CHAPTER 7.

Right now, Roz Dalton despised the "one thing at a time" limitation on her telekinesis. If she'd been able to control more than one object, she might have had a chance to get away.

Instead, she'd been captured. The gray men had rushed at her, knocked her to the ground. At gunpoint they'd cuffed her wrists and ankles, and carried her inside the power plant.

Now she was sitting on the unfinished concrete floor of a large room. Except for a single large wooden desk at one end, the room was devoid of furniture. The gray man who'd been wounded by his colleagues was now sitting on the desk as one of them bandaged his arm.

Roz's brother and the Rangers were on the ground close to her, similarly cuffed. Whatever these guys had hit the men with, it was still affecting them. Max was lying on his side, moaning slightly, his legs twitching every few moments.

Ox and Lash looked to be completely unconscious. They too were on their sides. Lash's mouth and nose were leaking a puddle of saliva and thick mucus onto the floor. His breathing was ragged, uneven.

Ollie French was awake, but not in good condition. He sat with his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped around his legs. He was shivering uncontrollably.

What did they do to them? Roz wondered. Whatever it was, it had disabled two of the world's most powerful superhumans and three highly trained former U.S. Army Rangers.

Roz's wrists and ankles chafed from the cuffs, and her backside was numb from sitting on the hard floor, but aside from that she felt fine.

Her telekinesis was still working too, but there was no way it could help her now: Five of the gray men were watching her at all times. Like the Rangers, these men had also been well-trained: They said nothing, kept to the shadows so that she couldn't get a good look at them.

A door opened somewhere behind her, and she heard soft footsteps approaching. A woman's voice said, "Do not turn around. Understood?" Roz nodded.

"How are you feeling?"

Roz wasn't quite sure how to answer that. She'd been expecting something more along the lines of "Who are you?" or "What are you doing here?"

"Well?"

"A little uncomfortable," Roz said.

The woman asked, "Is that all?"

"A bit scared too. Is that what you want to hear?"

"No dizziness, nausea, muscle aches?"

"No. Aside from the bruises your friends gave me. And I need to use the bathroom."

Roz heard the woman move closer. "So you are Rosalyn, daughter of the late Malcolm and Roberta Dalton. Sister to the famous Maxwell and ten-year-old Joshua. Max is a mind-reader; you appear to have psychokinetic abilities. . . . It will be interesting to see what powers-if any-Josh will develop."

Without turning her head, Roz looked around, hoping to catch the woman's reflection in a window or door. "Josh can create illusions so convincing that you can't tell what's real from what's fake." She forced a smile. "Like the illusion that you are still inside the Midway power plant and that your men have captured me. But the truth is that you've already been arrested. You're in jail. Everything you think you see and hear is just a fantasy created by Josh."

"Very clever. But you haven't thought that one through, have you? Josh is too young for any superhuman abilities to have developed."

It was worth a shot, Roz thought. "What are you people doing here? The power plant isn't even operational yet. There's nothing to steal. And you can't escape-the whole area is surrounded." But the fading footsteps told her that the woman was walking away.

Roz slumped forward with her head lowered, trying to give the impression that she felt defeated. But the gray men had cuffed her hands in front of her, not behind: She could see the cuffs, and if she could see something she could manipulate it telekinetically.

But there was a problem: She had no idea how the cuffs' locking mechanism worked. She could see the outside of the cuffs, the strong double-chain linking them, but that was all. She concentrated on splitting one of the chain's links. It wasn't working. She could move the individual links, but not twist them out of shape or break them.

Physically Roz was no stronger than an ordinary human, and now she began to understand why she wasn't able to use her telekinesis to lift very heavy objects: It was somehow tied to her physical strength. Maybe that'll change, she thought. When Max was my age he was only able to read minds. It took him a couple of years to learn how to control them too. Maybe my power will get stronger as I get older. She let out a sigh. A lot of good that does me right now.

I could be an Olympic runner. If I don't tell anyone I'm a superhuman, I could be the world champion.

Abby de Luyando had kept to the alleyways and side streets as she ran, then increased her speed when she reached the open road. The nuclear power plant was twelve miles from the diner-less than twenty minutes after she left, she could see it high on a hill a mile away, its massive cooling towers tinted orange by the setting sun.

But she couldn't get much closer. The police and army had set up roadblocks, and a dozen helicopters were hovering in place encircling the plant. Another two army trucks came roaring up the road behind her. Abby vaulted over the low fence on her left and ducked down in the long grass.

A voice right beside her said, "You know, you're pretty fast, but I could hear you coming a mile away."

She whirled around, but there was no one there.

The voice said, "All that jangling and clinking. It sounds like you've got a pile of loose change in every pocket."

Abby raised the visor on her helmet. "Are you . . . Are you invisible or something?" Even as she asked that, she knew it couldn't be true-the grass around her was undamaged. Anything invisible would have left a mark.

"No. Look to your left."

Abby looked. She couldn't see anything but fields and trees.

"I'm right here," the voice said. "I'm waving. Look."

Then she spotted it: At the far side of the field an arm was waving back and forth.

"I see you. Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"I'm here for the same reason you are, I think. I want to help out."

"Stay put. I'm coming over." Keeping low, Abby ran across the field. She was all too aware now that her chain mail made a lot of noise. I'll have to glue it all down or something.

"A little closer," the voice said.

Then Abby saw him. A tall figure dressed in a skintight black and green costume. He was masked and gloved, but didn't look that much older than she was. They stared at each other for a moment. "So . . . ," she said. "Who are you, then?"

"Who are you?"

"I'm not telling you until you tell me."

He paused. "Well, how do I know you're not one of the bad guys?"

"How do I know you're not?" She moved a little closer and peered at his face. "You're the guy from Leftover's, aren't you? The one reading the Record Collector magazine."

He bit his lip. "Well, if I am, then that means you can only be the waitress."

Aw, rats! "Maybe I've got a power that lets me know things . . . sort of magically. You know, psychic stuff."

"In that case, what's my name?"

Abby sighed. "All right. I'm the waitress from the diner."

"And I'm the guy with the magazine. So what can you do?"

"I'm strong, fast, and I've got this." Abby removed the sword from her back.

"Can you use it, though?"

She shrugged, and held out the sword. "I don't know how to fence, but it's heavy and it's sharp."

He gently pushed the sword aside. "Well, keep the pointy end away from me. So what is your name? Your superhero name, I mean."

"I haven't actually thought of one yet. What about you?"

"Thunder. I can control sound waves."

"Oh. Is that all?"

"It's not enough?"

"Well, it doesn't sound especially useful." She took a step back and looked at his costume. It was a one-piece, skintight rubber, mostly black with wide green stripes down the arms and outside of the legs. A large zipper ran from his throat to his navel. "Wait, is that a wet suit?"

He looked a little defensive. "Well, yeah. But at least I look like a superhero. Yours looks like you made it yourself."

"I did make it myself! And I'd rather look like this than some guy who looks like he can't find his snorkel and flippers."

Thunder put up his hand. "Hold on. . . . There's more trucks coming. Five . . . no, six. And they sound bigger than the others. Reinforcements-it's the National Guard."

Abby looked around. All she could hear was the constant hum of the helicopters. She turned back to him. "Can you hear, like, everything?"

"Up to a distance of about five or six miles, yeah, usually. But right now there's too much noise from the cops and the army and the helicopters for me to hear what's going on inside the power plant. So . . . What's your plan?"

"Don't really have one. I just wanted to see if I could help. They said that Max Dalton got captured. I was sort of thinking of offering my services to the police."

Thunder rubbed his chin. "Yeah, same here. But now I'm not so sure. They don't know who we are."

"We should sneak closer and maybe you can hear the guys inside the plant. Then we could tell the cops and they'd know we're on their side."

"And what'll you do?"

"I don't know yet."

Thunder sneered. "Oh, good plan! You really are a newbie, aren't you? First time out, is it?"

Abby ignored that. "We're not helping anyone by sniping at each other. Let's just get closer and see what happens."

With Thunder leading the way, they crept forward through the long grass. After a few minutes, he said, "OK. . . . I can hear the army guy in charge-Colonel Morgan. He's saying that Dalton's helicopter pilot told them that Dalton's sister is in there too. She went in after the others were captured, and got captured herself. Idiot."

"Keep the noise down," Abby said.

"They won't hear us. We could set off a bomb here and they wouldn't know unless they were looking. I'm stopping our sounds from reaching them."

Abby wasn't about to admit that that was a very useful ability. "So what are they planning?"

"I think they don't know what to do. There's supposed to be sixteen hostages. Eleven workers and Dalton and his crew."

"Can you stop any sounds?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"So you could, like, block out every sound inside the power plant?"

"I could, but then they'd know something was up. We're going to have to do something, though. Sounds like half of the cops and most of the army guys are coming down with the flu. Come on, we'll see if we can get closer."

It's the perfect time to attack something, Abby thought. Seems like nearly everyone has the flu these days. She froze. Unless it's not the flu. Maybe it's something else.

She ran to catch up with Thunder. "Hey!"

"What?"

"Anyone you know got the flu?"

"Sure. Most of the teachers at school, my folks, most of my neighbors. Why?"

"Same here. My mother, my aunts. Four of the guys from work. Lots of the regular customers. The guy who lives in the apartment next door to mine was up all night coughing his guts up. . . . I don't think this is the ordinary flu. There's always some epidemic or other going around, but they take time to spread. This one is happening all over the world at the same time. That's just not possible, unless it was done deliberately. Someone has created a plague."

CHAPTER 8.

"I swear I left it right here," the man with the deeper voice said. Lance swallowed. Please don't let them find me! He peeled off the latex gloves and tried once more to open the jetpack's clasps, but couldn't find a catch or a button.

The other man said, "You musta already loaded it inta the truck with the other one."

"I didn't."

"Well, check anyway. It's not like anyone woulda took it. Hey, you don't think that Marcus had it on him when he got arrested, do ya?"