it’s true,” Colin said. “You’re a superhuman.”
“It’s looking like that.” A smile slowly grew on Danny’s face. “I really shouldn’t have told you.”
“God, you are so lucky! You know what I’d do if I was you? I’d join the athletics team. I’d win first place every time! It would be great!”
Danny shook his head. “Nah.”
“Seriously,” Colin said. “You should do it. You could be the next…” He paused. “Who’s a good runner?”
“I’d rather be a footballer.”
“You could do that, then! You could try out for Man United! They’d snap you up in a second!”
Danny grinned. “Or I could even try out for one of the good teams.”
“So, show me! Do something!”
“It might not work.”
“Give it a go anyway.”
Danny looked up and down the street. There was no one around. “Watch this!” He reached down to the ground and picked up a small white stone. He handed it to Colin. “You’ll recognise that stone again, right?”
Colin turned it over in his hands. “Sure. I suppose.”
“Now throw it.”
“Where?”
“Down the road.”
“OK.” Colin reached back his arm and flung the stone into the darkness. He didn’t see where it landed, but assumed that it must have hit a patch of grass, because it made no sound.
He turned back to Danny. “So?”
Danny smiled, held up his hand and opened it. The stone was resting in his palm.
“How…?”
“I caught it,” Danny said.
“But you didn’t even move!”
“Yes, I did. I ran after the stone and picked it out of the air.”
Colin laughed. “That’s amazing!”
Danny frowned. “Now the power’s just gone again. I suppose that I’ll be able to turn it on and off at will eventually. In the meantime, I have to be careful – and you’d better not say anything to anyone!”
“I won’t, I won’t… So you’re going to be a superhero! God, I wish it was me! How does it feel?”
“Weird, I suppose. It’s like I exist faster. When I’m doing it, I don’t really feel I’m running that fast. It’s more like everything else around me has slowed way down, like the rest of the world has gone into slow motion. And the more I concentrate on it, the slower everything becomes.”
“Are you going to tell your parents?”
“Actually… that’s the really strange thing about all this.” He hesitated. “All right, I know I can trust you. The strange thing is that they told me, in a way. Once they heard what happened with Susie, Dad told me everything. He said that he was sure I’d figure it out anyway. And he’s teaching me to control the power, too. He said that you have to focus on it, kind of like meditation. You let yourself relax, clear your mind of everything except the power. I wasn’t able to do it, though. He said that it takes a while to learn.”
“How does he know all this?”
“You swear that you won’t tell anyone?”
“I swear.”
“Sometimes – though not always – it’s hereditary. Dad was a superhuman too.”
Colin’s mouth dropped open. “You’re serious?”
“Yeah.”
“Someone famous?”
“Believe it or not, my father used to be Quantum.”
JOSEPH STEPPED DOWN from the helicopter and looked around. He was wearing a pair of sunglasses one of the soldiers had given him, but the light from the setting sun still hurt his eyes.
The copter had landed at the bottom of a small canyon, barely a hundred metres across. A set of huge steel doors were set into the canyon wall.
“Who are you?” he asked the woman. “What is this place?”
“Call me Rachel. We’re in California. It’s an abandoned gold mine.”
“How long was I locked up?”
“Ten years. Almost to the day. I have to know… your abilities?”
He gave her a weak smile. “Gone, of course. Do you think I’d have stayed there if I’d still had my powers? It was only a concrete cell. Why… why did you wait so long?”
“After the battle-tank, everything fell apart. It’s taken us this long to rebuild. It’s not as though we could operate openly. And no one knew where you were.”
They began to walk towards the steel doors, which were now slowly creaking open.
A young man walked out and stopped in front of them. “Joseph, I presume?”
Joseph nodded. “Who are you?”
“This is Victor Cross,” Rachel said. “He’s the one who tracked you down.”
Cross said, “We have some quarters set up for you. They should be a lot more pleasant that your prison cell.”
“You know who I am?”
“Of course. I know everything about you.”
Joseph stood in silence for a few seconds, then said, “I know I’m not the man I once was, Mr Cross, and I’m very much afraid that all that time as a prisoner has affected me. I find it hard to focus and even the smallest of things can distract me, but I’m not entirely stupid. Why did you wait so long before freeing me?”
Victor regarded him for a moment. “Honestly?”
“Yes. Honestly.”
“We didn’t need you until now.”
“I see. I feel… different. Clearer. Were they doing something to me in that place? Drugging me – to keep me docile?”
“Almost certainly,” Victor said.
“And what about the boy? What’s
