“What did they do to me?” he croaked, still clutching his arm.
“Do you feel okay?” Auri said, grabbing his shirt from the nearby table and giving it to him.
“Yeah, I suppose so. Just a little off,” he said, pulling on his shirt. When his head popped through the collar, his face had changed back to normal, the wildness gone. Katie was relieved to see it. The image of the strange man injecting him with Super blood flashed in her mind. What was that for?
“We must go now,” Auri said. “We need to be far from here before Calico returns.”
Katie’s blood turned cold. Before he returned? “Did I...”
Auri nodded. “He extracted the information from you. He left for Lumbini less than twenty minutes ago.”
Katie covered her face with her hands. She couldn’t believe it. After everything, she had let it slip. James... poor James. She let out a moan, muffled through her hands. “I’m weak.”
“No,” Auri said, her voice so forceful that Katie dropped her hands, surprised. “You are not weak. I’ve seen men twice your size crack in half the time. You are strong, but Calico always gets what he wants.”
“Not today,” Rocky said, and Katie realized he had gotten off the cot and walked to the entrance of the chamber where the Supers were imprisoned. He turned toward them, his face serious, bathed in the green light that emanated from the tubes. “Can we free them?”
“Well, I—” Auri began.
“Can we?” Rocky interrupted. There was a power in his voice Katie had never heard, a forcefulness. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but he seemed taller, more steady. The sarcasm he usually carried was completely gone. Such a change frightened Katie, but she knew what he was feeling. He was angry, ready to fight. And so was she.
“We can try,” Auri said slowly. Katie suddenly understood why she was hesitant. Auri hadn’t freed them to lead a resistance against Calico, to try to stop him. She had freed them to run away, to hide. Katie felt a burst of anger. After all they’d seen, all they’d learned, they weren’t just going to lie down and let Calico take over the world.
“We’re going to free them,” she said, meeting Auri’s eyes. She felt a fire she’d never felt before. “We’re going to free them and fight back against Calico. We’re going to save James and get the stone.”
“Hell yeah we are,” Rocky muttered, striding into the next room. Katie and Auri followed.
The Supers looked exactly as they had before, floating lifelessly in the eerie green water, all in a line—Avus, Ros, Leo, Lychnus, and Derek. Powerful men and women, reduced to nothing.
“What do you know about this stuff?” Katie asked Auri, nodding at the tubes.
“It’s a chemical compound that Calico confiscated from Dr. Duehimer when we raided his lab,” Auri said. She took a slight step back, her nose crinkled. “It’s like a straitjacket around us. It’s suffocating. It completely takes away our powers.”
“So they’re not hurt? They just can’t use their powers?” Rocky said, peering into the tube at Leo, whose long hair floated like a mane around his head.
“It also keeps them in an unconscious state, as you can see.” Auri pointed to the masks around their faces. “That supplies them with oxygen.” She pointed to a smaller tube, which led to a vein in their arms. “That supplies nutrients and liquids.”
“But why keep them like this?” Katie said. “What’s the end goal?”
Auri stared at the tubes for a moment, silent. “He could have killed them.” Her voice was quiet, almost a whisper. “But he didn’t. Maybe he hopes eventually they’ll join him. Or maybe he wants to show them his domination before he kills them. I don’t know.”
“Either way,” Rocky said, “let’s get them out of there.”
Auri strode to Avus’s tube and hit one of the buttons on the panel. The water immediately began to drain, disappearing from the bottom of the tube. Avus’s body floated down with it, his eyes still closed. He came to rest on the bottom, his knees bent awkwardly, his upper body exposed and dripping wet. But still he didn’t open his eyes.
Auri moved on to Ros and Leo. The water had completely drained from Avus’s tube by now, but his body was still limp, his eyes closed. Katie felt a stab of worry. So far, none of the three being drained had opened their eyes. What if the chemical had done more than take away their powers?
Auri reached Lychnus. She pressed the button, and the water sank down, past his head, to the top of his chest.
Lychnus opened his eyes.
Katie jumped in surprise, nearly letting out a scream. Lychnus’s eyes were a vibrant blue, almost electric. He looked around unblinkingly for a moment, gathering his bearings. Then he reached up and pulled the oxygen mask off his face and the IV from his arm. The water was still draining around his ankles when he reached up and made a clenching gesture with his hand.
The glass shattered around him. Katie and Rocky took hasty steps back as glass shards fell, clinking against the ground. As Auri moved onto Derek’s tube, Katie stared at Lychnus, her throat tight. She could feel the waves of power radiating from him, warming the room. He stepped out of the tube, seemingly unaware of the tiny shards of glass below his feet.
He turned to Auri, ignoring Rocky and Katie.
“Where is he?” he said.
Auri seemed as intimidated as Katie. She cowered slightly, as if afraid Lychnus would attack her, and said, “Lumbini.”
“The stone?”
“Yes.”
“Then we must hurry.”
The rest of the Supers seemed to be waking much more slowly than Lychnus. Leo shook his head, his wet hair flopping. Avus yawned and stretched. Ros rubbed her eyes with her fists, an oddly childish gesture. One by one, they shattered their tubes. Destroyed their prisons.
“Katie!” Derek tore out of his tube. He wrapped his arms around her, and she hugged
