5

      EVEN BEFORE DANNY and Renata reached the machine room, they could hear a loud pounding sound echoing through the building. They opened the door and stood on the gantry, looking down at Razor and four other technicians as they worked on what appeared to be the framework of a three-metre-tall bipedal robot.

      “All right,” Razor said, standing back from the exoskeleton. He brushed his long hair back from his face. “Everyone get clear…Let’s try that again.”

      The robot’s motors whined as it straightened itself – then, after a moment, it tilted slightly to the right, then stomped its left foot forward. The robot tilted to the left, then moved its right foot.

      Danny grinned. “It’s walking! Finally!”

      “Shutting down,” Razor said. “Take the readings, Mitch.” He glanced up at Danny and Renata, and beckoned them down.

      Danny was instantly standing in front of the machine, staring up at it. “It’s looking good, Raze. Got it flying yet?”

      “We’re getting there,” Razor said. “It can’t carry enough fuel to fly more than a hundred metres. That’s ‘cos it weighs almost a tonne.”

      Renata arrived next to them. “Razor, how on Earth is someone supposed to fit inside that thing?”

      “There’ll be a lot more space when we tidy all the cables away.”

      “Maybe someone doesn’t need to be inside it. You could fit it with cameras. Then the new Paragon won’t even have to go into battle himself.”

      “We thought of that, but the General feels that the public will have more confidence if Paragon is a person, not a robot.” Razor scratched at the three-day stubble on his chin. “That’s one of the things we’re arguing about. Piers wants the helmet’s face-plate to be transparent, so everyone can see there’s a person inside. But that’ll seriously weaken the helmet’s integrity, which is not a good thing considering that the armour will be equipped with shock-bombs.”

      “What’s a shock-bomb?” Renata asked.

      “Another of Max’s inventions. It’s a grenade that only explodes in one direction. You could hold one in your hand when it explodes – they’re about the size of a can of soda – and it wouldn’t do you any damage, as long as the business end was pointed away from you. And there’s no shrapnel.”

      “Let’s see one!” Danny said.

      Razor’s hair flicked about his face as he shook his head. “They’re way too dangerous to fool around with. How did the mission go? Find the weapons?”

      “There weren’t any weapons. It was food.”

      “Food? That seems…strange. Do you think Impervia knew?”

      Renata shrugged. “It’s hard to say. She didn’t want us going into the building, so maybe she did know. We can’t ask her, because then we’d have to tell her how we found out. You know what she’s like about us breaking the rules.”

      Razor asked, “Are you still thinking about leaving?”

      “If I had somewhere to go, I’d leave in a second,” Renata said. “We should all go. Except Bubbles. But we can’t take Mina with us, and I really think that one of us should be here for her, if she ever wakes up.”

      “I talked to Warren,” Razor said. “They’re no happier here than we are, but they won’t leave. He says that this is the best chance they’ll have to find Colin. There’s something else bothering them, but he wouldn’t say what it was. He did say that Sakkara is probably the only place that’s safe from Yvonne’s influence.”

      Renata said, “Much as I despised Josh, at least when he was in charge we had some say in the way this place was run. Now if we want anything we have to go through Impervia.”

      Razor noticed the expression on Renata’s face. “You really don’t like her, do you?”

      “What’s to like? She makes us call her by her superhero name even though she hasn’t had any powers for over ten years.”

      Razor’s cellphone beeped. “Oh, what now?” He flipped open the phone. “Yo…Oh, hi Caroline. What’s up?” He listened for a moment. “Damn…All right, we’re coming down.”

      “What is it?” Danny asked.

      “The guys you arrested on the island aren’t terrorists. They’re security guards. The food supplies belonged to the Trutopians. And they’re not happy.”

      Colin stood at the back of the room as Reginald Kinsella stepped in front of the camera. Kinsella looked annoyed and a little flustered. He cleared his throat, took a sip of water from a glass.

      Harriet, operating the camera, said, “We’ve got the link…Going live in thirty-two seconds.”

      Beside her, Byron tapped at his laptop computer. “It’s coming through fine.”

      Despite his reservations about the organisation, Colin was impressed with how the Trutopians worked. Everything seemed to be done with tremendous efficiency: even though the community in Satu Mare was quite small and didn’t have its own official broadcasting facilities, it had only taken Harriet and Byron a few minutes to track down a digital video camera and a powerful laptop computer and connect them to the Internet.

      Harriet counted down the last few seconds, then Kinsella stared into the camera and began to speak.

      “Good morning. Or good afternoon or good evening, depending on where you are…As many of you will know, the Trutopian organisation does not simply look after itself. Our mission is to help everyone, Trutopian or otherwise.” Kinsella took another sip of his water. “In a number of different locations we have been stockpiling preserved foods so that in the event of a disaster – an earthquake, for example – we will be immediately able to ship those supplies to the countries in need. Over the past six weeks, fourteen of our stockpiles have been destroyed or irrevocably contaminated by some unknown outside force. A few hours ago, our enemies struck again, on Isla del Tonatiuh, a small island to the west of Central America.

      “After the first few attacks we greatly increased our security measures. Our compound on Isla del Tonatiuh was covered with hidden cameras. We have the perpetrators on film.” He tilted his head to look past the camera towards Byron, and nodded.

      The tall man tapped a few keys on his computer.

      Colin walked over to Byron and watched the video footage play out on the laptop’s screen.

      His heart jumped when he spotted Renata and Butler attacking the guards.

      Once the footage was over, Kinsella reappeared on the screen. “Just in case some of you have been living on Mars and didn’t recognise them, they were the New so-called Heroes, agents of a government that preaches democracy but apparently does not feel compelled to practise it.” Kinsella paused. “I can’t speak for anyone else, but I personally am not impressed with this new generation of superhumans. At least, not those who are still working for the US military.” With that, he cast a quick look in Colin’s direction.

      “I want answers. I want to know how they can justify