“My mom can’t cook to save her life,” said Sally. “And before that was dorm food at the Academy. I’d be happy with anything edible.”
“The food here is more than just edible,” said Sondra—Desert Eagle. She sat near Jack but far enough apart from the others so as not to inconvenience anyone with her wings. Normally, she wore thigh holsters loaded with custom-manufactured large-caliber automatic pistols and bandoleers of clips, but she had come to dinner unarmed. “You’ll have to step up your workout routine just to keep from filling out your costume in the wrong places.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Eric, resplendent in his bright blue Forcestar costume. He created and controlled force fields that were virtually unbreakable. He could wrap one around himself to fly, or he could use them as great clubs, wedges, and walls. “The trials and tribulations of the Spandex set.”
“I’m glad I don’t have to worry about that,” said Jay Road, known as Glimmer, the psionicist. He had no set costume and generally wore jeans and a denim jacket in public. Authorities had found him wandering along a country road in Oklahoma after a series of tremendous thunderstorms and tornadoes several years ago. He couldn’t remember anything about his past—not even his name—but had strong psionic abilities from telepathy to levitation to psionic healing. He could even see occasional glimpses of the future, although the power was uncontrolled and visions came to him without warning or planning. Doctors, psychologists, and other psis had examined him, but ultimately all they determined was a portion of his mind was simply gone. He had taken the name Jay Road, after the place he had been found.
Juice sat at the head of the table in his utilitarian gray costume with the triangular yellow high voltage warning graphic centered on his chest. He leaned back from the table and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Well…” He cleared his throat. “Since we’re all in the same place at the same time, I think we’ll have a short staff meeting.”
Muted groans sounded around the table, the loudest from Crackerjack.
“Hush, you,” said Doublecharge, second-in-command of the team. Stacey Martin carried an aura of quiet competence. She remained content to let Juice lead conversation during the meal, except when she offered up a thoughtful and well-constructed opinion or comment. Her black and white costume was trimmed with stylized yellow lightning bolts, a graphical representation of her ability to project electricity.
Juice glared at them. “Listen, we’ve got a new intern and I’d like to show her how we ought to operate. I promise to keep things short. After this latest masterpiece from Juan, I’m sure we’d all like to take some time to sleep it off. We’ll go around the table. When it gets back to me, we’re done, unless something comes up.”
“Nobody bring anything up,” Crackerjack stage-whispered.
“As far as old business goes,” said Juice, “a date has been set for Anchor’s trial.” Sally didn’t recognize the name, but knew as an attorney specializing in parahuman case law, Juice was often involved in courtroom proceedings.
“How does it look for her?” Sondra asked.
“I’d be lying if I said I was sure she’d walk free on a self-defense plea. It’s going to be a tough fight, given her background, which I’m sure the prosecution will make sure is brought forth in all its vivid glory.” Juice took a sip of coffee. “For new business, I’m altering the duty schedules to include Sally. Expect the changes posted by the end of this week. We’ll also have team training next Saturday from eight to five.” Crackerjack raised his hand as if to ask a question. “No.” Juice cut him off. “Everyone needs to be there, no exceptions. Whatever it is, you can reschedule it.”
Jack sighed with exasperation, then grinned and winked at Sally.
“Stacey, anything to add?”
Doublecharge toyed with a fork and made sparks dance between the tines. “There was a confirmed sighting of Harlan Washington this morning in Guatemala.”
Sally gasped. Harlan Washington was the man inside the Destroyer battlesuit.
“Guatemala?” Forcestar looked baffled. “Strange place for a high-tech guy like him. Especially since he was in Chicago just a month ago. We sure it was him?”
“The report came from the CIA, so it’s probably credible. We’re moving a recon satellite into position to try and learn more. I’m working to obtain permission from Homeland Security for us to go in if needed.”
“Just Cause has a satellite?” Sally asked, but then wished she hadn’t; she sounded like such a rube.
“Actually we have four, but it’s not public knowledge,” Doublecharge said. “I’ll update you all as I get more information. I don’t have any other business.”
Juice nodded. “Jason?”
Jason shook his head. “Nothing.” He smiled at Sally.
“Oh, uh, I don’t have anything. Except I’d like to know what else you all know about Destroyer,” said Sally.
“Destroyer’s been a thorn in the side of Just Cause and other hero organizations for years. We’ve got an extensive file on him, in fact,” said Stacey.
Sally nodded. She knew she had to get into that file to see what information Just Cause possessed about the man who had killed her father.
“Glimmer?” asked Juice.
“I’d actually like to know a little more about our newest member,” said the psi with a nod toward her. “I don’t know anything about you or your background except that you come here highly recommended by the Academy staff and the Lucky Seven.”
Sally squirmed in her seat. “There’s not much to tell. I’m a third-generation speedster. Actually, I’m the first known third-generation parahuman. Both my parents and at least my mother’s parents were parahumans as well. My grandpa and grandma were Dr. Danger and Colt in American Justice back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, and then my grandfather helped found Just Cause after Congress blacklisted American Justice. My mom was in Just Cause from ’70 to ’85 as Pony Girl. My dad was too, although he wasn’t a speedster. He had enhanced hearing abilities. He was the team administrator up until… until Destroyer killed him at Tornado’s funeral.”
Sally paused in her tale. She needed a moment to catch up with herself. Talking about her father was always difficult when she’d never had the chance to know the man. Sondra reached out and patted her hand, and it comforted her more than she would have expected. It gave her strength to continue. “Anyway, my mom raised me and trained me until I was old enough to go to the Academy. I graduated last June and then spent half a year training with the Lucky Seven and now I’m here.”
“And you all faced Destroyer just last month?” asked Doublecharge.
“Yeah. He broke into a science convention and stole some kind of high-tech energy monitoring system thing,” said Sally. “And then he disappeared. Until now, that is.”
“Interesting.” Doublecharge looked troubled.
“Sondra, what have you got?” Juice nodded toward the winged woman.
“There were three new applicants to the Hero Academy this week; a brick and two blasters. All are underage but were accepted provisionally when they hit sixteen. No surprises—we knew about all three already.” Sondra ticked off each point on her long brown fingers. “Other than that it was the usual batch of cranks, including that one Exhibitionist guy for the, what, fifth time?”
Laughter blossomed around the table. “You mean the Visible Man?” Jack asked, his eyes sparkling with amusement.
“I thought he was calling himself The Streak.” Forcestar snickered.
“Before that it was Naked Guy,” said Doublecharge with a rare smile.
Glimmer turned to Sally. “This guy gets his jollies by applying for Just Cause membership, saying he’s bulletproof, but only when he’s naked.”
“Is he?”
Fresh peals of laughter exploded. “No idea. Nobody’s let him get any further than his skivvies. He shows up like clockwork every six months with a new nickname and—”
Glimmer’s coffee cup slipped from his fingers to shatter against the
edge of the table. He flung himself backward. Sally scooted around the table in a blur of motion before anyone else could react and caught him just before his head slammed into the floor.
“Holy shit!” Jack flung himself across the table as Glimmer convulsed. “Get him onto his side!”
Sally ducked Glimmer’s thrashing arms and rolled him over. “Shouldn’t I hold him or something?” She chewed on her lip in fear. Glimmer’s eyes had rolled back into his head and foamy spittle leaked from his mouth as he quivered and shook.
“No, no. He’s precogging. Never seen him this bad before,” said Jack. “We have to let it run its course. He’ll come out of it in a minute or two.”
In a few hot and sweaty minutes, Glimmer’s spasms subsided and his eyes cleared. He relaxed his tightly clenched muscles and started shaking, but from exhaustion instead of a seizure. Jack soaked a napkin with ice water and brushed it tenderly across the smaller man’s face. The change in Jack’s personality from sardonic and wry to solicitous and worried was amazing. Sally realized the gentle compassion was closer to his true personality than the sharp, witty attitude he affected most of the time.
Glimmer struggled to sit up. Jack and Sally helped to prop him up against the wall of the conference room. Forcestar pressed a cup of sweetened hot tea into Glimmer’s hands. He took a grateful sip.
“That one looked really bad, Jay,” said Juice. “Want to talk about it?”
Glimmer took a shaky breath. “Millions died… by fire. Never saw anything like it.”
“You mean like a nuclear explosion?” Doublecharge’s voice was sharp.
“Yes. No. I don’t know. This was worse, somehow. Bigger. Like cracking a hole in the planet.”
“Is he…” Sally felt her nerves sing like an over-tightened cable. “Is he… accurate in his predictions?”
“Sometimes,” said Juice. “He sees the most likely outcome of a future event, but the most likely is not always what occurs. Often the very knowledge of something allows us to circumvent or prevent it outright. Sondra?”
The others made room for the winged woman as she knelt down and checked Glimmer’s vital signs with the practiced ease of a paramedic. She dug in a pouch strapped to one of her legs and withdrew an inhaler, which she metered and administered to him.
“Does he have asthma?” Sally asked.
“No,” said Jack. “Most of our emergency medication is delivered orally or via inhaler. Some of us—like me, for example—can’t be injected with anything. And in the field, it makes more sense to have a universal delivery system instead of one customized for each of us.”
“Can you tell us when and where this event might happen, Jay?” Doublecharge knelt down next to him.
He nodded, his face white as a sheet of paper. “Here. Denver. Soon. Maybe by tomorrow.” He swallowed the rest of his tea. His shakes started to subside as the drug from the inhaler worked into his bloodstream. “There’s something else. Right before it hit me, I sensed a powerful psionic usage. Someone used a heavy-duty power. Like, with global reach.”
“Can you tell what kind of power?”
“Not sure. It was targeted at a region. Maybe teleportation?”
The lights in the conference room flickered. Several beeps emanated from the walls and a recorded voice announced emergency power had been activated.
Juice yanked his phone from his belt. “Command Center, Juice. What’s going on?”
The reply came over the speaker, loud enough for everyone to overhear, drenched in static and distortion. “Just about to call you, sir. We have a catastrophic failure of the local power grid. It’s dark from Idaho to New Mexico, west to Utah and east into Nebraska.”
“Complete power failure?” Juice was aghast. “That should be impossible. The grids are all connected for redundancy.”
“We’re working on it now, sir. No answer yet. Only the fiber optics communications lines are working. Something’s interfering with regional telephone and cellular networks, including our own.”
“Get the Bettie on hot standby. We may need to move in a hurry.”
“Right away, sir.”
“There are going to be a lot of very cold, frightened people if we don’t get the lights back on,” said Sondra.
The Command Center beeped the team’s phones. “New information coming in. Surrounding power grids report an abnormally-heavy draw from our region. It’s not that the power’s gone, sir, but something is siphoning it off. They’ve severed connections to us until we resolve the problem or else they might risk going down as well.”
“Well, at least it isn’t serious.” Jack’s joke fell flat.
“Is there any information about a possible cause?” asked Doublecharge.
“Not yet. Wait a moment… stand by…”
They waited, impatient. Sally’s foot tapped like a drum roll.
“All right, people,” said Juice at last. “Sondra, Jason, and Jay are on standby. The rest of you are with me. I want everyone geared up and at the hangar in five.”
The hangar doors rolled back as the team assembled. A jet with the sleek angular lines of a stealth bomber sat under the lights. Its turbines spun with a whistling roar. A painting of a posed pinup girl gleamed beneath the canopy window. Sally shivered as a blast of icy wind and displaced snowflakes circled through the hangar. The storm had worsened, and Sally didn’t relish the prospect of having to be a hero in the dismal weather.
“We have a report from a Wyoming State Trooper. He says there’s some kind of bright, glowing figure in the vicinity of the Medicine Bow Power Plant.”
“Relay that information to Ace,” said Juice.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, Mustang Sally, it looks like you’re going to get to see some action on your very first day.” Juice smiled, his teeth as white as the falling snow outside. The bomb bay doors underneath the jet swung open and a heavy ladder lowered. “Everyone on board.”
The heroes climbed the ladder. Sally found it led to a spacious, executive-style cabin with plush seats and plenty of legroom.
A diminutive pilot stepped through the door from the cockpit. She wore a fully insulated pilot suit. Her dark olive skin gave her an exotic look, offset somewhat by her boyish hairstyle. She stepped forward and extended her hand to Sally.
“Hello,” she said in a rich, accented contralto voice. “I’m Fairuza, your pilot.”
“Pleased to meet you, Fairuza,” said Sally.
“Call me Ace. I just wanted to take a second to meet you, since I’ll probably have to save your life someday.” The woman spun around and hustled back into the cockpit.
Sally looked around at the others, who grinned back at her.
“Don’t worry about Ace,” said Forcestar. “She’s always like that. There’s nobody better behind the stick than her, though. She’s a veteran from the Israeli Air Force.”
The engine noise increased from a whine to a scream as the jet taxied out of the hangar. Sally expected the plane to turn and head for a runway, but instead the engines powered up even more and the jet lurched straight up into the air like a helicopter. Clunks sounded underneath the plane as the landing gear retracted. The plane continued to rise almost vertically and Sally could see only darkness and blowing snow out the window.
“Nice, huh?” Jack called to her.
“What?” she yelled back.
“The Bettie,” he said. “Company in Vermont built her custom for Just Cause.”
“Is it always this loud?”
“Only at take-off and landing.”
The plane accelerated and replaced vertical thrust with horizontal. True to Jack’s word, the engine noise diminished to a tolerable howl. Ace swung the plane around onto a northern heading and poured on the power.
Chapter Six
“These men and women in their colorful costumes; they charge toward danger when a sane man would flee. They hold the line that cannot be held. Why else do we call them heroes?”
-Dr. Georges Devere
aux, 1953
January, 2004
Medicine Bow, Wyoming
“Ace, what’s our ETA to Medicine Bow?” asked Juice.
“That depends upon whether or not I have permission to exceed the sound barrier, sir,” said the pilot over the cabin intercom.
“Permission granted.”
The plane shuddered as it blew through the sound barrier. Noise levels in the cabin diminished as an electronic sound-dampening system came online. “Twelve minutes to point of last contact.”
“Notify me when we’re T minus two minutes.”
“Roger.”
Juice turned to face Sally and took on the tone of an instructor. “We don’t have much information to go on, so our first priority is to gain intelligence. We’ll do a flyby first to see if there’s any sign of our mysterious glowing figure. The Bettie has some advanced sensing devices that will also help beyond visual identification. If we find our target, we’ll deploy after the initial flyby. Deployment is hot, so get out fast. I want you to stay by Jack at all times unless I give you other orders. Put these on.” He handed her a featherweight earpiece and throat microphone with a small magnetic plate backing.
“Yes, sir.” She fit the earpiece as comfortably as possible beneath her tight-fitting cowl. Doublecharge showed her how to slip the magnetic plate inside her costume so the throat mic would sit outside it.
“Once we get your costume up to Just Cause standards, the plate will be incorporated behind the fabric so you won’t have to feel it,” she said. “It’ll probably seem a little strange at first. We’re all tied into the same frequency so you can hear everyone and we can all hear you, including Ace.”
“Assuming the network interference doesn’t knock these out too,” said Forcestar.
“I’m an optimist,” said Doublecharge.
“In that case, we’re all doomed,” said Jack under his breath.
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