The Doomsday Device (Teen Superheroes Book 2) (21 page)
Read The Doomsday Device (Teen Superheroes Book 2) Online
Authors: Darrell Pitt
She started to slide over.
I threw myself at her. My hand reached for her and closed around her belt. I had her. Solid. Nothing would make me release her.
Except now I was sliding after her. My other hand desperately tried to grasp the deck, but it was smooth metal. I tried to focus on my powers, but my brain was too addled to make anything work.
Her entire body slid over the edge. I reached out desperately for help.
This was it.
The end of everything.
No, please don’t let it -.
A hand sprang out of nowhere. A small hand. It grasped my hand and pulled me away from the edge, almost dislocating my arm from its socket. I dragged Ebony up from over the side onto the deck. In her hand lay the vial with the deadly blue liquid safely contained within.
We lay there panting and crying with relief as Ferdy grabbed the both of us close to him.
I could not hear his words because I was still shell shocked by the blast of the grenade, but I could read his lips.
“Ferdy’s friends,” he was saying. “Ferdy’s friends.”
“That’s right,” I said, although I could not hear myself speak. “Ferdy’s friends.”
Chapter Forty-Four
“Okay,” Chad said. “I’ve got about a million questions, but let me just start with one.”
“I think I can guess what it is,” Agent Peterson said. “How was it possible for Wolff to be in two places at once?”
We were seated on the fourth floor of the building that made up part of the Las Vegas branch of The Agency. Three days had passed since the explosion on the top of the Eiffel Tower. There had been mourning all over the world for the six people killed and the dozens injured during the blast.
A terrorist organization had taken claim for the blast. That had struck me as ridiculous. Clearly Wolff had acted alone, but obviously some other group was seizing the chance to increase exposure for their own organization.
There are some sick people in this world. Who would want to be associated with such an evil event?
Have it your own way
, I thought.
Just as long as the world is safe.
We had come close to failing. Too close. The vial in Alaska had actually broken open. If it weren’t for Brodie’s quick thinking the whole planet would have ended up a much quieter place. Engineers were removing the submarine from its underground enclosure and delivering it to a secret facility. There, it would be destroyed in an underground furnace constructed to reduce anything to atoms.
We had saved the day, but it did not feel like a victory. Rather it felt more like delaying the inevitable.
Agent Palmer was recuperating in hospital. She was expected to make a full recovery. The rest of us were in various stages of recuperation. I had been severely stunned by the blast. Chad still had his wounds from our time in Yodak Prison. He was the kind of guy who preferred to hide his pain.
A day after we returned, I found a block of my favorite chocolate sitting on my bed. At first I thought Brodie had brought it for me, but it turned out to be Chad. When I asked him about it he wouldn’t even look at me.
“It’s just to say thanks,” he said, staring at the floor. “Don’t think we’re BFF’s now.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I replied.
“But…thanks,” he said.
I thought of that terrible Yodak Prison and everyone else suffering in North Korea and places like that where freedom was a luxury that most people did not enjoy.
“That’s okay,” I held out my hand to shake.
He looked at the hand, shook his head and laughed. “Dweeb.”
Chad. Who can work him out?
Agent Peterson’s voice broke into my reverie. “We believe Wolff is a type of mod,” he said. “Checking DNA samples he left at both locations, we were able to ascertain that both versions of him were more than twins. They were actually the same person.”
“So his power is…” Ebony’s voice trailed off.
“We think he has the ability to copy himself,” Peterson said. “We have no idea how many versions of him are running around.”
I shook my head in amazement. “One version of him is bad enough. Let’s hope they’re all finally gone.”
“And talking about gone,” Chad said. “I think it’s time we went on our merry way.”
Peterson shook his head. “You boys made a promise to The Agency that you would remain as part of the organization. What about that promise?”
“We were being blackmailed at the time,” Chad said firmly. “By The Agency. We didn’t have a choice in the matter.”
The agent put up a hand. “Before you do anything too hasty, I think there’s something you should know.”
“What?” three of us asked simultaneously.
And laughed.
“The Secretary General of the United Nations, Sunil Verma, made a speech to General Assembly about an hour ago.” Peterson paused. “He broke the news to the member states and indeed the entire world’s population that there are people on Earth who have been modified. This means we’re now living in a new age. Just as the explosion of the atomic bomb heralded the beginning of the nuclear age, we’re now living in an era where mods will be part of our everyday lives.
“You and people like you will be known to the world from this day forward. If you want to be.”
No-one seemed to know what to say. Even Chad looked stuck for words.
Agent Peterson continued. “There have already been sightings of people exhibiting unusual powers. People in Russia filmed a man flying over the city less than an hour after the announcement.”
“So we’re…out of the closet?” Ebony asked and blushed.
“If you want to be.” Agent Peterson sat down at the table. “These are early days yet and you all have a long way to go. You all need to train yourselves and learn to use your powers. The world needs modified humans now more than ever.”
“You mean there’s going to be factories churning out modified people like us?” Chad stammered.
“Not at all,” Peterson said. “Although there have been mods for centuries it will still be illegal to experiment with the human genome. Of course, that will not stop some nations from still doing so.”
“It certainly didn’t stop The Agency,” Brodie said. “And what about the Bakari?”
She was referring to the aliens who had been working with The Agency for centuries to prepare mankind for the intergalactic era.
“People still don’t know about The Agency,” Peterson said. “Nor do they know about The Bakari. We intend to keep it that way.”
“So we could leave here and become circus performers if we want,” Dan said. “Cool.”
Peterson raised an eyebrow. “If you want. But you may be interested to know that a man broke into a bank in Malaysia a short time ago. Witnesses claim he used some sort of power from his eyes to melt the doors of the vault.”
“So we can be super villains?” Chad asked. “Cool.”
I hoped he wasn’t serious. I was thinking about my own powers. In the last few days I had tried to use them a number of times and nothing had happened. I had not even been able to raise a sheet of paper with my mind. I had told Brodie about my dilemma and she told me to just give it time.
What if my powers never returned?
It was not losing my powers that bothered me. It was losing the only family I knew. How could I be part of a superhero team when I had no powers?
“I know a great injustice was done to you all,” Agent Peterson continued. “I know you are the victims of an illegal experiment, but I would like to ask you to stay on. As a team, working together, you can accomplish great things.” He looked at each of us in turn. “What do you say?”
It was several minutes before anyone spoke.
Epilogue
The waves raced up and down the beach. A man and his daughter chased them. The man was middle aged. His daughter was seven years old. They laughed and screamed with delight as they dared the waters of the Atlantic to catch their feet.
Finally the man noticed the sun cresting the horizon and the air growing colder with every passing minute. Soon it would be night. They gathered their things together and walked towards the dunes.
Within minutes the beach lay deserted and silent.
An arm reached out from the water. The head of a man followed. Then shoulders. After a minute, a naked man ascended the beach and marched resolutely up the sand. He sheltered in an alcove away from the cold night air.
He shivered, wrapping his arms around himself.
Watching the waves, he saw a movement in the waves. A man’s head appeared. His naked body followed. The newcomer walked from the water, peered across the darkening beach and joined his companion.
They sat side by side on the sand in the gathering darkness.
Time to start again
, Solomon Wolff thought.
A Few Final Words
I hope you enjoyed reading The Doomsday Device. Keep an eye out for the third book in the series – The Battle for Earth. In the meantime, make certain you tell your friends about The Doomsday Device on Twitter and Facebook.
If you enjoy young adult adventure novels you might also like to check out
The Steampunk Detective
or
The Last Days of Earth
. The first book in the series -
Diary of a Teenage Superhero
- is also available.
You can connect with me online through:
Twitter
:
http://twitter.com/darrellpitt
Facebook
:
https://www.facebook.com/darrell.pitt
Thanks again and happy reading!
Darrell
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