The Twisted Future (Teen Superheroes Book 4)

Teen Superheroes Book Four:

The Twisted Future

Darrell Pitt

Copyright 201
4 Darrell Pitt

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Dedicated

To Richard Matheson

Prologue

My name is Axel.

I’m one of a group of teenagers who had their memories wiped and were given incredible powers. I can control air, turn it into cannonballs, create invisible shields or use it so I can fly at amazing speeds. I’m American, but don’t ask me what state I’m from because I don’t know.

The next member of our team is Brodie, a red-headed Australian with the strength and speed of three grown men. She’s also my girlfriend which means I think she’s sweet and lovable—even though she can take my head off with one punch.

Then there’s Chad. He’s Norwegian, blond, brave and—well, a complete egotistical idiot—but still a friend. He can create and manipulate fire and ice. His sister is Ebony, the quiet member of the team. She can transmute elements so if you have a rose she can turn it to gold or silver or carbon. It’s a cool power to have.

The youngest member of our team is Dan, a boy from China. He can control metal with his mind, but he can also control other people’s minds or read their thoughts. Sometimes. It’s not a very reliable power so he doesn’t use it much.

Last, but not least, there’s Ferdy. He’s brilliant, but he’s also autistic. Sometimes he’s hard to communicate with, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less a person than any of us. You mess with him, you mess with all of us.

We were given our powers by the Agency
who were a secret organization in cahoots with aliens known as the Bakari. I say
were
because an alien spacecraft recently crashed to Earth with the peoples of a hundred planets on board. Everyone now knows about the Agency and the Bakari. Not only do they know there’s life on other planets, the refugees of that ship are now living in a makeshift town called New Haven, located in Virginia. People aren’t allowed to visit and the aliens aren’t allowed to leave. The whole situation is still being worked out by the United Nations.

Everything changed for us during our last adventure. I had a little misunderstanding with the Russian government which meant I ended up being labeled a criminal. Ferdy lost his life while saving the planet—but then he got it back again. His body was destroyed by a device called the Solar Accelerator, but his consciousness was transferred to an alien warship we’ve christened the
Liber8tor
.

I got put into jail for my actions, but then my friends broke me
out and now we’re on the run from the Agency, and every government on the planet.

Yeah, I know it all sounds weird, but weird is our business.

At least things can’t get any worse.

Can they?

Chapter One

‘Three flex craft are approaching at Mach Four,’ Ferdy said.

‘How far away?’ I asked.

‘1000 miles and closing.’

We were sitting on the bridge of the
Liber8tor
. The name had been decided upon by the others while I was still in jail.
Liber8tor
had been owned by a race known as the Tagaar. It had eight decks of accommodation, torpedoes, laser weapons and a cloaking device. The interior was a cross between the inside of a submarine and the skin of a green lizard. Whoever did the Tagaar’s interior decorating needed talking to.

The others had a basic understanding of how the vessel worked, but it was still a complete mystery to me. As was Ferdy and his relationship to the ship. His consciousness was contained inside the Liter8tor computer. He was alive, but trapped. I could not even imagine what that would be like. At least it was better than the alternative.

Each of our stations—navigation, weapons, science, environmental and engineering—surrounded the helm. The huge view screen before us showed little, just a vast expanse of ocean and sky. We had hoped we might be lucky, evading capture by flying loops over the Pacific.

It seemed luck was not on our side.

Dan, despite being the youngest of our group, was helmsman. We’d all taken turns flying the ship, but Dan seemed to have a natural affinity with the controls. Maybe all those computer games were finally paying off.

The others knew their assigned roles. Ebony was navigation, Chad weapons and Brodie science. I was in charge of
environmental systems, which meant I was clueless, as I was still trying to learn the Tagaar language.

Pushing back his black hair, Dan leant forward in his seat and gripped the controls. We felt a slight acceleration as he increased engine thrust.

‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ Chad asked.

‘No,’ Dan said. ‘I’ve completely forgotten how to fly this ship and we’re all about to die.’

‘That’s really funny,’ Chad said, flashing a look at me. ‘Don’t you hate smart kids?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘But I’ve grown fond of you anyway.’

‘Hardy-har-har.’

‘The flex craft are continuing to close on our position.’ Ferdy’s voice was clear and without panic. ‘The first Prime Minister of Australia was Edmund Barton.’

‘That’s handy to know,’ Brodie said.

‘Funny,’ Ebony said, smiling. ‘I was just about to ask you that. Can you read minds, Ferdy?’

‘Is Ebony making a joke?’ Ferdy asked.

‘Ebony is making—I mean—yes
, I am.’

‘Then it is a funny joke.’

‘How are those Flex craft?’ Brodie’s face was calm, but her fists were tightly clenched. ‘Are we losing them?’

Brodie didn’t like to be at the mercy of events. I sometimes joked she wasn’t happy unless she was hitting someone. Or maybe I wasn’t joking.

‘Quite the opposite,’ Ferdy said. ‘The ships are closing with three more vessels converging from the west.’

I swallowed hard. The Agency had declared us international criminals and had been pursuing us relentlessly for weeks. Every time we thought we were safe, they turned up again.
Liber8tor
had a cloaking device, but they seemed able to see through it like glass.

‘That’s six ships,’ Chad said.

‘You can count?’ Dan looked impressed as he tapped controls on his panel and the engines gave another surge of acceleration. ‘Ferdy? Can those flex craft follow into orbit?’

‘It is impossible to know if their systems have been modified for spaceflight.’

‘Hmm.’

I wasn’t sure what that meant. ‘Does that mean we’re going into orbit?’ I asked. ‘Or will we just try to outrun them?’

‘Hmm.’

‘Or are we about to die?’

‘Hmm.’

Now I felt as worried as Chad looked.

‘What exactly does “hmm” mean?’ Brodie asked.

‘It means we’re going to do the unexpected.’ The scene in the view screen shifted as
Liber8tor
angled towards the Pacific Ocean. ‘We’re going down.’

‘Is Dan about to test the new modifications?’ Ferdy asked.

‘Now’s as good a time as any.’

Chad acted like he’d been stung. ‘Modifications? What modifications?’ he asked. ‘Why don’t I know anything about this?’

‘They’re on the notice board,’ Dan said.

‘What notice board?’

‘On level nine.’

‘Level nine? Where the hell’s level nine?’

‘Just above level eight.’

I would have laughed if I weren’t so worried.
There was no level nine.

The ship’s speed increased and Chad fell to silence as we accelerated towards the ocean. White waves and spray appeared. Then, at seemingly the last instant, Dan adjusted our angle of descent so we skimmed low over the waves.

‘Flex craft are closing on all sides,’ Ferdy reported. ‘The closest is one thousand feet...five hundred...’

‘Hang onto your hats,’ Dan said.

I looked at Ebony. Swallowing, she gripped the arm rests of her seat. She appeared small and vulnerable, so I gave her a comforting smile. Then I glanced at Brodie, who just glared at me.

‘What?’ I said.

How could someone be jealous at a time like this?

The
Liber8tor
hitting the ocean felt like we’d slammed into concrete. A vast spray of water obliterated the screen, followed by a wash of bubbles. We saw shimmering blue-green water cut by bands of sunlight. A school of startled fish zoomed away.

‘We’re underwater!’ I said.

‘Really?’ Chad’s voice had gone up a notch. ‘I hadn’t noticed!’

‘The
Liber8tor
is at five hundred feet and descending,’ Ferdy said. ‘And the second highest mountain in the world is K2.’

‘Thanks for letting me know,’ Chad said, looking green.

‘You’re most welcome, friend Chad.’

‘No, I wasn’t—I mean, never mind...’ He stopped. ‘Are we safe down here?’

‘That is impossible to say,’ Ferdy said. ‘Although Ferdy can calculate many possible futures, often with great accuracy.’

This was news to me.

‘You’re saying you can see the future?’ I asked.

‘Ferdy is simply able to calculate the possibilities of many different courses of action.’

‘So are those Flex fighters going to follow us?’ I asked.

‘It is unlikely their craft have been modified to
travel underwater,’ Ferdy said, ‘which is fortunate because
Liber8tor
’s chances of surviving an air battle with six flex craft was no better than one chance in eighty-two.’

‘Lucky for us,’ I said. ‘Unlucky for them.’

Chapter Two

‘Mr. Price?’

‘Yes?’

Agent Palmer peered at the gaunt young man sitting in the waiting room. He had an untidy mop of black hair, unwashed clothing and looked like someone who rarely left his basement.
Another recluse living on corn chips and cola,
she sighed. Palmer had dealt with all sorts of people since being put in charge of New Projects, the latest initiative by the Agency. Some of the people had been quite brilliant. A few had been crackpots. One or two had required a call to security, and a straitjacket.

‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,’ she said.

‘I’ve waited weeks for this appointment.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated. ‘We’ve had a backlog since the Agency went public.’

Give me the good old days
, Palmer thought.
It was a simpler time, but—

‘Agent Palmer?’ The young man scowled. ‘If you don’t mind...’

The agent led Price down a wide corridor clad in glass and steel. The building, located in Lower Manhattan, employed more than a thousand people, with more joining every day. Everyone wanted a role in this new world. Palmer surreptitiously glanced at her watch.
Price better not be another crackpot.
She was only twenty minutes away from lunch.

They entered her office where her receptionist, Carl Jackson, sat at his computer. He was an army private, a tall black man with a stutter and a sixty word per minute typing speed.
Offering Price a seat, Palmer noticed he was carrying an old doctor’s bag. 

What’s in there?

She glanced down at the file of information Jackson had gleaned about Price. There wasn’t a lot, but it was interesting. James Price was older than he looked, twenty-two, and had completed a double major in chemistry and physics at UCLA, his specialty being rare elements.

‘Today we’re going to change history,’ Price began.

‘Really. How?’

James Price seemed not to hear her. ‘I’ve been working on
my device for almost ten years.’

‘Ten years...’ Palmer did the calculations. ‘So you started—’

‘When I was twelve.’

She nodded. ‘And what does
it do?’ 

‘It’s a TDR. A trans-dimensional resonator.’

‘And...’

‘It siphons energy from an alternate dimension,’ he explained, ‘providing free and perpetual energy—forever.’

It took Agent Palmer a moment to put it all together. ‘It collects energy from another dimension?’ she said.

‘That’s right,’ he said.
‘Endless amounts of it.’

He pulled something from the bag that looked like a cross between an old sewing machine and a gramophone. Most of the parts were hand crafted from brass or steel with wires running from a control panel to a cone resembling an early twentieth-century loud speaker.

Inwardly groaning, Agent Palmer peeked at the clock on her desk.

Lunch in ten minutes
, she thought.
What will it be today? They make a good pasta at—

A whirring came from James Price’s machine as a thin slither of light projected from its conical end.

‘What is that?’ Palmer asked, peering at the light. ‘Exactly?’

‘It’s the future.’ Price sounded breathless as if he had been running a marathon. ‘Perpetual energy.’

‘It’s...it’s...’ Palmer was lost for words. ‘It’s very little. And bright.’

Price laughed, looking geek
ier than ever. ‘But very powerful,’ he said. ‘It runs on Francium.’

‘Francium. What’s that?’

‘Francium is one of the world’s rarest elements.’

‘And it’s taken you ten years—’

‘Francium isn’t easy to come by, but my device—the trans-dimensional resonator—uses it to crack open a hole in the dimensional fabric of—’

‘Hold on.’ Agent Palmer held up a hand. ‘Explain this to me like I’m a dummy.’

‘You are a dummy,’ Price said, as if it were obvious. ‘Most people are. That’s why a TDR has never been invented before.’

‘TDR?’

‘I told you before. The trans-dimensional resonator.’

‘Explain it to me. Slowly.’

‘Okay, you’re familiar with the big bang—’

Fortunately, James Price was able to condense the entire history of the universe into a few short lines of explanation. ‘The big bang created multiple dimensions,’ he explained. ‘A infinite number of universes. Every single action since then has resulted in the birth of new universes, with an infinite number being created every second.’

‘I’m familiar with that idea.’ It was often bandied about in science fiction stories. Alternate realities where John F Kennedy had not been assassinated, dinosaurs still roamed the Earth and where the South won the American Civil War. ‘What’s that got to do with your invention?’

‘One of those many realities is where the big bang occurred and is still a mass of hot, subatomic particles. It was, after all, chance that led to the formation of galaxies, solar systems and planets.’

Palmer nodded as if she understood. ‘Of course.’

‘The TDR simply opens a crack into one of those dimensions and siphons off energy. That’s what we’re seeing right now. Energy flowing from that crack.’

‘You’ve cracked open the universe, and the light coming from your...gramophone is from a different reality.’

‘Right.’

‘That’s...’ Palmer struggled for words. ‘Crazy. It’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard.’

Price’s face darkened. ‘Great minds have always fought to be recognized by lesser beings.’

‘That’s always a problem, I’m sure.’ Agent Palmer eyed the computer.
Lunchtime!
‘Thanks for coming in to see us—’

‘I have harnessed the power of the universe!’ Price said, furious. He punched a switch on his device. ‘And you will recognize that power!’

The tiny spear of light expanded into a bright orange globe the size of a chair. It flew upwards, punching a hole in the ceiling. Palmer yelled and fell backwards onto the floor. Private Jackson raced in, but skidded to a halt in astonishment. 

Agent Palmer rounded her desk as James Price snapped off his mach
ine. She peered up into the gap as people from all eighty-eight floors stared back down. Beyond them she caught a glimpse of blue sky.

‘Sit down, Mr. Price,’ Agent Palmer said. ‘And tell me again how this device works—starting with the Big Bang.’