Wearing the Cape 6: Team-Ups and Crossovers

by Marion G. Harmon

  “Get the other one, Eric!” Pellegrini shouted. “Get the—” Coming up off my knee, I clocked him with my helmet and he went down like a stunned ox.

  Breathing hard I stared at Eric, ignoring Shelly still behind me. You’d think that a Verne’s sound-dampening field had gone off in the room. Finally, he straightened up, relaxing his fists.

  “Miss Corrigan, you can’t fight me now. I could take the doc and go.”

  I dropped my helmet to the floor. “You might.”

  “But I won’t.”

  “Thank you. Hold me up?” My head spun, and he lunged forward to catch me before I face-planted into the smashed server or concussed myself on the concrete floor. “Thank you. Shelly? Did you tell the boys upstairs who showed up? Do they need your help?”

  I couldn’t see her face behind her dark helmet, but she shook her head. “They were busy. And no, they’ve handled it. Grendel pushed the A Class upstairs through every load bearing wall in the place, and if you’d believe it, Blindspot stunned the other one. Some kind of telekinetic, never saw him coming.”

  “Eric? Anybody else coming? I dosed Drop before he left, so I don’t think he’s coming back.”

  He shifted his hold on me. “If you did, then we’re all there is.”

  “Good to know. Shell, tell everyone to stand by. What?” My brain wasn’t quite working, but Eric wouldn’t stop looking at me funny.

  “Are you scared of anything? At all?”

  “Trees. Doctors. Clowns. Telling a guy I like that I’m into him. Lots of things. Shell, check Pellegrini, then sandman him and glue-tape him till he’s a mummy.” I swallowed a hysterical laugh; he’d never even got a chance to monologue. “Don’t tell Grendel he’s down here. Just, don’t.” I decided my legs were working, pulled away from Eric to drop into the steel chair by the computer station. His hands empty, he just stood there with no idea what to do with them.

  Checking and dosing and taping took Shelly a moment, which at least gave me time to think. Not that it really helped.

  The job had gone completely pear-shaped. Off the rails. I had no idea how much useful information Shelly would be able to reconstruct from what she’d managed to copy, no idea if anything could be recovered from the pile of bits Eric had turned the server into. And we might have Doctor Freaking Pellegrini taped up on the floor, but I wasn’t the law. With this mess, I couldn’t believe that his attorneys wouldn’t be able to turn any investigation and prosecution into a circus. He’d walk, powers or no—

  I blinked. “Shell, the Public Safety and Security Act—the detainment requirement.”

  “What about it?”

  “You said any licensed CAI cape was required to detain any unregistered breakthrough for evaluation? Are there any circumstances that supersede that requirement?”

  “No, but—”

  “I didn’t finish certification here, before I died, but I’m a fully licensed and certified CAI cape back home. Is there any legal recognition of that, for visitors like me?”

  “Well…” She got that distant look, then a grin spread across her face. “The Supreme Court has been finessing it. In one case they ruled that an extrareality double of someone real and deceased couldn’t claim that person’s property—they’re just not that person. But in another decision they recognized the professional qualifications and legal certification of an extrareality visitor from a parallel history, even though certification had been granted in an alternate Mississippi…”

  “And I’m CAI certified and licensed to wear the cape in the Great State of Illinois!” I was legit in a weird sort of way, at least until they stripped my credentials here. It made me dizzy; if I hadn’t insisted on hiding when I’d arrived, I’d have probably been completely fine.

  Then I’d run of course, and hadn’t stopped breaking laws since, but while they could try and prosecute me for all that if I stayed, I wasn’t a state agent for this Illinois. It wouldn’t affect their prosecution of Pellegrini. And they didn’t even need to arrest him now—they just had to “detain and evaluate him” when I reported his power. So whatever they did to me, this would give them plenty of time to analyze whatever Shelly had retrieved and nail him with it. But that meant I had to stay to report Pellegrini. And first…

  “Eric?” I had to clear my throat. “Eric. I think you should go. I really think you should turn yourself in, but you should make that decision yourself, and not here. There’s always Canada, and I’m sure Shell can arrange a new identity for you. If you could phone in Drop’s location as a tip, that would be great.”

  “Hope—” Shelly started, but I shook my head. “Go on, Eric. Maybe we’ll share a cell in a day or two.”

  Eric never had been a man of many words; he nodded and left.

  “Hope, what are you doing?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? I’m detaining Pellegrini. Make sure that everyone upstairs is alright, secure the foundation guys, then have Crash take Kitsune out of here. Put yourself and Grendel in the van with Blackout, and drive out of here as soon as you see the team landing. Oh, and call the team. They’re looking for me, after all.”

  Of course my Best Friend Anywhere argued. But she’d had two years of making hard choices herself, and she could see she wasn’t going to move me on it. I explained to everyone that I had to stay as a witness, without going into detail, promised Kitsune that he could break me out again if he had to. I felt bad about not telling Brian who we’d captured, but de-powered as I was nobody here could even try and stop him if he decided to come down and rip the mass-murderer’s head off. I hoped he’d forgive me.

  Kitsune left with Crash. I stood outside with the pile of foundation staff and Pellegrini—after some thought I’d had Shelly tape up his face and then bring him upstairs with the sleeping neuralkinetic—and less than ten minutes after Shelly’s call I spotted Variforce’s familiar Watchman-propelled fields. They brought the whole team, and of course didn’t see the unnoticeable van that drove away as they landed.

  “Hi guys. I’d like to make an official detainment? And is there any chance I can get Legal Eagle? I might need representation.”

  A week later I stood outside on the garden veranda of our Oak Park home with my bag slung over my shoulder, carefully holding the globe. Mom and Dad still couldn’t quite bring themselves to believe that it had been a gift from Santa.

  It had been a busy week. This time the Sentinels had gone by the book, and I’d been okay with that. Veritas had listened to my voluntary statement, promptly made a call, and suddenly Springfield was declining to prosecute. I still didn’t know if anyone had spoken to Mayor Shankman directly, but the City of Chicago also declined and I was free to go home.

  Less than a day after our caper, Shelly had sent a huge packet of electronic files to the DSA—backup for what they were managing to extract from the dead server (it turned out that Eric’s big smash had disconnected the capacitor from the drives so they’d been able to recover almost everything). They hardly needed the server drives anyway—which might not have been accepted in trial—since Eric had called in Drop’s location and then turned himself in before the day had ended. He’d given testimony and named names. Lots of them.

  There was no reason they had to, but the state also declined to prosecute our vigorous breaking-and-entering and granted amnesty for the Young Sentinels—which was what Brian, Jamal, and Mal were calling themselves in their press interviews because of course the media was all over it. We’d outed and taken down the Ascendant, and the Wreckers with the help of teams in California who served the warrants Eric’s testimony generated. The whole web of what had become the Ascendancy back home was being exposed and rolled up and Congress gave us medals (all except Kitsune, who’d never been there). I had mine in my bag.

  Kitsune disappeared with a flash drive full of everything we’d recovered. I had a copy, too, but whatever happened to me the secrets of the Ascendancy would make it home with him. I never got to introduce my “boyfriend” to the parents, but of cour
se I did get to introduce both Shelly and Younger Me to everyone. Mom and Dad grasped the fundamental twinned nature of their Hope and Shelly right away, allowing me to feel a lot better about leaving them all to take care of each other. Mom convinced Shelly to get in touch with her mom before our show-and-tell evening was over.

  So I couldn’t fix the world but at least I was leaving it a lot better off than I’d expected to be able to—and it mostly hadn’t been me. (Okay, so I’d made some calls, too. Doctor Cornelius and Jacky knew what his Words of Power could do now, and Chakra knew she and Blackstone had become an item.)

  Mom touched my arm gently. “Are you going to be alright?” We’d known that it would be time to go as soon as my powers came back and I’d woken up all better this morning, called Doctor Beth at the Dome so he could log it, and packed after breakfast. Dad and Mom stood with me, his arm around my shoulders and hers around my waist, watching the birds in the garden. Shelly and Hope hovered, virtually present but quiet (we’d all talked a lot the past few days).

  I tried on a smile. It didn’t feel completely fake, at least. “‘But all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.’”

  Mom’s eyes crinkled. “Look at you, quoting Julian of Norwich.”

  “Hey, Father Nolan’s favorite text.” Sunday mass had been interesting, though he hadn’t used that one. Dad cleared his throat and I turned my head.

  “You’ll be careful?”

  I hugged him back with one arm before pulling away and turning to look at everyone. It was almost too much. “I’ll be careful, Dad. Really. I—”

  What could I possibly say? Nothing, apparently, and I didn’t have to; Mom and Dad leaned in for synchronized kisses to my cheeks, giving my shoulders a last squeeze before stepping back as I blinked away sudden tears.

  “I love you. Goodbye.” I took a deep breath, and turned the globe.

  DSA Field Report: Agent Smith.

  “The time is out of joint. O cursèd spite, that ever I was born to set it right!” Hamlet, boss, and my Harvard degree wasn’t wasted. Ozma promised daily updates, but Crash is dropping back in a lot more frequently than every twenty-four hours—there’s some kind of time-slippage between the termini. I have no idea what that even means, but if it flips the other way then what do we do? If a day passes there while a week or more passes here, we could lose control of our end of the rift. I don’t like it. Japan has all sorts of trouble with incursions, boss, and their practice is to ring sites like this with mecha or at least a lot more firepower than we’ve got on call. I know we’ve got a budget, boss, but it’s better to explain overruns to the Congressional Oversight Committee than try and explain why we lost Portland. I’ve attached the Need More Firepower form.

  Odysseus Case File 1-F429 B.

  Wargames

  by Marion G. Harmon

  “Jump #9. What can I say about Jump #9? I was tired, I was more than just a bit detached, and after the stress of #7 and the weirdness of #8 I was treating the whole thing like a waking dream. Still pretty sure I did the right thing, for all the good it might have done there.”

  Astra Cross-Reality Debrief Session, 14.2

  She was a twist. She had to be. Yeah she wore an inner-city outfit, all bright and clean and what had to be the newest fashion since I didn’t recognize it from any vids—was the star a campaign symbol? And yeah she looked peachy-fresh and gene scrubbed, practically Aryan which wasn’t something you saw much these days; most parents wealthy enough to afford selection preferred the dark-light contrast of ebony and gold or cream skin and jet-black hair for their kids. But she grabbed the cybered war-twist who’d pinned me screaming to the wall, hammered him into the ground with one hand, so she had to be a twist, right? But who made pretty twists? When she pulled out the spike pinning me to the shattered wall with a whispered apology, I screamed higher and passed out.

  “I can’t fly,” she said when I woke up in the dark.

  “What, you get motion sickness?” My side felt tight and hot, but she’d found my med-kit and if she’d never seen one before she’d known to read directions; my probing fingers told me I had a brace patch on, and not being in agony said I had at least one dose of pain-block inside me.

  “I can’t fly,” she explained patiently. “So I don’t know where we are.” Her soft words had a precision to them that sounded…

  “Are you from Greater Chicago?”

  “Oh, it’s greater, now?” Her teeth shone in the glow of the hooded camp light—light! I panicked for two heartbeats until I realized she’d found us a shielded refuge, spread a camo-sheet over our heads. A quick eyeball-recon painted a steep ditch blocked by some old burned out wreck. On our open side the ditch went maybe twenty feet before turning sharply; nobody would see us unless they were right on top of us or coming up the ditch at us.

  “So where are we, soldier?” Her question brought me back to her. Like she could be lost?

  “A long way from Greater Chicago.” I moved a little, experimenting. “The foot of the Rocks.”

  “The rocks?”

  “The mountains? Western North-Am?”

  She nodded, smile fading. “And what are we doing at the foot of the Rocks?”

  Ratshit. It was the smoothest interrogation opening I’d ever seen, and I clamped my jaw on more stupid words. She sighed.

  “So I’m supposed to Sherlock you? You’re a soldier, got it. From your dirt and smell you’ve been in the field for a while. You’re carrying full pockets and pack, lots of ammo, so either you haven’t had a serious fight yet—other than back there—or you had a resupply. I can’t think of any elites that go out alone except maybe snipers and you’re not armed for that, so I’m guessing you lost the rest of your team since your last resupply. I’m sorry.”

  And she sounded it, too, which was starting to freak me out. Who was she? The only stuff in the ditch with us that wasn’t mine was a fancy handbag, stuffed full but looking as bright and clean as she was. And with those blue, worried eyes watching me I had to keep reminding myself she was a twist.

  A twist who hadn’t killed me.

  A twist who’d killed or maimed another twist to save my dead ass.

  A twist who’d patched me up and hadn’t even tied me.

  She kept going. “And from the condition of, well, everything around here I’d say this ground has been fought over for years. Right?”

  “Who are you?”

  That brought back the smile. “And you don’t recognize the star. So, just Hope. You can call me Hope. Should I just call you Soldier?”

  “Flynn.” I gave her that much. She nodded and sat back, giving me space.

  “Nice to meet you, Flynn. I don’t know how long I’m here for, and this ditch seems quiet. But is there somewhere I can take you? Anywhere you need to be?”

  What. The. Hell?

  She left me alone, except to check that I was comfortable a couple of times. She even stacked my gear—guns and all—by me in easy reach before disappearing down the ditch, walking confidently into the dark and coming back with a full canteen.

  I tried to figure out what the actual flaming pile was going on. She’d killed the other war-twist so she’d wanted me alive. But for what? Had she called in, told her makers where we were while I was out of it? Were we waiting for pickup?

  But I’d tested the hole in me while she was gone; I wasn’t hurt bad enough to immobilize me—not with her care and the patch and the blocker and the stims and regen in my blood. I’d counted the empty injectors to see what she’d given me. I’d also had my loaded service pistol in my hand when she walked back up the ditch, and she hadn’t even looked at it, just put the sloshing canteen down beside me before sitting back down.

  And she was still freaking me out. She didn’t look like any twist I’d ever seen, didn’t talk like a vat-grown, brain jacked twist. She looked young and fresh and would be totally invisible in any in-city crowd, a monster among sheep, blood and horror waiting to rage.

>   If the Biolords had made her, we were all dead—the war was over except for counting the bodies. But if they’d made her, why was she here?

  “Where did you come from?” It took me a moment to realize I’d said the words.

  She brightened. “Depends. What year is this?”

  “Twenty seventy-three.”

  “Then I’m from sixty years in the past.”

  I laughed, a chopped bark before I could stop it. “Yeah, right. Nobody made twists back then—” She shook her head.

  “Not your past. I’d have guessed this was one of the Bad Futures, but since I can’t fly the rules are different here, and nothing I’m saying is making sense to you, I’m guessing a Stage Two Reality from a theme or fiction. So, future war? Maybe a hugely popular computer game.”

  Ratshit. She was a crazy twist. But the Biolords terminated those mistakes fast, so why was she alive? An escapee? But that didn’t explain every other thing about her.

  Blue eyes blinked slowly. How much could she read in my face?

  “So, tell me about this war? Whatever’s not classified, I mean, I get that. There’s probably a reason I’m—hold on.”

  She scrambled to the top of the ditch, put her head just below the edge under the camo-sheet, and listened. I couldn’t hear anything but light rain on the sheet. A minute later she slid back down.

  “Some kind of heavy engines out there, moving pretty slow. If you have mechanized units in the area I can take you to them? Or just yell real loud?”

  “No!” I clamped my jaw on anything else.

  “Okay, okay.” She made calming motions, returned to the top of the ditch. This time she stayed up there longer, I almost drifted off before she slid back down. “They’re moving away, I can’t spot anything like drones, so unless they’re using something like keyhole satellites to watch us, I think we’re okay. So, what are they? I mean, what are you fighting? I can’t automatically assume you’re one of the Good Guys, but you’re human and the thing that tried to kill you—well I’m not sure what it was. So call it blind solidarity but until I learn different, I’ll side with the human. What’s going on?”