I felt the bullets bounce off my head and chest first, then I heard the shots, and saw the flashes of light off in the distance.

I looked to my right and left straight away. Djinn had gone intangible on reflex so the bullets had passed through her. Mute had two hands up, palms out, also on reflex, and in his terror managed to stop the bullets aimed at him with his mind. They hovered there, in front of him in the air, like four semi-paralysed horse-flies.

That was our cover blown, then.

Aurora! I had forgotten for a moment. Where was she? I looked around desperately.

There on the floor, behind us, clutching her thigh and shivering in shock. She had been hit by a bullet.

Next to her on the ground, lying sprawled on his back, was her father. Blood seeped from several bullet holes in his suit. His eyes were not in focus and he did not move.

People screamed. The sound was becoming quite familiar to me now.

{Prioritise the target!} came Abram’s voice in my mind.

{‘Target’? What?} I thought.

{Aurora!}

{Aurora, right! Of course!} I wasn’t going to repeat the mistakes from my last mission. Mute and Djinn could take care of themselves.

Without thinking about it any further, I jumped on top of Aurora and covered her with my body, acting as a human shield. I had to pin her down by the shoulder with one arm to stop her rolling around, and I cradled her head with my other arm to protect it.

“Please, try and stay still!” I said to her as she writhed and wriggled, I imagined still from shock more than anything else. “I’ve got to protect you from being hit by any more bullets!”

I could hear more shots going off above me.

Even now, in this life-or-death situation in the middle of a gunfight, I could feel different parts of Aurora’s body underneath me that made me feel horrendously awkward. Just protect the girl, you creepy Weakling! I thought. Try not to think about the fact that she’s a twenty-something-year-old Australian supermodel!

I didn’t have to try not to think it for long, as apparently Aurora’s shock wore off: she opened her mouth, adding her voice to the chorus of screams echoing around the airport arrivals area.

There was a sound like the extended screech of a lorry breaking and I felt an invisible force slam into me, physically lifting me up into the air and sending me hurtling head over heels backwards twenty feet. I came down on my back, crunching into the gleaming airport floor where I left a Weakling-shaped dent.

I shook myself and got to my feet, shifting my attention into the mind link. {Djinn, can you get her out of here? Priority is the target!} I was disorientated, but I wasn’t going to mess this up—or almost mess this up—like the last mission.

{On it!} said Djinn in my mind.

I saw the gunmen now, for the first time. This time there were five of them. As usual, they were dressed in civilian clothes except that each wore a black balaclava over their head. They were carrying AK-47s, but had temporarily stopped firing them.

This is becoming too familiar, I thought. Why do these guys keep turning up in exactly the same places as us? I had been prepared from the briefing, but it still pissed me off. They had claimed more casualties, including Aurora’s Dad.

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{That doesn’t matter right now!} said Mute in my mind. He had heard my thoughts over the link. {Just concentrate on taking them out!}

Mute stood about twenty paces away from the gunmen, his hands still held out, a small swarm of bullets suspended in the air in front of him where he had stopped them all in their tracks. His telekinesis must be very strong right now.

I took in the situation. People around us were still screaming, but their screams were fading as they fled the area. Everyone wanted to get as far away from this attack as possible. There were more corpses sprawled on the floor than just Dan’s. Some people stayed at the side of their fallen loved ones, sobbing or pleading, but most just ran.

A way behind Mute, on the other side of him from the gunmen, Aurora was doing just that, kneeling at the side of her fallen father, her hands over her mouth, saying “No! Please! No!” over and over.

Mute had got himself between her and the gunmen. {Well done, Mute,} I couldn’t help from thinking.

{Don’t worry about congratulating me, just take out those bloody gunmen!}

{I have got Aurora to safety!} came the voice of Djinn. {I will be back to help you in a moment!}

A black shape appeared next to Aurora, then disappeared again in the next instant, taking her with it.

I had no idea where Abram had got to but, with the target safely out of the way, I knew what I had to do.

I rushed at the gunmen.

I was all too used to the dull sensations of being shot at now. I wasn’t scared or manic this time, I was just irritated.

Pock, pock went the bullets as they ricocheted off my face and chest.

“Why are you guys so stupid?” I shouted as I reached the gunmen and their eyes in their balaclavas went wide. “Don’t you know by now that you’re not going to win in a fight with me? Why do you keep trying this?”

They couldn’t hear me over the sound of their gunfire. I could barely hear myself.

As I reached the nearest gunman he cast his gun to one side and pulled out a glinting knife. It tore a gash in my civilian jacket, but just glanced off my arm underneath.

I caught his hand and twisted his arm around behind his back so he dropped the knife. He cried out in pain.

With my other fist I delivered him one of my trademark ‘weak punches’ to the side of the head. It was just hard enough to render him unconscious—I had been practicing at the Base. The man dropped to the floor.

Unable to keep myself from smiling to myself at my own skill, even in this horrible situation, I looked up for the other balaclavas.

Two of the remaining three had turned their guns on Mute, who was now flying through the air towards them, holding a growing cloud of their bullets in suspension in front of him. He had been practicing too.

As Mute came down he brought a vicious soccer kick across one of the Vipermen’s faces, sending him sideways to the floor and knocking him out as well.

For a moment it looked as if the gunman next to him was going to get a clear shot, but Mute was ready. Another bullet joined the cloud that surrounded Mute and hung in the air.

Djinn appeared behind the gunman with a shimmer and punched him hard in the back of the head. His eyes rolled backwards and he went over.

We were getting really good at this.

That left one.

This one wore a black suit along with his balaclava.

I hadn’t noticed in the chaos before, but this one wasn’t holding a gun.

{Why isn’t he holding a gun?} I thought as Mute and Djinn formed up on either side of me.

{Maybe he panicked and dropped it,} said Mute. {Try nonviolent negotiation strategies. Maybe we can get some intel out of him.}

{Sir, what do you think?} I thought over the mind link, for Abram.

No reply came.

{I teleported him a little way away to safety,} said Djinn. {I think he’s talking to Aurora.}

“Put your hands up!” I said to the black-suited balaclava-wearer, who stood only a few paces away from us.

“Or what?” he snarled. His voice sounded oddly familiar.

I frowned. Wasn’t it obvious? “Or we’ll have to incapacitate you. You’ve seen what my friends and I can do.”

Slowly, the man put his hands up above his head. His suit jacket stuck out a bit to either side with the awkward motion.

“Why have you come here?” I demanded of the man. “Why do you always know where we’re going to be? And why do you keep coming when you know you can’t beat us?”

The man said nothing. He had dark eyes, hard to make out in his headwear. All of a sudden, they twinkled.

The man began to laugh.

“Aha...” It leaked out as a little trickle at first, like he had been stopping himself from laughing and had lost his self-control for a moment. Then more laughter followed, building to a horrible, deep-throated, maniacal cackle. “Aha..ha...hahahahahahahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” His head wobbled in the balaclava.

{This guy’s mental,} said Mute in my mind.

I didn’t reply. I had realised where I recognised the voice from.

I walked towards the man. He carried on laughing, and brought his hands down from above his head to clutch his belly.

I reached the man and put a hand on top of his balaclava. He stopped laughing then.

I looked into his eyes. Dark, dark eyes.

I pulled off his balaclava, and looked straight into the face of…

...Dr Black.