Absolute Power

Colin pushed himself off the edge of the hayloft, dropped the four metres to the ground and landed silently. My God! I’ve gone deaf! But…He shook his head. This didn’t seem possible. Before he’d fallen asleep, he’d been able to hear the old farmer snoring in the farmhouse a hundred metres away. Now, there was nothing.

Then Colin turned around and saw the well-dressed man and woman standing right behind him.

Fifteen thousand kilometres to the west a large, sleek, black aircraft descended quickly and almost silently from the night sky, its six turbine engines blowing a large crater in the narrow, moon-lit strip of sand that separated the island’s dense jungle from the Pacific Ocean.

Danny Cooper couldn’t help but admire the skill with which Renata Soliz handled the new StratoTruck’s controls; the craft touched down with barely a bump.

The others were already out of the craft and running across the beach by the time Danny had managed to unclip his seatbelt.

This was the furthest Danny had ever been from home: Isla del Tonatiuh was situated five hundred kilometres to the south-west of El Salvador. The island was less than thirty kilometres across and was covered in a thick canopy of vegetation: the perfect place for an international arms-smuggling operation.

Danny silently made his way to the undergrowth, where the five others were waiting for him.

Renata Soliz leaned close and whispered, “How is it that someone who can run as fast as you is always the last one out of the StratoTruck?”

Danny grinned. “It would be a lot easier if whoever designed the seatbelts didn’t assume that everyone has two hands.”

“All right,” Impervia said. “You know the drill. We move in hard and fast. Danny, you’re the scout.”

Façade placed his hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Ready?”

Danny nodded. He pulled his electronic compass from his pocket and examined it. The tiny screen showed his location and the location of the target. “OK.”

Impervia said, “Take no chances, Danny. If they see you, get out of there ASAP. Do not engage.”

“Understood. But they won’t see me.” Danny stuffed the compass back in his pocket, raised his night-vision goggles to his face and turned them on. The goggles had been specially modified so that he could put them on and activate them using only his left hand.

“And keep the scanner going at all times. The target is two kilometres east, but the vegetation is heavy, so keep the noise level down.” Impervia looked at her watch. “Now…go.”

Danny smiled at Renata, then concentrated. Slipping into slow-time was so simple now it was almost second nature. He pushed his way through the bushes.

There were times when Danny was almost pleased that he was a superhuman. Times like this, when he knew he was doing something good, almost made up for the loss of his right arm. Almost.

Since the start of the year, Danny Cooper, Renata Soliz and Butler Redmond had been involved in over a dozen missions like this one, and each one had been successful.

It’d be a lot easier if Colin was with us, but even so…We’re not doing too badly.

Danny felt a familiar churning in his stomach. Sometimes, when he thought about the way Colin had left Sakkara, it almost made him ill. He should have stayed, given us a chance to explain everything. Now he’s God-knows-where and his parents are worried sick about him.

Danny climbed over a rotting, fallen tree and paused to check the compass. Through the night-vision goggles, everything looked green and washed-out. Worse, because he was in his high-speed mode the computer-enhanced images from the goggles flickered maddeningly.

He glanced behind him and saw that his lightning-fast path through the jungle had shaken the moisture from the undergrowth, marking his trail with a cloud of droplets seemingly suspended in mid-air.

Danny continued on his way, wondering how long it would take for Mrs Wagner to decide that the trip to the jungle would make a good topic for an essay.

That was the worst thing about being a teenage superhuman: he still had to go to school. The previous month, Mrs Wagner had given him grief about not turning in his geography homework in time. Danny had tried to argue that he’d been kind of busy saving the world, but the teacher – a former superhuman herself – had simply said, “Danny, you’re the fastest human being alive. You could probably run to Alaska faster than most people could write an essay about it.”

Life at Sakkara isn’t so bad, Danny told himself. Colin should have stayed with us. Max’s phone-filter thingy means that Yvonne can’t just call us and then use her mind-control, so we’re safe there.

Well, reasonably safe. But Dioxin’s locked away and Victor Cross seems to have completely disappeared.

Ahead, Danny could see a point of light. That’s the place. He lowered his goggles and began to run towards it.

As he ran, a feeling of unease settled over him, like he was being watched. That’s not possible. There’s no way they could know we’re coming. Besides, I’m moving too fast for anyone to see.

He stepped out into a clearing and saw a squat, vine-covered, crumbling stone building. Two men in grubby overalls were standing near the entrance. Danny walked around the edge of the clearing, counted all the people he could see, then headed back into the jungle, towards his colleagues.

He could picture the scene: Impervia bossing everyone about, Façade taking no real notice of her and doing his own thing, Renata doing her best to keep as far away from Butler as possible.

Butler Redmond was definitely a little easier to get along with now, ever since he’d had a panic attack during Dioxin’s attack on Sakkara. Before that, Butler had swaggered about like he owned the place – now he mostly kept to himself, with only the occasional verbal jab at Danny when he was feeling particularly pleased with himself.

Danny walked out of the jungle a few metres away from the others, and took a moment to look out at the sea. The nearest wave seemed to be frozen in mid-splash. Danny concentrated, shifting back to normal time, and the wave crashed to the shore.

“You were gone one hundred and twenty-seven seconds,” Impervia said. “Twice as long as you should have been. What happened?”

“Nothing,” Danny replied. “I took it easy. I might have been in hyper-fast mode, but it’s still two kilometres there and two back.” He pulled the fist-sized scanner from his belt and handed it to her.

Impervia connected the scanner to the small computer screen built into her uniform’s wrist. “All right…We’ve got twelve hostiles. Four on guard duty, the rest inside the building. Renata, you’re on point. Butler will stick close to you. Vaughan? You stay put and monitor. Give us twenty minutes. If we’re not back—”

The young soldier said, “I know. Pull out and get back to the transport.”

“We keep it quiet until we’re on the edge of the clearing, then we take out the guards: make enough noise to bring the others running. When the compound is secure, I’ll set the charges.”

Renata asked, “Wouldn’t it be easier for one of us to go inside?”

“Yes, it would. But what happens if the compound is booby-trapped? You three are too important to lose.”

Danny glanced at Renata, who was looking back at him with a familiar expression, and he knew that they were both thinking the same thing: Impervia wasn’t a superhuman any more, but she still wanted to pretend that she was.

Façade turned to the other soldier, Vaughan. “Get the extraction team ready to pick up twelve hostiles. And watch our backs.”

“Yes sir.”

“Let’s do it. Renata, lead the way.”

Danny followed Renata into the undergrowth.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was about to go horribly wrong.

2

THE NEATLY-DRESSED MAN slowly raised his right hand and showed Colin that he was holding a small device about the size of a mobile phone.

Colin stepped back, but the man simply smiled and pressed a button on the machine.

Instantly, the sounds of the farmyard flooded back and Colin jumped: he’d been concentrating so hard on his super-hearing that now the sounds were greatly magnified. He could hear everything: the man and woman’s heartbeats, the noises of the animals – including a tremendous amount of gurgling coming from the cows’ stomachs – birds, insects, the slow ticking of a nearby car’s engine as it cooled down.

“Sorry,” the man said. “We knew you’d be able to hear us coming from miles away so we had to use this. It’s a sound-muffler. It works by inverting—”

Colin interrupted him. “I know how it works. What do you want?”

“We’ve been tracking you for weeks, Colin.”

“Who?”

The red-haired woman gave Colin a warm smile. “Look, we know you’re Colin Wagner. Let’s not bother with all that ‘I don’t know who you think I am’, nonsense, OK? It’ll save time.”

“We just want to talk,” the man said. “I’m Byron, this is Harriet.”

Colin looked them up and down. Immaculate black suits, white shirts, dark-blue ties. Highly-polished expensive shoes. “You’re Trutopians.”

“That’s right.”

“And you want me to join your organisation.”

“We just want to talk to you, Colin,” Harriet said. “That’s all. You’re a hard man to track, but we’ve got people everywhere. You were spotted a month ago outside Budapest, and ever since then we’ve been concentrating on this area.” She paused. “What exactly are you doing here?”

Before Colin could reply, Harriet said, “Never mind that for now. Colin, we didn’t come empty-handed.” She nudged her colleague with her elbow. “Show him, Byron.”

“What?”

Harriet raised her eyes. “What you’ve got in your pocket, you dink!”

“Oh, right.” Byron reached into his jacket pocket, pulled something out and tossed it to Colin.

“A Mars bar,” Colin said.

“Yeah. We thought you might be missing some of the comforts of home.”

Colin briefly wondered whether the chocolate might be drugged, but somehow he couldn’t stop himself from tearing open the wrapper and taking a huge bite out of the bar.

“Reginald Kinsella told us to order that stuff in specially for you,” Harriet said. “And your favourite chips.”

“You mean crisps,” Byron corrected. “Cheese and onion – those are your favourites, right?”

Colin nodded.

Harriet said, “We just want to talk. Mr Kinsella has been in Munich for the past week, but he’s cutting his visit short and he’s coming here to Romania specially to see you. Just give him a couple of days of your time, OK? If you’re still not interested after that, then that’s fine. You know what the Trutopians are all about, don’t you?”

“You claim to be interested only in world-wide peace.”

“Exactly. We’ve got a community in Satu Mare, that’s about twenty kilometres from here, and it’s in the direction you were heading anyway. So it’ll save you half a day’s walking. How’s that sound?”

Colin shook his head. “No.”

Byron started to speak, but the woman put his hand on his arm. “Leave it. All right, Colin. We tried.” She stepped to one side and pointed at the large backpack that had been behind her. “It’s yours. There’s enough food for a week, a new pair of hiking boots in your size, a couple of changes of clothes and a portable phone. I’ve put our numbers on it, just in case.”

Byron said, “I suppose it gets pretty lonely out there on the road, so we’ve also given you an MP3 player. It’s got a couple of thousand tracks on it. We weren’t sure what kind of music you like, but there’s bound to be something there that’ll suit you.”

Then Harriet reached into her jacket’s inside pocket and took out a thick envelope. “Five hundred Euro, five hundred US Dollars.” She handed it to Colin. “And there’s a Trutopian credit card in there too. In case of emergencies. It doesn’t have a very high limit, so don’t go trying to buy a Ferrari with it.”

Colin found that his mouth had gone dry. “You’re just giving me all this stuff?”

Byron nodded. “Yep.”

“Even though I said I wasn’t interested in talking to you?”

He nodded again. “That’s right. Look, Colin…This is how Mr Kinsella put it: you’re a superhuman. And more than that, you’re one of the good guys. That puts us all on the same side. If we make things easier for you to help people, that makes things easier for us.”

“It just seems…” Colin shrugged. “Like a bribe or something.”

Harriet said, “It’s not a bribe. It’s what we do, it’s what the whole organisation is about. We help people who are less fortunate. We’ve been following you long enough to know that you have no money, no change of clothes, no food, and you haven’t had a shower in over a month.”

“Actually,” Byron said, “we could tell that one even if we hadn’t been tracking you. But she’s right. Sure, the Trutopians want you on-board. But if you’re not interested, then what are we going to do? Force you to join? That’s not our style.” He reached down and picked up the bag. “So come on. We’ll give you a lift to Satu Mare, and there’s no strings attached.”

It could be OK, Colin said to himself. They’re not superhuman. If they tried to kidnap me or anything I could just smash open the car door and jump out. “All right,” he said.

“Great!” Byron said. “You don’t mind if we drive with the windows down, do you?”

“I’m right behind you, Ren,” Butler Redmond whispered.

Renata didn’t need to look over her shoulder to know that the older boy was telling the truth: she could almost feel his breath on the back of her neck.

Does he really think that I need protection? She wondered. I’m twice as strong as he is!

“Not too far now,” Butler whispered.

Through clenched teeth, Renata muttered. “Yes. I know.”

“So what we’ll do, right, is wait for Danny to give the signal and then we’ll rush through, smash into the guys guarding the door, then split up. You take the one on the left and I’ll take the one on the right.”

“Sure. Whatever.”

Butler paused. “Unless you want to take the one on the right?”

Renata stopped walked suddenly. Butler almost crashed into her. She turned to face him. “Butler?”

“What?”

“Back off. You’re invading my personal space again.”

“Right, right.” He grinned. “But you have to admit, we’re a good team. The way we took down those hijackers last month – that was class!”

Façade caught up with them. “What’s the delay?”

“Just working on the plan,” Butler replied.

“Leave the planning to Impervia,” Façade told him. “You two just do as you’re told.”

Butler raised his eyes. “Why are you even here, Façade? You’re just the pilot! You’re a chauffeur, not a soldier.”

“I’m here just in case you wet your pants again like you did when Dioxin’s men attacked Sakkara.” Without waiting for Butler to respond, Façade said, “Now get moving. And stay alert.”

Smiling to herself, Renata marched on. It’s Butler’s own fault that no one likes him. Before we got to Sakkara the only friends he had were Yvonne and Mina, and they only tolerated him because he was the first person they ever met who was close to their own age.

Renata swallowed. God, poor Mina…

For a very brief time, there had been eight teenagers in Sakkara. Then Yvonne had turned out to be a traitor working for Victor Cross, and had used her mind-control ability to put her sister Mina into a coma. After Solomon Cord had been killed, his daughters Alia and Stephanie had left with their mother. Colin had run away.

Now there’s just three New Heroes left, Renata said to herself. And I’m not even sure that I want to be one of them.

Behind her, Butler crashed through the undergrowth. “Keep the noise down, Bubbles!” Renata whispered.

“Don’t call me Bubbles,” Butler said. “And it’s not my fault. It’s these new boots of mine.”

They’re still not as noisy as that big mouth of yours. Renata knew better than to say that out loud: Butler had a tendency to sulk for days. This is no kind of life. If it wasn’t for Danny…She didn’t allow her thoughts to go any further than that.

She knew that later, when they returned to Sakkara, she would lie awake in her sparse bedroom, staring at the blank walls, wishing that she didn’t have to stay in that horrible place.

I wonder which idiot thought it was a good idea that we should stay there after Dioxin attacked. General Piers, probably. Grumpy old fool. At least we don’t have much contact with him these days. No, we’re all part of the military now. Have to follow the blasted chain of command.

Renata couldn’t see a way out of her situation: she didn’t want to remain in Sakkara, and she didn’t want to go and live with her parents in their Trutopian community.

When Ragnarök’s power-stripping machine had been used, Renata had been in her crystalline form. She’d remained frozen for ten years, until an accident during a test-run of Max Dalton’s machine had somehow freed her. She’d woken into a world where her younger brother and sister were now adults and had left home, her parents had joined the Trutopian organisation, and everyone else she’d known had long since forgotten her.

Physically, Renata was still only fourteen years old, but she’d been born twenty-four years ago. That was the argument the Trutopians’ lawyer was using: from their point of view, Renata was still a minor. But General Piers wasn’t about to give up one of his three remaining superhumans, so the government’s lawyers were arguing that Renata’s chronological age was what mattered, not her physical age.

They’re fighting over me like hungry dogs over a scrap of meat. The Trutopians want me because it’ll be great publicity to have a superhuman in their ranks, but General Piers would probably have me shot before he handed me over to Reginald Kinsella and his people.

Impervia’s voice whispered through Renata’s headset. “Look alive. We’re on.”

There was a shout from somewhere directly ahead and Renata broke into a run, Butler close behind her.

She crashed out through the edge of the clearing and ran straight towards the startled guards.

One of them turned and ran – Butler racing after him – but the other whipped a small hand-gun from his holster and aimed it at Renata, shouting, “iAlto o disparo!”

Renata had grown up speaking Spanish as well as English, and knew what that meant: “Stop or I’ll shoot!”

“iTire al suelo su arma!” she shouted. “Drop the gun! Now!” Oh hell, he’s going to fire!

Renata turned her hands and forearms solid and raised them in front of her face just as the man pulled the trigger. The bullet struck her crystalline arms and ricocheted into the jungle.

The man didn’t have time to get off a second shot: Renata was on him, swinging her fists. A powerful punch to the left temple and the guard crumpled to the ground.

The door directly in front of her burst open and four other guards rushed out, all armed with semi-automatic weapons. Renata turned her entire body solid and watched with interest as a hail of bullets rattled against her now-transparent uniform.

One day I’m going to have to learn how this power of mine works, she said to herself. How come I can turn myself solid, and my uniform, but not anything else?

At first Renata had only been able to solidify her whole body. Since then, she’d learned to control the power with greater precision. Now, she could pick individual parts and change them at will.

It wasn’t easy, and almost every time she did it she got a throbbing headache soon afterwards, but the trick had saved her life on more than on occasion.

Now, the four guards were staring at her in panic.

They clearly know who I am, so they should be able to guess that I’m not here alone.

Two of the guards were looking around and the other two had stopped to reload.

Renata turned herself back and grabbed hold of the nearest two, slamming them into their colleagues.

One of the men recovered quickly and started to scramble away. Renata was about to dart after him when he suddenly collapsed to the ground.

Danny Cooper materialised in front of the guard. “That’s it,” Danny said. “That’s all twelve. Bubbles is around the other side using his force-field to beat up two at the same time.”

They turned at a noise from the jungle to see Impervia and Façade approaching. “All done?” Façade asked.

Danny nodded. “Yep.” He looked at Impervia. “Though we should check inside to make sure there aren’t any others.”

“No need,” the older woman said. “The scanner says they’re all out here.” She hit the switch on her communicator. “Vaughan, you can tell the copter pilot to break cover and start coming this way now. I want them to take the hostiles to the nearest US military base for interrogation.”

“Acknowledged,” the man’s voice replied. “That’d be the USS Ronald Reagan, out of San Diego. She’s currently 300 kilometres due north of our position, en route for Costa Rica.”

“Perfect. Get it done. Butler? You there?”

“I’m here.”

“Good. Carry the hostages clear. Fifty metres at least. I’m about to set the charges.”

“Wilco,” Butler replied.

“You too, Renata.”

Renata nodded, crouched down and grabbed two of the unconscious men by the ankles, then started dragging them away from the building.

She was on the way back for a second run when she saw that Danny was trying to use his one arm to move one of the men.

“Leave him,” Renata said. “I’ll do it.”

“I can manage!”

“I know you can. That’s not what I’m saying.” Renata lowered her voice. “Any luck with that intangibility trick?”

Danny shook his head. “Nah. I don’t think that one’s ever coming back.”

Renata paused and glanced towards the building’s entrance. “When Impervia opens the door, you think you can get inside without her noticing?”

Danny frowned. “Yeah, probably…Why?”

“If this place is a weapons cache, how come not all of the guards were armed? Why were there only twelve of them? The place should have been much better defended.”

“What else do you think could be in there?”

“No idea. But I think we should find out.” Peering over Danny’s shoulder, Renata could see Impervia opening the door. “Go!”

There was a blur, then Danny was suddenly standing in a slightly different position, a worry-line creasing his forehead. “I knew there was something wrong here! You were right. There’s no weapons in there, unless they’re well hidden.”

“So what were they defending?”

“The place is filled with huge crates of dried fruits, flour, cereals, dried meats…All wrapped up in air-tight packages. They’re just like the emergency supplies we have in the basement of Sakkara…It’s food, Renata. We were sent here to destroy food.”

3

THE CUSTOMISED LEAR jet touched down on the runway with such precision that Evan Laurie almost didn’t notice they’d landed.

Laurie was thankful that Victor Cross employed such good pilots: he hated flying.

Sitting opposite him, Cross smiled and said, “We’re down. You can breathe again.”

Laurie felt the tension drain from his body. “Oh, thank God!”

“Why are you so scared of everything, Laurie?”

The nervous man shrugged. “Well, when I was a kid, I used to—”

Cross said, “Wait, wait. Don’t tell me.”

“You’ve already figured it out?”

“No, I just don’t care.” Cross leaned towards the window and peered out as the jet taxied to the small terminal building. “All right…Harriet says they’ve brought Colin to the Hotel Baldigara. He’s settled in and seems to be happy enough for the moment.”