Battle of the ULTRAs (11 page)

E
ight Years Ago
…

O
rion watched
the funeral from afar and he knew he needed to act fast.

Rain lashed down from the thick gray clouds above. He stood behind the church, completely exhausted, but knowing full well he needed to watch himself if he wanted to get out of here alive. He was risking everything by being here in the first place. But he couldn’t just walk away. Not when he knew the truth about Cassie, or Sophie, as he called her.

His daughter.

He saw them lowering the coffin. By the side of it, his son’s new parents. They looked filled with grief. Orion had always thought they were doing a good job with his biological children. Then again, they would be. Apparently, the government had imprinted some kind of memories into them so that they were convinced they’d had these kids themselves. It worked out better that way, for their own protection.

He watched as young Kyle, as he was now called, walked up to the side of his sister’s grave and threw a flower down toward her. Orion could tell just from the look in his eyes that he didn’t really understand what was happening here. This was so cruel. He wanted to tell this family the truth.

But telling them the truth just meant more danger for his daughter, more danger for his entire family.

He waited for the families to depart before making his move.

Then, he put his bowler hat on that he’d found back home lying around the direst depths of his makeshift apartment and he walked to the grave.

He stopped by its side. Just looking down and seeing that small coffin made him want to throw up. He wiped his eyes. Sure, her name had been changed, but this girl was still his daughter. He had flashbacks to the day she’d been taken away from him. The day he’d given up a piece of himself to save her life and heal her.

Only he’d passed his powers on to all his children.

That was why he was thankful for the government. They’d taken all his children away and given them whole new identities. They were now Cassie, Kyle, and Daniel.

Saint didn’t know about Kyle and Daniel, but he knew about “Cassie” somehow. The government had made a bold move keeping her and Kyle together. Perhaps it was a way of throwing those who might be out for them. He couldn’t be sure. It certainly seemed to have fooled Saint, as he hadn’t gone after Kyle.

But “Cassie” was still in danger.

Orion looked around the churchyard. All of the cars had departed. The rain lashed down heavier. It looked clear.

He lowered down toward the coffin.

He put his hands on top of it. Focused on the stiff locks that held his daughter inside.

Then he heard chatter above.

He held his breath and activated his invisibility.

He heard the footsteps pass by. The voices diminished.

As soon as he was sure they’d gone, he returned his focus to the coffin.

He felt the latches breaking. Part of him didn’t want to open this lid and see his daughter lying there so peaceful. But he knew he had to. After all, she didn’t die. Not right away. That was part of the “healing” process that Saint treated her to back when he was Reverend Lewis. She had seven days, he’d said. Seven days of living in a deathlike state, only wake-able by the powers of an ULTRA.

Today was the sixth day.

Orion pulled away the coffin lid and held his breath. It wasn’t going to be easy looking his daughter in the eye. She’d probably be confused. And he knew he couldn’t exactly take her back to her family. There’d be too many questions, and the answers would put her and her brother in danger.

He had to get her somewhere safe. Somewhere no one would find her.

He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath.

Then he lifted the coffin lid completely.

He stared down into it for a few seconds, maybe longer. He couldn’t understand what he was looking at. It didn’t make sense.

But then he saw the note, and it added up completely in a horrible, sinister fashion.

The coffin was empty.

Lying on the white padding, a note.

Orion lifted the note with a shaking hand. He’d thought he’d dealt with Saint. He’d thought he’d put him somewhere he wouldn’t come back from. And maybe he had, but with the last of his unstoppable powers, he’d seen to one final act.

Too late,
the note read.

S
omewhere far away
, with the last of his crippled powers, Saint lowered Orion’s daughter into the ground.

He shouldn’t be here. His physical form was stuck in a limbo that Orion had cast him into.

But with the last of his powers, he’d seen to one thing. A thing that was going to be very, very important when he finally got his strength back.

Which he would.

“You rest now, my angel,” Saint said, as he lowered a sleeping—but living—girl into the ground. He’d woken her so she survived, but he’d soon put her back to sleep again. She needed a long rest now. “You won’t know a thing until the day comes to wake you.”

He closed the lid of her coffin.

Then he disappeared into that dark void Orion had cast him into, waiting for the day his powers recharged.

E
ight years later
, Saint lifted the coffin lid and smiled.

“Come on now, my angel. It’s time for you to wake.”

Cassie opened her eyes.

“
Y
ou lied to me
. All this time… All these years. You lied to me.”

When I spoke the words, I could sense the look of shame behind Orion’s masked face. Daniel stood beside me, not saying a word. The rest of the Resistance were behind us now too, many of them learning the truth not only of Orion’s connection to Daniel and me, but the truth about my sister.

“I wanted to tell you,” Orion said.

“If you’d wanted to tell me you’d have told me.”

“You have to see how dangerous it—”

“You let me and my family believe my sister was dead!”

My shout made the leaves shake from the trees. My voice echoed for miles. My chest tightened, like it was in the grasp of a vice grip. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could control my anger.

“You let me and my mom and dad believe Cassie was dead all that time.”

“I thought it was for the best.”

“For the best?” I walked closer to Orion, my fists tightening. I couldn’t stop the electric ice radiating through my body. “It broke my parents down. It—it nearly killed my dad.”

“And for that I’m sorry. Truly.”

“You’re sorry? Really? That’s all you have to say?”

Orion looked down at the ground. He looked the most defeated I’d ever seen him.

“As long as you’re sorry, I suppose everything’s alright.”

“What did I tell you, Kyle?” Daniel said. There was a slight smile on his face which irritated me. “Orion isn’t the good guy he claims to be.”

“Shut up. Seriously, just shut up. I don’t need to hear from you right now.”

Daniel raised his hands. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

I squeezed the bridge of my nose. I felt sick and dizzy. All of this was too much to take in right now. “So Cassie. If… If she had abilities too. If she’s still alive. Then where is she?”

Orion didn’t respond right away, which immediately set the alarm bells ringing.

“Orion? The least you can do is be straight with me about—”

“I don’t know where she is.”

“What?”

“Your sister. I don’t know where she is.”

Those six words hit me the hardest of all. “What do you mean you don’t know where she is?”

“When I went to pull her from her… from her grave. She was already gone.”

“Then who took her?”

Orion looked past me and at the Resistance. “It’s time we started planning our next–”

“Who took her?”

He looked at me again. Surely by now he saw there was no dodging my questions. “I think Saint took her.”

I squeezed my fists together and felt the anger burning under my skin. I needed to get to Saint more than ever now. I needed to make him pay for what he’d done.

“Kyle, wait.”

“No,” I said. “You don’t get to tell me to wait anymore.”

I closed my eyes and pictured Saint’s tower. I couldn’t think properly, but I knew it was where I had to be right now.

“We can fight back against Saint, but only together. If you go flying in there alone, you’re risking throwing away everything.”

“I don’t care about anything else.”

“She’s my daughter too, remember.”

There was something to those words that made me tone down my anger. There was a fragility to Orion’s voice that connected with me.

When I grounded myself back on the island in the middle of that forest, I focused on Orion’s mask. I could tell that he was shaking.

“Don’t you think I’ve tried to get her back all these years? She… She’s my daughter. A daughter I had taken away from me all because of…” He raised his hands, and two balls of energy sprouted from his palms. “All because of this.”

His voice cracked now. He sounded exhausted, like his strong front had finally worn away.

“And you are my children, too. Both of you.” He looked from me to Daniel and back again. “All these years I’ve had to watch from the sidelines as you’ve grown up. All I’ve wanted all this time is to put my arm around your shoulders and tell you how much I…”

He turned away, his voice failing him completely.

Then he looked back at me.

“I’m sorry for letting you down. I’m sorry for all of this mess. Truly. But the only way we’re going to win this battle and the only way we’ll ever find out what truly happened to Soph… to Cassie, is if we work together, step by step. No more recklessness.”

I let Orion’s words sink in. All around me, I heard silence but for the tumbling waterfall.

“I will fight to take down Saint,” I said. “I won’t hold off anymore. I’ll attack stronger than ever. But it’s not because of some duty to you or to the Resistance. It’s not my way of saying I forgive you. It’s because Saint has my friends. He has my girlfriend. He has my dad. The man who’s brought me up. My real dad. And I’m fighting because I owe him, big time. I’m fighting because I want to save the lives of the people I care about. Not because of anything else.”

Orion lowered his head. I knew the “real dad” thing was a bit of a low blow. After all, Orion hadn’t really been able to help the fact he couldn’t reach out to me. But he’d let me think my sister was dead when really she was… well, maybe still dead. He’d taken away the hope from my family and sent my dad into a depressive spiral. Worst of all, Mom had died never knowing the truth about Cassie. I couldn’t just forgive him for that.

“And I’ll fight with you,” Orion said. There was a certainty and self-assurance to his voice again now like he’d reapplied his mask. “To the end.”

I nodded. Then I looked around at the rest of the Resistance, who glared at Daniel—Nycto—like he was still the enemy. “Then we’d better get a plan together.”

“
T
his isn’t going
to be easy. Hell, it’s going to be the toughest thing we’ve ever done in our lives. But we’re ULTRAs. So we’re made of tough stuff. We can do this if we band together. Okay?”

I spoke as loud as I could to the crowd of the Resistance watching me. We were on the beach. The sun was setting, but we were not turning in tonight. Instead, we were launching the first stage of our fight back.

“Now I know I’ve said in the past we should just launch our attack on Saint’s tower. But now I see we can’t just do that. Instead, we need to start winning territory. We need to make Saint
feel
like we’re fighting for the cities, and that he’s one step ahead. And that’s when we launch the attack on his tower.”

“So winning back the cities is just a bluff?” Ember asked.

“Not a bluff,” I said. “We win back the cities and take the people we rescue there. We protect those cities when Saint strikes against them. That’s when we use our opportunity to take the tower and take Saint down.”

“How can you be so sure Saint’s gonna just let us fly up there into his tower, kid?” Stone asked.

I looked to my right. Daniel stood beside me. “Because I’ve seen how he works.”

All eyes turned on Daniel. I saw heads shaking. Heard whispers.

“And we’re supposed to trust
you
?” Stone asked.

“I know there’s not a lot of trust here, but what Daniel says makes sense. Saint’s tough, but he’s shown his weakness many times already. He likes to be at the front of a battle. He likes to be the one to lead his ULTRAbots to glory.”

“But how’s that gonna help us take down Saint if we’re in his tower?”

I looked at Daniel. Instead of letting him speak, I spoke for him considering very few of the Resistance were keen on trusting him. “There’s a room in there. A place where Saint sets his ULTRAbot targets. If we can start fighting back for a city, and we can draw Saint and his ULTRAbots to that position, we can send the rest of his ULTRAbots out there to destroy themselves. And destroy Saint.”

Vortex shook her head. “I’m not sure I like the sound of this.”

“Me neither,” Ember said.

“Yeah, make that three,” Stone said. “Sounds damned speculative to me.”

Orion hadn’t spoken since our standoff in the forest. I could tell he was weighing up the situation, figuring out the best way to progress.

“I know it’s not going to be easy,” I said.

“It’s not the taking the city I’m too worried about,” Ember said. He was looking right at Daniel. “It’s trusting him.”

I looked at Daniel. It didn’t help that he always had that cocky smile, like he was enjoying the controversy he was causing. “Kyle and I are brothers. Orion over there, he’s my daddy. Why would I do a thing to put either of them at risk?”

“Because of your psychopathic tendencies?” Vortex said.

Daniel chuckled. “I’m a lot of things but a psychopath is absolutely not one of them.”

“Yeah,” Stone said, tensing his fists so they turned to rock. “Ain’t that what a psycho would say?”

“Look,” I said. “You don’t have to trust Daniel. Neither of us has to trust each other. We just have to believe that what we’re doing is the best way to take down Saint.”

“And if this ULTRAbot targeting thing is bullshit?” Ember said. “If there’s no way of turning the ULTRAbots against themselves? What then?”

I swallowed a hard lump in my throat and glanced into Daniel’s eyes once more. “Then we do what we’ve always done. We fight.”

I looked around at the Resistance. There were still whispers and grumbles of discontent. I knew it was going to be hard to win them over to fighting by Daniel’s side.

“I—”

“I know many of us haven’t got off to the best of starts,” Daniel said, cutting me short. “But you have to remember that I saved many of you. I freed you from Area 64.”

“Yeah,” an ULTRA, who was part of the Resistance with fire-red hair, said. “Only for your own gain.”

“That was before,” Daniel said. “But the truth is, you are my kind. I want to fight alongside my kind.”

“And when we win?” Stone shouted. “When Saint’s out of the way? You really telling us you ain’t just gonna go for another power grab?”

“No he isn’t,” I said. “Because we aren’t going to let him.”

Daniel smirked at me. I could understand the skepticism about his motivations. But hell, he was my brother, and I couldn’t help but believe he’d seen the right way. We can’t choose our family, after all.

“What’s in it for you?” Vortex asked. “Truthfully.”

Daniel narrowed his eyes. “Why don’t you look into my mind and find out?”

Vortex’s eyes started to go bloodshot. “Don’t try me.”

“Okay,” I said, eager not to start World War Four right here. “Can we just please have a serious discussion about—”

“What’s in it for me?” Daniel said. “Finding out the truth about what happened to my older sister. And punishing the monster who took her away from me.”

Daniel’s words sounded purer and more convincing than anything else he’d said. It was like he was opening up at last, revealing his true soul.

The disgruntled whispers and murmurings stopped. Instead, I saw the Resistance all looking back at me.

“Whatever happens, wherever we stand, we need to fight,” I said.

Many of the Resistance nodded.

“We need to battle to win back territory. Draw Saint out. And then we strike him right in his heart.”

More nods. More agreement.

“Are we ready to battle?” I shouted.

“Yeah!” The Resistance called.

“Good,” I said. I looked up into the sky. “We’ve got New York to win back.”