See These Bones

by Chris Tullbane

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re the baby Crow.”

  I knew what was coming, but fuck if I was going to act ashamed of who I was. I squared my shoulders. “Yeah.”

  “Good for you, kid.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “It takes stones to walk the path you’ve chosen.” She shook her head. “Century or so before the Break, half the world wanted to believe my people were nothing but animals. Sometimes, all it takes is one individual to show the world what it can do with its stereotypes.”

  I ducked my head. If she hadn’t been almost old enough to be my mom, and if I hadn’t been less than twelve hours away from proving her wrong, I would have proposed to her then and there.

  Probably should have anyway. Could’ve at least given her a funny story to tell when I was gone.

  Instead, I just cleared my throat and nodded. “Thank you.”

  •—•—•

  When the machine was plugged into Randy’s outlet, and I’d been plugged into the machine, Mistral flipped a few switches to bring the device to life. A padded cuff wrapped itself around my upper arm and slowly squeezed. Moments later, the machine extended a long, silvered needle. Before I could even make a size joke, that needle flashed forward and buried itself in the vein of my arm. I watched blood trickle down into the tube at the needle’s end.

  “Name of the prisoner you’re visiting, please.” Mistral was all business again, checking the screen built into the machine.

  “David Jameson.”

  She nodded at something I couldn’t see. “Affirmative. I’ve verified that he remains an inmate at the Hole.”

  “I thought all sentences at the Hole were for life?”

  “Yeah.” She cocked her head and I could feel her studying me. “Life tends to be a bit shorter down there though, even with military-grade dampeners. Relation to the prisoner?”

  “I’m his son.”

  “And he’s also a Crow, I see, albeit only a Two.” She shook her head. “Maybe the eggheads are right about genetics playing a role in the powers we get.” The machine beeped three times, and she paused to read something new that had appeared on the screen. “Verified. Welcome aboard, Mr. Banach.”

  As the soldiers bundled away the machine, I stuck out my hand. “Damian.”

  “What’s your Cape name, Damian?” She shook my hand, her grip firm.

  “Still working on it,” I admitted. Somehow, Baron Boner didn’t seem appropriate.

  “Take your time. Once it gets out, you’ll never be able to change it.” I couldn’t see her grin, but again, I could almost hear it. “Looks like we have space in car C if you’ll go take a seat.” She gave both Randy and I a nod, and then the winds swirled around her, lifting her back into the air.

  Mistral. Second nicest Cape I ever met. Smoking hot too.

  She’d die a few years later, when some asshole raised King Rex as a Walker and went on a rampage through New Mexico.

  Wasn’t me.

  I promise.

  CHAPTER 69

  Car C was the fourth of the five segments that made up the shuttle, and one of only three that was accessible to passengers. As Mistral had said, there was ample seating available, and I made my way down the aisle until I found an empty row. Some of the other passengers had personal Glass devices with them—even older models than the one I’d left behind—and a few had actual books, but the rest of us just sat in silence as the shuttle shuddered back to life and started moving.

  As we crept toward the Hole, conversations started to crop up around me. The old man with bushy eyebrows and a belly-length beard was here to see his son for the first time in nineteen years. The tired-eyed woman two seats ahead of me was bringing pictures of her one-year-old twins to the father who had been imprisoned before their birth. Brothers, sisters, children and parents… everyone had a story. Some were looking for answers. Some were looking for closure. Some just missed the inmate in question, illegal deeds notwithstanding.

  By the sound of it, I was the only one there with murder on his mind.

  The miles fell away behind us. I spent those hours in silence, watching my mind’s replay of Mom’s death. Wasn’t the same as feeling it, but the images were enough to keep my anger at a boil. I thought of everything that might have been if Mom had lived, thought of what my life might have been like. Most of all, I thought of that look on my dad’s face as he drove his knife into Mom’s body again and again and again.

  You don’t understand, Elora. This is for you as much as it is for me.

  Fair enough, because this was going to be for Mom and me.

  •—•—•

  Finally, we reached the Hole, the end of a journey that had been, for me, almost two months in the making. I could hear soldiers disembarking from the rear car, coming up past the passenger sections to listen to orders being relayed from the front. Finally, our own exterior door disengaged with a metallic whine, and we stepped out into the blinding sun of the Mojave.

  The Hole wasn’t much to look at from topside; just a huge reinforced bunker with a single door leading in. According to my research, that bunker held nothing but armed guards and an elevator. The prisoner meetings would be somewhere in the cavernous installation underground, past the barracks for the guards who lived on premises, but far above the actual cell blocks.

  A line of people stretched from the bunker into the desert, and we joined the end of that line. Noon in the Mojave wasn’t anyone’s idea of a great place to hang out—even in February—but an Earthshaker had fashioned temporary structures of iron and steel to provide shade to those who waited.

  I turned to a nearby soldier who couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than me. “Are we the first city to arrive?”

  “Third, sir.” He nodded to the other side of our shuttle, where two others were parked. “By far the largest though. I think the administration expected a better turnout.”

  “Guess so.” I was still debating whether that was a good or bad thing—fewer people meant I’d get in more quickly, but also meant scrutiny might be higher—when the unnamed soldier excused himself and hurried forward to join an older man in fatigues. At the same time, one of the Capes who had escorted our shuttle—the Baron, judging by his costume—took to the air and headed south at full speed. Around us, other Capes did the same; Mistral and Breeze transporting not only themselves but the bulky forms of Incredible Ivan and Captain Crush. Moments later, they were gone.

  When the soldier came back to take his position next to the line, his face was pale, his features slightly pinched.

  “What’s going on?”

  He glanced at me, then back at the older man who was clearly his superior officer, and finally shrugged. “It looks like our neighbor to the south got wind that our Capes would be occupied today. His forces are attacking across the border. The Thunderbirds and Red Flight are already in the field, but they’ve put out a call for reinforcements.”

  “What about them?” I nodded to another handful of Capes now speeding off in the opposite direction.

  “That wildfire up north just jumped the fire break. North Star needs help with evacuations.” He scowled, unconsciously stroking the butt of his assault rifle. “Of all the days for everything to go wrong.”

  “Are we in danger?” That was the man who was here to see his son. He looked one or two revelations away from total panic.

  “No, sir, we’re going to be just fine.” The soldier flashed a reassuring smile down the line. “In addition to the Hole’s own guards, you have the finest of the 184th Regiment’s First Battalion protecting you folks. We’ve also still got plenty of Cape firepower here, on loan from the Emerald Legion and Stormwatch.”

  That got my attention. The Emerald Legion wasn’t in the same league as North Star or the Defenders, but they were still a big name. Stormwatch was a smaller operation, but it was my favorite Cape team in the entire Free States, for one reason and one reason only.

  I scanned the skies above
for almost a minute before I saw her.

  Tempest.

  Almost every straight man in the Free States—and at least half the gay women—had a crush on Aspen, but Tempest had been my favorite from the moment I hit puberty. And there she was, as long-limbed and beautiful as she’d been in that very first vid, simply clad in the sleeveless top and leggings she’d chosen for her costume. She was too far up for me to see the golden ribbons tied into her dark hair, but I knew they were there, could picture them streaming out behind her as she brought down lightning on her enemies.

  Even if Winter lived to be a thousand and turned out to be a Full-Five in disguise, she’d never be half the Weather Witch that Tempest was.

  I shook my head. My first time in Tempest’s presence, the only time I’d ever be, and I was there to break the law she’d fought for more than a decade to uphold. In a better world, maybe we’d have ended up as teammates. In a perfect world, there wouldn’t have been a need for teams at all, or Capes, or even soldiers.

  But I didn’t break the world. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to survive it.

  I took one last look at the Cape soaring high above us, then followed the line of people into the Hole.

  •—•—•

  We filed past another large scanner, then between sets of armed and armored checkpoints whose bristling gun mounts covered both the exterior door and the elevator at the far side of the room. Sandwiched between those checkpoints were the surface-level dampeners, enormous machines that dwarfed even those at the Academy gates. I wasn’t sure if the size discrepancy suggested an increase in power output or if the Hole simply used an older model, but Mom’s ghost faded before we’d gotten within twenty feet of the machines.

  The line snaked back and forth, ending at another set of checkpoints and the massive titanium-alloy elevator door. Standing by that door was a thin, older man in a uniform of all-black. He wore the same insignia—a circle of red around a smaller black circle—that I’d seen on the other Hole guards.

  As we came to a stop, his voice rang out, sharp and quick like the crack of a whip. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Hole. I am William Maroney, the warden of this facility. Before we get to the reason you are all here today, there are some ground rules we need to go over.” He paced in front of the line, arms clasped behind his back, looking for all the world like a character from a vid. “You will obey myself and my guards at all times. Each of you will be permitted only the time allotted to meet with your inmate. When that time is up, you will promptly leave the meeting room to return groundside for future instructions.”

  “You will not touch the prisoners,” he continued. “Nor will you give them anything, no matter how innocuous that item may be. Any attempt to do so will result in the confiscation of that item and the removal of the inmate in question.”

  He scanned the crowd, eyes hard as nails. “Failure to follow these rules will, at best, result in your immediate ejection from these premises. At worst, you could face federal charges of your own. My guards and I are here for your protection, but our primary duty is to see that our prisoners remain incarcerated. I strongly suggest that you do not test our commitment to that duty. Are there any questions?”

  Amazingly, there were none, although the tired-eyed woman from my shuttle car had a coughing fit that still managed to delay the proceedings.

  “Very well,” said Warden Maroney. “With that out of the way, let me explain how this is going to work. You will be rotated down in groups of twenty to a room we’ve converted for visitations. Each of you will be assigned a table in that room, and you will sit at your table with your hands in plain sight for the duration of your visit. Once your group is in place, we will bring your relations up from the cell blocks, and you will be given thirty minutes to converse with them. If you finish earlier, you may signal one of my guards, and they will return your relation to their cell. However, you will remain with the rest of your group for the duration. You will enter and leave as a group.”

  I did the math. I was near the end of the line, which meant I’d be part of either the fourth or fifth group. That gave me a wait time between ninety minutes and two hours. After the months of anticipation, it felt like an eternity.

  The Warden wasn’t quite done. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to repeat my earlier greeting. Welcome to the Hole. You stand above the Free States’ premiere facility for incarcerated Powers. The security elevator behind me leads to the housing for the two-hundred men and women who work at this prison—guards, doctors, technicians, and support staff—as well as the space that has been converted to a meeting area for today.”

  “The cell blocks themselves are located five miles below the surface, accessible only by a secondary elevator. At any time, either of those elevators can be disabled, preventing access to the surface. As those few of you who possess powers yourself will have already noticed, our dampeners run at maximum power at all times. Both you and our inmates are effectively normals while on these premises. We apologize for the inconvenience, but I hope you all understand why it is necessary.”

  Around me, heads nodded.

  “Excellent. Then let’s begin with group one.”

  The elevator door was at least a foot thick, but it slid open with little more than a whisper. Accompanied by a dozen guards, the first twenty visitors stepped inside and were whisked out of sight.

  CHAPTER 70

  When you factored in the additional time it took to travel down to the meeting room, get everyone seated, and bring the requisite prisoners up from their cell blocks, thirty minutes of visitation ended up translating into more than an hour of real time. A little bit after noon, guards passed out sandwiches and water to those of us who had yet to make it down. It was synth-meat and stale bread, and a hell of a long way from what the Academy cafeteria provided, but I was hungry enough not to care. I’d drunk plenty of water, but the only thing I’d eaten in the past twenty-four hours had been a candy bar from Randy’s convenience store.

  I know what you’re thinking, but I didn’t steal it. Randy had been asleep at the time, but I’d paid anyway. Overpaid, really. That may well have been the first and only $6.39 candy bar in history. But what the fuck, right? Life savings or not, you can’t take that shit with you.

  By the time we’d finished our sandwiches and the guards had come by to collect our trash, the second group was finally on its way back up. I was already sick of waiting. I’d had ample time to make a more accurate recount, and it had showed that I was in the fifth group, not the fourth. That meant I had yet another hour of standing in the bunker with my thumb up my ass and an illegal weapon barely hidden under my clothes. I just wanted to get this shit over with.

  From the grumblings around me, I was pretty sure everyone else felt the same way, which is why I was stunned to see a guy at the tail-end of group four swap places with the older woman directly ahead of me in line.

  “Thought that lady was going to collapse if she had to stand up much longer,” the newcomer told me cheerfully. He was half again my age, but bone-skinny and ragged in a white tank. “Not everyone’s built for this sort of thing, you know?”

  “Not sure I’m built for it either.”

  His laugh was sharp, there and gone in an instant. “Wait until you’re almost thirty, and mortality’s starting to close in on you. Who are you here to see?”

  “My father.” The last thing I wanted to do right then was talk, but something—maybe it was the limited manners the Academy had tried to drill into me, or maybe it was the multiple hours I’d already spent doing nothing—compelled me to ask. “How about you?”

  “Older brother.” He eyed me speculatively. “You ever hear of Firewall?” I shook my head, and his expression fell. “Figured, but it never hurts to ask. That’s my bro. High-Two Technomancer. Somehow, he got the brains and the power in our family.”

  Can’t remember if I’ve spoken about Technomancers yet. Didn’t have one in the Class of 76, so I might have skipped right
over them. Most famous one is probably Legion himself, way out in Baltimore, but there’s a bunch in the Free States too. Technomancers interface with electronics. Not to power them—that’d be Sparks—but to make them do new stuff. Guy who created the testing machine was a Technomancer. Not much call for them in the Cape world, but the commercial and military sectors just love them.

  Criminals too, I suppose. Bank robbery’s a hell of a lot easier when one of your crew can scramble the cameras and unlock the vault with a wave of their hand.

  “I don’t know,” I finally replied. “Maybe he got the power, but you’re the one who’s still free.”

  “Huh. Never thought of it quite like that.” He slapped me on one shoulder with a grin. “Guess maybe I got the brains!”

  •—•—•

  Two hours later, it was our turn. Finally. We crowded into the elevator with the same dozen guards, men and women who’d gone from the very pinnacle of paranoid awareness to something like resigned boredom over the course of the day. The door whisked shut and the elevator started down.

  It was hard to gauge distance from inside the elevator, but we didn’t seem to go as far as I’d expected. Four or five floors down, maybe, and then the elevator was opening onto a room every bit as large as the entryway above. We exited to the sounds of the one woman’s ever-present coughing and were directed to our seats. Between the guards who had taken the elevator with us, and the ones already in the room, we were outnumbered significantly.

  There were exactly twenty tables, arranged in neat rows of five. Across the room was the second elevator, the one that went down to the cell blocks. A green light above its closed door indicated that it remained operational. I took my seat—fourth row from the elevator, furthest to the left, if you care—and placed my hands on the table as the warden had instructed. The people who’d been at the table before me had clearly done the same; there were sweaty prints on the cold metal surface.