The Reckoning: Quantum Prophecy Book 3 (23 page)

The blue dots indicated where a battle was taking place. The green dots—far fewer than Yvonne would have liked—showed where the Trutopians had won their battles. Their losses were indicated in red.

“Show me the enemy’s movements,” Yvonne ordered the man standing next to her.

“Actual or projected?”

“Both.”

A series of yellow and orange arrows began to appear on the screen, showing the position and directions of the enemy armies.

There’re an awful lot of them heading this way,
Yvonne thought.

The door below opened and Colin walked in. He didn’t bother climbing up the stairs to the gantry: He flew instead.

“So how are we doing?” he asked, hovering in the air on the other side of the railing.

“They’re converging on our location. Our defenses should be strong enough to hold them back.”

“Should?”

“That depends on whether or not they have Danny and Renata with them. Our last report says they stole the new StratoTruck from Sakkara and disappeared with it.”

“Then it doesn’t seem likely that they’re coming here.”

“Perhaps not, but I’d like to know what they’re up to.” Yvonne finally took her eyes from the screen. “Whatever happens, do not let them get close to me. Understood?”

Colin nodded.

“According to the projections, their first strike craft could be here within minutes. Our surface-to-air missiles will deal with them.”

Colin said, “Yvonne, you can put an end to this now. No one else has to die.”

“But I don’t want to stop it, and I don’t care whether people die.”

Colin paused for a moment. “You do know that if I can find a way to break your programming then it’s all over for you, right?”

“That won’t happen.”

“You can’t order me to kill. I’m able to resist that, so maybe I’ll develop a resistance to the rest of your programming.”

“Then I’ll just have to go to Plan B.”

“And what’s Plan B?”

“I call it the Colin-Killer Plan.” She smiled. “You don’t get to be as intelligent as I am without having a lot of backup plans.”

“Like Victor Cross did?”

“Exactly.”

Someone on the floor below shouted, “We’ve got two radar blips incoming from the north!”

“Activate the defenses!” Yvonne ordered. “Shoot them down!”

Colin could only watch in silence as the large screen showed
a pair of white points streaking toward the Trutopian base, to be met with a barrage of missiles. The white points disappeared.

“Targets are down,” the man next to Yvonne said. “Pilots ejected. They’ll land just outside the perimeter.”

Yvonne shook her head. “No, they won’t land at all. Target the pilots!”

At the StratoTruck’s controls, Renata Soliz said, “Acknowledged, Razor. I’ll report back.”

Stephanie asked, “So?”

“The army is definitely concentrating their firepower on the Wyoming base. They tracked Colin there, so they’re going to forget about the rest of the country until they find a way to stop him.”

“Then we have to get to him first,” Stephanie said.

“They’ve already shot down over a dozen fighters,” Renata said. “We’ll never get close enough.”

Danny said, “We get as high up as we can, I’ll jump out and you solidify me before I hit the ground.”

“Danny…I don’t want to use my powers on anyone else. I’m not even sure I should be solidifying parts of my body—every time I do it the pain gets worse.”

“OK. Just fly us toward their base and we’ll try to come up with something else. But that might be our only option.”

Colin didn’t know much about military tactics, but he was pretty sure that one of the most important things a warrior could do was cause the enemy to panic. A scared soldier would fight harder, more desperately, but a
terrified
soldier would be much more likely to make mistakes, or simply drop his weapon and run.

Yvonne had ordered him to kill the attacking soldiers, but so far he’d managed to avoid doing that.
How is it that I have to obey all her other orders, but not that one?

One of the gunships came roaring up over the roof of a deserted multistory parking lot, straight toward him.

Colin aimed his right arm and a powerful lightning bolt arced out and struck the copter. It shuddered and began to drop, and Colin could see the pilot struggling with the controls.

He resisted the urge to blast the copter again. Instead, he ran toward it. The gunship crashed to the ground, its rotors still spinning.

Immediately, a team of five soldiers leaped out and opened fire on Colin.

He felt the bullets pounding against his chest; they hurt, but they didn’t do any damage.

Yeah, I’m definitely bulletproof now.

He charged at the soldiers, who scattered and ran.

Colin leaped at the helicopter’s cockpit and punched his fist through the glass. The pilot was desperately fumbling with his seat harness’s release catch, muttering, “No no no no no…!”

“Relax!” Colin yelled. “I’m not going to hurt you!” He swung his fist again and punched another hole in the glass, then grabbed hold of the joystick and ripped it out through the cockpit.

The pilot finally managed to free himself and scrambled from his seat.

“Well done. Now, run away.” As the soldier ran after his colleagues, Colin jumped back from the copter, and rose high into the air.

All around the perimeter, the U.S. soldiers were encroaching.
Strategically placed heavy weapons covered every possible approach.

Yvonne had told him that there was no way that the Trutopian defenses could be breached.
She was wrong about that,
Colin thought,
because they’re definitely getting in
.

Half a block away, enemy soldiers smashed through the blockade with an armor-plated half-track truck. The huge vehicle easily scrambled over the debris and headed straight for a platoon of Trutopian soldiers.

Colin saw this and swooped down to ground level, darting through the streets.

He blasted the half-track with a bolt of lightning, but it had no effect. The vehicle hit one of the Trutopian guards, sent him spinning into the air and kept going.

Colin raced after it, but before he could catch up with it he heard the roar of a second engine.

He turned to see an even bigger and faster vehicle bearing down on him. A missile streaked from the armored car, straight toward him. Colin dodged to the left, clipped the side of a building, hit the ground and rolled. The missile slowed, turned about and aimed itself at him again.

The vehicle charged past, and a second missile was launched at him. Colin ran, and glanced over his shoulder to see that both missiles were right behind him.

Heat-seekers!

As he ran, he concentrated on his own body heat, forcing it to dissipate into the surrounding air.

The missiles were still coming.

Maybe they’re
not
heat-seekers—some sort of image-recognition!

Then the vehicle fired again, and a fourth time. Ahead, Colin spotted an unfinished office building. He crashed through the glass door and raced through the lobby, up the wide stairwell.

He focused his hearing on the armored vehicle. A man was saying, “I see him! He’s heading to the upper floors!”

Another voice said, “He’s trapped. Detonate the missiles!”

Colin raced up the stairs four at a time, and smashed through the wooden door leading to the roof.

A deafening boom erupted from somewhere on the ground floor, and the entire building quaked.

He made a run for the edge of the roof, and jumped just as the office building collapsed beneath him.

He caught hold of a window ledge on the building opposite, and in one move pulled himself up and through the window. He realized as he was falling that the building didn’t have any interior walls or floors. It was an empty shell.

Colin landed in a shower of glass fragments and rolled to his feet. One of the walls was clearly fake and the large track marks on the ground showed that the building had recently housed one of the Trutopians’ heavy weapons.

The soldiers think that there are civilians here, so they’re not using their heavy guns!

The building shook as something exploded against the outer wall.

Colin flew up to the roof and crashed through a window, then allowed himself to fall straight down, landing feetfirst on top of one of the armored cars. He dropped to the ground and ran, making sure that the enemy soldiers were following.
If I fly,
they’ll know they can’t follow me and they’ll give up the chase. I have to lead them away…

Yvonne’s voice came over the radio. “Colin?”

“Bit busy getting shot at!”

“Never mind that. We’ve got something incoming. We don’t know what it is, but it’s big and fast. We’ve hit it with everything we have, but it’s still coming. It should hit just south of Pythagoras Square.”

“I told you, I’m busy!” A bullet ricocheted off the back of Colin’s head. “Ouch! Man, that was a good shot.”

“
This is an order! Find out what that falling object is!”

R
ENATA HAD TAKEN THE
S
TRATOTRUCK
as high as it could go, flown it directly over the center of the Trutopian town, then pitched it straight downward and rammed the engines to full speed.

Seconds before they were in range of the Trutopians’ weapons, Renata turned the StratoTruck solid, as well as herself, Danny and Stephanie and everything inside the vehicle.

Now, as the vehicle screamed toward the ground, Renata Soliz felt like something was hacking through her brain with acid-covered knives.

This isn’t right! I’m solid, so I shouldn’t be able to feel anything!

She had hoped that by turning herself solid at the same time as the StratoTruck and her friends, she would be able to avoid the murderous headache.

Oh God, I hope I have the strength to turn us all back!

A barrage of missiles exploded against the side of the crystalline StratoTruck, knocking it off course. It plowed through the side of a building, demolished a large sculpture and smashed into the ground, showering the area with fragments of paving slabs.

We’re down!
Renata thought.
Change back, change back!

The sun exploded behind her eyes as the StratoTruck and its crew rippled, changing from invulnerable crystal back to their normal state.

The StratoTruck’s engines—which had been running before the change—were now inactive.

Renata slumped in the pilot’s chair, blood pouring from her nose, ears and eyes.

As if from a great distance, she heard Danny’s voice calling her name, but she was unable to answer.

“She’s alive,” Stephanie said, “but…she’s not in a good way.”

Danny stood looking down at Renata. “Oh Jesus…. Then we have to abandon the plan and get out of here.”

Renata stirred. “No…” Her voice was weak, and cracked. “No. I’ll be fine. Danny, you have to do it.”

“I…I know. But you’re not in any state to move.”

“I’ll turn myself solid. If I change only myself, I’ll be OK. There won’t be any pain.” She gave him a weak smile.

A sensor light on the dashboard began to flash. “They’re coming,” Stephanie said. “Danny?”

“Just give us a minute, OK?” he snapped.

“We don’t
have
a minute!” Stephanie moved toward the back of the StratoTruck, picked up her father’s jetpack and clipped it on. She opened the second crate.

Danny crouched next to Renata, and put his hand on hers. “We’ll stop him, then we’ll get Yvonne, OK? When you’re feeling up to it, come find us and kick their butts, got that?”

Renata nodded.

Danny said, “Look, about what I was saying before, that time on the roof of Sakkara when Niall interrupted us…? I know this
really
isn’t the right time, but—”

She pulled him closer and kissed him. “I love you.”

Danny grinned, “Funny, I was just—”

Renata shimmered, and turned solid.

“Just about to say the same thing,” Danny finished. He paused for a moment, then took a deep breath, and moved closer to Stephanie.

“She’ll be OK.”

“I hope so.” Danny nodded. “Let’s get this over with.”

Colin turned left, vaulted over a burning car and darted around the corner into a wide, tree-lined market square…and straight into a squadron of four enemy soldiers.

He leaped into the air just as they opened fire, soaring over their heads to come down directly behind them.

Colin spun about, aiming a kick at the nearest man’s back, knocking him into his colleagues.

One of the soldiers remained standing: He aimed his rifle at Colin’s head and pulled the trigger just as Colin launched a fireball at the gun.

The rifle exploded, knocking the man to the ground.

Cautiously, Colin moved forward to check on the man…

…And was suddenly flying backward through the air. He collided with the trunk of a large oak tree.

What the… ?

He tried to sense the energy patterns around him.

Something invisible smashed into the left side of his face, knocking him to the ground.

He was hit again, this time across the back of the head. He rolled away, flipped over on to his feet and looked around. There was nothing.

Colin felt something wet on his chin. He put his hand up to his mouth and it came away covered in blood.

A sudden pain ripped into his side. He stumbled.

Something caught him in the upper arm, spinning him about. The invisible force crashed into his stomach, then immediately hit him in the back of the head, almost knocking him to the ground.

Doesn’t feel like Butler’s force-field—whatever it is, I’ll freeze it.
He focused on the heat around him, drew it into himself. In seconds his breath was misting in the air and frost was forming on the ground.

Colin was hit again, square in the face. He toppled backward, his head cracking off the concrete. He rolled aside, tucked his feet under him and jumped up.
Got to fly…

He had barely risen off the ground when something powerful snatched his leg, pulled him back, slammed him facefirst into the ground.
Concentrate! Whatever this thing is, it has to use energy. I should be able to—