Mutation (21 page)

Chapter 36

Li was able to pull up a layout of the campus, so we knew where to find Manny’s Garage.  However, there were still only four of us (five if you counted Gavin, although I don’t think anybody felt we could at that point).  That was a small number to pit against a bunch of armed men, not to mention Estrella.

Recruiting other students was out, for the same reasons as before:  they still had the virus and were still unstable.

“What about the faculty and staff?” Kane suggested.

In all our planning, we had practically forgotten about the so-called control group.

“They won’t be able to help you,” Gavin said from the doorway of the conference room.  Apparently he was tired of being ostracized.

“Why not?” asked Li.

“Because they’re all sedated,” Gavin answered.  “Aldiss told them that he needed to inoculate them against the virus, but instead he gave them sedatives – knocked them out.  They’ve been getting regular rounds of sedatives since and are being kept in the nullifier section just in case one of them wakes up.”

“That’s just great,” said Kane.  “So it’s just the four of us.”

“Maybe not,” I said, glancing in Gavin’s direction.  We needed every soldier we could get in this army.

Empathically, I opened myself up fully.  I needed to read this right.  “Gavin, your friends have deserted you.  In fact, they want you dead.  You can stay loyal to them and stand by while a bunch of innocent kids meet their maker, or you can do something about it.  And let’s be clear, even if you make the right choice here, I can’t promise what will happen to you later.  But you need to decide right now.  Will you keep supporting them, or will you stand with us?”

As I spoke, I felt a deep swirl of emotions within Gavin.  Self-loathing, anger, fear, desperation, and more, but when he answered, I felt determination and – most of all – sincerity.

“I’m with you,” he said.

*****

Our plan was more than a little bold.  Basically, we needed Schaefer’s vortex gate.  I felt that if I could eyeball it, I could teleport the entire thing back to the Academy – where our old gate was located – and we could fire it up.  Li vetoed the idea.

“I do not mean to say that it would not work,” he said, “but it would be a massive undertaking in the sense of getting everything properly connected and positioned, reconfiguring the spatial coordinates for the new location, performing an initial
–
”

“Got it,” I said.  “It’s impractical and takes up time we don’t have.  What do you propose then?”

“I can reconfigure the coordinates for the vortex,” Li replied, “so that while the gate stays where it is, the actual vortex opens and exits elsewhere.”

“Is that possible?” asked Gossamer.

“Absolutely,” said Gavin, speaking up now that he was once more a part of the group.  “It’s how we sometimes get here by plane.  The vortex machinery isn’t on the aircraft; it’s on the ground.  The vortex just opens in the air.”

“And if we can get all the students through the vortex quickly enough,” Li said, “they may be out of range when the virus is activated.”

“That’s our plan, then,” I said.

Chapter 37

Gavin got what was probably the easiest task:  get everybody in the school to the destroyed vortex gate.  Of course, there were sub-tasks involved, which included getting the faculty and staff out of the nullifiers, getting the rest of the students organized, etc.  Still, he was able to get started on his job at least an hour before the rest of us as we made our plans to infiltrate Manny’s Garage.

Needless to say, I couldn’t teleport us there.  Other than what I had glimpsed from inside the vortex, I had never seen the place.  Moreover, we didn’t know what kind of reception would be awaiting us.  That said, I could get us fairly close.

We had a map of the garage’s location, so I knew the direction we needed to head in.  I looked that way and telescoped my vision.  A residential area came into view; I teleported us to the backyard of a small house there.  Looking again in the proper direction, I could now see Manny’s Garage.  It sat in an area around other skilled trades such as plumbing and electrical shops, on a street that ran north-south.

Outside of Manny’s, I noticed quite a number of armed guards milling around.  I watched for a few minutes, but didn’t see any patrols.  In fact, the guards appeared downright disengaged, as if they were merely biding time.  They obviously knew they were leaving and were probably anxious to do so.  No one wanted to wander too far and get stranded (and Schaefer didn’t strike me as a no-man-left-behind type of guy).

I didn’t see any of the bigwigs – Pace, Aldiss, Estrella, or Schaefer.  That meant that they were probably inside.  I teleported us to the back side of an ancient, crumbling warehouse a few blocks away from the garage.

Everyone knew their roles.  Kane and Gossamer were to draw off as many of the guards as possible.  Li and I would then slip inside, where he would alter the vortex coordinates (although he felt he could also handle Pace, Aldiss, and Schaefer, if necessary).  My job was to engage Estrella; with her suite of powers, I was the only one who could.

Gossamer and Kane wished us luck, then took off towards the north end of the warehouse.  Li and I went in the other direction.  Then we crept over furtively, block by block, towards the garage.  Stealth probably wasn’t necessary, however; the guards I’d seen earlier didn’t even have anyone on watch.  (They probably thought we had no way to find them.)

After a few minutes, we found ourselves on the south-facing wall of a building that sat on the same street as Manny’s Garage.  Peeking around the corner, I saw the guards in pretty much the same position as before.  I checked my watch; we had about two minutes to kill – enough time for a little recon.

“Wait here,” I said to Li.  I went invisible, then flew down the street to the garage.  Phasing in through the window, I saw a huge workspace - at least twenty thousand square feet in size.  There were a number of cars parked willy-nilly throughout the place, a few other vehicles under tarps, and a station wagon hoisted up on a hydraulic lift.  A large industrial magnet hung down from the ceiling at the south end of the roof.  Finally, there was a long row of windows - running almost the length of the building - with the words “MANNY’S GARAGE” painted on them in large letters.  (I took a certain amount of pride in noting that some of the glass was broken out of the windows, including the top portion of the
R
in the word “garage.”)

The vortex gate was set up against one of the walls, next to a copious amount of hi-tech machinery.  A group of three men who I assumed to be technicians were checking the equipment, apparently prepping the gate for activation.  A small crowd of about a dozen men and women in lab coats - clearly the CDC team - stood near the middle of the room, chatting amiably and trying to stay out of the way of the technicians.  Near the back of the room were a couple of supervisor offices, one of which had a glass window (presumably to let the boss keep an eye on things in the shop).  Pace, Estrella, Aldiss, and Schaefer were in there now.

Schaefer was sitting behind the only desk in the room, speaking while fiddling around inside a briefcase in front of him.  The others stood, facing him.  I flew over and phased through the wall, staying above the room’s occupants.

“-derstand what your problem is,” Schaefer was saying.  “Dead is dead.”

“I wanted to do it myself!” shouted Estrella, white light pulsing angrily around her.

“So did I,” said Schaefer, “but you don’t see me crying about it.”

I didn’t need three guesses to figure out who they were talking about.

“Look,” Pace said to Estrella, playing peacemaker, “you wanted Kid Sensation dead, and he’ll
be
dead.  And by being part of this, you’re bringing it about.  In that sense, you
are
killing him.”

Estrella wasn’t buying it.  “There’s no satisfaction in this!  I wanted to look into his eyes when it happened.  I wanted him to know that it was me, that I was the cause of his death.  But this?  We’re running away like rats!”

“Rats survive,” said Pace.  “And we can’t afford to be here any longer.  It might even be too late right now.”

Aldiss went a little pale at that.  Estrella merely stormed out of the room.

“Done,” announced Schaefer.  He turned to Aldiss.  “Now, Doctor, are you sure there’s no way to override the fifteen-minute delay?”

Aldiss shook his head.  “No, the tech who handled that portion was Morton.  He built in the delay just in case the person pushing the button changed his mind.”

“Change my mind about killing supers?” Schaefer asked rhetorically.  “Unlikely.  Supers killed my family.” He stared off into space for a second before continuing.  “Anyway, where’s Morton now?”

“I believe you had him shot,” said Aldiss.

Schaefer looked at Pace, who confirmed.  “You did.”

“Hmmm…tough break,” said Schaefer, looking unbothered.  Then he stood up.  “Well, gentlemen, we have a quarter of an hour to get off this rock.” Then he left the room, leaving the open briefcase on the desk.

Pace started to follow, but Aldiss grabbed his arm.

“He’s insane,” said Aldiss.  “You do know that?”

“People could say the same of you, Doctor,” replied Pace, smiling.  “Especially in light of this monster virus you designed.”

“I was only trying to explore the boundaries of science.  He’s beyond that.  His need for revenge almost got us killed!”

“You mean Adam Atom?  Yes, he probably did go overboard on that kid, exciting his metagene like that.  But if that kind of thing bothers you, maybe - in addition to a delay before full activation - you guys should also have equipped the control module with an abort option.  Oh wait - Morton was working on that when Schaefer had him shot.  Too bad; without an abort switch, once the button is pressed, it can’t be stopped.  The metagene of every infected super will go haywire soon.”

I almost screamed.  I swooped down and looked at the open briefcase Schaefer had left on the desk.  There was a complex computer device inside, with a monitor and keyboard.  The screen displayed a countdown.

13:44

13:43

13:42

Even worse, there was a flashing message that stated “Kill Switch Overridden.” In short, the kill switch couldn’t be activated, and - based on Pace’s statements - there was no way to abort the countdown.

“Please!” Aldiss was saying.  “You’ve been the voice of reason this entire mission.  That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?  To keep that madman under control.  That’s why you’re the one who usually does all the talking, because anyone hearing him speak would know he’s crazy inside two minutes!”

“Doctor, I like you,” Pace said, placing his hands on the man’s shoulders, “but you should be very aware of the acoustics when you raise your voice like that.  You never know who might hear you.”

If possible, Aldiss became paler than before.  I teleported back to Li.

“Were you able to learn anything?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said.  “We’re further up the creek than we thought.”

I explained to him about the countdown.  He just nodded, without saying anything.  Then we stood silently, waiting for the signal.

Come on…come on
.

Suddenly, there was a sound like a muffled explosion from the north end of the street - presumably the distraction created by Kane and Gossamer.  The guards all came to attention, weapons ready.  Then one of the guards went down with a grunt, and the rest opened fire towards that end of the street, shooting indiscriminately.  That was my cue.

I shapeshifted into Schaefer and appeared behind the rearmost guard in the group.  I clearly wasn’t dressed as Schaefer was, but people tend to notice the face and not the clothes.  I hoped that was true in this case as I tapped the guard on the shoulder.  Startled, he stopped firing, but I saw recognition in his eyes when he looked at me.

“What are you waiting for???!!” I screamed, spewing spittle in his face.  “Go after them!!!”

“Yes, sir!” the guard acknowledged, wiping his face.  Then he screamed and went charging towards the north end of the street.

“All of you!” I shouted, and several more guards turned to look at me.  “Go!  Go!  Go!”

A few seconds later, they were all running down the street, firing.

I looked behind me, where Li had stepped out from hiding.  Knowing that we were on a tight time schedule, I took a chance and teleported us both to the office inside the garage.  My hunch had been right; everyone was racing over to the side of the garage facing the street to find out what all the commotion was about, letting us arrive unnoticed.  I pushed Li down out of sight and turned invisible.

“That’s just great,” I muttered sarcastically.  “They’re not leaving!  I was hoping they’d all run outside but most are just looking out the windows.”

“Perhaps you could provide some incentive,” Li said.  I looked at him to see what he was talking about and saw him holding out a handgun in my direction.

“Where did you get that?” I asked, reaching to take the gun.

“I removed it from one of the guards you found me with in the stairwell earlier.”

“Way to think ahead,” I said.  “Get ready; here we go.”

I teleported Li down by the vortex equipment, then became visible and stepped out of the office.  Everyone’s back was to me.  I screamed and began firing over the heads of the crowd, into the windows of the garage.

I only fired a couple of shots, but the sound was deafening in the enclosed space.  People began screaming and running for the exits - including Pace and Aldiss – as glass rained down around them.  The only person who stood their ground was Estrella, light shimmering around her.  It occurred to me then that I hadn’t seen Schaefer, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it.

“There’s my date,” Estrella said, grinning mischievously.  “I was afraid you were going to stand me up.”

From where she was positioned, I didn’t think Estrella could see Li (there was a tarp-covered vehicle shielding him from her view) and I needed to keep it that way.  I shifted into super speed and charged her.

Unlike our previous encounter, there was no one here to predict my moves or make her insubstantial.  I caught her in the midsection with my shoulder, then slammed her into a wall.

At super speed, I rarely ever hit anything with my bare hand; it’s a good way to end up with broken bones.  Some speedsters don’t care, though; they’re so hopped up on adrenaline that they don’t feel the pain, and their metabolisms are so high that they heal almost immediately.  I didn’t feel like testing that theory, and I was in no position to deal with a broken hand, so – while it may not sound gallant – I pistol-whipped Estrella with the gun I was still holding.  Then again.  And a third time.

Before I could get a fourth turn at bat, she vanished.  She had obviously teleported, and my first thought was to check on Li.  I’d barely turned my head in his direction when a crushing weight fell on me.  Estrella had teleported above me.

Her weight bore me down to the ground, where she cupped my head in her hands, lifted and then smashed it against the concrete floor.  I immediately saw stars, feeling as if someone had just put my skull in a car compactor.  I tore a page out of her playbook and teleported.

I didn’t go far, just a few feet away.  I needed to keep her preoccupied so that Li could finish.  I raised the gun and fired as she turned in my direction.  The light around her body intensified and the bullets seemed to dissolve.  At the same time, I became violently ill.  I clutched my stomach, doubled over, and threw up.