by Jenn Gott
Jane sighed. She turned, instinct making her want to look out the window, except that there were no windows to look out. All that surrounded her were computers and guns, and none of that was exactly comforting. She tucked her necklace away and stuffed her hands under her legs, sitting on them to keep them still. Her uniform was still singed around the edges, scuff marks running down the pants.
“So what’s different now?” Jane asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re acting now. What’s different?”
“Nothing,” Allison said. She looked up, looked Jane dead in the face. “If it was up to me, none of you would be involved in this operation at all. But my bosses feel differently. They order me to stay out of your way, I stay out of your way. They order me to cooperate with you, I cooperate with you. My feelings on the subject are irrelevant. So, you see,” she added, turning away, “there really is no reason to thank me.”
Jane frowned. Her impulse was to argue, though right now she found herself quite devoid of words. It didn’t matter, though—the van was slowing, and Allison glanced up, checking something on the computers as she tucked her tablet away.
“We’re here,” she said.
Jane took a sharp breath as her stomach clenched. She checked her mask, still secure on her face. She tried to tell herself that this wasn’t anything worse than she’d already dealt with, that this time she even had the whole team on her side, plus Allison. That they were going into this one armed to the teeth, ready and raring for battle. That she’d managed to hold her own earlier—and okay, so UltraViolet was injured, but it’s not like there had been much time for UltraViolet to heal herself since then, right? This shouldn’t be anywhere near as nerve-racking as all that was. If she could survive that . . .
There was only one problem with her reasoning:
Amy wasn’t in danger last time.
The van shifted, probably Pixie Beats and Granite Girl getting out of the front. Allison got up, making one last check of her holsters as the back doors swung outward.
A figure all in black filled the open view.
“Hello, ladies,” Doctor Demolition said with a grin. He raised his hand, a triggering device with a big red button held tight in his fist. “Lovely evening for some fireworks, isn’t it?”
His thumb crashed against the button.
The van erupted.
For the first time in Jane’s life, she understood the term “bone-jarring.”
The van burst upward, lifting Jane and Allison as easily as flipping an omelet. Dry heat covered their skin with searing kisses. Jane didn’t even see Rip-Shift’s rip until she was falling through it headfirst, a shimmering line that disappeared from her sight as quickly as it had appeared.
She tumbled onto the concrete sidewalk, maybe a dozen yards from the van. Allison spilled out beside her, both of them hitting the ground and rolling, coughing and gasping as the smoke that had fallen through the rip with them dissipated harmlessly in the open air. The van crashed, somewhere nearby; a sickening, shrieking crunch of metal and glass that sent Jane straight back to her nightmares of the tunnel all over again.
Someone slapped her firmly on the shoulder.
“Up,” Allison said. It wasn’t a suggestion.
Jane groaned, but she reached out, knowing that Allison would grab tight and help haul Jane to her feet. The world was still spinning around her—probably around Allison, too, by the way she shifted her footing—but they were still alive, and that was all that mattered for now. Still in the fight.
Night had fallen during the drive. They were standing in a plaza, spotlights flooding the space so that it was lit up like an arena. Jane took a second to crane her neck back, trying to orient herself—and promptly froze, staring at the bronze letters secured above her.
She didn’t need to read them. She would recognize them anywhere.
Grand City Museum of Fine Arts.
A crash brought her back to herself. Allison had already run off, heading back into the thick of the fight, which was now spilling onto the street in front of the museum. Doctor Demolition had crawled into the sculpture that stood beside the entrance steps, laughing at the Heroes’ reluctance to destroy it simply to get to him. Jane’s heart warmed; she’d seen more than enough superhero movies where there was not even the slightest consideration for property damage.
Doctor Demolition, however, did not hold the arts in as high of esteem. In addition to the myriad of blinking lights that ringed the sculpture itself, waiting to go off, tiny explosions were bursting all throughout the plaza. Chunks of dirt and cement flew through the air, and a haze was beginning to sting at Jane’s eyes as she raced forward.
A square of paving stone exploded in front of Jane. She leaped back, narrowly avoiding the debris.
“Ah!” Doctor Demolition called, temporarily secure in his nest of metal and fine art. “Captain Lumen! So glad you didn’t die just now. We have a special present planned for you.”
With a flick of his wrist, a mechanical whirring filled the air. Vibrations met her boots, and Jane glanced down in time to see what looked like metal cockroaches burst out from the gaps between paving stones. They wriggled, and leaped into the air—all of them vaulting straight in Jane’s direction.
A gust of wind swept in just as Jane began to scream. It burst up from the ground, tossing Jane high. She flipped over from the force of it, turning just in time to see the cockroach devices collide in the space where Jane had been and burst into a glorious explosion, a tidy little ball of flame worthy of a comics page.
The wind cut out from underneath her.
Jane screamed again, starting to fall—and then, all of a sudden, a miniaturized Pixie Beats was cutting through the air like a bullet, expanding out to full size just long enough to wrap her arms around Jane. The impact sent them flying sideways, hooking Jane as if she was being yanked off stage by one of those comically long canes. “Hold tight!” Pixie Beats shouted, and the world ballooned out around them.
That’s how it felt, anyway.
It took Jane almost the entire arc of Pixie Beats’s trajectory to work out that she had actually reduced Jane to the size of a mouse. Wrapped tightly in Pixie Beats’s arms, Jane’s entire structure had shrunk down alongside her, until they were both falling harmlessly to the ground. They landed with the softest bump, and Jane didn’t even have time to boggle at the scale of the world before Pixie Beats was letting her go, and she was springing back to full size once more.
Pixie Beats was already back on her feet. She nodded down at Jane. “Might be best if you let us handle this,” she said, and she did not wait for a response before spinning and springing back toward the action.
The whoop-whoop of a siren announced the arrival of the GCPD. Five squad cars careened onto the scene. Their doors flew open, spilling guns and officers.
Rip-Shift held up his hand, stilling the cops—for now. He stood near the base of the sculpture, glowering up through his mirrored sunglasses. He had to be trying to figure out an angle that he could slice a rip beneath Doctor Demolition, but the layout of the sculpture, twisting around his body, wasn’t providing much help. Too far in one direction, and Rip-Shift risked setting off the bombs. Too far in another, and he’d accidentally cut off part of the sculpture itself.
“Give it up, Doctor!” Rip-Shift said. “You’ll never get away with it. You never do.”
Doctor Demolition grinned. Light from the patrol cars splashed over his face in alternating red and blue. “Don’t need to ‘get away with it’ this time, though, do I? Just need to keep you goody-two-shoes busy. And believe me,” he added, pulling a small detonator box out of his pocket, “that I can do.”
Jane braced herself for an explosion as he pressed the button.
But none came. The cops and the Heroes exchanged glances, as if trying to corroborate between themselves that the plaza was, indeed, still intact.
“Two buses,” Doctor Demolition said. He held up his fingers, wiggling f
irst one and then the other, as if there was any doubt how to count that high. “Each on their normal routes, somewhere in the heart of Grand City. If they stop driving, they blow. If you attempt to disarm them, they blow. If you so much as open the doors . . . they blow.”
“You asshole!” Pixie Beats shouted. “You’re fucked up, you know that?”
Doctor Demolition laughed as he threw his arms wide. “That is the general idea!”
One of the cops jumped forward, his gun trained into the heart of the statue. “Stand down!”
“No, don’t!” Rip-Shift said. “Seriously, Ted . . . leave it to us.”
“Can’t do that, sir,” the cop—Ted?—said. “This man poses a clear and present danger to the city, and it’s my duty to—”
“It’s your duty to shut the fuck up and not screw this over for everyone,” Rip-Shift snapped. “We’re handling this.”
Ted shook his head. He hadn’t so much as looked away from Doctor Demolition, not for an instant. “Put down your weapons, and step away from the statue!”
Doctor Demolition laughed.
“This is your last warning!” Ted called.
“Ted—!”
Ted fired.
It wasn’t possible for Jane to watch the bullet’s journey, but it certainly felt like she could. Time hung, suspended, a slow progression of panels that track the bullet, first with a side view and then slowly coming around to ride on its tail as beyond it, Doctor Demolition throws himself out of the way.
One last panel: the bullet, piercing through the protective casing on one of the bombs strapped to the sculpture’s arms. The slightest tint of orange-red fills the background, before the whole thing explodes in a terrifying fireball. Kaboom!
Jane gasped. Someone grabbed her roughly by the arm, throwing her down as twisted bits of sculpture flew like javelins through the air. She hit the paving stones and curled her arms over her head, wincing as the sounds pierced the night. The shriek of metal and the roar of fire, the shouts and insults hurtling at Ted, the crackle of radios, the arguments sizzling between the Heroes and the cops.
By the time Jane got to her feet, Ted was already cuffed and being hauled away by Windforce. Heat from the fire pummeled the plaza. Allison had her badge out, directing the cops—Jane heard words like “cordon off” and “innocents” and “fuckfaces.” Jane smirked as they glowered in Allison’s direction, but ultimately, what was there for them to do, but obey?
Pixie Beats jogged over. “Hey. You okay?”
“Yeah,” Jane said.
“Good,” Pixie Beats said. “Because we’re going to need your help, once we get inside. Windforce and Rip-Shift are going with the cops to try to rescue the passengers out of the buses, now that . . . well, now that the remote’s been destroyed.”
Jane’s mouth soured. She tried not to look, but couldn’t help it—a charred lump sat beneath the flaming sculpture (what was left of it, anyway), and Jane forcibly shoved the thought away, of what and who that probably was. Used to be.
Vertigo washed over her, and Jane had to pause for a moment, to duck her head between her knees.
Pixie Beats patted her back, but Granite Girl’s voice, coming close a moment later, wasn’t as sympathetic.
“Not as tidy as your comics, is it?”
“Oh, give her a break,” Pixie Beats said. “You weren’t any better, in the beginning.”
“No, I wasn’t.” Granite Girl smacked Jane’s shoulder, and Jane glared up at her stony face. “But guess what, newb? It doesn’t get easier. So you take a deep breath, and you put on your big-girl panties, because this night’s just getting started. Now, come on,” she said, turning toward the entrance of the museum. “We’ve got a job to do. Just try not to get yourself killed, all right?”
* * *
Jane remembered her first visit to the Grand City Museum of Fine Arts. Ten years old, a Girl Scout trip into the city. Her troop leader had the girls partner up for the day; the instructions weren’t even fully out of her mouth when Jane and Clair linked hands, ready to go. The day was perfect—until it was time to leave, and Jane turned around, and suddenly she couldn’t find Clair.
It was one of those childhood traumas, where the world feels like it’s about to end even though there was never any real danger after all. It turns out that Clair had raced off for a last-minute trip to the bathroom before they piled into their chaperon’s car, and in the commotion of all those giggling girls, Jane hadn’t heard Clair say it. But Jane would never forget the panic, standing there as the lobby emptied out, crying wordlessly while the chaperons spread out in search of their lost charge. Halfway through, the lights snapped off automatically, the museum closing down for the night, and Jane had screamed in shock. It was the scream that Clair heard, which made her come running back.
More than twenty years later, the same dread clung to Jane as she and Allison and Pixie Beats and Granite Girl stepped into the lobby. It looked the same: shut down, the only light pouring in from the lamps outside, the glow of the emergency exit lights. The lobby was cavernous, at least as large as it had been when Jane was a child. And it was so quiet. Even their breaths were subdued, as if they’d entered a sacred space.
“You’re sure they’re inside?” Pixie Beats asked in a whisper.
Granite Girl nodded, wordless. She held up a tablet, the tracking device for Amy clearly blinking over the blip of the museum.
“Okay,” Pixie Beats said. She shrank down, looking like nothing more than a flower petal blowing across the floor of the lobby.
“Should we spread out?” Allison asked. “Assume a standard search perimeter?”
“We don’t have a standard search perimeter,” Granite Girl said.
Allison sighed. “No, of course you don’t.”
“Hey,” Jane cut in, “it works for us, okay? Besides—”
She froze. A beam of laser light, invisible to everyone but her, had cut through the lobby and trained itself in the middle of Allison’s forehead.
“Get down!” Jane shouted, as she launched herself at Allison. The crack of a bullet cut through the open lobby as they hit the ground.
Allison threw Jane off of her. The three of them scrambled for cover as another shot broke the glass door of the gift shop beside them. They cowered behind a thick marble bench, heads clustered at the base like kittens vying for the prime suckling spot on their mother.
“Can anyone see where it’s coming from?” Allison asked, and Granite Girl shook her head.
“I didn’t see a thing!”
“They’re using an infrared laser sight,” Jane said. She looked over her shoulder and watched, her throat closing up, as the beam of light danced on the walls behind them, seeking them out. “Cal showed me one, when we were training. He said—”
“Real military sniper rifles don’t create little red dots, like in the movies,” came a voice from the ceiling. The loudspeaker amplified every tiny breath in Cal’s voice as he sighed, and continued. “I should have realized you’d be able to see them anyway.”
“Cal, you bastard!” Granite Girl said. “When I find you, I’m going to rip your fucking head off!”
Allison clamped her hand over Granite Girl’s mouth. “Not. Helping.”
Cal’s laugh boomed through the PA system. “Oh, Granite Girl. What would the public think of you now? Death threats? Those are hardly the words of a Hero, are they?”
Granite Girl wrestled with Allison’s arm, but it was Jane that spoke next.
“You’re right . . . that wasn’t very heroic. But she’s better than that, and so are you. I don’t think you really want to turn a gun on your friends, Cal.”
Allison shot Jane a look like, You really think that’s going to work?, but all Jane could do was shrug in a way that said, It’s worth a try.
“Whatever,” Allison muttered.
The PA system clicked back on. “You’re absolutely right, Jane.” A smile curled his voice. “Maybe you should come out, and prove how much you b
elieve in me.”
Jane shut her eyes. “Shit.”
Granite Girl wrenched Allison’s hand away from her mouth. “It’s not a terrible idea,” Granite Girl whispered.
“What? He’s going to kill me.”
“Like she said,” Allison said, “not a terrible idea.”
Jane scrunched her face at Allison. Allison scrunched hers back.
Granite Girl snapped her fingers between them, the scrape of stone grating to Jane’s ears. “Ladies, focus. No, listen: Jane can keep Cal busy, right? Play this stupid banter game with him. Go out there if you have to—you’ll see the shot coming, you can dodge it. Allison and I will make our way to the security office.”
“And if I don’t see it coming?”
Granite Girl shrugged. “You will.”
“Thanks,” Jane said. “That’s a big help.”
“Shut up,” Allison said. “She’s right, it’s worth a try. If we can get in there, we can track him on the cameras.”
“Yeah, and then Jane lures him into a prearranged area, somewhere secure, and we’ll activate a lockdown around him. Easy-peasy.”
Jane looked from Allison to Granite Girl and back again. “This is a terrible idea.”
Allison clapped a hand on Jane’s shoulder. “You’re only saying that because you’re the one that needs to put yourself in the line of fire,” she said. “But you know what?”
“What?”
“I don’t care.”
Allison shoved Jane, hard enough to roll her out into the open space of the lobby.
Jane gasped. She threw her arm out, stopping herself, and scrambled up just as a bullet bit deep into the marble floor by her head. Granite Girl and Allison had already moved, using the distraction to avoid becoming targets themselves. Jane blinked, and saw their heat signatures cowering behind the admissions desk.
The laser sight skittered up Jane’s body.
Jane jumped to the side, twisting out of the way. Another crack, and this time the whole glass window of the gift shop came shattering down.
“Goddammit, Cal!” Jane shouted, as she ran for cover. She threw herself beside the main staircase, sliding in next to a potted plant. The leaves burst as another bullet tore through their branches.