"Oh yeah. It was on the radio. Bunch of terrorists attacked the new power plant. Cops all over the place. And the guy said that Max Dalton got captured or something."

"Dave's out back, right?" Abby pulled off her apron and pushed through the double doors. The manager was sitting on the back step sipping out of a mug. "Dave? I've got to go home for a couple of hours."

"Aw, you're kidding, right? Abby, we're swamped! All the kids are coming in tonight because their parents are too sick to make dinner."

She folded her arms and glared at him. "Swamped? Dave, you've been out here for ages, and Mandy only works about twenty minutes out of every hour. I've been going for eleven straight hours-I haven't even had my lunch yet!"

Dave sighed, pushed himself to his feet, and carried his mug back into the kitchen. Over his shoulder, he said, "All right, all right. Be back by . . . nine, OK?"

"I'll do my best." She closed the door on him.

Abby looked around to make sure that no one could see her, then made her way to the far side of the yard. An old wooden shed was slowly rotting in the corner, half-hidden among the piles of junk. She pulled open the door and ducked inside. Under a large, paint-spattered plastic sheet was a rusty oil drum with its lid hammered into place so tightly that nothing short of a crowbar would be able to open it.

She popped the lid with her fingers, and one by one removed the items she'd been storing for exactly this sort of situation.

First came the heavy boots she'd bought at the local army surplus store. Next the builders' gloves. Then the extra-thick black denim jeans and the leather biker's jacket that the would-be robber had left behind.

She quickly stripped off her uniform and pulled everything on. She'd spent months modifying the jacket and jeans. A visit to the local hardware store and almost a whole week's tips had provided her with hundreds of steel washers, each about the size of a quarter. A scavenging session at the local dump had yielded a dozen yards of piano wire.

She'd threaded the washers onto the jacket and jeans with the wire to create her own homemade chain mail.

When she zipped up the jacket, Abby took a moment to consider what she was about to do. Her heart was thumping like crazy and she'd already broken out in a sweat.

She was a superhuman. She was stronger and faster than an ordinary person, she had tremendous stamina, and she had some sort of strange ability to manipulate metal-even though she didn't quite understand that part herself.

I've got to do this, she told herself. If Max Dalton really has been captured, I might be able to help.

Her hands trembled with anticipation and no small amount of fear as she reached into the oil drum and removed the last two items.

The first was a secondhand full-face motorcycle helmet.

The second had once been a three-foot-long solid steel bar. Abby had spent a week hammering it flat so that its cross section was a narrow ellipse rather than a circle. She'd fashioned a handgrip from a strip of rubber cut from a car tire and bound it to one end of the bar with piano wire. Then she'd sharpened one edge, brought it to a point at the top.

She slung the heavy sword into the specially made sheath on the back of her jacket, then pulled on her helmet.

She opened the door to the shed, peeked out to make sure that there was still no one watching, then closed the door behind her.

The back wall was seven feet high. Abby vaulted over it, landed lightly on her feet in the alley, and ran.

CHAPTER 6.

Lance McKendrick knocked on the door of his parents' bedroom and pushed it open.

His mother was asleep, the blankets pulled right up to her neck. His father was hunched over on the side of the bed in his pajamas and the thick dressing gown he'd stolen from a hotel, blowing his nose on a tissue.

"How are you doing, Dad?"

Albert McKendrick turned dark-rimmed, bloodshot eyes toward his son and shrugged. "Lousy. Feel like I've been run over by a truck delivering bowling balls." He sniffed. "Back's killing me, and when I try to stand up I get dizzy. Half the time I'm freezing; the other half I'm soaked with sweat." He wiped his mouth with a fresh tissue. It shredded on his two-day stubble and left his chin and upper lip covered with tiny particles of paper. "Where's Cody?"

"Training. He should be back in about an hour. Will you guys be OK on your own until then?"

His father nodded, then sneezed. "God, I hate being sick."

Lance returned to his own room and pulled the small briefcase out from under the bed. It had been locked, but that had been easily sorted out with his homemade tension wrench and half-diamond pick.

He was disappointed to discover that the briefcase was almost empty. All it contained was two sheets of paper filled with dense columns of numbers and a small envelope holding an electronic keycard. The envelope had a local address written on the front, and a seven-digit phone number on the back.

Lance had spent the past couple of hours wondering what to do next. He was almost certain that the briefcase was what Paragon had been looking for. But why? Who was the guy driving the car?

I should hand this stuff over to the cops. But if I do that now, they'll want to know why I didn't do it earlier. And if they guess I picked the locks, I'll be in real trouble.

I could say I just found it. I went back to Jade Avenue and I spotted the briefcase in the Sternhams' hedge.

But he knew that wouldn't work: The police would have thoroughly searched the area.

He went downstairs, grabbed the local phone directory, and brought it back to his room. The back cover folded out into a map: Lance found the address in the middle of the business park. He knew the area quite well-he'd run a couple of scams on some of the businesses there.

From the direction the car had been heading, the driver must have been leaving the park when Paragon spotted him.

Does that mean that Paragon didn't know where the place is? Would the guy have told him by now?

Lance realized that deep down he'd already decided what he was going to do. He put the empty briefcase back under the bed, stuffed the pages into his backpack, then put the keycard and the envelope into his jacket pocket.

It was an easy ten-minute cycle to the business park. As Lance passed through the entrance, he told himself, I'm just going to go past and look at the building. The place could be swarming with cops.

The building was on a narrow side road. Lance pedaled past it and risked a quick glance. There was no sign of life.

It was a two-story office that looked just like dozens of others surrounding it, with the exception that there was no company name on the front, not even a brass plaque beside the door.

He went around the block three times before he worked up the courage to steer into the building's four-car parking lot. There was still no one around.

The electronic lock on the door bore the same manufacturer's stamp as the keycard. There was no buzzer or any other obvious way for a caller to get the attention of whoever might be inside, so he simply knocked on the door and waited. He decided that, if anyone answered, he'd pretend he was looking for Complete Office Solutions. That was a company on the far side of the business park.

There was no answer. He knocked again, louder this time. The only response was the echo of his knock.

Lance hesitated for a moment, then thought, What the heck. Let's see what's in there.

He swiped the keycard through the lock, and the door clicked open. He quickly stepped through and used his elbow to push the door closed-he didn't want to leave any fingerprints. In his backpack he had a pair of latex gloves he'd stolen during his last visit to the dentist, but he was reluctant to use them just yet-all of his "Wait, this isn't what it looks like!" excuses would fall apart if it was obvious that he'd come prepared.

The small lobby was dark and bare, and the air smelled dry and stale. There was a single desk facing the door, but its light coating of dust told Lance that it had been a long time since anyone had used it.

Beyond the desk was an ordinary wooden door, and Lance was just about to open it when he spotted a small red flashing light on the side of the desk: an alarm box with a keypad.

Oh man. . . . Does that mean I've already triggered the alarm? No, can't be that. Anyone who's supposed to be here will need time to enter the code.

He bit his lip. The alarm box wasn't a model he recognized. So what is the code? And how much time do I have?

He shifted closer to the alarm box to see whether any of the keys showed signs of wear, but they all looked the same.

No good. Get out. Bad idea from the start.

Lance was halfway to the door when he remembered the seven-digit number on the back of the envelope. Maybe it's not a phone number.

He dashed back to the alarm box, pulled the envelope out of his pocket, and keyed in the number using the knuckle on his index finger-the cops could pull fingerprints from almost anything.

The red light stopped flashing, and there was a soft click from the wooden door.

Lance pushed the door open with his shoulder, and stepped through into a wide, windowless storage room. The overhead fluorescent lights were on, giving him enough light to see a wide garage door at the far end, shelving units on each side, and twin workbenches-each the size of a Ping-Pong table-in the middle of the room.

On the nearest workbench was a large, curved metal box that very much resembled something he'd seen earlier that day: Paragon's jetpack.

Lance swallowed as he slowly circled the bench, unable to keep his eyes off the jetpack.

This has to be one of Paragon's hideouts. The guy in the Pinto must have stolen his keycard or something.

He reached out his hand and ran it along the jetpack's cold, smooth surface, then realized what he'd done and used the sleeve of his jacket to wipe off his fingerprints. From his backpack he took out the latex gloves and pulled them on.

But if the guy stole the keycard, how did he get the number for the alarm?

Lance stepped back and looked around. The shelving units were loaded with identical blue plastic storage boxes. He picked one at random and popped the lid. Inside was a pair of severed hands.

He yelped and dropped the box. It fell on its side and spilled out its contents-not a pair of hands after all, just a set of gloves. They looked like something a knight would wear: strong leather covered in small hinged plates that allowed the fingers to move. But the plates were made of some sort of hard plastic, not metal. Lance picked them up and pulled them on over his latex gloves, flexed his fingers, and punched his right fist into his left palm.

Lance grinned. Nice! They've got to be worth a few bucks!

He put the armored gloves in his backpack and opened the next box. It contained a half-dismantled complex-looking mechanical device. Too heavy to take, and I don't know what it is anyway.

The next three boxes housed similar devices, but on the next shelf the boxes contained what looked like sections of Paragon's armor: lightweight arm, leg, and chest pieces, all highly polished silver or chrome. Lance pulled out one of the chest-plates and turned it over in his hands. Like the gloves, it was composed of hinged sections and padded on the inside. He held it up against his chest, but it was way too big for him.

On the next row down he found something else he had seen that day: Paragon's grappling gun-or something very much like it. The gun was bulky and heavier than it looked, made of a thick black plastic. A red gas cylinder was fixed to the back, and a three-pronged hook protruded from the muzzle. A thin steel cable trailed from the hook into a spool beneath the barrel.

Lance just had to try it out. He hefted the gun in his hand and aimed it at the far wall. His eyes half-closed, he squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. Probably needs to be charged up or something. He put it into his backpack anyway, and resumed looking around.

The backpack was getting full now, so he knew that he couldn't take much more. He felt a little disappointed at that. I'm not going to get another chance to come back here.

He walked back to the workbench and stared at the jetpack. He knew that if he took it, it would be missed a lot sooner than the gloves and grappling gun.

It's got to be worth a fortune. Lance remembered a newspaper article about Paragon that had said no one knew exactly how it worked, but dozens of engineering companies all over the world were trying to duplicate it.

He reached out and picked it up. It was very heavy, but not unbearable.

He couldn't stop himself: He slung the jetpack onto his back and fastened the clips across his chest. It didn't seem quite so heavy with the weight distributed across his shoulders.

Lance grinned as he pictured himself soaring and swooping through the air. Man, that would be so cool!

From the other side of the garage door there was a loud clunk. Lance froze. That was a car door being closed.

A motor whined into life and the garage door began to rattle upward. Lance looked around for somewhere to hide. Oh God . . . Paragon's gonna beat the crap out of me!

He wasted three seconds trying to unclasp the jetpack, then gave up. He grabbed his backpack and ducked down under the workbench.

He heard a man's voice say, "Marcus ain't gonna talk, but that don't mean we're safe. They'll have their forensics guys all over him."

Another man's voice, much quieter: "So . . . What, we're taking everything? That's gonna take hours!"

"Go a lot quicker if you ain't complaining. Start loading the truck."

"But what's the point? We're not gonna need mosta this stuff now!"

From his position underneath the workbench Lance could see their legs, so he was able to tell which way they were facing as they moved about the warehouse.

The door to the front office was still slightly open, and it was only a few feet away. He figured he'd need five seconds at most to get through the door. Come on, turn around, turn around!

Minutes passed, and Lance's right leg began to cramp. The two men had made several trips out to their truck, but only one at a time.

Eventually, the one with the softer voice said, "Listen. . . . About Marcus."

"What about him?"

"If the cops can get him to talk . . . we're toast."

"All the more reason to stop shirking and start working. If the cops find this place with us still in it, The Helotry are gonna come down on us like a ton of lead bricks."

The other man muttered, "I'm more worried about Paragon finding us."

"He won't. Marcus's stuff all got burned up with his car."

"How do you know that?"

"Because we're here and Paragon ain't."

"Yeah, well, I'm just sayin'. It's taken our guys years to reverse-engineer his armor and jetpack and I didn't even get a chance to try it out. If the schedule hadn'ta been moved up we coulda all had jetpacks and armor and everything."

"Yeah, well, if Marcus hadn't been dumb enough to take the thing out for a test flight, then Paragon wouldn't have noticed him and he wouldn't have got caught. So . . . Hey-where is the jetpack?"

Under the workbench, Lance cringed.

"I just loaded the crate inta the truck," the other man replied.

"Not that one. The one Marcus was working on earlier. It was right here on the bench."