The Last Hero (Book 2): Rise of the Ultras Read online

  He watched the sun rise and the snow fall. It was only going to snow heavier as time progressed.

  He liked the snow, too.

  “Sir? We’ve got an update for you, as requested.”

  He heard the sound of his intercom. Wow, seven a.m. already. He’d stayed here last night, just staring out into the darkness. Sleep was for the weak, as the old cliche went. The older he got, the more he knew that was true.

  The things you could do while the world was sleeping.

  The plans you could make.

  The drama that could unfold.

  He turned around from the window and walked towards his door. The marble floor squeaked under his black shoes. The walls were covered with all kinds of abstract art, something which stimulated him whenever he walked past. The underfloor heating was hot enough to seep through the soles of his shoes and warm his feet. The room was rich with the smell of almonds, a freshness to the air matching the crispness outside.

  He liked his office a lot. So much so that he spent the majority of his time here. Especially since unleashing the ULTRAbots on the world last week. Wow. He couldn’t believe five days had passed already. Two days left to keep up his end of the promise. To capture or destroy every living ULTRA.

  If only humanity knew the next stage of the plan.

  He stopped at the door and adjusted his belt, making sure he looked himself.

  And then he cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and opened up.

  Idris stood at the door. Now Idris had always been someone Mr. Parsons could trust. But recently, Mr. Parsons saw Idris looking at him funnily. Like he didn’t recognize him. Like something had… changed.

  He’d deal with that, in due course.

  “What’ve you got for me?” Mr. Parsons asked.

  Idris scooted across the floor. He was dressed in a white lab coat. His hair was thin and straggly. He looked and smelled like he needed a good wash. Just his mere presence was enough to taint Mr. Parsons’ office space with something off. Something sour. “A list of all known ULTRAs in our custody, all known ULTRAs still evading our custody, and all known ULTRAs deceased.”

  He placed the three documents down on the glass table in front of them.

  Mr. Parsons looked at the documents. The list of ULTRAs in their custody and ULTRAs deceased were longer than the list of ULTRAs still evading custody. But the evasion list was still pages long. Still way too long to be keeping to a promise like the one he’d made.

  Idris spoke as if he could read Mr. Parsons’ mind. “We aren’t going to do it in two days. It’s impossible. There’s still hundreds of them. Thousands, even. And sure, we’ve got a lot of ULTRAbots. More in production and released by the day. But they’re fighting back. They’re hiding well. There aren’t going to be enough.”

  Mr. Parsons considered Idris’ words. He walked away from the documents, back over to his window. He looked out at the rising sun. It was burning through the cloud like a light in a forest. The snow was falling heavier.

  “Sir,” Idris said, appearing at Mr. Parsons’ side. All these years working alongside Mr. Parsons and still he called him “sir.” “With the greatest of respect, I can’t help but notice you’re acting rather…”

  Mr. Parsons turned to Idris. Smiled.

  Idris looked down at the floor.

  “Rather what?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Rather what, Idris?”

  Idris chanced a look back up at Mr. Parsons, who smiled back at him. “I don’t know. You just seem like you’re going through a lot. I just wanted to make sure everything’s good, that’s all. Especially with Kelly. I don’t want you to mess things up with her. She’s much better for you than your wife’s ever been.”

  Mr. Parsons’ smile twitched. This was something he wasn’t expecting, and something he wasn’t sure how to deal with.

  “Kelly and I are fine,” he said. He put a hand on Idris’ shoulder. He felt his muscles tighten right underneath his grip, saw a glimpse of the horror on his face. “Now go on. I’m sure you’ve got work to do.”

  Idris shuffled away from Mr. Parsons’ hand. Then he backed away from the room, towards the door. He picked up the documents with his shaky grip and started to walk away.

  Mr. Parsons looked back outside the window, back at the sunrise. He liked this time. He liked to watch—

  “Mr. Parsons,” Idris said.

  Mr. Parsons’ smile twitched once more. He looked back around. “Yes, Idris?”

  Idris looked at him with wide eyes. With a pale face. A way he’d never looked at him before. “When you say things are good. Between you and Kelly. What do you mean by that?”

  Mr. Parsons considered his response. Waited a few seconds. “It means what it sounds like. Is there a problem?”

  Idris visibly swallowed a lump. He shook his head, then took a few more steps towards the door. “It’s just… it’s just Kelly doesn’t exist. I made her up just now. That’s all.”

  Mr. Parsons didn’t even attempt to hold his smile then.

  It dropped completely.

  Judging by the transition to fear on Idris’ face, he saw it too.

  The pair of them stood in total silence. The only sound was the clicking of the old antique grandfather clock that Mr. Parsons had bought years ago at auction. It was strange, standing here, both of them knowing but neither of them saying. Like a performance in itself.

  “On your way, Idris,” Mr. Parsons said. “We’ll speak again soon, I’m sure.”

  Idris’ face shook. Sweat trickled down his forehead. “Yes. Yes, we… I suppose we will.”

  He turned to the door.

  Started to walk away.

  And as Mr. Parsons stood there, back to the window, listening to Idris’ footsteps fading away, he figured it was a shame things had to come to such a bitter end.

  He looked across the room. Looked at the collection of ULTRA memorabilia erected in his office. Rares. Originals.

  He looked at his favourite object of all.

  Smiled.

  Outside the office, Idris’ footsteps suddenly stopped.

  Something heavy hit the floor.

  A struggle. A few gasps.

  Then, total silence.

  26

  I looked at myself in the mirror.

  The sun was rising outside. The snow was falling heavily again. I could hear the first signs of life awakening on the street. Builders whistling as they made their way to construction sites. Horns honking. The constantly audible buzz of Manhattan island just miles across the water.

  As I looked into my eyes, I didn’t see Kyle Peters anymore. Well, I did, obviously. I’d not had some kind of face transplant, or pulled one of those transformations that Angel did when she’d confronted me in the Pazza Notte restrooms. I wished I could, but the truth was, I couldn’t.

  But the fact was, I didn’t see Kyle Peters anymore staring back at me in that mirror, because instead, I saw Glacies.

  In the corner of my eye, I saw the flicker of my television. The news of an escalation of ULTRAbots. More conflicts and showdowns around the world. Two days remained of Mr. Parsons’ promise to capture or destroy every single ULTRA in existence, whether the government knew about them or not. They were cutting it close. To be honest, I didn’t have a clue how many ULTRAs were still left out there. I didn’t know how many ULTRAs there even were in the first place. I’d gone from thinking I was the only one with these crazy abilities to a whole confusing world opening up before my eyes.

  It was scary. It was terrifying.

  But in a way, it was reassuring to know I wasn’t alone.

  Not only was I not alone, but Orion still walked among us.

  I walked over to the cabinet where I kept my Glacies gear. A cabinet that I always got a knot in my stomach when I approached. I crouched down. Battled through the many lock and tightenings I put this thing in to make it inaccessible to anyone. My heart pulsed the closer I got to Glacies’ gear. Because I knew what
wearing it meant, this time. I knew what it made me. I knew what decision it meant.

  A storm was coming. And I couldn’t just stand by and watch it happen.

  I opened up the last lock on the cabinet. The ULTRA I’d fought at the scrapyard filled my mind with dread.

  “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into!” he’d laughed. I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know what was coming.

  But I knew that Orion was right.

  If I didn’t fight, I was going to die.

  If I didn’t fight, everyone I cared about would die.

  If I fought… sure, I could die too. But at least I’d be trying. It’s not like I had a choice anymore.

  I held up the Glacies outfit in front of me. Rubbed my hand against its smooth surface, feeling more and more sick as the moments progressed.

  I had to do this. I had to be brave. I had to be strong.

  I slipped into the gear. And as I put it on, I kept my eyes in the mirror, at my dark hair, the bags under my eyes. At my skinny frame. Because I knew I wouldn’t be taking this outfit off again. This outfit was becoming my skin. This outfit was becoming who I was.

  I was Glacies now.

  Maybe one day I’d be able to lead a double life again. Maybe there’d be a time where the world would be safe enough for me to live as Kyle Peters. To have friends. To have family. To have a girlfriend. I hoped it would be because I wanted that world. It was the world I’d craved my entire life, and I felt bitter that I’d only had six short months to truly live it in a way close to how I’d dreamed it.

  But right now, I had something else I needed to do.

  I looked into the mirror. Looked at myself. I wasn’t Kyle Peters in a Glacies outfit; I wasn’t a person with ULTRA abilities.

  I was Glacies.

  I closed my eyes. Held my breath. Counted down from three, then remembered where Orion told me to meet him at seven a.m. if I really wanted to go ahead with this.

  I saw my mom in my mind. I saw Damon. Avi. Ellicia. I saw everyone I cared about.

  I’d be back for them. I was doing this for them.

  “I love you,” I whispered under my breath, tears marking the edges of my mask.

  And then I slammed my hands together and disappeared to where Orion wanted me to go.

  To my new life.

  To Glacies.

  27

  Might be something to do with me being an extremely dangerous non-person with terrifying abilities, but wherever I went, I couldn’t help the feeling I was being watched.

  The alleyway where Orion told me to meet him at seven a.m. when we parted last night was still dark, but signs of light were emerging in the sky. The alleyway was hardly the kind of place I imagined Orion, the most renowned ULTRA of all time, hanging around. It smelled like stale pee. There were trash cans overflowing with rubbish. I swore I saw rats creeping along underneath them, reminding me of the scrapyard I’d fought off the rival ULTRA just hours ago.

  I walked further down the alleyway. Even though I was wearing my Glacies gear and even though I was camouflaged, I still felt exposed. The ULTRAbots had changed the meaning of being camouflaged. They’d made it into something else entirely—something without guarantee. I had to be on guard at all times.

  I walked further down the alleyway. Looked at the note Orion had slipped into my hand before he’d vanished hours ago. Down side of Benash. I looked up at the diner on my right, the Wellington hotel across 7th Avenue, as Manhattan braced for another busy, snowy day. Definitely Benash. Definitely an alleyway.

  So where was Orion?

  I leaned against the wall to my right. Watched as the first signs of life started to creep past the alleyway, a day at work starting for everyone here. None of them looked down the alleyway towards me. But all of them had this weird look of fear on their faces. I knew why. It was two days until Mr. Parsons’ deadline. Two days until the ULTRA threat was abolished forever.

  I knew things weren’t gonna be that easy. I’d spent long enough in this suit now to know when something was off. And something most definitely was off.

  But what could I do? All I could do was wait for Orion. Wait for him to show his face.

  Wherever he was.

  I saw people in their windows above. Snow came down on me, cold and lumpy. And the longer I waited, as seven a.m. stretched into eight, as the streets got even busier, I grew more and more worried that something had gone wrong. Orion didn’t seem like the kind to stitch me up. He had opportunities to get me out of the way if he’d wanted to. So where was he?

  I walked away from the wall. Paced down the alleyway. Looked for a loose flag or some secret kind of basement entrance that I’d been missing all along.

  I didn’t find anything. Not a thing.

  I started to worry then that something had happened. Orion seemed worried when I met him. Maybe that was just his way, but it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that the ULTRAbots had caught on to him. I wondered if he’d be able to fight them off. He was still strong, but his power had weakened. He wasn’t what he used to be but he was still who he used to be. I couldn’t think of a greater loss to the world than the loss of Orion, so I couldn’t think about it too much.

  Then, I started to worry that maybe I had been stitched up all along. What if that guy wasn’t really Orion? What if he wasn’t even Orion at all, but someone else? Someone imitating him? It didn’t make total sense. If he wanted me out of the way, he could’ve done it in that container, or left the electricity-firing ULTRA to finish me off.

  He hadn’t.

  But then, where was he?

  I waited a little while longer, the nerves in full flow. And the longer I waited, the more uncertain I grew of coming here at all. I was stupid. Sure, I’d chosen to be Glacies, but not like this. This wasn’t what I had in mind when I agreed to give Orion a chance in his Resistance, whatever the hell that was. This wasn’t the tightly oiled army I imagined.

  I went to walk away, to give up, when I saw something standing at the end of the alleyway.

  I froze. Froze, from head to toe, as I tried to comprehend what it was I was looking at.

  There was something at the end of the alleyway.

  A large man. Seven-foot, at least. Dressed in a suit. Wearing a bowler hat. Long arms, right down past his knees. A completely pale face.

  A blank face with no expressions, with nothing, other than some long, sharp teeth.

  He was coming toward me.

  28

  I’d seen a lot of scary shit in the last few days, but this creepy, long-armed, pale-faced guy with sharp teeth in his boiled egg face? Yeah. He definitely topped it.

  He walked towards me quickly, and getting quicker by the second. He was dressed in a black suit, and his long arms swayed by his sides. The hair on my arms stood on end. I tasted bitterness in my mouth. For some reason, this guy reminded me of someone I’d seen in my nightmares. A video game I’d played one night at Avi’s that gave me the creeps for months and years to come.

  And here he was.

  I stepped back. I wanted to fight, but weirdly, 7th Avenue at the end of the alleyway was blurred like it wasn’t even there at all. All sounds around me were muffled, like I was trapped in a bubble that I couldn’t get out of. Suddenly, I became aware that I could only do one thing right now.

  Get the hell out of this alleyway.

  I turned around to run when I saw another of these men walking down the other side of the alleyway.

  He was just the same as the man on the other side. Suited. At least seven feet tall. Long arms dangling by his side, almost trailing along the ground. A pale face with no eyes, just a mouth full of dagger-like teeth, some of them etched with blood.

  My breathing grew tensed and forced. My heart raced faster than I thought it’d ever done before.

  I needed to get away. Quick.

  I closed my eyes and tried to teleport.

  A splitting headache tore through my body.

  I gas
ped. Fell to the ground. My vision became blurred. The sounds around me went even more muffled. In my mouth, I tasted blood.

  I looked up at the approaching men. They were so close now. They were shifting, glitching, like they were a computer game. Their teeth rattled together, click click clicking as they got closer.

  I didn’t want to go towards any of them but I couldn’t teleport away. It hurt too much. So I was going to have to face up to one of them. Fly at them. I didn’t exactly have a choice.

  I held my breath.

  And then I flew in the direction of the man on the right.

  I threw all my force at him. Suddenly, I felt myself shaking off the pain that’d split through my skull just moments ago. I was Glacies. I was strong enough to handle these people, or whatever they were. I was strong enough to…

  I fell to the ground, mid-flight.

  I fell to the ground because of what I saw.

  The man with the sharp teeth wasn’t a man with sharp teeth anymore.

  He was my sister, Cassie.

  She stood there looking at me, tears pouring down her face. Behind her, the ground lifted into the sky, as a huge white light approached.

  “Go, Kyle!” she screamed. “Get away!”

  I wanted to help her. I knew it wasn’t rational and knew something was wrong because Cassie was dead, but I wanted to help her, I wanted to help her so bad because she was my sister and I couldn’t just leave her.

  I tried to shift but I was stuck. Completely frozen to the spot.

  I saw the light right behind Cassie. The light from the Great Blast, only slower than I remembered it.

  I tried to drag my right foot along. Tried to yank it up, but it was stuck.

  When I looked down, what I saw nearly made me throw up.

  Mike Beacon was below me. He reached out for me, clutched at my foot. His face was covered in dust and ash, as well as scratches and cuts. I could tell from the paleness of his skin that he was dead.