Hopefuls (Book 1): The Private Life of Jane Maxwell

by Jenn Gott

  “No, no, no, don’t make it spin!” Clair said, her eyes screwed up tight, though there was an edge of giddy laughter in her voice. Jane whipped her body to the side, encouraging the tire to start whirling around, and because it was a dream, she didn’t have to put in any effort at all. They tumbled around and around, the world blurring to ribbons beyond them, and Jane watched the flashes of color shift from green to brown to silver-blue to brown to green. She counted the rotations, one, two, three, and threw herself from the tire swing at just the right moment to plunge into the freezing river. She broke the surface just as Clair was flying in after her, nearly belly-flopping in her attempt.

  “You are the worst jumper ever,” Jane said, paddling against the current. She brushed Clair’s bangs out of her face as they drew near, wrapping their arms around each other.

  Clair leaned in, planting a gentle kiss on Jane’s wet forehead. “Maybe that’s what you could do next: become a professional tire-swing jumper.”

  Jane smiled. “It could be my superpower.”

  “Aw, but what about Captain Lumen? She’d be out of a job!”

  A tiny bit of happiness broke off Jane, drifting away down the river. She shook her head. “The world doesn’t need Captain Lumen these days,” she said. “And anyway, I’m not her anymore, remember? She’s not even herself anymore.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.” Clair cupped Jane’s face, both of their heads just barely out of the water as they floated lazily downstream. “You’re so needed, Jane. Everyone needs you. The city needs you.”

  The city needs you. Jane blinked, trying to chase away the faint trace of memory—but it had already taken hold. The idyllic summer afternoon collapsed around them, plunging into night. Jane lunged forward, wrapping her arms tightly around Clair, some part of her already aware of what was happening. The faintest whistle was rippling through the grass around them: SKREEEEEE.

  She woke up with a start. Jane squeezed her eyes shut, trying desperately to hold on to the world she’d had a moment ago: just her and Clair, the feeling of Clair’s skin against her own. But the sensation was already gone, fading like the dream that it was. Loss flared in Jane’s chest, like a shrapnel fragment lodged forever between her ribs.

  Faint and steady beeping drew her eyes open: a hospital monitor. The sound brought a fresh wave of heartbreak to the surface, and Jane threw the blanket off her and shot to her feet before she’d gotten a sense of her surroundings—desperate to get away from it. That sound had haunted her for months after Clair’s death; sometimes, in the middle of the night, she still woke up thinking that she heard it, amid the background of the heater, the thumping bass of passing cars, the shuffle of footsteps in the stairwell near her empty bedroom. Jane would lay there, heart racing, staring at the ceiling. Counting the minutes until the feeling passed.

  The beeping was louder this time, solid and real in a tangible way that those phantom nights had lacked. Her bedroom was gone, and in its place she found herself somewhere sterile and impassive. Jane’s feet hit smooth floor, neither cold enough for tile nor warm enough for wood. The room was dark around her, illuminated only by strips of blue and the softest white. A single monitor, indeed showing vital signs—her vital signs?—was molded into the wall by the corner. The heart rate on the monitor spiked as Jane looked down at herself: hospital gown, pale blue by the looks of it, her skin wired up with sensors.

  She should have recognized it sooner, but sleep and panic had dulled her senses. And besides, this room was usually drawn in the light.

  As if sensing the disparity, panels above Jane’s head snapped on full bright. Jane was halfway through ripping all of the sensors off of her body, and she only just avoided screaming in shock. Her head whipped up. She spun in place, trying to see who had turned on the lights, and this is when the sense of familiarity crept up her spine.

  Smooth white seams along the gentle slope of the room’s walls. An inset with a mirror over it, slim drawers underneath to create a built-in dresser—though they were so small, one was often forced to wonder what sorts of things you could keep in there. A ficus tree in the corner. Jane knew without turning around that the bed behind her would be narrow and covered in blue fabrics, a curling sort of canopy hanging over the head of it. From the perspective of a patient, lying down, the underside of the canopy displayed a variety of nature scenes, intended to soothe and promote healing.

  A rejuvenation pod.

  Jane threw the last handful of sensors aside, slapping a panel to shut off the disconnection alarms. She pulled back the neck of her hospital gown. The room was silent now, but as she looked at the smoothed-over skin of her shoulder—just the faintest trace of lines, the smallest scar, which would disappear by tomorrow—Jane almost wished that she hadn’t disconnected the sensors. The sound of her vitals was the one trace of real, the one trace of normal that she could grab hold of, however horrid it was for her to listen to.

  She spun around. There was a chair in the opposite corner, white with blond wood feet that curled underneath like a rocker (though it wasn’t). Jane had modeled it after something she’d seen in an IKEA catalog, when she’d drawn it for the comic. Her clothes were piled neatly on the seat, her Converse high-tops tucked underneath.

  Jane changed as quickly as she could. Her shirts still had a tear along the shoulder, but they’d been cleaned of blood (they smelled of laundry detergent, nothing that Jane ever used herself). She held her shoes against her chest, thinking that socked feet were even quieter than sneakers, as she approached the door.

  It hissed open just before she reached it. God, that hiss was exactly as she used to imagine it. She saw the way that the panel would look, as she eased into the hallway: the picture drawn low to the floor, just her Doctor Who socks as her foot stretches gingerly out of the room, toe first. A close-up of her face, eyeing first to the left and then to the right. The hallway stretched white and empty in both directions, the curved walls forming a tunnel around her.

  She ran.

  Her socks slipped and slid in ice-skater lines down the smooth floor, one hand stretched out for balance, the other mashing her high-tops against her chest. She followed the line of the hall as it made a gentle curve to the left. She was still too foggy-headed to have a conscious plan, so she ran on instinct. Left and then right, another right. She told herself that she didn’t know where she was going, that she hadn’t mapped out every part of this building. Lair. Hideout.

  The Heroes of Hope’s secret headquarters.

  Except not, because that was impossible.

  Right?

  Around the curve, the hallway ended abruptly. Jane spilled out into a darkened lounge: low-slung white couches and a curved bar, an elaborate fish tank along one wall. The outside edge of the room held a bank of windows, currently blocked with automated shades.

  The Heroes of Hope were assembled inside. Some of them.

  Rather, Marie and Tony and Cal were. Devin had disappeared somewhere, and Jane still hadn’t seen Keisha anywhere in this nightmare. Jane skidded to a halt, sliding into the back of one of the couches as Marie—standing near the fish tank, gesticulating wildly—finished saying, “. . . turns out that it’s not even her! Face it, Cal: the plan failed.”

  At the sound of Jane’s entrance, everyone turned. They had changed out of their superhero costumes, but even in normal clothes, there was nothing normal about them. They looked like movie versions of themselves: Marie, her blond hair styled for once, her clothes free of the usual smears of flour, chocolate, and children’s finger paint; Tony, dark hair slicked back, tanned and buff like he’d only ever dreamed of in his youth, his bushy hipster beard shaved off. Even Cal, now that she looked—since when could he afford designer jeans?

  Cal stepped forward, softness on his face. He’d been leaning against the closed windows, and as he moved toward her he said, “Jane. You shouldn’t be up yet.”

  “I’m fine,” Jane said. It was the furthest thing from the truth, but in terms of he
r physical condition at least, she was all right for now. She knew that much.

  Jane sidestepped as Cal approached, because it looked like he was starting to reach out toward her. She hugged her Converse tighter against her chest.

  “Does someone want to start telling me what the hell is going on here?”

  Marie and Tony and Cal all looked at each other. Marie rolled her eyes, tipping her head back with exaggeration. It was a move that she’d started doing when she was seventeen, as if the weight of the world was far too stupid to bear.

  “Don’t look at me, man,” Tony said to Cal. “You’re the one that brought her here.” He leaned back in the couch, crossing one leg over the other. He was holding an expensive-looking drink, and now he took a pull of it, ice cubes clinking.

  Cal rubbed the back of his neck, like a boy trying to work up the courage to ask someone to the prom. “Technically, we all agreed—”

  “Only because you told us that their world was exactly like ours,” Marie cut in. “That we were all there. But this”—she threw her arm in Jane’s direction—“is not the Jane I know.”

  Jane flinched back under the burst of attention, everyone sneaking in a quick glance, sizing her up. It was clear from their expressions that they did not like what they saw. Well . . . Cal, maybe, had some faith in her, or at least wanted to. But that was all.

  She felt disconnected from herself, seeing the lounge from a distance. She was small, blending into the edges. The light fell in the middle of the room, at Tony on the couch with his bright amber drink; at Marie in her monochrome of gray slacks and white sweater, her hair stained florescent by the light of the aquarium. Even Cal, in dark jeans and a muted t-shirt, seemed to gleam from his teeth and his sun-blond hair. Here, in this setting, they felt larger than themselves. They felt like symbols, of justice and liberty. Of hope.

  Jane was the cloud of doom. The dark shading that threatened to creep in and snuff them out.

  Finally, Cal sighed. “It might be easier to show you,” he said, as he tapped a space just beside the bank of windows.

  Drawing this transition always used to frustrate Jane. The windows appeared as a solid wall when the “blinds” were shut, but melted away upon touch: first breaking into neat, slim panels, like slats of a white picket fence; then pieces would begin to break off, shimmering as they broke into smaller and smaller bits of dust, before fading into the depths of what was now clear and perfect glass.

  The city spread out beyond, as familiar as the back of Jane’s hand. The view from their headquarters had been lifted directly from the QZero offices: the one that Jane was looking at now was how it would appear from the break room. Jane had sat at a table and sketched this panorama a hundred times: the sharp peaks of City Hall, stained orange in the setting sun; Regent Park, a three-block square cut right out of the heart of the metropolis; the river, flirting in and out of view in the distance.

  Jane approached the window with caution. Night had blanketed the city. A thousand lights winked through a shifting haze of smog, muddying the familiar landscape, but it was still enough. The park, City Hall, the skyline that she’d committed to both memory and paper so many times over.

  Only one piece was different: a gap, like a missing tooth, in the heart of downtown. Several key buildings were just gone, leaving nothing but twisted, blackened metal that rose like skeletal trees after a wildfire. Jane touched the window, the glass cool beneath her fingers, as she traced their lines.

  “What happened?”

  “Doctor Demolition happened.” Cal had come to stand behind her, his reflection hovering past her shoulder. “I don’t know how to tell you this, Jane, but . . . you’re on a parallel world. Three weeks ago, Doctor Demolition developed a deadly weapon, one with the power to destroy a whole city block. We tried to stop him. We finally discovered where he was keeping it, but when we got there—”

  “He’d already moved it,” Jane said. She was still staring out at the cityscape, her eyes instinctively seeking out the major landmarks. Along the edge of the gap, she spotted it. She pointed, her finger pressed against the glass. “To there: the top of Woolfolk Tower.”

  It wasn’t much of a tower anymore—half melted, nothing but a handful of twisted girders.

  Jane sought out Cal’s eyes in the reflection. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  Cal nodded. Shock was written plain on his face. “You’re right. How did you—?”

  “Because I wrote it.” Jane turned around, putting the view to her back. “Or . . . I was going to write it, anyway. That’s the start of the Spectral Wars storyline. The first issue just came out.”

  This time it was everyone else’s turn to look confused and incredulous. Marie pushed herself off the aquarium. “You think this is some kind of game?”

  “Not a game,” Jane said. “A story. My story.”

  Our story, she corrected herself in her head, but that wasn’t worth getting into right now. Besides, Clair had never liked to claim credit, even in private. Even when the best ideas were hers.

  Spectral Wars was hers. The beginning of it, anyway—Jane never did get to learn Clair’s ending. She swallowed down the lump of remorse that had risen in her throat.

  Cal held up his hand, cutting off Marie before she could start up again. “Well, it’s real here. Doctor Demolition is real, and so is the damage he’s done.”

  Jane couldn’t help it—she laughed. Just once, just enough to get a death glare from Marie. “Sure it is. And I suppose that now you’re going to tell me that you’re really Captain Lumen.”

  A wave of confusion crossed Cal’s model-perfect face. “No, Jane . . . You are.”

  “Riiiiight.” Jane nodded along, slowly, like this was all making perfect sense.

  It’s true that Captain Lumen used to belong to her, before QZero insisted that no one would buy the comics with a woman at the helm of the team. Cal had never gotten into the PRG as teenagers, never chosen a superhero identity for himself, and so Jane had given up her powers to him, booting “herself” to a support role off on the sidelines, rarely seen.

  Even so . . . Jane, as a true and proper hero?

  “Right,” Jane repeated. “Okay, well—good talk. Thank you, this has really helped to clarify things for me.”

  Cal frowned. “Jane—”

  “No, I mean it,” she said. “I finally understand: I have completely fucking lost my marbles.”

  “She’s not wrong,” Marie muttered.

  Jane laughed again. Not because it was funny—it wasn’t funny, none of it was funny—but because if she didn’t laugh, she was either going to scream or cry. She fell back against the windows, still laughing, her head clonking the glass.

  “Jane,” Cal tried again. His hand approached her shoulder.

  “Don’t touch me!” Jane’s laughter cut off as quickly as it had started, as she staggered away from him. She kept backing up, as if putting distance between herself and Cal would somehow change the situation. “Seriously,” Jane continued, “just—just don’t. I admit it, okay, this is really convincing. I mean, like, really convincing—you almost had me. But whatever it is you’re playing at, can we please drop it now, because I am seriously starting to get freaked out!”

  Her voice was constricting, rising steadily as she talked. She had backed up until she was pressed against the aquarium herself. She heard Marie scoff, stomp off to another part of the room.

  “This is the woman that you think can save us all?” Marie muttered, no doubt to Cal, as she passed.

  “Jane,” Cal started, “I want to help you, I really do. What can I say? How can I prove this to you?”

  Jane let out a strangled laugh. “You can’t. I’m sorry, but this . . . it’s all too much. Parallel worlds? Supervillains? Come on. This stuff makes fantastic stories, but it’s not real. And to try to prove to me that it is would take . . . ,” Jane trailed off, considering this. Was there anything that would convince her? They had already done everything they needed to, if she
was willing to be convinced.

  She looked at the cityscape again, the view that should have come from QZero. Unease crept up her spine as she went back over to the window. It really was the exact same view, she was sure of that now. Which meant that this building, whatever it was, occupied the same space as her old office.

  You’re in a parallel world. Jane shook her head. But at what point did skepticism become denial?

  “I don’t know,” Jane said finally, as the cheerful ding! of an elevator cut through the lounge. “I don’t know what it would take. Something extraordinary. Something . . .”

  The elevator doors whispered open behind her. Jane was still looking out the window, so her first view of the person that entered was just a hazy reflection, bathed in the light of the elevator. She shimmered like a ghost.

  She was a ghost.

  Jane could not breathe, could not speak. In the reflection, Jane watched her rush into the room, this impossible apparition. “I came as soon as I could,” a voice said. The only voice in the world.

  Clair’s voice.

  The prospect of turning to face her was harder than it should have been. In Jane’s mind, she spun around immediately, took in the sight of her, then threw her arms wide and tackled Clair in a hug. The panels unfolded: the light from the elevator, pouring in from behind to illuminate Clair like the magical gift that she was; Jane’s face, full of shock and pain and delight, a single speech bubble with a tentative, “Clair?”; a blur as Jane shot forward. There would be a full-page panel of their kiss.

  In the real world, Jane’s Converse fell from her hands with two heavy thuds. She steadied herself against the window, desperate to turn, but frozen in place. She heard Clair enter the lounge, heard various greetings exchanged. Heard the silence that followed, heavy with anticipation.

  “Hi,” Clair said, somewhere behind Jane. “Um, I assume that you’re Jane? I’m—”

  Jane turned. “Clair.”

  Oh God, it really was Clair. Jane’s heart twisted, sharp as a knife. Clair, with her lopsided smile and the beauty mark just underneath her right eye. Clair, with her crisp, Roaring-Twenties bob that always made Mindsight’s panels so much fun to draw. Clair, the only face that Jane had wanted to see in a year and a half. Perfect Clair. Her Clair.