Wearing the Cape 4: Small Town Heroes Read online

  Jacky’s response was making more sense, now. Shelly’s, too; I was due at the Institute after seeing Deitz, but Shelly wasn’t freaking over the new dream, either. In fact, she’d hinted at lunch later.

  “So keep your phone with you,” Deitz finished. “We’re going to do at least one more drill before the conference, but we’re going to prove that your guy’s not a prophet.”

  That was my cue, and I left on it with a wave to Angel. Jacky had disappeared after breakfast so I went to the Institute alone. And walked into the Oroboros’ den to a round of standing applause.

  * * *

  The Oroboros common office’s main screen displayed mug shots of the Three Horsemen, with big red ‘X’s painted over them. Below each was a set of categories: soldiers and civilians. Each category had a number—for Flashpoint and Brainworm the numbers were triple digits.

  “Congratulations, Astra.” General Rajabhushan stepped forward, a truly wide smile spreading wrinkles across his face.

  “What is this?”

  “Your scoreboard. The most optimistic future-accounting, extracted from the potential futures left to us, yielded a count exceeding one thousand more deaths directly attributed to these three before they were brought down by enemy action. We cannot begin to list the thousands more second-order deaths attributable to their actions as well.”

  Doctor Hall lifted a fizzing Champaign flute, saluting me. “Really. Congratulations. Will all who they would have killed, live now? Perhaps not—they sold their services to whatever war would have them. But this is certainly a victory for the forces of order.”

  “And the intelligence the US may get from them could prove just as life-saving,” Doctor Ash added less exuberantly. The rest seconded her sentiment, and only Shelly didn’t have a glass in her hand.

  The general lifted his own drink. “Truly, this is what the Oroboros are for and you have done us wonderful service. And now!” He put down his glass, clapped his hands once. “Let us to work! If we can find the route by which they came, we can learn of their recent work! We may be able to tag them to potential future operations which yet remain a reality!”

  The group scattered, still chattering, all except for Shelly. I watched them go.

  “Um, what just happened?”

  “You scored.” Shedding the serious demeanor she tried to project here, Shelly grinned from ear to ear.

  “We do it every time one of our ‘intelligence assessments’ bags an operation or person responsible for Bad Things in the Future Files. It’s happening less and less as we get further and further from the last potential future the Teatime Anarchist saw and divergence marches on, but big wins are still out there. You got one we weren’t even looking for. So, c’mon. You can write up your after-action report, and I can get some work done, and then we are going to go eat.”

  She said eat with a sparkle in her eye that said she knew something that I didn’t, but led me back to her office without clarifying. We spent the next little while in silence while she did her thing through the Oroboros databases and I worked on my report. It felt weirdly like our study-nights, back before everything.

  And then she dragged me to lunch. At the beach.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  “We are reliably told that a couple of our guests returned to Littleton after a night out, one of them wearing less than she left with. So was it a hot night on the town? A drinking game gone wrong? Has the truth been redacted? Cal is opening a new betting pool. ‘We’ll never know’ is not an option, but perhaps someone will find the courage to ask them when they see them at the lake.”

  Littleton Radio Morning Hour

  * * *

  “Now that’s just...”

  “I know, right?”

  George Peppas, the crazy Verne-type responsible for Littleton’s crazy pocket reality where it only rained after sunset and the seasons clicked over every three months like clockwork, had been all about the lake and it showed; Lake Peppas was the cleanest lake in the world, or out of it, literally.

  The water was so clear in the midday sun that I could see the bottom with optical clarity. Anybody could—my super-duper vision didn’t cut out distortion and obscuring particles, but there weren’t any; the fish seemed to be almost hanging in air above the bottom where they weren’t hidden by water grass and plants. One long strip was a sandy beach, but a wood pier sat further down, and beyond it the ground rose into a tree topped hill with a carved out cliff for diving.

  “So? Let’s party!” Shelly dragged me laughing across the sand towards a row of old-fashioned seaside changing booths. “Change! Jacky raided your bag!” Beyond them a party waited. I recognized the Hardts, with Atifa and—oh my gosh—Jacky in shades and a black one-piece bathing suit, then Shelly pushed me into the nearest booth.

  Jacky had indeed raided my bag, and had laid out one of my backup pairs of indestructibles. I stared at them for a long moment and finally decided they were modest enough for the beach. Besides, Jacky had unbent her whole fiend-of-the-night thing enough to hit the beach in a suit; that was practically a dare. I changed quickly, barely beating Shelly out of the booths; she’d skinned into a green one-piece.

  Ours wasn’t the only party at the lake, and families had staked out spots up and down the beach. Kids ran from one group to the next, and after a squealing hug for me Atifa disappeared with a little gang of munchkins and a minder who assured us all would be well. I wasn’t sure, but Shelly’s mom gave her approval.

  Mrs. H had a hug for me, too, one that went on awhile and I held on right back.

  Stroking my hair, she let me go with a soft “Thank you.” I didn’t ask for what and with that lunch got underway, an elaborate sandwich buffet spread out on beach blankets. Mrs. H joked about eating first, just in case, and passed around the side dishes.

  I stacked a huge sandwich and accepted a plate of her rich potato salad, talked to Mr. Hardt about his administration work, and tried to get dirt on how Shelly was behaving. Jacky talked mostly to Shelly and Mrs. H, and we all took a pass on two invitations to play volleyball with a group of boys more daring than smart. Jacky, a born Sports Illustrated swimsuit model if the magazine ever went Goth, was their obvious target.

  Sandwich eaten and drinks drunk, Jacky decided to share a beach umbrella with me while Mr. Hardt napped and Mrs. H and Shelly ran the water’s edge with a returned Atifa.

  Jacky watched them with an odd smile on her face. “They did it, didn’t they?”

  “Did what?”

  “Found normal again. It really is amazing.”

  She didn’t sound sad, but my hand crept over and settled on hers. “It’s all just family. Which you’ve got.” I didn’t say how long it had been since I’d seen a beach; we’d have to work on it, too. “You know, this would be a great place for team breaks.”

  “Club Cape?” Her laugh wasn’t ironic or edgy, just nice. “Yes, it would.”

  “Hey!” Shelly yelled from the water. “You think you’re going to melt? Get wet!”

  * * *

  Jacky and I got Atifa back to her godfather. The little girl talked fast all the way and called us Aunt Hope and Aunt Jacky, sometimes skipping along, sometimes swinging between the two of us and screaming with delight when we easily swung her to shoulder height. Jacky carried her piggy-back the last few streets after she drooped into a sun-worn and sleepy ragdoll, and Mr. Darvish gently took the boneless girl off Jacky’s back with quiet thanks and carried her away. Jacky and I climbed the stairs to our room to change again, and I reluctantly skinned back into my uniform. Checking my messages, I found one waiting for me from Captain Lauer. Full video.

  “Good morning, Astra.” The lines on Captain Lauer’s face had sunk deeper, and his red eyes testified to more lost sleep.

  “First, thank you for handing me such interesting confirmation of your story. The conference is in two days, and given that you swept up what had to be a good-sized piece of whatever assets were being set up to operate against us here, I’ve gi
ven the go-ahead. At the same time we are moving things around out here. We have moved our two light squads to the base, but don’t worry, the heavy squad should be more than enough to hold the gate against any direct assault. Before the conference opens we will also have two supersoldier squads, one parked in the Garage and one in Littleton to reassure our guests. You’ll know them—they’re from S Corp and you met in California.”

  He sat back, rubbed his eyes.

  “Thank you, Astra. You may very well have short-stopped an attack on a conference that, had it succeeded, would have destroyed the trust of our allies. Something we desperately need. In two days you’ll be able to go home, job well done.”

  “We’re going to see Watchman’s army buddies?” Jacky had been watching over my shoulder. “Think they’ll be willing to dish dirt on him? Or at least brag?”

  I put down the cell. “Maybe. Think we’ll ever learn what the conference is about?”

  “Doubt it. They’re holding it in the one place in the world they maintain full signals control and you can’t take any pictures that survive departure, and that’s all I care to know.”

  “And we’ll just fly away?”

  She snorted impatiently. “When they change the guard this place will be better protected than it is now. C’mon, Hope. Some missions, you just stand around and then go home. You know that.”

  I did. Back in Chicago, Detective Fisher would call a quiet watch something to be grateful for; loose ends didn’t bother him so long as they didn’t suddenly tighten up. Besides, did I want a fight? Here?

  I spent most of the rest of the day catching up on correspondence from home. Shell had put together a bundle of files, stuff she trusted other people, government people, to see before I did. Some of it was news items. There was a flame-war being waged on the Powerline forums as to whether I was in Chicago or, for some inexplicable reason, in Cuba. The Sentinels would be getting back home tomorrow, turning their zone of responsibility over to other FEMA-supported groups. The Young Sentinels were still drilling and training, working on preparedness and emergency response times.

  Shelly sent me an encrypted file detailing the Future File careers of the Three Horsemen that we’d cut short. I read it and erased it, but it did leave me feeling we’d done something really good here. Looking at the notes she’d attached to it listing the probable effects of taking them out of the picture, I also realized that Shelly would be alright, too. She’d found a place for herself, and was probably doing more to fight for the Good Future than I was.

  “What are you smiling about?” Jacky had spent the time quietly stripping and cleaning her guns.

  “Me? Not a thing.” Watching her go back to oiling something that needed to be oiled, I decided I needed to formally introduce her to Angel; they could compare personal armories.

  * * *

  My special cell screamed at me and it took two seconds for me to wake up enough to fumble for it. The bright red screen shredded the clinging veils of sleep in a flood of adrenaline.

  “Astra?” Sheriff Deitz sounded much more awake than I been until one second ago.

  “Yes? What’s happening?” I looked around. Jacky wasn’t here. Jacky wasn’t here. I pushed my hair out of my eyes.

  “I don’t know. It may be nothing. We’ve lost contact with the Garage.”

  “Sheriff’s office?”

  “Yeah. C’mon down.”

  Scrambling into costume, I thought for two seconds before adding the armor and grabbing Malleus and my go-bag. Softly stepping out into the dark hall, mindful of the squeak-potential of the hardwood paneled floors, I stopped and almost laughed. Lifting my feet, I drifted down the hall and down the stairs.

  “Miss Corrigan?” Mr. Darvish stood in Holybrook Rest’s brightly-lit entryway in a robe. “Something is happening?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He nodded, stepping out of my way. “Go with God.”

  “Thank you. You, too. Take care of—” I shook my head and gave him a reassuring smile, opened the front door and launched. I didn’t fly straight to the office; first I popped up, careful not to fly too high, and spun in place to get a good look at the town.

  Littleton’s hooded streetlamps traced a grid of bright points through a shadowed town beneath a moonlit sky. The Moon hadn’t been in my dream, but I still shivered. Below me nothing moved that didn’t look like it should be there.

  “What took you so long?” Angel looked up from her desk screen when I came through the door.

  “I popped up to look around. Sorry.”

  Deitz kept his eyes on the board. “Don’t be. Did you see anything?”

  “No but I wouldn’t see anything your panopticon system didn’t, would I?”

  He chuckled. “If you trust the system; I still prefer the Mark One Human Eyeball—or in your case the Mark 10 Superhuman Eyeball.”

  “Do you know where Jacky is?”

  “She checked out through the Garage just after sunset, and hasn’t returned. The Garage stopped sending its relayed signals packets five minutes ago, which has never happened before.”

  “Any alerts?”

  Angel punched keys in frustration. “Nothing. None of the packet logs up to the blackout show anything at all.”

  I realized I was still holding my go-bag and put it down. “What happens if somebody attacks the Garage?”

  “The translation system—which includes the signals transmitter—goes into lockdown. From there it can only be brought back up from the navy base.”

  “So from here it would look like this?”

  “Not quite. The system is supposed to send an alert announcing interruption and flashing over the details.”

  I tried to channel Blackstone’s Dispatch face. “Would a translation system failure look like this?”

  “It would have to be catastrophic and instantaneous, but yeah, it would.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, stretched and shook out his shoulders. “Normally I’d wait for confirmation, but…”

  “I can go look.”

  “No. There’s no reason not to trust our own system, and if someone is coming through then you popping up is just going to… What is that?”

  I’d reached into my go-bag and pulled out Vulcan’s chameleon-weave polycloth suit. I unsnapped my cape, started pulling it on.

  “A gift Vulcan made for me back when I was hiding my identity.” Floating, I got my legs in, careful of the footies. “Mal—that’s Megaton—calls it my Plus Ten Cloak of Invisibility.”

  Angel got up to get a closer look. “I can see why,” she approved. “I’d build it into my suit.”

  “I did have a chameleon-weave layer once, but the stuff is fragile and takes forever to fabricate even for Vulcan. Besides, it doesn’t work with the armor on top.” I tugged the gloves on over my costume gloves, pulled up the hood and closed it. Only my eyes peeked out, and Angel whistled.

  “Get something behind you and even I couldn’t paint you. How is it in the open?”

  “Good enough that I used to use it to fly out of my parents’ back yard. Sheriff? Can I go?”

  He looked me over, nodded once. I pulled the hood back and inserted my earbug, linked the cell to its signal. “It’s okay, Sheriff. I’ll yell if I see anything.”

  “Don’t. Not unless you think you can’t make it back to report.”

  “Why— Okay.” Like Jacky always said, I wasn’t paranoid enough. I got out the door and in the air before he had time to re-think it, but stayed low to the streets. Littleton was the kind of town that, as Dad liked to say, might as well roll up the streets after dark; I flew over only a couple of cars that were going anywhere, one a truck. People were probably out in the town’s very small club district—three little clubs, all on the same street—but everyone else was at home in their beds or watching movies on the couch. The ever-present thrumming on the edge of my hearing told me that the town’s security system was awake at least, and the annoying sound was suddenly very reassuring.

  Pas
sing the last home on the edge of town, I dropped low enough to touch the road with an outstretched hand as I flew. Did I need to, with my cloak of invisibility? Probably not, but I was trying to think like Jacky and she didn’t even like flying high and open as mist.

  The road turned and went up the hill and I followed, eyes ahead. Nearing the crest of the hill I slowed to almost creeping speed. Over the crest and looking down at the gate and marked-out space that translated into the Garage’s in-bound bay, I dropped and hugged the grass. I counted seven people standing where they had no right to be, clustered around two vans, and I recognized three of them by their armor and signature accessories; Balz, Twist, and Dozer—aka Gantry, Eric Ludlow. I was looking at the Wreckers.

  The Ascendancy had come to Littleton.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  “Johnny’s called the dance and it’s a barn burner. Let’s make ourselves troublesome.”

  Atlas, at the Whittier Base Attack.

  * * *

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.” I’d stayed and watched for heart-pounding minutes to observe details, but they hadn’t done anything except stand around the vans they’d obviously commandeered in the Garage. One of them worked away on what looked like an obsolete laptop sitting on the hood, and I guessed that one was Phreak. Balz had a swarm of his spheres out as a perimeter, but they stayed lower than the crest of the hill.

  “Okay then.” Deitz tapped a code on his pad, and through the windows I watched the streetlamp emergency lights begin flashing green. No sirens. The town grid on the main board changed, points that had to be the shelters lighting up. Four of them blinked gold.