Empowered: Hero

By Dale Ivan Smith

What happens when millions of people suddenly possess superpowers?

Mathilda Brandt thought she’d protected her family and freed the world, instead she’s unleashed forces that threaten to destroy both. She rescued her Empowered mother from RAMPART, but now her mother wants Mat to choose sides– Empowered over normal humans.

Her sister Ava is missing. Governments begin rounding up the newly Empowered, while other Empowered want to end the threat from normals once and for all.

With her own power suddenly erratic, and her connection to Gaia in jeopardy, how can Mat save those she loves and prevent the world from destroying itself?

Empowered: Hero is the fifth and final book in Dale Ivan Smith’s The Empowered series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dale Ivan Smith
• Release date: May 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005206000

Dale Ivan Smith

I love writing and reading fantasy and science fiction, and also enjoy watching fantasy and SF movies and TV shows. I love gaming of all kinds--board games, RPGs, video games.In grade school, I got into trouble for sneaking off to the school library during class, so naturally I ended up working for Oregon's largest public library system.

Book preview

1

The cavernous RAMPART control room at the South Pole glowed with golden light, and stank of burning flesh and drying blood, mixed with the powerful odor of moss.

I knelt beside the woman I’d thought had died twenty years ago—my mother, Michelle Brandt. She lay beside an open control pod. The pod showed a brilliant green and dangled on a cable from the ceiling. My mother had spent the last twenty years inside that pod.

It whispered a static-sounding dirge in my mind. Power filled me, and it filled my friends, Alex, Keisha, and the others.

My sister Ella stood behind me. The real Ella, not one of her projections.

Titan’s crushed body lay inside the other control pod a few feet away. Green ooze flecked with blood dripped on the ground. Ding-dong, the bastard was dead.

Titan had been an Empowered. Like all Empowered, he possessed a super-power. His was unique. He’d been able to copy the abilities of other Empowered. One of those had been another power believed impossible, to adopt the form of another Empowered. He’d tried to control the world and I’d killed him.

My mother reached up and stroked my face with trembling fingers. I can’t believe it’s you, Mat, she said, her voice weak. Her gaze flicked over my shoulder.

Ava? she asked.

I’m Ella, my sister replied. Ava’s not here. Ava and Ella were identical twins, but Ella possessed a power, while her twin did not. I wasn’t sure where Ava was.

I’m so sorry, girls, Michelle said. Her eyes closed, and she sank back down. I grabbed her before she slumped to the floor, cradling her.

Do we have a healer? I called over my shoulder.

A young Hispanic woman with green-dyed hair worn close to her head knelt beside me.

I am, ma’am, she told me. I swear her voice cracked, she was so nervous.

No 'ma’am'. Just Mat, I said, forcing a smile. Worry for my mom bubbled up inside me.

Jimena Cortez, ma’am. I mean, Mat. Call me Ena. She wore a short wool jacket over a sweater and jeans. Smart, since she’d come with the others to rescue me and Keisha at the South Pole. Ena closed her eyes and gestured, her fingers just inches from my mother’s skin.

I shivered. The station’s heating must have cut out. My Hero Council jumpsuit was torn, and I didn’t have gloves. Even though we were deep inside the RAMPART station, we were also at the South Pole and it was damn cold outside.

Ena’s hands hovered over Mom’s chest.

I fidgeted and glanced at Alex, who stood a little way away. He came and knelt on the other side of me. I grasped his hand, tight. He squeezed back. His warmth spread through me. My gaze must have been desperate, because he stroked my arm. My skin tingled, not the tingling I’d ever have imagined I’d feel. Not the thousand-needles-jabbing feel of another Empowered close by, but more like a gentle tickle with a feather.

You did it, Alex whispered. You found your mom and stopped the nasty guy.

I jerked my head at Keisha, who stood watching nearby, her arms crossed, then waved at the others.

"We all stopped him. Team effort."

Better believe that, bitch. Keisha grinned at me, white teeth flashing in her ebony face. Come on, Mat, cheer up. We did it.

Yeah. I’d be a lot happier once my mother revived, and we were back to wherever our latest sanctuary was.

My mother gasped. She stretched and sat up.

Are you okay? I stammered.

She smiled at me. I feel… fine. Ella and I helped her stand.

Thank you, she said. Her hand felt warm in mine. She wore a tan-colored jumpsuit, which fit her like a second skin.

It hit me then, like a two by four between the eyes—she looked so young, maybe twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, only a few years older than me. That was impossible. She had to be over fifty.

I glanced at Ella. She stood there like I’d smacked her between the eyes, staring glass-eyed at Michelle—Mom. But Ella had been a baby when our mother had died. She and Ava had never known her. I barely remembered her as it was.

What is it, honey? My mother asked me.

You’re… you’re so young.

Time is different inside RAMPART, she said.

How? I asked

Different, she replied. I must have frowned because her face softened. I’m sorry, Mathilda, that’s not a very precise answer, is it?

No.

I should have said it affects your metabolism, stops the aging process. Her expression looked sharper, she seemed more alert.

How?

She pursed her lips and stared off into space. I’m not sure, but it does.

People would beat down the door to get some of that, I said.

Her eyes focused on me again. It’s not that simple. Most people couldn’t interface with the system.

I looked past her at Ena. The healer shrugged. I don’t know, ma’am—Mat.

Then I remembered James Goldin, who was once known as Doctor Prometheus.

Of course, I’d been an idiot, again. We’d found Goldin inside another pod, in a secret station beneath an ancient Irish burial mound. The world had turned out to be full of secret stations, hidden bases, underground facilities, you name it.

Goldin had also been way younger than he should have been.

The knots in my stomach tightened at the memory of what had happened next.

He’d aged rapidly after we’d retrieved him, becoming wrinkled and ancient. He told me the truth about RAMPART, but before he could die of very old age, Titan murdered him. The Titan whose remains oozed from the pod behind me.

I searched my mom’s face. No sign of wrinkles on her smooth skin, no crow’s feet around her eyes, no gray in her hair. So young, but for how long?

She smiled. I’m fine, Mathilda.

I looked around the cavernous control room to see if anyone else looked worried.

There were two dozen of us here. Alex, Keisha, mom, me, Ena and the other Empowered and Imbued Alex had brought from wherever our sanctuary was now. Imbued were less powerful, they worked in pairs, threes, or even more in order to use their shared ability.

Don’t worry, Mathilda, Michelle said. I’ll be fine. Really.

I want to believe that, I said. But I watched James Goldin become ancient in hours.

I feel fine, she insisted.

I frowned. How can you know? I demanded. My face was hot.

Hey Mat, chill, Keisha said.

I glanced at my white-knuckled hands and tried to force myself to relax.

They’re coming, announced a gray-haired woman in denim overalls.

Who? I asked. I didn’t recognize her, which meant she’d joined our band of Empowered and Imbued while Keisha and I’d been trying to find this place and shut it down.

The woman’s eyes moved beneath her closed lids. Her arms were out from her sides, fingers splayed. Concentrating.

Who? I repeated. Fear squatted on me.

She didn’t answer. Her eyes remained closed. Concentrating.

The Hero Council. It had to be them. Coming to investigate. Coming to bring down the hammer of God on us.

A minute had gone by. I stood there like an idiot, staring at the gray-haired woman in denim.

Finally, she opened her eyes. Three teams of sanctioned Empowered, each in a raptor jet. One coming from Australia, the others from Chile. She coughed. They’re almost here.

The Hero council had wasted no time.

I frowned. But how had they known?

I faced my mother. This place was secret, right? I asked. Even from the Hero Council, right? Then how did they find out so fast?

She shrugged. I’ve been isolated for a long time, helping to maintain RAMPART. I was caught up in keeping all the wheels turning, so I don’t know how the word got out. There was no trace of anger, no disapproval aimed at me for shutting RAMPART down. Of course, she’d just revived from being in the pod, so who knew how she felt? She might not even know yet.

I’d had no choice, but that didn’t mean she’d agree. I filed that away for a future argument, if one happened.

Meanwhile, we had to act now.

Alex caught my look. The Dark-Net, he said. Go activate it, and we’ll follow.

Keisha nodded. I’ll jam the doors, she said, a wicked look in her eyes. She jogged toward the open entrance. The immense doors had slid part way out from the wall. Snow billowed past them into the cavern. Keisha began tapping on the control panel next to the doors. Swore. Tapped again. It’s dead.

The power must have been cut, Alex said. He ran to join her.

I forced myself to turn away and look for the Dark-Net’s node. I scanned the cavern, then found the ice-covered outcrop of ancient wood, like a giant tree stump projecting from a far wall.

The cavern rocked, and I staggered, fighting to stay standing.

A deep masculine voice thundered. I clapped my hands over my ears. This is Thunderclap of the Hero Council. Surrender and live. Resist and die. I advise you to surrender.

The cavern shook again. Thunderclap’s voice boomed across the icy expanse. Surrender and live. Resist and die. Choose life.

No shit, jerkwad! Keisha shouted. Just not taking your offer.

I smiled grimly. That was my best friend for you. Never say die, I shouted back.

I raised my arms and reached my power toward the ancient, frozen wood. The Dark-Net connected to Gaia somehow. Goldin created it in secret, half a century ago, as part of the RAMPART project. An escape valve for all the Gaia energy that streamed through the world, and which gave a handful of humans, like Keisha, Alex and me, superpowers.

It was like trying to slip through a mirror. My special sense slid away from the icy surface. I squeezed my eyes shut, and refocused myself by taking a deep breath, and then pushed again with my power, harder this time. Again, I slid off an invisible wall.

Sweat ran down my back. I clenched my jaw. Damnit, this had to work. Being captured meant going to special corrections for life, cut off from everyone we knew, even each other. The end of freedom. Dying might be a better choice.

I took another deep breath, filling my lungs with icy air. I had to do this. No question. The Dark-Net was born out of the great roots of the earth. I’d connected many times before.

I flexed my fingers, pressing my power for a third time toward the Dark-Net’s hidden portal. It had to open. It had to. Come on, I muttered under my breath. Open.

The ancient wood remained silent. My power slid away from the wood, like its surface was made of diamond. I couldn’t connect.

I can’t open it, I shouted over my shoulder at the others.

Alex sprinted to join me. I’ll give you a boost, he said.

Keisha and a few others stood watching the now-sealed entrance. They’d gotten the doors closed, but steam billowed in a cloud from the glowing, red-hot metal.

Fuck! Keisha yelled. She gestured wildly, and the door steamed even more. Someone on the other side melted the metal as fast as Keisha could reforge it. Heat versus heat, steam filling the room from both metal-working powers.

Alex put a hand on my shoulder, squeezed. Normally, that would get my heart racing, but my heart was already pounding.

I took another breath, but my heart went on pounding. It felt like an electric current ran through my body. My muscles tensed, relaxed, tensed, relaxed. My awareness swelled until I could feel every pore in my body. I began pressing my power into the ancient wood again. But my power slid away, just like last three times.

Behind me, metal screamed.

I whirled around. The doors had shattered. One of our people was down, blood pouring from him onto the ice. Keisha dropped to one knee, clutching her shoulder.

Tall figures in blue jumpsuits loomed outside. Two more flew toward us above the icy ground.

The first Hero Council strike team had arrived. Behind them, snow billowed up as two black Raptor VTOL jets touched down.

Let me help you, Alex said, and I felt the world open up around me. Power flooded every part of my body, making the hairs on my arm stand up. My eyes widened.

I’d gotten surges before, like the time I wore the amplifier, but this was different. An invisible crust cracked and even more power fell on me in an avalanche.

I stiffened, fighting not to scream from the pain shooting through me.

Screams erupted around me. I forced my eyes open even as I clenched my jaw, my teeth aching. People collapsed on the floor, clutching their heads. My mother lay unconscious, Ena sprawled beside her, out. Keisha still knelt beside the shattered door, but the two imbued who had run to join her had fallen. Outside, the blue jump-suited figures were down. One raptor had killed its engines, but the other continued to cycle. No one emerged from either aircraft.

Alex’s hand clutched my shoulder. His face contorted in agony.

What. Is. Happening? I forced the words through my teeth.

With. RAMPART. Down. Power. Surged. He managed to grit out his answer.

I’d been an idiot. I had to direct that energy. Or else we’d all be fried from the inside out.

Energy roared through me, and the electric tingle became scorching heat, swamping my thoughts. I screamed, somehow staying on my feet.

Waves of agony crashed through me. My hands closed on the node’s icy wooden outcrop. I had enough power flowing through me to grow a forest in a desert. I reached with sense, once more, into the wood.

If. Only. I. Could. Open. It. We. Could. Escape.

Pain seared me, whiting out the world.

An ancient forest, frozen deep beneath the control center. There were roots, lots of roots. Roots. I could work with roots.

I inhaled icy air, closed my eyes. I’d never mastered the art of overloading my power with open eyes. When I pushed myself, I always had to close my eyes.

It focused me. I extended my senses down into the ice, pushed through the ice. Down, down, down, seeking an ember of life in the frozen, dead ground.

Ice had entombed Antarctica for millions of years, but once upon an ancient time, green things grew here.

My power touched ancient roots. Millions of years dead. Fossilized. No life there. But the echo of life was still there. The patterns.

Even more power, like molten lava, surged up inside me. In my mind, the Amazon’s jungle loomed around me. Thousands of miles away, but I reached into it with my power, and linked myself to that frozen potential below.

I could smell a sharp, spicy scent from the jungle trees, and that scent went through me and down, down, down, into the ice, through it to the frozen roots.

Grow. Grow. Grow, I urged silently.

Every cell in my body screamed as power poured through me, the Gaia force unleashed, poured through me and into those long dead roots and the fossilized seeds around them.

The pain crashed in my mind and I groaned, then my groan became a whimper.

Someone stroked my arm, then yelled. Alex. I didn’t know, only feared.

Ice shattered with a roar. People shouted and screamed. The world rocked again. I staggered and fell.

Blackness reared up and smacked me into silence.

2

Icoughed and pulled myself up into a sitting position. The overload of power that had exploded inside me had vanished.

I coughed again, opened my eyes and looked around me.

The control room was wrecked. Dozens of the living coils hung from the ceiling, blackened. Dead. Snow pellets scurried across the floor. A huge hole gaped in the outside wall. Green ooze had frozen around shards of the broken wall.

Without RAMPART containing it, Gaia’s energy had surged. But I hadn’t seen past taking down RAMPART. With mega-storms brewing, the only thing I could think of was freeing the Gaia force. The ultra-tech chains Goldin and the others had built had been the problem, despite what that fucker Titan had said.

Huge oak tree trunks now covered it, like the gate of some ancient fortress, three trunks thick, overlapping barrier as hard as steel. My power had worked.

It was as cold as hell in the control room and getting colder. Keisha lay beside the Emergency exit. Others lay on the floor, snow edging them. Beside me, Alex groaned but didn’t open his eyes.

I reached out toward him.

He’s all right, my mother said.

I jerked in surprise. She stood beside the wooden stump-like outcropping that was the node.

How can you be so sure?

"His heart rate and respiration are even and strong. The others, too.

I whirled to face the emergency doors. The Hero Council strike teams. I peered into the swirling snow storm. Visibility had dropped to next to nothing. The raptor VTOL jets had disappeared behind a wall of white.

What about them? I nodded my head outside.

Two are dead. The other ten are unconscious. There was no regret or sadness in my mother’s voice. Just matter-of-fact.

How do you know? I looked at her.

She smiled.

The same way I know your companions’ health. It’s an aspect of my power.

I wanted to know what she meant, but there was zero time for that.

We’ve got to get the hell out of here. Escape through the Dark-Net, I said.

You mean the Shunt? My mother asked me.

I frowned. Shunt? That’s what you call the Dark-Net?

It’s what James, Doctor Goldin, called it when he introduced me to the system.

It’s a hyper-spatial thing, right? I shivered again. Another thing that would have to wait.

She laughed again, her eyes bright. She had recovered damn fast. I like how you put things, she said.

I stepped up to the node, stroked the wood. I had to try again one more time. I closed my eyes and gently pressed my power at the wood.

Just like the last times, my power slid off the node. I clenched my jaw.

Let me help, Alex said behind me, with a groan. He wobbled on his feet but still stood beside me. I’d been so focused that I hadn’t seen him get up.

I still can’t open the node, I blurted. Panic crept into my voice. I sucked in the icy air. It didn’t calm me.

His hand clasped my shoulder. Power flowed into me. It was like sticking your hand into a light socket. I jerked away from him, every nerve on fire.

His eyes widened. What’s wrong? His outstretched fingers reached for me, then he clenched them and pulled his arm back.

Sorry, I said. "I’m still hurting from the