Absolute Power

“What if he recognises you, Victor? I mean, even with the beard and padding, you’re still you.”

“Colin’s never met me face-to-face, and the real Reginald Kinsella was such a recluse that even the people who worked closest with him haven’t been able tell I’ve taken his place.”

“But even among superhumans Colin is different. We’ve already seen his powers evolve once. Who’s to say that he hasn’t developed telepathy?”

“I have thought of that, Laurie. I’m willing to take the chance.”

“We’ve already got superhumans. We have you and Yvonne. Why do we need him?”

“Because you just said it yourself: Colin is different. For one thing, he can see the blue lights. For another, he’s the child of two superhumans.”

The jet stopped, and Cross unbuckled his seatbelt. “OK. You know what you’ve got to do?”

Laurie nodded. “Go to Kiev, then catch the cargo flight to Omsk, and from there to Zaliv Kalinina. And don’t let Yvonne know where I really am.”

“Good. Keep me posted. I’ll send you the material as soon as I can.”

“This isn’t going to work, Victor.”

Victor Cross stood up. “Why the pessimism?”

Laurie began ticking off on his fingers. “You underestimated the kids and they destroyed your power-damper. Dioxin got caught. Renata Soliz turned down your offer to join the Trutopians…”

Victor laughed. “That’s true. But we always get the outcome we want. Look at what I’ve already achieved – I’m only twenty-one years old and I’m in charge of the largest and most powerful organisation the world has ever seen. I’ve got more money than I can spend. I’m very definitely the smartest man who ever lived. The only person on this planet who could possibly be a threat to me is Colin Wagner, and I’ll have him on my side in a matter of days.”

“If Colin realises that you’re the man who killed Solomon Cord, he’ll…Victor, he’s got a very strong sense of justice, but I’m not sure that would stop him from tearing your head off.”

“It’s his sense of justice that’s going to persuade him to come over to our way of thinking.”

“I still think it’d be easier to just have Yvonne control his mind.”

Victor removed his suitcase from the overhead compartment. “It would be easier, yes, but less satisfying.”

“You’re just doing this to pander to your own ego.”

Victor sighed. “I don’t know why I let you talk to me like that.”

“Maybe it’s because…” Laurie shrugged. “Actually, I’ve no idea either, but there must be some part of you that needs me. Otherwise you’d just have me killed, or get Yvonne to control my mind and make me only say what you want to hear.”

Cross flipped open his suitcase and checked the contents. “Could be…”

Then Laurie said, “Ah…I’ve just realised why you’re not letting Yvonne take control of Colin.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because her mind-control power makes her very dangerous. You’re doing this to prove to Yvonne that you don’t need her for everything. If she starts to think that she doesn’t need you…”

Victor nodded, and smiled. “Well done, Mr Laurie. And as a reward, you get to spend the next five years in the Arctic.”

“I really don’t want to go, Victor. I don’t like the cold.”

“I know that. But the work is important. Or it’s going to be important.”

“Victor, I was asleep!” Yvonne said. “Do you have any idea what time it is in Wyoming?”

Cross nodded to the guards at the gate and raised the limousine’s window. “Of course I do. I know everything. What’s your point?”

Their inspection complete, the guards waved the car through: Victor was pleased to see that even though they knew who he was, and they’d been expecting him, they still ran their scanners over the car and checked his and the driver’s DNA profiles against the database.

Yvonne said, “My point is that you can’t just phone people in the middle of the night and expect them to be waiting for your call!”

“Whine, whine, whine. How are things back home?”

“They’re fine.”

“No sign of Dioxin breaking through your memory block?”

“No. And even if he does manage it, it’s not like there’s anyone in Lieberstan who’ll be listening to him.”

“True. We’ve just arrived in Satu Mare. I’ll be heading back to the States in a couple of days, by which time Colin Wagner will be on our side.”

“You’re certain you can persuade him?”

“Absolutely. Now tell me what happened on the island.”

Yvonne paused. “What island?”

“Isla del Tonatiuh. Check your computer.” Victor heard Yvonne yawning, then tapping on her keyboard.

“I see it…” Yvonne said. “We had a huge cache of supplies there. Had being the operative word. The New Heroes destroyed it a couple of hours ago.”

“Good.”

“Good? Why is it good? Victor, this is the fifth time they’ve deliberately targeted the Trutopians!”

“I know. Who do you think is feeding them the information? You really should be keeping an eye on the larger picture, Yvonne. We trick the Sakkarans into going on these little missions, and they’re not going to be around to do normal superhero stuff.”

“And the point of that is…?”

“The ordinary people know that there are superhumans again, and they’re beginning to realise that these superhumans aren’t working for them: they’re working for the military. The public backlash will begin very soon.”

“Spurred on by you, of course.”

“Naturally…All right, we’re here.” Victor opened the car door and stepped out into the afternoon sunshine. “Time to meet Mr Wagner and start the conversion process.”

Yvonne said, “Victor, if he kills you, can I take over the organisation?”

Cross replied, “You may take over the organisation. Whether you actually can, well, that’s a different matter.”

“I’m thrilled you have so much faith in me.”

“Go back to sleep, kid. I’ll call you if I need you. Which I won’t.”

The first thing Colin Wagner did when he arrived at the hotel room was to fill the bath with hot, foamy water, strip off his clothes and lower himself in.

Now, two hours later, he was still in the bath, eyes closed, listening to Alphaville on his new MP3 player.

The last track on the album came to an end and Colin popped out the earphones and set the player down on the floor.

I could get used to this.

The phone beside the bath rang. Colin grabbed for it with a damp hand. “Hello?”

“Colin? It’s Harriet. Mr Kinsella has just arrived, and he’d like to talk to you. When you’re ready.”

“Sure. I’ll be down in a couple of minutes.”

Colin hung up the phone and stepped out of the bath. He didn’t bother using a towel to dry himself; he just increased his body temperature until all the water evaporated from his skin.

In the bedroom, Colin looked through the spare clothes the two Trutopians had given him, and chose a plain black T-shirt and a pair of jeans.

So what do I tell this guy? I could string him along for a while, make him think that I might just change my mind. Then I get to stay here.

He dismissed this idea almost immediately. Better not. For one thing, it’d be wrong. For another, I’ve got things of my own to do.

He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on one of his new pairs of socks. Should thank him for all the stuff at least.

Colin looked at the mobile phone that he’d left on the bedside table. I could phone my parents…No. They’d only try to persuade me to go back to Sakkara, and that’s something I’m not going to do as long as Max Dalton is still there.

Once he’d put on his new boots and tied the laces, Colin grabbed the room’s keycard and made his way down to the lobby.

The red-haired woman – Harriet – was waiting for him. “All clean and shiny?”

Colin nodded. “Yeah. Thanks. I’d nearly forgotten what it felt like to not be covered in dirt.”

“Mr Kinsella’s in the restaurant, if you’re ready to meet him.”

“I’m ready.”

Even though it was now lunchtime, the hotel’s restaurant was almost completely empty. At the only occupied table, Byron was talking to a tall, slightly overweight bearded man.

So that’s him, Reginald Kinsella, Colin said to himself. The leader of the Trutopians and one of the most famous men in the world and he came all the way here just to see me.

Harriet said, “Mr Kinsella? This is…”

Kinsella stood up, and offered his hand to Colin, a big cheesy grin on his face. “Oh, I know who it is! You two take a break…I want to talk to this young man alone.”

Byron and Harriet nodded and left the table.

“Sit,” Kinsella said to Colin. “You must be hungry.”

“I’m OK. I ate in the car. I don’t need to eat very much anyway.”

Kinsella dropped down into his own chair. “Is that one of your superhuman abilities?”

“I suppose so.”

Kinsella nodded. “I read something about you developing necessary powers from your mother. I’ll tell you, that caught everyone out. We all expected you to take after your father.”

“So did I.”

A waiter darted over and placed a menu in front of Colin. “The special today is—”

Kinsella interrupted him. “The special today is whatever this young man wants. Anything he wants. Do you understand me?”

Colin felt the blood rush to his cheeks. He glanced quickly at the menu. “The vegetable lasagne looks nice.”

The waiter nodded. “Certainly, sir.” He bowed and darted away.

Kinsella sighed. “I hate that. I hate it when people think I need special treatment just because of what I do, or that I’m going to fire them for dropping the bread rolls.” He glanced at Colin. “What about you? Is that why you left the New Heroes? Didn’t want the fame and fortune?”

“There’s fortune?” Colin shrugged. “No, I just…There were reasons.”

“Understood. You don’t want to talk about it.” Kinsella placed his elbows on the table and rubbed his temples with his fingers. “Colin…Let’s be blunt here. You and I are probably the two most influential people in the world. You do realise that, don’t you?”

“I don’t see myself like that.” Colin picked up a breadstick and began munching on it.

“No, you don’t. And that’s one of the things I like about you. You’ve got extraordinary abilities, but you’re still just an ordinary kid. My people compiled a very detailed report on Sakkara. Butler Redmond is an ass. Daniel Cooper…Between you and me, I think he’s dangerous.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because of his father. His real father, not Façade. If what I’ve heard is true, then Quantum had visions of the future. Visions that eventually drove him mad. And Danny’s inherited Quantum’s speed, so it stands to reason that he might also inherit his visions.” Kinsella paused. “That worries me.”

Colin didn’t know how to respond to that.

“And Renata Soliz…I met her, did you know that? I offered her a chance to join us, but she turned me down. So that leaves you.”

“I’m sorry, Mr Kinsella, but I’m not going to join the Trutopians.”

“Right. I don’t suppose you’ve been following the news over the past four months?”

“It’s not really been possible.”

“Dioxin’s reappearance scared the hell out of a lot of people. If you hadn’t stopped him in Topeka…” Kinsella shuddered. “I don’t even like to think about that. But a lot of people realised that they needed greater protection than the police or the military could provide. They joined the Trutopians. Now…We’re not perfect, and we’ve never claimed to be. But our people know that they can trust us, because we believe in one thing above all: the truth. There are no secrets among the Trutopians. If anyone wants to find out anything about me, all they have to do is ask. If there are no lies, there are no secrets. Without secrets, no one can deceive the people. The details of everything we do are available to the public.”

“Don’t you need to hide the truth sometimes?” Colin asked.

Kinsella shook his head. “No, you don’t.”

“What if my parents had told everyone that they were Energy and Titan? Their enemies would have known how to get to them! By keeping the secret they weren’t just protecting themselves, they were protecting me and everyone else they knew.”

“Right. But suppose the Trutopians are successful, and we do manage to – for want of a better way of putting it – take over the world. No superhero would need to keep a secret identity, because if everyone always told the truth, then no one would be able to hurt them. In an ideal world—”

“But we don’t live in an ideal world, Mr Kinsella.”

Kinsella smiled. “Not yet.”

4

SHORTLY AFTER DAWN, Renata, Butler and Danny walked into Sakkara’s infirmary to find Warren Wagner – Colin’s father – waiting for them. A former paramedic, Warren was currently filling the role of Sakkara’s chief medical technician.

In one corner of the large room, Max Dalton was working at a computer station.

Only one other person was in the room: in the bed closest to the window, Mina looked as though she was asleep.

“So how’d it go?” Warren asked.

“Fine,” Danny said. He and Renata had agreed not to mention what they’d found on the island. “Any word from the people in Hungary?”

“Nothing yet,” Warren replied. “We’re not even certain that the sighting is reliable.”

“We should be trying to find him,” Renata said.

“We are.”

“No, I mean we should be. Me and Danny, you and Caroline. We know Colin better than anyone else. We can persuade him to come back.”

Danny glanced towards Max Dalton and quietly said, “Col won’t come back as long as he’s still here.”

Butler yawned and said, “This gonna take long?”

“It takes as long as it takes,” Warren said. “But you can go first. Get behind the screens and strip down to your shorts.”

While Butler was being examined, Renata and Danny walked over to Mina’s bed.

“God…Poor thing,” Renata said. “Four months in a coma.” She reached out to stroke Mina’s blonde hair, which had now grown to shoulder-length.

“I wonder if she’s dreaming?” Danny said, examining the plastic bag of liquid connected via a tube to Mina’s arm. “She probably is. I just hope they’re not nightmares.”

“She is dreaming,” Max Dalton said, appearing behind them. “At least, according to the EEG readings. And she’s not really in a coma. She’s just asleep. She moves from time to time, just like everyone does when they’re asleep.”

He doesn’t look well, Danny thought. Max’s hair was now completely grey and his once-handsome face was haggard and drawn.

Renata asked, “So the wake-up message didn’t work?”

“Obviously not,” Max said. For weeks, Max and his team had been scouring through thousands of hours of Sakkara’s audio logs, searching for recordings of Yvonne’s voice, and singling out the snippets of her voice where she appeared to be using her mind-control. The idea was that they would compile pieces of Yvonne’s orders into a “wake up” sentence for Mina. “It looks like Yvonne’s hypnotics can only work when they’re issued live. That definitely indicates that it’s more telepathic than vocal.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

“We’ve taken X-rays, CT scans, MRIs, ultra-sound images…There’s nothing there. Short of performing exploratory brain surgery, there’s nothing else we can do. Not directly. This is where you come in, Danny.”

Danny looked down at Mina. “So what can I do?”

“You can tell us everything about how you regained your powers.”

“I don’t think I ever really lost them. I think it was the shock of what happened to my arm. I just sort of shut down.” To himself, Danny added, That, and my vision of the future.

“But the powers came back. If we can figure out how, then maybe we can trigger the same thing for Mina. You said that your powers returned when Renata was trapped in the computer room, after Dioxin’s men shot her, right? Sure there was nothing else before that?”

Danny shook his head. “No.”

“Façade said that during Dioxin’s attack you insisted on coming back here instead of going to the safe-house. Why?”

“I just didn’t want to be left behind. I thought I might be able to help.”

“And why did you think that?”

“Just a feeling,” Danny said, shrugging.

Max absently fingered the scar on his neck. “That’s how it started for your father. He used to get ‘feelings’ about things, or he’d know something he couldn’t possibly have known. And then the visions started to come.”

“Don’t ever talk about my father, Dalton. He’s dead because of you.”

“I know, but…” He stopped. “Look, we’ve already had two cases of superhumans effectively losing their powers and then regaining them, and that’s you two.” To Renata, he said, “Your recovery can be tied directly to the power-surge from Victor Cross’s machine—”

Renata interrupted him. “You mean, your machine.”

“Right. But that’s not something we can replicate here. Even if we were to build another one, the power-surge was an unrepeatable accident.”

He’s never even apologised for kidnapping me and Colin, Danny thought. He glanced at the stump of his right arm.

From the far side of the room, Warren called, “Renata? You’re next.”

They looked up to see Butler pulling on his T-shirt as he left the room.

As Renata walked over to Warren, Max said to Danny, “You’re still blaming me for what happened, aren’t you?”

“Who else should I blame? You funded and ran the whole operation. Because of you I’m going to spend the rest of my life with only one arm.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Max said. He led Danny to his computer station, and called up a program. On screen, a three-dimensional model of a mechanical arm rotated slowly. “I’ve been making some modifications to Razor’s design.”

Danny shook his head. “I don’t want to know.”

Max didn’t seem to hear him. He tapped at the screen with the end of a pencil. “I was going to remove the third and fourth fingers to reduce the complexity, but there’s been a few breakthroughs recently in reading and interpreting nerve impulses. We’ve built a whole array of sensors into the chest harness, and the software is clever enough to be able to differentiate between the nerve signals.”

Despite his misgivings about the mechanical arm, Danny couldn’t help being impressed with the amount of time and money the government was spending on the project.

“So all you’ll have to do is put it on, and within a few seconds you’ll be able to use it like it was a real arm. There won’t be any feedback, but when we really get a handle on the micro-miniaturisation we should be able to build-in thermal and touch sensors.” Max stuck his pencil between his teeth and typed a command into the keyboard.

The screen changed to show a wire-frame figure of a man wearing the arm and the chest-harness. “It’s still just as heavy as it was, but it’s much stronger and the harness distributes the weight pretty evenly, so you’ll get used to it. I’ve redesigned it so that you’ll be able to put it on without needing someone else’s help. And our tests show that when you switch into hyper-speed mode, the arm will too, so it should be able to keep up with you.”

Without saying a word, Danny turned and walked over to the window, and stared out.

Why can’t they just get the hint that I don’t want a mechanical arm? Maybe I should tell them…

But Danny knew that telling them wasn’t an option. Max and Impervia had known Quantum, and they’d seen how his visions had turned him into a broken man.

Danny didn’t want them to know that he had inherited not only his father’s speed, but also his ability to sense the future.

It didn’t work well, and he couldn’t control it, but there were times – like back on Isla del Tonatiuh – when Danny somehow just knew that something bad was going to happen.

And once, shortly before he’d lost his right arm, Danny had seen a vision of himself with a mechanical right arm.

If Quantum’s prophecy was accurate, and I’m going to be responsible for starting a huge war in which billions of people will die, then…Then there’s nothing on Earth that’s going to make me take that mechanical arm. If I don’t take the arm, then the future I saw can’t ever happen.

His thoughts were interrupted by a hand on his shoulder. He looked around to see Renata standing beside him.

“You OK?”

Danny nodded. “Yeah. Just…thinking.”

Behind them, the door hissed open and two female guards entered, one of them pushing an old woman in a wheelchair. The woman glanced around, spotted Warren and instantly looked away.

One of the guards put the wheelchair away while her colleague helped the old woman into bed.

“Another interrogation session,” Renata whispered.

Danny said, “I don’t care if Ragnarök was her son. How can they treat an eighty-year-old woman like that?”

“I suppose they think Mrs Duval knows something that can help them track down Yvonne.”

“What could she know? They’ve never even met each other!”

Renata shrugged.

Warren walked over, avoiding Mrs Duval’s glare. “Dan? We need to get you checked out.”

“Why do we have to get a check-up after every mission?”

“General’s orders,” Warren said. He picked up the chart from the end of Mina’s bed and flipped through the pages. “Back in the old days, we just fought the bad guys and went back to our normal lives. Now, we’ve got the might of the military behind us. Like things weren’t complicated enough. One superhuman we can’t wake up, one missing in action, one turned against us…Only three of you left.” He put back the chart and smiled at Danny. “But soon enough, there’ll be four.”

“You found a new superhuman?”

“Better than that. Razor’s team almost have the new Paragon armour finished.”

5

EVEN BEFORE DANNY and Renata reached the machine room, they could hear a loud pounding sound echoing through the building. They opened the door and stood on the gantry, looking down at Razor and four other technicians as they worked on what appeared to be the framework of a three-metre-tall bipedal robot.

“All right,” Razor said, standing back from the exoskeleton. He brushed his long hair back from his face. “Everyone get clear…Let’s try that again.”

The robot’s motors whined as it straightened itself – then, after a moment, it tilted slightly to the right, then stomped its left foot forward. The robot tilted to the left, then moved its right foot.

Danny grinned. “It’s walking! Finally!”

“Shutting down,” Razor said. “Take the readings, Mitch.” He glanced up at Danny and Renata, and beckoned them down.

Danny was instantly standing in front of the machine, staring up at it. “It’s looking good, Raze. Got it flying yet?”

“We’re getting there,” Razor said. “It can’t carry enough fuel to fly more than a hundred metres. That’s ‘cos it weighs almost a tonne.”

Renata arrived next to them. “Razor, how on Earth is someone supposed to fit inside that thing?”

“There’ll be a lot more space when we tidy all the cables away.”

“Maybe someone doesn’t need to be inside it. You could fit it with cameras. Then the new Paragon won’t even have to go into battle himself.”

“We thought of that, but the General feels that the public will have more confidence if Paragon is a person, not a robot.” Razor scratched at the three-day stubble on his chin. “That’s one of the things we’re arguing about. Piers wants the helmet’s face-plate to be transparent, so everyone can see there’s a person inside. But that’ll seriously weaken the helmet’s integrity, which is not a good thing considering that the armour will be equipped with shock-bombs.”