The Awakening
Authors: Michael Carroll
Tags: #Kidnapping, #Action & Adventure, #Adventure and adventurers, #Juvenile Fiction, #Escapes, #Teenagers, #Fantasy & Magic, #General, #Science Fiction, #Adventures and adventurers, #Villians, #English, #Heroes, #Fiction, #Comics & Graphic Novels, #Superheroes
THE
AWAKENING
QUANTUM PROPHECY
THE
AWAKENING
MICHAEL CARROLL
01
PHILOMEL BOOKS
PHILOMEL BOOKS
a division of Penguin Young Readers Group
Published by The Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England. Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd). Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwall Road, Camberwall, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd). Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India. Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd). Penguin Books (South America) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa. Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England.
Copyright © 2006 by Michael Carroll.
First American Edition published in 2007 by Philomel Books,
a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.
Philomel Books, Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off.
Published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books, London.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Carroll, Michael Owen, 1966–
Quantum prophecy : the awakening / Michael Carroll.—1st American ed. p. cm.
Summary: Ten years after the disappearance of superhumans—both heroes and villains— thirteen-year-olds Danny and Colin begin to develop super powers, making them the object of much unwanted attention.
[1. Heroes—Fiction. 2. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 3. Science fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C23497Qua 2007 [Fic]—dc22 2006020993
ISBN: 1-4362-6122-8
To the staff and pupils—past, present, and future—
of St. Thomas’ National School,
Jobstown, Dublin
Contents
T
EN
Y
EARS
E
ARLIER…
Renata Soliz stood in the center of the empty field, directly in the path of the approaching figure.
She had her long black hair tied back and was wearing gray jeans and a plain red T-shirt. The only thing that marked her out as anything other than a normal girl was a pair of thick leather gloves and the black Zorro mask she’d “borrowed” from her little brother.
The midday sun broke through the clouds and illuminated the tall man making his way toward her.
Renata stood her ground, watching him approach.
Though Dioxin was still twenty meters away, there was a stench of death about him: a putrid, damp, fungal smell that reminded Renata of the rotting timbers in the basement of her grandmother’s house. He sneered at her as he stomped forward over the rough ground, his grin spreading across the blotched yellow and red skin of his face like an opening wound. “Haven’t you got the sense to run away, little girl?”
He continued walking toward her, the grass dying where his bare feet touched it.
Renata watched him carefully. She knew all about Dioxin, knew what he could do. His skin oozed a thick, clear, acidlike venom, and if his touch didn’t scorch the flesh from your bones, it infected you with a deadly poison.
Dioxin stopped a couple of meters away. “Seriously. Run away.”
Energy had told Renata that of all the villains she had faced, the one who scared her most was Dioxin. Ragnarök was incredibly intelligent, strong and fast; Brawn was four meters tall and capable of knocking a moving train clear off its tracks; Slaughter was a ruthless killing machine; but they were
nothing
compared with Dioxin.
“So what do they call you?” Dioxin sneered.
“Diamond.”
Dioxin looked her up and down. “What’s the deal here, kid? Don’t tell me that
you’re
one of Titan’s crew! You’re what, fifteen?”
“Fourteen.”
“Fourteen. And you think you can stop
me
?”
With that, Dioxin lunged toward her, his poisonous arms outstretched.
Paragon quickly checked the information that was projected onto the inside of his visor. Flight power was down to less than forty percent.
A plasma bolt hit him in the left shoulder, burning a hole into his armor. He dodged to the right, quickly unclipped the still-burning shoulder pad and let it fall to the ground. A deep red welt appeared on his dark skin. One of the few active superheroes who didn’t have any superhuman abilities, Paragon relied on his armor and weapons as much as his natural intelligence and athletic abilities, but there were times when even these weren’t enough.
Paragon was sweating—and it wasn’t just from the weight of his armor, or the heat of the plasma bolts.
This was a bad situation.
There had been no sign of Ragnarök for months and now this: a hundred-meter-long mobile fortress, rumbling its way across Pennsylvania toward the city of New York. The tank stopped for nothing; cars, trees and even houses were crushed beneath its giant wheels. Unable to halt or even slow the machine’s progress, the police and army had concentrated on evacuating people from its path.
Another volley of plasma bolts streaked toward him and Paragon cut the power to his jetpack and dropped, angling his descent so that he was falling directly into the path of the enormous battle-tank.
He reactivated his jetpack ten meters above the ground and found himself face-to-face with Ragnarök, protected by the battle-tank’s meter-thick windshield.
They stared at each other for a split second, then Ragnarök frantically gestured to one of his henchmen, mouthing the words, “Kill him!”
The armored hero dodged to his left just as a huge column of white flame scorched the air around him.
He swooped down toward the battle-tank’s undercarriage, settled long enough to attach the explosive charge and then zoomed away, dodging a storm of bullets and plasma bolts.
Paragon glanced around. He could see Energy floating above the battle-tank, using her powers to deflect the tank’s fire away from the others. Paragon activated the communicator built into his helmet. “Everyone! Pull back! Three seconds!”
There was a flurry of activity as the assembled superheroes darted to a safe distance, then—
The sound of the explosion was almost unnoticeable over the roar of the tank’s massive engines, but everyone felt it; the ground trembled, the blast rattling windows for ten kilometers in every direction.
Paragon peered through the huge column of smoke and dust. He activated his visor’s infrared filters and…Yes! The tank was burning!
“All right, people!” Paragon said. “Maybe the big guy isn’t with us, but it looks like we’ve just had our first break. Max?”
Max Dalton’s voice said, “I’m here, Paragon.”
“Get inside the thing. See if you can lock on to someone.”
“Will do.”
“Energy, follow him. You might need to shield him against weapons-fire.”
“Will do,” Energy said.
“Quantum?”
Silence.
Paragon paused. “All right. We’ll have to do it without him. Anyone know how Diamond is holding up?”
Dioxin raged. He ranted. This was
impossible
!
He’d reached out to infect her and the girl—Diamond—had simply locked her hands around his wrist and changed.
It had taken less than a second; she had shimmered, glistened and become solid, unmoving and transparent. Even her hair and clothes had changed. It was as though she’d been replaced with a statue carved out of solid diamond.
Dioxin couldn’t shake her off. She wasn’t moving. He didn’t think that she
could
move in this form. All she was doing was holding on to his wrist, still staring at him with that determined look on her face.
A voice called out, “Dioxin!”
He turned to see an annoyingly familiar figure behind him.
Dioxin sighed. “Dalton.”
Joshua Dalton smiled. “You can let go now, Diamond.”
As Dioxin watched, the girl instantly turned back to normal. She let go of his wrist, jumped backward and ripped the leather gloves from her hands. She tossed the gloves aside. Even before they hit the ground they were a smoldering ruin.
“See, the trouble with your power, Dioxin, is that you can’t even lift weights to build up some muscle, can you?” Joshua Dalton said. “No, you’d just burn through the bars. Now me, on the other hand…Well, I’m not that strong either, certainly not compared with Titan. But a psychokinetic doesn’t
need
to be strong.”
Dioxin felt a sickening lurch in the pit of his stomach, then looked down to see that he was floating a meter above the ground, unable to do anything but wait to be arrested.
High above the battle-tank, Energy concentrated on drawing the enemy fire toward her. Tiny flashes of blue and orange lightning crackled around Energy’s body and through her short auburn hair. Her eyes—normally a pale gray—were now almost solid white.
She knew that she could absorb a huge amount of power, but there was a limit. Pretty soon now she’d have to discharge that power.
A voice crackled over her communicator. “Energy? I’m on the way!”
“Titan! Thank God! Where are you?”
“Just crossing the East Coast. I’ll be there in a minute,” Titan replied.
“Make it quicker! We’re not doing well here. I’m trying to pull in all their plasma bolts, but it hurts. I’ve never seen so much firepower!”
“I see you!”
Energy looked to the east and Titan was suddenly hovering in front of her, his dark blue cape billowing in the light breeze. “Don’t just float there!
Do
something!” she told him.
“Yes, ma’am!”
Titan gave her a quick smile, then darted down to the battle-tank.
Shots blasted into him, missiles exploding to his left and right. It was as though the battle-tank had been designed with the sole purpose of hurting him—and it was doing a pretty good job.
Titan was strong and fast, but he wasn’t invulnerable. When he was hit, he felt it. And he was being hit a lot right now. Soon his chest was a mass of bruises and his costume—bright blue tunic and leggings, darker blue cape, gloves and boots—started to get more holes than a fishing net. Much more of this and he’d be flying around in his underpants.
Through the tank’s meter-thick windscreen, Titan could see Ragnarök at the controls, ordering his men about. The madman had a determined look on his face. That wasn’t unusual for someone like him; they
all
believed in what they were doing.
Where the hell is Quantum?
he wondered.
He should be here by now! He’d be able to phase himself
inside
the tank! And what about Max? Why hasn’t he been able to reach someone on the inside of it? Could Ragnarök have found a way to shield the tank from Max’s mind control?
Titan looked again at Ragnarök. The villain was looking determined, but not concerned.
There’s something else happening here. What is Ragnarök planning?
For the first time in years, Titan was genuinely worried.
Diamond stood on a low hill, some way from the main battle. Ahead, she could see Ragnarök’s battle-tank as it rumbled onward.
The tank had left a channel of destruction as far as she could see.
“It’s huge,” Diamond said. “Energy said it was big, but I didn’t think…Josh, how can we possibly stop something like this?”
He hesitated. “I don’t know. Look, Diamond…You shouldn’t have to face this. Not yet. I’m going to leave you here. Somewhere safe. OK?”
“No!
Not
OK! You can’t just leave me out of it!”
“This is your first battle.”
Diamond stared into Joshua Dalton’s eyes. “I can take care of myself! I’m invulnerable! And I’m strong! A lot stronger than
you
are!”
“Physically, yes.” He glanced past her, to the battle that was raging. “Emotionally, you’re not ready. You stay put, Diamond. That’s an order. Got that?”
She nodded.
“Good.” Joshua Dalton leaned forward and kissed her gently on the forehead. “Wish me luck.”
Max Dalton’s power, like that of his younger brother Joshua and sister Roz, was mental rather than physical; he could temporarily take over the minds of anyone within a twelve-meter radius.
Max and his siblings were always easy to spot, even on this crowded battlefield; the members of The High Command were the only superheroes who didn’t wear masks. All they wore were matching black Kevlar uniforms.
Now, as he ran across the battleground toward Paragon, he was glad of the fact that his costume was bulletproof.
Max helped Paragon to his feet. “You OK?”
The armored hero coughed and spat out a mouthful of blood. “I will be. Thanks. How are we doing?”
“Not good,” Max replied. “Titan can’t get close enough to the tank to do any damage. I’ve no idea where Quantum is. Impervia and Brawn are locked in a stalemate. Apex is down; The Glyph got him. The others…I’m losing track of them.” Half an hour earlier, Max had seen the five members of Portugal’s
Poder-meninas
team battling dozens of Ragnarök’s henchmen. Since then, there had been no sign of them.
“Max, I don’t mind telling you…I’m scared,” Paragon said. “I don’t think we’re all going to make it. If we can’t stop that machine…”
“We
will
stop it.”
“How? We’ve thrown everything we have at it and it’s still going.”
Max Dalton bit his lip. “I know. Listen, I passed something on the way back to you. It’s…I think it was Thalamus. I think he’s de—”
Max spun away, his hand clutching his neck. Blood dripped between his fingers.
Paragon grabbed Max’s free arm and dragged him to the relative safety of a fallen tree.
“Let me see it,” Paragon said. He pulled Max’s blood-covered hand away and inspected the wound. “You’ll be fine—I’ve had worse shaving cuts.”
He removed a large bandage from his med-pack and pressed it against the wound. “This’ll help for the time being, and we can get it looked at properly when this is all over.”
“Thanks.” Max grabbed Paragon’s shoulder and hauled himself to his feet.
Paragon said, “What we need right now is a miracle.” He paused. “Or, to be more accurate, we need—Quantum!”
“Exactly.”
“No, I mean…he’s here!”
Max Dalton and Paragon ran toward the battle-tank. Quantum, the fastest superhuman of them all, could not be seen, but there was no doubt that he was there. Ragnarök’s henchmen were being knocked about by some invisible force, their weapons ripped from their hands, their armor torn off.
“Quantum, where the hell
were
you?” Paragon shouted as they neared the tank.
The white-clad superhero suddenly appeared in front of him, slightly out of breath. “I…I don’t know. Something happened to me. How badly are we doing?”
Max said, “We have some dead and a few missing. We thought you were one of them. Look, we need Impervia to help Titan, so you’ve got to take on Brawn. You feel up to it?”
“Sure. Yeah. I can slow him down at least.”
Paragon shook his head. “No, wait. Quantum, use that intangibility trick of yours; get inside the tank and see what damage you can do. At the very least, try and take out Ragnarök.”
“OK,” Quantum said, nodding. “I’ll—” He shuddered. “Something’s wrong.” He looked down at his gloved hands. They were shaking. “I…I don’t seem to be able to move.”
Paragon exchanged a quick glance with Max. “What is it?” Paragon asked.
“I…Wait! There’s a sense of…There’s a machine; it’s dangerous to us. Ragnarök’s been used…” Quantum blinked rapidly, swaying back and forth. “Paragon? You’re older.”
Quantum’s knees buckled and he collapsed.
Paragon reached out and caught him, then turned to Max, who was staring at Quantum. “Don’t just stand there, Max! I’ll look after Quantum. You get to Brawn—maybe
you
can control him.”
Max hesitated. “No, it’s never worked on him before.”
“Damn it, Max! You have to
try
!”
Paragon watched Max go, then looked down at Quantum. “You still conscious?”