Rise of the Heroes (6 page)

She demonstrated again. The second time she displayed more grace in the launch and even managed to hover so she could watch the others.

“It feels like the most natural thing in the world, just like walking!”

Toby tried and failed, but at least he managed to land on his side to cushion the blow. Lorna chided him, saying he wasn't trying hard enough.

Pete, glasses twisted back on his nose, threw himself with wild abandon—and swooped high in the air, much farther than Lorna had dared. He even performed a backward loop before rushing headfirst back to earth, only spinning his feet the right way around at the very last moment, before slowing to a perfect hovering stop next to Lorna.

“Awesome!” he whooped.

Gritting his teeth and determined not to be outdone, Toby launched forward and lifted from the ground. His delight was suddenly tempered by the fact he was gaining no height and rushing straight for the tree. He heard everybody yell advice, but the words were gibberish to him. By sheer willpower, he managed to turn his body skyward—but not before skimming through the edge of
the tree's branches, which whipped hard against his face. Once airborne though, he quickly worked things out and hovering soon became second nature.

Emily succeeded with her next attempt, although she zoomed around the backyard like a rapidly deflating balloon before she managed to stop.

Once they were all airborne it was Pete's idea to head for the clouds and use them as cover. Everybody followed, since they couldn't think of an excuse to use if the neighbors saw them performing the impossible.

Pete spotted the subway line below and followed it toward the town center. He had always loved making maps, and a couple of years studying satellite images on the Web meant that he was accustomed to navigation.

Next to him, Toby spotted the town hall and pointed it out. He opened his mouth to speak, but a rush of air swept the sentence away. He barely heard Pete's excited screams, as he wildly pointed toward the ground. But their meaning was clear enough. The bank was below them.

As they slowed to descend Toby managed, at last, to speak. “We can't just land in the middle of the street!”

“Why not?” asked Pete.

“Don't you think that'd be a little odd? There are people everywhere!”

Lorna nodded. “Very good point. Over there, there's an alley. We can land there.”

“Same problem! Anybody in the street could look up and see us, even if we land somewhere out of the way.”

“Then we better do it quickly.”

“Anyway,” said Pete, “who looks up in this city?”

After landing they stepped out into the street and were pleased to find that nobody gave them a second glance. They headed toward the bank at the end of the road. The bank was old, with pillars holding up a porch on which was mounted an elegant clock.

Pete eagerly led the way but Toby caught up with him and tugged on his arm.

“We can't just go in there and start leaping around.”

“Why not?”

“Two reasons. One, people might recognize us. We should have worn disguises. That's why superheroes wear masks! And two, we downloaded the powers roughly half an hour ago.”

“More like forty minutes,” said Pete, glancing at his watch.

“So unless the Web site can predict the future, we've probably missed the robbery altogether!”

“What do you suggest? We all just go home?” said Pete angrily.

Before Toby could reply a mighty boom rattled the street, and he saw a black cloud billowing from the bank. They ran for cover as windows exploded in a shower of lethal shards, smoke rolling through. Pedestrians in the street screamed and fled for safety.

The robbery was happening
right now
!

Four silhouettes walked through the smoke, leaving the bank with an air of confidence, despite the chaos around them. Toby risked a glance from behind the hood of a Ford minivan that now had a football-sized lump of masonry poking through the windshield. It had been the nearest place to hide. Everybody in the street had fled in panic, although the swirling smoke made it difficult to see very far.

“Look!” Toby whispered in awe.

The others peered cautiously from their refuge. As the smoke parted the figures formed into muscular men, all wearing the same gunmetal gray and black jumpsuits, with a tornado motif on their chests. They surveyed the street, eyes protected by deep-red-tinged shades. Sleek combat rifles swept around the deserted street.

“They have guns,” observed Pete. “What do we do?” In the rush to exercise their powers, the thought hadn't occurred to any of them that the bank thieves would be armed. Guns meant there was a very real danger of getting killed.

“Stay here!” said Emily. “Let the police handle it.”

As if on cue, the wailing sirens of a pair of police cars could be heard. The vehicles screeched around the corner, the drivers jamming on their brakes as they tried to avoid the lumps of concrete that now dotted the street. The two cars slid sidelong, rubber from their tires leaving black tracks on the road before they came to a halt. The cops inside didn't even have a chance to leave the vehicles before the four thugs turned their weapons on them.

Toby blinked. Instead of the lethal hail of bullets he expected, the guns shot football-sized globs of black resin. The glue rapidly expanded as it came into contact with the police cars, swelling and effectively sealing the doors shut and blocking the windows. In seconds the two police cars were covered in masses of black glue. He felt Lorna grab his arm in a steel grip.

“Someone else is coming out!” she said.

Toby's attention was forced back to the bank. The newcomer was slightly taller than the gun-toting men. His head was deformed, shaped like a large soda cup from any fast-food joint, exposing a tall, broad forehead on which blue veins visibly writhed like worms under the milky-white skin. His cranium was crowned in lank black hair, with streaks of white through it. He too wore the unusual red shades, and the same uniform as the others with the addition of a flowing cape that trailed on the floor behind him. Tight muscles
flexed underneath the material, making him appear powerful and dangerous. In each black-gloved hand he clutched a metal impact-resistant case. They looked heavy and Toby doubted all four of them together could lift the cases. Bundles of banknotes were trapped in the case lids, obviously having been quickly pushed in. The man's mouth was twisted into a playful grin.

“Bet he's the boss,” whispered Pete.

“What're we going to do?” asked Lorna, her voice tight with fear. “The police can't even get near them.”

“We've got to stop him. That's why we're here, right?”

Emily shook her head. “Pete, this is dangerous. I thought it'd be some kind of game or something.”

Pete seemed to be panicking, his voice only just a harsh whisper. “Game? Em, we just
flew
here. You're teleporting through the air and Lorna's firing laser beams from her eyes. How much more real do you think this is?”

“But we could die!”

“Come on. We're superheroes!” Pete was angry. Why had they gone through all of this, if not to confront the villain? Pete's daily life usually consisted of avoiding the bullies at school, and the walk home was always perilous. He was smart, which made him a target. He often fantasized that he could have super-strength to pound his tormentors into pulp, and now he had the means.

“Guys,” said Toby, who was still watching the bank robbers. “We'd better do something fast. I think they're about to leave.”

The lead thug was staring into the sky expectantly. His accomplices had now formed a protective cordon around him, eyeing the streets for trouble.

Lorna took a deep breath to calm down and laid a reassuring hand on Emily's arm. “If we do this, we do it together. And if things go wrong, we leave in a hurry. Right?”

Toby's heart was pounding with excitement. Pete's eyes were as wide as saucers; an expression Toby had last seen when they had ridden the county's tallest roller coaster together. Emily was terrified, her forehead beaded with sweat, but she nodded vigorously.

Highbrow tapped one of several buttons mounted on an oblong wrist pad strapped to his left arm. He did a double take when he noticed the four kids walking bravely down the street. They spread out at arm's length from one another, and struggling shafts of sunlight poking through the dust lent an ethereal effect to the scene. All that was missing was a theme song and slow-motion walk. His henchmen whirled round, resinrifles raised. But they faltered when they saw the defenseless children.

Toby could hardly hear his footsteps crunching the glass and brick debris underfoot, and his heart was
drumming so loudly that when he spoke his voice sounded distant.

“Robbery's over! Put the money down!” he heard himself shout.

The snarl that crossed the villain's face slowly transformed into a deep laugh that echoed spookily between the deserted buildings. He dropped the cases and pushed his hands together, offering them forward as though wanting to be handcuffed. When he spoke his voice was gravelly, sounding like an old chain-smoker.

“Oh, please don't kill me! Arrest me now! You're just too clever for me, kids!”

Toby and his gang stopped several yards away, the villain's actions catching them by surprise.

“Get your men to put their weapons down,” Pete said, watching them cautiously.

Highbrow scrutinized them like a principal over unruly pupils. He stood with his hands on his hips, and the cape chose that moment to billow impressively behind him in the breeze.

“And exactly who are you?” he inquired.

“We're superheroes. And we're stopping you,” Pete said boldly.

“Really? Superheroes, you say? Well, fancy that. Impressive costumes. Part of the ‘Invisible Brigade'? Or maybe junior members of the ‘Titanic Team'? Well … people call me Doc Tempest.” He smirked, exposing
yellowing teeth that resembled shark fangs. “And I'm here … to
kill
you.”

With a casual gesture, his troopers fired in unison.

In times of danger the human body produces adrenaline to fuel an ancient “fight or flight” instinct. For Toby, Lorna, Emily, and Pete, the world seemed to slow to a crawl as the chemical globules fired from the weapons headed straight at them. They all chose the same initial instinct—flight.

Literally.

Toby, Pete, and Lorna darted skyward without thinking. Emily tensed and abruptly disappeared with a thunderclap just as the glue-balls collided on the ground where they had once stood, and inflated into a giant gooey mass that would have ensnared and suffocated them.

Doc Tempest looked around in mute surprise. Lorna and Pete landed on separate sides of the street. Toby flew toward and over Doc Tempest, landing next to the large, ornate clock that stood over the bank's entrance. He hung to the vertical surface like a spider. Doc Tempest twisted around to follow his progress and was surprised to see Emily standing right behind him!

Emily was also startled to find she had accidentally teleported herself
closer
to the danger. She leaped into flight with her arms extended and swooped straight into Tempest's face. The impact caused him to reel
backward, and he tripped over the cash-laden cases and fell sprawling to the ground.

Two of the troopers reacted as Emily flew low across the street. Tempest's men had endured months of hard training and had already served in a variety of military units in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Colombia. Their experience had taught them to lead a moving target—so they planned to fire their weapons just ahead of Emily's predicted trajectory so she couldn't outrace the resin gumballs.

Lorna turned to the thug next to her just as he was about to squeeze the trigger. She squinted, and immediately a pulse of energy shot from her eyes and slammed hard into the man. He was flung several feet across the street, his gun melting as it took the brunt of the blast. The front of his uniform burned away in a large patch that revealed red scalded skin beneath. For a second Lorna was horrified that she might have killed him, but his groans of pain assured her he was still alive.

The other guy had fired sucessfully. As the gumballs shot toward Emily, Pete extended his hands—and a jet of super-frozen air leaped forth and shattered the glueballs mid-flight. The gunman switched his aim to Pete. But after years of dealing with packs of bullies Pete had anticipated the move—and a huge ball of ice slammed into the man's face, knocking him unconscious.

Doc Tempest snarled with rage at Emily as he
climbed back to his feet. “What is this? Who are you little brats?”

Lorna stepped forward. “Like we said. We're the heroes.”

“I have not heard of four …
children
,” the word dripped with sarcasm, “that have proven themselves as
heroes
.”

One of the remaining two soldiers had gotten to his feet. He glanced at his fallen colleagues in alarm and impulsively raised his weapon at Lorna. He barely had time to line the shot up before—