XGeneration (Book 6): Greatest Good Read online

  Scott peered around. They were in a part of the vault that the elevator accessed. The high-ceilinged room served as an anteroom for the vast stores of wealth the Soviets had planned to loot. His gaze returned to the drilling machine as it shifted and then disappeared from the hole.

  Through the sudden shaft of light, men began pouring through. Scott concentrated into his laser as Janis’s psychic linkup connected them again.

  Just like we practiced, he said, firing into the hole.

  Hot damn! Creed cried.

  For the next minute, the space echoed with blasts, crackling energy, the thuds of super-fast punches, and explosions from backfiring guns. Red beams and white lights streaked through the action. When the shouting of the Russian offensive dwindled to groans, Scott ordered his teammates off.

  Creed strode back through the scatter of bodies. “Denied!” he proclaimed, making the incomplete pass signal with his arms. He pulled off his helmet and shook out his dirty-blond hair.

  “Put that back on,” Scott ordered.

  “What for?” Creed asked, then screamed and clamped his ears.

  Scott wheeled toward the opening, where a giant shadow bisected the shaft of light. Scott made out the disc-shaped barrel of a sonic blaster as it swung from Creed toward him, Janis, and Tyler.

  It’s an Artificial, Janis said.

  Brute? Scott asked.

  More like a super brute. Janis gestured with her hand, and the blaster wrenched in the Artificial’s grasp, but the Artificial maintained control of it. He activated a second blast, sending spikes through Scott’s head.

  My helmet’s blunting the worst of the effects, he thought, but can’t concentrate enough to get off a shot.

  The Artificial stepped farther into the room.

  The gun’s affixed to him, Janis explained. It’s a part of him.

  Spread out, Scott ordered.

  He staggered toward the left side of the anteroom, while Tyler made for the right. The Artificial kept his barrel trained on Janis. Scott sensed her reinforcing the psychic shield that protected her.

  I’ll be all right, Janis assured them. Just hit him.

  With the spikes withdrawing from Scott’s head, he concentrated into his helmet. The laser blast slammed into the Artificial’s chest plate. Hydraulic knees buckled, and the Artificial staggered back a step. A white current of electricity hit the Artificial next, emitted from both of Tyler’s hands. Scott could feel its searing five-thousand-degree heat through his suit.

  The Artificial bellowed as his armor channeled the electrical energy into the ground. He straightened and stepped toward Scott’s dwindling blast.

  Damn, he thought. Was afraid of that.

  With each encounter, the Soviets seemed to upgrade their Artificials to better counter the Champions’ powers. Scott and Tyler had hit this one with their best shots, and he had all but shrugged them off.

  And without Jesse’s brute strength to bail them out…

  The Artificial swung a backhand. The crushing blow caught Tyler, who had made a dash to outflank him. Tyler flew into the near wall, helmet cracking stone, and fell to the ground.

  The linkup that bridged Scott’s mind to his teammate’s turned foggy.

  He was trying to draw that thing’s fire so you’d be free to attack, Scott thought toward Janis. Not a bad plan, actually. Just wish Tyler had given us a heads up.

  The Artificial’s waiting for you to do the same thing, Janis said.

  She was leaned forward, forearms out in front, as though facing a toppling ocean wave. The Artificial took two clanking steps forward. “Surrender,” he ordered in a thick accent.

  How are you holding up? Scott asked.

  He’s cranking up the intensity, she answered. Forcing all my energy into defense.

  Scott studied the Artificial for weak spots before deciding another blast would be futile. The Artificial was too big, his armor too strong. Scott sized up the blaster’s disc-shaped barrel.

  I’m going to try something, he said. The second you feel that blaster falter, hit him hard.

  Gotcha, she answered.

  Scott narrowed the outlet for his laser beam to the width of a pencil and aimed into the barrel. He concentrated, releasing a series of pulses. With each pulse, the scream of the blaster chopped out.

  It’s working, he thought.

  Janis straightened from her bowed stance, the air around her coming to life in a low, resonant hum. A second later, the blaster’s barrel crumpled. The hydraulics in the Artificial’s legs failed next. He staggered one way and the other, his white-glowing eye flashing in alarm.

  With a final two-armed gesture, Janis upended the Artificial and pile drove him into the stone floor. The Artificial came to a spread-eagle rest, legs collapsing out, the mechanical fingers of his left hand jittering.

  “Well done,” Scott said, arriving beside her. “You all right?”

  “Right as rain,” she answered. “How about the others?”

  Scott looked over at Creed. He had apparently recovered from the opening blast. In a flash, he appeared beside his brother and helped him to his feet. Tyler staggered and held to the wall.

  “Looks like they’re okay,” Scott said. “I’m going to check out our friend.”

  Scott picked his way toward the fallen Artificial, already scanning his electronics. Janis had smashed them up pretty good. Random signals splintered from crushed circuits. Scott rose onto his toes to peer down on the Artificial’s surgically-disfigured face. His ocular implant had gone dim, but from deep in the recesses of the Artificial’s brain matter, something pulsed.

  A quick check confirmed Scott’s worst fear. “Damn.”

  “What is it?” Janis called.

  “Our friend here is wired with a really serious bomb.”

  Commander Vetrov listened to the sound of the sonic blaster discharging below ground and grinned. The latest iteration of Artificial would keep those American superheroes busy, and if they did manage to defeat him, he had a little surprise in store.

  Vetrov reached into a pocket and palmed a detonator. He strode to the other side of the bank where a second hole yawned into the earth. Already, a procession of haulers and forklifts were emerging from below ground, depositing heaps of gold bars and currency into a line of armored trucks.

  Why drill at one site, Vetrov thought, when you can drill at two?

  He congratulated himself on his foresight. The last drill site had been as much a diversion as the Soviet army’s offensive at the Fulda Gap. And if his team eliminated a few superheroes in the process, even better. Vetrov flushed at the thought of reporting his multiple successes to General Dementyev. He would be promoted, he imagined. Perhaps all the way to the Minister of Defense.

  “How much more?” he called to a nearby forklift operator.

  “It’s nearly cleaned out,” the operator answered. “Mostly spillage left.”

  “Leave it,” Vetrov said.

  He gave a signal and, one by one, the trucks pulled out. Vetrov climbed into the passenger seat of the final one as it accelerated toward the airport.

  Once the trucks were in the hull of the giant plane, his team was quick to secure them. The plane was already taxiing in a circle by the time Vetrov made his way to a seat behind the cockpit. He buckled in and checked his watch. They had completed the most critical phase of the operation with more than ten minutes to spare.

  The plane lifted off and pulled up. Through a small window, he watched the airport towers recede beneath him. When the large central bank slid into view, Vetrov activated the detonator.

  Far below, dust blew from the bank’s foundation. The entire building collapsed a full story and settled at an angle.

  Smiling, Vetrov placed his hands behind his head and rested his eyes.

  Yes, General Dementyev was going to be well pleased.

  Scott threw up his arms as the flash filled his vision. The earth roared and shook around him. When something slammed into his side, Scott realized
it was the floor. The blast had thrown him down.

  Thanks to Janis, that was all it had done.

  Her voice sounded in his thoughts. Is everyone okay?

  Scott waited for Creed and Tyler to respond before giving his own mental thumbs up. He could feel Janis’s womb-like energy encasing him, sparing them all from being crushed.

  How about you? he asked, sensing her strain.

  I’ll be better once we’re out of here, she answered. Brace yourselves.

  Like a bunker-busting missile, they bore through the collapsed vault. Masonry broke around them. Scott didn’t want to think about the kind of energy Janis was having to expend. At one point, their momentum stalled, but with a final push, daylight exploded through his visor.

  The energy dispersed, and Scott somersaulted once before landing on a pile of excavated dirt. The others fell nearby. Janis stood and dusted off the back of her charcoal-colored jumpsuit. She looked over a line of abandoned industrial vehicles that trailed from the far side of the ruined bank.

  “They must have drilled a backdoor,” she said.

  Tyler pointed skyward. “Is that them?”

  Scott squinted from the vehicles to where a droning cargo plane dwindled into the distance.

  He set his jaw. “Mission’s not over yet.”

  Commander Vetrov was stirred from his fantasies of promotion by a feeling that something was off. He uncrossed his legs and lowered his head to peer through the window. A quiltwork of farms and forests stretched to the horizon. Ahead of them, the late-afternoon sun glared.

  He jerked upright. West. They were traveling west.

  Commander Vetrov unbuckled himself and stormed to the cockpit. “What are you doing? Where are you taking us?”

  The pilot didn’t look back. “Ramstein Air Base.”

  “Ramstein? That’s an American base, you idiot! Our course is east! East!”

  The pilot seemed not to have heard. The plane rattled on.

  Vetrov drew a Makarov pistol and pressed it to the base of the pilot’s neck. The enemy must have gotten to him. “Turn the plane around or I will execute you here and now for high treason.”

  The pilot continued to steer the plane westward, the sun bathing his hands in golden light. Vetrov’s gaze flicked over the controls. He had once piloted planes in the Air Defense Force. He could handle this clumsy rig.

  He squinted as he prepared to squeeze.

  Fingers wrapped his forearm. “Give me the gun,” a woman said in Russian.

  Vetrov flinched around to find a pair of emerald eyes burning into his. The eyes were set in a youthful face, framed by a cascade of rich brunette hair. Such beauty. But what was this young woman doing on the plane?

  And was her accent … American?

  “Who are you?” But even as suspicion bristled through him, Vetrov felt himself offering her the gun, butt out.

  The woman accepted it calmly. “Sit down,” she said.

  Vetrov tried to resist the command, but the effort felt like wading through a tar pit. Relief bathed his brain as he turned and did as she said, buckling himself back into his seat.

  The woman took the seat beside him. “Relax. We’ll be there soon.” She patted his knee.

  Commander Vetrov nodded. He could think of worse things than having this beautiful woman as a traveling companion. Even if their course was west. He turned back to the woman’s green eyes, struggling to recall what had alarmed him about their course only moments before. At length, Vetrov gave up and settled into his seat, a warm smile spreading over his lips.

  “Oh, and the name’s Margaret Graystone,” the woman said. “But you’ll forget that by the time we land.”

  “Margaret,” he repeated.

  Such a beautiful name.

  3

  Director Kilmer’s office

  Saturday, December 14

  10:05 a.m.

  “And when we resume training, it will be on a three-quarter schedule,” Director Kilmer said to conclude his briefing of Agent Steel.

  “Are the Champions even necessary anymore?” she asked.

  Kilmer paused to consider the question. Since the Champions’ success in Germany, the Soviet Union had been backpedaling, not just from the borders of Western Europe, but from the eastern continent as well. By all appearances, the Russians were conceding the Cold War. As revolutions ignited throughout Eastern Europe, threatening one Soviet-installed regime after another, Soviet leader Dementyev had remained strangely silent.

  “Reagan has us on alert,” Kilmer said. “The Russians’ attempt to loot West Germany was a desperate gambit. Ditto their move against the oil facility in Saudi Arabia. Interrogation of Commander Vetrov suggests a regime on the verge of financial collapse. That would explain their withdrawal from Europe, their silence in the face of growing revolt. They’re straining under the demands of their empire. They could be months from insolvency.”

  “Making them dangerous,” Steel said in understanding.

  Kilmer nodded. “U.S. intelligence believes the Soviets are concentrating their remaining resources into some sort of black box project.”

  “What’s its nature?”

  “All they have is a code name: Dead Hand.”

  “Dead Hand,” Steel repeated.

  “Reagan’s playing it down, given their financial trouble,” Kilmer said. “But if it’s even half as apocalyptic as it sounds, the Champions’ next assignment may well be the one that saves humanity.”

  “I’ll ensure they’re ready.” Steel said. “Is something wrong?”

  “Hm?” When Kilmer glanced up, he realized he was pinching the blood from his bottom lip. It throbbed when he released it.

  Is something wrong? he thought. The last time the Soviets retreated from Eastern Europe, Champions began defecting or turning up dead, courtesy of our friends in the Scale.

  His temples throbbed as he remembered how he and former Director Halstead had been undermined from within their own organization, made powerless to protect their charges. Strong man Henry “Titan” Tillman had turned first. Shapeshifter Reginald Perry had fallen last.

  And it’s happening again.

  He tapped out a cigarette from a pack and lit it.

  In recent days, he had learned that Specials on teams Alpha and Beta had disappeared or been eliminated—stealth jobs that whispered of the Scale’s work. So even his plan to spread risk, to locate teams of Specials at discrete sites, distant from one another, was falling to pieces.

  “It’s Jesse,” he said after a moment.

  “We’re doing everything we can, sir,” Steel replied thinly, as though being challenged.

  “Yes, Agent, I know that. But I’m still concerned for him.”

  He regarded Jesse—indeed, all of the Champions—as one of his own. He had recruited them. He had assured their parents they would be looked after. He was responsible if anything happened to them…

  “You’re worried that he went to the Scale willingly,” Agent Steel said.

  Kilmer almost denied whatever she had observed on his face, in his voice, before nodding. If they were going to turn the tide, he needed to be frank with her. He inhaled from his cigarette. “He’s as headstrong as they come, but yeah, I’m worried he turned. There’s not only the danger of what he would tell them, of course, but to have to go up against him one day…”

  “He has his weaknesses,” Steel said.

  Kilmer raised his eyebrows. “He has his strengths, too.”

  “If the Scale are agents of the Soviets, why aid us in Saudi Arabia?”

  “They’re not working for the Soviets,” Kilmer answered. “They’re working for another entity. One with money. We just don’t know who yet. At one time, we suspected the growing military industry. You know, Viper and the other big names. They all came back clean.”

  “What about the evacuation protocol, sir?”

  “We’re not at that point.”

  Beyond Steel’s icy stare, Kilmer could read her thought process. W
ith or without Jesse, the Scale already knew enough about the Program to have found him in the first place. Whatever additional information they needed, they would extract from him. Everyone had their breaking point.

  And that was to say nothing of the hits against the other teams.

  “We’ll maintain security at a level five,” he said, “during which time the Champions are to remain inside the neighborhood.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re dismissed.”

  Director Kilmer watched her leave. He knew his head of security well enough to read her tone and body language. She didn’t like the way he was going about this. The directors of teams Alpha and Beta had hidden their remaining members away. By not evacuating his own team, Kilmer was defying a standing presidential order—an act tantamount to treason.

  But he wasn’t going to play the Scale’s game anymore. If the Scale wanted to finish the job, they were going to have to come to Oakwood. The Champions needed whatever advantages they could gain, home court being one. It wasn’t enough—not by itself, not against the Scale—but it would be a start. Far better, even, if they could recover Jesse.

  Kilmer grinned bitterly and crushed out his cigarette in a crowded tray.

  The Scale wasn’t going to beat him this time.

  4

  The woods

  Sunday, December 15

  7:02 a.m.

  Behind Janis’s closed eyes, Scott appeared to her as a salmon-colored aura, swimming through a flowing threadwork of light lines. The fallen tree beneath her shifted. Footsteps sounded along the giant trunk. When Scott’s aura pulsed, Janis knew that he had spotted her.

  Hey there, he spoke in her head.

  Janis’s heart flip-flopped with what she was about to tell him. Hey, yourself.

  The tree shifted again as he lowered himself beside her.

  When Janis opened her eyes, the aura and threads of light receded from her awareness. The woods appeared cold and flat, as though they’d lost a dimension. Increasingly, Janis found herself considering the reality she could perceive to be the real one and the physical world its dull reflection. She couldn’t decide whether that was a good or a bad thing.