Michael Carroll - The Quantum Prophecy

“I promise,” Paragon said. “I won’t say a word. But I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You will, Paragon. Not for a long time, but you will.”

IT WAS AThursday in October, early afternoon. Normally at this time, Colin Wagner would be hiding behind the boy sitting in front of him, because Thursday afternoons were what his teacher liked to call “Discussion Time”. This was when Mr Stone would pick a topic he found interesting and do his very best to make sure that none of the students would ever find it interesting again.

The previous week, Mr Stone had shown them a five-minute video about how birds build their nests and then proceeded to lead the class in a discussion about birds, nests and why he believed that starlings were more evil than magpies. But today, for a change, Mr Stone had picked an interesting topic.

Today they were talking about Mystery Day.

Mr Stone waited until everyone had settled down. “So… tomorrow it’s Mystery Day,” he began. “Exactly ten years since the disappearance of all the superheroes. When this all started, nine years ago on the first anniversary, it was supposed to be a day of remembrance. But somehow over the years it’s turned into a bloody holiday! Instead of the heroes being honoured for giving up their lives, we get balloons and parties, and people setting up stalls at the side of the road to sell knock-off Titan action figures and T-shirts. And if you think it’s bad here, it’s ten times worse in America!”

He picked up his chalk and began to write on the blackboard.

Titan , he wrote, and underlined it twice. Podermeninas , he wrote next, but he only underlined that once. He followed that with a series of other names: Paragon , Apex , Impervia , Thalamus , Thunder , Inferno , Energy , Quantum and Zephyr .

Then he picked up his red chalk and wrote Ragnarök . Underneath that he wrote Rayboy , The Glyph , Terrain , The Shark , Slaughter , Dioxin and Brawn .

“Right…” Mr Stone turned around to face the classroom. “Superheroes,” he said, pointing to the words written in white. “And supervillains.” He tapped at the words in red. “Who were they? Where did they come from? Where did they get their powers?”

“Nobody knows, Sir,” Colin said.

“Weren’t the powers inherited?” Brian McDonald suggested.

“That would certainly explain The High Command: Max, Josh and Roz Dalton,” Mr Stone said.

Malcolm O’Neill put up his hand. “I heard they all came from another planet.”

“Speculation,” Mr Stone said. “Pure speculation. Let’s just stick to the facts, shall we? Their capabilities – their powers and strengths. Titan, who could fly and had the strength of a hundred men. Energy, who had the ability to absorb and then release almost any kind of energy. It was said Quantum could move so fast he was able to out run a supersonic jet. But then ten years ago at least twenty-five superheroes and upwards of a hundred villains were involved in a battle just east of Pittsburgh. Ragnarök’s huge battle-tank caused massive destruction as it rumbled across the United States towards New York City. Three whole towns had to be evacuated. There are reports of a huge explosion and then… nothing. So what happened to the superheroes? Colin?”

“They disappeared, Sir,” Colin answered.

The teacher nodded. “Disappeared. Vanished. Where to? Danny?”

“Nobody knows,” Danny Cooper replied. “But it wasn’t just the heroes who disappeared. The villains did too. There weren’t any bodies found in the wreckage. It was probably all covered up by the government.”

“They went back to their home planet,” Malcolm O’Neill said.

Adam Gilmore laughed. “Give it a rest, Mal! They were probably just vaporised in the explosion!”

“They can’t have been,” Colin said. “Brawn or Impervia would have survived any explosion. Energy could have absorbed the blast. Quantum could have just out run it.”

“Right,” Danny Cooper said. “And Max Dalton and the rest of The High Command survived.”

“Yeah, but they weren’t there ,” Adam said.

“Mr Gilmore raises an interesting point,” Mr Stone said. “Despite what some witness claim, the official word is that the Daltons were not present during the attack. As far as we know, they are the only superhumans to have survived Mystery Day. Every other superhuman – whether or not they were present during Ragnarök’s attack – has disappeared.” He shrugged. “Tonight Max Dalton will give his first interview in ten years. The first time he’s ever spoken in public since he retired.” The teacher walked around to the front of his desk and leaned back against it. “Anyone want to guess what he’s going to say?”

Brian turned around to look at Malcolm O’Neill. “Hey, Mal! Maybe he’s going to tell us that he’s going to take you back to your home planet!”

The class laughed. “Right, Brian…” Mr Stone said. “You’ve just won the right to set today’s homework for the rest of the class.”

“Seriously?”

“Why not?”

Brian glanced around the room. Every other boy was staring at him with the same expression, doing their best to send Brian the same telepathic message: make this easy on us or you’re a dead man!

Under his breath, Colin muttered, “No homework! No homework!”

The teacher said, “Mr McDonald?”

“I think that for our homework we should all have a good think about what it would have been like to be a superhero.”

“A good think?”

“Yep,” Brian said, nodding vigorously.

“Perfect. You all have a good think about it and then, when you’re done thinking, write down those thoughts in the form of an essay.”

Everyone groaned. Someone shouted, “Oh, well done Brian!”

“It won’t be that bad,” Mr Stone said. “There’s no school tomorrow, so you have a three-day weekend in which to get it done. Four pages should be enough. And I want normal-sized paper, too! No more essays written on bloody Post-It notes!”

Colin, Danny and Brian lived in different areas of the town, and every day they followed the same “going home” ritual: they would walk together until they reached the north-west corner of the park, then Colin would go east, Danny would go north to the apartment blocks and Brian would go west. As always, however, they spent an hour or so sitting on the low wall, chatting, arguing and watching out for flash cars or good-looking girls.

It was while they were doing this, sheltering from the rain under the park’s enormous pine trees that overhung the path, that Brian spotted his younger sister approaching on her bike, doing her best to cycle around the puddles.

“Hey, here comes your girlfriend, Danny,” Brian said.

“Oh, ha ha,” Danny replied.

They watched as Susie wobbled her way towards them and stopped right in front of Danny. “Hi, Danny!”

Danny muttered a greeting, but deliberately avoided looking her in the eye.

“What do you want?” Brian asked her.

“Mummy says you’re to come home now and stop dawdling.”

“Does she really?”

“Yes.”

Brian thought about this. “OK… I’ll race you. You on the bike and me running.”

Susie wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to show off in front of Danny. “OK then.”

“I’ll even give you a head start,” Brian said. “I’ll let you get as far as the end of the road.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “No. You’ll cheat or something.”