The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volume One (48 page)

Seven wanted to think so.

Less than forty-five minutes later, the three men watched from the safety of a snow-covered ridge as the metal hut containing Evergreen’s one-of-a-kind apparatus imploded before their eyes, turning into a smoldering, smoking pit at the center of the top-secret outpost. Seven had carefully rigged his explosive charges to keep the destructive force of the detonation confined within the perimeter of the now-empty laboratory, thus preserving the rest of the buildings to serve as shelter for base’s personnel.

Mission accomplished,
Seven thought, an icy wind carrying the smell of burning circuitry and insulation across the frozen barrens,
despite too many unpleasant surprises.
Their departure had been delayed only by Seven’s insistence on personally transporting the tranquilized guard to a safer location within the base; after Noon’s murderous attack on Evergreen, Seven was not about to delegate care of another hostage to the merciless young superman. Only an impossible stroke of luck, he realized, had kept this mission from resulting in a needless death.
I can hardly count on Noon’s next victim to be unkillable as well.

Sullen and silent, Noon stood in the snow a few yards away, pointedly keeping his distance from the two older men. The youth’s pride
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was still smarting, apparently, from Seven’s reprimands earlier. He had paid careful attention, however, to Seven’s placement of the plastic explosives, something that his would-be mentor found more than a little troubling.

But now was not the time to fret about Noon’s apparent aptitude for sabotage and warfare, not out in the open in subzero temperatures. “How many other copies of your research and designs exist?” Seven asked Evergreen, shouting over the wintry Antarctic gusts. Somewhere above them, he knew, a one-of-a-kind satellite had already plunged toward Earth, burning up in reentry. Evergreen himself had sent the self-destruct command to his orbiting panacea, only minutes before they had fled the sabotaged control room.

“Just the master copy, in my office in Los Alamos.” Evergreen rubbed his gloved hands together vigorously, struggling to keep warm. “Like I’ve said, I’ve gotten paranoid in my own
[2]
age. Over the years, too many greedy people have stolen the credit for my discoveries and inventions—don’t get me started about Edison. These days, nobody sees my work until I’m good and ready to unveil it myself.”

“Good,” Seven acknowledged. That made containing the knowledge much easier. “We can get you to New Mexico before news of this incident reaches America, and long before anyone realizes you survived the explosion. After that, I’m more than willing to lend you whatever assistance you need to set up a new identity elsewhere.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Evergreen stated. “I’ve already made all the necessary arrangements to start over again.” He ruefully contemplated the cremated remains of one lifetime’s work. “I just didn’t think I’d be doing so quite so soon.”

On that somber note, Seven proceeded to transport all three men out of the cold. Ordinarily, he went out of his way to avoid using matter transmission in front of civilians, but Da Vinci Base’s remote location had left him very little choice. He felt he could trust Evergreen, however; the ageless scientist had too many secrets of his own to risk exposing Seven’s.
We make an unusual trio,
he reflected, as the luminous blue mist enveloped them.
An immortal, a genetically engineered superman, and an enhanced human raised on another world.
Who would have
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ever thought that twentieth-century Earth could yield such unlikely allies?

What a shame,
Seven thought,
that Noon proved so dangerous and unreliable.
He’d had the potential to become an excellent agent, maybe even a planetary supervisor someday. Was there any way to salvage the youth’s tremendous promise—or were all his extraordinary gifts doomed to go to waste?

Or worse.

BHOPAL CENTRAL

INDIA

DECEMBER 3, 1984

IT WAS ONE-FIFTEEN IN THE MORNING
by the time Noon arrived,
along with Gary Seven, in the moonlit streets of Bhopal. The glowing fog dispersed, leaving the sulking teenager and the older American in a murky alley between two modern concrete apartment buildings. A chilly breeze blew from the northwest, and Noon half-regretted leaving his heavy parka behind at Seven’s office, where they had dropped off Evergreen after their adventure in Antarctica. Rats scurried around and within the rusty metal Dumpsters hidden away in the alley. The squeaking vermin struck Noon as uncommonly restless and agitated, much to his annoyance.

“Quiet!” he barked, snatching up an empty soup can from the alley floor and hurling it at the nearest cluster of rats, which broke apart into a profusion of fleeing gray bodies.

His return to India did little to soothe Noon’s turbulent spirit, which still chafed at Seven’s obvious disapproval. Even now, the meddlesome American regarded him with mournful eyes and a dour expression. Noon knew that Seven remained disappointed that he had hurled his dagger at Evergreen, no matter how justified he had been in retaliating against the scientist’s treacherous taser attack.
How dare he judge me?
Noon thought angrily, glaring at Seven.
I
knew what I was doing!

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The light from Hamidia Road, north of the alley, cast elongated shadows upon the dingy asphalt. Distant voices and footsteps sounded from several blocks away, which was peculiar given the lateness of the hour, but Noon’s wounded pride took precedence over any curiosity he might have felt. “Well?” he challenged Seven, breaking an awkward silence. “Is that it? Did this misbegotten expedition discharge my debt to you, or was my performance too inadequate to serve as fit payment?”

Seven gazed at Noon, seemingly more in sorrow than in anger. “It wasn’t your fault, Noon,” he stated solemnly. “I should have never thrust you into such a combustible situation. You are too young, too apt to overreact.”

If Seven thought he was helping Noon save face, then he clearly did not understand the aristocratic teen at all. “Do not patronize me, old man!” Noon snarled, Seven’s condescending attitude only infuriating him more. “Do not blame me if you lack the will to fight your own battles.”

Seven shook his head sadly. “I hope someday you realize, Noon, that life is much more than a combat to be won.” He held out an open palm. “In the meantime, I’m afraid I have to ask for your servo back.”

“Take it,” Noon said defiantly, throwing the slender instrument at Seven’s feet, where it skittered across the uneven black pavement. “It is a feeble weapon anyway, limited and halfhearted, much like its wielder.”

His flawless vision rapidly adjusting to the murk of the alley, Noon watched Seven’s face, hoping to see his insult strike home. Maddeningly, the mysterious American merely offered another bit of unwanted advice as he stooped to retrieve the discarded servo. “Beware of more powerful weapons, Noon. They often inflict as much damage to your soul as they do to your enemies.”

Noon opened his mouth, intending to reject Seven’s cryptic counsel, but the hubbub of voices in the background, growing ever louder and nearer, could now be recognized as loud, anguished screaming, shocking both men out of their tense verbal duel. “What—?” Seven asked, apprehension deepening the lines of his craggy face. “That’s more than one person screaming. Many more.”

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On this, Noon had to agree. Straining his ears, even as he ran anxiously toward the unknown source of the tumult, he found himself unable to distinguish just how many men and women and children were shrieking in unmistakable pain and terror. For a single blood-chilling moment, his memory flashed back to the bloodthirsty riots in Delhi, only slightly more than a month ago, but, no, this was a different kind of madness, he could tell. The rising clamor of high-pitched human voices, steadily increasing in volume as it drew closer and closer, was not the sound of an angry mob; it was the many-throated cry of a city in mortal agony

Something terrible has occurred,
Noon realized at once. The soles of his boots pounded the pavement as he charged out of the alley into the broad, well-lighted thoroughfare that was Hamidia Road. “Noon!” Seven hollered after him, unable to keep up with the younger man’s genetically engineered leg muscles. “Be careful!”

But Noon wasn’t worried about himself, only his people. Eyes wide, his long dark hair streaming behind him, he ran headlong into a nightmare. Dozens of people came stampeding toward him, pursued by some horror whose nature Noon could not yet determine, but whose torturous effects were all too visible. A common sickness afflicted the distraught, disorganized crowd; crying, gasping, retching, they tried and failed to outrun whatever ailment was ravaging their defenseless bodies. Men and women in various stages of undress, seemingly driven from their homes and beds in the middle of the night, collapsed onto the street, only to be trampled to death by their panicking neighbors. Tears streamed down a cavalcade of tortured faces, as the fleeing victims clutched their throats and clawed at their eyes, rushing blindly down the road toward Noon. The wailing mob smelled of sweat and vomit and excrement, having lost control of their stomachs and bowels.
By my martyred mother,
Noon wondered, agog with horror,
what kind of plague strikes so quickly?

A tide of reeking bodies slammed into Noon, almost carrying him away. Thinking quickly, he wrapped an arm around a sturdy lamppost and batted away the frantic refugees whose chaotic flight carried them too near him. “Stay back!” he commanded, gagging at the touch and smell of the befouled wretches jostling against him. “Don’t touch me!”

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The crowd parted around him as Noon clung to the lamppost with all his strength. Consumed by the necessity to know what had caused this pandemonium, he randomly grabbed one of the refugees by the arm, halting the man’s breakneck dash for safety. He yanked his chosen informant, a bearded man wearing only a soiled bathrobe, around so that the stranger was forced to look Noon in the face. To his shock, Noon saw that the man’s eyes had been blackened and blinded by some unknown agency. “What is it?” the anguished teen demanded. “What’s happened?”

Desperate to get away, to elude the unnamed menace to the north, the man tried to break free, but could not escape Noon’s powerful grip. “Let me go!” he yelled, tears gushing from sightless eyes. His voice gurgled wetly, as though his lungs were slowly filling with liquid. “Please, I don’t want to die!”

The man was scared out of his mind, Noon realized, but by what? Still hanging on to the lamppost with his strong right arm, Noon longed for a spare hand with which to slap the man in the face, to snap him out of his hysterical state; instead he could only shake the man roughly before interrogating him again. “Speak to me—quickly!” he ordered. The incongruity of a fourteen-year-old boy bullying a grown man several years older than he was went unnoticed in the frenzied chaos threatening to engulf them. “What’s happening? What started this panic?”

“I don’t know!” the man protested, trying futilely to tug himself free. He swung at Noon’s chin, connecting with his fist, but the indomitable youth shrugged off the blow, then retaliated by yanking on the man’s arm hard enough to dislocate his shoulder. The man yelped in pain, his face contorting beneath his bushy black beard. “Stop, please! My arm!”

“Speak!” Noon gave the injured limb a vicious twist. He took no pleasure in hurting this unlucky stranger, but he craved answers and would do whatever was necessary to extract them from his unwilling captive. “Tell me now and you shall go free.”

Wincing in agony, the man nodded and cradled his aching arm with his free hand. “Yes, yes! Of course!” he babbled, his watery eyes
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plead
ing for mercy. “It’s something in the air! Poison! It killed my wife, my daughters ... they died where they fell, coughing out their last breaths!” His entire body quaked at the memory. “For pity’s sake, young sir, let me go!” Blackened eyes stared past Noon, into the north wind. “We have to go now, believe me! The poison—it’s coming toward us even as we speak! Death is in the air!”

Satisfied that the man knew little more about the catastrophe, Noon expertly popped the dislocated arm back into its socket, then let go of him as promised. Sparing neither another word or backward glance, the unfortunate man staggered away as quickly as he could, holding on tightly to his bad arm as he disappeared into the flood of scrambling refugees. Noon forgot the man just as swiftly, sifting instead through the particulars of the story he had just heard.
Poison in the air?

Perhaps this was an enemy attack, he speculated, but his keen mind immediately cast doubt on that theory. Located at the heart of the subcontinent, Bhopal was hundreds of miles from the nearest border and, although the state capital, hardly a prime military target. Aside from the government bureaucracy, its principal industry was the old, and increasingly obsolete, pesticide factory at the outskirts of town.
Just north of here, in fact,
Khan recalled. An alarming possibility intruded into his mind, filling his soul with dread.
Oh, no! Not that
...
!

Guessing the truth, but needing confirmation, he grabbed on to the lamppost with both hands and shinned up the iron post until he was several feet above the onrushing crowd. Peering north up the length of Hamidia Road, he saw thick white fumes blowing toward him, only four or five blocks away. The swirling mist was carried by the same icy wind that had chilled him ever since his arrival in the alley, and, through the fumes, he glimpsed a multitude of bodies littering the streets and sidewalks, some twitching and shuddering, others moving not at all. Fallen bodies were everywhere; he couldn’t even begin to count the casualties.