The Reckoning: Quantum Prophecy Book 3 (3 page)

Once Max had learned that Danny’s powers were appearing, he’d attempted to build a second power-damping machine. But without Ragnarök’s understanding of how the powers worked, the machine was flawed. It would have killed Colin and Danny and thousands of other people.

We had to stop it,
Colin thought.
Even if that means that the war might still happen…. You can’t sacrifice innocent people just because one half-mad superhuman had a vision of the future.

Colin sat up and looked around the barn. The shafts of sunlight
were at a slightly steeper angle now.
Better get out of here before the farmer comes to milk his cows.

He froze.

Something’s wrong. A farm is
never
this quiet.

Colin pushed himself off the edge of the hayloft, dropped the four meters to the ground and landed silently.
My God! I’ve gone deaf. But…
He shook his head. This didn’t seem possible. Before he’d fallen asleep, he’d been able to hear the old farmer snoring in the farmhouse a hundred meters away. Now, there was nothing.

Then Colin turned around and saw the well-dressed man and woman standing right behind him.

Fifteen thousand kilometers to the west a large, sleek, black aircraft descended quickly and almost silently from the night sky, its six turbine engines blowing a large crater in the narrow, moonlit strip of sand that separated the island’s dense jungle from the Pacific Ocean.

Danny Cooper couldn’t help but admire the skill with which Renata Soliz handled the new StratoTruck’s controls; the craft touched down with barely a bump.

The others were already out of the craft and running across the beach by the time Danny had managed to unclip his seatbelt.

This was the farthest Danny had ever been from home: Isla del Tonatiuh was situated five hundred kilometers to the southwest of El Salvador. The island was less than thirty kilometers across and was covered in a thick canopy of vegetation: the perfect place for an international arms-smuggling operation.

Danny silently made his way to the undergrowth, where the five others were waiting for him.

Renata Soliz leaned close and whispered, “How is it that someone who can run as fast as you is always the last one out of the StratoTruck?”

Danny grinned. “It would be a lot easier if whoever designed the seat belts didn’t assume that everyone has two hands.”

The mission’s leader—the former superhero known as Impervia—said, “All right, you know the drill. We move in hard and fast. Danny, you’re the scout.”

Façade placed his hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Ready?”

Danny nodded. He pulled his electronic compass from his pocket and examined it. The tiny screen showed his location and the location of the target. “OK.”

Impervia said, “Take no chances, Danny. If they see you, get out of there ASAP. Do not engage.”

“Understood. But they won’t see me.” Danny stuffed the compass back in his pocket, raised his night-vision goggles to his face and turned them on. The goggles had been specially modified so that he could put them on and activate them using only his left hand.

“And keep the scanner going at all times. The target is two kilometers east, but the vegetation is heavy, so keep the noise level down.” Impervia looked at her watch. “Now…go.”

Danny smiled at Renata, then concentrated. Slipping into slow-time was so simple now it was almost second nature. He pushed his way through the bushes.

There were times when Danny was almost pleased that he
was a superhuman. Times like this, when he knew he was doing something good, almost made up for the loss of his right arm. Almost.

Since the start of the year, Danny Cooper, Renata Soliz and Butler Redmond had been involved in over a dozen missions like this one, and each one had been successful.

It’d be a lot easier if Colin was with us, but even so…we’re not doing too badly.

Danny felt a familiar churning in his stomach. Sometimes, when he thought about the way Colin had left Sakkara, it almost made him ill.
He should have stayed, given us a chance to explain everything. Now he’s God-knows-where and his parents are worried sick about him.

Danny climbed over a rotting, fallen tree and paused to check the compass. Through the night-vision goggles, everything looked green and washed-out. Worse, because he was in his high-speed mode the computer-enhanced images from the goggles flickered maddeningly.

He glanced behind him and saw that his lightning-fast path through the jungle had shaken the moisture from the undergrowth, marking his trail with a cloud of droplets seemingly suspended in midair.

Danny continued on his way, wondering how long it would take for Mrs. Wagner to decide that the trip to the jungle would make a good topic for an essay.

That was the worst thing about being a teenage superhuman: He still had to go to school. The previous month, Mrs. Wagner had given him grief about not turning in his geography homework on time. Danny had tried to argue that he’d been kind of
busy saving the world, but the teacher—a former superhuman herself—had simply said, “Danny, you’re the fastest human being alive. You could probably
run
to Alaska faster than most people could write an essay about it.”

Life at Sakkara isn’t so bad,
Danny told himself.
Colin should have stayed with us. Max’s phone-filter thingy means that Yvonne can’t just call us and then use her mind-control, so we’re safe there.

Well, reasonably safe. But Dioxin’s locked away and Victor Cross seems to have completely disappeared.

Ahead, Danny could see a point of light.
That’s the place.
He lowered his goggles and began to run toward it.

As he ran, a feeling of unease settled over him, like he was being watched.
That’s not possible. There’s no way they could know we’re coming. Besides, I’m moving too fast for anyone to see.

He stepped out into a clearing and saw a squat, vine-covered, crumbling stone building. Two men in grubby overalls were standing near the entrance. Danny walked around the edge of the clearing, counted all the people he could see, then headed back into the jungle, toward his colleagues.

He could picture the scene: Impervia bossing everyone about, Façade taking no real notice of her and doing his own thing, Renata doing her best to keep as far away from Butler as possible.

Butler Redmond was definitely a little easier to get along with now, ever since he’d had a panic attack during Dioxin’s attack on Sakkara. Before that, Butler had swaggered about like he owned the place—now he mostly kept to himself, with only the occasional verbal jab at Danny when he was feeling particularly pleased with himself.

Danny walked out of the jungle a few meters away from the others, and took a moment to look out at the sea. The nearest wave seemed to be frozen in midsplash. Danny concentrated, shifting back to normal time, and the wave crashed to the shore.

“You were gone one hundred and twenty-seven seconds,” Impervia said. “Twice as long as you should have been. What happened?”

“Nothing,” Danny replied. “I took it easy. I might have been in hyperfast mode, but it’s still two kilometers there and two back.” He pulled the fist-sized scanner from his belt and handed it to her.

Impervia connected the scanner to the small computer screen built into her uniform’s wrist. “All right…. We’ve got twelve hostiles. Four on guard duty, the rest inside the building. Renata, you’re on point. Butler will stick close to you. Vaughan? You stay put and monitor. Give us twenty minutes. If we’re not back—”

The young soldier said, “I know. Pull out and get back to the transport.”

“We keep it quiet until we’re on the edge of the clearing, then we take out the guards: Make enough noise to bring the others running. When the compound is secure, I’ll set the charges.”

Renata asked, “Wouldn’t it be easier for one of
us
to go inside?”

“Yes, it would. But what happens if the compound is booby-trapped? You three are too important to lose.”

Danny glanced at Renata, who was looking back at him with a familiar expression, and he knew that they were both thinking the same thing: Impervia wasn’t a superhuman anymore, but she still wanted to pretend that she was.

Façade turned to the other soldier, Vaughan. “Get the extraction team ready to pick up twelve hostiles. And watch our backs.”

“Yes sir.”

“Let’s do it. Renata, lead the way.”

Danny followed Renata into the undergrowth.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was about to go horribly wrong.

T
HE NEATLY DRESSED MAN SLOWLY
raised his right hand and showed Colin that he was holding a small device about the size of a cell phone.

Colin stepped back, but the man simply smiled and pressed a button on the machine.

Instantly, the sounds of the farmyard flooded back and Colin jumped: He’d been concentrating so hard on his superhearing that now the sounds were greatly magnified. He could hear everything: the men’s heartbeats, the noises of the animals—including a tremendous amount of gurgling coming from the cows’ stomachs—birds, insects, the slow ticking of a nearby car’s engine as it cooled down.

“Sorry,” the man said. “We knew you’d be able to hear us coming from miles away so we had to use this. It’s a sound-muffler. It works by inverting—”

“I know how it works. What do you want?” Colin asked.

“We’ve been tracking you for weeks, Colin.”

“Who?”

The red-haired woman gave Colin a warm smile. “Look, we know you’re Colin Wagner. Let’s not bother with all that ‘I don’t know who you think I am’ nonsense, OK? It’ll save time.”

“We just want to talk,” the man said. “I’m Byron, this is Harriet.”

Colin looked them up and down. Immaculate black suits,
white shirts, dark blue ties. Highly polished expensive shoes. “You’re Trutopians.”

“That’s right.”

“And you want me to join your organization.”

“We just want to talk to you, Colin,” Harriet said. “That’s all. You’re a hard man to track, but we’ve got people everywhere. You were spotted a month ago outside Budapest, and ever since then we’ve been concentrating on this area.” She paused. “What exactly
are
you doing here?”

Before Colin could reply, Harriet said, “Never mind that for now. Colin, we didn’t come empty-handed.” She nudged her colleague with her elbow. “Show him, Byron.”

“What?”

Harriet rolled her eyes. “What you’ve got in your pocket, you dink!”

“Oh, right.” Byron reached into his jacket pocket, pulled something out and tossed it to Colin.

“A Mars bar,” Colin said.

“Yeah. We thought you might be missing some of the comforts of home.”

Colin briefly wondered whether the chocolate might be drugged, but somehow he couldn’t stop himself from tearing open the wrapper and taking a huge bite out of the bar.

“Reginald Kinsella told us to order that stuff in specially for you,” Harriet said. “And your favorite chips.”

“You mean crisps,” Byron corrected. “Cheese and onion—those are your favorites, right?”

Colin nodded.

Harriet said, “We just want to talk. Mr. Kinsella has been in Munich for the past week, but he’s cutting his visit short and he’s coming here to Romania specially to see you. Just give him a couple of days of your time, OK? If you’re still not interested after that, then that’s fine. You know what the Trutopians are all about, don’t you?”

“You claim to be interested only in worldwide peace.”

“Exactly. We’ve got a community in Satu Mare, about twenty kilometers from here. It’s in the direction you were heading anyway, so it’ll save you half a day’s walking. How’s that sound?”

Colin shook his head. “No.”

Byron started to speak, but the woman put her hand on his arm. “Leave it. All right, Colin. We tried.” She stepped to one side and pointed at the large backpack that had been behind her. “It’s yours. There’s enough food for a week, a new pair of hiking boots in your size, a couple of changes of clothes and a portable phone. I’ve put our numbers on it, just in case.”

Byron said, “I suppose it gets pretty lonely out there on the road, so we’ve also given you an MP3 player. It’s got a couple of thousand tracks on it. We weren’t sure what kind of music you like, but there’s bound to be something there that’ll suit you.”

Then Harriet reached into her jacket’s inside pocket and took out a thick envelope. “Five hundred euro, five hundred U.S. dollars.” She handed it to Colin. “And there’s a Trutopian credit card in there too. In case of emergencies. It doesn’t have a very high limit, so don’t go trying to buy a Ferrari with it.”

Colin found that his mouth had gone dry. “You’re just
giving
me all this stuff?”

Byron nodded. “Yep.”

“Even though I said I wasn’t interested in talking to you?”

He nodded again. “That’s right. Look, Colin…This is how Mr. Kinsella put it: You’re a superhuman. And more than that, you’re one of the good guys. That puts us all on the same side. If we make things easier for you to help people, that makes things easier for us.”

“It just seems…” Colin shrugged. “Like a bribe or something.”

Harriet said, “It’s not a bribe. It’s what we do, it’s what the whole organization is about. We help people who are less fortunate. We’ve been following you long enough to know that you have no money, no change of clothes, no food, and you haven’t had a shower in over a month.”

“Actually,” Byron said, “we could tell that one even if we
hadn’t
been tracking you. But she’s right. Sure, the Trutopians want you on board. But if you’re not interested, then what are we going to do? Force you to join? That’s not our style.” He reached down and picked up the bag. “So come on. We’ll give you a lift to Satu Mare, and there’s no strings attached.”

It could be OK,
Colin said to himself.
They’re not superhuman. If they tried to kidnap me or anything I could just smash open the car door and jump out
. “All right,” he said.

“Great!” Byron said. “You don’t mind if we drive with the windows down, do you?”