Don't Be a Hero: A Superhero Novel (44 page)

The speedometer beeped twice. Critical speed attained. His head pounded as he hit the thruster. He only hoped the bike didn’t burn up on launch like the prototype had.

Something whirred behind him. A new wave of heat pressed against his legs. His white shirt stuck to the sweat on his back. The bike coughed twice, and Morgan held his breath. Then the bike jerked suddenly forwards and upwards, pinning him against the seat. His gloves slipped on the handlebars. For a moment, he lost his balance, and the bike lurched like a drunken sailor. But the tips of his fingers caught the grip. He twisted the throttle, and the hum of the tyres on the road was replaced by the incessant roar of flame.

He wiped his forehead against his shoulder without taking his hands from the controls. As he did so, he glanced out the side of the bubble. The road fell away beneath him, obscured by the heat waves from the rocket engines. The wheels retracted to gain protection from the heat.

That was not pleasant
, he thought as he brought the bike fully under control. Perhaps wings wouldn’t be so bad after all. He gunned the throttle, and relaxed as the rockets carried him upwards through the night. The streetlights had turned to pin pricks now, mirroring the stars above. The air whistled against the side of the bike as he raced towards the Peace Tower.

The tower was narrow at the bottom and swept out into a wide observation deck in the middle. Higher still, the tower tapered back in until it formed a needle that continued a further three hundred feet into the air. A red light blinked atop the tower, but tonight there was something else there as well. A tiny shadow balanced on the needle’s tip, looking down over the city. Morgan slowed his approach, and the shadow turned to regard him.

Sam showed no sign that he noticed the cold wind that buffeted his hair. His arms hung loosely at his sides, and as Morgan approached, he saw the boy wasn’t actually standing on the needle. He hovered a foot or so above the tip, his toes pointed towards the earth. The night shrouded his eyes. Red scratches marred Sam’s bare chest. Some were narrow—knife wounds, perhaps—while others were thick. They all looked more healed than they should, though. Perhaps one of the prisoners Morgan had butchered had an accelerated healing power.

Are you proud of yourself, supervillain?
he asked himself as he eyed the boy’s wounds and saw the madness in his eyes.

Morgan brought the bike into a holding pattern ten feet from the boy. If Sam decided to attack him, the bike would offer him no protection. The boy was powerful now, and soon he’d be stronger than the most optimistic of his models had predicted. The combination tracker/sensor he’d had implanted in the boy when O’Connor first brought him in had reached the maximum detectable power level twelve hours ago, and Morgan had no doubt the boy had grown stronger since then. Morgan could practically feel the air bend around Sam.

With the flip of a switch, the bubble around him began to retract. His heart thudded as the flimsy perspex barrier moved aside, leaving nothing but the roaring wind between him and Sam.

The boy slowly raised his head. His eyes were pure white.

—
I remember you. Are you here to kill me?

Sam’s lips never moved, but Morgan heard the words anyway, as clearly as if Sam was inside his head. Maybe he was.

“No.” Morgan had to shout over the wind. “You are unkillable.”

Sam appeared to consider that. His head drooped to one side, as if the muscles in his neck were incapable of supporting the weight of his brain. Dried dirt gathered on the slack flesh of his face.

—
Are you here to save me?

Morgan gave a strained smile. “No, Sam. I’m here to tell you how to save yourself.”

Sam turned his head to the side, and Morgan followed the boy’s gaze.
Hyperion
hung above the city, ray cannons glowing. Almost invisible against the night, dozens of ropes dangled from the loading bay. Every now and then, a tiny dot of a human zipped down to the rooftops of the city below. His people were moving into position. Sirens rang through the night. Soon, battle would be joined.

“I have something for you.” Morgan reached into his front pocket and tossed a small vial towards Sam. It stopped in mid-air and hovered close to the boy’s face.

—
What is it?

“It belonged to your uncle.”

The vial shattered and the glass plummeted to the street, but the grey fibres inside floated. Sam slowly raised his hand and touched the brain tissue. It dissolved as it touched his skin.

Sam sighed deeply and floated in place for a few seconds. Then his head turned slowly towards Morgan.

—
I can hear everything
, the voice said.
EVERYTHING. I hear sirens. I hear screams. I hear pain to come. So much pain.
The voice cracked, and Sam’s body shivered.

Morgan nudged the bike closer. Gently, gently. Sam’s skinny body twitched, his fingers rolling like an ocean swell.

“You’ve always been alone, Sam. Your uncle kept you away from the world, didn’t he?”

His eyes flickered.

—
I don’t remember. Maybe. Maybe he did. I don’t remember.

“He did it to protect you. Do you know what happened to your father? Look into your uncle’s memories.”

A shiver ran through Sam, and he fell silent. The wind whistled in Morgan’s ears, cutting through his jacket, but he waited.

—
They trapped him. Put him in a box. My father. They never let him see the sun again.

“They’re coming again, Sam. The boys in blue. And others. They’ll do the same to you. If you don’t stop them.”

Sam’s white eyes rolled back towards Morgan.

—
How? How do I stop them?

“Control them.”

His body convulsed, and his head snapped back and forth.

—
No no no. No. I can’t.

“I know it’s scary,” Morgan said. He touched the throttle again, just enough to bring the bike alongside Sam. Blood pounded in his ears. He swallowed his heart back down, stretched his arm out across the abyss, and gently laid it on Sam’s shoulder. “But you have to. Or you’ll be alone forever. They’re killers, all of them.”

—
Killer. I’m a killer. I killed two people. Or did I?
He pressed his hands against the side of his head.
Why is it so hard to remember?

Morgan could feel the icy coldness of the boy’s skin seeping through his glove. “It’s time. You don’t have to be alone anymore. You can keep yourself safe.”

—
Safe and sound.
Sam nodded slowly.

“Did you ever learn Latin, Sam? Do you know the phrase, ‘carpe omnia’?”

I know. Yes, I remember.
He held his hands in front of his face. The skin twitched and stretched, and then a hundred tiny strings wormed their way out of every fingertip. He opened his mouth for the first time. “Seize everything.”

Morgan trembled.

Senior Sergeant Wallace stuck his head out the car window to get a better look at the figures zip-lining down from the zeppelin. Dozens of freaks. The flashes of fire and lightning were starting, and so were the screams. God help them.

The fuckers were coming down right in the middle of the city. Dense civilian population, hundreds of apartment blocks and commercial buildings. The monorail would be the first thing to go when people panicked. The streets were narrow; getting people out would take time. Time those freaks wouldn’t give him. Goddamn it, this was going to be worse than the house-to-house fighting in Italy during the war. He put his foot down harder, letting the siren clear the way for him.

Wallace jerked the radio handset off its cradle. “Unit one to unit four. Talk to me, Hawthorne.”

There was a brief pause, then a voice spoke. “Unit four to unit one. Sir, where have you been? We’ve been calling—”

“Save it, Sergeant. What’s happening out there? Have you got people on the ground in the CBD?”

“Two teams, sir.”

“Two? I’m counting…” He glanced out the window again. “…eighteen metas so far, with more still jumping out of that damn balloon. They’re going for maximum panic. You don’t need the rest of the division handling evacuation. Let the regular police handle that.”

The radio crackled. “Evacuation, sir?”

His fist tightened around the handset. The scar on his scalp twinged. “Yes, Sergeant, evacuation. Getting the civilians the fuck out of what is about to become a battleground. You are evacuating them, aren’t you?”

“Sir—”

For a second, night turned to day. He slammed on the brakes, filling the air with the smell of burning rubber. A flash of light shot from the airship overhead, punctuated a moment later by a high-pitched screech. The yellow beam crashed into an office block to the east of the Peace Tower. Fire instantly erupted through the midsection of the building. The tower started to tilt to the side like a block of butter left out in the sun.

“Sweet Jesus,” he said. The office block should be empty at this hour—or as close enough to empty as he could hope for—and maybe there was no one on the street below. Maybe. But the next shot….

His eyes darted around at the spires of apartment buildings, symbols of a bright new future that had never come. Thousands lived there, and soon they’d all be crowding the streets on foot and in cars, trampling each other, trying to escape the carnage, and running right into the paths of Quanta’s metas. If a blast didn’t kill them first.

He depressed the handset button. “Hawthorne! Are you there?”

“Y…yes, sir.”

“Our primary objective is to get the civilians into the bomb shelters. Then we need to figure out how to take that aircraft down. Do you understand me?”

“Sir, our helicopters are still being repaired after the television station attack.”

“Then get on the line with the Army and the Air Force. Find something, damn it.”

“Yes, sir. We….” Something burst across the radio, and the car filled with static.

“Hawthorne!” Wallace shouted into the handset. There were smaller flashes of light coming from the buildings ahead. “Sergeant!”

The static dropped away, replaced with hisses and pops. “We’re taking fire, sir.” Hawthorne’s voice had gone up an octave. “Oh God. Mauger, above you, the fliers! Do something about them.”

Damn it, damn it, damn it.
Wallace gunned the engine again, and the car took off. He didn’t have the people to deal with this. “Fuck the court orders, activate their kill-switches, Sergeant.”

“I’m trying, sir, I’m trying. I think they’re using those scramblers again.”

Wallace slammed his palm against the steering wheel. They’d grown complacent, and now they were paying the price. As he neared the central city, department stores and chic restaurants closed in around him. Civilians ran screaming in front of his car, dragging children and suitcases with equal carelessness. He leaned on the horn, but neither that nor the siren cleared his way. The car had to slow to a crawl to fight through the churning mass of humanity. A woman brushed against his car wearing her nightgown and every piece of jewellery she owned. There were still curlers in her hair.

He shielded his eyes as the airship let out another blast. He couldn’t see where it hit, but even from here he could make out the wrenching sound of cracking concrete. Something caught his eye, illuminated against the fading light. It hovered up in the sky, a tiny dot glowing faintly. Another of Quanta’s criminals? But the figure was all on his own. Something about the way he stared down at the carnage made Wallace’s skin crawl.
What the hell is he doing?

Wallace slowed the car and fumbled for his folding binoculars in the glove box.
It’s just a boy
, he realised as he pressed the lenses to his eyes. His thoughts went back to Morgan Shepherd’s gloating conversation with the vigilante woman, while he sat bound up like a goddamn wild pig. This couldn’t be what she was afraid of. The kid looked like nothing.

Another beam lit up the boy, casting shadows across his face. Wallace caught sight of something else. A cloud was emerging from the boy’s hands. No, not a cloud. A web. Like fibres being spun out of freshly-shorn wool. The fibres snaked down towards the street. Wallace brought the binoculars down to follow them. Some of them disappeared straight through the walls of buildings, while others continued their descent. Something in the way they snaked made his stomach ache. He’d never seen Doll Face’s powers, but the descriptions in the few survivors’ reports were hard to mistake.

He shoved the car door open against the crowd and leaned out. Too many people. He couldn’t get them all out. Instinctively, he reached for his sidearm, but at this range he had no chance of hitting the boy. His forehead grew damp as the fibres plunged into the crowd.

The change was subtle. Most people were too panicked to notice a few unlucky souls stopping in their tracks. But when he stood up on the lip of the car door and stared over the crowd, he could see the strings slipping inside a dozen civilians’ open mouths and noses. Their eyes went blank and their legs stopped moving. The crowd shoved past them, but the captured civilians stood as solid as a mountain in a storm. Then, as one, they started to float into the air.