Battle of the ULTRAs (16 page)

S
tone held
his ground as another mass of ULTRAbots emerged over the top of Los Angeles.

It was barely light but already the day was warm. By his side, Roadrunner, Ember, Vortex and the rest of the Resistance. When he said the rest of the Resistance, there wasn’t very damned many. Thirty, maybe forty at a push.

But Saint had let them go ’cause he thought they weren’t strong enough to take him down, and because he said he didn’t need him for that weird program of his anymore. That he had a better plan in place.

Well he was damned dumb for feeling that way. ’Cause the Resistance were gonna fight to the end, especially after what Saint did to Orion.

“This isn’t gonna be easy, folks,” Stone shouted, as the number of ULTRAbots thickened. “But the truth is, there’s people here. And where there’s people, they need protecting.”

Vortex nodded. So too did Ember.

They’d heard mixed things about how effective rescuing people from LA really was. Apparently, it wasn’t that big a deal anyway. There’d be a way to get them without needing to physically have the people nearby to brainwash soon. The whole reason Saint had taken a group of humans up to his tower was just for the first phase of brainwashing.

The second phase was so, so close.

But Stone and the Resistance would be damned if they let anything happen to the people of this city.

“How long do you think we can hold ’em off?” Ember asked.

Stone swallowed a lump in his throat. The ULTRAbot cloud grew greater. “As long as it…”

He saw something then. A ball of light right under the ULTRAbots. It started small, but it was growing rapidly by the second.

“What in God’s name is that?” Vortex asked.

Stone didn’t know for definite what that ball of light was. “I can take a damned good guess.”

He didn’t have to say anything else ’cause he knew the Resistance would suspect the same thing. It was the ball of energy that was going to brainwash this city and every other city across the world. Sure, defending the people of LA wasn’t gonna defend everyone on the planet.

But it was a start.

“What do we do about a ball of light like that?” Vortex asked.

Stone took a deep breath of the thick morning air. “We do what we do best,” he said. “We show ’em how tough we are.”

He tensed his fists and felt rock cover his body.

Beside him, Vortex’s eyes rolled back into her skull.

Beside her, Ember’s hands erupted in flames.

Beside him, Roadrunner’s legs started spinning in midair.

And behind the four of them, the rest of the Resistance activated their powers.

“Now,” Stone shouted.

He flew up toward the ULTRAbots. Almost right on cue, the ULTRAbots flew back at him.

He smashed the first one across the jaw, splitting it in two upon contact. He kicked the next one in the chest, sending it right into the middle of that ball of energy. On the ground below, he watched as some of the citizens of LA made their way out of town, sneaking as far away as they could. Stone wasn’t sure about that. He preferred that everyone just stayed put so he knew the whereabouts of everyone he was fighting for.

But he had to focus on the goddamned task at hand right now.

He had to hold off the ULTRAbots, and he had to protect these people.

That’s what Orion would’ve wanted.

That’s what Glacies would’ve wanted.

He slammed into more of them. They fired back, and he took the bulk of their fire, shielding Vortex and the rest of the team. Roadrunner skipped around the ULTRAbots, confusing them with her speed and making them shoot one another. Vortex puzzled them even more, and Ember fired a flamethrower from either hand, incinerating both the ULTRAbots themselves and their bullets.

“Keep pushing back!” Stone cried.

He’d never considered himself a leader. Even when he was sent to correctional for bad behavior as a kid, he’d been one of the quiet ones. He’d always been pretty surprised by his own strength, in truth. It’d made him feel shy. Right from when he was young, he’d had biceps bigger than tree trunks. He kept them covered up because he felt like he’d cheated them in some way. He never exercised, never stayed fit. They just kinda… well, happened.

It was only when he got pissed at his parents for grounding him one night and stones sprouted across his body that he knew he was really, truly different.

The ULTRAbots pushed back harder. More bullets fired into him. He couldn’t stop all of them, and many of them blasted past him, heading toward the ground below.

“There’s too many of ’em!” Ember called.

Stone shook his head and plucked another ULTRAbot from the sky, then threw it back at the rest of its crew. “No.”

“It’s not a yes or a no, Stone,” Ember said. “There’s too goddamned many of them.”

Stone looked at the mass of ULTRAbots. The sky was absolutely covered in them. He didn’t want to accept defeat. He wanted to believe the Resistance could go on long after Orion and Glacies were gone.

But right now it didn’t seem like they were strong enough. Right now, it felt like they were pegged down.

He looked down at the ground. In the distance, he knew the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, a nuclear electricity-generating station, was sitting there, untouched. He’d had a thought for a while now. He just wasn’t sure he could go through with it.

Now, he saw he had to.

“Keep on holding them off,” Stone shouted. “And make sure the people of this city get far, far away.”

Vortex narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“Just keep on fighting.”

“But where are you—”

“I won’t be long. There’s somethin’ I have to do.”

Stone shot through the sky and away from LA before anyone had a chance to protest. He looked over at the nuclear plant as he approached. Saw the tall structures still rumbling away.

He knew what he had to do.

He felt all the anger and all the pain that’d been building up his entire life.

He crashed down in the grounds of the plant.

Then he beat his way underneath the nuclear plant. He ripped it out of the ground, the whole damned thing. The lift was hard. He bit down onto his rocky lips as the stone covered places it’d never covered before. He was convinced this plant was going to crush him.

But then he stood there with it above his head, the whole thing balanced over him.

He flew into the sky again then. Holding the nuclear plant on his back was tough; nigh on impossible. His flight was slower for it. He was constantly fearful of plummeting down toward the ground.

But he kept on pushing. He kept on going. ’Cause he owed it to the Resistance. He owed it to humanity.

After more torturous pushing, he saw the cloud of ULTRAbots up ahead.

They were still fighting. They were getting closer to the city. Ember, Vortex, and Roadrunner were struggling, and so were the rest of the Resistance, more of them falling.

“Ember!” Stone shouted. The shout was louder than any he’d ever let out. It boomed across the land, echoed through the buildings.

Ember looked around at Stone.

So too did all the ULTRAbots.

“Do it,” Stone screamed, tears building in his eyes. “When I get to the middle of them, do it.”

Stone didn’t wait to find out whether Ember agreed.

He just flew at the ULTRAbots.

He took the fire of all their bullets, blocking the nuclear plant from the ULTRAbot attack as well as he could.

He flew faster as the Resistance distracted the ULTRAbots some more, as he hurtled toward the heart of this brainless army.

When he was inches away, his body hardly able to hold on anymore, pieces of rock falling down from him, he saw his mom and dad in his mind. He saw his brother, Stuey. He pictured them up in the Canadian mountains on a trek, so happy, so together. He wanted to be with them again.

“Maybe one day,” he said, tears rolling down his face. “Maybe one damned day.”

He flew to the middle of the ULTRAbots.

“Now!” he screamed.

The ULTRAbots all held their guns but didn’t fire, clearly fully aware of what he was holding, of what it meant.

“I—I can’t,” Ember shouted.

“Do it. Goddamned do it. Now!”

Stone closed his eyes.

He didn’t watch to see if Ember did it.

But when he felt the blast and heard it fill his ears, he knew. He knew damned well he’d done what he had to do.

His last thought was of Orion disappearing into that wormhole, and of Glacies fighting away for the good of humanity. The many times he’d fought to save Stone’s life.

Well there was no saving his life this time. He knew that now.

And he was protecting the Resistance—he was helping humanity—so he was totally cool with that.

The blast cracked his rocky body into pieces.

Light seared through his closed eyes.

He bit down onto his stony lips and pictured everyone good in his life.

Then, he saw nothing.

I
felt
myself slipping further and further into nothingness.

There was a bright blue light ahead of me. It felt warm. I wanted to go to it, but something in my body told me I shouldn’t because it was bad for me. I didn’t know why. I didn’t know where I was, what I was doing, or even
who
I was.

All I wanted to do was go toward that blue light.

As I drifted closer to it, total relaxation covering my fluid body, I realized there was a girl standing behind that blue light. Something told me I recognized her. That she was familiar. I wasn’t sure when from, but it made me want to go to that light even more.

When I got even closer, it dawned on me who the girl was. It was my sister, Cassie. I’d thought she was dead, but here she was, wherever
this
was, alive.

I had to go to her. I had to reach her. I’d failed to reach her when I was younger, in the middle of the Great Blast. I wasn’t going to fail again.

But still something tugged at my back and told me to stop moving because moving toward her was bad news.

The counter-voice soon faded though, drifting away like consciousness in a lucid dream. I felt that warm blue light covering my body. I felt it slipping through my skin, through my muscles, right through to my bones. I drifted so close to my sister’s side that she was right beside me.

She looked at me with those bright blue eyes. It didn’t look like she recognized me.

“Cassie,” I said, my voice distorted and soft. “It’s me. It’s…”

It hit me then. Made my stomach knot in an instant. I remembered who I was, what I was doing here. I remembered exactly what was happening.

Cassie and I had been connected.

Saint was trying to use us to brainwash every last human left on the planet, and keep them that way.

And had he said something about
another
sibling being involved too?

I pushed back against the draw of the light, but when I did that, my body singed with electricity.

“Cassie,” I said, my heart racing. “We—we can’t do this. You have to wake up.”

She didn’t seem to hear me. She just looked at me like she could only slightly make out a voice.

“It’s Kyle. It’s your brother. It’s… it’s me, Cassie.”

Every time I pushed against the draw of that blue light, I felt the resistance getting stronger. I knew what it was. It was similar to the electromagnetism that stung me whenever I tried to fight against those bands.

But I’d fought through those bands before, just like I’d fought through the powers of Controlla.

I could reverse that resistance. I could use it in my favor.

“Cassie,” I said. I could see the blue light getting stronger and I wanted so badly to move toward it. “You need to hear me. It’s Kyle. Saint’s got you. He wants you to brainwash everyone on this planet. You can’t let him do that. You have to fight.”

The blue light got stronger. The pain in my body intensified.

“Cassie!” I said, tears rolling. “See what you’re doing. See what this is. Please. It’s me, sis. It’s me.”

Just for a split second, I saw the blue light in Cassie’s eyes fade. I saw her look at me and recognize me.

“Kyle?” she said.

Just as she said my name, my fight against the resistance slipped.

The blue light returned to her eyes.

It dragged me in toward it, and I slipped away.

It covered my body, and I felt it surround me.

Then I felt it pour out of my own eyes.

Then I felt nothing but pure power.

Pure control.

M
iriam Carter stared
into the sky at the growing ball of light.

It was only morning, but it was boiling hot as that ball of light grew. Miriam was just outside West Hollywood. Her two children, Paddy and Michael, were beside her.

“What’s happening, Mommy?”

Miriam tried to be as reassuring as she could to the kids. But it wasn’t easy, especially when she could see the truth right in front of her. “You two don’t worry. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

“Are the ULTRAs still fighting the bad ones away?”

A bitter taste filled Miriam’s mouth. She’d watched the ULTRAs fight back against the ULTRAbots. She’d watched as one of them flew back with something massive above him—something she recognized in her final moments as a nuclear power plant.

She’d watched as it exploded, taking the army of ULTRAbots with it.

Only that explosion had been swallowed up by the ball of light.

And the ball of light just kept getting bigger.

“Mommy?” Michael asked. “Are they?”

“Yes,” Miriam said. She closed the curtains and walked over to her kids. “Now you come here and give your mommy a hug, okay?”

“Eww,” Paddy said, acting older than his years.

“Don’t you ‘eww’ me. You’re never too old to give your mommy a hug.”

She held her children tight and felt a lump in her throat as the ball of light grew bigger outside. She knew what’d happen when it engulfed her and her children. She’d heard the rumors of brainwashing. She didn’t want to accept that it was going to happen to her, but she couldn’t see any other way now.

It was happening. All she could do was hold her children so they didn’t feel afraid.

“I love you boys,” Miriam said, as the humming noise from the light inched above the house. “You know that, don’t you?”

“I love you too, Mommy,” Michael said.

Paddy hesitated. Then, he spoke too. “And me.”

Miriam felt a warm tear drip down her cheek as she held her boys tightly.

The light beamed in through the windows.

Her memory started to blur.

She knew her time was almost up.

She held her breath, held her kids and prayed for a miracle…