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he was shielded against it. He wanted to be the only one with any powers, but your dad had managed to break through the force field protecting Ragnarök. Your dad almost destroyed the machine but he was too late; Ragnarök activated it at the last second.”
    “Since then,” Colin’s father said, “there have been no superhumans, heroes or villains.”
    “What happened to the villains?”
    “Most of them were caught and arrested,” his mother said. “Some just faded back into normal life. Max Dalton told us that he didn’t know whether Ragnarök’s power-damper would also affect people who hadn’t developed their powers yet.”
    His father said, “Colin…There are still a lot of people out there who would love to find out the real identities of the heroes. And none of the heroes have their powers now. There’s no way for them to protect their families if anyone learns the truth. No matter what happens tonight, you can’t let them know that you have powers too. Got that? If you mention any of this, you’ll be putting a lot of people in danger.”
    “You can trust me,” he said. “I doubt that anyone would believe me, anyway. It’s really true, though?”
    “It is.”
    “We’re almost there,” Colin said. “Duck your head, Dad. There’s a bunch of pipes going across.”
    “Can you hear anything?”
    “No…well, just traffic on the road above. Where do we go when we get out of here?”
    “We’ll have to get another car from somewhere. Something fast. After that, I don’t know.”
    Colin stopped suddenly. “Wait…Damn it! They’re waiting for us to come out! They’ve got both ends of the tunnel staked out!” He turned around to face his parents. “We’re trapped.”
    The doors at each end of the maintenance tunnel burst open and Colin could see silhouetted figures rushing in.
    Speaking softly and quickly, his father said, “Remember what I said, son! They can not find out that you’re a superhuman!”
    Colin swallowed, then nodded. Colin’s mother just put her arms around him and hugged him close. She was shaking.
    As the soldiers’ flashlights approached, Colin felt his father’s hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be OK, Colin. Trust me. We have an advantage.”
    Then they were facing four large, heavily armed men in army uniforms.
    “Stand apart from each other! Hands on your heads!” one of the soldiers shouted, his handgun raised and aimed at Caroline’s head. “Any resistance and the woman dies!”
    They were handcuffed and searched, then marched out of the tunnel.
    The black helicopter had landed, its rotors still spinning silently.
    They were forced into the copter, where Colin saw that Danny was unconscious, strapped into a seat. In front of him stood Mr. Cooper, a large semiautomatic weapon in his hands.
    The man said nothing until the ramp had been pulled back into the copter and they were in the air. “Just…sit still, do as you’re told, and all this will be over soon enough.”
    Warren swore at Mr. Cooper. “What the hell is going on, P.J.?”
    “I was under orders to watch Danny and make sure that nothing happened to him.” He turned back to Warren. “ You probably would have been left alone, but Danny told Colin about his abilities.”
    Colin looked toward his mother. He’d never seen her with that expression before: pure rage. “You are not Paul Cooper! And you’re certainly not Quantum. There’s only ever been one superhuman with shape-shifting powers. You’re Façade.”
    The man nodded. “Correct.”

9
    B LUE-WHITE LIGHTNING CRACKED ACROSS the lab’s computer banks.
    “Damn! It’s overloading!” Victor Cross shouted. “Shut it down before we lose everything!”
    One of the technicians raced toward the computers. “I’m trying!”
    “Try harder!”
    The technician began to pound furiously on the keyboard. “It’s not happening! The system is locked out!”
    Victor pushed him aside, then reached down and unplugged the computer from the power