The Ascension: A Super Human Clash (3 page)

He instructed Abby on how to aim the bow, then stepped back. “Take your time…. Fix the sight where you want to hit the crate, draw back the string…Right back…Tuck your right hand under your chin. The string should be just touching the tip of your nose. OK. How's that feel?”

Abby grunted. “It's not easy, but I can do it.”

“That's good. It means the draw is about right for you. Now, don't just open your hand when you let go—pull back a little at the same time.”

There was a loud
whip
as Abby released the cable, followed immediately by an even louder
thunk
from the far end of the alley. The wooden crate didn't even move. “I missed.”

“OK, let's find the arrow and see how much you missed by.” He passed Abby the quiver and she hoisted it onto her shoulder. “You've got forty-three arrows there. You could maybe use ordinary arrows, but they mightn't survive being launched from the bow.”

They walked side by side along the alleyway. “Thanks for this, Mr. Cord. I can't believe that you spent all this money on me.”

“First, it's not Mr. Cord. It's Solomon, or Sol. But never call me that when I'm wearing the armor, OK? Second, it's not
my
money, it's Max's. I just designed and built it. You're going to have to practice, Abby. A lot. An arrow from an ordinary bow could easily kill someone. An arrow from
this
bow could kill an elephant.”

“How do I fold it back up again?”

“Give it here and I'll show you,” Cord said. He took the bow from Abby's hands and pointed out the levers set into the riser, one above the grip, one below. “You pull these out and the cable will go slack enough for the limbs to collapse. I had to build a machine to do it—I don't have the strength to do it myself.”

They reached the end of the alley. “I can't see the arrow,” Abby said. “It's too dark.”

Cord looked up. “Could be a storm coming.”

“Hold on a second….” Abby crouched down in front of the crate. There was a nickel-sized hole in the front. “Hey, maybe I
did
hit it.” She moved around to the back of the crate. There was a matching hole—its edges splintered a little—on the other side. “Yeah, I think I did! That means the arrow went right through, so it should be…” She peered along the arrow's path. “Wow!”

“Wow is right,” Cord said.

The arrow was embedded in the brick wall at the end of the alley—only the last eight inches of the shaft were protruding.

Cord took hold of the arrow's shaft and pulled—it didn't move. “I think
you'd
better do it.”

Abby slid the arrow out of the wall and examined the tip. “The pointy bit is still pointy.” She grinned. “I like my new toy!”

“Glad to hear it,” Cord said. They began to walk back toward his car. “Don't shoot it at people unless you absolutely have no choice, because in
your
hands this is more dangerous than a gun.”

“Can you get more of this cable? Because I was thinking that I could use it like you use your grappling-hook gun. Like, I could be on the top of a building and shoot the cable across to the next building, and then climb across.”

“I'll definitely look into that. But with your strength you could probably just jump from one building to another.”

“
Or…,”
Abby said, grinning, “you could build me a jetpack like yours.”

But Cord didn't respond. He was staring along the alley. “Where's my car?”

“You didn't leave the keys in the ignition, did you? Around here we call that ‘public transport.'”

“No one can start my car but me. I built the transmission myself.”

Abby looked down at the alley floor…. “Wasn't there a pile of garbage bags just here?” She turned around. “And the crate is gone. Something weird is going on….”

 

Lance McKendrick felt something cold and hard and metallic press against the back of his neck.

There was a sharp click—the sound of a gun being cocked—and a woman's voice said, “You have three seconds to give me a reason not to shoot you, kid.”

LANCE SLOWLY RAISED his hands. “It's not what you think.”

“Sure it's not,” the woman said. “You're telling me you didn't see the tape outside? The bright yellow tape with the words ‘Police Line—Do Not Cross' all over it? Or maybe you can't read, is that it?”

“I can read. And I saw the tape. But I'm not trespassing.”

“I saw you picking the lock. Quite expertly, I should add.”

“I lost my key. This is
my
house.”

A pause. “Name?”

“Lance McKendrick.”

“Age? Date of birth?”

“I'm fourteen. My birthday's September the second.”

“What year?”

“Duh!
Every
year.”

Lance felt the pressure of the gun's muzzle ease, then the woman said, “From what Max Dalton told me, only
you
could make such a lame joke with a gun at the back of your head. You can lower your arms, Lance.”

He relaxed and turned to look at her. She was in her mid-twenties, he guessed. Tall, with lightly tanned skin, blue eyes, and brown hair. She was wearing a long black duster over a skintight blue-and-silver costume.

“Who are you?” Lance asked.

“A friend of Max. He sent me to look for you when you disappeared from Hawksley last night.”

“You're another superhuman, obviously.”

“Yes. I suppose you could think of me as Max's secret weapon. I have certain skills that make me ideally suited to be your bodyguard—though you're clearly not without skills yourself. You got out of the cell block, stole a car belonging to one of the builders, and drove it—very badly—halfway across the state before they even noticed you were gone. How exactly
did
you get out of Hawksley?”

Lance grinned. “You think I'm dumb enough to tell you that? I might need to escape again one day. Anyway, I've already figured out six other ways out of that place.”

“Then you won't be going back there.” The woman looked around the sitting room of the McKendrick house. It had been almost demolished in Slaughter's rampage. “I'm sorry about what happened to your family.”

“Yeah. Me too. I had to come back. They wouldn't let me see the place after…” He looked down at his hands and realized they were clenched into fists. “What makes someone
do
something like that?”

“I wish I knew. I've encountered Slaughter a couple of times. She's…insane. That's the only way I can get any sort of handle on her. As for why she came here…From what Max learned from the minds of The Helotry's leaders, they were after you ever since you broke into their warehouse and stole their prototype jetpack. They had you down for execution.”

Lance brushed the splintered remains of a wooden lamp off the arm of the sofa and sat down. “But they caught me when we were in Oak Grove. They brought me to their HQ. They could have killed me then.”

“They needed to know what you knew. Plus you managed to talk your way out of being killed. More than once, I'm told. Why did you come back here, Lance?”

“I wanted to collect some stuff. And…I had to see where it happened.”

“You put yourself at risk, leaving the prison. For all we know Slaughter could be watching you right now.”

“I couldn't stay there any longer. I mean, apart from the boredom, the security was a joke. No disrespect to you and the rest of Dalton's hired help, but I'm fourteen and I don't have any superpowers, and I still managed to break out and find my way home.”

“Go and get what you came for. You've got five minutes, and then I'm taking you to our backup location. You cannot come back here. Ever. Do you understand that? If you value your life at all, you'll never even set foot in Fairview again.”

Lance nodded, and stood up. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Amandine Paquette. Call me Mandy. But if anyone else is around, use my code name: Impervia.”

He walked over to the ruined bookcase and rummaged through the books on the floor. “I've heard rumors about you. You're supposed to be super-strong or something like that, right?”

“Close enough.”

Lance picked up two heavy volumes of his mother's prized
Encyclopedia Britannica
and handed them to Mandy. She had to put her gun back into its holster to take them.

He pointed to the wall behind her. “I was going to take that too…. But I don't suppose you'll let me.”

Mandy turned to look at the large photo. It showed Lance and his brother in their best clothes, sitting on the floor in front of their parents.

“No, it's too big.”

“I wasn't going to take the frame and the glass. Just the picture.”

“Probably not a good idea. You're supposed to have a new identity. That wouldn't really work if you're carrying around a huge photo of yourself with your family.” Then she turned back to face him. “And don't think I didn't notice what you were doing, Lance.”

Lance did his best to look surprised and a little hurt. “What?”

“You lifted my gun from the holster and tucked it into the back of your jeans.” She let the books drop to the floor. “Hand it over.”

He took a step backward. “I'm not going with you.”

“Slaughter will find you.”

“Don't you get it? I
want
her to find me! And when she does, I'm going to kill her!”

“Her skin is bulletproof, Lance. You know that—you were right there in Midway when that soldier shot her in the head.”

“Right. And later when she was unconscious, he put his gun in her mouth and wanted to blow the back of her head off. Well, I'm liking that plan more and more. She murdered my family!”

“And you want to make her pay for that by letting her murder you too? Get real, kid. You have less chance of hurting her than you'd have of knocking the moon out of its orbit by throwing stones at it. I've read your profile, Lance. I know you. Even if by some miracle you managed to get Slaughter into a position where you
could
kill her, you wouldn't do it.”

Lance pulled the gun out of the back of his jeans and handed it to Mandy. “She took everything from me.”

“I know.”

“My mom and dad worked for
years
to buy this house. It was way out of their price range, but they wanted the best for me and Cody. They both had to take second jobs.” He suddenly laughed. “Dad took guitar lessons. I was about four, I think, when he started. He borrowed a guitar from a friend, and every Tuesday night he took lessons at the community college. On Thursday nights he had a bunch of people here teaching them what he'd just learned. He was always just one step ahead of the people he was teaching, but he had them believing he was an expert.”

Mandy smiled. “Now, who does that remind me of? Come on. We've been here too long already. You'd better just get your things.”

 

Roz watched as the heavy gray clouds rolled in from the east. They were coming in fast and low, obscuring the buildings on the far side of Central Park, then over the park itself, until all she could see was a thick mist.

It lasted only a moment, and then the sky was clear again.

The ever-present hum of Manhattan's traffic was gone.

And in the middle of Central Park, where there once had been grass and trees and people, there was now a one-hundred-and-fifty-story glass-and-steel building.

 

James Klaus suddenly realized that there were voices coming from the north forty acres. Thousands of voices, mixed with the hum of hundreds of electronic machines, the roar of dozens of powerful engines.

Behind him, Faith came running from the kitchen. “
James?
Is that you?”

He turned around, confused. “Of course it's me. I…” He stopped. Faith had been wearing a loose sweatshirt and faded jeans. She was now wearing a long off-white dress belted around the waist.

“What are you even
doing
here?” Faith asked. “Is this some sort of trick or something? How did you do that?”

“What do you mean? I've been here since yesterday! And when did you get time to change your clothes?”

They stared at each other, then Faith said, “How did you get here without the Praetorians seeing you? I know your dad's made friends with some of them, but they wouldn't allow this.”

“Praetorians?”

“Over in the north forty. The training camp. The soldiers, remember?”

“What? This isn't making any sense,” James said, looking around. He walked over to the half-closed barn door. “Look, the tractor is in there—there's no way Dad could have gotten back and parked it without me hearing him!”

“Your father hasn't used that old thing in years. I doubt it still even runs.”

“No, I saw him driving off in it this morning—and I could
hear
him driving it just a few minutes ago!” He walked into the barn and placed his hand on the tractor's engine casing. It was cold.

 

Lance slung his brother's backpack onto his shoulder and held up the yellow tape outside his house as Mandy ducked under it.

“I'm parked on the next street,” she said. “Then we have a three-hour drive to the rendezvous point, another two to the backup hideout.”

“Do you have anything to eat in the car?”

“No, but we can stop on the way.”

Lance ducked back under the tape. “No need. I'll get something from inside. Otherwise it'll all go to waste. Got the keys?”

Mandy tossed the keys to him, then he ran back up the drive and unlocked the door, trying to remember whether he'd eaten the last of the chocolate-chip cookies he had stashed in his room.
Need my toothbrush,
he remembered.
And a towel.
The towels in his cell in Hawksley had been paper-thin and fraying along the edges.

He pushed the door open. The hallway was clean, and completely free of debris.

Lance stopped.
What the…?

He looked back toward Impervia, but she was gone.

Then, from the kitchen, a familiar voice: “Lance? Is that you? What are you doing back so early?”

Lance dry-swallowed. “Mom?”