Sovereign

by April Daniels

  Charlie swallows a big bite, nodding. “Yeah, actually. I was really surprised by how simple it was. It’s—well, I think I know what Phase Three is.” That perks up ears all around the circle. Charlie goes on: “So the collar had a pendant built into the inner side of it. Quartz and blood, right? It’s a basic—and I mean really basic—sympathy charm running off of Garrison’s powers. Whoever wears a pendant like that is subject to his power-disruption field, even if he isn’t around.”

  “Step back a moment,” says Kinetiq. “What?”

  Charlie grins sheepishly. “Sorry, I got excited. I’ll start from the beginning. The two big laws in magical theory are the Law of Similarity and the Law of Contagion. Similarity means symbolism, more or less, and Contagion doesn’t mean disease in this context, it means something more like mixing. I mean, technically it’s about cross-contamination, but that’s really way more pejorative than it needs to be so—”

  “Getting off track,” says Kinetiq.

  “Right. So. A sympathy charm combines both, with symbolism that has some element of contamination as well. The classic example is how to brew a potion with moonlight in it—the textbook answer being that you place a bar of silver at the bottom of a cauldron and reflect the light of the full moon off it. Silver is the moon metal, so that’s Similarity, and a reflection inside the cauldron is literally putting moonlight inside where the potion is being brewed. With me so far?”

  “Well enough,” says Kinetiq.

  “Right, so what we’ve got in these charms is basically the same thing. The sample of his blood is used for contagion and quartz is one of the most basic and direct symbols for power, clarity, and energy around. Put them together with some other markings I found inside the collar once I got it disassembled, and you’ve got a very robust magic charm that mirrors Garrison’s powers. When someone is wearing one of these collars it’s like he’s right in their face, cutting them completely off from their own powers.”

  “I kind of figured that out for myself,” I say.

  “Right, but I don’t think you have the full implications yet. First of all, this charm is really straightforward, dangerously so.”

  “Dangerous how?” asks Calamity.

  “Well, she didn’t do anything to prevent a backtrace attack up the sympathetic connection. With this pendant, I can cast spells on him as easily as if he was in the same room with me. That’s insane. Nobody runs sympathy like that; it’s too dangerous. It would be like remembering your passwords and social security number by posting them on your Facebook wall—yeah, you’ll never lose it, but the first person who thinks to look there is going to have you by the balls.”

  “So she’s getting ready to double-cross him,” I say.

  Charlie shrugs. “Maybe. It sure does seem like she’s willing to take huge risks with her boss’ safety. But I think there might be something else in play. The charm is reversible too. It didn’t have to be designed that way, but it was.”

  “Reversible how?”

  “Well, right now what it does is shut down the powers of whoever is wearing it. But if you reversed the charm, it would make whoever is wearing it immune to Garrison’s suppression field. So you’ve got to ask why? There are other, easier ways to run the charm. Why make it reversible, if doing it that way nerfs her team’s big advantage? So I got to thinking—what if it wasn’t a nerf? What if it made their advantage stronger to be the only ones who were immune to the field?”

  I shake my head. “They’re already immune when he wants them to be. When they kidnapped me I was fighting Thunderbolt, and his powers didn’t disappear. Garrison just chose not to mute them.”

  “But what if Garrison wasn’t around?” says Charlie. “What if they wanted to be able to ensure their people wouldn’t have their powers muted when he wasn’t there to pick and choose?”

  “How would they even mute people if he wasn’t—” I stop, the answer arriving like a smack upside the head.

  “The satellites,” says Doc.

  Charlie nods. “The satellites. I think Phase Three is shutting down everyone’s powers. If they can magically project Garrison’s power-muting field with these amulets, there’s no reason they couldn’t use a similar spell to broadcast his field from the satellites as well. The amulets could then have their charms reversed, so that they would let their own people keep using their powers while everyone else was stripped of theirs. And if this stuff shuts down magic too, then it wouldn’t matter how simple and vulnerable she made the charms. Nobody else would be able to exploit the loophole. That’s Phase Three. I’d bet you anything, that’s Phase Three.”

  “Shit,” says Kinetiq, speaking for all of us.

  “That ain’t happening,” says Calamity. “I ain’t lettin’ it. We ain’t lettin’ it.”

  “So where do we start?” I ask.

  “First step,” says Doc, “we should call up Detective Phạm and tell her that one of the superheroes she’s responsible for tried to kidnap and murder the other.”

  “What will that accomplish?” asks Kinetiq incredulously.

  “Phạm needs to know that Graywytch can’t be relied on.” Doc shrugs. “Also, it’s vindictive and bitchy and will ruin Myra’s day.”

  “I like that plan!” I say. “I am all for that plan!”

  “Then we knock down his satellites,” says Doc, flicking her phone to life. “With a little data mining I can get you the orbital track of everything Garrison’s company has put into space. We take those down, and we stop him before he gets started.”

  “That might be dangerous,” says Charlie. “Magically speaking, I mean.”

  “How sure are you?” asks Calamity.

  Charlie shrugs. “Zero percent; I really have no idea, but it’s a risk we need to consider before you send Dreadnought up there.”

  “Doc, get to working on those orbital tracks,” says Calamity. “Charlie, what would you need to be absolutely sure?”

  “I’d have to read Graywytch’s notes, at the very least. The satellites might be magically booby-trapped. If they are, the spells she put on them would need to accommodate for the traps so that the traps don’t interfere with the magic they are supposed to be guarding. Her notes should tell me if it’s safe to approach the satellites or not.”

  “We’ll work on getting those for you,” says Calamity. “Meanwhile, you learn whatever else you can about these mirror charms they’re making, and see if you can make more of them. If we can make our heavyweights immune to Garrison’s power suppression field, then that’s our highest priority right now.” She almost manages to say this without her eyes flicking over to me, worried and possessive.

  “There’s something else to consider,” says Doc. “As a permanent reserve member, I only have a tie-breaking vote, but since Graywytch hopped the aisle—” More superhero slang. It means a whitecape going evil or a blackcape trying to reform. “—then as far as the bylaws go, she’s forfeited her seat in the Legion. Which makes me and Magma the only two voting members left. Bylaws say I’ve got to inform him that I’m lifting the membership veto, but I doubt he’ll object under the circumstances.”

  “Meaning what, Doctor?”

  “Congratulations, we just refounded the Legion Pacifica.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “WHAT?” That’s Detective Phạm, learning that one of the heroes she’s supposed to be riding herd on is moonlighting as a supervillain. I start explaining again, from the beginning, but she interrupts me, “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m pretty sure she’s the one who strapped me down and tortured me with magic.” Doc, Cecilia, and I are sitting around a speakerphone set out on the coffee table in the safehouse. So far, I’m the one doing all the talking. Cecilia is spilling out the top of out of an ankle-length scarlet dress with a corset, petticoats, and matching parasol. I gather she was interrupted at a convention to come here, but she’s as sharp as ever and has been scribbling on a legal pad throughout the entire conversation.

  “
Could she have been mind controlled?” Phạm asks, grasping at one last straw.

  “I can’t prove a negative, Detective,” I say calmly. “I can say that if mind control was in play, wouldn’t they use it on me to get me to cooperate rather than escape and snitch on them?”

  After a long moment, she speaks again, her voice weary with acceptance. “I’m going to need you to come down to the station and fill out a statement. And I need you to understand that my jurisdiction doesn’t cover international waters, so there’s a limit on what I can do. This will probably have to go to the City Council.”

  “I’m faxing over a statement to your office right now. I’m not coming—”

  “Cut the bullshit, Danny. If you’re telling me a city contractor is a violent felon, then you’re gonna tell me that in person, in front of a camera, and you’re going to answer as many questions as I care to ask.”

  Cecilia slides a note across the table to me: no way.

  “These people kidnapped me once, Detective,” I say into the phone. “I’m staying in hiding until I can figure out a way to keep that from happening again.”

  “We can protect you—” she starts reflexively.

  “Against supervillains? Isn’t that what you guys pay me and Graywytch to do? If she’s the perp and I’m the victim, where does that leave the police room to come in? You can’t ask me to sign a suicide note.”

  “Danny, I know you’re scared, but with things as unsettled as they are, we really need to cooperate with each other on this.”

  Cecilia clears her throat. “Hi, Detective Phạm? My name is Cecilia Rhodes, and I’m Dreadnought’s attorney.” Phạm’s groan of dismay is plainly audible over the line. “My client has real concerns about her physical safety that the police, with all due respect, cannot plausibly address, especially not with the current political stresses being placed on the Metahuman Response Unit. More immediately, Dreadnought could risk being found in breach of her contract if she continued to cooperate with the New Port Police Department, so long as Graywytch has not been arrested and/or released from her duties. Section Two specifically prohibits her from cooperating with felons or organizations affiliated with felons. Since we know Graywytch is willing to commit kidnapping, assault, and possibly even murder, and that she has established ties with your department, that makes the NPPD a group we cannot do business with until you clean house. Bluntly put, it’s her or us, and you’ve got to choose your side very quickly.”

  “…you’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Not at all!” says Cecilia, opening up a binder. “If you’ll open your copy of the Enhanced Samaritan Services contract, current revision, I can show you where—”

  And that is all I care to hear of this conversation. I signal Cecilia asking if I can leave, and she gives me the thumbs up. I float toward the ceiling far above and pull up another number on my suit’s phone. With everything that’s happened, I completely forgot Professor Gothic was coming to town. I only remembered when Cecilia sat me down with a checklist to ensure we weren’t missing anything obvious.

  From below, Kinetiq hangs out the side door of the tilt-engine. “Yo, Dreadnought, if you’re finished with the paperwork…”

  “Almost!” I call down, as I hit call on my suit’s phone interface. The phone signal is bounced through my earbud receiver, and it’s so weird to be hearing it through my right ear instead of my left.

  Not many people have my number, so Professor Gothic’s answer is hesitant. “Yes?”

  “Professor Gothic, it’s Dreadnought.”

  “Oh! Hello, Dreadnought! I am leaving for the airport now. My flight plan is a bit random, with a few buttonhooks to throw off any tails, but I should be arriving in New Port in three to four days.”

  “Okay. If you encounter anyone associated with Richard Garrison, Sovereign Industries, Thunderbolt, or Graywytch, turn around and run the other way.”

  His voice is guarded. “Why?”

  “They’re moving on a plan that’s going to get a lot of people killed. It’s about that thing we discussed at the convention. Doc Impossible will be sending you some encrypted files with what we learned.”

  There is an interval of what I take to be German profanity. “They are further along than I had feared. Are you quite certain of this?”

  “They kidnapped and tortured me over it. So yes, I’m pretty certain. Some friends and I are getting ready for the counterattack, but I’m not sure I can provide the kind of protection for you that I thought I could. If you know other people who can take you in—”

  “Ja, ja, I will do that. Thank you for the warning, Danielle.”

  “Stay safe. When we’re done with this, we’re going to need a Nemesis expert who isn’t a supervillain.”

  “I have no intention of going quietly, I assure you of that, young lady.”

  • • •

  It’s a short trip to Legion Tower. The Doc who’s piloting the tilt-engine knocks the engines into silent running mode, trading speed for whisper-quiet running, and pushes away from the airfield. I take up position off the left wing and shadow the jet into town. At only a hundred feet off the ground, we still get far fewer people looking up in confusion than I would have expected before I started this job. People don’t look up, they just don’t. Even if a shadow flits over them, most ignore it. (Unless you’re overflying the astronomy or meteorology departments at the University. Then you’ll always get spotted.)

  Weaving between buildings, we come up on Legion Tower sneaky-like right up to the final pop up, when the engines whine for altitude and Doc slips the whole craft over the edge of the landing balcony. Calamity is already hauling the doors open as they breach. She, Charlie, and Kinetiq scurry away from the tilt-engine even as Doc is peeling back away from the landing point to go squat on a helipad on the roof of a tower across the street. Is there a name for the crime of using someone’s helipad without telling them? Aggravated super-loitering, maybe? Eh, what the owners of Century Tower don’t know won’t hurt them, and keeping the jet in one piece is more important than good manners right at the moment. Better we get a ticket for trespassing than the tilt-engine gets blown up by Legion Tower’s defenses the moment Graywytch realizes something is happening. Doc'll stay out here for external surveillance, the invisible fingers of every active sensor she has flicking up and down Legion Tower, with the engines kept warm for a fast exit if we need it.

  This is, I realize with a thrill, my first real team op. Badass. As the other three reach the glass roof access doors, I touch down next to them. The hidden machine gun nests stay quiet, which suggests that, at the very least, Doc’s security codes still work. There are no obvious traps or signs of sabotage on the elevators.

  As the elevator sinks down to the residential levels, Calamity turns to Charlie. He’s wearing a black balaclava, ski-goggles, and thin non-latex gloves. His shoulders are narrow enough that with the baggy hoody over the bulky Kevlar vest Sarah made him wear, Charlie could be anyone. Black, white, boy, girl. Charlie isn’t like the rest of us. He doesn’t like capework, but he’ll do it in a pinch. His identity needs to be protected, or he’ll be trapped in this life forever.

  “We need something to call you,” says Calamity.

  “Codex,” he says.

  “I like it,” says Kinetiq.

  “Thanks.”

  When the doors to the elevators open, I go in front, and everyone makes sure to walk behind me. There probably aren’t any landmines or booby traps in here—after all, Graywytch lives in this place, and who puts a minefield in their own house?—but it doesn’t cost anything to put the chick with the bulletproof skin up front. Calamity and Codex are behind me, and Kinetiq brings up the rear.

  Graywytch hasn’t repaired her door yet. The splintered halves have been neatly stacked in the hall outside her condo. Calamity gives me an even look when she sees them.

  “You feel the need to mention anything, Dreadnought?”

  I shrug. “She paid for a lawyer to help my
parents try to screw up my emancipation petition. I told her to knock it off.”

  “If you hurt her, I need to know now.”

  My lips twist. “No, I didn’t hurt her.”

  I really should have, though.

  That satisfies Calamity, and we push into Graywytch’s condo. The mission is simple: Codex needs to see Graywytch’s notes to know if it’s safe to knock Garrison’s satellites out of the sky. So we’re stealing them.

  As we pour into her condo, I become aware of a distinct stillness, that strange sense of stop that occurs when you’re in someone’s home without them. The smashed-out window I exited through last time has been taped over with cardboard. When I look for her in the lattice, peering through the mesh of walls to take in every room at a glance, I can’t see her.

  “I don’t think she’s here,” I say.

  “She can go invisible, though, right?” says Kinetiq.

  “You see her library?” asks Calamity. Her guns are both out, down at her sides, fingers carefully off the triggers.

  “Yeah, through there.” I point down a hallway.

  “Codex, go check it out. Dreadnought, you go with him,” says Calamity. She and Kinetiq have arranged themselves in the living room to give total coverage of the door without getting in each other’s line of fire.

  Graywytch’s library is clearly the main event in this house. It’s just across the hall from her bedroom, and it’s part of a cutout between the floor above us and the floor below—it’s three stories tall, with the level we’re on as the middle layer. Below us is a maze of bookcases packed tight together with narrow, slate-floored aisles between them. The middle level is made up of a walkway around the outer edge of the room and crisscrossing bridges meeting in a broad platform in the center of the room, with short bookshelves and a reading area set up in the middle and a good view of the maze of taller bookshelves on the floor below.

  The walls are all solid bookcases that stretch all the way up to the—oh, no, bullshit, bullshit!—up to the skylight. The skylight on the thirty-second floor. Of a fifty-seven floor building. There’s a moment of unease as I’m processing all that, and even in the lattice it looks like a skylight—I can’t see anything beyond it but open sky.