Wearing the Cape

by Marion G. Harmon

  Once inside, the group broke up so that Atlas could take the President around to show off the base's latest renovations before she met with us all for a buffet lunch in the Assembly Room (for which Willis performed Herculean feats). Then we headed back out to take her to Lincoln Park High School for her biggest speech. The largest audience for her trip would be there but the Secret Service was all over it. I took a close look at Bob while passing through the lobby, and decided we needed to talk. Or maybe I needed to talk to Blackstone. About a lot of things.

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  I can deal with the things I know and the things I know I don't know. It's the things I don't know I don't know that always bite me in the butt.

  Astra, Notes From A Life

  * * *

  When Air Force One disappeared into the evening sky we all breathed a sigh of relief and stood down. Our days returned to normal, and I had another revelation to distract me. Bob was a superhuman! And he was Tom, I mean Tom and Bob were the same person. Sort of.

  It was all very confusing. I'd read about Redux-type superhumans—any superhuman who duplicates himself—but there are lots of variations. Bob and Tom were periodic, permanent duplicators, a retired supersoldier codenamed Platoon. Blackstone got disturbingly vague on how they duplicated (did they bud, grow a Siamese twin, or what?), and how often, but he did tell me they shared a group mind. All of them know what one of them learns.

  The helmeted guards that take shifts at the Dome's main doors, Tony, and Bart, and Ralph? Also them. Him. Whatever. So was Willis. I'd never have noticed, older, thinner, and talking with a dead-on Oxford accent like he did. When I asked him what that was all about he told me he enjoyed playing Alfred. Apparently both the Secret Service and the DSA employed lots of him as field agents—if one died the others instantly knew how, where, and who did it if their dead brother did.

  Blackstone couldn't tell me why Touches Clouds left the Sentinels though; apparently it came as a complete surprise to him. Her 180 degree change of direction from superheroine to politician had been a shock to the team.

  I probably only wondered about it to keep from dwelling on Atlas. I'd more or less made up with my parents, and I could ponder the imponderable Dark Anarchist as a distraction for only so long.

  Despite appearances I was a healthy adult female, and since the ball my always-vivid dreams had headed in a grownup direction. I could deal with my passionate nighttime fantasies; they were short on details since I didn’t have the experience to fill them in, and even when they rocked me from my sleep, heart racing, they beat my darker dreams. But when they popped back up as daydreams they became horribly embarrassing; one morning Chakra took a look at the "color of my chakras" and gave me a copy of her latest edition of Sacred Gates—not a book for the under eighteen, and she’d thoughtfully included bookmarks and scribbled notations. I'd die before I admitted reading it, but at least it showed me one way to deal with the dreams. I also got better at acting cool, calm, and collected around Atlas, when all I wanted to do was melt into a puddle.

  Meanwhile my tried-and-true strategy for curing love-sickness—find a flaw in the object of my infatuation and then dwell on it—wasn't working. Beyond the usual man-flaws I couldn't find anything big enough to be a turnoff, and I even thought his man-flaws were adorable (yuck, right?). So I was in my rooms trying to distract myself with licensing studies when I got another chance to practice my new be-cool skill. My earbug chirped and Dispatch summoned us all to the Assembly Room.

  * * *

  We arrived to find Atlas and Blackstone waiting for us. They made an interesting contrast—Atlas all caped and leather-suited sharp-jawed ruggedness (you could practically see the cowboy hat), Blackstone dapper as always in his tux and tails. I got there first, followed by Artemis. Andrew had jumped at the challenge, and she was testing his new daysuit design, a leather catsuit with lots of buckles and straps and a mask that completely covered her head under the hood. Somehow Andrew had kept it from looking like serious fetish-wear, but I found not being able to see her eyes disconcerting. I turned away to catch Atlas giving me an odd look. The rest followed us in, Rush last of all.

  "Thanks for coming, everyone," Atlas said once Rush joined us. "I'm going to turn it over to Blackstone."

  "Thank you, my boy," the older gentleman nodded. "I know that everyone here has been wondering about my investigations; I can now tell you I believe we know who Psijack is, what happened, and why."

  That got our attention.

  He touched the pad he'd set in front of him and the table lit up with a face.

  "This is Bradley Clark. He's a freelance contract negotiator. He's not on anyone's radar, but he has been very successful. He has a reputation for always closing the deal."

  He looked at us all a little sheepishly.

  "When Psijack refused to reemerge with demands or further attacks I had to reassess my initial assumptions. After some thought, I no longer believed that we face a new master supervillain trying to "muscle in" on Chicago territory. But in the absence of further activity, who benefited from the Freakzone Riot? After the Brotherhood and the Sanguinary Boys' attorneys successfully argued mind control to secure their release, I began investigating their contacts and movements from the time of their client's arrests. I also began looking for anomalies in the police reports of the event.

  "With Artemis' help," he gave her a nod. "We have managed to discover a trail. On the seventeenth Mr. Clark, who lives in New York, flew into O'Hare and picked up a rental car at the airport. Mr. Clark stayed at the Palmer House, and during his stay he conducted no business that we are aware of, but his car was one of the vehicles destroyed by the rioters in the Millennium Park garage. This is, in fact, how we first picked up his end of the trail. No concert ticket had been purchased in his name or the name of his company, so why was his rental there? He reported it stolen, but it's hardly the type of car that is usually boosted. Here we caught two breaks; hotel security cameras identify him as the driver when the car left the hotel parking lot, and the rental company's GPS record shows that he drove it directly from the Palmer House to the concert."

  He paused to see if we had any questions. Nobody did.

  "Reading its GPS memory further back showed two trips to the south side of Chicago, to places with no tourist value, or business value to someone in his line of work. Here Artemis took the lead, quietly showing his picture around the area. She found several witnesses to a meeting between our friend Mr. Clark, a pair of Brotherhood attorneys, and an unidentified third man. Here we had another stroke of good fortune; the meeting took place in Dennehy's Pub, a location Artemis had previously wired for observation. She checked her cameras and mikes and found the meeting. Unfortunately it took place out of pickup range, but she got several good pictures of all of them."

  Blackstone brought them up on the table.

  I stopped breathing. One of the four was the Teatime Anarchist.

  "It is my belief," Blackstone continued, "that Mr. Clark is at least some sort of projective empath, and that the firm hired him to stage the Freakzone Riot specifically so that malicious mind control could be used as a defense for their clients. We then went back to the theater and reviewed all of its security tapes to see if we could find him in the crowd either before or during the riot."

  "I don't think you'd find him during the riot," I spoke up without thinking, my mind scattered.

  "Oh?" Blackstone turned towards me.

  "Unless he had to stay with them," I said awkwardly. "I mean, he could have more safely waited until the mob stormed out, taking us away from the theater. Then walked out a service door?"

  Blackstone smiled and I flushed, realizing I was the little girl who got a gold star for spelling "bee" correctly.

  "That is a very good thought, and we reviewed all the recordings, not just the ones from the public areas. He left by a side door. The camera there was conveniently broken and on a repair list, but we caught him on a security camera from the back o
f the Millennium Park Bicycle Station."

  "So what can we prove and what does it mean?" Ajax asked.

  Blackstone smiled more widely.

  "Everything, my boy. I have spoken with Legal Eagle and he has set the gears in motion. Our evidence and conclusions are being organized by the investigating officers for submission to a warrant judge. The important points are these: Mr. Clark can be charged for fraud regarding the vehicle, and the charges will rest on his recorded presence at the theater, the evidence for which will also show that he was the only occupant of the theater not influenced by Psijack, which makes him the chief suspect, which will allow detectives to follow the same trail of breadcrumbs that we did, secure testimonies to the meetings with the attorneys, and so forth. Proving Mr. Clark is Psijack is the key, of course, but Chakra engaged in psychic battle with him and knows his 'psychic scent.' His abilities can be verified by DSA psychics, at which point questioning by someone like Veritas is warranted. While psychic evidence does not hold a great deal of weight at trial, it is more than enough for the issuance of further warrants for his financial records, residence, and so forth.

  "Once it is proven that Mr. Clark is Psijack the mind-control argument falls apart; at the very least Mr. Clark was quite provably in New York when the Brotherhood and Sanguinary Boys had their little rumble. If we are lucky we will be able to pin the entire Psijack plot on them through their attorneys. The only loose end we have is the 'fourth man,' whom I can only assume to be an expediter of some kind. Doubtless the gang lawyers will give him up as part of their plea."

  "And that," Atlas concluded, grinning evilly, "brings it back to us. Legal Eagle is helping the District Attorney prepare the warrant applications, and the police are nailing down every lead and piece of evidence they can bring without actively questioning anybody to give to the warrant judge. Because both gangs are flight risks and considered very dangerous, the DA is going to request warrants for the whole lot to be served simultaneously with warrants for the attorneys and Mr. Clark. We will saddle up to serve the general warrants.

  A murmur of grim approval went around the table, but I just stared at the image of the fourth man, the Anarchist. Instead of sharing the excitement, I tried to breathe normally.

  PART SIX

  Chapter Thirty

  If you want to avoid hurting somebody, convince them that fighting you is a Bad Idea. This is hard to do in the heat of the moment, especially if you look like a perky high school cheerleader, so it's best to make the threat credible beforehand through your reputation. Failing that, go for Shock and Awe. If it works, great, if it doesn't you're halfway done anyway.

  Astra, Notes From A Life

  * * *

  How stupid was I? Really? I tried to imagine myself explaining. The Teatime Anarchist dropped by a couple of times. He said he didn't do it and I believed him.

  But it didn't make sense. The Psijack thing had DA written all over it. If I'd been that gullible, if DA was completely made up, why had TA recruited me at all? To catch himself? Was he crazy? Not just Anything For The Cause crazy, but complete loony-tunes?

  But crazy, not crazy, it hadn't all been lies—I was stone-cold positive he was a time traveler.

  And could I be certain the guy Artemis caught on video was him? Il Dopio wasn't the only shapeshifter around. Freakshow could have done it. Why escaped me, but I couldn't see whys in any of it. I finally decided this was what Shelly used to call an NMI—Need More Information—moment. If I found out I’d been wrong… I'd faced the music before, though imagining what Atlas would say made me want to cry. One way or another, it was time for me to set a trap of my own.

  I made a call, then went online and placed the Lonely Hearts ad.

  * * *

  Chicago saw its first big snowstorm just before Christmas, and I "came home." To cover for my continued training and patrolling schedule, Mom and Dad bought a small condo in Boyd Tower—the residential tower sitting atop the parking garage entrance to the Dome—and moved me right in. Officially they’d bought it a gift to make up for my missing fall semester, and it made sense in its wildly extravagant way. I'd be physically attending UofC next semester and it was lots closer to the campus.

  I thought it was the latest move in our ongoing fight over my impending career decisions (my training period ended in February). I just didn't know what kind of move it was.

  The Bees loved the place.

  Anticipating a media-push once the re-arrests hit the news, Quin set up a bunch of marketing and media meetings for me and Artemis. We approved our plushies and talked to the writers for Sentinels, both the show and the comic; the studio wanted to write us in as quickly as possible. Sentinels is mostly an action oriented police-procedural kind of series, light on the drama, but I found it horribly embarrassing. Who wants to sit down and talk about how other people should see you? I can't think of anything more narcissistic, other than having my own plushie. But Quin insisted, saying Atlas wanted to make sure the way they wrote me didn't make me want to crawl into a hole.

  And I discovered what Santa had brought me this year; Artemis was becoming a real friend, even kind of a big sister, one who shared the new side of my life. Reestablishing her life, she’d opted for a second, true secret identity—which meant Jacky and I were able to team up with the Bees for the all-important mission of last-minute Christmas shopping.

  And as an early present, the general warrants finally came through. We got the green light to serve them two days before Christmas.

  After some thought, Atlas decided to share the glory on this one; he brought in all the Chicago CAIs and handed off three or four targets to each. The Brotherhood and Sanguinary Boys pretty much claimed all of Chicago, so it seemed only fair. Blackstone doled out the targets, based on their power-sets and the powers fielded by the CAI teams. We kept most of the A-class villains for ourselves, but there were plenty of B and C-class targets to go around.

  Thanks to Blackstone, Artemis, and the CPD vice squad, we had their movements dialed to precision and went out to serve all the warrants at once. We meticulously planned the operation, observers verified locations beforehand, contacts in the phone companies stood ready to shut down every known cell number when the action started, and the special paddywagons stood by where necessary.

  They gave me Brick. They weren't going to, but I told Atlas I wanted him.

  * * *

  "It looks quiet down there."

  "Yes it does." I'd gotten so used to Artemis misting in without a whisper I didn't even turn around.

  My infrared vision showed me our four targets, in the middle of a floating poker game in a backroom at Dennehy's Pub. That was okay; the officers waiting on us had warrants for that too.

  I was only there for Brick. The other three were B and C-class Sanguinary Boys: Vacuum, an aerokinetic who could suck the air right out of your lungs, Lighter, a standard pyrokinetic who preferred vodka as a starter, and The Surgeon, a slicer with extendable razor-sharp nails and a taste for pain. We'd read their files: nothing proven, nothing pretty. Minions sat drinking or played darts outside in the bar, but the police stood ready to swoop in and collect any that made it out the front. My palms were slick, and I focused on my breathing as anticipation spiked my bloodstream with adrenaline. We only waited for the word.

  "All heroes, this is Atlas. Gully Washer is go, repeat we are go."

  Artemis drew her elasers.

  "Hope?"

  "Hmm?"

  "You're an annoying Pollyanna, and I'm glad you came and found me."

  "Sure, get mushy now."

  We got.

  We had no-knock warrants, so we didn't knock. My heart raced, anticipation spiking my blood with adrenaline. I'd already mapped the wood-frame wall by its heat patterns and I went straight in, my own battering ram, spraying bits of wood and plaster around the room. I knocked Brick out of his chair and into the sturdier brick wall behind him before the pieces finished bouncing.

  I grabbed his throat as he fell
towards me. Behind me snap snap snaps marked Artemis' attack as she danced in and out of the mist. A cigarette lighter bounced off the wall beside me and a miniature tornado filled the room with money and chips before it died.

  "You are all under arrest! Resistance will be met with further force!" I put as much authority as I could into my soprano.

  Brick bellowed, brought his arms up to break my grip. I let him, stepping back and turning aside to sweep his legs.