Caroline said.

“I know that,” Niall said. “But Paragon wasn’t a superhuman, and he was still a super
hero
.”

“Yes. He was.”

“I heard some of the soldiers talking about what Colin did to his dad and Danny and Renata and Butler. Is he one of the bad guys now?”

Caroline said, “It’s not that simple. He’s—”

The helicopter suddenly shuddered, lurched and began losing altitude.

“What the… ?” Façade unclipped his seat belt and scrambled to his feet. “Something
hit
us! The pilot…”

Caroline and Façade reached the bullet-ridden cockpit at the same time. The pilot was slumped sideways in his seat, a trickle of blood running down the side of his face.

“He’s alive. Barely. Can you fly this thing?” Caroline asked.

“Yeah, I can fly her. I can fly anything. Just sit back down and strap in.” Façade hauled the unconscious pilot out of his seat and climbed in. He grabbed the joystick and eased back, settling the copter’s path. “I can’t tell how much damage she’s received, so I’m going to have to set her down.”

“Just take it as far away from Sakkara as you can.” Then she heard Rose Cooper’s voice saying, “Oh my God!”

Caroline turned to see Mina standing in the copter, next to the passengers.

The blond girl smiled at her, then reached out her hand and placed it on Niall’s head.

The two of them disappeared, leaving Niall’s seat belt to drop back to the seat.

His mother screamed.

Colin Wagner opened his eyes.
What happened to me…? Oh. Right. The explosion.

He floated up into the air, pivoted about and landed on his feet.

He looked around, and could see nothing but devastation.

Yvonne’s voice came over the radio. “So you
are
alive. We weren’t sure.”

Furious, Colin reached up to pull the radio headset from his head, but stopped.
She ordered me not to do that, so I can’t.
“What do you want now, you psycho?”

“Danny went back to Sakkara. Go after him and stop him. And this time, kill him.”

“No.”

“At least rip that damned mechanical arm off him, then!”

Colin didn’t want to fight Danny, but he knew that he had no choice.
I have to obey her commands. But unless she’s specific, I can take my time about it, give Danny a chance to stop all this.