Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus)

by Robert McCarroll

  "So now what, fearless leader?" Nora asked.

  "I'm going to see if I can find her and talk her into coming back. If I do, all of you have to be civil to her. Even if she makes it hard, be the better person and don't pick a fight."

  "How are you going to find her?" Icerazor asked. "Those psychic constructs let her fly, and you don't even have a car."

  "That's my problem," I said, heading for the door. "Hold down the fort, Xiv."

  While I might not have the capacity to fly, I had an unwitting ally in my hunt for Jennifer in the form of the Hero Watchers. Stalkerish as they may be, they had their eyes to the sky, and posted hero sightings to their website. I just set the filter on their feed to New Port Arthur, and the sightings formed more or less a straight line, stopping at the mall. The last image was of her in uniform sitting on a machine shed atop the rather inaccessible mall roof. I remembered my musings by the Avenue K Bypass and figured I needed a different plan.

  "Hey Travis, what can I do you for?" Jack asked when I called.

  "I could use a small favor, but you may want to be in uniform for it."

  "Anything like last time?" There was a hint of trepidation in his voice.

  "No, I just need help getting to a roof before the person on it decides to fly off."

  "You hate being carried."

  "I'm glad you noticed. I'm trying to sort out a bit of team melodrama. So I need to talk to my teammate who's parked herself on the roof of the mall. I'd sneak in through the maintenance areas if I had the time, but I'm not sure she's going to stick around."

  "We need to find some way for you to fly," Jack said.

  "When you do, everyone on the planet will be able to," I said.

  "I'm on my way. We should catch up some time, I've not even met most of your team."

  "If you want to help us with training, we could use a sparring partner who can challenge the whole team. And we can plan some sort of social event to go along with it."

  "Cool, I'm about to jump out the window, so I'm hanging up."

  "I didn't even tell you where I was," I said. "Hello?" He'd already hung up. As I continued on foot towards the mall, spottings of me started popping up on the Hero Watcher feed. Along with a lot of "Shadowdemon in daylight?" comments. I wasn't exactly inconspicuous. I became even less so when Jack swooped down and picked me up. If I wasn't focused so much on keeping my wits about me as we sped through the air, I might have been able to pay attention to the mass of wild guesses pouring through the Hero Watchers stream. Instead, I found myself staring down at the distant pavement as I fought to retain my composure.

  Jennifer glared at us as Jack set me down on the roof of the machine shed. "I'll wait over there," Jack said, flying out to hover over the parking lot.

  "What do you want?" Jennifer asked as I sat down next to her.

  "To listen," I said. "I'm sort of new to this leader thing and I screwed up. I want to do better, and step one is to hear your side of things."

  "What makes you think I want to talk?"

  "If you don't want to talk, I can just keep you company."

  "And if I want to be alone?"

  "You'd have ditched your costume and blended in instead of parking yourself in a very public location. I think you wanted to be found."

  "You're an ass."

  "Go on."

  "What's there to say? This team's been hostile since day one. I just got fed up with it."

  "So you hit the new girl?"

  "I lashed out. She happened to be there."

  "What can we do to make this better?"

  "Lay off the cheerleader remarks. I was never a cheerleader. I played lacrosse."

  "That can't be the only thing."

  "That, and all the jabs about my family." I didn't recall too many of those comments, but I did have my head buried in the Gruefield Eighteen proposal for quite some time.

  "I would have sworn the first thing you'd bring up would be the 'Miss Pain' bit."

  "What's wrong with Apexa?" she asked.

  "Forgive me, but I'm going to be brutally honest." Jennifer's eyes narrowed, but she didn't say anything. "There are a couple of ways that name comes off. The first is silly. You can talk to Astroborn over there about how little respect a poorly chosen code name gets you. The second way is much worse. It sounds like ego unchained, which makes people confrontational before the conversation even starts. It just rubs them the wrong way."

  Jennifer sighed, her head slumping forward. "I so want to hit you for that," she said. "but I was already thinking it."

  "I've already said something to the group, but I'm going to go back and have a private chat with each of them about this. However, nobody is faultless here. Certainly not me, not them, and not you either." Jennifer glared at me. "Think back. The first impression you made was when you came into the hideout, tore open a box and commented on how gross it was that Icerazor had jars of powdered beef blood. That started things off on a sour note, and it didn't improve from there."

  "Okay, so I'm a stuck-up bitch. What's your point?"

  "That's not what I said. I said you made a bad first impression."

  "I know you're trying to spare my feelings and coax me into coming back, but you're just pissing me off."

  "All right. What do you need? I'm new at this, help me help you."

  "I need to mope." I shut up and let her simmer for a while. After a few minutes of watching the crowd that had gathered in the parking lot, she spoke again. "Back when I was a new sidekick, one of the earliest things I did was the classic 'help rescue a treed cat.' When we got to the park, there was this flea-bitten old ginger tabby and the man who'd climbed the tree after it stuck out on a branch. He couldn't get back down because he had one hand on the cat, and needed both to climb. So I made one of my psychic constructs, a staircase for him to walk down. Turns out he was a homeless dude who'd planned on eating the cat. We got it away from him and brought him to a shelter where they knew him. They got him his meds and a real dinner. So everyone was better off."

  "That doesn't sound so bad," I said.

  "However, the next day," she said, "the picture in the paper was of me restraining him with the headline 'Miss One-Percent, Corporate Avenger, Rousts Bums from Park.' No one cared that we'd actually helped. That one picture told the wrong story, but it sold papers. Before I left for New Port Arthur, I checked in on him. He's stayed on his meds, gotten a job and a place of his own. He even thanked me for helping him. But all anyone else remembers is 'Heroine rousts bum.' It's been like that ever since."

  "At least you've had the consolation of being able to do good. I've literally failed at every piece of heroics I've attempted."

  "What about the slaver base?"

  "Their own security damaged the reactor while I was running away from it."

  "You saved Xiv," she said.

  "And Xiv saved me right back."

  "You seem to get an awful lot of good publicity," she said.

  "If we work together, maybe we can do some good and get good press."

  "Lets hope it's that instead of fail and get bad press," Jennifer said. "You know we're the screw-up squad."

  "That's a lousy team name, we'll have to pick something that inspires more confidence."

  "How dare you joke at a time like this?"

  "I came out here to try and lift your spirits. Grin or groan, it was worth a shot."

  "The crowd's getting restless. Let's leave." Jennifer scowled as we got off the roof.

  Part 21

  The first few days were a bit strained, but everyone managed to bite their tongues before making the scathing remarks that had been boiling just under the surface. Pam and Jennifer started helping Icerazor with his van, providing the heavy lifting so he could get the battered vehicle back in w
orking order. Pam proved to be a decent hobbyist mechanic in her own right, and the process sped up. They repainted the van a rather nondescript shade of brown, and eventually got it purring.

  "Why are we sitting around when there's aliens overhead holding the world ransom?" Nora asked.

  "There's already a task force dealing with the Ygnaza," Icerazor said. "You know, Molot, Razordemon, Minispell, Agent Six, Omegaburn, those guys. What do you expect us to do when we can't even make orbit?"

  "I don't know, anything beats sitting around waiting for rocks to fall on our heads!" Nora said, throwing up her arms.

  "How about hunting for Omicron?" Pam suggested.

  "When we have a full charter and when we're accustomed to working as a team," I said.

  "Then why don't we get started on that?" Jennifer said.

  "As it so happens, I've been plotting something," I said. It was a few steps shy of a bald-faced lie, but I needed something.

  "What?"

  "I don't want to spoil the surprise."

  "Well, hurry it up," Pam said. "I'm starting to get cabin fever."

  "You know, you're not actually confined to this building."

  "I don't own any normal clothes anymore."

  "You can borrow some of mine," Jennifer said, "And we can go buy you your own."

  "That's suspiciously nice of you," Pam said, "What are you up to?"

  "We got off to a bad start. I just want to show that I'm not a bad person."

  "You two do that," I said, "I'll see about finalizing the arrangements." I headed out into the drizzle and made my way towards the bus stop. Before I got there, Nora appeared in front of me in a spray of displaced raindrops.

  "You haven't got anything, have you?"

  "How do you know that?"

  "I'm your sister, I can tell when you're lying."

  "I've been distracted, and I don't know how you train for teamwork."

  "You could start with a bit of a team brawl, boys versus girls."

  "That leaves you with both of our heavy hitters and our specialists. I'd have our utility players and two of the least experienced members."

  "Oh come on. Cupric's untouchable when he turns up the juice, he'd be an even match against me. Icerazor can carve through Apexa's psychic constructs and neutralize her. Ixa's spells take concentration, so you can definitely take her down by keeping the pressure up. And so long as Xiv plays keep away and lays on the ice, he's got Stamp covered."

  "Or, Ixa plays it smart, and has Apexa take down Cupric with a safe, electricity-proof construct, sends you to pummel me into submission, sends Stamp to clean Icerazor's clock and neutralizes Xiv herself. It all boils down to who actually fights who."

  "Why are you assuming Ixa's in charge of the girls' team?"

  "She does have a leadership endorsement. I always assumed she was a shoo-in for second in command."

  "I thought it might have something to do with your crush on her."

  "Do I look that petty?"

  "Well, yeah. You're a teenage boy. If it could get you into a girl's pants, you'll try it."

  "I love your faith in my objectivity."

  "Hormones beat logic and take its lunch money."

  I brushed her off and kept going. "If I thought like that, I'd be dating Fae."

  "And why aren't you?" Nora asked. "I mean, I think she's a ginger harpy, but she seems to like you for some odd reason."

  "She's Jack's niece."

  "And? Do you think Jack will be mad?"

  "It would be awkward."

  "You're a coward, little brother. You don't have a girlfriend because you won't take a chance. You'll charge headlong at a powered lunatic before you'll risk rejection."

  "The bus is coming," I said. Nora shook her head and wandered off as I boarded and started the trip to Leyden Heights.

  Jack pored over the layout of Gruefield Eighteen, with the faux contemplative look he got when he had no idea what he was doing. I went over my idea again, indicating choke-points and blast doors on the diagram. Something just wasn't connecting in his head.

  "He wants you to play the bad guy, Uncle Jack," Fae said.

  "Oh," Jack said, "Muahaha and all that while your team tries to take your base from my training robot minions."

  "More or less," I sighed.

  "Why didn't you just say that?"

  "I thought I had."

  "I don't know how to operate the robots."

  "We're borrowing them from the Fund, and I'm sure we can borrow a tech or two to handle that."

  "Wouldn't that ruin my good-guy image?"

  "Even Xiv will get that you're just pretending." I cast a sidelong glance at Fae and cursed inwardly. It was a royal pain trying to remember who knew whom. At least Xiv was incapable of having a secret identity to reveal. There was no way he'd blend into a crowd.

  "You know," Fae said, "I could run the bots."

  "You have no formal association with the Fund. I'm not sure they'd be happy with that."

  "I've been reading, and it looks to me like teams can have civilian employees. You could use a training coordinator."

  "Cronyism is--"

  "One of the tenets on which the hero community was founded. That, and nepotism. Just look at your membership sometime."

  "Fae..." Jack said.

  "Oh come on," Fae said. "You guys tell me I'm both a risk and at-risk for knowing your secret identities. At least let me contribute something."

  "What qualifications that make you suitable for the role of Training Coordinator?" I asked. "It's something that requires specialist experience."

  "I'm sure there's something I can do."

  "No, there isn't," Jack said. "You'd just be increasing the danger you're in even more."

  "What's the difference between him and me?" Fae asked pointing at me.

  "Fourteen years of training and seven years of field experience," I said.

  "I don't mean for going out and fighting the bad guys. I mean for being allowed to accept the risk that comes with getting involved."

  "The answer is the same," I said. "I have a better grasp of the risk, because I've run afoul of it already. So far, you've been spared that."

  "Is this a guy thing?"

  "No. There are four girls on the team, but you're better off comparing yourself to me."

  "Why?"

  "Well, one can cast spells, another can throw a van, sprout wings and fly, the third can make extremely tough constructs with her mind, and the fourth once broke the sound barrier on foot. Not exactly a fair comparison."

  "Why are you taking his side?" Fae asked, pointing at Jack.

  "I want to keep you safe," I said.

  "Shouldn't it be my choice to take the risk?"

  "No!" Jack said. "Your dad would never forgive me if I let his little girl do something like that! We may not be friends, but he's still my little brother, and it's my job to protect him and his family."

  "You're terribly old-fashioned, Jack."

  "There's nothing old-fashioned about protecting your family. That's eternal."

  "Fae," I said, "Do you remember back at the hospital, the girl who ran you out of the building?"

  "What about her?"

  "She's on the team. I don't think you two would get along, and it's my job to maintain harmony within the group. I have to talk you out of this idea."

  "I'm not trying to be on the team," she said.

  "That makes it even worse, because team employees have to take instructions from team members. Do you really want to put yourself in that position?"

  Fae growled. "Fine, but you owe me dinner for this," she said, storming off. We went back to the floor plan of the missile complex as I tried to explain how Jac
k might make it hard for us to take the facility from him. I think I was getting through to him when my phone rang.