After the Golden Age

TWENTY-SIX

SUZANNE returned from discarding her civilian clothes. She was Spark, now. When the costumes came out, they ceased being her parents and became the four-color heroes of legend.

“Suzanne, what do you possibly think you can do?” Arthur said.

“I don’t know.” Spark paced back and forth along the computer console. “I have to be ready. They might need me.”

The news channels had finally gotten cameras to the harbor area, though the police forced them to keep a wide berth. Pierson Street was completely flooded, as if a tidal wave had crashed in and scoured the place. No one had been killed outright, but two police officers were missing, and feared swept out to the harbor. Typhoon had disappeared during the confusion, and one officer reported seeing the Bullet—briefly.

Reports were mixed as to whether the police had fired at Typhoon before or after she released the tidal wave.

All Celia, Suzanne, and Arthur could do for the moment was watch the jerky, static-laden images from the news cameras, listen to the sensationalist commentary—talk of the superhumans gone rogue, of a new criminal mastermind taking over—and listen for the latest reports on the police radio.

Then Captain Olympus buzzed the Olympiad’s emergency line. The flashing red light made them all flinch; Spark pounded the button to reply.

“Yes, Captain, we’re here,” she said to the speaker.

“We’re coming up from the garage. We have injured.” He cut off the line.

Without comment, Spark ran to the back of the room and the elevator that led straight to the subterranean passage, where the Olympiad gained access to its hangar and vehicles. Arthur, more calmly, went to a supply locker hidden behind a secret panel that lay flush with the slick wall and removed a first-aid kit.

Celia waited by the table. She’d only get in the way if she tried to help. The injury couldn’t be serious—a graze, a twisted arm. There was only so much they could do with a first-aid kit. She liked to think if the injury were serious, her father would swallow his pride and go to the hospital. Take Robbie to the hospital—no way was Warren the injured party.

The elevator door hissed open. Captain Olympus exited first, assisting someone, a woman, her arm over his shoulder. Spark went to her other side to help, bringing her into the light. It was Typhoon, her blue suit damp and shining with water—and blood. The Bullet followed them to the table.

Typhoon was walking under her own power. She just seemed weak. Her taut jaw made her face, or what was visible of it, a picture of grim forbearance.

Stunned, Celia pulled a chair out from the table and offered it to her.

She’d keep her mouth shut. Until Analise said something, she’d keep her mouth entirely shut. She stepped out of the way as her parents helped the young woman into the chair. Then, the bloody gash in her shoulder became visible. It had been bound with a strip of cloth. The wound had mostly clotted, but rivers of blood streaked Typhoon’s arm. Not life-threatening, but the shock and blood loss were probably telling on her. She kept shaking her head.

Celia caught Arthur’s gaze. Don’t tell, she thought at him. Don’t tell them who she is.

He nodded.

“A shot grazed her,” Olympus said. “I thought it best to get her to safety.”

“I feel so stupid,” Typhoon muttered. “They started shooting at me and I just lost it. I never lose it like that when the bad guys are shooting.”

Spark said, “It’s because you know you’re better than the bad guys. The police confused you; they’re supposed to be good guys.”

“They still are,” Arthur said. He knelt by her and got to work, peeling off the makeshift bandage and dabbing at the wound with a gauze pad. “They believe they’re following orders and protecting the city, just as we are. Best not forget that. We’re all being played, I fear.”

“By the Destructor?” Typhoon said. “It’s his style.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“You didn’t have to do this. I’d have made it out on my own.” She tried standing, as if she really were well enough to walk out of there.

Olympus put his hand on her shoulder and held her in place. No one could argue with that grip, and Typhoon didn’t have a body of water nearby to help her. “You’re staying.”

“I’m not taking my mask off.”

“No one told you to,” Olympus said.

Typhoon … Analise—Celia was getting confused—caught her eye and glared briefly. Keep quiet.

So be it.

Celia leaned against the table and watched the news broadcasts. The police had issued a warrant for Typhoon’s arrest. The bulletin warned the public that she was dangerous. Not armed and dangerous, Celia noticed.

On one station, helicopters panned searchlights over Pierson Street. Rivers of water ran along gutters to pour back into the harbor. That wave must have been incredible, a wall of water as tall as the buildings sweeping down the street. Red and blue police lights flashed off glistening brick and concrete. Dozens of cops scouted the area; out on the water, divers searched from a police boat. They wouldn’t stop until they’d found the two missing officers. Their condition would determine which way this whole business swung.

She turned off the mute key on another monitor, showing a different news station. A woman anchor intoned, “… have word that another of the city’s superhuman vigilantes has broken the mayor’s curfew. This is an exclusive report. Gina, what do you have for us?”

The scene switched to the jerky video from a news helicopter—and why the hell weren’t the reporters being hauled in for breaking curfew?—and the rough sound feed filled with background noise.

“Thank you, Paula. Reports say that Breezeway has been sighted in the lower downtown area. A police helicopter has been dispatched. Now, we’ve been ordered to stay out of the area, but our cameraman thinks we have a good chance of spotting something if we— Hold on. Wait a minute. Yes, there. Can you see that?”

The view zoomed abruptly as the cameraman brought a distant point into focus. The shot was wobbly, vertiginous, but the tableau became visible. A speck, which resolved into a human figure, streaked across the view, flying thirty feet above the tenement rooftops. The camera sped along to keep up with it. Two helicopters approached from opposite directions, apparently hoping to cut off Breezeway’s path. They should have known better than to try something like that. Breezeway was setting them up for a spectacular, cinematic head-on collision designed to make them look like idiots.

Reporter Gina continued. “You probably can’t hear it, but the police in one of the helicopters are calling over a loudspeaker for Breezeway to turn himself in to avoid charges of resisting arrest.”

Gina was right, her microphone didn’t pick up the loudspeaker, but Breezeway’s form shot ahead, speeding up, a response that would surprise no one. The two police helicopters swung around to follow, one of them climbing in altitude, the other one dropping, as if they could sandwich him between them.

Celia never thought she’d be rooting for Breezeway.

The camera managed to continue tracking the flier. The superhuman had veered left, apparently heading toward the uptown district where he could lose himself among skyscrapers, where the helicopters wouldn’t be able to follow. She wondered: If she went to the roof, could she flag him down and offer him a place to hide out? West Plaza, home to fugitive vigilantes.

Then, the unexpected. A third police helicopter shot up from a hidden place behind a warehouse, in front of Breezeway, cutting him off. He pulled up, arcing away to avoid the new threat.

But they were ready for him. Something launched from the police helicopter, and suddenly Breezeway was dropping. Even Gina the reporter gasped in shock.

Breezeway didn’t keep falling, however. He stopped short, dangling some twenty feet under the helicopter.

“Paula, can we have a replay on that? What just happened?”

Back at the studio, the technicians worked their magic, magnified the image, enhanced it, and replayed it.

The police had fired a net, like something a big-game hunter would use to catch his quarry. Weighted at the ends, it flew at Breezeway and entangled him as soon as it struck. The net remained attached to a rope, which was connected to a winch inside the helicopter. The cops hauled him in as if he was a fish.

Breezeway struggled, swinging under the helicopter until they pulled him inside, but his power was wind and flight, not strength. The net trapped him.

“They got Breezeway,” Celia said, amazed, staring at the monitors.

The others joined her, equally entranced by the replay of the cops’ triumphant moment. Typhoon stood next to her, her shoulder newly swathed in clean bandages, holding the injured arm to her chest.

“Damn punk,” Olympus muttered, but he didn’t sound terribly righteous.

Gina ended her report. “We’ll be back as soon as we confirm that Breezeway is in police custody, and if they decide to reveal his secret identity. Back to you, Paula.”

Arthur said, “Celia, turn to the other station. That one, yes.”

Celia switched the sound over to the station that was covering the search in the harbor district.

“… missing officers have been found.”

Celia’s stomach clenched. She looked at Arthur, who watched the screen and gnawed at his lower lip.

“One of the officers was found clinging to the base of a pier a hundred yards from where he’d disappeared, with minor injuries. Unfortunately, the second officer was not so lucky. The body of Officer Douglas Grady was pulled from the river moments ago. Reports from the scene confirmed he drowned when a tidal wave swept him into the harbor. The police have issued a statement that Typhoon is now wanted for murder.…”

Typhoon turned away from the monitors and found the nearest chair. Lowering herself into it, moving in slow motion, she murmured, “It was an accident. I swear to God it was an accident.”

Arthur moved to her side. “We know, my dear. Look at me.” She closed her eyes and shook her head, until Arthur took hold of her chin and directed her. “Look at me.”

With the weight of his power behind the words, she couldn’t help but obey. Trapping her gaze in his, he murmured, “Sleep. Very good.”

She slumped into his arms without so much as a sigh.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Celia said, too tired to sound as irate as she wanted.

“Perhaps not,” Arthur said, easing Typhoon back. “But with the evening’s shocks, she’s emotionally ill-equipped to deal with this new information.”

“Who are you to decide that?”

“Would you rather have her lose control and burst the building’s water pipes?”

“She wouldn’t do that.”

“You can’t guarantee that.”

And she couldn’t.

Spark said, “We can put her in one of the guest rooms until she wakes up.”

“She’s going to be pissed off,” Celia said.

Olympus crossed his arms. “This wasn’t her fault. They can’t pin this on her.”

Arthur said, “Technically, it was. Maybe not murder, but they’ll want to charge her with manslaughter, maybe negligent homicide.”

“This was rigged. This is exactly the kind of bad press Paulson wants to pin on us to get us out of the way,” the Captain said.

“But why?” Spark asked.

“Does it matter?”

Ultimately, a universe filled with conspiracies was so simple, so elegant, a series of interlacing clockworks.

“We’re in a world of trouble, my friends,” the Bullet said.

“No more so than usual,” Olympus replied with false cheer as he gently picked Analise up and carried her in his arms.

Suzanne led him out, to show him which guest room to use. The Bullet followed.

“Sleeping out the night isn’t going to make things any easier for her,” Celia said to Arthur, who remained behind. “You just made it easier on the rest of us, not having to deal with her right now.” She hugged herself tightly and watched the monitors, which showed replays of Breezeway’s capture, of the police boat in the harbor, of a file photo of Officer Douglas Grady in uniform, proud and smiling.

“Perhaps,” Arthur said. He walked over to her, tentatively touched her shoulder. She wanted him to. She had begun to wonder if their time together that evening had happened at all—they both reverted to their rigid selves so quickly, so firmly.

Then, he squeezed her shoulder, put his arms around her. She leaned into his embrace, and he kissed the top of her head. How could he have been so afraid of emotion? His feelings for her wrapped her in a warm cocoon. She’d never have to wonder if he loved her.

He pulled away abruptly. She started to complain, but a moment later the others returned to the command room. She was sure she blushed as red as her hair. Arthur quietly watched the monitors. He’d had much more practice maintaining that mask of calm.

Suzanne and Warren had pulled street clothes—shirts and trousers—on over their skin suits. Suzanne had pinned her hair into a bun.

“Warren and I are going to try to post bail for Breezeway. If we’re lucky, maybe we can talk Chief Appleton into releasing him into our custody.”

Warren, the Captain, added, “Robbie, Arthur, I want you to stay here and monitor the situation. Don’t go out, unless it’s an emergency. We don’t want to give the cops an excuse to start shooting.”

Arthur said, “It begs the question: After all this, what constitutes an emergency?”

“The Destructor breaks out of the asylum?” Warren said, offering a cocky grin. He put his arm around Suzanne’s shoulders and the two of them left, side by side. Like they were just going to bail their kid out of jail or something.

Arthur huffed. “As if I’d be able to do anything about that.”

Nobody told Celia what she was supposed to do.

“Perhaps you could keep an eye on Typhoon,” Arthur said softly.

She nodded. She wanted to kiss him before she left, but Robbie was right there. Maybe if she imagined it, filled her mind with the thought of it, he’d read it there. He’d know.

—Later.— Was the thought he returned.

Thoughts weren’t enough for her, she decided.

She looked in on Analise, sleeping in one of the guest rooms down the hall. Her parents had honored her request and left her mask on. It must have been uncomfortable, but Analise was out cold and didn’t seem to notice. She lay on her back, arms folded over her stomach, head tilted slightly. She breathed deeply and seemed fine, for now.

Celia went to the living room to stare out the windows.

It was the same city. It couldn’t have been, though. The city she looked out on had turned hostile. A half-dozen police helicopters circled over various neighborhoods, at various heights, shining lights down on the streets. Where one of them focused a light on one spot, then circled around that spot, the craft looked like a toy spinning on an illuminated wire. She listened for the pounding beat of helicopter engines, but heard nothing.

She was lucky to be here, lucky to be safe within these walls, protected by the city’s heroes. Not out there, restricted by curfew, holed up, alone and afraid.

It was a different world, where she could return to her parents’ home and feel safe.

Absently, she rubbed her forehead. She ought to bandage it again. The throbbing of the stitches had been increasing all evening.

“You ought to sleep. You ought to have been asleep all day.” She turned. Arthur came toward her, hands in his pockets, his expression sheepish. “I couldn’t stay away. Robbie can watch the monitors by himself.”

In another step they came together, body to body, arms wrapped around each other.

“Don’t worry about the city. It’ll come out right. It always does. There’s nothing you can do just now.”

“I’ve got all these puzzle pieces,” she said, her voice tight, on the verge of tears. It was just stress—she wasn’t weak, she wasn’t breaking down. “I should be able to figure it out. I should be able to pin something on Paulson by now.”

Arthur guided her to the sofa, made her sit, then sat with her and eased her back until she was cradled on his lap.

She sat up abruptly. “You’re not going to make me sleep, are you?”

“That wouldn’t help you get rid of the headache, would it? No, Celia. Not like that anyway. Please rest, though. I’ll watch over you.”

He didn’t crawl inside her mind to shut it down, not like he did when he commanded sleep. He just held her, stroked her hair. When he said he’d keep her safe, she believed him. She slept.