After the Golden Age

TWENTY-NINE SUZANNE West wore red to her husband’s funeral. It was the talk of the society pages

, as was the fact that she brought Spark’s costume and threw it into the grave, along with what was left of Captain Olympus’s. That was all she did to announce her retirement. The Olympiad was finished.

Damon Parks attended the service. So did Analise Baker, Justin Raylen, and a few others Celia recognized when she imagined them wearing masks. Like the middle-aged man with his arm over the shoulders of a skinny young punk—the Block Busters. Father and son, clearly. Junior looked as shell-shocked as she felt—maybe imagining his own crime-fighting father in that grave. She almost went to give him a hug.

Everyone was very polite and said wonderful things about Warren West and his service to the city. Celia and Suzanne held one another’s arms. Celia thanked everyone. Suzanne remained silent.

The four Stradivarius instruments, along with the prize koi—alive, barely, in a fifty-gallon aquarium—were found in the basement of the mayor’s mansion. Andrea Paulson threw herself across the door, refusing to let the authorities in, sobbing, vowing to stay loyal to her husband no matter what. She recovered from her nervous breakdown at Greenbriar, then filed for a divorce.

The day after Captain Olympus’s death, Breezeway—Justin Raylen—was released, all charges dropped. With his identity revealed, he did more charity fund-raising events than crime-fighting.

The Bullet and Dr. Mentis continued the work, doing what they could, as anonymously as they could. Without the team, they returned to their early days of running down muggers and trapping burglars. Crime rates stabilized, with nothing more sensational than the usual examples of urban malfeasance to combat.

It was as if the whole city was exhausted.

Typhoon never reemerged. The warrant for her arrest remained outstanding. The tabloids had a field day with the mystery of what had happened to her and offered rewards for the revelation of her secret identity. Many young women came forward claiming to be Typhoon, even in the face of the arrest warrant. Of course, none of them could so much as tip over a cup of water. Books came out retreading the mystery, offering vague solutions, defending the hero, vilifying her.

Analise collected the books, the papers. But she never came forward. She became manager of the record store where she worked, and volunteered at the rec center teaching inner-city kids how to swim.

Apart from a trust set up for Suzanne, Celia inherited everything.

For a long time after the company lawyer left their first meeting, Celia sat behind the desk in Warren’s penthouse office, the new owner of West Corp. The sleek, mahogany piece was a museum-quality example of high modernist design purchased by her grandfather. The thing was aerodynamic. Her fingertips skittered along the surface, smooth even after fifty years of constant use. Her father had left it in a state of disarray, pens scattered, file folders stacked in every corner, laptop computer still running. She’d have to clean it up, piece together what he’d been doing. She could do that.

The desk was her grandfather’s, but the chair had been Warren’s: large, leather, generously padded. Celia sank into it and felt lost. It had her father’s shape to it. She’d get a new one. Something more modest, unassuming. She’d move this one to … somewhere.

Suzanne appeared and leaned on the doorway. Celia blinked back at her, feeling about five years old and in over her head.

“I always assumed he wrote me out of the will,” she said starkly.

Her mother smiled. “He did, for a while. But he wrote you back in when you finished college. The West family is a dynasty. It’s up to you to continue it.”

Celia had spent the two weeks since the funeral bursting into tears at unexpected moments. She felt tears about to start, which wasn’t fair, because she hadn’t had a chance to talk to her mother in all that time. Suzanne had spent the weeks alone, looking at pictures, reading letters, with an attitude—clear in her hunched shoulders and bowed head—that said to keep away. If she started crying now, Suzanne might come over to comfort her—might start crying herself, and they’d comfort each other. But they wouldn’t talk.

“If he’d asked me to come work for West Corp, for him … if he’d ever just asked—”

“He’d never ask,” she said. “Neither would you. You are the two most stubborn people I have ever known.”

She turned and walked away. For dinner that night, she made lasagna, the first time she’d cooked anything since he’d died.

The Sito trial jury returned a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. Sito was remanded to the care of the Elroy Asylum. The trial might as well have not happened.

A year later, Anthony Paulson was tried and also found not guilty by reason of insanity. He’d been diagnosed with narcissistic megalomania. Like father like son, although that connection was never made public. He agreed to undergo treatment at the Elroy Asylum. Celia had a talk with the hospital’s management and convinced them that under no circumstances should Anthony Paulson and Simon Sito ever be brought anywhere near each other. They shouldn’t have known each other by sight, but Celia didn’t want to take chances. Coincidence didn’t exist in her father’s world, or in hers. Better to prevent the opportunity for fate to take a hand in events.

Mark Paulson visited his father once a month. Celia learned that he also visited Simon Sito once. Soon after, Sito suffered a heart attack. A second heart attack a month later killed him. It was a peaceful death that he didn’t deserve.

The detective worked like he thought he had to make up for both his father’s and grandfather’s misdeeds. Double shifts, countless hours of overtime. No number of promotions and commendations was enough, and he received many. At age thirty-five, he suffered a stress-related cardiac infarction.

Celia visited him at the hospital. It was déjà vu with a twist.

He couldn’t look her in the eye. He kept an embarrassed smirk on his face, like he knew he’d done something stupid.

Celia crossed her arms and glowered. “You really need to stop trying to prove you aren’t your father. I mean, look what happened when I did that.”

He chuckled painfully and spoke softly because of the oxygen tubes in his nose. “You turned out all right.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, so did you. You inherited the untainted mutation, the loyalty trait. You’d do anything to keep this city safe, and the city needs that. You have to keep yourself alive because of that.”

The smirk relaxed into a true smile and he sighed a breath of acquiescence.

“It’s really good to see you, Celia. I’m glad we stayed friends.”

“Me, too. We superhumans have to stick together.”

Two years after her father’s death, Celia West and Arthur Mentis had a daughter, Anna.

Celia lay on her side in the hospital bed. The baby lay nested on a pillow, sheltered within the curve of Celia’s body. Anna had a round red face, scrunched-up eyes, and a fine fuzz of coppery hair.

Arthur sat by the bed, leaning on the mattress, his chin on his hands, watching the baby and wearing an odd half smile.

“What’s she thinking?” Celia asked.

“It’s very strange,” he said. “She thinks in feelings. She doesn’t have colors or sounds or images yet. But she has ‘warm’ and ‘cold’ and ‘hungry’ and ‘sleepy.’ She’s a little of all of them at once, like she can’t sort it all out. Right this minute, though, I look at her and feel ‘safe.’ I’ve never really looked at babies before.” He was staring at her like she was an interesting scientific oddity.

Celia could see it now: Anna’s teenage years were going to be hell with a telepath for a father.

Celia puckered her face to keep from crying. She’d spent far too much of the last nine months crying.

“What have we done?” she said. “What’s she inherited? I’m going to be watching her every minute to see if she flies, or shoots lightning, or talks to animals. If she has a power … what are we going to do? What do we tell her? I’m so scared for her.”

“I think that’s normal for any parent.”

“I want her to be normal.”

“You don’t get to make that choice.”

She looked at Arthur. “You want her to have powers.”

“Celia. I want her to be happy.”

Anna stirred, opening her toothless mouth in a wide, wet yawn that made both parents smile.

Celia couldn’t stop the tears this time, and her voice cracked. “I keep thinking he’d have been such a good grandfather.”

“Perhaps.”

The baby slept, for now.