The Ascension: A Super Human Clash (17 page)

Roz wet her lips. “All right, then. You were there.”

Housten sat back. “Me?”

“You were there.”

“I was there. I see. That explains your reaction when you first saw me. You've met me before.”

Joe said, “So the boss here was one of your crew fighting the big fella. So we have you, your brother, the lass with the sword, Paragon, who is apparently not a superhuman but a guy in armor, a kid called Lance who's also not a superhuman and can't do much of anything, Thunder, who can control sound waves, and the big blue guy called Brawn. And now Suzanne, who…Hold on a second.” He looked at Roz for a long moment. “Ah no. You're kidding.”

Suzanne Housten turned to him. “What is it?”

“You were one of the bad guys.”

Roz said, “It's true. In my world you call yourself Slaughter.”

“Well, that's one we didn't see coming,” Joe said. “And what does she do, this Slaughter?”

“She kills people.”

No one seemed to know how to respond to that.

Eventually, Ted said, “I'm sorry, Suzanne.”

The young woman stood up, walked away. And then came rushing back to the table. “No. It's a lie.”

“It's not a lie,” Roz said. “You—no, your counterpart in my world—murdered my friend Lance's parents and brother. And dozens of other people before that. She worked for The Helotry. She was a key part of their plan to bring back the Fifth King.”

“That's impossible. I've never killed anyone!”

Joe said, “But you do have a bit of a temper on you.” Then he hastily added, “I'm just saying!” when she glared at him.

Roz said, “We had a lot of supervillains, and Slaughter was just about the worst. Fast, strong, incredibly vicious, and cruel.”

“Stop it,” Housten said. “Please. I'm not like that.”

“Maybe not, but
she
was!” Roz snapped.

“You little cow…! You're enjoying this, aren't you? This is how you get your revenge on her, by taking it out on me. Well, I—” Housten stopped, and sat down again. “I'm sorry. You've been through a lot today. But I can understand your anger with Slaughter, as long as
you
understand that she's not me.”

“That's true,” Joe said. “Roz, if you want us to believe your version of Max as a good guy instead of a bad one, then you have to accept that Suzanne here isn't Slaughter. Are you with me?”

Roz suddenly felt ashamed.
He's right. He's absolutely right.
“I'm sorry…. It's just that she…”

“You were scared of her,” Joe said. “I don't blame you. I never even heard of her before now, and she scares me too. But Suzanne is probably our most powerful weapon against Krodin. If she has the same powers as Slaughter, what do you think? Can she take him?”

“No,” Roz said. “Max read Krodin's mind—as much of it as he was able to—and said that Krodin's main strength is his adaptability. If you can find something that'll hurt him, it'll work only once. Maybe twice if you're really lucky. He can adapt to any situation, any danger. He recovers almost instantly from any injury. And he seems to have some sort of clairvoyance. A lot of the time when we fought him, he did it with his eyes closed. Max said he can see a battle as though he's looking down on it from above—able to see all sides at once.”

“So who do we know who's a match for him?” Joe asked. “This lad Brawn?”

“Brawn's stronger, I think, but Krodin's much faster and much more cruel. What about this world's versions of the superheroes from my world? Energy, Titan, Quantum, and Heimdall were among the most powerful. And Inferno too. If you want to count the bad guys, there was The Shark, Dioxin, Torture, The Red Fury…. Loads of them.”

Joe said, “I've heard of the first three. They died in Anchorage. The others aren't familiar. But sure they wouldn't necessarily go by the same code names. You know any of their real names?”

Roz shrugged. “Max might know them.”

Suzanne said to Joe, “Daedalus, maybe?”

Joe nodded. “Maybe. Roz, we have connections with Daedalus. I'm sure you've heard the name. He's superhuman. Strong, fast, an incredibly brainy fella. He has some sort of weird intuition about you superfolks. He knows the powers inside out, back to front, and probably upside down as well.”

Roz said, “If you've got him on your side, as well as Sl—Suzanne, plus you've clearly got lots of weapons and people, then…” She shrugged. “What are you waiting for? Why haven't you attacked Krodin yet?”

Ted simply said, “Anchorage.”

Joe said, “Krodin lured all the known superhumans—good guys and bad guys—to Anchorage, and then detonated a cobalt bomb. Blew up the entire city. Everyone thinks Daedalus was behind it, but Ted was able to tell from Krodin's speech at the memorial that he was behind it. If we move against him without a surefire way to stop him, there's every chance he'll do it again. Only next time he might pick an even bigger city. What if he did it in the heart of Manhattan? That's one-and-a-half-million people gone right there.”

“But if you don't do anything, then…what right have you to call yourself the resistance? You're not resisting. You're hiding. You might as well not be here!”

Suzanne said, “When the time is right—”

“Really? When will
that
be? How long are you planning to sit on your butts and do nothing?”

Joe raised his hands. “Now, hold on there, Roz! You've been here less than a day. You don't know—you
can't
know—what it's been like for us.” He ran his hands over his hair and sighed. “The right time to attack Krodin is coming, very soon now. But we have to be certain of winning, because we're only going to get one shot at it. With you and your friends here, and with Unity's forces on the way, we're stronger than we have ever been, but we're still going to need more superhumans. Who else do you know who might have survived Anchorage?”

“Impervia,” Roz said. “She's here; I've already met her. She's very strong, practically invulnerable, and she can fly. Her real name is Amandine Paquette.”

“Ah,” Joe said. “Yeah, we know her. Number four on our list of enemies. You think we can turn her?”

Roz shrugged. “She seems to be committed to the idea that Krodin's way is the right way. I didn't know her too well back home, but she was a lot more, well, peace loving. But if we
can
persuade her to join us, she'd make a great ally. She…” Roz stopped herself. “Number four. Krodin and Max are numbers one and two on your list. Who's number three?”

The others all turned to the older man, who until now had remained silent.

He was absently stroking his dark beard as he stared at Roz. “You are.”

THREE YEARS ago…

A week after the attack on Anchorage, Krodin stood in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations Headquarters in New York as he addressed the representatives of all 187 member states.

“Good morning. If I could have your attention, please?” He waited a few moments for the representatives to settle down. “I'll keep this brief. The President of the United States has appointed me to lead the investigation into the recent act of terrorism that caused the deaths of more than one hundred thousand U.S. citizens. I have been granted full per mission to use any means necessary to facilitate that investigation.” Krodin paused long enough for the translators in the gallery to relay the message to everyone present. “My first act is this: Effective immediately, and for the foreseeable future, the borders of the United States of America are closed.”

An angry murmur rippled through the room.

“Until we can determine the nationality of the perpetrators behind the attack on Anchorage, we have no choice but to recall our ambassadors from your countries and remove all non-U.S. citizens from U.S. territory.”

The members were on their feet now, turning to each other in confusion, screaming their protests, reaching for their cell phones to contact their governments.

“This is not open for discussion,” Krodin said, almost shouting to be heard. “An unfathomable atrocity has been committed against the people of the United States, and we will stop at nothing to see that those responsible are brought to justice.”

The Australian representative called out, “This is
madness
, Krodin! What evidence do you have that the attack wasn't carried out by Americans?”

“You want evidence?” Krodin shouted back. “Fine.
Here's
the evidence!” He gestured to the screen behind him.

The uproar was instantly silenced as every representative stared at the screen.

“Most of you won't know what that means. But there's at least one of you who does. We can't prove it. Not yet.”

Krodin looked over the sea of guilty faces, then glanced at Max Dalton, who was standing at the back of the room, deep in concentration.

The screen showed a photograph of a fire-blackened human skull. Earlier, Max had scanned the minds of every representative, and now he was coercing their minds into linking the disturbing image with their most guilty secrets. Each representative was now certain that his or her government had some connection with the attack on Anchorage.

In the five thousand years since Krodin was born, one thing had remained constant: Politicians
always
had something to hide.

 

Two months later, Krodin stood, arms crossed, on the plush carpet of the White House's Oval Office.

He thought that the president was starting to look considerably older than his sixty years. The man's once-dark hair was peppered with gray, the lines on his face were deepening, and there was an edge to his voice that told Krodin all he needed to know: The president was desperate for a solution.

“Krodin, this is not going to end well. Every nation in the world is beefing up its defenses because they're afraid we're going to invade. I can't believe I let you and Dalton persuade me to go along with your plans. And you haven't even found Daedalus yet! So what's the deal there, huh? Is he smarter than you, is that it? More powerful? How is it that you and your think tank of geniuses have made absolutely no progress in finding him? Is this some sort of game to you? More than a few of my advisers are telling me that you're playing us. They think you've been working with Daedalus all along.”

“With respect, Mr. President—”

“Shut up, Krodin—I'm talking here!” He sat back in his chair. “I mean, for crying out loud, you're not even a U.S. citizen! You're, what, Egyptian or Persian or something like that? Don't answer. I'm still talking. We've given you everything you've asked for. We declared a state of emergency, closed the borders, quadrupled the armed forces. You've already cost us
trillions
of dollars! Taxes have more than doubled in some states. We've turned America into a fortress. No, worse than that, it's practically a prison. Nothing in or out. You do know that the nation is going to grind to a halt without the oil from the Middle East?”

“We're not going to need oil for much longer,” Krodin said. “Solomon Cord's work on photovoltaic cells is—”

“Did I say I was finished? No, I didn't.” The president tapped the thick, unopened folder lying on the desk. “And now you want to establish this private security firm of yours as, what, some kind of auxiliary police force? And you expect me to persuade Congress to go along with that?”

Krodin said nothing.

“Well? Answer me!”

Let's make him sweat a little more
, Krodin thought, and slowly counted to twenty in his head. “If you'll just
read
the report before you criticize it…”

The president narrowed his eyes. “No you don't. You don't get to talk to me like that. Just because you're some kind of immortal superhuman that does
not
give you the right to disrespect me or this office. I could have
you
deported, you know.”

Krodin sighed and sat on the edge of the desk. “You couldn't. But I'm not here to make things harder for you. Read the report. It took my people a year to compile it, so the least you could do is…Forget that. I'll summarize. The country's law-enforcement structure—everything from the CIA right down to the average cop on the street—is a mess. You've got dozens of departments who barely talk to each other because they're all either afraid of stepping outside their boundaries or they're hoarding their wins like a greedy kid who still has all his candy two weeks after Halloween.”

“That's a
gross
oversimplification—”

“Your turn to shut up, Walt,” Krodin interrupted. “
I'm
talking now. I'm not proposing a private security firm. What I'm proposing is that all the law-enforcement departments and every branch of the military be replaced with one organization. Not all at once, but certainly over the next five years. They will be the Praetorian Guard. And before you ask, the Praetorian Guard were handpicked bodyguards used by Roman emperors. They were the best of the best. They were utterly dedicated and absolutely incorruptible, just as our Praetorians will be.”

“We can't afford that. The training alone…” The president shook his head. “No.”

“Yes,” Krodin said. “I'm not saying we replace the
people
, just the structures under which they work. I give you my guarantee that their efficiency will double every two months for the first year. As for the cost…Look at the bottom line.” He flipped open the folder and pushed it closer to the president. “This is your combined annual budgets for the police and military. Now look at the next page, the budget for the Praetorians.”

The president reached out and turned the page. “It's…less than half.” He looked up at Krodin. “This is real?”

“Oh, it's even better than you think, Walt. That's just the first year, and it includes the cost of the changeover. The second year will cost you about a third of that. And that's including equipment and training. America can't afford
not
to do this. Think about it. You can divert the savings into education, welfare, whatever you like.”

The president's fingers were trembling slightly as he flipped back and forth through the report. “But an organization this size would be almost impossible to manage.”

“Not for me and my team,” Krodin said. “Superhuman, remember? I'll coordinate everything from the top down. Directly under me will be Max Dalton, Solomon Cord, and Casey Duval working out of my Chicago offices. With their brains and their abilities, we can get this started a lot faster than you might think. A couple of months at most.”

“But you're a civilian, Krodin…. You don't fit into the political structure. You're not a politician.”

“So
make
me into a politician. We're already under martial law. You're the commander in chief. Create this new position and appoint me to run it.”

The president pushed the folder away. He sat back, stared up at the ceiling. “I'm going to want to see a much more detailed report, get my own people to check it out, but…You could be on to something here. All right, let's suppose we do it.” He leaned forward again, and smiled at Krodin. “You'd need a title, of course. Adviser? No, too vague. Overseer wouldn't really work…. I know: You can be Chancellor.”