Читать книгу The Quantum Prophecy - Michael Carroll, Michael Carroll - Страница 8

LATER, AS HE was attempting to do his homework, Colin couldn’t get the thought out of his mind: Suppose it’s true? Suppose Danny is a superhuman? Maybe he’s been one all along, but kept it secret. Or maybe Danny didn’t even know. This could be the first time he’s ever done anything like that.

If super-powers are inherited, wouldn’t that mean that one of Danny’s parents is a superhuman too?

Colin dismissed this idea almost immediately; Danny’s parents were just too ordinary. Danny’s father was a manager in the local supermarket and his mother was a driving instructor. Danny also had a seven-year-old brother, Niall. If Danny inherited superhuman powers from one of his parents, then that would mean that Niall might also become a superhuman.

Colin forced himself to focus on his homework. A single four-page essay. That shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours, then he would be completely free of homework worry for the rest of the weekend.

He was lying on his bed, on his stomach, with his homework book open on the floor at the foot of the bed. He had half a page done and he wasn’t happy with it. He’d been trying Brian’s idea of writing from the point of view of one of the villains, but it was proving to be tougher than he’d expected.

OK. Concentrate! Suppose I had superhuman powers… Say I could fly. That’d be cool!

While he was day dreaming about joining the school’s athletics team – if he could fly, he’d be a champion long-jumper – a thought came into his mind: I wonder if Danny will be able to fly?

Maybe Danny won’t want his powers and he’ll find a way to give them to me.

Colin sighed and looked down at his homework again.

“I’m not getting anywhere with this,” he muttered to himself. OK. Start over.

He turned to a blank page and began to write: “If I was a superhero, I wouldn’t even tell my best friends because that would put them in danger. I would have to come up with some good excuses for always disappearing to go off and save people.”

Danny’s never done that, so maybe he’s not a superhuman after all. But then, how did he do it? How did he move fast enough to rescue Susie?

Colin looked at the few lines he’d written, put his homework book away and wandered downstairs to the sitting room.

“How’s the essay coming along?” Colin’s Dad asked.

Colin sat down on the floor with his back to the television set. The sound was off and clearly his parents hadn’t been watching it. “Not great. I don’t really know all that much about superhumans. What was it like when they were around? It must have been strange.”

His father said, “I was about your age when the first superhumans began to appear. You know the way they always keep weird stories until the end of the news? Well, that was what it was like, for a while. It was all, ‘And finally, it seems that in New York there’s a new force fighting evil.’ That kind of thing.”

“But weren’t people scared?”

“No, because for a long time most people didn’t really believe it. Not until Paragon went up against Façade.”

“Why? Why was that any different?”

“Because everyone saw it happening live on television. It was in Detroit, one of those charity telethon events, like Comic Relief. They were trying to raise twenty million dollars for… can’t remember what it was now.”

“Education,” Colin’s mother said.

“Right, education. Anyway, it’s all just about over, and they’re going on about how much money they’ve raised, then all of a sudden one of the guest musicians comes out and he just transforms himself into Façade. He’s got a whole bunch of thugs with him and Façade demands fifty million dollars or the studio audience and all these celebrities will be killed. Façade is strutting about, showing off his powers by shape-shifting into different people, when Paragon just drops out of the ceiling and lands on top of him. Bam! One punch to the head and Façade is out cold! A couple of his henchmen turn their guns on Paragon, but he just flies right into them, knocking them over. Then he launched a dozen gas grenades. The gas instantly sent everyone in the studio – even the hostages – to sleep. The cameras were still running, though, so we could watch him tying up Façade and his men.”

“It would have been a great court case, too,” Caroline said, “if Façade hadn’t escaped from custody on the way to the trial.”

“What about Paragon, though? If he arrived so quickly, doesn’t that suggest that he lived nearby? I mean, from what I’ve read about him he wasn’t able to fly very fast.”

“Maybe he just happened to be close by for some other reason,” Caroline said.

“Yeah, but… I suppose the police had the TV studio surrounded, right? That means that Paragon would have had to get past them in order to get into the studio. So you know what I’m thinking?”

“What’s that?” his father asked.

“Maybe Paragon was a cop. In his real life, I mean. Maybe they knew all about him.”

“I doubt it, Colin. Even if he was, he wouldn’t have let anyone know that he was Paragon. The only heroes whose real names we knew were the Daltons. And that was only because they were already rich enough to protect themselves. All the others probably had ordinary lives.” Warren looked up at the television set. “Speaking of which… Only a few minutes to go before Max Dalton’s interview. Right, Colin – put the kettle on.”

“It’s not my turn!”

“It is if you want to stay up and find out what Dalton has to say for himself.”

As Colin carried the mugs of tea into the sitting room, the specially-extended edition of the ten o’clock news was coming to an end. It had already reported that Times Square in Manhattan was blocked with people. The news report had showed a sea of banners and flags, cheering people dressed up as their favourite heroes and mounted policemen attempting to keep the crowds under control.

The TV cut back to the female newsreader. “And after tonight’s exclusive interview with Max Dalton, we’ll be opening tomorrow’s poll: ‘If you had to be a superhuman, which one would you be?’ You can choose between Titan, Apex, Paragon or Max Dalton. We’ll have the results this time tomorrow night, with updates throughout the day.”

The male newsreader chuckled. “Thanks, Diana. No Ragnarök on the list, then?”

“Oh, I don’t think he’d get too many votes, Tom, do you?”

“Guess not! You can vote by pressing the red button on your remote, through the website, or by phone. Calls cost—”

Colin’s father hit the mute button, then said, “So who would you choose, Colin?”

“I don’t know,” Colin said. “Sometimes I’d like to be Thalamus, because he was the smartest man on the planet. But I kind of like Joshua Dalton, too.”

Colin’s mother asked, “Because he was rich and he’s had a string of supermodel girlfriends?”

“Mostly because he has his own helicopter. I’d love to have a go in a helicopter.” Colin turned around to look at his father. “So why do you think that only The High Command survived?”

“Maybe they all survived, Colin. Did you ever think of that? Maybe they all survived and decided that it was time to retire.”

Colin laughed. “Oh yeah, sure. If you had the sort of power that Titan had, you’d never be able to just sit around when some disaster happened. You’d have to try and help. That’s what Titan was like.”

“You don’t think that he could have just decided that he’d done enough?”

“No. I mean, I wouldn’t. Titan was the most powerful man ever. He had a responsibility to use his powers to help everyone else.”

All this talk about superheroes reminded Colin of his earlier conversation with Brian.

“Dad… Remember what I was saying about how Danny saved Susie’s life?”

“Yes…” His father said, cautiously.

“Well, me and Brian were thinking about it. Danny was really, really fast. Maybe he’s a superhuman.”

“How? How could he be? Apart from the Daltons, there aren’t any superhumans left any more.”

“But the way Danny moved…” Colin shook his head. “I saw it myself and I still can’t believe it.”

“The mind can play tricks on you, Colin,” said his mother. “Especially under a stressful situation. It might just have seemed a lot faster than it was.”

“I suppose… But, you see, I was thinking about this, right? Most of the superheroes got their powers when they were teenagers and Danny’s about the right age.”

Warren grinned. “Are you seriously suggesting that your friend Danny Cooper has hidden powers?”

“Well, it seems like it.”

“Then let us know if he learns how to fly. That could come in handy.”

Colin’s mother said, “It’s starting!”

Colin pulled one of the cushions off the sofa and stretched out on the floor, facing the television set.

The screen showed lots of old footage of the superheroes in action – most of it very shaky and out-of-focus – then cut to a black-and-white photograph of a handsome grey-haired man in his mid-forties.

“Maxwell Edwin Dalton,” the presenter’s voice said. “Billionaire CEO of MaxEdDal Pharmaceuticals, first came to public notice when…”

Colin twisted around to face his mother. “What’s CEO mean?”

“Chief Executive Officer,” she replied. “The boss, in other words.”

Colin turned back to see that the screen was now showing the outside of the MaxEdDal headquarters in Manhattan. “At the age of fifteen,” the voice continued, “young Max Dalton discovered that he had the ability to know what other people were thinking, and to some degree influence their thoughts to make them do what he wanted. Yet, unlike most other superhumans, he chose to go public with his abilities. With his younger brother and sister, Roz and Joshua, he formed The High Command.” The screen showed photos of the Daltons as teenagers.

“Is that the best they can do?” Colin asked. “Isn’t there any film of Max in action? You know, actually doing something?”

It was another fifteen minutes before the presenter finally said, “Tonight, Maxwell Dalton will give his first interview since the events of the original Mystery Day. That’s next, coming right up after this!”

The television cut to a commercial. Colin yawned.

“I heard that the TV stations are charging a fortune for these ads,” Caroline said. “Twice as much as they charge for ads during the Superbowl.”

When the programme finally returned the interviewer was sitting behind a desk. To his right, on a long leather sofa, sat Max Dalton. He was dressed in a sports jacket, white shirt open at the collar, and faded jeans.

“He looks, well, kind of ordinary,” Colin said. “I thought he’d be bigger.”

“Shhh!”

“Thank you for joining us, Mr Dalton,” the interviewer said.

“It’s my pleasure, Garth,” Dalton said, smiling. His teeth were the whitest Colin had ever seen.

“Now, first, I guess the most obvious question – and one that I’m sure most people want to know – is why now? Why, after all these years, have you decided to finally break your silence?”

Max paused for a second. “Tomorrow’s the tenth anniversary. I think ten years is long enough to wait.”

“Tell me this, Max… Can you read my mind right now?”

Smiling, Max said, “Garth, I don’t do that sort of thing any more. Those days are gone.”

“Tell us about those days, if you will.”

“Much of what has been written about my life as a superhero is apocryphal at best.”

“Apocryphal?” Colin asked.

“Made-up,” his mother said.

Max continued. “Yes, we fought crime, helped people, tried to make the world a better place. If you’ve been given a gift – like I was – you’re honour-bound to use it for the greater good.”

“And can you tell us what happened ten years ago?”

“Despite what a lot of people have been saying, I wasn’t there. So your guess is as good as mine, Garth. All I know is that Ragnarök had built some enormous machine and was driving it straight for Manhattan. Then… well, who can say? There was a big explosion and that was it. No more superhumans.”

“Except yourself – and your brother and sister.”

Max nodded. “Exactly. I have no idea what happened. Josh and I visited the site the following day. All we found was a lot of wreckage.”

“No bodies?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t that seem strange that you have no more of an idea what happened than we do? Surely you must know something?”

“Now, that’s why I don’t usually do interviews! You have to remember that we lost some very good friends during that battle. Energy, Quantum, Titan, Apex, Paragon… all the others. We fought alongside them for years.”

“I know, but—”

Max interrupted him. “Do you think that if I knew something I’d just sit back and let it go? Would you? If some of your closest friends suddenly disappeared, wouldn’t you want to investigate it? We did everything we could to find out what had happened to them.”

The interviewer said, “Can you tell me, then, why you and the other members of The High Command weren’t present at that final battle?”

“We might have been superheroes,” Max said, “but even we couldn’t be in two places at the one time.”

“But there were other superhumans who weren’t present, and they’ve also disappeared.”

“This is apparently true,” Max said.

“Care to suggest how that might be?”

“No,” Max said. “I mean, I’ve got a few ideas, but nothing concrete. Nothing that hasn’t been suggested before. Maybe they retired from the business, just as I did.”

“And may I ask, why did you retire? If you don’t mind speaking about that.”

“Whatever happened ten years ago… well, as I said, your guess is as good as mine. We do know that every other superhuman in the world disappeared that day, heroes and villains included. Roz, Josh and I talked about it – at length – and we came to the conclusion that with all the supervillains gone, we weren’t needed any more.”

“Yes, but—”

Max interrupted him. “We realised that we could do more good by focussing our efforts on other areas of our lives. MaxEdDal Pharmaceuticals specialises in effective, low-cost medicines that have certainly saved more lives than I ever could have as a superhero.”

“Don’t you miss those days?”

“At times… but I don’t miss the constant struggles, or the fear that one day a new supervillain might emerge who would be powerful enough to destroy the planet. At least we know that if there are no more superhumans, there will be no more supervillains.”

Max Dalton turned to look directly into the camera. “So for better or worse – and I firmly believe that it’s for the better – the age of the superhumans is over.”