When my eyes finally opened, the first thing I heard was Chad.
'Looks like Mister Goody is awake,' he said.
I sighed.
Did it have to be Chad?
It took a moment to focus, but it made me wish I'd remained unconscious. Nothing I saw looked good. We were in an enclosed cell similar to the one that had held Ebony and Chad back in Ravana's building. A wire mesh covered the front. We were all chained in a standing position to the rear wall with metal cuffs over our wrists. The strain in my arms was terrible. My feet reached the floor, but barely.
I knew it was pointless trying my powers, but I attempted to make them work anyway.
Nothing.
'Don't bother,' Brodie said, reading the look on my face. 'They're using those zeno ray emitters.'
'If we could have escaped,' Chad said, 'I would have already gotten us out of here.'
Now I was awake, I remembered what had gotten us in here. 'What happened to you guys?' I asked. 'You were supposed to create a diversion.'
Chad looked away. 'We were…uh, overtaken by superior numbers.'
'They shot us with that stun ray,' Dan explained. 'We were busy skipping stones.'
At first, I thought I'd misheard him. 'You were…skipping stones? You're kidding.'
If looks could kill, Chad's glare at Dan would have struck him down dead. 'Did you have to tell Mister Goody?' he asked.
I was about to explode at Chad, but at that moment, the door swung open, and a man in a Typhoid uniform entered. He was tall, European looking with stark white hair. He didn't look too old, so his hair must have aged prematurely.
Two guards flanked him.
'So, the children have awoken,' he said. 'Good. We must keep moving. Time, as they say, is money.'
'Who are you?' Chad asked. 'Let us out of here or—'
The man tut-tutted as he shook his head. 'You are not the one giving orders here, boy,' he said. 'I am. I will be the one who decides who lives and who dies and when that will happen.'
Well, that was a conversation killer.
You must be real fun at parties, I thought.
'I am General Solomon Wolff,' he said. 'I was not born with that name, but it is the name by which I am now known. You know a little about myself and my organization, and I know a little about you.'
He paused, but none of us spoke.
'Now, you are silent. Later you will speak. You will beg to make yourselves heard. Some of you have already met our motivational devices. We have many others. If you thought you previously experienced pain, I assure you it is only a taste of what we can dispense.
'As I say, I know a little about you. I know about The Agency and its alien representatives. I know about their constant watching and the scientists that work with them. Perhaps you do not know that there are other aliens here on Earth. They also have their affiliations and their aspirations for our planet.'
None of us said anything.
'In its creation of super-powered mercenaries, The Agency has created an imbalance in the power structure of the world,' Wolff said. 'There are governments that will pay handsomely to have that balance redressed.'
'What do you want from us?' I asked.
'First, there will be blood.' He gave us a sympathetic look. 'Oh, no. We are not so inhumane that we intend to beat you. No, we want your blood to examine. If it is possible to replicate the processes that created you, then we can make you in our own form.
'What could be better than to create an entire army of super beings? Nothing could stop such an army. It would be invincible.'
'Funny,' Brodie said. 'I think Hitler had similar ideas and see what a loser he was.'
'You compare me to Hitler,' Wolff shook his head. 'I have no such grandiose ideas. Money is power. It is a simple ingredient that oils the wheels of the world and makes all things possible.'
The door to the room creaked open again, and I felt sick at what I saw. The man who entered looked like a mummy with his entire body covered in bandages. It didn't take a genius to work out his identity.
Wolff chuckled. 'I believe you all know the good Doctor Ravana? His appearance has changed somewhat since your last encounter.'
Ravana yelled a command, and the two guards unlocked the cell. They went straight to Ebony.
'No!' Chad screamed. 'Leave her alone.'
Ravana entered and punched Chad hard in the stomach. Once. Twice. Three times. As Chad hung helplessly from the wall, struggling to regain his breath, Ravana grasped his head back with a bandaged hand.
'You are the fire boy who set me alight,' Doctor Ravana rasped. 'I will save something special for you.'
The doctor turned his attention to Ebony and injected her with a needle. Within seconds, her eyes rolled up into her head, and she sagged from the wall. Unchaining her, the guards dragged her from the room.
'You monster!' Chad gasped. 'Leave my sister alone!'
'She is not alone,' the general said as he relocked the cell. 'Doctor Ravana will be keeping her company.' He made his way to the door. 'One final thing. The Agency believed that Pegasus operated under a separate guidance system.' He gave a gentle laugh. 'I assure you nothing could be further from the truth. We rectified that weakness when we modified the missile. Pegasus is fully capable of finding its way to New York on its own.
'We are making history within the hour. It's a shame you will not be present for the launch.' He paused. 'What is it you American's say? Adios?'
The general exited.
'I'm not American,' Brodie muttered.
The only other sound was Chad trying to regain his breath.
'Can anyone use their powers?' I asked. 'At all?'
'Not me,' Dan said.
'I'm still strong,' Brodie answered. 'But not this strong.'
'Chad?' I asked.
He simply shook his head. I pushed my head against the wall. How had things gone so wrong? Not only had we all been captured but destroying the computer had done nothing to stop the launch of the rocket—and New York was the target. The same streets we had walked a few days before were about to be reduced to rubble and molten metal.
And the people—
'But I do have a plan,' Brodie said.
'What is it?' I asked.
'You seem to have forgotten,' Brodie said. 'I'm a whiz with locks.' She slipped off her boots with her toes and pulled out a long piece of metal. Within seconds, she had it gripped between her toes and had swung her feet up to insert the metal into my cuffs.
'You've got to be kidding,' I said.
'Do you want to be free or not?'
In less than a minute, I heard a satisfying click, and the cuff came loose. I started working on Brodie's handcuffs, but even with her detailed instructions, it still took about ten minutes. She had the others free in seconds.
'Where did you learn that?' Chad asked.
'All part of my previous life,' Brodie said. 'Whatever that was.'
'There's just one problem,' I told them.
We turned to the bars of the cell. They were only metal covered by a wire mesh, but without our powers, they may as well have been solid concrete.