King of Superheroes, page 25
“You won’t,” I interrupted. “No matter how well thought out your little plan is… You won’t. You’ll answer for your crimes.”
“Oh, Mark…” he tutted and leaned back in his chair again. “I have stage four pancreatic cancer. Untreatable. I’ll be dead within a month. So…”
“So, what?” I demanded. “You’re gonna blow up an airport full of innocent people?”
“Technically, yes,” he said with an almost wicked grin. “But it’s not just a bomb. You’re forgetting the secret ingredient.”
He spread his arms wide and then turned the briefcase back to face me.
I could see a timer of some sort with a mess of wires attached to what looked like a white slab of plasticine, though it was definitely a hunk of plastic explosives. But what really made my blood run cold was the vial beside it. It was a transparent cylinder about the length of my hand, with burnished silver rings acting as stoppers on each end. The thick glass tube was full of a blue-green liquid, and it swirled and moved inside the vial completely of its own accord.
I had no idea what it was, but I knew I definitely had to stop it from going up in flames along with the bomb.
I turned to the two burly men standing on either side of the bound doctors and pointed at the terrorist.
“Is this really worth it to you?” I asked them. “He might be dying, but are you willing to go with him?”
“No use, my boy.” The terrorist let out a hearty chuckle and leaned casually back in the plush leather seat of the private jet’s cabin when his security guards didn’t give me an answer. “They’ve been with me since the beginning. They were suicidal themselves, but I gave them true purpose. This is just their end goal, same as mine.”
“You’re all absolutely insane.”
“That may be true.” The man shrugged and bent down to inspect something beside the vial full of unknown chemicals. “But it sure does make your day job interesting. You should thank me. I’m releasing you from the same fate.”
“You want to kill me just because I’m an Omega? You don’t know a damn thing about me.”
“Oh, but I do.” He wagged his finger at me again. “I know a great deal about you, Mark. I know about your loving parents, your baby sister… Your new friends, your new blonde girlfriend…”
My breath caught in my throat at the mention of Hannah, and the terrorist smiled wickedly when he saw my automatic reaction.
“Oh, yes.” He nodded eagerly. “I know all about your life, Mark. And I know what you can become. The world isn’t ready for another Omega.”
“But how do you know?” I pressed. “How do you have all of this information?”
“Ahhh…” The terrorist tutted and wagged his finger at me again, like I was a sulking toddler who didn’t want to eat my broccoli at dinner. “Those are cogs in a far broader machine than our little interaction, Mark.”
I could feel the anger start to curl in my chest, like oil on water, and I had to clench my jaw to stop myself from hurling a fireball at the guy. Which I could’ve done, and quite easily, but I didn’t know how his bomb worked yet, and I didn’t want to risk a completely uncontrolled explosion.
Especially with the two doctors still bound and gagged in front of me.
But the terrorist talked as though he had an insight, some secret way of digging up dirt on me, and the sense of being watched made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
How did he know so much about me?
The only place that he could’ve gotten any of that information was the Academy, and the anger soon turned to dismay that tasted as acrid as the smell of jet fuel.
“Who’s given you this information?” I demanded.
There had to be a mole or spy within the Academy, and I needed to find out who.
“A friend of mine.” The terrorist shrugged. “A foe of yours. What does it matter?”
“Who?” I pressed further.
“Oh, someone you’ll never get access to.” The terrorist waved his hand listlessly. “A Super, much like yourself, but one that saw the light and chose to aid us in our cause.”
“Us?” I repeated the word as a question. “There’s an us?”
“Oh, it’s not just me.” He giggled and clapped his hands together gleefully, before he eventually fixed me with a pensive stare and then turned the briefcase around on the table in a semicircle so it faced me. “But enough small talk. The time is now, and you cannot be allowed to walk out of here, I’m afraid.”
My heart sank when I saw the timer begin to count down for thirty, and the terrorist just shrugged and then held his hands up as though he were the conductor of a grand orchestra.
Which in his deranged head, I suppose that was exactly how he was feeling in his last euphoric moments.
“You can still stop this,” I said as I instinctively held my hands out. “This doesn’t need to happen this way.”
“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong.” He wagged a finger at me and smiled again. “This is exactly how it has to happen. I’d say watch the news and find out, but… You’ll be dead, too.”
“Don’t,” I said and locked eyes with the terrorist. “Don’t do this.”
“I may be forgotten,” he said to me and pointed his finger in warning. “But the cause certainly won’t be. Everyone will know it was you who allowed this to happen, especially when Dr. Hamlin and Dr. Kish make the six o’clock news. Then your little fan club can decide who the real bad guys are for themselves.”
“No!”
It was the only syllable I had time to shout, because everything after that happened in both the blink of an eye and frustratingly slow motion.
The conscious doctor, still bound and gagged into silence, let out a yell that was pushed back down his throat by the duct tape over his mouth, though his eyes bulged in fear. Meanwhile, the terrorist leaned back in the plush leather chair and just smiled across the cabin at me with a serene look of calm on his face. Then the device inside of the briefcase made a sudden resounding click, followed by a dull thunk, and every nerve ending in my body could sense the sudden onslaught of power that came from it.
I instinctively lunged backward, away from the blast that was already forming, but I knelt down on the floor of the airplane cabin so I could stretch both hands out toward the briefcase that held the bomb.
The device had already ignited, and I watched as the crackle of fire hurtled toward the glass vial that contained the doctors’ bioweapon. I fell to my knees as I let out a roar of frustration. I yelled into the abyss of the sudden fireball and focused every single ounce of energy I possessed on the glass tube that held something far worse than plastic explosives.
I could feel the surge of heat as the fireball singed my hair and forced the oxygen in my lungs to wither and dry up, and I could feel the literal shockwave push through the air around me as it broke the aircraft apart.
The two doctors were the closest to the blast, so I kept my right hand focused on the vial and used my left to yank at the air that surrounded them.
I had no time to think, no time to plan, all I could do was react.
But my powers obeyed me as if I’d always had them.
As easy as opening a jar of pickles, or climbing a flight of stairs, or catching my breath after going for a run.
They were a part of me, and as the adrenaline coursed through every drop of my blood, I used my telekinesis to pull both the glass vial and the two doctors toward me in one swift motion.
The two doctors hurtled toward me, and I extended my right hand so I could catch the vial filled with the oily green substance as it soared through the air. The moment my fingers clamped around the thick glass tube, and I knew I had the two doctors beside me, I let out another shout as I focused my Conduit ability on the plastic explosive that had already caused more destruction than I’d wanted.
All I could think to do was force it upward, away from where people were on the ground, away from where it could do the most amount of damage. I’d caught it just a little too late, though, because I’d been focused on retrieving the dangerous vial of goo first, so the blast bounced against the runway of the airport before I could send it skyward.
Time caught up with me then, and my ears rang with the force of the explosion. I kept my eyes screwed shut as I fought to catch my breath, and after a moment, my hearing started to come back, and I heard the immediate chaos surrounding me like a cloud. Sirens, jet engines, screams of terror, commands shouted in voices that I didn’t recognize.
I let out a gasp and released my mental grip on my superpowers. The two doctors I’d yanked toward me with my telekinesis power suddenly slumped back down onto the broken tarmac, and they were both covered in slashes and cuts and debris but thankfully still alive.
I flopped down onto my back with the vial still clasped tightly in my right hand and sucked in a huge breath of air as the ringing in my ears continued. I watched as a couple of clouds scudded lazily across an inky black sky, and then I suddenly had a multitude of faces hovering over me.
I recognized Hannah first, then I met Rhiannon’s green eyes, and Danny immediately pulled me up into a sitting position so he could place both of his hands against my chest and heal whatever injuries I’d sustained from attempting to contain the blast.
I rubbed at my eyes and saw Dahlia speaking to General Navi, and to my surprise, I saw Somnia join them outside the hangar.
“God,” I groaned and rubbed at my eyes again. “The terrorist, he… Is he…”
“He’s in about a hundred different pieces and charred to black like a bad barbecue.” Frank’s voice was grim, but then he grinned down at me. “It’s a freakin’ wonder you managed to steer clear of that explosion yourself, let alone save those two doctors.”
“Are they okay?” I turned the question to our healer, Danny.
The Corps member of our team had already started to attend to the two doctors, and he let out a groan.
“Whatever the bastards poisoned them with, it’s pretty brutal, but I’ve managed to isolate it for now,” the healer explained. “They definitely need medical attention, though, let me grab those EMTs.”
I watched as he waved at the ambulance that had made its way onto the tarmac, and then I turned my attention back to the other three.
“You did great,” Hannah said and pushed my hair away from my face with a smile.
“Are you okay?” Rhiannon asked, and she reached out to cup my face in her hand.
I leaned into her touch and smiled as I nodded, and I stayed like that for a moment as I let the insanity of what’d just happened process in my head.
The terrorist had wanted to frame me, he’d wanted to kill me more importantly, all for what I had no control over. It was entirely unfair, and the anger I felt still bubbled impatiently in the pit of my stomach. I realized the more I was thrust into the public eye, the more danger I would be in.
There hadn’t been another one like me for so many years, and the terrorist hadn’t wanted to leave this world with me still in it. He genuinely thought he was doing the planet a favor by taking me out with him.
But it made me want to focus on being the best Super I could possibly be, and I was determined not to fall into the same pit my predecessor had.
I would not be that person.
But even without the terrorist’s delusions of grandeur, he’d presented me with an even more pressing situation. There was a Super who’d gone to the dark side and betrayed the rest of us, and most likely sold information to the guy who just tried to blow Miami airport into smithereens.
I suddenly thought about the in-real-time map I’d seen earlier, the one that showed which Supers were responding where. The mole or spy probably had access to that map and was able to relay the info to the terrorists. That was how the crazy bastard knew I was coming.
But I didn’t quite know what to do with this choice nugget of information just yet, so I kept it to myself.
“Wait…” I muttered as a flash of white amidst the rubble caught my eye, and I was pulled out of my thoughts.
“What is it, Mark?” Hannah asked.
“It looks like… A business card, or a calling card, or something…” I muttered, and I broke away from the group so I could clamber over a bunch of destroyed asphalt to get to it.
The slip of stark white almost glittered with how pristine it was in comparison to the sheer chaos that surrounded it, and I pulled it out from between a scattering of broken glass and dusty chunks of concrete so I could inspect it.
It was about the same size as a business card, except the glittering continued long after I’d pulled it out of the dust. It was made of an almost soft material with a slight shimmer to it, which caught the light with every movement.
“Does it say anything?” Frank asked as he came up behind me.
“I don’t think so…” I said with a frown. “It’s just… plain.”
“It definitely doesn’t look like something you’d normally find in an airport, like it doesn’t look like some normal businessman’s card.” Rhiannon reasoned.
“I wonder who it belongs to, then…” Hannah frowned as she stared at the slip of weird shimmery material I held between my thumb and forefinger.
“What is that?” I suddenly heard Dahlia’s curt voice over my shoulder, and before I could answer, she’d reached over and grabbed the card out of my hand.
“Hey!” I frowned and turned toward my mentor. “I just found that over there, I…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Dahlia said bluntly and immediately pocketed the weird-looking business card.
“But--”
“I said, don’t worry about it.” She repeated her words with a stern expression, even for her, and I begrudgingly fell silent.
Our dark-haired mentor stalked off, to where Somnia was busy talking to both General Navi and the few members of airport security that hadn’t been immediately carted off for medical examinations, and I noticed how Dahlia quickly handed the Academy’s principal the weird shimmery card I’d found in the airplane’s debris.
Somnia’s jaw clenched as she took the card from Dahlia, but then she blinked, smiled, and was back to her usual serenely smiley self as she pocketed it.
“Weird…” I muttered to my team. “Right, that’s not just me? That was weird.”
“Definitely weird,” Frank agreed.
“Yeah, something’s up with that card, for sure.” Hannah let out a long breath and shook her head. “Today has been crazy.”
“Yeah, I cannot wait to crawl into my shower,” I said with a groan, and I stretched my arms above my head and grimaced as my muscles ached at the movement.
“Mr. Maddock!”
I turned on my heel when I heard my name being called by a voice I didn’t recognize, and I spotted a man dressed in a ridiculously expensive-looking suit fast approaching us.
“That’s me…” I said cautiously. “How can I help you?”
“My name is Sim.” The man stopped in front of me and held out his hand.
He was a good foot shorter than me, with a slim frame and a completely bald head that shone as bright as a cue ball whenever it caught the light. He wore thin wire-framed spectacles that clung to the edge of a large hooked nose, his lips were constantly pursed, and his thin jaw came to a point with a large, clean-shaven chin.
His eyes were colorless, and he had no eyebrows or eyelashes as well as no discernable hair on his head, but he was incredibly well dressed. His suit was tailored, pressed, and made of a luxurious gray material that looked like it could be cashmere. He had a champagne-colored silk pocket square and a watch on his wrist that looked worth more than literally my entire life.
I shook his hand with a confused look on my face and waited for him to say something else.
“I represent an organization that would be very interested in hiring you for your services,” Sim said after a beat. “We act as an agency for superheroes, but really, our specialty lies with extensive research on Omegas.”
“Omegas… Like me?” I frowned.
“Such as yourself,” Sim answered quickly. “Once we got wind of a fledgling Omega, I was tasked with tracking you down.”
“Tracking me down?” My frown deepened. “Who do you represent?”
“An elite group of individuals.” Sim’s voice was vague and curt but remained polite, and he quickly dug a hand into his inside pocket so he could draw out a business card.
It was exactly the same as the one I’d found in the rubble on the runway, made from the same weird shimmery opalescent type of material, and I squinted at it as I turned it over and over and watched it catch the light.
“Who are you?” I asked the gray-suited man.
“I assume my superiors will want to introduce themselves to you personally,” Sim said. “I implore you to get into contact with them. It could prove incredibly beneficial, not to mention lucrative. Good day.”
With that, the bald man in the sharp suit turned on his heel and stalked off toward the airport building. He seemed to immediately blend into the growing crowd, and no one seemed to really pay him any attention at all.
“What was that?” Hannah sidled up to me and put a hand on my arm.
“I have honestly no idea,” I said with a dry chuckle. “But he had me at lucrative. Check it out, it’s another one of those weird blank business cards.”
“Where did you find it?” Danny asked. “In the same place as before?”
“I didn’t find it.” I shook my head. “Sim gave it to me.”
“Who the hell is Sim?” Frank asked.
“Huh?” I turned to my Conduit buddy. “What do you mean ‘who the hell is Sim?’ He’s the guy I was just speaking to.”
“I didn’t see you speaking to anyone,” Frank said, and his own frown pulled at his eyebrows. “You were speaking to someone? When? Just now?”
“Yes, just now!” I said in an exasperated voice. “You didn’t see him?”
“We didn’t see anyone, Mark.” Rhiannon put a soft hand on my arm.
“Maybe it’s one of his abilities…” I muttered and stared into the crowd of people gathered around the airport terminal, but I couldn’t spot the man in the gray suit again.
