Once we were in the hideout, Xiv rushed around the building, poking his noseless face into every corner and appliance. When he tried to go in Nora's room, she snagged him by the arm and dragged him back to me. "Explain the concept of privacy to the kid."
"I'm sorry Miss Nora," Xiv said, "I'm just so excited that I forgot people lived here."
"They spotted Masquerade and that stupid yellow coat of his in Amarillo," Nora said. "He stole the head from a fast-food mascot at a drive-through. No one thinks it's actually related to anything Omicron is up to."
"Petty vandalism and mercenary mad science aren't typically connected," I said. "Does anyone think they're still in Texas?"
"That theft was turned up in the local police records after the real tip was traced."
"What was the real tip?"
"Someone tried to order half a dozen posters of your new head shot using an expired bank card issued to Ron White the Second. They checked the shipping address and found signs that someone had recently packed up and left in great haste."
"I think Omicron's about to ditch Masquerade if he keeps being such a liability. Wait, since when am I available as a poster?"
"You got a lot of positive press from that whole 'heroic near sacrifice' thing with the power plant. So I guess some people who don't know you as well as I do have become fans."
"And one lunatic."
"Who are you talking about?" Xiv asked. I explained the whole Technomation fiasco to him. "Oh, I get it, Project Thirteen."
"Excuse me?"
"Something I overheard in the lab. Final Star Project Thirteen was trying to turn humans into Dragons. Everyone was afraid of being transferred there as a test subject. I figured it wasn't doing so well."
"How much did you overhear in that lab?"
"A lot. I never let on how good my hearing was."
"So why didn't you bring Dad back with you?" Nora asked.
"There's a lot of follow-up to be done, and they're discussing strategies to rescue those people who've been shipped off-world by the Ygnaza."
"What? Power up the portal generator and hop through, hoping the aliens don't cut it off on their end?" Nora asked.
"It is an option. I gather they are still brainstorming."
"Someone has to help all those people the aliens have locked up," Xiv said.
Nora gave a half laugh. "I can see why Travis kept you." Xiv didn't have eyebrows, but the furrow in his forehead looked like an attempt to raise one. "Oh, Jack pulled another thirty-eight. Jack's new name, you're going to love this one: Astroborn." A "thirty-eight" was a codename change, after the BA-38 form that went along with it.
"Great timing, with slaver aliens all over the news."
Nora laughed, "I hadn't even thought about that part. Poor sod, maybe he should just make Jack his code name too."
"Lets see, he's been Malachite Mask, Azure Avenger, Monoman, and now Astroborn."
"At least he had the right color with the first name."
"Who's Jack?" Xiv asked.
"Aww, Crap," Nora said.
"We aren't supposed to give out people's secrets!" Xiv called in all earnestness.
"You introduced him to the family, but not Jack?"
"Xiv, I've got to go talk to Jack, explain this situation, apologize for Nora. Can you stay here while I'm gone?"
"Right here?" he asked, pointing to the floor.
"Well, in this building, but not Nora's room. I'll be back."
"Okay," Xiv said. I went to my room, changed to civilian clothes and hung the BDUs in the closet. I was probably going to be billed for those. I hung the tattered and blood-stained remnants of my costume next to it. What the spear hadn't done, the surgeons had, cutting an access panel into the alien fabric to get at my bleeding gut. It looked irreparable.
The whole experience of waiting for a bus, holding on to a bar near the ceiling of the packed vehicle as it trundled downtown, transferring to another bus and riding up to Leyden Heights in near-isolation felt surreal in the extreme. It was such an ordinary activity, and something I rarely did. But nobody gave me a second glance throughout the whole process. Without the costume, I was just as ordinary as they were. Yet, somehow, I didn't feel like one of them. It wasn't the piece of plastic from the BHA that did it either.
Leyden Heights was an upscale neighborhood; its public transit neglected in favor of wide streets and parking garages. At the bases of the gleaming towers sat shops at which I couldn't begin to dream of being able to afford. There were ample street lights to banish the night when the sun went down, and no building looked to have less than ten floors. It was a stark contrast to the low, grungy, dark district around Avenue C. Leyden Heights was desirable because it was up off the floodplain, up out of the reach of the river's wrath. That, and snobs congregate, or aggregate, pick a "-gate."
I had to walk several blocks to reach Jack's building. The concierge looked down his nose at me. Evidently, I was not dressed in whatever the style was among the well-to-do these days. "Where do you think you're going, young man?" he asked in a painfully condescending tone.
"I'm here to visit Jack Fowler."
"He has no guests on the list."
"It's Jack. He probably doesn't even know you have a list."
"Don't take that tone with me," the Concierge said, "No one is allowed in this building without the express permission of the residents."
"Fine. Call him, tell him that Travis wants to come up. He'll give you his permission."
The concierge didn't budge. "I'm not going to let a public school hoodlum like you in to steal from the residents."
I glared at the concierge and pulled out my phone. I placed the call. "Jack, it's Travis. I'm in the lobby of your building, but the concierge won't let me in."
"You kidding me?"
"Not my style of humor, Jack."
"All right."
Jack hung up. A moment later, the Concierge's inside phone rang.
"Front desk." He paused for a moment to listen. "Yes, there is, Mister Fowler." Another pause. "Well, he looks like...I understand." A longer pause. "Yes, Mister Fowler." He hung up, turning back to me. "You may go up."
"Thank you," I said, trying not to sound smug.
"The penthouse elevator is--"
"I've been here before." Okay, I let a little smug slip into my voice, but, he deserved it. So what if I went to a public school? Being a hero didn't put me above society, and being rich didn't put the residents of Leyden Heights above me. The penthouse elevator had buttons for only a handful of floors. I pressed the button for the penthouse proper and headed up. When I arrived, Jack was losing at checkers to Fae. Why he liked that game so much, I'll never understand.
"Hey there," he called. "The news must have been exaggerated, you don't look nearly as bad as they implied."
"Well, Ixa showed up and used some magic to help me along," I said.
"Didn't you use to have a crush on her?" Jack asked as Fae captured either three or four of his pieces.
"King me," she said. Jack was almost out of pieces, and it looked to be the third king she had on the board. Fae glanced at me, trying to pretend not to be interested in my response.
"You know the feeling wasn't mutual," I said. There was a twitch in the corner of Fae's lips that might have been a smile. It was replaced by shock as Jack mopped up most of her pieces.
"How?" She asked, getting only a knowing smirk out of Jack.
"No matter how much we pick on him, Jack's not a complete idiot." I rooted around in the fridge for something to drink, trying to figure out how to broach the subject of Xiv. I wasn't sure Fae's presence would be a good idea.
"What brings you uptown?" Jack asked. "Or is this a social call?"
I took a bottle of water and moved to
a chair near where their game was set up. "A mix, really," I said. The last few moves were brief, but in the end, Fae won by one piece.
"You want the next game?" Jack asked.
"No, thank you. Playing against you is unhealthy."
"He's bribing me to play," Fae said.
"Watch it if he gets around to emotional blackmail."
"Would I do that?" Jack asked.
"You would, and you have," I said.
"I can tell you have something to talk to Jack about without me here," Fae said. "Promise to take me to Poole's later, and I'll find somewhere else to be."
"I can't afford Poole's, I can barely afford the bus ride back home."
"You mean you help save the world from alien menaces, but they don't pay you enough to take a girl to a decent restaurant."
"The Ygnaza weren't after the world, and they don't pay me anything. I'm in debt to the Fund to cover my insurance."
"That seems like a terrible business model," Fae said. Jack rifled through his wallet. He had written the credit limits of his cards on them with a black sharpie. Finding the one that said "$500," he handed it to Fae. "The pocket change card?" She asked.
"Just get, before I take it back."
"Fine, whatever," Fae said, finding her shoes and heading out. After the elevator doors closed and I was certain the car was gone, I turned to Jack.
"During the raid, I rescued a human-dragon hybrid that the Order of the Final Star grew in a lab. We sort of took him in."
"Cool. Can I meet him?"
"Well, he has very good ears, and Nora was talking about your recent Thirty-Eight. So he's asking, 'Who's Jack?' Anyway, he understands the concept of a secret identity, but he's also very much a child. The disclosure wasn't intentional, but I figured you should be the first to know."
"What's his name?"
"Xiv. He's a good kid, just a little odd."
"Everyone I know is odd."
"Even me?"
"Especially you."
"You seem to be taking this rather calmly."
"If you vouch for him, and he's staying with your family, I'd probably have told him myself," Jack said. "Since you've heard about my Thirty-Eight, what do you think of the new name?"
"It doesn't fit."
"One of these days, I'll find a code name that works."
"Nora suggested 'Jack.'"
Jack laughed. "Not much of a cover is it? Who would ever guess that the hero Jack is actually Jack Fowler, heir to a grommet fortune."
"What's a grommet?"
"Those rings that reinforce holes in tarps, shoes, and other things. We don't actually make the grommets, we make the machines that make the grommets."
"Figures. Even your money's silly."
"Grommets are serious business! You'd never be able to secure a tarp or tie your shoes without them," Jack said. "Don't mock the grommet."
"I take it your parents still run the business?"
"My mother does. She's hanging on to the helm of the company so hard she's got finger grooves in it."
"You do realized that 'helm of the company' is a metaphor, right?"
"Ha, ha."
"You know, I've never actually met any of your family other than Fae."
"They're stuffy, stuck-up people who are convinced I'm too stupid to know the difference between my ass and a hole in the ground."
It was obvious he didn't want to talk about them, and there was no point in making Jack upset. "So I take it there's good money in grommets?"
"They're everywhere! But, we don't just make grommet-making machines. I just bring that one up because I think it's a funny word. We make all sorts of stamps, presses, and heavy machinery. We also own real estate, like this building. I could probably let you use one of the empty units for a while if you wanted."
"Oh, that would piss the concierge off to no end," I said, "Thanks, but I'll make do."
"No problem. I hate it when I feel like I'm leeching off my family's money. I understand the desire to be self-reliant. I really do. I can't manage it, but I understand the desire."
I couldn't help but chuckle. "So, do you want to meet Xiv? He likes meeting new people."
"Sure. I think I have a car parked in the garage. I sort of noticed you didn't like flying, and don't appear to be dressed for it."
"Flying is okay, being carried through the air is a different matter."
"Let me find my keys." Jack stood up and rifled through a couple of drawers before coming up with a keyring.
"Do you still have a valid driver's license?"
"Yes."
"How long has it been since you've driven?"
"A year or two."
"A year or two? Is the car's inspection or registration even current?"
"I... don't know."
"We'll check it out. If they're not up to date, you can't drive."
When we found it in the garage, the inspection had lapsed, the tires had gone mostly flat, and it was probably in desperate need of an oil change. We called a cab.
Part 14
Jack and Xiv hit it off almost immediately. Their banter bored the crap out of me and irritated Nora until she ran off. I felt like a babysitter watching two hyperactive children. At least Xiv had an excuse. Eventually, Jack wore Xiv out and he curled up on the padded floor of the sparring room to sleep. Jack changed into his costume and flew off. It had been a while since I had a quiet moment in the hideout, so I worked on the wrist computer Omegaburn had given me. I cleaned up the system, getting rid of unwanted programs, patching it, that sort of thing. For someone who didn't use it all that much, Omegaburn had loaded a lot of crap software on it. Luckily there didn't appear to be anything malicious. About then, I found that she'd left the memory card from a camera in it. The images were of a highly personal nature. I doubted that she'd meant to give me the pictures, so I sent her a message over the Community Fund's internal system. I tried to be as circumspect I could while still letting her know what pictures I had.
I found other messages waiting for me once I'd sent hers off. One was from Cupric about Amarillo, but Nora had already given me the salient points. There was one from the Fund board telling me that I'd been given credit for a replacement uniform after having the previous one trashed while on community service. The last one was something new. It was a "merchandising agreement automessage." Part of the contract you signed on joining the fund, or in my case, had my parents sign for me, included permission to merchandise your hero persona. It helped with the core finances of the fund, and according to this message included royalties as fund credits. It wasn't a large sum, and it was split with the artist who'd done the painting, but it was enough to order a replacement case for the wrist computer, some tracers, jammers and cameras to fire from it, and a gas cartridge.
The knock at the door threw me. Without someone flagging my orders as mission critical, it should take a couple days to process. I went over to the monitors and checked the front door camera. It was Ben, out of costume. He looked panicked. I buzzed him in and he hurried over to where I sat.
"Cupric's gone," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean his place is trashed, with a giant hole in the wall, and he's gone."
"Any idea who?"
"Someone who can still get film for a Polaroid," Ben said, pulling a picture out of his pocket. A quarter of the image was a close-up of a distinctive yellow sleeve. In the main body of the picture, Masquerade held a very battered and bloody Cupric by the hair on the top of his head. The lunatic was sticking his tongue out at the camera. To top it off, Masquerade was still wearing my old domino mask. "He dropped this in the ruin, probably deliberately."
Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus) Page 18