The Reckoning: Quantum Prophecy Book 3 (28 page)

“I don’t have a choice.”

Renata concentrated. She staggered against the wave of agony that surged through her brain, and when she could open her eyes again, Mina was staring at her in shock.

Niall Cooper was now a crystal statue.

Renata forced a smile. “See, I couldn’t change
you,
because then I’d never be able to break your grip on his neck. So now what are you going to do? Yvonne ordered you to kill him, and
then
stop me. But you can’t kill Niall now, so that means…”

Mina nodded. “I can’t carry out her order. Renata, I…I can’t stop her. She’s too powerful. You might have a chance, but…I can read your aura.”

“What about it?”

“Every time you use your powers, you’re making your condition worse.”

“I know.”

Renata pulled Niall’s crystalline body away from Mina, threw him over her shoulder and leaped over the gantry’s railing.

She darted from the room, not caring that she was stepping on the unconscious bodies of the guards who had tried to stop her on the way in.

She reached the hatchway and scrambled up the ladder. The huge hangar doors were open, and in the distant sky Renata could see a small, powerful-looking craft rocketing away.

Colin set Danny down on the edge of a rocky plateau.

Danny wasn’t sure where they were, but it looked like the Grand Canyon. He immediately zipped away from Colin, and stood on the opposite edge of the plateau. “So what are you going to do? Kill me?”

“No. I only have to defeat you. And I can do that by leaving you here. There’s no easy way off this rock for someone who can’t fly.”

Even as Colin rose into the air, Danny shifted into slow-time
and raced forward, slamming his mechanical arm into Colin’s stomach.

As Danny watched, Colin slowly doubled over, collapsed to the ground.

He darted back to the edge of the plateau and looked down. The walls of the plateau sloped almost vertically. There was no way down, not even for someone with his great speed.

The hot air rising up from the canyon floor caused a slow, lazy shimmer, and it triggered a memory of the last time Danny was in a desert.

It came true.

The vision I had in the California desert. I saw myself leading a group of teenagers and kids away from an army. I saw the mechanical arm.

The Trutopians are the army, and the other kids with me are the prisoners from Lieberstan.

God…I thought I could prevent the vision coming true by never accepting the arm. But then I
had
to take it because it was the only thing that would give me an advantage over Colin.

When he’d returned to Sakkara from Lieberstan, the government agent had instructed him to say that the Trutopians had been behind the prison camp.

I couldn’t do that,
Danny thought.
Whatever the Trutopians have done, I couldn’t lie about something like that.

And the woman from the government had said, “Then you have condemned us to war.”

Is that how it’s going to be? They’re going to blame me for the war.

Maybe that’s what Quantum picked up in his vision. He was certain that the war would be my fault. That’s what this whole thing is
about. He wanted to prevent the war from happening by stripping my powers.

It didn’t work, and—from some people’s points of view—I’m now responsible for this war with the Trutopians.

Danny remembered meeting with his father, learning the truth behind Ragnarök’s final attack and his power-stripping machine.

Quantum said that billions of people will die in the war.

Billions.

Everyone thought I was going to be a villain. But they didn’t understand. I’m not a bad guy. I just have to do what I know is right.

A sudden thought jumped into his head, and caused him to shudder.

But if I do what I’m sure is right, and everyone else thinks I’m wrong, doesn’t that make me just as bad as Ragnarök or Victor Cross?

Y
VONNE CURSED HERSELF FOR NOT
having been better prepared.
Next time, I’ll set up my base somewhere they can’t find me.

She frantically worked at the controls of the escape craft.
God, I don’t even have another hideout! Why did I believe that I was going to be able to just walk all over them? They’re superhumans too.

At least the war is still going strong. All I have to do is find somewhere to lie low for a few months, and then I can start again.

The radar screen blipped, showing an incoming object.

Some kind of missile.
Yvonne stared at the screen.
But the army retreated, and there’re still a couple of minutes to go before the nerve gas canister gets here.

The missile zoomed closer.

Yvonne banked the craft to the left; the missile adjusted its course to match.
Should have spent more time practicing the controls…. All those times I had a chance to fly the StratoTruck and I didn’t bother…

The craft rocked slightly as the missile struck.

No explosion. It wasn’t a missile.
Yvonne looked around frantically.
But the only superhuman who can fly is Colin, and he’s under orders not to harm me!

Unless he finally found a way to resist my control.

Then she spotted a figure crawling toward the cockpit, a pistol in its hand.

Stephanie Cord tapped on the cockpit’s glass with the muzzle
of the gun, then aimed it at Yvonne’s head. Her amplified voice came through the helmet’s built-in loudspeaker. “Set this thing down. Now.”

Yvonne slammed the craft’s joystick back, flipping it over. Upside-down, she watched as Stephanie lost her grip and slipped away.

On the top of the plateau, Danny and Colin had been fighting for several minutes, but still neither of them had managed to land a punch strong enough to disable the other.

In slow-time Danny ducked and weaved, then lashed out with his mechanical fist and struck Colin square in the face.

As his friend staggered back, Danny zipped away.

He knew that he couldn’t risk returning to normal speed; if he did, Colin would either blast him with a fireball or simply fly away and leave him stranded.

He raced around behind Colin and slammed into him shoulder-first. It was like hitting a stone wall.

At a speed far greater than any normal human could manage, Colin jabbed back with his right elbow.

Danny saw it coming and ducked down to the left—

—and Colin’s left elbow clipped his jaw, sent him spinning into the air.

Danny recovered quickly, shook his head to clear it and realized that he was still in slow-time, and still hadn’t hit the ground.

Too late, he tried to twist around to see where he was going.

His head slammed into a beach-ball-sized rock.

A blinding pain shot through his entire body, and he collapsed face-first onto the uneven ground.

Got to move, got to get up—

He was vaguely aware of someone grabbing his shoulder, rolling him onto his side, then he heard Colin say, “You’re going to be OK.”

Danny opened his eyes; Colin was silhouetted against the sun, floating three meters off the ground, looking down at him.

Danny tried to speak, but the only sound he could make was a weak groan.

“You’re bleeding, but it’s not bad. It’ll stop soon. I’m going to leave you here, Dan. I’ll tell someone to pick you up. It won’t be more than a few hours.”

Danny shifted his left leg, and groaned again. He gritted his teeth and said, “Then tell them to send a paramedic—I think my leg is broken.” He looked up at Colin again. “Col…The vision I had in the desert in California…It came true.”

Colin stared down at him. “What? Seriously?”

Danny nodded, then winced at the sudden burst of pain from the wound in his forehead.

“A few minutes before you found me. The Trutopians, the kids from Lieberstan. Everything happened just as I saw it last year.”

“But…But that means that—”

Danny finished the sentence. “That maybe my father’s prophecy will come true as well.”

Colin swallowed. “But he said that billions of people are going to die.”

“They’re
already
dying, Col. And you’re helping the Trutopians make that happen.”

“I can’t resist Yvonne’s orders.”

“How hard are you trying?”

They stared at each other for a moment.

Danny said, “If you have to leave me here, then at least move me into the shade. I can’t do it myself.” He raised his left arm.

Colin drifted lower and grabbed hold of Danny’s arm.

Danny shifted into slow-time and swung his mechanical arm toward Colin’s face.

Colin caught the arm at its wrist, and before Danny could break free, he placed his other arm on Danny’s shoulder and pulled.

Danny staggered back as his artificial arm was torn apart. He moved back to real-time, as Colin casually tossed the ruined hunk of metal to the ground.

Danny stared at it. “Damn. I was getting used to having that.”

“It was your only advantage against me,” Colin said. “Sure, you’re a lot faster than I am, but I’m stronger and much more powerful. Without your weapon, you might as well be an ordinary person. You know you can’t beat me, Danny. So you can just stay here, where you can’t do any damage.”

Colin turned his back and began to rise into the air.

Danny switched to slow-time, snatched up the ruined mechanical arm and charged at Colin, slamming him across the back of the head with as much strength as he could muster.

Colin was knocked to the ground. He instantly spun about and crashed his fist into Danny’s stomach.

•  •  •

Renata activated her radio. “Razor! It’s me! You have to get Impervia to stop the nerve gas!”

“I’ve already asked her. She won’t do it.”

“But there’s no point now—Yvonne’s already escaped!”

“I—”

Impervia’s voice cut across Razor’s. “We’ve been monitoring your communications. Renata, I’m sorry, but the plan goes ahead. If Yvonne’s gone, then we’re not going to be able to stop the war anyway.”

“These people here can’t help what they’ve done. They’re innocent!”

“They’re still controlling the Trutopian forces. Turn yourself solid. The nerve agent will strike in two minutes. Once it’s been deployed we’re going to napalm the entire area to destroy the gas. Assuming you survive, we should be able to pick you up in a week or so.”

Stephanie Cord recovered quickly, activated her jetpack and righted herself. Yvonne’s escape craft was streaking toward the west.

She raced after it, her jetpack set to full power. She aimed the handgun, steadied herself and fired, over and over, into the craft’s engine.

It shuddered and began to spin out of control, dropping out of the sky.

Stephanie caught up with the craft, adjusted her trajectory to match. Inside, Yvonne was desperately trying to get the controls to respond.

Stephanie shot through the cockpit’s canopy, shattering the glass. “Give me your hands!” She yelled. “Now!”

She let go of the gun and grabbed Yvonne’s hands, pulling her free from the craft.

As they slowly began to descend, the escape craft clipped the edge of a concrete water tower and spun into the side of an abandoned truck. It bounced once to the grating sound of tearing metal, then tumbled to a stop upside down, its flattened cockpit now consumed by fire.

Yvonne struggled against Stephanie’s grip. “You set me down or I’ll tear your head off!”

Stephanie lashed out and hit Yvonne in the face with her knee, stunning her. “I blamed Colin for what happened to my father. But it wasn’t his fault. He made the only choice he could. Victor Cross planned it. And
you
…you’re the one who captured him.” She grinned. “Remember how
your
father died?”

Stephanie opened her hands.

Yvonne screamed as she plummeted to the ground.

And landed on her feet, to find that they had only been a few meters up.

On the roof of the Trutopian headquarters, Renata Soliz sat cross-legged next to Niall Cooper’s crystalline body. There was no way to get clear in time. She was going to have to solidify herself and wait out the nerve gas.

“Renata!” Stephanie said over the radio. “I’ve got her! She’s on the ground and I’m flying out of reach.”

Renata jumped to her feet. “Where are you?”

“We’re about four miles southwest of the town. Near a big
water tower. Look, I need help here. The Trutopians are advancing on this position, and if I leave, Yvonne will escape.”

“Get out of there, Steph! You need to be farther away. The nerve gas is going to hit any second now.”

“Can you do it from a distance? Can you turn Yvonne solid from where you are?”

Renata frowned.
Can I?

If I can solidify someone across the room, then I should be able to do it from miles away. But if I don’t know exactly where she is…

“I’m sorry, Steph. Just…Get to safety. If Yvonne survives we’ll track her down somehow.”
And until we do, the war will continue and millions more people will die.

This has to end. And it has to end now.

She looked up. A black dot was racing across the sky.

The missile.

I could solidify it, but that won’t help Steph.

And then Renata knew what she had to do to.

She swallowed. “Oh God…This is
really
going to hurt.”

She began to concentrate.

Pain tore through Renata’s entire body, every nerve burning. She collapsed to the roof, blood streaming from her nose, ears and eyes.

A wave of energy rippled out from Renata’s body.

The building itself turned solid and transparent, the people inside becoming crystal statues.

The wave continued to spread. Everything it touched was solidified.

Above the Trutopian town, the VX missile turned to crystal and plummeted, untriggered, to the ground.

•  •  •

On a rocky plateau in Arizona, Danny Cooper and Colin Wagner stopped and stared as a curtain of energy zoomed toward them from the north.