Superluminary

by Olivia Rising

  “It could still be a coffee spill, I guess,” he said.

  The tense atmosphere in the room smothered the joke. For once she didn’t feel like arguing.

  It took fifteen long minutes for a flustered and overweight UNEOA employee to rush in to where they sat, producing two standard-issue headsets.

  “These aren’t the model the Covenant uses,” Overdrive said. He was always up on the latest gadgets used by the international heroes.

  “There was no time for that,” the employee said. “These have been modified to run on the same secure comm lines and should fit under your helmets.”

  Mascot reached out to accept one of the headsets. “When will someone tell us what’s going on?”

  The woman averted her gaze. “Soon. Check in as soon as you’re equipped and linked.” She turned on her heel to plod to her awaiting car.

  The Wardens spent the next couple of minutes by fitting their headsets underneath their helmets. When she was done, Mascot toggled the small switch to activate her headset and adjusted the microphone. “Hello? Is anybody there?”

  She was met by the faint sound of static through her earphones. “Hello?” she repeated.

  The UNEOA employee who accompanied her and Overdrive from the hotel left the business center with swift strides, his phone anxiously pressed to his ear.

  “What the hell is going on?” Mascot asked Overdrive.

  “Christina?” Athena asked through the headset. “Are you and Peter still at the business center?” She sounded even more strained than the evening before, back at the Wardens headquarters in San Francisco.

  Something’s definitely not right, Mascot thought for what must have been the thirtieth time in as many minutes.

  “Yeah, we’re still here,” she replied. “Would be nice if someone told us what’s going on.”

  “Is Peter listening in? I do not see his signal.”

  Mascot glanced at Peter, who was trying to squeeze his head—with the headset on—into his helmet. “Leave the helmet, O. Athena wants to talk to you.”

  He immediately toggled his headset switch. A small green light flared next to his microphone. “Overdrive here. Reporting for duty, and geared up to solve your troubles,” he said with more excitement than warranted.

  She resisted the urge to punch his shoulder.

  Athena didn’t reciprocate his enthusiasm. “Hello, Peter. Now that you are both connected, I must share some unfortunate news with you.” There was a long pause. “Queenie was murdered a short while ago.”

  Mascot’s stomach tightened into a knot. “What? How?”

  “A sniper bullet struck her while she was leaving the Covenant headquarters,” Athena informed, stiff. “Samael, Paladin, and I are working to track the culprit. Do you understand what this means?”

  “Yeah,” Mascot muttered. “Word was leaked that Saint’s out of the picture.” Her mind raced ahead to other implications, none of them pleasant. “You’ve lost your ability to keep tabs on villains, too.”

  “Unfortunately, yes. Without Queenie we have no way of knowing if hostile Evolved are hiding among the spectator ranks. If they are, we may soon have to deal with more assassination attempts.”

  “They’re not canceling the event, are they?” Peter asked.

  “No. The Secretary General still wishes to go ahead with the event. He believes that canceling it would endanger the public approval we have regained since the Shanti riots.”

  Surprise, surprise, Mascot thought. Nothing gets in the way of PR shticks. Not even if the probability of an attack on the stadium has risen, like, four hundred percent.

  “But now at least some villains know that you lost Saint’s protection—” she began.

  Athena gently cut her off. “We have been informed that the event will go ahead as planned.”

  “So the Secretary General isn’t at all worried that this will not end well?”

  Athena was oblivious to the sarcasm. “I have secured his location, and I will stay with him for the duration of the event.” Her tone implied that everything was decided, and that nothing could be done to sway the decision makers.

  It’s easy not to believe in villains, I guess. The Covenant was good enough at dealing with them that they never caused any serious problems.

  Mascot pressed her lips together, avoiding thoughts about the impact such a huge crowd of people would have on her danger sense. She learned long ago from her parents that arguing at a time like this was fruitless.

  “What about the other Covenant heroes?” Overdrive asked, having finally succeeded in fitting his helmet over his headset.

  “Paladin will guard the press conference site while Samael monitors the stadium. Both of them will require force fields, as previously discussed.”

  “What about Radiant?” Overdrive voiced the question they had avoided since the meeting the previous night. “Can’t you guys call him for backup or something? He would respond faster than anyone else.”

  “It is complicated, Peter,” Athena replied.

  Touchy subject, I get it.

  “You two Wardens will be stationed at the stadium, as per the plan,” the Covenant heroine continued. “Troublemakers might attempt to provoke a mass panic. We expect forty thousand people to arrive within the hour.”

  And Ryan’s one of them. Mascot cringed at the thought, feeling so overwhelmed that she had to close her eyes for a moment. Why didn’t she wait to make that dreaded phone call until all of this was over? She would feel better if her mother hadn’t told her about Ryan being here at the stadium, exposed and vulnerable within the crowd.

  “Forty thousand? Oh shit,” Overdrive muttered.

  She knew exactly what he must be thinking. Responsibility for the safety of forty thousand innocent civilians was intimidating, especially for inexperienced hero wannabes like them. Her stomach sank while her mouth filled with a taste of bile. There was no way in hell she could shield forty thousand people.

  Athena must have sensed her uncertainty. “Samael is fast enough to move between locations as needed,” she assured them. “Paladin would need half a minute to join you, no more. Rest assured that you will have backup if you need it, and do not forget that my drones are available to monitor the situation.”

  “Great. Thanks,” Mascot said in a tone as flat as Athena’s.

  “Begin your preliminary rounds of the stadium now, and take note of anything unusual. Use the first line to communicate between yourselves and with me. Switch to the second line if you need to speak to Samael or Paladin. Do you have any questions?”

  “Um. Is there any intel you haven’t told us about?” Mascot asked. “Anything we should know before we’re in the thick of it?”

  “Three of the rogues we know to be within the United States may come to advance their various agendas.”

  Overdrive slipped back into would-be hero mode, radiating feigned professionalism. “And what do we know about them?”

  “Amunet, Mirage, and One Fell Swoop. All hold grudges against the UNEOA authority and the Covenant in particular.”

  Someone with a bad luck curse, someone with area illusions, and a personified chain reaction, Mascot summarized. Could be worse, I guess.

  Of the three rogues mentioned, Mascot realized One Fell Swoop was the biggest potential threat in a stadium situation. His ability to harness power feedback—to project whatever happened to himself back onto another person or a group of others—could escalate a bad situation into a full-fledged disaster.

  “Since when did you guys find out One Fell Swoop is in the area?” she asked.

  “We received word less than an hour ago.”

  Too late to cancel the event without being called paranoid by everyone involved, especially with the Covenant on site.

  “Other troublesome rogues or undercover villains we are not aware of may also attend. Not even Queenie was able to track them all,” Athena said, her voice cracking when saying her now-deceased teammate’s name. “Gentleman in particular i
s notorious for staying off-grid and untraceable.”

  Gentleman.

  Mascot tensed. I kicked his ass before, and I could do it again if I had to, she told herself. The thought gave her a slight, but a much-needed boost of confidence.

  “If there are no further questions, I will ask you to take your places,” Athena said.

  Mascot got to her feet. “Nope, no questions.”

  Leaving her helmet on the seat, and transforming back into Chris, she didn’t care whether she would look good on television. What she needed right now was to spot anomalies that her danger sense might not pick up. In that case the bulky helmet was more of a hindrance than helpful.

  “Be careful,” Athena said right before the line went dead.

  The following silence reinforced the tense atmosphere that hung over the orderly, well-stocked and unpopulated business center.

  “You wanted to be a real hero, right?” Chris asked Overdrive as he stepped over to her side.

  “Yeah.” That was it. Not a trace of his usual overinflated enthusiasm.

  “Me too, I guess.”

  Her mind raced back to the night of her transition and the promise she’d made to herself. She would do good on her own terms. It was hard to believe all that had happened less than three weeks ago.

  “C’mon,” she said, moving to the business center’s exit. “Let’s do this.”

  With her teammate walking beside her, she stepped out into the plaza separating the business center from the stadium. Once outside, the two costumed Wardens didn’t go unnoticed. Several people pulled out their phones to take pictures and gawk at them. Fortunately for Chris’s sanity, the crowd kept its distance.

  She didn’t even care that her natural face was photographed over and over again. Anyone with Internet access could look her up; it wasn’t as if she had a secret identity and a mundane life worth protecting.

  Peter relished the attention, removing his helmet to flash his best People Magazine-worthy grin. Chris groaned, pulling him along by the arm to guide him through the stadium’s main entrance.

  At least we don’t have to deal with the media, she consoled herself. Anyone with a press badge was down the street at the real press conference.

  The two Wardens headed to the middle deck of the spectator stands, past beer and sandwich vendors, making their way up the stairs and along the front railing of the third level. The seats were already packed, reminding Chris it was only a half hour until the press conference was scheduled to begin. She glanced up to the gigantic screen over the scoreboard with the UNEOA logo splashed across it. According to their briefing session on the plane last night, that screen would broadcast the live transmission of the Secretary General’s speech.

  Dozens of Athena’s drones whirred overhead, adjusting their lenses while patrolling the spectator stands with the speed of hunting falcons. Chris followed them with her eyes, wondering whether the heroine’s helpers could see through Mirage’s illusions.

  Probably not. She’s fooled cameras before.

  “Why do they even bother coming to a stadium to watch the speech on a screen when they can watch it at home on their TVs?” Overdrive muttered, nodding at the crowd.

  Everywhere they looked, people held up signs with a middle finger icon imposed over the UNEOA’s logo. It was clear the audience hadn’t gathered there to cheer for the Secretary General.

  “Solidarity, I guess,” Chris said. “They want to show the world they’re willing to stand together for what’s right, even though the city didn’t give them permission to protest in the streets.”

  “Huh. Seems like a bit of a hassle to me.”

  She shrugged. “I think it’s kind of nice, actually. People are willing to stand up for the kind of world they want to live in. You can’t do that at home watching TV in your pajamas.”

  At that moment a vibration in Chris’s costume pocket distracted her from the crowded stands. She stopped at the railing to retrieve her phone and discovered a new message. She smirked at the sender’s name. “Kid texted us,” she told Overdrive.

  “Oh, yeah? What did she say?”

  “‘Good luck, Grumpyface,’” she quoted from the message.

  Overdrive laughed. “Sounds like her, all right. Let me guess. There were about a million smiley faces, right?”

  “About that many, yeah.” She shoved the phone back into her costume before closing the pocket zipper.

  “Think they’ll remove her from the team?” Overdrive asked, suddenly serious.

  It was a question she had on her mind ever since the Counselor’s death, whether or not this whole hero deal was too much for a nine-year-old kid.

  “I’d miss her, but I hope so,” she said.

  Overdrive leaned against the railing, solemnly gazing at the spectator stands and the crowds that filled them. “The DOD should send her home. It’s all going to get worse. There are too many troublemakers out there.”

  Following his example, Chris noticed that many of the spectators had brought small children with them. The sight of all those preschoolers sitting on their parent’s shoulders made her insides clench. If this got ugly, she would have to shield the children before the adults. She didn’t have the capacity to protect everyone.

  “Who would bring their kid to an event like this?” she muttered.

  Overdrive waved at a pre-teen boy who was pointing at him, causing numerous heads to turn in his direction. “Maybe the kids really wanted to see a hero.”

  Chris leaned off the railing to push her way through the crowd. “Let’s just … keep going.”

  Overdrive fell in, following the path she cleared for him. As they made their way ahead, there was a big group of young people in NYU swag to their left. Behind them half dozen middle-aged women held a long Shanti banner.

  Mirage, Mirage, where are you? Chris scanned the crowd even though the chances of the rogue showing herself without the cover of her illusions were slim. Likewise, Amunet or One Fell Swoop would probably disguise themselves and merge with the crowd.

  With her mind immersed in the search for potential troublemakers, Chris didn’t expect to hear her name. The voice that called her was alarmingly familiar and stopped her in her tracks before she could climb the stairs to the upper deck. It wasn’t loud, and the surrounding cacophony nearly drowned it out, but the voice pulled her heartstrings. She could have picked it out from a crowd anywhere.

  “Mascot.” Not “kiddo.” Not “Chris.” Just “Mascot.”

  She froze, one hand on the railing, before turning to see Ryan sitting alone. He cut a solitary figure, his dark clothing and demeanor standing out against the background of jostling college students in NYU jackets. His brown hair spilled in waves over his cheeks and shoulders, nearly concealing his doleful eyes and the short beard sprouting on his jaw, because he hadn’t bothered to tie it.

  Not long ago seeing Ryan would have made her day. But now seeing him filled her with nothing except memories of her old life and thoughts of regret. She just couldn’t handle all that right now, not with forty thousand lives depending on her.

  She wanted to avert her gaze and move on, and she almost succeeded, but the instant their eyes met she was paralyzed and unable to break free from his attention. Even her heart stopped beating. The expression he gave her now was worse than the one he’d given her after the car crash. A void of nothingness instead of accusation and despair.

  Do you still remember our smile summoning ritual, Ryan? was her first thought.

  Part of her wanted to reach out, to rub his cheek with her thumb until his face lit beneath her touch, but that was something the old Chris might have done. She knew better now. Sometimes things were so broken that picking up the shards resulted in nothing but bleeding hands.

  “You didn’t come to her funeral,” Ryan accused.

  “I … I…” she stammered, struggling to think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound awful and wrong. For the first time ever she missed that stupid bear helmet. “I couldn
’t make it,” she finally blurted, ignoring the gentle squeeze of Overdrive’s hand on her arm.

  Fact was, she could have asked to be released from her holding cell for the occasion. Her therapist, Mrs. Clarence, had even given her the option. For closure, she said. But how could Chris have gone there? In a prison uniform, surrounded by an entourage of security guards? That day had been dedicated to the memory of Helen, not her fucked-up little sister.

  Ryan barely reacted. “Your dad gave a great speech,” he said as though he was speaking to himself.

  It didn’t surprise her. Her father had a way of finding the right words when it mattered.

  “Um … Ryan? You should probably go home,” she managed. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but bad stuff could happen here today.”

  “No. I’m here to understand why.”

  She knew what he meant. He needed to know why they’d killed Shanti, and why Helen had died, and why all the light in the world was giving way to darkness.

  Overdrive took her arm again. “Let’s keep moving,” he said, gentle. “We have work to do.”

  But she couldn’t. “Ryan…” she tried again. The words died in her mouth.

  “I still haven’t figured it out,” Ryan said.

  Neither have I, she wanted to tell him. I don’t think we ever will.

  A crackling noise came over her headset, followed by Athena’s voice. “Mascot, Overdrive. We just received word that NBE Britain was attacked by a group of powered terrorists.”

  Chris’s attention snapped to her teammate, whose eyes went wide behind his lightning-adorned blue mask.

  “They have overwritten the transmission with one of their own and taken hostages. We have to assume the news will spread within moments, so please be on alert,” Athena said.

  Chris swallowed hard. “So what should we do now?”

  “Samael and Paladin will be with you in a moment to receive force fields. Their lives depend on your assistance so please don’t let them down.”

  The words snapped Chris out of her daze.

  You can be as mad at me as you want, she thought. I still won’t let it happen to you. She turned away from Ryan, following Overdrive without another word.