My Brother is a Superhero (18 page)

“
Zack’s
powers,” I reminded him.

I could see he didn’t care about where the powers came from – they were his now.

He started to list them. “The ability to breathe in outer space, telepathy for lag-free communication with planet-based authorities, radar to precisely track the asteroid’s course, a force-field to stop it—”

“—and telekinesis to push it out of Earth’s path,” I finished. I’d always known that Zorbon had given Zack those particular powers for a purpose, but Christopher Talbot had put it all together. I was impressed.

“Very good, Luke,” he said. I could have sworn he sounded sad. “Under different circumstances I think you and I could’ve been friends.” He thought for a moment. “Well, master and disciple.”

He adjusted the long stalk of a microphone. “Commence pre-flight diagnostics,” he commanded.

“Pre-flight diagnostics initiated,” said the suit. It was a woman’s voice. She sounded as if she was lying on a purple velvet sofa eating grapes.

“Check super-power levels.”

“Super-power levels at maximum,” reported the suit. “Estimated time until empty – two hours.”

“Excellent!” Christopher Talbot grinned.

Two hours until empty? What did that mean? At last, I understood. I knew why he’d had to extract Zack’s superpowers not once, but again. And again. “The powers – they’re not stable, are they? You have to keep recharging yourself.”

“A temporary state of affairs,” he said dismissively. “But this is hardly like charging a mobile phone – I am operating at the forefront of experimental superpower science. Which means, yes, once transferred into my body there are a few … stability issues. Nevertheless, it’s taken me just a week—” he smoothed a hand over his hair “—a great number of fire extinguishers and a lot of hair conditioner, to get to this point. As of today a single transfer from your brother gives me up to two hours of superpowers on standby. One, if I make a telepathic call.”

It didn’t sound like much to me. “But what if you’ve got it wrong? What if your powers run out at the crucial moment?”

“Impossible,” he snapped. He seemed utterly certain of himself, which only made me more doubtful. All the people I’d ever met who were that sure of themselves
were either bullies or PE teachers, neither of whom I would trust with the future of all mankind. Right then I knew he couldn’t succeed. Zorbon had chosen Zack for a reason. Only Star Lad had the power to stop Nemesis.

The digital countdown stood at fifty-four minutes…

“The truly heroic thing to do,” I said, “would be to let Star Lad do his job.”

“Forget about Star Lad,” he grumbled. He prodded the game controller sending commands through the air to the Mark Fourteen. The front of the suit swung open to reveal a space for a pilot that included a convenient cubbyhole for a cape.

“Pre-flight checks complete,” purred the suit. “Ready for launch.”

“Open the roof,” he instructed. There was a series of clicks and whirs. High above us the metal disc slowly began to slide back to reveal the night sky. “Oh, and don’t get any clever ideas about releasing your brother after I’ve gone. My Assault Tal-bots are programmed to deal harshly with any attempt to thwart my plans.” Replacing the controller in its cradle on the command doughnut, he strode towards the suit.

As if to reinforce their master’s claim the Tal-bots shuffled their positions, forming a solid line of evil
robots between the Super Suit and us. They rocked back and forth spoiling for a fight. “Come-on-ugly,” they taunted.

“Back off,” spat Lara. “Leave him alone.”

“Oooh,” hooted the Tal-bots. “Is-she-your-girlfriend? Do-you-kiss-her? I-bet-you-kiss-her. Smoochie-smoochie.”

I ignored them. The roof continued to slide open. In that instant I knew that as soon as it rolled all the way back, everything would be OK.

“Luke, why are you smiling?” whispered Lara.

“He’s miscalculated,” I said. “Starlight is about to flood the crater and bring Zack back to full strength.” I looked up expectantly. “Any moment … now.”

“Oh no,” gasped Lara.

The roof was open but instead of a sky full of stars all I could see were clouds. “That wasn’t the forecast,” I muttered.

“It’s not cloud, it’s smoke,” said Lara.

The grey shroud obscuring the sky wasn’t a cloudbank, but smoke from all the fires we’d seen burning across the city. The dense barrier prevented starlight from reaching Zack. Without it he was powerless – and we were all doomed.

Christopher Talbot climbed into the Sub-Orbital
Super Suit using the exterior handholds. He slid his arms and legs into its bulky frame.

I had to do something. Fast. Looking along the tightly spaced rank of Tal-bots I had an idea. I caught Lara’s attention and flicked my eyes at the skipping rope coiled on her hip. She nodded in understanding and, taking a step to the side, threw one end of the rope to me. “Catch!”

I plucked the handle out of the air. Lara dived to one end of the row of Tal-bots while I scrambled to the other. The rope went taut. “Now!” I shouted. Together we ran forward, using our makeshift tripwire to snag the robots in the middle of their fat vacuum cleaner bodies, tipping them over. They tumbled head over heels like a row of table-football players. “I-have-fallen-and-I-can’t-get-up!” they screeched. Unable to right themselves, their tracks spun uselessly in the air. Our way was clear.

The front of the Super Suit clamped shut. There was a hiss of hydraulic locking bolts as Christopher Talbot sealed himself inside the pressurised suit, ready to blast off.

“Ten seconds to launch,” said the suit. “Nine…”

With a series of reversing beeps the Super Suit backed into position directly beneath the centre of the crater.

I raced to Zack’s side, calling to Lara. “Help me release him.” As I hurtled past the command doughnut I
snatched the game controller from its cradle and tucked it into the waistband of my trousers.

“Five…”

Inside the Orbital suit, Christopher Talbot lifted his arms to the sky. The super-strong alloy arms mimicked his action, rotating upwards and locking in place.

“Four…”

“Hurry!” Frantically we unlocked the cuffs securing Zack’s arms and legs and helped him to his feet. As I put one arm around his shoulder he looked at me blearily. “Is that my phone?”

“Three…”

The solid rockets ignited. Jets of flame shot out of the base, blackening the crater floor.

“Luke!” yelled Lara over the roar of the engines. “What are you doing?!”

“Two…”

“Must get Zack to the starlight.” I leaped on to the suit, dragging him behind me.

“One…”

Desperately I looped Zack’s arms through the handholds and then did the same with my own. “Hold on,” I shouted, then closed my eyes and muttered, “And don’t look down.”

“Launch,” said the suit.

34

THE DARKEST HOUR

The Mark Fourteen Super Suit shook as its onboard systems directed the immense power downwards. The wail of the rockets was louder than any sound I’d ever heard and I felt like I was being cooked by the tremendous heat rising up from their blast.

There was a smell of burning rubber. I opened one eye to see that the soles of my trainers were melting. And then, with a creak of hi-tech alloy and a waggle of flight-control surfaces, we were moving. The suit lurched skywards and my head snapped back, the dizzying tang of explosive fuel invading my nostrils. I gripped the handholds for dear life. The suit rose phoenix-like on a
column of flame. In seconds we would be through the smoke barrier and my plan to energise Zack would be a success. But before we cleared the crater rim the Super Suit dived sideways.

Through the gently curving visor I glimpsed Christopher Talbot’s furious face. He had spotted his unwelcome passengers and was trying to shake us off. He throttled back on the rockets, deploying directional thrusters located in the suit’s palms and soles to guide it on a zigzag course around the inside of the crater. We bounced around as if we were riding a wild horse.

I locked my arms through the handholds and clung on. But Zack was still dazed from having his superpowers drained. One hand fell limply away from the rung it had been clutching. The fingers of his other hand started to loosen. I shouted at him to hang on, but my voice was drowned out by the din of the thrusters. Desperately, I clawed my way across the hull. Zack was hanging on by a finger when I clasped his wrist. With a grunt I heaved his hand back into place and wrapped his fingers around the handhold.

Christopher Talbot sent the Super Suit on a course that veered inches from the walls and swooped impossibly low over the floor. We skimmed towards Lara and I saw her dive in to the costume locker for cover. The fiery
rocket blast turned the Assault Tal-bots into slag metal. When we had passed over them all that was left was a series of bubbling pools of silver.

But I was ready for Christopher Talbot’s manoeuvrings with some of my own. When we were on the ground I’d watched him use the wireless controller to operate the Super Suit. I had plucked it from its cradle and it now sat securely at my waistband. I felt for the boomerang-shaped device.

It was gone.

All the aerobatics must have dislodged it. That was it. Game over. We were finished. But then, to my surprise, the Super Suit steadied, settling in to a hover beneath the rim of the open roof. The howl of the engine subsided. There was a squawk of communications static and then Christopher Talbot’s voice crackled from built-in speakers.

“Luke Parker, once you’ve got your mind set on something, you’re a difficult boy to shake.”

“So my mum and dad tell me.”

“But I’m on to your scheme. Hitch a ride to the stars and restore your brother’s powers. Very clever. Very brave. Oh, and stupendously foolish. However, your mere presence is having an undesirable effect on my mission. My flight plan has been precisely calculated
and I hadn’t factored in your additional weight. I’ve run the numbers through the onboard computer and I can’t make it to the Nemesis asteroid with you two playing limpet. Now, I could use my telekinetic power to scrape you off the paintwork like a couple of streaks of bird poo.” He paused. “But I’d rather not waste the juice.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “And there is another way.”

Something told me I shouldn’t ask, but I couldn’t help myself. “What’s that then?”

He smiled. “When you’re growing up everyone tells you the same thing. ‘Always be yourself.’” He pouted. “It’s not a bad message, just a horrendously ordinary one. That’s why I prefer comics. They ask the question: what if you could be someone else? Someone with real power. What if you could be… Superman?” His blue eyes shone through the visor, its curved glass reflecting flames from the idling rockets.

“I don’t understand.”

He sighed. “I’m offering you power, Luke.
Super
power. You know I have the technology to make it happen.”

The Super Suit bobbed in the mouth of the crater, thrusters automatically correcting its attitude to keep it level. There was a hum as one of the massive arms rotated
in front of me and offered its hand. “Join me, Luke. And together we will save the world.”

I glanced at Zack. Already weakened by Christopher Talbot’s experiments, he looked even more washed-out after the roller-coaster rocket ride. My whole life I’d been second best to him. Smaller, weaker, invisible. This might be my only chance to change that.

“Just look at him. It’s obvious your brother was given superpowers in error. Isn’t it better that they go to someone who can fully appreciate them?”

“I suppose.”

“Someone who knows the only thing that Galactus is afraid of.”

“The Ultimate Nullifier,” I mouthed.

“Someone who knows who’d win in a race between Superman and the Flash.”

“The Flash. But only since 1970.”

“Someone like you.”

I thought about my brother and our last proper conversation, on the night of his kidnapping. “Zack said that Zorbon the Decider picked the wrong brother. He was unhappy and wished he hadn’t been given superpowers. So, in a way, I’d be doing him a favour.”

“Exactly!” Christopher Talbot leapt on the notion.

“And it’s not as if I’d be doing anything evil.”

“No-o-o-o.”

“After all, you’re not interested in taking over the world. You only want to save it, right?”

“I’m all about the saving.”

I bit my lip. “I don’t know…”

“Oh come on, Luke.
Lukester
. It’s time to make up your mind. So, what’s it to be – are you with me?”

So, was I? You’d think that years of reading comics in which superheroes do the right thing – sacrifice themselves for the greater good, see through the villain’s deception – would have prepared me for this moment. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted. You can’t blame me. If someone offered you your wildest dream, what would you do? Come on, I was eleven. I needed a sign.

And then it happened. Not a gravelly voice telling me to use the Force. Or a S.H.I.E.L.D. directive winging its way to me on encrypted frequencies. No. It was a feeling.

And it was coming from my pants.

A gentle vibration told me immediately what had happened. The game controller had slipped past the waistband of my trousers, but caught on the elastic of my Daredevil underpants. My second-luckiest pair.

I needed to buy time while I rummaged.

“Would I get to wear a cape?” I asked.

Christopher Talbot sighed. “Any colour you want.”

“And a mask?”

“Naturally. Now, just let me deal with this little space rock problem and then we’ll get you fitted out with a bespoke costume and, of course, those lovely superpowers. It’ll be great. You can be my sidekick.”

My fingers closed around the solid shape of the game controller. “I don’t think so,” I said, drawing it out.

“What?!” Talbot choked as he saw what I was holding. “You can’t. Luke, I thought we had an understanding. Don’t do this.” Inside I could see him frantically working the onboard controls. But he was too late.

I braced myself against the hull and thumbed the “fire” button.

“NO!” he shrieked.

The main engines detonated and in the space of a heartbeat we cleared the crater rim. The volcano disappeared beneath us like a coin dropped down a deep well. In the next second the speeding Super Suit entered the dense band of smoke. My eyes were stinging and briefly I lost sight of Zack. For what felt like an eternity I was alone in the grey nothing.

In that moment my mind hurtled back to a long time ago. When I was very little my mum and dad projected
a lightshow on the ceiling above my cot to help me nod off to sleep. I don’t actually remember it, since I was too young, but I know about it because there’s a photograph of me taken at the time. In the photo I’m fast asleep, clutching my cuddly rabbit, tucked up in my Jedi grobag – and above me the ceiling twinkles. With stars.

We broke through the smoke barrier. The night sky opened up before us. Nine thousand one hundred and ten stars shone their light down on Zack.

Our rapid passage through the air sent up little whirlwinds of turbulence on the outer edges of the suit, which continued to climb at an alarming rate. Ferocious winds whipped at my face. My hands felt numb. I knew I couldn’t hold on much longer.

The stars on Zack’s chest began to glow faintly and then with more vigour. His strength was returning. “Where … where am I?” His words were snatched out of his mouth by the relentless gale. He looked down and let out a cry, then caught sight of me clinging to the hull of the Super Suit. “Luke?” I heard his voice in my head. He was using telepathy. At least one power was back. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Trying to rescue you.”

“Well, you’re not doing a very good job.”

He was so annoying.

But he was also our only hope. Zorbon the Decider had given Zack six powers to defeat Nemesis. Five of them had already revealed themselves. It was now or never for number six. The final power. The one I had been waiting for since that night in the tree house. Who was I kidding? I’d been waiting for this one since my dad used to zoom me around the garden when I was a toddler. I just had a feeling.

I let go.

“Luke!” cried Zack, reaching uselessly for me as I fell past him. He swiped at thin air.

I fell through the darkness. A skydiver freefalls at about a hundred and twenty miles an hour. A peregrine falcon dives on its prey at a speed of two hundred miles an hour. They know what they’re doing. I began to spin uncontrollably. My stomach felt as if it was trying to burst out through my mouth, my eyeballs bulged in their sockets as g-forces tore at my body. The edges of my vision started to dim. But just before I blacked out I caught sight of something above me. Closing fast. A streak of light in the darkness.

Like a shooting star.

A second later I felt arms grasp me and I was no longer falling.

“Got you!” said Zack’s voice in my head.

My stomach and eyeballs returned to their usual positions. “I knew it!” I trumpeted in my head. “I knew it!” Then I had an awful thought. I looked down and then at Zack. “You are flying, right? We’re not both just plummeting to our certain deaths, are we?”

“I
am
flying,” reassured Zack.

“Oh good, that’s a relief.”

Above us I could see the red glow of engines from the Mark Fourteen Super Suit as it burned keenly towards the edge of the atmosphere and its rendezvous with Nemesis. Whatever I thought of his methods, I had a sneaking admiration for Christopher Talbot’s stubborn determination.

The vast asteroid blazed its own determined course, but the weird thing was that from here it appeared to be stationary. In truth it was already between the moon and the Earth, closing the distance between us at a speed of some twenty-seven thousand miles an hour. It hung over the horizon, a grey-black disc of nothingness ready to swallow everything and everyone I had ever known. Lara and Serge. My mum and dad, my grandparents. Every one of us teetered on the edge of a bottomless hole and if we tumbled in, we would fall forever. Only one thing stood between us and total destruction. And it wasn’t Christopher Talbot.

“Zack. Nemesis is coming.”

“I know. But first we have to get you back on the ground.”

“How fast can you fly?”

“No idea.” He grinned. “Let’s find out. Now, hold tight.”

“I am not cuddling you.”

“Oh for—Just hang on, will you?”

We dived earthwards, back towards Bromley and the comic book store. In less than a minute we had spotted the volcano on the Parade. Zack circled the open crater once and then dropped down. We landed heavily and he spilled me on to the floor. “Sorry,” he said. But I forgave him since it was his first landing. I struggled to my feet, brushing myself down.

“Luke, you’re alive!” Lara hurled herself on top of me, almost knocking me back over. “When you took off like that I was sure you were toast.”

“Mon ami!”

It was Serge. He too began to hug me. Then he turned to stand in awe of my brother. “It is you.”

“Hi, Serge,” said Zack.

“He knows my name.”

I sighed. “Of course he knows your name. It’s Zack – he’s known you for years.” There wasn’t time for any of
this fanboy nonsense. I crossed to the costume locker, pulled out a cape and mask, and thrust them at my brother. “Here, put these on.”

“We’ve been through this,” he complained. “I’m not wearing that stuff.”

“The mask isn’t to protect your identity – it’s the rest of us I’m worried about. You might want fame, but speaking as your brother I’d prefer not to have a camera shoved in my face every time I leave the house.”

“OK, OK,” he relented. “I’ll wear the mask.” Reluctantly, he looped it over his head. “But not the cape.”

I didn’t have a good reason for the cape. I just really, really wanted him to wear one.

“My sister Cara has a thing for capes,” said Lara.

“She does?” Zack swallowed. “A thing. When you say a thing, what kind of—Y’know what, doesn’t matter right now. Gimme the cape.” He grabbed it out of my hands and flung it over his shoulders. “Well, it’s traditional, isn’t it?”