The Doomsday Device (The Teenage Superhero Series Book Two)

Chapter One

Everything was fine until someone decided to blow up the plane.

I was sitting towards the rear. One of those air crash investigation programs said that passengers sitting towards the rear have a better chance of surviving an air crash. Call me afraid. Call me a coward. Call me whatever you want. So what if I have super powers? It doesn’t mean I’m invincible.

We were returning from Dallas on yet another one of our trips to discover our origins. When we left The Agency we took with us an encrypted book containing lists of addresses from across the planet. So far we had visited about twenty of them expecting to discover that we had lived at one of these premises.

So far we had turned up exactly – nothing.

Some of the addresses were residential homes. Others were businesses. A couple were factories. We could find no link between us and the addresses.

We had not given up hope, but we were discouraged. One of the scientists at The Agency – Doctor Sokolov – had told me some crucial information with her dying breath. She had told me I had a brother.

Somewhere out there I had a family member. All I had to do was find him.

I let out a deep sigh and glanced around the interior of the plane. Dan was seated next to the window. We had taken a lot of flights over the last six months – ever since we had acquired our super powers – and he always grabbed the window seat. Watching the world fly by held no great allure for me.

I had done plenty of flying.

Most of it without an airplane.

The jet was travelling from Dallas to Las Vegas. I was sitting next to Dan. Brodie, Ebony and Chad were towards the front adjacent to the wings. It was a typical flight. Travelling in a plane is actually quite boring when you’ve flown without one. I had watched most of the in-flight movie. Then I’d moved onto a book. Finally I had tried closing my eyes to grab forty winks.

I opened my eyes and glanced at my watch. Thirty minutes till we were due to land.

Not my idea of fun.

Dan sat forward and rubbed his forehead.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

He did not immediately reply. Finally he said, “Yeah.”

He didn’t sound alright.

“I’ve got one of those headaches,” he said.

I knew what he meant by those headaches.

The Alpha Project had left Dan with an odd set of abilities. He was able to control metal objects. He could also manipulate people’s minds like in Star Wars. You know, like those old Jedi mind tricks. In addition he could pick up the feelings and thoughts of other people. It had begun with us, but over recent months he had started to hear the thoughts of other people too.

“What can you hear?” I asked him quietly.

He didn’t say anything for the longest time. Then he said, “A guy. He’s got…bad thoughts.”

Bad thoughts. That could mean anything from being a serial killer to painting graffiti on city buildings.

“He’s got…” Dan stopped. “He’s carrying some sort of weapon.”

I looked across the rows of seats before us. This was a 747 carrying a full load of passengers. From memory that numbered around four hundred and fifty passengers. Air marshals were not unusual on flights. Not only were they authorized to carry a weapon, but they were allowed to use them in case of emergencies.

“A bomb,” Dan said quietly.

“Wassat?”

Now Dan had my full attention. He looked up at me with fear in his eyes. “He’s carrying a bomb around his waist. I think he…killed his wife this morning. I can see blood. Lots of it. He’s been planning this for ages. This morning…this morning was the trigger.”

A chill choked my spine.

“Who is it?” I asked.

Dan shook his head. “I have no idea.”

“You’ve got to focus,” I told him. “You’ve done it before.”

He had done it before. He had picked out the thoughts of a single person who had stolen jewelry from a store. Unfortunately it had taken almost half an hour and left him with a blinding headache.