After the Golden Age

TWENTY-SEVEN

“WHAT the hell is this?”

“Warren, keep your voice down. This is the first she’s slept all day.”

That was Arthur speaking. His chest rumbled under her cheek with the words.

“Then she didn’t spend the day in bed? What was she doing?” That was Suzanne, sounding as irate as Warren, or at least sounding as irate as she ever sounded.

Arthur sighed. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

“Am I to understand that you’ve … been spending time together. Or something?” her mother asked.

Celia imagined her mother’s arms were crossed. Suzanne’s voice made it sound like she’d crossed her arms. She supposed she ought to open her eyes and look. She shouldn’t leave Arthur to deal with this by himself.

“That isn’t any of your business,” Arthur said matter-of-factly.

Warren exploded. Not literally, though close to it. “You took advantage of her. She looked to you for protection and you—”

“Dad.” Celia emitted a dramatic-sounding groan as she sat up. “Stop it.”

“Celia, what the hell are you thinking!” He was on the verge of smashing something. Maybe he’d show a little more restraint in his own house.

The room was awash with a faint, chill light of early morning. She was still half sprawled on Arthur’s lap. Her parents must have walked in on them—embarrassing at any age. Arthur hadn’t woken her. He’d let her sleep. Or he didn’t care anymore if her parents knew. She met his gaze. He smiled thinly. Again, and always, she felt warm and safe.

Suzanne was, in fact, crossing her arms. Her gaze was worried, her brow furrowed and confused. “This … this isn’t so bad, maybe. You remember some of the boys she brought home in high school? This’ll take some getting used to, but at least we can trust Arthur—”

“Would someone we trust seduce our daughter, a girl he vowed to protect—”

Celia sat up straighter. “Actually, I think it was me.”

“What?” Warren said.

“I think it was me who seduced him.” Arthur’s hand rested on her back. She hoped he kept it there.

Warren sputtered a moment, then said, “Then he shouldn’t have let himself get seduced!”

“Warren, please stop shouting,” Arthur said. Celia couldn’t tell if he’d wrapped any power in the command. Mostly, he sounded tired.

“I’m not shouting! Mentis, this is … outrageous! She’s my daughter.”

This was him finding her in the Destructor’s lair all over again. Small comfort that he wasn’t actually yelling at her. She wondered: had he not been as upset at the thought of her joining his enemy as he had been at the thought of her sleeping with his enemy?

“Warren—,” Suzanne said tiredly, rubbing her forehead like she had a headache.

Arthur said, “She’s also an adult, or hadn’t you noticed? I certainly have.”

That sent a warm and pleasant rush through her gut.

Her father, however, roared. They all knew him well enough to recognize what came next: he cocked his arms back, preparing to launch a wall of force that would knock his enemies aside. Except this time his “enemies” were in his own living room.

Warren’s attention focused on Arthur, but Celia was caught between them. She let out a short scream and huddled forward, arms protecting her head.

“Stop!” Arthur called out, reaching forward with a hand. The single word shook the room, rattled through their minds.

Warren made a choking gasp of pain and clutched his head. He stumbled back, but didn’t quite fall.

“Will you two stop it!” Suzanne put herself between the two men, pointing an arm at each of them as if ready to let out a blowtorch. Celia looked up, hesitating—surely her mother wouldn’t lose it, too.

Arthur put his arm protectively around Celia’s shoulders and glared at Warren, who was straightening, muscles trembling with tension.

If she had known she’d cause this much trouble, she’d have let the bus carry her into the river.

She peeled herself from Arthur’s grasp. “Look, I’m sorry. This shouldn’t be such a huge, end-of-the-world deal, but apparently it is. I’m sorry.”

She started to leave, to stomp back to her room and take a painkiller.

“Celia, wait,” Suzanne said. Celia waited. “This is about us, not you.”

She indicated the three of them. The three grown-ups, Celia thought, even now reverting to the old way of looking at them. It didn’t matter that most people, seeing Celia and Arthur walking hand in hand down the street, wouldn’t look twice at them. In a different world, they might have met in college. They might have met when she did his tax returns. In a different world, this would have been normal. But Warren and Suzanne saw something different.

Celia crossed her arms and wished she could hide while the three of them exchanged glares.

Suzanne suddenly pointed at Arthur. “Don’t you go trying to convince me this is all right!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Arthur said softly. He looked at Celia.

They could run away, she thought, staring back at him. Flee the city. If her parents couldn’t handle it, then they could leave Commerce City altogether.

—And what of the city?—

He was one of its protectors. He couldn’t leave. Neither could she, or she’d have done it already.

Suzanne continued. “It’s just … it’s just going to take some getting used to.”

“I understand,” Arthur said. “What if we promise not to get caught snogging on the sofa like a couple of teenagers?”

Warren sputtered; Suzanne hiccupped. She put her hand over her mouth. Then, she was giggling, and she wiped tears from her eyes.

“Okay,” Suzanne said finally, recovering to a point.

“Bah!” Warren rolled his eyes and stalked out of the room.

Celia couldn’t have hoped for better than that, really.

Arthur had known what to say to calm them down, or at least to diffuse the situation a touch. He said to Suzanne, “Did you have any luck with Breezeway?”

“No. The police are charging him with breaking curfew. No bail’s been set.”

“Damn. That means the rest of us are targets.”

“Not until nightfall. I’m going to make some breakfast.” She crossed her arms as she left, as if she were still holding something back.

Arthur let out a sigh. “That went well.”

Celia giggled, and returned to the sofa and his arms, giddy with … something.

“JUSTIN RAYLEN IS BREEZEWAY!” shouted the front page of the morning paper, alongside a mug shot of a surly man in his twenties, with a flop of sandy hair above a slim face. Celia recognized that face, but only if she imagined a mask over the top half of it, and a broad, cocky grin. In the mug-shot photo, he still had some of that brash air. But he glared like he wanted to hit someone. Like maybe the person standing behind the camera.

The police had released his secret identity, apparently out of spite. She imagined the scene at the police station. How many officers had it taken to hold him down before they could take off his mask? How much weight did they hang on him to keep him from going airborne? Had his winds scoured the police station, sending papers and debris flying? Had anyone gotten hurt, so they could lay those charges on him as well? So far, the police had charged him with breaking curfew and resisting arrest.

The morning news shows were worse. They’d tracked down Justin Raylen’s girlfriend, Marjorie Adams, a waitress at a downtown diner—Analise’s favorite diner, in fact, and wasn’t it a small world? Cameras chased her—a familiar scene that gave Celia a dose of déjà vu—as she fled to what looked like an apartment. They focused intrusively on her tear-streaked face; over and over again, she told them she had no comment, she didn’t want to talk to anyone, just leave her alone.

One intrepid reporter found Marjorie’s mother. “No, she had no idea what he was. He always told her he worked nights, that he was on call at his job, and that was why he disappeared all the time. She never guessed he was Breezeway. How could she?”

Celia had an urge to call Marjorie, to tell her it wasn’t so bad having a superhero in your life. She wasn’t sure the young woman would appreciate it.

She found herself hoping her parents would sit this one out. Maybe they’d take to heart what happened to Breezeway and Typhoon, and not get involved this time. But they wouldn’t stop. They’d been doing this for long enough; that ought to at least reassure her that they knew what they were doing.

After the newspaper and a cup of coffee, and after changing into jeans and a sweater, Celia went to the guest room where Analise slept. She knocked, listened, heard nothing. Softly, she opened the door. Inside, the lights were off, the curtains drawn.

She crept into the room, opened the curtains, and put a chair by the bed, to sit and wait.

Once the room grew light, Analise turned, stretched, and hissed in pain. She touched her bandaged shoulder and opened her eyes.

“Hi,” Celia said.

Analise rubbed her face, then pulled off her mask and threw it aside. She lay back on the pillows, staring past Celia’s shoulder to the far wall.

Celia could sit there all day, watching her friend, waiting for her to say something, but Analise didn’t look like she was ready to talk.

“I brought you some clothes to change into. There’s coffee and bagels in the kitchen,” Celia said. “I can clear the place out, if you don’t want to see anyone. Or you can sleep all day. Or something.”

Analise was stubborn. She was just as capable of lying there, silent, as Celia was of sitting there. More than anything, though, Celia hadn’t wanted her to wake up alone in a strange place after all that had happened. Typhoon didn’t have a team like the Olympiad to back her up, or to pick up the pieces.

“Mentis,” Analise said finally. “I could feel him in my mind, shutting me down.”

“He thought it was best. He didn’t want you to panic.”

“He had no right.”

“No, he didn’t.”

Analise bit her lip and rolled to her side, so that Celia had even less chance of looking her in the eyes. She’s going to crawl into a hole and never come out.

“He knows who I am. What am I going to do, Celia?”

Two rooms over, some eight years ago, Celia had woken up in her bed the morning after the Destructor had abandoned her, after her throw-down, screaming argument with her father. She wouldn’t let either of her parents approach her, and Celia remembered the profound look of hurt on Suzanne’s face, the reddening that meant tears were on the way. Celia couldn’t have hurt her mother more if she’d stabbed her in the gut and wrenched the knife. Mentis and Robbie had had to corner her, calm her down, and take her home themselves, where the telepath had finally made her sleep.

Convenient, being able to knock out anybody you had a problem with at the moment.

She’d woken up and asked herself, What am I going to do?

After Appleton arrested, then released her, she’d ended up packing a duffel bag and going to a homeless shelter.

To Analise she said, “You take it one day at a time. You move on.”

“But what I did—”

“One day at a time, Analise. My parents will probably let you stay here as long as you need to. This is all part of something bigger. We’re trying to clear it up.”

“We? You a hero now? You going to help save the world?” She smirked bitterly.

“I’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything. It’s down the hall.”

Analise stared at the wall, eyes closed, hand on her forehead.

Her mother was alone at the table when Celia returned to the kitchen. She held a mug of coffee in both hands and pretended to read the paper.

“How long? You and Arthur, I mean,” Suzanne said.

Slowly, Celia took a seat and tried to catch her mother’s gaze, but Suzanne wasn’t looking up.

“Not long,” she said. It wasn’t her mother’s business. It wasn’t anyone’s business. She resented the need to defend this. If he had been anyone else, some stranger she could have invited over for dinner, Suzanne would have been ecstatic.

“I know you’re both consenting adults, and I shouldn’t say anything, but … but it’s very strange. He’s known you since you were young.”

“I know,” Celia said, looking away. She hadn’t realized how securely she’d locked her old life away, that it took effort to dredge up those memories now. That it was like she’d died and become someone else. “After I went away, though … I came back, and everything was different. Everything.” That was all she could think to say. Her only explanation.

Finally, Suzanne looked up. She was smiling. “I still see the little girl in braids and a white dress. I’m sorry, I always will.” She quickly brushed away tears.

Celia’s throat closed up. God, now Suzanne had her doing it. If she opened her mouth, she might burst. So she came around the table to Suzanne, knelt by her, and gathered her into a hug. Suzanne needed it, and it didn’t cost Celia anything.

“He’s the only person who sees me for what I am, Mom,” Celia whispered. Suzanne squeezed harder.

Someone cleared her throat.

Analise stood in the kitchen, her gaze on her feet. She wore the T-shirt and sweatpants borrowed from Celia and carried a wadded-up mess of blue fabric in her hands—her costume and mask.

“Oh!” Suzanne said, recognition dawning. “Oh my—can I get you some coffee? Analise, isn’t it?”

Analise nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Celia pulled out a chair and made her friend sit. “You decided to get out of bed.”

“Had to sometime.”

“Without the mask.”

“I don’t think I can do that anymore.” She dropped the costume on the table and grimaced at it.

She’s going to give it up, Celia realized. The idea of it seemed wrong, out of alignment with the rest of the universe. She couldn’t give it up; she was the next generation the Hawk was talking about. Wasn’t she?

“Celia, you knew all along, didn’t you? That Typhoon, and she—”

“Yeah,” Celia said.

Handing Analise a cup of coffee, Suzanne said, “I have to ask: How on earth did you two meet?”

“By accident,” Celia said. “It turns out I have a knack for recognizing supers without their masks. God knows how that happened.”

Analise gripped her mug with both hands, as if it were an anchor. “Are you going to hand me over to the cops?”

“No,” Suzanne said. “I might think about talking you into turning yourself in. But not right now. Not until everyone calms down.”

“You’ve done this for how long, and you never killed anyone in all that time,” Analise said, low and tired, so unlike her. “And here I am—”

“Oh, I’ve killed,” Suzanne said. “We all have.”

“Bad guys, sure.” As if that made a difference. “In self-defense. What am I going to do?”

“You’re going to wait here,” Suzanne said calmly. “We’re going to let things settle and make sure you get a fair hearing.”

Analise frowned, making her whole face pucker. She wasn’t used to taking orders or listening to advice. She wasn’t used to waiting. But she nodded now, no wind left in her sails. She was broken. Celia hated seeing her like that.

The men had retreated to the command room, waiting for the next crisis. Celia didn’t think anything would happen during the day. The explosions always came at night. She wondered how Arthur and her father were getting along. Probably ignoring it, pretending like nothing had happened.

Robbie suddenly appeared in the kitchen. He’d run from the command room, followed by his trademark wind, which ruffled the women’s hair. To them, however, he just appeared.

“The Strad Brothers aren’t finished yet. Or maybe not the Strad Brothers. It’s a new MO. It could be somebody brand-new. It isn’t robberies this time—it’s bombs.”

Celia stood. Suzanne was already on her feet, but she stepped forward, an intent look on her face.

Leaving another breeze behind him, Robbie disappeared, back to the command room.

“It is the Destructor,” Suzanne said softly. “We should have known, no jail can hold him—”

But Celia knew that wasn’t right. She’d seen the Destructor, Simon Sito, a shriveled old man ranting in his cell. The three women followed Robbie to the command room.

On the view screens in the darkened room, Celia saw the nightmare her parents had always dreaded, the vision of what would happen if they failed to stop the Destructor or any of the other ultraambitious villains who’d come along: fires burning, the city in ruins. Their city, her home.

One screen showed a map of the city. A half-dozen flashing red dots marked trouble spots. They lay scattered all over the city: one by the harbor, another by the university, a couple in the south end—one of them only a few blocks from her apartment. None of them was in the downtown area, near West Plaza. And none of them was in the northeast warehouse district. Those areas showed dark.

The other screens flashed between images captured on security cameras or broadcast by news teams. Fires burned everywhere. Flames engulfing buildings filled up the screens. Firefighters ran, lugging hoses. Water and fire retardant sprayed and arced toward the blazes, seemingly futile. The liquid droplets were so tiny.

“The bombs went off simultaneously,” Robbie explained, his voice steady and somber. “Incendiary, rather than explosive. Like whoever did this wanted to set half the city on fire, to keep us fighting all day rather than causing one round of damage and letting us pick up the pieces. This is about chaos.”

“We’ll help,” Warren said. “Suzanne, do you think—”

Her lips turned up wryly. “Fighting fire with fire? Maybe. Find out where the flames are spreading fastest and I can try to create firebreaks.”

“Me, too,” Robbie said. “Scare up a little wind, steer the flames back on themselves.”

Warren turned to Arthur. “Doctor?”

“I’m sure I can think of something.”

Typhoon stared at the screens without blinking. “I should go. This was made for me—”

Suzanne touched her shoulder. “No. You’re hurt, and you’re wanted by the police. Stay here, monitor the situation, stay by the radio. If we need your help, we’ll call you.”

Celia was shocked when, instead of arguing, Analise nodded and sank into the chair by the computer.

Warren had already marched to the hangar elevator.

Suzanne quickly smoothed back Celia’s hair. “Hopefully this won’t take too long.”

“Just be careful,” Celia said.

Suzanne and Robbie—no, Spark and the Bullet—joined her father, Captain Olympus.

Arthur hesitated. Without a word—without even a thought for once—he gripped the back of Celia’s neck and kissed her on the lips, quick and heartfelt. He drew away quickly, looking in her eyes before he turned to join the others.

The Bullet was sputtering. “Hey—what? What the hell was that—”

The elevator doors closed on the quartet before Celia heard the others’ response.

Her lips were still tingling.

“What happened to the cop?” Analise said.

“I don’t know,” Celia said, and she didn’t. At the moment, Mark was out in the city somewhere, dealing with the bombings, with the fires and chaos. Saving the city. “Are you okay? I mean, really okay. I know you want to be out there—”

“No,” Analise said. “I should. I should want to, but … Do you have a glass of water? Is there a glass of water somewhere?”

“The kitchen.”

Analise stood and ran from the command room. Celia followed more slowly. She still had a headache.

When she arrived in the kitchen, Analise was filling a glass from the faucet. When it was full, she set it on the counter by the sink and glared at it. Both hands braced on the edge of the counter, her back bent, her face puckered in concentration, she watched the glass like she expected it to get up and dance.

“I can’t do it anymore,” Analise said, with a strange calm. “I ought to be able to make that water jump out of there. I ought to be able to soak the whole kitchen with it. I can’t do it.”

Celia didn’t know what to say. She managed to choke out, “You’re just tired. You’ve had a shock. You’ll get it back.”

“What if I don’t want it back, Celia?”

Would Analise be Analise without the part of her that was also Typhoon?

Analise picked up the glass and drank all the water out of it. She finished, wiped her mouth, and gave Celia a bitter smile. “Guess I’d better keep an ear on the radio like your parents asked.”

Head bent, she went back to the hallway that led to the command room.

Celia didn’t know what to think.

She went to the living room and the windows. From here, she could see the smoke rising from three of the fires. The two on the south end were close together, the harbor fire a ways off to the right. Pillars of black rose into the washed-out sky, pulsing as they grew and shrank, as new flames fed them or other flames were put out. A gray haze filtered the sun, bathing the city in pale orange light. News and police helicopters swarmed like moths.

The whole city could burn to the ground in hours, if no one was there to fight it.

Her phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Celia? It’s Mark. I don’t know who else to go to. You’re in the middle of this as much as I am. You seem to know more about it than I do.”

He sounded panicked, as if the Destructor was breaking down his door then and there. “Mark, what is it? What’s wrong?”

“This is all a distraction, isn’t it? Like the kidnapping plots, like all the crime sprees. Something else is at the heart of it. I think I’ve found it. There’s a place, a building, the Leyden Industrial Park.”

Celia’s nerves stretched, as if they all waited to snap at once. She stared out at the burning city.

Mark continued. “The place was supposedly mothballed fifty years ago, turned over to the city for urban development. It was slated to be demolished for the highway plan, but that got held up. Celia, the place is active. My father’s been channeling money out of his office. Embezzling.”

Embezzling. That spoke to her line of work, and the professional side of her interrupted him. “Mark, how do you know? What evidence—”

He kept talking, like he had to get it all out at once before he lost his nerve. “Phony payroll, phony contracts, grant money to nonprofits that don’t exist.” All rote stuff, downright mundane. Paulson deflected attention from such activity with smoke and mirrors—with an orchestrated crime wave. “There’s more. I found evidence of payoffs to all the robbery suspects, and the bus hijacker. The rest of the money is going to this Leyden Industrial Park.”

Pieces snapped into place, almost too neatly. If Mark had all this evidence, he could serve his father up on a platter.

If he could turn in his own father.

“Mark, we shouldn’t be talking about this on the phone.”

“I’m going there, to the Leyden building. I have to see for myself.”

“No, you should call the police.” But he was the police. “Call for backup. You don’t know what he’s doing, he could have an army in there—”

“Will you meet me there, Celia? I need to talk to you. I need your help.”

“Yes, of course,” she said without thinking.

“Meet me there in an hour.”

“Mark, hold on, you shouldn’t—”

He hung up. She growled at the phone. He was being an idiot. He only had half the pieces and couldn’t see the whole picture. He probably thought his father was running some sort of gambling or drug ring. He probably thought he could talk to Paulson, make him see reason, convince him to turn himself in. He wouldn’t be able to stand up to Paulson and arrest the guy.

If she got there first, maybe she could talk him out of it. Maybe his call to her was a suicide’s cry for help. She ran to the foyer, then hesitated, thinking of Analise in the Olympiad command room. No, her parents might need Analise where she was, able to survey the entire city and monitor police activity. They might need her more than Celia did.

Celia entered the elevator. Inside, she punched the button for the parking garage. Going down.