The Superpower Project (20 page)

Phoenix, with TJ and Finn on its back, smashed through the old church roof and into the sky.

The Waterworx security guards were still staring upwards through the massive hole in the ceiling, so Megan seized another opportunity. She flew at them, knocking them unconscious against the wall. “Ok,” she said, turning around. “Who's there? Who helped me?”

Megan let out a small piercing scream as Kevin immediately appeared in front of her. She stepped back in surprise.

“Kevin! Did you… can you…?”

Kevin nodded. “Flying's cooler though,” he said modestly.

“Not from where I'm standing,” said Megan, smiling. “I cannot believe we didn't notice!”

“Yeah well,” said Kevin, “I've always been especially good at not being noticed.”

Up close, it looked much better than Cam had imagined it would. The sculpture he and Kevin had designed was actually rather beautiful, each scale individually crafted, glimmering like oil on water, throwing little rainbows across the cold stone floor. Although of course, as it turned out things would have been easier if they had gone with the stupid sugar cube idea instead.

Destiny loped towards them, and without thinking, Cam stood in front of John, ready to protect him. “John, can you change? You need to run.”

“I'm not leaving you,” said John.

“No, I was going to run too,” said Cam. “I just thought it was polite to let you go first.”

Cam glanced at the other toppled robots. Evolve was still not moving, but he could see the first sparks and flick-erings that indicated Resilience was gathering strength.

“John, we need to move,” Cam whispered.

Then there was a sudden crash and a shower of glass and brickwork as Phoenix smashed through the Sugar Shed roof and slammed down near Destiny. The serpent immediately stopped advancing on John and Cam and stood to attention alongside Resilience.

Mr Finn and TJ climbed down from Phoenix and walked quickly towards Destiny. John and Cam stood still, unsure of what was going on.

“You'll forgive me for not stopping,” said Mr Finn, pointing what looked like a set of car keys at Destiny, “only we're in a hurry.”

“TJ!” Cam shouted, but the robot walked straight past him.

There was a beep, and then a side panel on Destiny slid open, revealing seats and a large control panel. Mr Finn and TJ climbed inside. As he went to slide the panel shut Mr Finn looked up at the giant bird. “Phoenix, finish them off please. Resilience, Chronos, with us.” The serpent turned and sloped out of the sheds, splashing straight into the river while the other two robots stomped behind.

“Uhm, what?” said Cam.

Phoenix stepped towards them, preparing for attack.

Cam was just wondering if he could somehow change into an elephant, when Megan swooped through the hole in the ceiling and smashed into the robot. Caught offguard, Phoenix shook and then toppled. It writhed and slipped on the ground, unable to get up onto its skinny bird legs.

“Megan, what's going on?” said Cam. “I feel like I've missed something. Lots of things actually.”

“Finn's controlling TJ, he's related to James Watt, he took all the sigils off me, and they're going to unlock the gate.”

“Seriously? You were only away about ten minutes!” said Cam.

Kevin appeared next to Cam, smiling. “I know! It was crazy!”

Cam's face went white.

“Oh… and I brought Kevin with me. He turns invisible,” said Megan. “He's our number four!”

“Kevin?” said Cam. “That's just great.” Happily the only person this fooled was Kevin.

“Just one more to go then,” said John, standing up carefully and keeping an eye on the thrashing Phoenix.

“Well, we don't have time to wait,” said Megan. “You two need to get under the water and stop Finn. If you can force Destiny back up, Kevin and I will attack from above.”

Cam looked at John. “Meg, I'm not sure if…”

“I'm fine,” said John, “let's go.”

Unconvinced, Cam followed John to the river's edge and together they dived into the cold black water, transforming as they went.

“What can I do?” said Kevin.

“There's lots of wee dinghies and smaller boats over at the marina,” said Megan. “Any chance you could go invisible and ‘borrow' one?”

Kevin grinned. “Brilliant.” He climbed down onto the marina walkway.

He didn't see the girl out in the water, watching him. With a ripple, she turned and dived beneath the waves.

Under the water, Mr Finn made the best of his head start. The sculpture-sub was already approaching the impact point of the meteorite, as shown on his father's maps. While TJ steered the sub, Mr Finn was struggling to get into his atmospheric diving suit. It was a lot harder than it looked, but only the robot had seen him get tangled up and fall over, so it was totally fine.

As he and TJ emerged from the sub, he was struck by how horribly cold and dark it was under the river. It was difficult to see more than a metre or so ahead. However, he could make out the dark shapes of Resilience and Chronos already scanning the area for the lock. Watt's notes had a few early design sketches of the piece, but no pictures existed of the finished device. Luckily, Mr Finn had brought someone who knew exactly what it looked like.

TJ walked slowly but purposefully along the riverbed towards a circle of rocks and seaweed beside Resilience. Mr Finn watched as TJ cleared away the seaweed and barnacles to reveal a huge rusted metal panel. It was covered with ornate circular symbols. This was it. The lock.

Right in the centre of the panel was a large round indentation with five smaller circles, presumably where the robot would put his hand and fingers. Around this circle, at each of the compass points, were four gaps that he guessed corresponded to the sigils.

Beautiful craftsmanship
, thought Mr Finn.
What a total waste to stick it underwater.

Mr Finn gestured to TJ, who nodded and slowly began pushing the sigils into the four compass points. As each one clicked into place, a little column of green bubbles burbled out from the riverbed in front of them. Mr Finn then pointed at the largest circle. The robot hesitated, just for a moment, before placing his hand into the grooves of the panel.

After a few seconds of nothing happening, his eyes flashed green. He moved his hand a quarter turn to the left, then all the way over to the right. There was another flurry of bubbles, and the darkness that had surrounded them began to shimmer with an eerie luminous green glow. The glow was coming from a crack that had started to widen in front of them, like a huge eye slowly opening after centuries of sleep.

Oily green and purple bubbles began to rise slowly towards the surface, like the thick blobs inside a lava lamp. Mr Finn stared into the growing gap, unclipped some sample tubes from his diving suit, and began catching bubbles. TJ stared at the rising bubbles. He reached out to touch one and it burst, sending green liquid sinking back to the riverbed.

Then all the bubbles started bursting, and they were lost in a swirl of purple and green as a shark and a killer whale rammed into Resilience and Destiny.

Shark-Cam swung back towards Mr Finn, who was floating above a massive chasm in the riverbed. He saw the panel with the sigils slotted into it, and realised what had happened.

He's opened it, we're too late
, he thought. Cam tried to peer through the bubbles at what lay behind Watt's shield. Before he could get a closer look, a huge jagged arm swept down towards him. Resilience was slower under the water, but that didn't make it any less strong. John, only a few metres away, turned and blasted through the water like a torpedo towards Resilience, throwing all of his strength into his attack. The robot shuddered, allowing Cam to swim out of the way. However, the impact had been too much for John, and Cam watched in horror as the old man changed back into his human form and sank, unconscious, to the bottom of the river.

In the churning chaos caused by the fighting, TJ was still striving to protect Mr Finn, and so had begun dragging him, struggling, back towards the lopsided sub.

Cam also turned back to his human form, as he couldn't think of any other way to move John.
Must work out how to do Octopus
, he thought,
or merman
.

Chronos stared at the toppled Resilience and continued marching across the riverbed towards them. Cam couldn't hold his breath much longer. He didn't think he'd be able to carry John up to the surface and deal with Chronos while he was at it.

Maybe I won't get a chance to do octopus after all
, he thought.

Just as Chronos was almost upon them, it wobbled and shuddered as if the ground was shifting beneath it. A black shape swam quickly around the sculpture, darting in between its grasping arms and stomping feet. Sand and silt from the riverbed began to rear up: a huge tidal wave of dirt slowly overwhelmed Chronos. The robot toppled and sank beneath the silt, buried to the waist.

That was when Cam saw the girl. She was wearing a wetsuit, but no mask. Weirdly, that didn't seem to stop her from breathing. She smiled and waved briefly at Cam, then pointed upwards. She began twirling the pointing finger, and all around them, the water began to swirl and churn.

She's controlling the water
, thought Cam.
She's our number five!

Carried by the girl's current, Mr Finn, TJ, John and the Destiny submarine floated to the surface. As they all rose, the girl swam to John, and took both his arms before shooting upwards, leaving only bubbles in her wake. Cam was swept up after them, and burst out of the water gasping for breath.

Above the water, Megan had already grabbed Mr Finn and hauled him up into the sky. She looked angrier than Cam had ever seen her – and Cam had made her angry more times than anyone else. She dropped Finn into a small dinghy below, where a rope began tying itself around him.

Kevin gave Mr Finn a few seconds to scream with terror before he appeared. “Only me,” he said, waving the end of the rope in his hand.

“Meg, it's too late,” shouted Cam, “it's open. All this weird colourful stuff is leaking out.”

But Megan wasn't listening. She had spotted the girl, who was struggling to keep John afloat. John was coughing and spluttering, but at least he was breathing. She flew down to help.

“So our number five turned up!” added Cam.

“You are kidding!” Megan laughed and turned to the girl. “You're here just in time…Water powers, right?”

“Yes but…”

“Awesome! Back in a minute.” Megan lifted John from the water and flew back towards the dockside, seating him against one of the few walls that were still intact.

“Are you ok?” asked Megan, because that's the first thing you say to people when you know they aren't.

“Few wee bruises,” said John, coughing and spluttering. “I've had worse.”

“I'm so sorry I asked you to go down there.”

John shook his head and waved away her concerns. “Look, it's not over yet. You guardians need to lock the shield back up. We have no idea how dangerous all the stuff that's leaking out is.”

“I know. We're all here now. We can do this.” Megan squeezed John's hand and then flew back out over the river.

Cam, Kevin and the water girl had managed to get TJ into the dinghy, but he was inactive. Megan hovered above the surface of the water and smiled again at the water girl who had rescued her friends.

“Hi again. I'm assuming Cam hasn't done introductions ‘cause he's really rude,” said Megan, reaching out to shake the girl's hand. “I'm Megan.”

“Lily,” said the girl, smiling.

“Hi Lily. I'm not sure how you're here, but I'm really pleased you are. We have
so much
to talk about, but right now it would be great if you and Cam could get back under the water and try to lock the power back up…”

“The big crack that all the glowing bubbles are leaking from,” explained Cam, “just next to where you sunk the robot.”

“Right,” said Lily. “Uhm… how do we do that?”

“I'll show you when we're down there,” said Cam.

“And while you're doing that, I'll try and fix TJ,” said Megan, “because he needs to get down there as well to close it properly.”

“This is the best day ever,” said Kevin, tying Mr Finn's knots just a bit tighter.

“You ready Lily?” asked Cam.

Lily nodded, and began sinking bank under the river. Cam began his transformation into a seal, and seconds later they were gone.

Megan opened the panel in TJ's head and water slooshed out everywhere. The same thing happened again when she opened his chest panel.

“Oh. That's probably not good, is it?” said Mr Finn.

“He's been around for over two hundred years,” said Megan. “He's very resilient.”

“Yes. My robots are too.”

“Kevin, could you gag Mr Finn or something? Just with anything you can find. Rope, socks, fish… whatever.”

Happy to be of further use, Kevin forced some of the remaining rope into Mr Finn's mouth.

Megan could see that all TJ's wires and cables were still there; they were just a bit damp. She reconnected her Goozberri Five, once again bypassing Mr Finn's chip.

Everything was reconnected. All the water had been emptied out of his head. Nothing.

“Of course,” said Megan, pressing the button on TJ's neck. “Reboot!”

There was some fizzing and sparking from inside TJ, but his eyes flickered to life again, back to his familiar flashing blue.

“Megan,” said TJ. “Oh no, Megan…”

“I know TJ, you couldn't help it. It's ok.”

“No. Megan. Look out.” TJ pointed upwards. Phoenix was hovering above them, ready to swoop down and strike.