Sunshine frowned before replying.
“I…well, I guess, but with everything that’s been happening with you—hearing voices, transforming against your will. Not to mention how scared—”
“I’m not scared now,” I said with a shrug, “No voices. No transformations. I’m fine.”
“Well, you’re fine now. And I can understand wanting to move on, but I don’t know if it will be that easy.” She paused, then frowned again. “You know…has anyone mentioned that you’re different when you’re in costume? I mean, you still feel like Dawn but—”
“Oh, everyone does,” I said with a smile. “I’ve never been called ‘chipper’ or ‘chatty’ so much in my life! Sometimes I wonder if Hikari is like, the good parts of me. A better version of myself.”
“Regular Dawn is good too.”
“Speaking of regular Dawn.”
I closed my eyes and waited two breaths. When I was done, I looked down on myself, at regular Dawn, and couldn’t help but feel…I don’t know. Almost a twinge of disappointment.
Before I could linger on it, my phone vibrated. I pulled it up and when I saw the name on the screen, I felt some of the anxiety I had experienced before talking to Sunshine start to creep back in.
“Oh,” I said, blinking.
“Something wrong?”
“No,” I replied. “I just didn’t think I would hear from Alex so soon.”
9
Alex
By the time she arrived, it was starting to get dark. The pier was almost empty, the shops and restaurants shut down for the day. The handful of people that were here had bundled up as if it were winter already. Even Dawn kept her face burrowed in that red scarf of hers as she made her way up the boardwalk.
I hadn’t asked her to meet me at the same bench. It didn’t seem right. Instead, I stood at the very end of the boardwalk, a laptop bag in hand. Here, the wooden pier dropped off into a set of stairs, which led down to a park. The grassy area was set up in sort of an informal coliseum. In the summer months, they hosted free concerts and plays here. Now, the activity on stage was a little different.
I tightened my grip on the bag in my hand.
“Hiii,” Dawn said as she approached, the tiny word stretched into two syllables.
“Hey,” I replied.
“Um, did you find out something at Kent’s?”
“Not what I was looking for,” I said, then nodded to the park below. “Take a look.”
Dawn looked down and across the park toward the stage. The woman, who had been walking in circles for the last ten minutes, took that opportunity to start screaming again.
“I need to find her,” a woman with frizzy blond hair yelled out. “I need to find her!”
“My god,” Dawn said, “is she—”
“A drone,” I replied with a sigh.
And for the third time since I had arrived, the woman began ranting about how Calypso had been sending her messages in her sleep. About how the “quacks” at the Bailey City Central Hospital had been trying to silence her for weeks. But she had found a way to escape.
“Looks like she’s stopped taking her medication,” I replied, voice flat. “Bet they were anti-psychotics.”
“I need to—” Dawn took a step forward.
“Hold up,” I said, raising a hand. “Take a look.”
We watched as a local beat cop approached her from the side. Hands raised, he spoke in soft tones we couldn’t make out from so far away. After a minute, the drone’s shoulders began to deflate, and she buried her face in her hands. The cop inched his way forward and placed a comforting palm on her shoulder.
“I thought people were helping them,” Dawn said. “That there was some progress, you know?”
“Progress is rarely a straight line,” I said, repeating Mariah’s words.
“The poor woman,” Dawn replied.
“Yeah.” I frowned. “And I don’t even know her name.”
“Huh?”
“I worked with them for weeks. Some of them months. And I might be able to recall what…half of their names?”
Dawn’s response was silence, so I continued.
“And the crazy thing is, I didn’t bother trying to learn them until we were preparing for the benefit, when I got to know Noel. Before then, with a few exceptions, they were all the same to me.”
The look Dawn gave me was pained. I turned from her and back to the park, resting my hands on the bar in front of me.
“Whenever I took that damn elevator down, I had this almost ritual. That I was locking away the pieces of me that were Alex, becoming Faultline. But after a while, that ritual became too damn good. It made it easy to forget that they were people. And now, I can’t forget.”
I felt Dawn shift behind me, drawing closer until she was standing right next to me. For one insane second, I thought she was going to try to comfort me, tell me that I hadn’t done anything wrong or that things were different now. And if she had…Damn, I would have lost it, left in a huff, our meeting over before it had even started. The last thing I needed was someone making excuses for me.
Instead, she reached forward and rested her hand on the bar, not touching mine, but just next to it. If she hadn’t been wearing gloves, it would have been close enough to feel the heat of her hands. Once she was there, she listened, waiting for me to continue.
“Things didn’t go well at Kent’s,” I said. “Apparently, Amity’s parting gift was to erase me from the minds of everyone except Noel White.”
“You, ah…think it was intentional?” she asked.
“He was the only one of them I considered a friend.” I rolled my shoulders back. “And now he hates me.”
“Then why hasn’t he turned you in?”
“Well, he is a drone. People probably just assume he’s crazy, like her.”
I nodded down to the scene in front of us where the woman was crying in her hands, the officer speaking to her. I watched as a cop car pulled into the area. Reinforcements, likely. A sight that would have sent me running when I was in my teens and still made me tense up now. It was easy to forget that they weren’t all assholes.
“My sister gave me this big spiel about apologies,” I said. “And how forgiveness is just as much for the person doing the forgiving as for person being forgiven. And as a result, you don’t necessarily have to check off a specific list of boxes to make things right again.”
“And do you agree with her?” Dawn asked.
“Not really. I mean, I understand why she feels that way, but for me…” I shook my head. “I fucked up, Dawn. And it wasn’t all about the benefit heist or working with Calypso. No, where I really fucked up is with those damn drones. I could have helped them, only the option never occurred to me. And the worst part is, I haven’t even learned my lesson.”
“I…” Dawn hesitated. “I’m sorry, but I’m confused.”
“Look at Marty,” I said. “When I found him and realized what he knew, I didn’t see him as a person either, just a walking threat of exposure.” I nodded toward the laptop case I had brought with me, now leaning up against the fence. “I even took his laptop away so he couldn’t contact anyone. And now, where is he?”
“Is that…”
“Fuck if I know,” I continued. “Kidnapped by some new Costume. And how much better are the rest of the drones, really?” I sighed. “No, I missed any chance I had at making things right for them.”
“Maybe you didn’t.”
“Huh?”
I looked down to see that Dawn had dropped to her knees and was zipping open the laptop case. She pulled it open, placing it on top of the bag like it were a table. I could see the glow of the screen as it hit her eyes.
“It’s just…since we last spoke I’ve been running through our options,” she said. “Pump professional jerk Edison Kent for information, walk around at night on the off chance of running into this new Costume, trust this super-shifty organization that somehow knows who I really am.”
&n
bsp; “Wait-what?” I jerked to attention.
“Riley ambushed me outside of my house. He wants me to meet up with him.” She paused. “Apparently, you’re not invited.”
“Of course.” I rolled my eyes.
“Well, as I’ve been thinking about all this—the Forgers, city politics, the drones—I’ve started to wonder. Why Marty?”
“Why Marty?” I blinked. “You mean why kidnap Marty. Specifically.”
“Exactly. If you’re looking to take a drone, this city is covered with them.” Dawn nodded at the trio of police officers helping the woman across the park. “And they’re a lot easier to find than Marty was.”
“Marty was missing to begin with,” I pointed out. “And given that no one has hit up his wealthy parents for any kind of ransom money, most people assume that he’s missing of his own accord. Either that, or dead. Snatch up a kid like that and the cops might not realize they need to change their strategy from a missing persons case to a kidnapping.”
“That could be it.” She frowned. “But at the same time, I can’t help but think there might be more to it than that. Alex…there are so many missing pieces. Why did Marty go to Northwest Comics? Why did he think that Hunter Davies would be there? Where did he even get a gun?”
“The last one could have been through one of the other drones. Not all of them were on the straight and narrow before Calypso. As for the rest, I’m not sure.”
Dawn shut the laptop.
“Password protected,” she said. “We’re going to have to seek outside help.”
“Your lady cop friend?”
“Uh…maybe not.” She glanced down. “Our last conversation didn’t end well.”
“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Anyway, I know someone even better to talk to about this.”
Dawn began to make her way to her feet, a bit of a struggle on the uneven ground. Out of habit, I reached out to help her up. She accepted my hand, and I pulled her upright (my bruised back twinging in protest), and while she was just as close as she had been, standing next to me on the pier, something about the fact that we were face-to-face made it feel more intimate.
“Alex,” she began. “I think…”
A howl cut her off. Dawn jumped in surprise—hell, I probably did too—and her hand slipped from mine. I automatically swung my head toward the source of the noise.
To the drone, who was now being pushed into the cop car. One of the cops shut the door firmly behind her and shook his head.
Look what you did, Gage…
“Uh, anyway, Alex?”
“Yes?” I said, looking back to Dawn.
“If you’re up for it, I have an idea. Although…you might want to make some efforts toward concealing your identity.”
“Who are we going to see?”
“Someone who is not going to be very happy to see you.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Dana Peterson’s gaze hit mine. Or, at least that’s what he was going for. It was hard to get an exact aim right when dealing with the helmet. I had agreed with Dawn that protecting my identity was a good call, just in case Dawn’s hacker buddy was the type of person who would make the connection between my six-foot-two, muscular frame and that of Faultline’s identical build. At the same time, the full armor felt overkill, even in its damaged state, so I had just zipped up my jacket and kept my gloves on. Not like I had to worry about Dana Peterson, after all.
Even if he had looked like he wanted to take a swing at me.
“Come on Dana,” Dawn said, in full Hikari mode, complete with a wide smile. “After the benefit, you did say that if I ever needed any kind of help—”
“Clearly, I was delirious. Can’t be held responsible for the things I said. Must have been all of the PTSD from, I dunno, getting kidnapped and almost falling to my death?”
He looked straight at me as he said that.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have come,” I said. “I could stay outside.”
“Don’t do my nosy-ass neighbors the favor. If she’s with you, I can deal with it. Just don’t expect me to be happy about it. Come on in.”
I nodded and took a step back, letting Dawn squeeze in the narrow window first. It was going to be a bit for a challenge for me.
“So, what’s up with this unholy alliance?” Dana asked as I made my way in. “Are you trying to confirm our future mayor’s theory, that heroes and villains are secretly working together?”
“Ugh! Please don’t tell me you’re voting for him.”
“Hell no! I remember what a shitty mayor that guy was. The second Bonnie heard he was running, she called up Deputy Mayor Conway and agreed to volunteer for her campaign. God knows she’s gonna need all the help she can get.”
“Where is Bonnie, by the way?” Dawn asked.
“At a bachelorette party. Third one this year.”
“That’s…a lot of weddings.”
“You’re telling me. Three weddings mean three different bridesmaid dresses, and three different wedding gifts, and three different ceremonies that I too have to attend for some odd reason.”
As Dana spoke, he made his way over to his desk, where not one, but two monitors sat. Next to his desk was a table covered in what I could only assume were computer parts, although they could have been something else. My sisters have always been better with computers. These pieces of furniture dominated the first half of the room. In the other half stood a TV, a chair, and a shelf filled with DVDs.
“Well,” Dana said, pivoting his desk chair around until he was facing us. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Dawn lifted the laptop case.
“We find ourselves in need of your invaluable skills,” she said, bowing over the case.
“I’m not sure I like your mock sincerity there, missy,” Dana said. “I’ll have you know that my skills are seriously above average.”
“Well, good.” Dawn’s face fell. “Because we seriously need your help.”
“The laptop belongs to Marty Tong,” I explained.
“Marty Tong.” Dana reached out to accept the case. “I recognize that name.”
“He’s the missing drone.”
“A drone? Why the hell would I want to help you find a drone.”
Flashes of annoyance appeared in the edge of my vision. What was up with this guy? Sure, he had every reason to hate me, but if I knew he was going to fight me every step of the way—
“Let’s focus on the task at hand,” Dawn said. “Marty was missing for weeks before he came into Northwest Comics with a gun. We were hoping that if we could track his movements, it would give us some clue as to who might be targeting him now. Only the laptop is password protected.”
“Huh, I can handle that.”
Dana placed the laptop on the desk and turned it on. As it booted up, he rifled through a side drawer filled with flash drives. Eventually, he pulled out a black one and plugged it into the laptop.
“Thanks for lending a hand,” Dawn said, after a minute.
“Yeah, well, you did help out a couple times.”
“Three! But who’s counting?”
“Apparently, you are.”
I was beginning to remember why I had once labeled Hikari as “chatty.” Being on the hunt for Marty seemed to fill her with energy, the same kind I saw in her when she was out fighting guys in the field.
She loves this, I realized. I had never asked Dawn why she had decided to become a hero in the first place. But it was clear why she continued to do this every night. Sure, this strange compulsion to save everyone was part of it, but it was impossible to look at her face and deny that there wasn’t another reason.
“All joking aside, are you working with this lug now?” Dana didn’t even bother looking at me.
“Uh…yes,” Dawn replied. “You do remember that he was instrumental in taking down Calypso, right?”
“That memory is somehow superseded by the one of him chloroforming me, but I’m a pretty unforg
iving guy.” He shook his head. “So, are you the super friends now or is this a temporary thing?”
Dawn paused, her gaze sliding over to me. And it took a second for me to understand that it had less to do with this unresolved romantic tension between the two of us and more to do with my newfound position as an Actual. Dawn might love being an Actual, but I had never wanted it. Sure, we were sticking together to find Marty, but after that…
“Let’s focus on the task at hand,” she said.
“Sure. Although I must admit, I’m glad he got rid of that horrible voice. I mean, could anyone even understand you?”
Dawn choked back a laugh, and I made a point of reminding myself that good guys don’t normally punch out their tech support.
“Well,” Dana finally said. “Your kid may have spent some time at Colossus, but probably only a couple of weeks.”
“How do you know that?” I frowned at the screen.
“I can tell based on the wifi networks he used,” Dana said. “He never left the city, but he’s been around, probably mooching off of people who don’t believe in passwords.”
“What was he using the internet for, video games?”
“Based on his search history, I’m going to have to go with Reddit, keeping up on the Celtics, and…bingo! A message board for crazy people.”
“Huh?” Dawn asked.
“The Actual Truth,” Dana recited. “Dedicated to getting to the source behind the secret societies shaping the Actuals in our everyday lives.”
“Sounds like some conspiracy theorist group,” I said, voice flat.
“Score one for the big guy! Looks like people here don’t buy the idea that superpowers just popped up out of nowhere. Lots of chatter about forbidden government research, ancient secret societies.” He paused. “Actual radioactive spiders?”
“Hmmm.” Dawn pressed her lips together. “Now that you’ve mentioned that part, I think I’ve been here before.”
“What! Please don’t tell me you believe in any of this!”
“I’ve always had an interest in Actuals. Although it doesn’t take much effort to cross from legitimate theorizing to, well…”
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