The Gathering: Quantum Prophecy 2 (17 page)

She ran for the ridge, leaped on to it and vaulted over the fence, clearing it by only a couple of centimeters.

Landing softly in a snowdrift, Renata looked around. She was on the edge of a narrow road.
This wasn’t here ten years ago. Looks like it circles the whole community.
As quietly as she could Renata darted through the streets, hoping to find a signpost directing her toward the hospital.

The whole place was eerily silent. In a wide pedestrianized street, a few stores had their Christmas lights on, turning the snow alternately green and red.

As she made her way toward what was once the town square,
Renata heard footsteps crunching through the snow. She looked about for cover, but couldn’t see anything.

Then she spotted a podium that supported a life-sized ice sculpture of Santa and his elves, and ran over to it, hoping that the falling snow would cover her tracks. She jumped on to the podium and turned herself solid just as two of the private police officers rounded the corner. They looked cold and miserable. One of them glanced at Renata as they passed. “Nice sculpture,” he said to his colleague.

When she was sure they were gone, Renata turned herself back to normal and continued her search for something—anything—that would point the way to the hospital.

As she passed an apartment block, she almost walked right into another guard, this one on his own.

The guard had just enough time to say, “Curfew violation!” before Renata jabbed a sharp punch at his jaw. The man keeled over into the snow.

“Sorry,” Renata muttered as she checked his breathing.
He’s OK, but I can’t just leave him here. He might freeze to death.
Then she heard more footsteps approaching and she looked around desperately.
There’s nowhere to hide!

Thinking quickly, she called out, “Is someone there? Help me!”

A second security guard came charging around the corner.

“Oh thank God!” Renata said. “I looked out the window and saw him just lying here! He must have slipped on the ice!”

The policeman examined his colleague. “You should have called it in, miss. You’re breaking curfew.”

“I know. Sorry. I panicked.”

“You go on back inside and I’ll forget about the violation.”

“Thanks. I hope he’s going to be all right.” She ran toward the apartment block’s entrance, then, making sure that the policeman wasn’t watching, she ducked down under a bush and waited.

A few minutes later an ambulance pulled up. Two paramedics checked the unconscious guard, then lifted him on to a stretcher and loaded him into the vehicle. The fallen man’s colleague climbed into the back and closed the door.

As the ambulance began to move away, Renata darted after it. She dived to the ground headfirst, skidded on the packed snow until she was right under the vehicle, then flipped over on to her back, gripped the undercarriage and allowed herself to be dragged along.

S
OLOMON
C
ORD
—
BATTERED
,
BRUISED AND
aching, but still alive and intact—climbed painfully out of bed and made his way to the machine room, where the labcoats had been working around the clock on the new Paragon armor.

Razor looked up when he saw Cord approaching. “You were advised to take it easy.”

“I’m not known for my tendency to follow advice.” Cord stood on the far side of the bench, looking down at the device on which Razor was working. “What are you doing? This isn’t part of the system.”

“Yeah, this is just a little side-project I’m playing around with.” He pushed the device aside.

“Razor, we don’t have
time
for side-projects!”

“If you say so, boss. So what was it like? Scary?”

“Terrifying,” Solomon said.

“Good thing Colin was there.”

“Yeah. You know what I’m thinking?”

“That we should build jetpacks for
all
of the new heroes?”

“No, but I like that idea. I was thinking that maybe the new armor is too complex. Maybe we should abandon it for now and just go back to the old design.”

“What does Josh think of that?”

“I haven’t approached him about it yet.”

Razor ran his hands through his long hair. “Between you and me, Sol, I don’t entirely trust him.”

“Nor do I. Not after what happened with Max.”

A voice from behind them said, “I don’t blame you.”

They turned to see Joshua Dalton standing in the doorway. He walked over to them. “But I’m not my brother.” Josh dragged over a stool and sat down. “Believe me, there aren’t many things worse than finding out that your own brother almost condemned thousands of people to death.”

“Have you seen him since his arrest?” Solomon asked.

“No. Neither has my sister. We don’t want anything to do with him.”

“What happened to all his money?” Razor asked. “Isn’t he, like, a multibillionaire?”

“All of his personal assets were seized by the Justice Department. They’re the ones who gave us the StratoTruck. His companies were taken over by their boards of directors. Most of them are still operating as normal. Though their stock took a pretty big hit when the news broke that he was being indicted for tax evasion. The shareholders lost a lot of money.”

Razor shrugged. “No big deal. It’s not like it’s real money.”

“Josh,” Solomon said. “Dioxin knows where we are. We have to do something about that.”

“When we’re back up to strength, we’ll go after him. In the meantime all we can do is sit and wait.”

Razor said, “Back up to strength…Josh, that’s asking a lot. We have no Paragon armor, and Yvonne and Butler and Mina have almost no experience. The only functional superhuman we have left is Colin. We can’t put everything on his shoulders.”

“There’s also Renata.”

“I thought you were saying that she might be the traitor.”

Josh shrugged. “You sure you have no idea where she is?”

Solomon said, “Give her time. She’ll let us know when she wants to come back.”

Renata hid in a storeroom on the hospital’s ground floor. Only a couple of nurses were on duty, and from what Renata could tell, there were very few patients.

She pushed open the door a fraction and peered out.
OK, the coast is clear!
She ran silently to the nurses’ station and quickly flipped through the clipboards, checking the patients’ names. Her heart almost missed a beat when she found what she was looking for: “Maria Soliz, Room 418.”

She put the clipboard back and looked around at the signs suspended from the ceiling.
418—has to be the fourth floor…Can’t risk taking the elevator.
Renata ran toward the stairway and quietly raced up the stairs.

The door leading to the fourth floor had a small glass panel, and through it she could see one of the private security guards sitting outside room number 418.

There’s no way I’m going to be able to get past him.

Steeling herself, Renata stepped out into the corridor.

The officer noticed her immediately and got to his feet. “Stop right there, missy! Restricted area.”

Renata kept walking.

“Did you hear me?”

She ignored him.

“I said stop!” The man put his hand on his gun. “This is your last warning!”

Renata lunged forward, grabbed him and slammed him against
the wall. She let him drop unconscious to the floor, then pushed open the door to her mother’s room.

Inside, a middle-aged woman was lying on the bed. Her face and arms were covered in bandages, and she was hooked up to a heart monitor and an oxygen tube.

That can’t be her
, Renata thought.
She looks so…old.

Then she glanced at the woman’s left hand and saw her wedding ring. She sat on the edge of the bed and whispered, “Mom? Mom, can you hear me?”

Maria Soliz stirred and moaned a little. Her eyes briefly flickered open.

“Mom?”

“Dreaming…My little girl…” She opened her eyes. “I know it’s a dream, Renata. You vanished. Ten years ago. I miss you. I dream about you a lot.”

Renata reached out and took her mother’s hand and squeezed gently. “This isn’t a dream, Mom. I’m really here.”

“No…”

Renata brushed her hand across her face, wiping away her tears.

Then Maria Soliz suddenly sat up and grabbed her daughter’s arms. “Oh my God!
Oh my God!
Is it really you?”

“Yes, Mom, it’s me!”

Renata’s mother wrapped her arms around her. “We thought you were…How? How is this possible?” She let go and pressed her hand to her mouth. “They brought you back to me! Oh my God! Your father said that I was crazy to even think it. Everyone said that you were dead! But I knew—I
knew
—that you were still alive.”

Renata smiled. “I
am
alive. But you have to keep your voice down. I’m not supposed to be here. I kinda had to sneak in.”

“Who knows? Did you talk to your father yet?”

“No, not yet. Mom, I can’t stay long, but I wanted you to know that I’m all right.”

“Renata, it’s been ten years! Where have you
been?
” She peered closely at her daughter. “You haven’t changed.”

“I know, I—”

“No, you haven’t aged at all! That’s not possible. You still look like a fourteen-year-old.”

“I’m a superhuman,” Renata said. “I was with Energy, Titan, Thalamus and the others ten years ago, on the first Mystery Day. I got frozen…”

“My daughter was
not
a superhuman!”

“I am, Mom. The morning I went missing…it was my first real mission. I didn’t have a costume, so I borrowed Bobby’s Zorro mask. I took Dad’s old leather gloves as well, the ones he used to use in the garden. I can turn myself solid. Watch!” Renata’s skin rippled and glistened. She became transparent and unmoving. After a few seconds, she turned back.

“That was
you
on the news! You’re Diamond?”

“That’s me, Mom. I don’t really have time to go through the whole story, but basically I got frozen for ten years. When I woke up, they wouldn’t let me come home. They didn’t say it, but I think they were worried that being frozen for so long might have affected me mentally. After a couple of weeks, they sent me to live with the Wagners. You’d like them a lot. It was the best place for me.”

“The Wagners? You mean Energy and Titan?”

“That’s them.”

“Then whoever made that decision was right. It
was
the best place. Energy and Titan…if their son is as strong as the papers say he is, then there was probably no safer place in the world.”

Renata smiled. “True. Except that I’m stronger than he is. Mom…what are you
doing
here? With the Trutopians I mean.”

“They’re good people, Renata. It’s the only way forward. The world has to be saved and if the governments won’t do it, then it has to be done by a private organization.”

“That’s Reginald Kinsella talking, Mom. Not you.”

“Don’t you remember what it was like back in the old neighborhood? We lived in fear! Practically every day there was a mugging, or a burglary, or worse. Two years ago a man was shot dead on the road, right outside our house. The police never caught the killer. Since we joined the Trutopians we’ve never had to worry about anything like that.”

“What about Samantha and Bobby? Did they join too?”

“No. No, they didn’t and they said we were wrong to do it. But now look! You’ve come back to us!”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with the Trutopians,” Renata said. “The organization is only one step away from a dictatorship. Do you
know
what’s happening right now? Kinsella has ordered the communities to be closed. No one is allowed in or out!”

“What we’ve lost in freedom we’ve more than gained in security.”

“That’s Kinsella’s words again. Mom, I don’t want to get into
this with you now. I’m going to contact my friends. We’ll arrange for you and Dad to be transferred to our headquarters. You’ll be safer there.”

Maria Soliz shook her head. “No. We’re staying here. The Trutopians have been very good to us. We have full medical coverage here. That’s something we
never
had in the outside world. And now you’re back with us! The apartment’s not big enough for three, but we’ll ask them to move us to a bigger one. I’m sure they won’t mind, not with you being a superhuman. They’ll be delighted to have you in the organization. Maybe they’ll even give us a house. And they’ll probably reduce our taxes too, because now we have a dependent.”

“Mom, stop! I’m not joining the Trutopians!”

“But…No, you have to!” Mrs. Soliz paused. “If you were frozen all this time, then technically you’re still only fourteen. You have to do what we say. You’ll have to go back to school too. You’d like the school here. It’s a friendly place. There’s never any bullying or any sort of peer pressure.”

“Mom…”

“Your father and I will be released in a couple of days, then you can come home with us and we can see in the New Year together.”

Renata stood up. “No. You and Dad should come back with me. I don’t like the way these people operate, Mom.”

“You might think that this is a dictatorship, Renata, but they look after their own.”

“Yeah, that’s one of the things that bothers me. I—”

The door behind Renata was pushed open. She turned to see a stern-looking policewoman standing in the doorway. “Renata
Soliz, I’m arresting you on charges of trespassing on Trutopian property, unlawful entry and assaulting a police officer. You have the right to remain silent…”

Renata interrupted her. “You
really
think that you can take me in?”

Her mother said, “Renata, please…We don’t want any trouble. Just do whatever she says. Everything will be fine.”

“Mom, I’ll be in touch as soon as I can. Give the others my love.” Renata moved toward the door, but the policewoman grabbed her arm to stop her.

“You’re to come with me, Miss Soliz.”

Renata stared at her. “You’re either very brave or very stupid. Now let go of my arm.”

“I
know
who you are. You might be a superhuman, but that doesn’t mean that you’re above the law.”

“True. But it
does
mean that you can’t stop me.” She pulled herself free and walked out of the room.