‘They’re your parents…’
Andrea nodded. ‘Okay, yeah.’
‘What are you two talking about?’ Audrey asked, smiling a little perplexedly.
‘We’re just going to have to make some more introductions,’ Andrea replied. ‘We’ll be back soon.’
When, a few minutes later, Andrea walked back into the room with Penny behind her, Marcus raised an eyebrow and Audrey nodded slowly as though something had just been explained to her.
‘Mom, Dad, I’d like you to meet Penny Worthington,’ Andrea said. ‘She’s… Cygnus’s alter ego. Kind of. It’s complicated.’
‘When Andrea first told us she was Twilight,’ Audrey said, ‘she said that one day we might get to find out why “Cygnus” was such an appropriate name. You think of yourself as the Ugly Duckling, Penny?’
Penny smiled, taking the seat she had vacated as Cygnus. ‘Well, honestly, not so much now, but back when I first got my powers, definitely. And let’s face it, Cygnus is stunning. I’d have to be pretty vain to consider myself up to her standard, even if I looked like Andrea, or June.’
‘June isn’t far off,’ Andrea said.
‘The girl in the calendar?’ Marcus asked. ‘June Summerfield?’
‘That’s her.’
‘Yes. Beautiful woman.’
‘Penny’s girlfriend.’ Andrea nodded sagely. ‘You would not believe how much nagging it took to get them together, but they are. That’s why Penny isn’t so image-conscious now.’
Penny nodded. ‘The love of a good woman has changed me. June thought I was beautiful, if not conventionally so, before I could be a tall blonde with a huge rack. But I was straight so we never actually went anywhere with that. Cygnus was more broad-minded and… Well, I let myself be persuaded. Uh, you’re not bothered by same-sex relationships are you?’
Marcus shrugged. ‘If I was single, I’d have an issue. It seems like it takes a lot of attractive women out of the dating pool.’
‘Ah,’ Andrea replied, ‘but it also takes a lot of attractive men out of the competition.’
‘Fair point. No, I’m a live-and-let-live sort of man.’
‘I think we find love where we do,’ Audrey said. ‘You would not believe the number of people who told me Marcus was not the kind of man I should marry. I was way out of his league.’
‘You are,’ Marcus stated flatly. ‘I’m just glad you didn’t spot it until I got you in front of a clergyman.’
Audrey giggled. ‘Just as Penny has discovered, what’s on the outside is not always as important as what’s on the inside.’ She looked across at Penny. ‘He made me laugh. It’s clichéd, but it’s true.’
Penny nodded. ‘I guess that’s something June and I had. We made each other laugh. We helped each other through break-ups. When Bobby was killed… You know about that right? Good. When Bobby was killed, June was there to hold me up. I was there for her when her modelling seemed to be going nowhere, and she was there for me when everyone at work treated me like crap. Huh, when I first became Cygnus, she dragged me out to a club, absolutely ecstatic that she could finally get me out on the town with her. I was never much of a clubber when I was just Penny.’
‘You were mentioned on ACPN in connection to some new club in New Millennium City.’
‘The Gates of Hell, yes… Won’t be going there again.’
‘Oh?’
‘There’s something a bit off about the owner.’
‘Oh. And there was something about a party in San Francisco?’
‘Bianca Fullerton’s birthday party,’ Andrea said. ‘She’s turned out to be a good friend. She helped when we captured Kopf.’
‘Ah yes,’ Marcus said, and he turned his gaze upon Penny. ‘Thank you. You gave us more than a little closure, twice. Thank you.’
‘Andrea said you weren’t too happy about… what happened to Ghostfire,’ Audrey said.
Penny nodded. ‘I’d have preferred bringing him to trial, but there were some… factors which probably mean his death was for the best. I beat myself up over it for a while.’
‘Unnecessarily,’ Andrea said.
‘Maybe, but I did. I got over it. He was not a nice man, and he was trying to kill me.’
‘He killed our son and a lot of others,’ Marcus said. ‘I think you did the right thing.’
New Millennium City, MD, 18th December.
Jacob was feeling a little uncomfortable. It was not the suit that made him uncomfortable: it was wearing the suit. He had dispensed with the helmet, figuring that only the warmest of the places he might visit would cause him problems. Dark glasses disguised his eyes, mostly. A large trench coat hid some of the white armour beneath, but you could still see his lower legs, feet, and hands, and therein lay the problem.
After the third waitress had given him a funny look, he had come up with ‘it’s an experimental life-support suit and I’d die without it,’ which had got him a ‘you poor dear’ and free coffee. So, Jacob had continued trawling the diners and other eateries of north Deale Harbour, looking for anything out of place, but now with free coffee.
It was a long shot. It was such a long shot that you’d need a high-powered sniper rifle and decades of training to get a hit, but Jacob figured it was worth the effort. The killer took a new victim every month, give or take, and no one had come forth with information about him. It seemed to indicate that he was pretty normal when he was not freezing people to death. If he had glowing eyes or reduced the air temperature around him when it got too warm, someone would have noticed by now. But Jacob went on searching, vaguely hoping that his powers might give him some sense of another ice user in his vicinity, even if that seemed pretty unlikely.
Well, it was something to do while he waited to be cast out of the UID.
~~~
June was waiting outside the door when Cygnus came into a landing at the front of the house. ‘Denny told you I was coming?’ Cygnus asked.
‘Uh-huh,’ June replied, grinning.
‘Makes it really hard to surprise anyone, all this radar.’
‘Uh-huh.’ June turned and stepped through the door, holding it for Cygnus to walk through.
‘No kiss for the returning hero?’
‘Get all the signatures?’
‘All of them, on all the copies.’
‘Great. In that case, you get your kisses when we’re in the bedroom and I’ve got you out of your costume. I haven’t had any for days!’
Cygnus raised an eyebrow. ‘I admit it’s rare, but we have gone a couple of nights without before.’
‘Totally different,’ June replied, locking the door and starting for the lounge.
‘It is?’
‘Uh-huh. That was when we simply didn’t feel the need. We chose to go to sleep instead of getting the sheets all soggy. This was because we weren’t together and couldn’t do it. Totally different.’
‘Uh… If you say so.’
June paused and half-turned. ‘Are you saying you don’t want to have sex with me?’
‘No, of course not. I… Um, could I take a shower first? I’m kind of–’
June started walking again, striding toward the bedroom. ‘No, I want you now, rough and dirty, and straight off the road.’
‘Well, I guess I–’
‘And get the double-ender out. I want it really rough.’
‘Uh, yes, Mistress?’
‘That’s more like it. Now jump to it! If I’m not having an orgasm in the next five minutes, I’m getting the nipple clamps out.’
Cygnus found herself hurrying after her girlfriend, still clutching the case she had been lugging around for days and the boxed apple pie she had been carefully balancing on the flight down from Boston. But there was one thing that puzzled her: ‘When did we get nipple clamps?’
~~~
Andrea walked into the doughnut shop on Theodore Street and spotted five cops immediately, and one Jacob a second later. Ignoring the cops, she headed for the small, high table where Jacob w
as perched on a stool, drinking coffee.
‘Isn’t this a bit of a stereotype overload?’ Andrea asked. ‘Cops in a doughnut shop with a UID agent in shades?’
‘I’m only a UID agent until tomorrow,’ Jacob replied. ‘Have a doughnut.’
Andrea looked down at the two-inch pastry rings. ‘No thanks. Can’t stand the plain ones.’ She pushed herself up onto the second stool, settled her elbows on the table and her chin in her palms, and grinned. ‘Any luck?’
‘About as much as I expected. How did you find me, anyway?’
‘You’re wearing your earpiece. Denny can track you within about a yard at this range.’
‘That’s… good to know in a creepy Big Brother sort of way.’
‘Useful. I also know that Hugh got the results through on your little experiment.’
‘Yeah. And I’m not going to say that wasn’t a relief.’
Andrea’s grin widened. ‘I told you it couldn’t be you. Hugh told you it couldn’t be you. You were the only one worried about it.’
‘Except Night Shift and the UID,’ Jacob countered sourly.
‘I meant people who counted. You going to be at this much longer?’
‘No… I need to eat something other than pancakes and doughnuts at some point. I’ll head home soon and get out of this suit.’
‘Good. I’m coming to your place tonight.’
‘You are?’
‘Oh yeah. And I’m staying too. I’m going to need exhaustion to get me to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be Hell.’
19th December.
‘Are we ready?’ Zoe was looking both excited and just a little scared. ‘I honestly think we’ll have another riot if we don’t let them in soon.’
‘Official opening time is two,’ Roger stated, checking his watch.
‘I know, but… I was watching this Discovery channel thing about locusts, and it said that they keep each other in line by eating anyone who decides to rebel, and… I’m just worried about cannibalism.’
Andrea settled her sword into place on her back and reached for her mask. ‘Better let them in, Roger. Tables are ready. We’ve cleared anything breakable.’
‘And we have two Ultrahumans ready to suppress the unwashed masses,’ Roger added. ‘Are you okay opening the door, Zoe? Maybe it would be better if I–’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Zoe replied, heading for the front of the store. ‘I’ve been practising snapping the latch open and then diving for cover.’
There was a brief pause and then chaos with a subtle hint of order descended upon Radium Comics. There were people, men, standing at the tables in front of Cygnus and Twilight inside of two seconds, holding out calendars to be signed, but then the horde began to diverge from the norm as a heavy mix of women began coming in. The women gushed more, possibly because they were less inclined to drool and stammer.
Twilight leaned over toward Cygnus after about ten minutes. ‘How long before we can take a break?’
‘Red and Skadi will be here at three,’ Cygnus replied, scribbling her signature on a calendar while a short, blonde girl in a pleated mini-skirt cooed her admiration.
‘I’ll never be able to use my right hand again!’
‘Of course you will. After a few months of physiotherapy.’
~~~
The chance to take a break coincided, more or less, with the arrival at the shop of Marta Hendry. Cygnus and Twilight took her back behind the tables, where they would still be visible but clearly busy.
‘I thought I was going to get skinned when I asked if I could come through to talk to you,’ Hendry said, looking genuinely worried. ‘Have you any idea how big the crowd is out there?’
‘Some idea,’ Twilight replied. ‘The NMCPD dropped by to offer some crowd control support. June was a bit grumpy about that, seeing as she asked if they thought they should provide some and the answer was no. She’s outside playing the crowd.’
‘I saw her. Um… We never got around to that interview about this.’
‘June called the station,’ Cygnus said, ‘and got given the run-around by various assistants. We got the feeling you’d decided not to go with it.’
Hendry frowned. ‘I did… Trouble is that I have no idea why.’
‘Oh? It was just after the opening night party at the Gates of Hell, as I recall.’
‘Yeah… The one I gave such a glowing review of after I was bored to tears for most of it. That’s, um, something else I’m a little confused about. I’ve got no idea how Sweet persuaded me to–’ She stopped, and her cheeks coloured. ‘Uh, I’ve no idea how he persuaded me to change my opinion. Obviously.’
‘Obviously.’ Cygnus glanced at Twilight, raising an eyebrow.
‘Mister Sweet seems to have a way about him,’ Twilight said. ‘Have you got a camera crew here?’
‘Well, no. I wanted to come down and apologise for not doing the interview, not to actually do one.’
‘We’re a bit busy, but if you got a crew down to film the crowd, we could go out and let the cameras get a few shots. I figure you could work up something from that?’
‘Oh’ – Hendry brightened at the thought – ‘I certainly could.’
‘And then we could maybe come in and do an interview in January,’ Cygnus suggested. ‘Maybe us, June, and Svetilo. About how things are going and the process behind it.’
‘I’m liking this more and more. I’ll make some phone calls.’
‘He knows how to play the media,’ Cygnus said once Hendry was out of earshot.
‘He certainly knows how to play Marta,’ Twilight replied. ‘Wonder what he had her doing that made her that embarrassed about it?’
‘I don’t think I want to know. I’m just glad I jammed whatever he does when I was there with June. A little vindictive of him, though. Assuming he suggested she drop the interview about the calendar.’
‘That’s what bothers me. If he’d just twisted her up to get a good review… It’s amoral at best, but it’s just business. Sniping at a charity calendar to get back at you isn’t even that nice.’
Cygnus shrugged. ‘Still, it doesn’t seem to have hurt sales. And I think we need more evidence than we have before we can do anything about him.’
‘Yeah… Yeah, true. I need coffee. I think Andrea’s fallen asleep in here.’
Cygnus giggled. ‘So? Let her snooze.’
‘Oh no. If I have to do this, so does she.’
~~~
The end of a long, irritating day was drawing to a close and Jacob found himself thinking that leaving the UID was not such a bad idea after all. From the look on her face, Heather could not wait to get out the doors with her little box of personal effects.
There had been interviews, several of them. Human resources, for the most part, but several senior agents had turned up from DC to impress upon them both that they should leave quietly and not put the agency in a bad light when they were gone. Jacob had pointed out to the second of them that they were making that harder and harder with every veiled threat they made, and that had gone down like a lead balloon.
There had been a few lighter moments. Various people had stopped by to indicate they thought it was a damn shame the department was chasing the two of them out. Considering the reaction of many of them to Jacob developing powers, he had decided to take the statements with a pinch of salt, but he accepted them anyway. Some of them seemed genuine at least.
‘We’re going to the comic shop when we get out, right?’ Heather said while they waited for the final paperwork to be completed and for internal security to give them final clearance to leave.
‘I figured we go by your place,’ Jacob replied, ‘you can get changed, then we go visit the shop.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’m stuck in this suit and it’s a comic shop. One more freak in a weird costume isn’t going to make any difference.’
‘You’re not a freak, and neither are any of the other freaks.’
‘I’m lightening the mood throug
h humour.’
‘My mood isn’t especially dingy. The morons who didn’t think a girl with a photographic memory could remember her employment contract didn’t even annoy me. Much anyway.’
‘Huh. Lucky you. Anyway, your place, then the shop.’
Heather giggled. ‘Shame I don’t have a costume. Maybe I should get one.’
‘White bodysuit with shamrocks emblazoned over it?’
‘Anything but that. I don’t think I could pull off one of those–’
‘Don’t fish for compliments; it’s unbecoming. You pulled off that black bodysuit fine.’
‘Black,’ Heather said, ‘is slimming. And that thing’s leather, so it holds everything in.’
Jacob chuckled. ‘Well, wear that to the comic shop.’
Heather pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘Not a bad idea…’
~~~
‘Three people asked for her autograph on the way in,’ Jacob said. Heather was smirking.
‘Who did they think you were?’ June asked.
‘I don’t think they had the slightest idea,’ Heather replied. ‘I was a woman in a leather catsuit so I had to be at least a famous villain.’
‘Sounds about right,’ Twilight said, grinning. They were all at the back of the shop, behind the tables where Cygnus and Svetilo were currently signing calendars, comics, random pieces of paper, and the occasional body part as fast as they could manage.
‘Hush, you. I’m a civilian now so I don’t have to be nice to you.’
‘I’m giving you your office space,’ Twilight pointed out.
Heather frowned. ‘Damn, you’re right. Does that mean I have to be nicer?’
‘Yes, but we’ll discuss that later.’ Twilight leaned forward and stage-whispered, ‘I don’t want my boyfriend overhearing us.’
Jacob rolled his opalescent eyes. ‘Go for it. Just remember to take pictures.’
‘Video is more marketable,’ June suggested.
Grinning, Heather looked around at the crowd. ‘I can’t believe they’re still coming in.’
‘We had a bit of a lull just before you arrived. Then it’s picked up again when the people who have been working all day managed to get here. I expect it’ll thicken up a little more after people have eaten, and then die away until closing.’
Frostburn (Ultrahumans Book 4) Page 24