Stronger: A Super Human Clash, page 24
He was groaning, his face spattered with vomit and his eyes rolling. I leaned close to him. “Hope you’re awake enough to hear me, Thunder…. Don’t come after me again, got that?” I held my hand up in front of his face, pulled my middle finger back with my thumb, and flicked him in the forehead.
His head smacked back against the tree trunk, and he passed out.
My intention was to travel north and cross the border into Canada, but first I had to make a detour.
It was dangerous, I knew, and probably unwise, but I had to do it. I went east, into Vermont. It took me three weeks to reach my destination.
The house was in the middle of a sprawling estate. Thousands of identical homes on identical streets. I reached the edge of the estate early in the afternoon, and had to wait until darkness before I could venture out.
Finally, long after midnight, I left the cover of the woods and walked through streets I hadn’t seen in eight years. I passed the First Church of Saint Matthew half expecting it to have been demolished, but no, it was still there, looking somehow smaller and much less significant.
A few minutes later, I stood outside my parents’ house, egging myself on and at the same time telling myself that this was a bad idea.
Ma and Pa slept in the bedroom upstairs at the back of the house, so I carefully stepped over the gate and walked around to the backyard.
The old swing was still there, slowly rusting away, the seat now tied to the frame. I noticed that the grass under the swing had grown back—it had been a very long time since it had been used.
I’d expected the crab-apple trees to have grown much taller, and perhaps they had, but it was hard to tell, as I was considerably taller myself.
I took a few deep breaths, steeled myself, and gently knocked on the bedroom window. Voices stirred inside, faint murmurs that I instantly recognized, and again I felt like running.
But I knocked again, even more gently this time.
My father, sleepily: “What? What is that?”
“Don’t open the curtains,” I said softly. “Please. Don’t look out.”
A moment of silence, then Ma’s hushed voice: “Call the police!”
“No, don’t!” I said. “I promise you, you’re safe. Just listen, OK?”
More silence.
“Are you listening? Say something if you can still hear me.”
Pa, his voice quavering, said, “We can hear you.”
“Good. Now …” I paused. I hadn’t actually planned what I was going to say. “Um … When your son was six years old, he painted the stairs. Remember that? And when he was ten, he didn’t talk to either of you for about a month because he came home from school to find that you’d thrown out all his comic books. And you used to tease him about Kristi Janveski, who lived in number eighty-eight, remember? You’d pretend that you and Mr. and Mrs. Janveski had made an arrangement that Gethin and Kristi would get married when they were eighteen. He’d get so mad about that.”
My mother said, “Gethin? Is it you?” I saw the curtains twitch and I ducked down.
“Don’t look out!” I said. “Please!” I used the back of my hand to brush away tears I hadn’t even realized were there. “Yes, Ma, it’s me. I didn’t die that day in Saint Matthew’s. Instead, I … I changed. I couldn’t talk at first. Couldn’t make anyone understand me.”
I glanced up at the window, and was relieved to see that the curtains were still closed. I stood up again. “I couldn’t come back before now—the people who took me threatened to hurt you. You could still be in danger, and if so, I’m sorry. But I—”
There was a sound below me, and I looked down to see the back door opening.
My father, wearing the same old bathrobe he’d worn every morning when he went out to pick the paper up off the lawn, stared up at me.
“You’d better come in … um, if you can.”
It wasn’t easy, but I managed to squeeze through the doors and into the sitting room. It had been redecorated, but it still felt like home.
I sat on the floor—I figured that the new sofa wouldn’t be strong enough to take my weight—and Ma and Pa plied me with cookies and cake while I did my best to explain what had happened.
“But the newspapers are saying that you’re one of the criminals,” Ma said.
“Well, they’re wrong. I’ve never committed a crime.” Then I thought for a moment. “Well, OK, I have committed a few, but only when I really had to. I promise I’ve never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. I’ve tried to be a hero, but … It’s not always that straightforward.”
“Everyone told us you were probably dead,” Pa said. “But we never gave up hope. Not even when that woman on the psychic hotline told us that you’d been killed and we’d find your body in water. Seven hundred bucks, she charged us!”
“Don’t tell anyone I was here,” I said. “Promise me! If the authorities found out, they’d … Well, they’d probably take you away. Try to use you as bait to catch me.”
Pa said, “We won’t say a word.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. “Well, we might mention it to Pastor Cullen because he—”
“Not him!” I said. “That guy …”
“But the pastor has been very kind to us,” Ma said. “Every year, on the anniversary, he holds a special service for you.”
“He’s a coward. No, worse than that. If he’s kind to you, it’s only because he feels guilty. After I changed, he begged me not to hurt him. He told me to ‘take the boys instead.’”
Ma shook her head. “No, you’re wrong. He’s a good man. He’s a man of God!”
“I’m not wrong. And he might be a man of God, but he’s still just a man. I can sort of understand the way he acted, and I can even forgive it, but I can’t forget it. Ma, he’s been telling everyone I’m a killer! He’s caused me more trouble than anyone else!” I rolled forward onto my knees. “I should go. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to come back…. Certainly not as long as I’m like this. But there’s a man who once claimed to have the power to turn me back to normal. If that happens …”
Ma said, “But what if something happens to you? These other superheroes … One of them might hurt you. They might even kill you. I don’t think I can go through that again!”
Pa stood up. He reached out and patted me on the shoulder. “There’s so much a father should tell his son about being a man. You’re twenty years old now, Gethin. You’ve got a life we can only barely imagine. I know it’s not going to be easy, but … You have to be a good man. You have to always do the best you can for other people.”
I left them soon after that. There were awkward hugs and assurances that they wouldn’t tell anyone I’d been there. Ma made me promise that I’d keep out of trouble. I told her that trouble seemed to find me no matter what I did, but I promised her anyway.
I spent the next few years in Quebec, Canada, on the western edge of Lake Manicouagan, living on leaves and strips of bark.
In the trash cans in the public parks I’d sometimes find old newspapers that kept me informed about what was happening in the rest of the world. Max Dalton’s empire expanded, Titan’s reputation grew. Pastor Cullen published a book about me—it made a big splash when it came out, but I don’t think it sold many copies. Ragnarök and his people carried out a whole series of attacks on military bases and laboratories, each time disappearing without a trace.
Of Abby—or Hesperus, as she was known to the public—there was little mention, though Thunder and Apex had formed a team and an ax-wielding woman was one of their members, so I guessed that was her.
Then one day I found a newspaper that was dated July 27th. My birthday. I was twenty-three.
That discovery brought with it the realization that, barring unexpected illnesses or accidents, I probably had sixty or seventy more years of life—unless I turned out to be immortal, which was something that really didn’t appeal to me.
I knew that I couldn’t spend the rest of those sixty or seventy years living in caves and eating bark. I had to return to civilization. But I wanted to do so on my terms, not Max Dalton’s or anyone else’s.
CHAPTER 35
THE MINE
ONE YEAR AGO
“THEY’RE BRINGING IN AN EXPERT,” DePaiva told me as we surveyed the now barely profitable mine.
When speaking to me, DePaiva had taken to saying “they” to mean the guards, and “we” to include himself with the downtrodden workers. It didn’t fool me, but I pretended to accept it, and I did the same, because it told me that he knew which way the wind was blowing.
I could have been reading too much into it, but I liked to think that DePaiva knew that the mine’s days were coming to an end. Perhaps he thought that once it became unprofitable, the prisoners would be shipped elsewhere, and if that happened, it would only be a matter of time before the truth about this place was leaked to the public.
And then … Well, then there would be a mass outcry of rage at the inhumane conditions, and all of the guards would be arrested and put on trial. By ingratiating himself with me, DePaiva would be spared.
OK, yeah, I was definitely reading too much into it. But it still didn’t hurt to have at least one of the guards pretending to be on our side.
“What sort of expert?” I asked. For months the mine had only barely been processing enough ore to keep it open. If this had been any ordinary mine, where the workers had to be paid, it would have been abandoned long ago.
DePaiva shrugged. “Some geologist guy, I think. Thing is, though, he’s not coming in as a surveyor or anything like that. He’ll be an inmate. Until a couple of days ago he was locked up somewhere in the States.”
“So it’s another mouth to feed,” I said. “I hope he’s good at his job. What do they expect to achieve, anyway? We’ve pretty much picked the land clean.”
“Last hope, I reckon.” He glanced at his watch. “Copter should be here any minute.”
“Right.” I gave him a friendly nod and headed off to where my friend Edmond was replacing a drill head.
“Don’t know why you bother talkin’ to that bleedin’ slimeball,” Edmond said, straining to lift up the massive drill so he could turn it over.
“It’s always good to have a man on the other side,” I said.
“Right. That’s how he sees you, y’know.”
“Yep.” I picked up the drill and held it in place while he extracted the splintered head.
Edmond looked up at me for a second, then returned his attention to the drill. “A few of us’ve been talkin’.”
“It’s not gonna work,” I said. “You know where we are, right? Lieberstan. There’s not a single village for three hundred miles in any direction. We’re more than a thousand miles from the nearest sizeable body of water, and that’s the Caspian Sea—it’s landlocked. Where would you go?”
“Anywhere that’s not here.”
“Edmond, we’ve been through this before. You can ask anyone who’s ever tried to escape from this place. You won’t get much of an answer, though, because they’re buried outside the dome.”
“Better to die in the mountains as free men than to die here as slaves.”
“No, it’s not. As long as you’re here, you have the hope of being rescued. But when you’re dead, you’re dead.”
“I’ve been here nearly eighteen years, Brawn. Imyram’s been here fifteen. Our daughter’s spent her whole life in this place. I don’t want her to die here too.” He hoisted the heavy drill onto his shoulder.
“Let me—” I began.
“I got it.” Without another word, Edmond turned and walked away.
I heard the low roar of an approaching helicopter, and looked over toward the dome’s western entrance. DePaiva and Hazlegrove saw me and beckoned to me.
The expert climbed down from the copter with some difficulty: His hands and feet had been tightly chained. He looked to be a few years older than me—in his forties, maybe early fifties—with thinning dark hair and bronzed, weather-beaten skin.
“You show him the ropes,” Hazlegrove said to me as he unlocked the man’s chains. “He’s gonna be with us a long time.”
When Hazlegrove and DePaiva left, the chains dragging behind them, the new prisoner looked around slowly. “Platinum mine, huh?”
“They didn’t tell you?”
“Didn’t tell me nothin’. Judging by the age of the machinery, it’s been here, what, thirty-five, forty years? How come I never heard of this place?”
“They don’t let the outside world know about us.”
“Figures.” He looked up at me. “Also figures you’d be here. Man, we had some times, huh?”
“Do I know you?”
“What? Sure you do. Leonard Franklin. Lenny.” He spread his arms as far as his chains would allow. “It’s me. The artist formerly known as Terrain. You remember. We worked together a coupla times, with Ragnarök’s crew. We were there when everything went south.”
I nodded. “Right. Didn’t recognize you. So that’s why they brought you in, because you’re an expert in geology?”
“I kinda got a feel for it back in the day.” He looked over the mine again. “Man, time was I coulda extracted all the platinum outta the ground in one go, just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Can’t do anything like that now, but I can kinda remember what it was like. The warden said I gotta look at the last survey scans. That’s what they got me to do in my last place.”
“That was a mine too?”
“Nah, it was just a prison. But they’d bring in satellite photos and ground scans. You know, sonar images. I’ve got a knack for reading them. I can tell you where you’re most likely to find new deposits.”
“All that’s kept in Hazlegrove’s office,” I said. “I’ll show you.”
As we walked to the office, we passed three other prisoners straining to lift a recently repaired cart back onto its tracks. I lifted it up and set it down single-handedly.
We resumed walking, and Terrain said, “You’re still pretty strong. Didn’t you lose your powers like the rest of us?”
“I did. But my muscles are eight times the size of anyone else’s.”
“So, you’re some kinda trustee, right?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, what are you still doing here? Man, with your strength you shoulda been outta here years ago!” An expression of disgust appeared on his heavily lined faced. “Don’t tell me you like it here. You got it easy or something?”
“I hate it here,” I said. “And I definitely don’t have it easy. I work sixteen hours a day, every day. But I can’t leave.”
“Why not? You’ve been—what’s the word?—institutionalized?”
“If I leave, Hazlegrove will order the execution of the other prisoners.”
“So he says. But if he loses you, he won’t wanna lose anyone else.”
“I can’t take that chance. He’s already had more than a dozen other prisoners killed, some of them just because they knew me.”
If anything, Terrain’s expression of disgust seemed deeper. “Right.”
His opinion of me made no difference. I didn’t care if he thought I was a coward any more than if he thought I was a ballerina.
Back when we still had our abilities, Terrain—like so many others—saw me only as a thug, a giant blue brute who specialized in destruction. I like to think that was just the media’s portrayal of me, that those who knew me were aware of the truth.
But the fact is, for a while I was like that. Shortly after I returned to the USA from Canada, certain events collided and triggered a phase in my superhuman career that I’m not proud of.
It started in New York, when I put my fate in the hands of the public.
CHAPTER 36
SIXTEEN
YEARS AGO
IT TOOK ME SEVENTY DAYS to reach Manhattan from Canada. More than two months of traveling only during the quietest hours of the night, moving as fast as I could and with each step praying that I’d find somewhere to hide out until the next night.
The last night was exhausting: I’d traveled south through New Jersey—coming far too close to Max Dalton’s base for comfort—and then took to the water. The Hudson was cold and not particularly clean, but it was safer than the streets and I was much less likely to be seen.
I wasn’t a strong swimmer, but—as I had learned in Norman Misseldine’s fortress—I could hold my breath for a very long time.
It was almost dawn when I reached Pier 86, and my first instinct was to hide out for the rest of the day, but that would have defeated the point.
So I hauled myself out of the water and began to walk east, along 45th Street.
Early-morning commuters stared, and there were a few gasps, but far fewer screams than I’d expected.
A crowd formed behind me—at what they imagined was a safe distance—and I had to force myself not to smile as they all bumped into each other when I stopped to use the crosswalk on 9th Avenue.
A police car pulled to a stop ahead of me, and the two officers jumped out and crouched behind their doors with their guns aimed at me.
They didn’t shout a warning, so I ignored them and kept walking.
The crowd grew, many of them coming within a few yards of me. Cameras flashed and car horns beeped. Then there were more cop cars, some with their lights and sirens blaring. The police tried to keep the crowds back, but they had little hope of that.
By the time I reached Times Square, the crowd must have been several hundred strong, blocking the traffic and generally causing chaos.
It was a little awkward, because I hadn’t expected to get that far without being questioned by the police, so I just stood there and looked around while the police quickly and nervously erected barriers and attempted to herd the crowd in.
Then, finally, a police officer felt brave enough to attempt communication: From across the square he used a bullhorn to blare out, “You are causing a public disturbance!”
