invulnerable! And I’m strong! A lot stronger than you are!”
“Physically, yes.” He glanced past her, to the battle that was raging. “Emotionally, you’re not ready. You stay put, Diamond. That’s an order. Got that?”
She nodded.
“Good.” Joshua Dalton leaned forward and kissed her gently on the forehead. “Wish me luck.”
Max Dalton’s power, like his younger brother Joshua and sister Roz, was mental rather than physical; he could temporarily take over the minds of anyone within a twelve-metre radius.
Max and his siblings were always easy to spot, even on this crowded battlefield; the members of The High Command were the only superheroes who didn’t wear masks. All they wore were matching black Kevlar uniforms.
Now, as he ran across the battleground towards Paragon, he was glad of the fact that his costume was bullet proof.
Max helped Paragon to his feet. “You OK?”
The armoured hero coughed and spat out a mouthful of blood. “I will be. Thanks. How are we doing?”
“Not good,” Max replied. “Titan can’t get close enough to the tank to do any damage. I’ve no idea where Quantum is. Impervia and Brawn are locked in a stalemate. Apex is down; The Glyph got him. The others… I’m losing track of them.” Half an hour earlier, Max had seen the five members of Portugal’s Podermeninas team battling dozens of Ragnarök’s henchmen. Since then, there had been no sign of them.
“Max, I don’t mind telling you… I’m scared,” Paragon said. “I don’t think we’re all going to make it. If we can’t stop that machine…”
“We will stop it.”
“How? We’ve thrown everything we have at it and it’s still going.”
Max Dalton bit his lip. “I know. Listen, I passed something on the way back to you. It’s… I think it was Thalamus. I think he’s de—”
Max spun away, his hand clutching his neck. Blood dripped between his fingers.
Paragon grabbed Max’s free arm and dragged him to the relative safety of a fallen tree.
“Let me see it,” Paragon said. He pulled Max’s blood-covered hand away and inspected the wound. “You’ll be fine – I’ve had worse shaving cuts.”
He removed a large bandage from his med-pack and pressed it against the wound. “This’ll help for the time being and we can get it looked at properly when this is all over.”
“Thanks.” Max grabbed Paragon’s shoulder and hauled himself to his feet.
Paragon said, “What we need right now is a miracle.” He paused. “Or, to be more accurate, we need—Quantum!”
“Exactly.”
“No, I mean… he’s here!”
Max Dalton and Paragon ran towards the battle-tank. Quantum, the fastest superhuman of them all, could not be seen, but there was no doubt that he was there. Ragnarök’s henchmen were being knocked about by some invisible force, their weapons ripped from their hands, their armour torn off.
“Quantum, where the hell were you?” Paragon shouted as they neared the tank.
The white-clad superhero suddenly appeared in front of him, slightly out of breath. “I… I don’t know. Something happened to me. How badly are we doing?”
Max said, “We have some dead and a few missing. We thought you were one of them. Look, we need Impervia to help Titan, so you’ve got to take on Brawn. You feel up to it?”
“Sure. Yeah. I can slow him down at least.”
Paragon shook his head. “No, wait. Quantum, use that intangibility trick of yours; get inside the tank and see what damage you can do. At the very least, try and take out Ragnarök.”
“OK,” Quantum said, nodding. “I’ll—” He shuddered. “Something’s wrong.” He looked down at his gloved hands. They were shaking. “I… I don’t seem to be able to move.”
Paragon exchanged a quick glance with Max. “What is it?” Paragon asked.
“I… Wait! There’s a sense of… There’s a machine, it’s dangerous to us. Ragnarök’s been used…” Quantum blinked rapidly, swaying back and forth. “Paragon? You’re older.”
Quantum’s knees buckled and he collapsed.
Paragon reached out and caught him. Paragon turned to Max, who was staring at Quantum. “Don’t just stand there, Max! I’ll look after Quantum. You get to Brawn – maybe you can control him.”
Max hesitated. “No, it’s never worked on him before.”
“Damn it, Max! You have to try!”
Paragon watched Max go, then looked down at Quantum. “You still conscious?”
Quantum’s eyes rolled back. “Paragon…” His voice was weak, barely a whisper.
“I’m here.”
“When the boy comes to you, you have to believe him. You won’t want to, but you must.”
“What boy? What are you talking about?”
Quantum smiled. “He will be strong. That’s how you’ll know.”
He reached out and grabbed Paragon’s hand. “You’ve been a good friend.” Then, in a stronger voice, he added, “Next, we lose. We all lose. Paragon, don’t tell the others. Promise me.”
“I promise,” Paragon said. “I won’t say a word. But I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You will, Paragon. Not for a long time, but you will.”
IT WAS A Thursday in October, early afternoon. Normally at this time, Colin Wagner would be hiding behind the boy sitting in front of him, because Thursday afternoons were what his teacher liked to call “Discussion Time”. This was when Mr Stone would pick a topic he found interesting and do his very best to make sure that none of the students would ever find it interesting again.
The previous week, Mr Stone had shown them a five-minute video about how birds build their nests and then proceeded to lead the class in a discussion about birds, nests and why he believed that starlings were more evil than magpies. But today, for a change, Mr Stone had picked an interesting topic.
Today they were talking about Mystery Day.
Mr Stone waited until everyone had settled down. “So… tomorrow it’s Mystery Day,” he began. “Exactly ten years since the disappearance of all the superheroes. When this all started, nine years ago on the first anniversary, it was supposed to be a day of remembrance. But somehow over the years it’s turned into a bloody holiday! Instead of the heroes being honoured for giving up their lives, we get balloons and parties, and people setting up stalls at the side of the road to sell knock-off Titan action figures and T-shirts. And if you think it’s bad here, it’s ten times worse in America!”
He picked up his chalk and began to write on the blackboard.
Titan, he wrote, and underlined it twice. Podermeninas, he wrote next, but he only underlined that once. He followed that with a series of other names: Paragon, Apex, Impervia, Thalamus, Thunder, Inferno, Energy, Quantum and Zephyr.
Then he picked up his red chalk and wrote Ragnarök. Underneath that he wrote Rayboy, The Glyph, Terrain, The Shark, Slaughter,