Heroes of Corvus (Book 3): Two Good Reasons

by Gilliam, Patricia

  TWO GOOD REASONS

  PATRICIA GILLIAM

  Copyright © 2019 PATRICIA GILLIAM

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission of the author, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  All you really need is one…

  ONE THING I’VE LEARNED ABOUT VILLAINS IS THAT WE—I mean, they—have a tendency to let information slip without realizing it.

  If you saw what I just did there, heroes, you get a cookie.

  I grabbed two duffel bags from the back of Eli’s SUV. The second contained my knock-off Red Bolt suit, and I placed a recently washed set of street clothes on top to hide it. “We should focus our searches on polar areas, starting with the North Pole.” Eli and Tiros started to grab some cardboard boxes for me, but I shook my head. “Store the rest with my original suit. It will make things easier once the feds fire me and kick me out.”

  “How do you know that?” Tiros asked.

  “I can become irritating when I’m bored.” I knew he meant the search areas but waited for him to glare at me. “The group’s leader referred to Daniel as ‘Santa Claus’—and said any kidnapped children would think they were on an adventure. It may be a false lead, but he thought he had Daniel under his thumb at the time.”

  Agent Jim Fisher and Beth were waiting on the other side of the farm field. Green Nova and Dex flew up to join us as we got closer. I had wanted to say goodbye to Daniel and his family at the hospital in person, but it wasn’t my choice anymore. Getting the cloak for Miranda had come at a price of me helping the feds. They were in a hurry, considering the evil human statues appeared to be recovering at a slow but noticeable rate.

  “Icarus, weren’t you just—?” Fisher turned in the direction of the armored trucks and a farmhouse beyond them. Not long after Eli had arrived with my apartment’s stuff, I had borrowed the farmer’s bathroom to change my underwear and pants. Don’t judge—you weren’t there with a gun to your head. I wouldn’t even be telling you this if it wasn’t for vital alibi-related reasons. We’ll get to that later.

  “I needed to take a potty break without contaminating the scene,” I explained. Mostly true—and at least Eli and his team appreciated it. Fisher looked as if he may have timed me with a stopwatch. This was not a good sign of things to come. “My powers aren’t gone yet—just not that reliable. Will that be a problem?”

  Fisher shook his head, seeming to let go whatever the hell had bothered him. “The sooner we find those kids, the sooner you can return here or wherever else you want to go. I know you don’t have a lot of time left, and we’re trying not to waste it.”

  I nodded in agreement. Daniel’s team and Eli still believed I had a few months left to live. It felt closer to weeks—but I wanted any goodbyes be harder on me than them.

  “If you need a jailbreak, call us.” Green Nova said as she hugged me. Her tone turned borderline threatening towards Fisher. “Take care of him—and not like some villain informant. Outside of the whole contract fighting act, he’s helped more lower and mid-tier heroes than some trainers.”

  “Does that mean I get upper-tier coffee?” I asked, meaning it as a joke. I’d heard rumors of the stuff—one of several perks the feds used to bribe accomplished superheroes to work for them. It was somewhere around $12 a cup.

  “Hell, I don’t even get upper-tier coffee.” Fisher laughed, but he also seemed irked by the topic. The feds needed the advantage over me—not the other way around. If it kept them all comfortable, I had no problem with letting them believe they had it. “I promise we’ll have a formal contract on paper once we get there. We don’t want your father’s AI scrubbing a digital version an hour and a half later.”

  “Yeah, that gets annoying sometimes...” I replied. Fisher shouldn’t have known the exact timing of the AI scrubs—not unless the feds had been watching my profile for a while. I had to let that go for the moment and moved on.

  “Sorry we didn’t get a lot of field time together, but your skills seem solid.” I reached my hand out to Dex. He shook it and then brought me into a hug, too. I had learned he’d been an orphan like Cameron. This made his and Green’s desire for me to join Daniel’s team make more sense. The group environment had helped them. They wanted to help me, too. It was a kind sentiment, but I would have let them all down at some point. “I’ll try to visit after we find those kids—hopefully Nathan, too.”

  Tiros shook my hand, keeping his back to the feds. “Be careful, Icarus.” It wasn’t just me who felt something was off about all of this. When both a hero and a villain’s alarm bells go off, it means something major. “Try to be less…” He seemed at a loss for the right adjective. “Less you. Otherwise, they may just freeze you instead of booting you out.”

  I shuddered. Unlike city-level containment, federal centers used cryogenic pods for superpowered prisoners—sometimes without legal due process. Daniel’s team was sending a message that I’d be missed if they stopped hearing from me. They cared, but part of this was strategy. I realized this when even Tiros gave me an awkward hug. He didn’t even like me.

  When Eli and I had talked earlier, he was also in the consensus that I shouldn’t leave Corvus. Beyond everyone’s concerns for the kidnapped children, the feds were hiding something from his task force and the heroes. Whatever it was, the feds thought they needed me for it.

  “Two good reasons.” I told him—our mutual code when I knew I was walking into a trap. Timing would be tight, but I knew everything I needed to do. “Spend a lot of money on your family for me. That’s an order.”

  “You better believe it.” Eli was built like a linebacker, and he could hold his own even without powers. He looked angry enough to tackle Fisher, but I was the one who’d initiated this deal and needed to follow-through on it. I didn’t want him or anyone else in Corvus to get hurt. “We’ll see you soon. Text me when you make it there.”

  Beth, Fisher, and I loaded into a fed SUV just as a sonic boom hit from overhead. Daniel landed near Eli’s team and then ran toward us. At first, I thought something bad had happened at the hospital. Turns out, he was more panicked about me.

  “Hold up!” he shouted to the agent who was driving, and I rolled down my window. He was out of breath and speaking fast. “Hey, I got your message. Sign this—minor housekeeping before you can sign the fed contract. The foundation is due for an audit soon, so everything needs to be filed tonight. Sorry if I scared you. Miranda and Hailey are fine, and Miranda told me about the deal you made for the cloak. I wish you had told me sooner, but I get it. There just wasn’t enough time.”

  I hadn’t sent him any messages but decided to play along. He handed me a tablet with some sort of fine print legal document. The signature line read Jacob Hayes—the alias he’d used for me while I was in a coma. I hadn’t accepted any formal offer to be on his team, but he had this parental ‘this-is-not-a-discussion’ expression. He needed me to trust him. Compared to everything else we’d been through in the past few hours, it was a simple decision.

  “Print a few copies, too—just in case,” I told him. The alias signature was shaky but close enough, and I wasn’t sure what he planned to do with it. “People still print things now, right? I don’t deal with this stuff a lot.” Or at all—when I could avoid it. It was one of my blind spots, and Daniel and his team kn
ew it.

  “Hate to interrupt, but we’re on a deadline, Spires,” Fisher said in an impatient tone from the front passenger seat. “I promise we’ll bring Icarus back in one piece. We just need him for some intel—not field work. He’ll be safe with us.”

  I was beginning to doubt that.

  “Welcome to the team.” Daniel took the tablet and reached his hand through the window. “Start with calling into headquarters every morning. We have daily meetings, too—remotely when necessary. I’ll send you the access links.”

  “Sure—every morning,” I repeated. He was wielding hero bureaucracy like a protective weapon, and I was trying not to crack up at how over-the-top he was taking it. “Thanks, Daniel. If I get any leads on Nathan, I’ll call you directly. Tiros and Eli have my number if you need it.”

  It was as close as a goodbye as we could get. Fisher wanted to keep up with the armored trucks in case anything went wrong, and they were almost out of sight. As soon as Daniel removed his hand from the window, we were moving again.

  “I wish there had been a better way to do this, Icarus, but we all want the same thing.” Fisher turned around in his seat to face me. I nodded but remained quiet. I didn’t have him quite figured out yet. “There are hundreds of compromised heroes and villains still out there. Not all of them are like Daniel Spires. The sooner we rescue those kids, the sooner we can defuse what may already be a global-level emergency. Someone from your era is pulling a lot of strings at once, and we honestly don’t know if we can stop it.”

  “What makes you think I can?” I asked. I looked over at Beth and then back at Fisher. “The sooner we get all of this out in the open, the sooner I can get to work. How much do you know?”

  “We were aware of people and creatures from your era long before you showed up in Corvus,” Beth answered. She seemed sad—ashamed—and I think she genuinely felt bad about lying to me. I wasn’t too surprised, though. “Your father contacted us almost five years ago—trying to locate you.”

  I WAITED UNTIL WE REACHED A STOP SIGN BEFORE I opened my door, leaving both my duffel bags in the back of the SUV. I didn’t care anymore. This was exactly what I deserved for trying to play well with others.

  “Icarus, please stop.” Beth’s tone was frustrated, but she didn’t yell as she ran after me. “Icarus, if you will just let us explain—”

  I tested if I could fly again, only making it up a few meters but landing well since I’d anticipated it. We were near a park now, and the flat terrain helped. I got in some distance bounds and thought I’d lost her—only to turn around and find her standing right behind me.

  “Holy shit!” I jumped back, startled and questioning if it was even her.

  My heart and mind raced with nowhere to direct my body’s extra energy. Having no better option, I ripped a rental bicycle from its station and then threw it away from us. The bike spun once, bounced a few times in the grass, and then came to a stop a few meters from a group of teenage kids.

  “That was awesome!” One of them shouted, and she grabbed the bike to test if it still functioned. It was fine. “Thank you!”

  “Bring it back once you’re done, kid!” I shouted back. Yeah, that bike was definitely gone. I turned my attention back to Beth. “Terrible frisbee, but you would have made a much worse lawn dart. What the hell is wrong with you?” I meant her sneaking up behind me without warning, but she flinched as if she thought I hated her as a human being.

  “I have powers,” she said, as if that suddenly answered everything. “I wanted to tell you at the hospital last month, but I had to wait until your background cleared. That’s the reason Fisher and I did the initial search on you. It flagged the archived messages from your father. We’ve watched most of them.” I hadn’t seen or communicated with Dad in over six centuries. As far as anything recent, the feds probably knew more about him than I did—or at least believed they did.

  “Well, good for you!” I started to walk away, but then my back started locking up again. I had to stop and rest one hand on a tree to keep from falling. “What do you actually want from me, Ms. Super Agent Beth?” I still didn’t know her last name—not that it really mattered.

  “Fisher and I want to save those kids—same as you.” Her tone turned disgusted at the accusation there was more to it. I still glared at her. “We have tech that might help—if you know how to use it.”

  The feds had more recovered tech from my era—possibly a lot of it. Fisher allowing Miranda to have the cloak wasn’t just about making a deal with me. It was a test to see what we could do with it in the field.

  I pointed in the rough direction of the SUV. “When I was a kid, a psychopath murdered my mom and blackmailed my dad into working on our tech for him—using my life as leverage! Can you see why this arrangement might bother me a little?”

  “Minos,” she said. I gave a reluctant nod. Dad had already given them some intel. “Your father killed him, but it triggered a global conflict between his allies and yours. His descendants want revenge—and they’re willing to hurt innocent people to get it…even those kids and their families.”

  I sighed. “I don’t even need our tech, Beth. I just want a room to sit and contact everyone I know until there’s no one left. That’s how we’ll locate those kids. Whether it’s in your Chicago field office or sitting in some breakfast restaurant in Corvus is up to you. Our chances are better if I have enough modern tech to keep everyone organized, but I won’t be anyone’s puppet. Do you understand?”

  She nodded. “We’re not in constant communication with your father. He sent our Atlanta office some video messages and a package for you, but we thought they were weird hoaxes at the time and didn’t respond. We’ve tried to reach out since then, but he hasn’t responded yet.”

  “Probably just taking another cryo nap…” I mumbled. Her eyebrows furrowed. “If you pissed him off, you would know it.”

  “Are you afraid of him?” she asked in confusion. I nodded. “He seems to still care about you—at least in the video messages. I can see why you admire him so much, too.”

  “It’s complicated, Beth.” I’d recovered enough to walk again. “I’ll go back with you, but I’m done once those kids are safe. Fair enough?”

  “Icarus, I’m sorry for what we kept from you.” She grabbed the side of my hand and squeezed it—just like at the hospital. Either she cared about me, or she was damn good at acting like it.

  I smiled but gently pushed her hand away. “I’m sorry, too.”

  “For what?”

  “You know how I talked to Cameron at the hospital?” I asked. She nodded. “I do the same thing with all of you, just to a milder degree. The whole contract villain persona was an act—all theater and exaggerated stereotypes. Most actual villains aren’t self-aware enough to know when they’re wrong—much less have any desire to change. It wasn’t some overnight revelation for me, and I’m still struggling with it.”

  It was a risk to admit that much, but Beth didn’t recoil or go for her gun. By that point, Fisher and the agent who had been driving had caught up to us. Beth waved her hand and shook her head slightly at them—some sort of signal that she was fine.

  “You have a villain thought process—and behavioral tendencies,” she said to me. I’d never had anyone put it that way, but I smiled and shrugged in agreement. “Have you ever killed anyone other than Hailstorm?”

  I stopped smiling. She already knew the answer and was possibly testing how much I’d admit. There were no civilians within earshot now, and Fisher and the other agent had relaxed. I hoped they all stayed that way.

  “Out of self-defense—yes,” I answered. Mostly true—and definitely not innocent civilians or any random sprees. Psychopaths like Hailstorm disgusted me, and I hated when they seemed to recognize something familiar in me. “I’m not proud of it now. No sane person would be. What I believed was necessary to stay alive nearly turned me into something worse than the people trying to kill me. They all drove Dad over that edge—far pas
t it. That’s why I walked away from him when I did.”

  EVEN WITH BETH’S ASSURANCES THAT VIDEO CALLS made inside fed vehicles were secure, I wanted to keep the conversation short—and my shaking hands out-of-frame.

  “Hi, Icarus!” Cameron grinned and waved to me. I waved at the display on the back of the driver’s-side seat and then folded my hands tight on my lap. “Are you and Beth on your way to visit?” He could see her sitting in the backseat next to me, and she waved to him, too.

  I didn’t know if he was within driving distance or not, but it would never be safe to see him in person again. I didn’t want my father’s enemies to think I cared about anyone but myself. It just made innocent people into targets.

  “Soon—just not today.” I used my hero tone, but Cameron’s smile faded as if he may have picked up on the lie. This would likely be my final conversation with him, and I didn’t want it to be a sad memory. “I just heard from Ms. Beth that you’re enrolled in hero training. Have you thought of a call sign yet?”

  Under the circumstances, a few hundred vetted heroes and trainees surrounding Cameron until he could fend for himself was the best outcome I could accept. It was a lot better than I could do for him now.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know yet. Most of the good names are already taken.”

  “When you come up with something, let us know. You’ll be an awesome hero someday—like Red Bolt.”

  “And you,” he insisted.

  I smiled to keep from cringing. “Don’t be like me, Cameron.” He knew I’d killed Hailstorm to protect him, but I wasn’t sure how much he understood. “Being a hero is difficult, and sometimes you’ll make mistakes. Once you’re older, though, try not to kill—not even the evil villains. Not if you can see another way to still survive and protect innocent people. Can you promise me that? It’s important.”