The Ascension: A Super Human Clash (28 page)

“I'm OK. Daedalus is gone. He's…”

“Lance?”

Lance was sitting on the ground, holding his head. “I'm OK, I think. Got a headache the size of a bus, though.”

Roz said, “Me and Josh. We're fine. I used a telekinetic shield. I covered Max with it too, but I didn't have time to extend it to cover—”

Cord interrupted. “Save the apologies for later. You did good. Anyone else?”

A chunk of masonry the size of a manhole cover was pushed aside, and Suzanne Housten—her clothing now almost completely ragged—clawed her way out from under it. She coughed into the dust-packed floor. “I'll survive.”

“Good. Brawn?” Cord asked.

The giant stirred, groaned loudly. “Nothing broken, I think.”

“Then get over here and help me. I'm pinned under a girder or something. Lance? You're staying here with Josh and Max. No arguments.”

As Brawn crawled over to Cord, Abby looked around and spotted a two-inch-thick steel pole a little over six feet long.

She snatched it up, gave it an experimental swing. It wasn't going to be as useful as her sword, but it'd do. She moved back toward the wrecked doors.

“Where are you going?” Lance asked. He grabbed her hand and tried to pull her back.

She pulled her arm free. “Out there. I've got to stop him.”

“Are you
nuts
? Krodin will tear your head off!”

“He's not the one I have to stop. It's Daedalus…. I think he might be
worse
than the Fifth King. Out in the corridor, he just…He just killed a bunch of men.”

Roz stepped between Lance and Abby. “How do you know who he is? You've seen him before?”

“No, but I…I just know. He was masquerading as Max's pilot…. He could have gone up against Krodin anytime, but he knew he couldn't defeat him. You see what he's done? There are so few other superhumans left, but when we appeared in this world…He didn't bring you here to help him. We're not his allies; we're cannon fodder. He wants us to destroy the teleporter while he keeps Krodin busy.”

Suzanne and Cord approached, followed by Brawn.

“You're not going alone,” Suzanne said.

Brawn nodded. “All of us, together.”

Roz looked back to the corner of the room. “But Max…”

Abby didn't want to answer. Even the thought of Max Dalton set her teeth on edge. She turned away, climbed over the ruined doors and out into the corridor.

 

Lance watched the others go, then turned back to Joshua Dalton, who was sitting on the ground next to his brother. “How is he?”

Josh shrugged. Without looking at Max, he said, “Still breathing.”

Lance bit his lip. “We can't stay here, but we can't exactly bring him with us.”

“We're not leaving him!”

“I know that.”
Come on
, Lance said to himself,
think! Brandon said you've got a gift for understanding people, so you should be able to come up with a way out of this.
“Josh, you know Krodin better than I do. There has to be
something
we can use against him.”

Josh stood up, brushed the dust from his clothes. “Can't think of anything. He's, like, way smarter than anyone else, and way stronger too. How did you defeat him last time?”

Lance began to pick through the rubble, searching for something he could use as a weapon. “That's just it. We
didn't
defeat him. We thought we did, but all we really did was get him out of the way. That's not something we can do now. Whatever we do to him will only work once, because he just adapts himself to compensate for it. We can't beat him up, or shoot him, or strangle him….”

Josh nodded. “Right. Like Rasputin.”

Lance carefully picked up a large, razor-sharp splinter of glass that had fallen from the Raptor's cockpit. “What?”

“Rasputin. That Russian guy. The Mad Monk, they called him. Max told me about him once. People believed he was psychic, and he had great influence over the tsar. But he was nuts, and they decided they had to kill him. They poisoned him, but that didn't work. Beat him up, stabbed him, shot him. In the end, they drowned him.”

Lance used the glass splinter to cut the sleeve off his jacket, then wrapped the sleeve around the broad end. “And that helps us how, exactly?”

“I'm just saying. I always thought it would have been easier if they'd found someone Rasputin cared about and said they'd kill them if he didn't stop.”

“Is there anyone Krodin cares about like that?”

Josh shook his head. “Not anymore. Before he was brought to our time, he was married and had kids, but they're all long dead by now. We need to think of a way to hurt him that's never been done before.”

“And you never guessed that Brandon was Daedalus?”

“No. How would I?”

A deep, powerful, angry roar came from elsewhere in the base, and the floor shook once more.

Dust and small fragments of concrete rained down on Lance, and he automatically crouched forward to shield Josh from the debris.

Directly overhead, the crashed Raptor shifted down a couple of inches.

“Josh, help me! We've got to get Max out of here before that thing flattens all of us!”

“We can't move him—he could die!”

“He definitely
will
die if we leave him.” Lance looked down at Max.
How can you lift a man without touching him?
“We need Roz,” he said to Josh. “She can use her telekinesis.”

Josh nodded, turned toward the doorway. “I'll see if I can—”

Lance ran after him, pulled him back. “You will
not
! You stay here, I'll find her.” He quickly looked around. “Wait here in the doorway—it'll be safer if more of the roof collapses. But keep out of sight. Got that?”

Josh looked as though he was on the edge of tears. “But…”

Lance reached out and squeezed Josh's shoulder in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. “You'll be fine. Trust me.”

He readjusted his grip on the glass splinter and kept low as he climbed over the ruined doors.

OK, follow the sounds of the battle
, he told himself.
And don't get killed.

The corridor was strewn with debris: fallen ceiling tiles, shattered bricks, looping lengths of glowing fiber-optic cable. Somewhere above a pipe had burst, flooding the corridor with tepid, rank water that lapped around the top of Lance's sneakers.

Far off to Lance's left was a rectangular patch of red light, and it took him a moment to realize exactly what it was: a blood-smeared window.

In the darkness his left foot stepped on something that yielded slightly, and when he looked down, he saw that it was the half-hidden arm of a Praetorian soldier. The man's hand twitched every couple of seconds.

At least that means he's not dead
, Lance thought. Then added,
I hope.
He crouched down next to the man, probed the dark water.
Maybe he had a gun….

Then something was splashing toward him, crashing into him.

Lance felt a large fist slam into his jaw, a heavy boot catch him in the stomach. He tried to scramble away, put his hand down on the unconscious Praetorian guard's face—it slipped and he fell forward, tumbled over the guard, and landed on his back.

He looked up to see Remington standing over him, his eyes wide with rage.

“What have you
done
?” Remington screamed. He plunged his hands into the water at his feet, came up with a small handgun. “You've killed more than a dozen of my men, you sick little punk! You trying to finish this one too?”

“No!” Lance shook his head. “It wasn't me—I just found him like this!”

Remington was gripping the gun so tightly that his hand was quivering. “His blood is all over you!”

Lance looked at his hands, chest, and stomach where he'd slithered over the guard. He was soaked in blood.

And then he looked at the fallen guard's face. It had been pulped, was barely recognizable as human.

He turned back to Remington. The man was standing almost directly over him now—there was no way for Lance to escape. “I swear it wasn't me!”

“Liar!”

The gun boomed in Remington's hand.

AS HE RACED THROUGH the dark, flickering corridors Solomon Cord was certain that they had no chance of living to see tomorrow.

Ahead of him, Suzanne Housten—he still couldn't help but think of her as Slaughter—and Abby crashed together through a thick wooden fire door and simultaneously rolled through the shower of splinters and landed on their feet. They launched themselves at a squadron of armed Praetorian guards, spinning, kicking, punching.

Roz was close behind them, scattering the men aside like human bowling pins without even touching them.

Brawn was somewhere farther ahead: Cord could tell from his rage-filled screams and what sounded like brick walls being torn apart.

A Praetorian soldier lunged at Cord from the side; Cord slammed his elbow into the man's chest, then immediately dropped and swept his left leg in a wide arc that collided with the back of the soldier's knees, sending him collapsing to the ground. In one move Cord grabbed hold of the soldier's rifle by the barrel, jerked it free from the man's grasp, and carried the movement through into a spin that ended with the rifle's butt crashing into the side of the soldier's head.

Ahead, he saw Abby reach a corner and skid to a stop, Suzanne almost colliding with her. They both looked back to Cord, their eyes wide.

Roz too stopped when she got to the corner.

“What is it?” Cord called.

“Daedalus,” Roz said. “And Krodin.”

Cord could hear the blows now; it sounded almost mechanical—it reminded him of the noise of an old tenement building being demolished by a wrecking ball.

When he came to the corner, he saw that there was a lone Praetorian guard standing in front of Abby, seemingly oblivious to everything but what he was watching.

Then Cord realized that this was one of the base's main corridors, and that they were standing at the entrance.

Outside, on a large octagonal landing pad, Krodin was locked in a struggle with Daedalus.

Each man had his hands locked around the other's throat, their muscles and tendons—both flesh and steel—straining. Around them the landing pad's now-fractured concrete base was strewn with bloodied and broken soldiers, many of them twitching or trying to crawl away, most unmoving.

The Praetorian guard suddenly noticed Cord peering over his shoulder. The man jumped, then collapsed as Cord slammed his fist into his face.

“This is not a spectator sport,” Cord said. “Abby, you know where the teleporter is?”

“I can find it.”

“Lead the way. Roz, Suzanne…you stay here, keep watch. If one of them gains the upper hand, you help the other one. The longer they're fighting each other, the better off the rest of us will be.” He was about to turn away, then stopped. “Where's Brawn?”

As if the giant had heard his name mentioned, Brawn was suddenly sailing through the air from somewhere overhead, leaping toward Daedalus and Krodin.

Brawn crashed into Krodin shoulder-first, sent him sprawling, tumbling across the broken ground.

“Let's move, Abby,” Cord said. He took one last look at the scene—Daedalus was dropping down toward Krodin with the razor-sharp claws on his boots extended—then followed Abby back along the corridor.

 

Lying on his back in three inches of water, Lance McKendrick stared up at Remington, who was looking back at him in shock.

Lance had felt the bullet clip the side of his jacket, just below his left armpit.
He missed. I don't believe it! He's standing right over me and he missed!

Remington swallowed loudly, dropped the gun, and backed away. “What…what
are
you?”

Without taking his eyes off him, Lance pushed himself to his feet.
His hand was shaking too much, or maybe there was dirt in the barrel or something. He missed, and he doesn't realize that's what happened.

Still walking backward, Remington stumbled, almost fell. “The reports said you're an ordinary human!”

“Reports can be faked,” Lance said, trying to keep his voice steady. “Where's the teleporter?”

Remington jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Back that way. But the room is sealed. Emergency protocol kicked in the second your Raptor crashed into the base.”

“Can you control the teleporter from anywhere else?”

“I can set up a link to it from my office.”

“Take me there.”

Remington shook his head. “No. Krodin will kill me.”

Oh man
, Lance thought.
If this doesn't work, I'm toast.
He stepped close to Remington. “Now you listen to me, you pathetic little weed. You will do whatever I tell you to do or we're going to reach the point where the words ‘excruciating agony' aren't nearly strong enough. Do you understand me?”

“Who
are
you?”

“You know what happened to Krodin in my world?”

“Yeah…”

“Does the name Pyrokine ring any bells?”

Remington's eyes widened. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes. Now do we have an understanding? Or would you prefer to go through the rest of your life with no fingers? It's a simple trick for me, turning matter into energy. Like I did to that bullet.” Lance raised his hand, pointed at Remington's face in what he hoped looked like a sinister way, and added, “It's all the same to me, Remington.”

Lance forced his hand to twitch a little, and Remington took a step back.

“Well?”

“I'll show you.”

“Good. Any tricks and I'll vaporize you. Very slowly, from your feet up. Walk ahead of me.”

As they passed the wrecked door to the large storeroom, Lance saw Joshua Dalton peeking out, and gestured to him to follow. “How far can the teleporter send something?” he asked Remington as Josh came out to join them. Lance put his finger to his lips and shook his head.

Josh nodded.

“Distance is meaningless,” Remington said, “when you're working on the subatomic level. Every particle in the universe—”

Lance interrupted. “So it can pick up something from anywhere, send it anywhere else?”

“Yes.”

“Then we're going to use it to send Max to the emergency room of the nearest hospital.”

In the next corridor Remington stopped at a small door, then fished around in his pocket for a moment before pulling out a small key. He unlocked the door, and as he opened it, Lance held out his hand and said, “Key?”

Remington dropped the key into Lance's hand.

Lance held up the key between the index finger and thumb of his left hand. “And just so you don't get the idea of locking us in again…” He faked grabbing the key in his right hand and thought,
Please, Josh, don't say anything!

Lance concentrated on his closed right fist, then opened it. He raised his hand to his face and blew away imaginary particles.
That ought to keep him convinced I'm Pyrokine.

He pushed his way past Remington into the office. It was smaller than he'd expected: a single desk containing a keyboard and screen and a bank of computer equipment against one wall. “Show me how to work it.”

 

A half mile from the base, James Klaus bit his lip and tried to psych himself up for the coming pain. After he'd focused his shock wave on the power-damping machine, he'd lowered himself to the ground next to the unconscious Jetman and found a long steel cable attached to the man's belt. With considerable difficulty he'd tied the cable to his right ankle, looped it around a tree trunk, and was now holding on to the free end.

He'd seen it done once before, on a TV show.

I can do this. It'll hurt like crazy for a bit, but it's only pain. Pain is just a signal telling the brain that something's wrong, and I already
know
that something's wrong…. So, brain, no need to tell me. OK?

He lowered himself to the ground, wound up the cable's slack, and made sure he had a firm grip. His good leg was pressed against the tree trunk.

He took a series of short, deep breaths.
OK. Do it.

He pulled hard on the cable, and screamed as he felt the bones in his right leg grind together. Then his hand grew slick with sweat and the cable slipped through.

James opened his eyes and looked. The jagged edge of the lower half of his tibia had slipped back beneath the skin.

He sat there shivering and sweating and panting for a long time, trying to wait out the pain.

I did it. OK. Now what?
He looked around, saw the still unconscious Jetman.
The armor on his leg—that'd make a good splint.

James rolled onto his side and dragged himself over to the flyer.

 

From the relative safety of the base's entrance, Roz Dalton and Suzanne Housten watched with open mouths as the battle between Krodin and Daedalus raged on in the shadow of the giant Carrier.

Daedalus was faster, stronger, and more agile. His armor—whatever it was made of—seemed to protect him from even the most vicious of Krodin's punches and kicks. The complex metal framework on Daedalus's back seemed to act almost as a second set of arms, its twin thick limbs lashing out at Krodin, knocking him aside, snaking out to trip him up.

Daedalus's attack was relentless, merciless, devastating.

A few moments ago Daedalus had angrily slammed his clasped fists into the side of Brawn's head, even though Brawn had been grappling with Krodin.

Roz knew then that Abby had been right: Daedalus was worse than Krodin. Anyone would have to be completely insane to attack an ally so that he could get to an enemy.

Again and again, Krodin was forced back, but each of Daedalus's blows seemed to injure the Fifth King less than the one before.

She knew that Krodin was going to win. He could keep fighting forever, but eventually Daedalus's armor was going to run out of power.

Working together Roz and Suzanne had already taken the fallen guards to safety, Roz using her telekinesis and Suzanne swooping down and lifting them away. Now they could do nothing but watch, and wait for either Krodin or Daedalus to gain the upper hand.

Again, Brawn recovered and leaped into the fray. He pulled Krodin free of Daedalus's grasp and tossed him high into the air.

Krodin came down hard on the Carrier's landing deck, and Brawn whirled about to face Daedalus. “What do you keep hitting
me
for?” Brawn bellowed. “I'm on your side!”

Daedalus looked up at the giant's face for a moment, then took a step back.

Suzanne nudged Roz. “What's he doing…?”

The metal framework on Daedalus's back extended once more. The twin arms spread straight out on either side at shoulder height and then quickly began to unfold, the arms splitting into a series of thin strips.

In seconds, the mechanism was complete: Giant metal wings sprouted from his back. They flapped once, and Daedalus soared into the air, arcing toward the Carrier.

Suzanne whispered, “Of course. Daedalus.”

Roz looked at her. “What does that
mean
?”

“Greek mythology…Daedalus was an inventor, a genius. King Minos locked him in a tower so that his knowledge could never be used by anyone else. Daedalus used feathers and wax to create wings for himself and his son. But Icarus flew too high, and the heat of the sun melted the wax. He fell into the sea and drowned.”

“And Daedalus?”

“Daedalus flew.”

Brawn limped over to Roz and Suzanne, examining his bloodied knuckles. “Now what? I still don't know which one I'm supposed to be fighting! We should just leave them to it and then take on whichever one of them is left standing.”

The idea was so tempting that Roz found herself leaning toward it. She shook her head briskly. “No. We fight
with
Daedalus against Krodin. Daedalus might be insane, but I'm guessing he's still mortal. If we win and he turns on us and enslaves the planet, at least he'll eventually die of old age.”

Suzanne's shoulders sagged, as though all the fight had left her. “Roz…Even if there was a hundred of us, we still wouldn't be able to defeat Krodin. You know that, don't you? My people have been gathering data on him for years. He has no weaknesses.”

Roz stared at the Carrier, where Krodin and Daedalus were pummeling each other with such ferocity that they could hear the blows even where they were. “Everyone has a weakness. We just have to find it.”

Brawn straightened up, slowly turned to the south. “Something's coming.”

Roz looked. Above the treetops a dark dot was approaching. A fighter jet: It streaked overhead and then banked to the west.

“Reconnaissance,” Suzanne said softly.

Another jet appeared, then two more, each one coming from the south and then taking a different path.

“Unity,” Suzanne said. “They're here.”

 

Lance and Josh looked over Remington's shoulders at the computer screen.

“We, uh, input the source coordinates here, destination coordinates here,” Remington said. “Here we tell the system when we want it to activate, so we can queue them up in advance. Right now it's gearing up to run through a set of emergency procedures.”

Lance looked at the complex list of figures that was rapidly scrolling up on a second screen. “What's all this?”

“Aw no!” Remington slid his chair over to the second screen's keyboard and began typing. “Fighters—
hundreds
of them! MiGs, Tornados, Hornets…Looks like the whole world has turned up for the party. This is exactly what Krodin was expecting, except that none of us were supposed to be here.”

“Forget them,” Lance said. “Unseal the door to the teleporter room.”

“I can't. Krodin and Max are the only ones who can do that.”

Josh said, “Then disable it.”

“Same problem.”

“All right,” Lance said. “OK, let's think…. Right. If Unity wants to destroy this base, we'll let them. Set up the teleporter to send us all away from here. And send Abby first. Uh, and Roz too.”