The Gathering: Quantum Prophecy 2 (9 page)

Quantum frowned. “I can’t see anything beyond the war.”

“Tell me about your son, Paul! What can we do to prevent him from starting the war?”

“He doesn’t
start
the war, Max, but in some ways he’s responsible for it. We all are.” He opened his eyes. “Especially you.”

“Paul, you’ve got to concentrate! What else can you see? Where does the war take place?”

“Everywhere. Cities in flames, the survivors starving to death, people killing each other over scraps of rotten food. The human race…” He laughed. “The race will be won, but you and I will be dead before that happens. The writing is on the wall. Literally.”

“Paul, is there
anything
we can do to prevent this?” Max’s voice asked, sounding desperate.

“The future is already there, Max. We just haven’t caught up with it yet. We can’t change it. I know that. Just like I know that you are going to die in absolute agony and I’m going to die at my son’s hand.”

“So if we…” Max hesitated. “If we were to…”

“No. You cannot avoid this by killing my son.”

“If this war is as bad as you say it will be, then what choice do we have?”

“Take the powers away. The energies that make us superhuman…The blue lights. They drift about, cluster around certain people, enhance our abilities.”

“Where do these energies come from?”

“The chasm.”

“Again, what does that mean? Where is this chasm?”

“I don’t know. That’s all he will tell me.”

“Who?”

“Ragnarök. He’s the only one who knows how to do it, Max. He understands the superhuman energies. He will build a machine that will strip all of us of those energies, make us human again.”

“Will that work?”

“Yes.”

“And that’ll prevent the war?”

Quantum shrugged. “I don’t know. But if there are no more superhumans…” There was a blur, then Quantum was standing on the other side of the room. Another blur and he was standing directly in front of the camera, staring into it. “He’s watching me now. In the future.”

Danny jumped back. “Oh my God!”

“He’s there with three others. A black man…It’s Paragon. Did you know that Paragon is black, Max? I never knew that. I couldn’t tell underneath that armor. His name is Solomon Cord. He’s not a superhuman. I didn’t know that either. You have to find him. He’s going to be important. And there’s a boy there. My son’s best friend. He hates you, Max. He
really
hates you.” Quantum frowned. “And a girl. That’s strange…She’s…She’s powerful, Max. She doesn’t know yet just
how
powerful.”

Then there was another blur and the room was empty. A few seconds later, the video ended.

Colin turned to look at Danny. “You OK?”

“Not really, no.” To Cord, he said, “He
knew
I’d be watching him! Is there any more like that?”

“I don’t know.” Cord pushed past Colin and began tapping on the keyboard. The words “Terminal Locked” appeared on the screen. He stepped back and said, “All right…The three of you, look at me.
Look
at me!”

They looked.

“Do not talk about what you’ve just seen, not even among yourselves. We are not meant to know the future. That’s what pushed
Quantum over the edge.” Cord glanced at his watch. “All right. There’s something I have to show you now. Come with me.”

Silently, they followed Cord to a set of doors on the far side of the building. “This is the gymnasium. You’ll be spending a lot of your spare time in this room.” He took a deep breath. “Ready?”

Renata said, “We’ve all seen a gymnasium before, Mr. Cord!”

“I know. But the gym itself isn’t what I want to show you.” He reached out and hit the switch on the wall, then the doors unlocked and slid open. “Go in.”

With Renata leading the way, the teenagers walked into the brightly lit room. A voice said, “Oooh! They’re here!” and Renata looked to see two girls of about her own age approaching. They were followed by a tall, well-built teenage boy.

“You’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other properly,” Cord said. “But for the moment I thought I’d just introduce you.”

The six teenagers looked each other up and down.

Colin began, “So, uh…”

“I’m Yvonne,” the nearest girl said. She was short, slim and—Danny and Colin couldn’t help thinking—extremely good-looking. She had a pleasant smile and a massive shock of jet-black hair. “You’re Colin, right? We saw you on the news. This is my sister, Mina, and this is Butler.”

Mina was slightly taller than Yvonne, with short blond hair. She nodded briefly and looked down at her feet.

Butler was about Danny’s height, but had a much broader build. He had close-cropped black hair and dark eyes.

“Nice to meet you,” Colin said. “This is Renata and Danny.”

“Quantum’s son, right?” Butler said. He stretched out his hand to Danny, then pulled it back. “Whoa, sorry, kid!”

Renata said, “So who
are
you guys? What are you doing here?”

Solomon Cord said, “They’re here for the same reason you are. They’re superhumans.”

D
ANNY AND
N
IALL WERE GIVEN ROOMS
on either side of their mother’s. Danny’s room was stark and functional, containing only a bed, a chair and a single built-in wardrobe. Aside from one small mirror, and two white boxes marked “CDH” that were fixed close to the ceiling, the walls were completely bare.

As Danny was unpacking his suitcase, Colin appeared in the doorway.

“The exact same as mine,” Colin said, giving the room a quick once-over. “Except mine has a telly.”

“This room had one too, but Niall wanted it.”

Colin paused for a second. “So we’re not the only superhumans around.” He shook his head. “I suppose it makes sense, but it’s still a bit weird. I wonder how many others there are out there. For all we know, there could be dozens of us.”

Danny shrugged. “Maybe.” He stopped what he was doing. “I’ve got a weird feeling about this place.”

“Like what?”

“It just doesn’t feel right. I’ve been wondering about what Sol said, about how the old facility used to run experiments. I hope he didn’t mean that they were experimenting on superhumans. Do you trust him?”

“Sol? Absolutely. I’m not sure I trust Josh though. I’d still like to know how the press found out about our parents. The information
had to come from somewhere. Not all of Max’s people from the mine were caught. One of them might have sold the story to the newspapers. Listen, about what Quantum said on that video…”

“Sol said we weren’t to talk about it,” Danny said.

“I know. But I wouldn’t worry about it if I was you. I mean, the war won’t happen now. And anyway, who’s to say that it wasn’t all just…well, insane ramblings?”

“He knew we would be watching him, Col.” Danny sighed and closed his suitcase. “Unpacking can wait. Let’s go exploring.”

Closing the door behind them, they walked along the brightly lit corridor. “It’s like being in a hospital,” Colin said. “Everything’s so clean and lifeless.”

“I was thinking the same thing. Which way is it to the dining hall? I’m starving.”

“Down this way and then up the stairs.”

They rounded a corner and almost bumped into the other teenage boy, Butler.

“Hi,” Colin said. “It’s Butler, right?”

The boy nodded, but didn’t speak. He was staring at the stump of Danny’s right arm.

A little uncomfortable at the silence, Danny said, “So, have you been here long?”

“A few months,” the boy said.

“What’s your last name?”

“Redmond.”

“What can you do?” Colin asked.

“I’m strong, fast. I can make an invulnerable force field
around myself.” With that, a thin, transparent bubble appeared around him and spread slowly outward.

Colin pressed his hand against the force field. It was cold and yielded a little, but the harder he pushed the stronger the force field became. “That’s pretty cool,” Colin said. “How did you discover your powers?”

The boy shrugged and the bubble disappeared. “Gotta go.” He stepped around them and walked off down the corridor.

“Nice talking to you,” Danny muttered. To Colin he said, “
He’s
going to be a barrel of laughs to have around.”

“Speaking of laughs,” Colin said, “I can hear Renata in the dining room and she’s talking to…It sounds like the two girls.”

They resumed walking. “That always freaks me out a little bit,” Danny said. “You can hear anything you want to, all the time!”

“Not
all
the time,” Colin said. “I have to sort of switch it on. Any sign of your own powers coming back?”

“No. I made my arm intangible and pushed it inside a machine that was designed to strip superhuman powers. They’re not
going
to come back, Col. Probably just as well too. If I’m not a superhuman anymore then that means that Quantum’s prophecy can’t possibly come true.”

They pushed open the doors of the dining room and saw that the large room was empty except for one table in the corner, which was occupied by Renata and the two teenage sisters, Mina and Yvonne.

“Can we join you or is this a girls-only meeting?” Danny
asked. He was about to sit down when he noticed that the table contained five mugs of coffee. “Who else is here?”

Colin froze. He could hear the heartbeats of two people behind him and turned around to see two other girls approaching.

Yvonne said, “Alia and Stephanie Cord. Solomon’s daughters.”

Stephanie gave Colin a smile that made him instantly blush. “So you haven’t forgotten me then?”

The coast of Oregon was still in darkness when an ancient fishing boat pulled into the harbor of a small town ninety miles southwest of Portland. The fishermen began to unload their catch, then one of them slipped away.

Wearing a heavy overcoat, and with a woolen hat pulled down to cover as much as possible of his scarred head, Dioxin slung his bag over his shoulder and silently and quickly made his way through the port and on to a quiet street.

Ahead of him, standing next to a large expensive car that was parked beneath a streetlight, a short, nervous-looking man was watching him.

Dioxin slipped his hand into his overcoat’s pocket and took hold of his gun.

As he neared the car, the short man said, “I was sent to meet you.”

“You’ve got the wrong man, buddy.”

“No, no I haven’t. You were smuggled out of China on a private jet. You parachuted out twenty miles from the coast and rendezvoused with that fishing boat. That’s how Mr. Sheng operates.”

“So who are you and what do you want?” Dioxin asked. He pulled off his hat and stepped into the light.

The nervous man gasped at Dioxin’s face, then quickly looked away. “My employer has a job for you, Mr. Dioxin.”

“I’m here on personal business. I’m not taking on any work right now.”

“We know everything about you, Dioxin. We know all of your secrets. We know all the details of every single crime you’ve committed since you disappeared ten years ago. What would happen to you if all of that information became public knowledge? Think about that: all of those people you helped put into power, all of those terrorists you’ve worked for, the crime lords, the drug barons. They would all know that you were the one responsible for airing their secrets.”

Dioxin considered this. “For a little guy you sure talk big.”

“Do I have your attention or not?”

“I haven’t killed you yet. That means I’m interested.”

The man opened the car’s passenger door. “Then get in. We’ve got a jet waiting for us.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Evan Laurie.”

“Never heard of you.”

“No reason you should have. But like I said, we know everything about
you.
You’re here to kill Paragon. Ten years ago, you lost your superhuman abilities. You were no longer immune to your own acid. If Paragon hadn’t slowed you down, you could have washed the acid off before it scarred you. How many operations has it taken, Dioxin? Twenty? Thirty? If it hadn’t been for
Paragon, you would be able to live a normal life without people flinching when they saw your face.”

Dioxin said nothing.

“So you will work for us and we will give you something invaluable in return.”

“And what’s that? You can give me back my face?”

“No. But we can tell you where Paragon is.”

A
T BREAKFAST ON HIS FIRST FULL DAY
at Sakkara, Colin made his way to the dining hall, which was half filled with people he hadn’t seen before. He realized that most of them were in their thirties or forties, which made him feel even younger.

He spotted Renata and Danny sitting in one corner, and was about to wander over when he heard his father’s voice. “Colin? Come here a minute!”

As he walked over to his father’s table, he saw Façade sitting on his own. He was the only person in the whole room not sitting with someone.
If he hadn’t helped us in California we’d all have died
, Colin thought,
and in return he lost his family and his friends.

“Colin,” his father said, “you’ve met Sol’s wife, Vienna, haven’t you?”

“Not officially,” Colin said. “We were never introduced.” He shook hands with her. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Mrs. Cord smiled. “Aren’t
you
the polite one?”

Warren said, “Lock them in the coal shed for a week at a time and they learn manners soon enough.” He tilted his head in the direction of Renata and Danny. “Go on, join your friends. I’m sure you don’t want to be stuck here with the old fogies.”

As Colin wandered over to the others, Stephanie Cord intercepted him and steered him to the large buffet table at one side of the room. “Just help yourself to whatever you want,” she said.

None of the food looked very appetizing. “Isn’t there, like, cornflakes or something normal? What’s
this
stuff?”

“Corn hash with bacon bits and cream cheese.”

“People actually
eat
that? For breakfast?”

“Some do.”

Colin made a face. “It looks like it’s been eaten before.”

“It’s loaded with essential somethings and recommended other things.” Stephanie handed him a plate and began spooning the mixture on to it. “Everything a growing boy needs to build up his strength.”