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

by Jenn Gott

  Humiliation burned through her. God, she was a terrible superhero. Even she wouldn’t read a comic about herself. She ducked down, throwing her hands over her head, all sense of dignity now lost.

  It was only once the Shadow Raptors did not launch themselves in an attack against her that she realized something else was going on. Jane peeped up through a protective tangle of fingers. The Shadow Raptors were regarding her with blank, reptilian expressions. They blinked, their sideways eyelids snapping like camera shutters.

  Jane quickly got to her feet.

  They just stood there. Their signature obsidian daggers hung from silk ties around their waists. One of them, slightly taller, stepped to the side. It gestured for her to pass.

  Then understanding kicked her in the stomach. Dear lord, of course. UltraViolet had been expecting her to come here. And yes, okay, perhaps her plan was to kill Jane—kill Captain Lumen, Jane forcibly reminded herself—but apparently that wasn’t going to happen yet. Not right here, right now, like this: trapped in a corridor still four stories down from her father (not her father), facing a pair of Shadow Raptors that she stood no chance against.

  Jane almost laughed, the relief was so palpable. Except that it really wasn’t funny, and none of the danger had actually changed, and that realization soured her good humor in an instant.

  “Smooth,” Tony, as Rip-Shift, said through the earpieces. Jane tried not to think about how much of her spectacle the team might have overheard, as she edged past the slithery chests of the Shadow Raptors. Their breath was terrible up close, rank with rotten meat and vinegar.

  “Where are we going?” Jane asked. She didn’t know if the Shadow Raptors would answer her, or even if they could answer her—she’d never written them to have dialog bubbles—but asking was better than not asking.

  The only answer that she got was a weary sigh. Jane stole a fast glance over her shoulder, but she couldn’t tell which of them had done it. They gave her a shove, and Jane quickened her pace.

  This was all wrong. They were supposed to go straight up to the mayor’s office. The whole point of Jane pretending to give herself up was to get someone inside—she was wearing a special kind of tracker, designed by Marie, which would (in theory) create a point for Rip-Shift to latch on to without having to maintain a direct line of sight. It had worked once already, in an issue that came out about a year back, though it tended to strain Rip-Shift’s powers to the limit and wasn’t something they liked to rely on. The fact that they were willing to use it now spoke volumes about how important this mission was to them.

  Lights flickered. Once, twice—off. Jane shut her eyes, trembling in the darkness.

  A man’s voice filled the hall, digitized to be low and ominous. “Did you really think that we would let you take her that easily?”

  It wasn’t the plan, but fuck it. Relief flooded Jane anyway, as a shadowy figure swept first one direction across the hall in front of them and then, a moment later, swept the other direction behind.

  The Shadow Raptors hissed. They clicked their tongues between them, as if having an argument, and then abruptly cut themselves off.

  One of them grabbed Jane’s upper arm. She shrieked, damn near pissing herself, a burst of light slipping free before she could stop it. An obsidian dagger flashed in front of her, heading for her throat, and okay, now this was surely it, right here, right now, and the Heroes had failed her, and she couldn’t protect herself—

  But a yelp from his companion distracted the Shadow Raptor threatening Jane. It whirled instead, its weapon thrusting into the darkness around them. The crunch of glass beneath its talons filled the hall as they sidestepped out of the way.

  The Shadow Raptor threw its head back. Their signature whistle sounded, louder and shriller than anything that Jane had ever heard or imagined. She clamped her hands over her ears.

  A heavy dart, so thick that it was almost an arrow, landed in the Shadow Raptor’s neck with a hideous, wet thunk. The whistle died.

  The Shadow Raptor fell to its side. It clutched at its neck, writhing, its tail whipping through the air. Jane leaped back, narrowly avoiding being knocked over. The Shadow Raptor made no noise, though, not a scream, not a whimper, and somehow that made the sight of it so much worse. Jane’s stomach heaved, as she fiercely remembered one afternoon when a boy in her class had smashed a toad on the playground with a rock, a horrible mess of red and tan and asphalt.

  When Deltaman appeared beside her a moment later, she almost screamed again just from the shock. Every muscle in her body was taut and a headache ran hot, temple to temple. This mission could not have been stressing her out more if it had tried.

  Deltaman’s hand settled on Jane’s shoulder. “Hey. You doing all right?”

  “No!” Jane didn’t mean to shout. It came out anyway, a single shrill word piercing the hallway.

  And Deltaman just chuckled. Chuckled! Like Jane was being cute or something: oh look, precious little neophyte superhero, baby fresh in her ass-kicking boots.

  She turned away from him. Stalked down the hall, footsteps pounding on the tile floor. She didn’t know where she was going—certainly nowhere that would help. It didn’t matter. If this is what it meant to be a superhero then . . . then maybe she just wasn’t cut out for it.

  A Shadow Raptor leaped out of the darkness.

  Correction: a whole swarm of Shadow Raptors leaped out of the darkness. Jane froze, or rather the world froze around her. A part of Jane’s mind processed what she was seeing, because of course, yes, there they were, right in front of her. A second part of her denied it, simply because the idea was too much, too much, too much, too much.

  It was the third part of her that saved her life.

  They say that fear is a survival mechanism. In one fluid movement, Jane’s fear took control and made her do three things: duck, because that was always a good idea when something sharp and shiny and terrible is leaping at you; flash a widespread burst of light in a balloon around her, momentarily obscuring her exact location from the Shadow Raptors’ sights; and press the button on the tracking device Granite Girl had slipped around her neck.

  Within the span of a single pounding heartbeat, a rip appeared in the fabric of Jane’s reality. Never before had one of Rip-Shift’s rips appeared so glorious. A glimmering blue line, heavenly light pouring through, and then, appearing like vengeful angels: Keisha as Pixie Beats, Marie as Granite Girl, Devin as Windforce . . . and Mindsight. They flooded the hall, weapons firing, wind kicking into a frenzy, arms and legs whirling in the elaborate dance of combat. Rip-Shift sauntered through last, straightening his long leather jacket and then reaching behind him with a zipping motion.

  He glanced down at Jane. An eye of cool in a storm of chaos. “That’s how it’s done,” he said, as he sliced reality to both his left and right, sending a charging Shadow Raptor straight through a plate glass window in the next room.

  A flicker of hope and confidence stirred in Jane. Her reflection in Rip-Shift’s mirrored sunglasses was biting down on a guilty smile. Rip-Shift twisted, jumping with excitement into the fight now churning up the hall.

  Jane sprang to her feet. Mindsight spun toward her, throwing her arm wide to sweep Jane out of the way of an oncoming Shadow Raptor. They slammed into the wall together, their breaths escaping them, as Pixie Beats spun by in a series of deadly pirouettes; she shrank as small as a butterfly, dodging a blow, and expanded back to full size in time to deliver an uppercut from a duck-and-stand dance maneuver.

  Everywhere she looked, the Heroes were doing what they did best. Mindsight downed two Shadow Raptors with her revolver, Pixie Beats continued her homebrew, dance-inspired martial arts routine, Granite Girl smashed and slammed and sent Shadow Raptors bursting through office walls. Windforce summoned gusts through the hall that lifted Shadow Raptors off of their feet, hurtling them through rips that Rip-Shift would create with a lazy flick of his finger. Deltaman . . . well, Jane didn’t see Deltaman much, but there were so many thi
ngs to keep track of that this wasn’t surprising. Flashes of his cape appeared around the periphery of the fight now and then.

  “Captain!” Pixie Beats shouted. An opening had sprung up in front of Jane, a straight shot between her and the window that Rip-Shift had broken earlier. Pixie Beats kicked a Shadow Raptor, stumbling it into the space in front of Jane, and without a second thought, Jane narrowed a beam of light from her fingers and directed it straight at the Shadow Raptor. The Shadow Raptor wailed, staggering backward as it clutched its chest—backward, far enough for Windforce to conjure a gust around its feet and send it toppling through the broken window.

  The last one. Silence filled the hall.

  Jane burst out laughing. Her head spun with relief, as first Mindsight and then the rest of the team all gathered around her to slap her shoulder or offer a triumphant hug. The unreality of what had just happened was still processing in Jane’s mind, terror and bliss mixed up all in one as she realized that they were all okay. That she was okay. “That was . . . !” Jane started, but she had absolutely no idea how to express what that was. All that she knew was she was grinning like a fool, an expression she could see hiding in the faces of all of her companions.

  Her teammates.

  Her elation was cut short, however, as another projection sprang up out of the body of one of the Shadow Raptors like a terrible ghost. UltraViolet, her face just clear enough to see the glower that she was casting them.

  “That wasn’t the agreement,” she said, as she reached behind her and, without even looking, shot one of the hostages in the chest.

  * * *

  Jane didn’t hear the screams of the hostages, or the gasps and outrage of the Heroes. Her world reduced: the pounding of blood in her ears, heavy as funeral drums; the sight of the man that UltraViolet had shot. The image stayed with her, long after the projection itself had snapped off. His final moments played on a loop in Jane’s head. His eyes, first widening with shock and fear, then squeezed so, so tight, like maybe if he just held himself together, just a little, maybe, maybe . . .

  None of the other hostages had made a move to help him.

  By the time Jane regained a sense of time and place, the Heroes were already on the move. Jane blinked, and found herself climbing a stairwell, the rest of the team spread in a careful formation above and below her. Rip-Shift was nowhere to be seen, probably scouting a path ahead. Jane held on to that knowledge, the fact that she could put something like that together for herself. It helped keep her from sliding back into her personal hell—the man, the gunshot, the way that he’d clutched his chest as he toppled over.

  She wondered who his family was. Not if he had family—it was Jane’s experience that everyone had family, in some form or another, no matter how distant, no matter how small. Who was going to tell them that he was dead? Whose job was it, to find out the list of names to call?

  The call. Jane fought against the urge to dry heave, remembering the call.

  A gentle hand rested against Jane’s back. For an instant, she just assumed that it was Amy, but when she turned, it was Keisha’s reassuring smile that greeted her behind Pixie Beats’s mask.

  “Hey,” Pixie Beats said, moving up a step to walk beside Jane. “You holding up okay?”

  Jane found herself nodding. She hadn’t planned on it, and wouldn’t have thought that this would be the correct answer, but there it was.

  Then a horrible thought struck her. “Oh shit,” Jane said, “Keisha . . . Dominick’s not . . . I mean, he wasn’t—”

  “Nah, he’s all right. Wasn’t at the meeting. Thanks for asking, though.”

  Jane nodded once, acknowledging this. In the comics, Keisha’s husband had recently been appointed Assistant Mayor of Grand City. Of course, he was working for a third, entirely fictional mayor, someone Jane had based off of her ninth-grade geography teacher. And Jane had no way of knowing, before she’d asked, if this version of Dominick had even followed that path. Still . . . she should have been more sensitive.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t even think of it before,” Jane said. Then her eyes widened, realizing how horrible that sounded. “I mean—! It’s just that, in my world, you know, he helps run a non-profit.”

  Even behind her elaborate, masquerade-ball mask, Pixie Beats’s amusement and delight were obvious. “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jane said. “You both do.”

  Pixie Beats went quiet, considering this. The aesthetic of her superhero persona was designed to create an aura of don’t-give-no-shits—asymmetrical, multi-layered ballet skirt down to her knees; thick tights; beat-up sneakers; jean jacket with band patches sewn up and down the sleeves; a lock of neon-green hair that she clipped in before each battle—but Jane knew that she was actually a huge softy. She and Dominick had five kids, two dogs, and a turtle named Martian, and Keisha somehow found time for each of them.

  “Who do we help?” she asked finally.

  Jane knew that she wasn’t asking about the name of the organization. When Pixie Beats wanted to know who she helped, she meant who she helped.

  “Inner-city school kids. You set up programs where poor children can bring their laundry in for free, so no one has to come to school in dirty, beat-up clothes.”

  Pixie Beats smiled. “Good.”

  A noise made them look up. Rip-Shift had returned, stepping through a rip and sealing it quickly behind him. Deltaman was on point, waiting, and the two of them spoke in a frenzied whisper for a moment.

  “Hey, boys,” Granite Girl called from behind Jane, “care to share with the rest of the class?”

  A gust of wind blew past them, Windforce’s arms spread as the air carried him up the empty space in the middle of the stairwell. He landed easily beside Deltaman and Rip-Shift.

  “I hate it when they pull this shit,” Granite Girl said. She shoved past Jane and Pixie Beats, her heavy footsteps clomping loudly on the cement stairs.

  By the time Jane and Pixie Beats caught up with her, though, Granite Girl’s expression had gone as stony as her actual face. Mindsight trailed behind, three steps down, and they all listened in silence as Rip-Shift gave his report.

  The good news: there were no Shadow Raptors patrolling the halls, no weapon turrets surrounding the mayor’s office. The sixth floor was, in fact, completely sealed off, both UltraViolet and the hostages secured inside.

  The bad news: the sixth floor was, in fact, completely sealed off, and a new lock had been installed in the already reinforced door. One that required a specific series of light pulses and laser beams to disarm. Not difficult, no—Granite Girl could whip up a gadget to open it easily, sure, assuming that she had the time.

  Nobody turned to look at Jane. That was the worst part.

  Instead, Rip-Shift held out a piece of paper.

  “This was taped to the door,” he said, his voice weighted with apology.

  Jane took it. A typed message, diagrams explaining exactly how to open the lock. It was so complicated, far more complicated than anything that Cal had put her through in her training. So it was a test, then. For her. Only a single line of text preceded the instructions, two words taunting Jane in their false simplicity.

  Prove it.

  * * *

  “Maybe I can hack the flashlight functionality,” Granite Girl said, already pulling her phone out of her pocket. She turned away from the team for better concentration, but Deltaman laid a heavy hand on her shoulder.

  “There’s no time for that,” he said. “It has to be Jane.”

  “She can’t do it, though!” Granite Girl said.

  “Yes, she can,” Deltaman said. He turned to look straight at Jane. “I believe in her.”

  Which was harder to bear: Deltaman’s confidence, meant to be inspiring? Or the way that Mindsight’s eyes skittered away from Jane’s whenever she tried to catch them?

  They were so screwed.

  And yet, what other choice did they have? Retreat, and allow not just the mayor, but all the hostages and p
ossibly large swaths of the city, to die? Sure, Granite Girl might be able to hack something together—ignoring Deltaman, she already had the back of her phone open, and was pulling the circuits apart with the skill of a surgeon—but would it be enough? Would it be fast enough?

  Jane pushed her way to the top of the stairs. She had to move quickly, to stay ahead of her terror. The rest of the Heroes followed close behind.

  There it was, then. The door.

  It was barred by a complicated, aftermarket locking mechanism. An input panel glowed red in the middle, bars jutting out in an X to stake the doorframe. Briefly, Jane wondered how UltraViolet had attached it if she was really locked inside, but this was frankly the least of her worries. She stepped up to the input panel, light gently pulsing into the hall.

  Now all she had to do was do it. Sure, as if it was that easy.

  Jane wriggled her fingers, shaking them out. It didn’t help—she did it anyway. She glanced at the note in her hand, which was already turning damp with sweat. The instructions looked like gibberish, like the scribbles of a child’s drawing. She shut her eyes.

  Prove it. The words entered Jane’s mind, laughing at her. This was never the plan. The whole team had assured her that her limited powers would be enough. They really just needed a small light show, to demonstrate that Jane even had the powers, that was what they’d said. That would do it.

  Jane opened her eyes. The input panel still glowed just as angry as it had a moment ago.

  This wasn’t going to get any better.

  She raised her hand.

  A burst of uncontrolled light struck the input panel; it beeped with all of the disdain of Jane’s nasty third-grade teacher. Jane winced, a reaction that rippled through the rest of the Heroes.