Superluminary

by Olivia Rising

  Peter nudged her with his shoulder. “Don’t be such a Debbie Downer. This will be good for her.”

  “Huh? Oh, I know. It’s just … never mind.”

  “Emily made me promise to take a picture and send it to her if you ever smiled again,” he joked. “I said I’d try, but I doubt I’d be fast enough.”

  “Hey, I smile all the time,” Chris countered. “You just don’t notice because you’re always checking yourself out in the mirror.”

  Nora hooted with laughter. “She’s got you there, O.”

  A hush fell over the three as Emily’s parents ushered her inside the limo. The time had come for her to leave them.

  Have a safe trip home, munchkin.

  Chris thought back to the last real conversation she had with Emily. It had been earlier that morning, just before everyone went down to the farewell party, though right at that moment it felt like days had passed between then and now.

  “I’ll watch over the others while you’re gone,” Chris had promised her. “You know that’s my role thing, right?”

  “Right,” Emily had replied, chipper as ever despite the grim mood in the apartment. “You promised to keep an eye on Nora for me.”

  “Or maybe I’ll keep an eye on Grumpyface.” Nora had lifted a pinky finger to her cheek for emphasis.

  They all laughed at that, especially Peter.

  Chris felt something catch in her throat as Emily looked back at her now, waving to her three former teammates beyond the window. “Don’t be sad, Grumpyface,” the young Empath mouthed.

  Can’t hide anything from you, can I?

  Chris managed a faint smile, hoping it wasn’t twisting into a grimace. “Bye, Emily,” she mouthed back, raising her good hand. Once the car door was shut behind the Empath and her parents, the limo driver didn’t waste any time before pulling out of the office building’s grand parking lot.

  Peter broke the sad silence which settled over the trio. “Man, I’d kill for a greasy omelet and home fries right about now.”

  “Unless you can get it delivered, keep on dreaming,” Nora replied, reminding him that they were on house arrest for safety reasons.

  They better give us permission to get out of here before we all go nuts.

  “You think they’re going to hook us up with someone new to replace Emmy?” Peter asked.

  “Maybe Rose the Red? Or the Canadian?” Chris adjusted the grip on her crutch before hobbling to the elevator. “Adding them to our team would make more sense than placing them on the East Coast.”

  “Rose the Red? Nice!” Peter exclaimed as he and Nora followed along behind Chris.

  “Don’t get your hopes up, O,” Nora said. “Rose is Paladin’s girl, and you don’t wanna piss off that guy. His sword’s bigger than yours.”

  “You can say that again,” Chris agreed. “I’ve seen that huge sword up close, and I wouldn’t want to be on the other end of it.”

  She only realized her mistake when Peter guffawed, followed up by a snort of suppressed laughter from Nora. Chris rolled her eyes and hobbled the last few steps to the elevator.

  Peter pushed the button for the elevator. “Don’t worry, it’s not like we think you’re a virgin or something.”

  Chris felt color rise to her cheeks so she fixed her eyes on the floor, avoiding his probing glare.

  “Seriously, you’re a virgin?” he blurted out when the elevator ascended.

  Chris wanted to tell him to fuck off. But knowing Peter, he might take it as an invitation to keep making fun of her.

  “Wow, she really is. No wonder she’s so grumpy.”

  “Leave Chris alone,” Nora defended her. “Go read one of those porn mags you’re hiding under your bed.”

  He broke into a grin. “I only have them for the articles.”

  When the elevator door opened, Chris was first to hobble out and press her thumb to the identification panel. “Bugger off. I’m going to do some research.” She continued to her room.

  “And I’m gonna do some homework,” Nora announced. “Make good use of time if we’re holed up in here.”

  Peter flicked her two thumbs up. “I’m going to go watch some Anime. Someone has to study up on how to kill the bad guys.”

  Chris made it to her bedroom doorway and hobbled inside, closing the door. Once she had successfully shut the world out, she expelled a deep breath to ease the tension out of her. Some social situations made her more uncomfortable than others, and any discussion of her non-existent love life ranged among the top of subjects which triggered her flight instinct. She was eighteen. The social norms of teenagers dictated that she should have at least kissed someone other than her mom by now.

  I need a smoke, she decided, hobbling over to the window.

  Invigorated by her first draw, she glanced around the room to search for some kind of inspiration to set her on the right path for her research. The Wardens needed an action plan, and something told her it would be up to her to get the ball rolling. Nora and Peter never planned more than a day in advance.

  Her eyes landed on the large poster of a coiling Chinese dragon hanging on the wall above her bed. Mrs. Clarence had suggested it as an addition to Chris’s otherwise unadorned room. She agreed because she liked the dragon’s grumpy face with its long deep-furrowed brows and slanted eyes. Right that moment, though, she could have sworn it was frowning down at her.

  Telling her to think harder. Urging her to convince the authorities that even though the Wardens were a bunch of teenagers with teenage flaws, America needed them to combat emerging threats. Threats like the villain attack that had flattened parts of New York the day before.

  She turned away from the dragon to exhale a puff of smoke through the open window. Sunlight cast a glossy sheen over the mahogany desk beneath the windowsill, and she wished she could go outside for a run. Nothing got her creative juices flowing like running a mile. Luckily her crutches made the prospect a little less tempting than it otherwise would have been.

  Like Nora said, try to make the most of this time.

  Chris snubbed out her smoke before limping her way to the swivel chair in front of her desk. After booting her laptop, she discovered a Wardens email update which had been marked important by Mr. Turner. Chris clicked on the link and began to read.

  Wardens,

  I would like to assure you that your safety is of utmost importance to us. Therefore, effective this morning we ask that you refrain from leaving the building without expressed permission. In the meantime, Athena is working on a communications and tracking device which will allow you to stay connected and call for help in case of emergencies. Furthermore, there are plans to revoke the hero costume requirement. We wish to ensure that when you are in public, you are not easily targeted by potential threats.

  No more costumes? Not a bad start.

  Now that it took Chris several minutes to get dressed in an everyday outfit, the idea of not struggling with a bulky bear costume was more appealing than ever. She hadn’t seen that costume since the paramedics sliced it open in the ambulance, and she would be happy never to lay eyes on it again. She didn’t allow herself to get too excited, though. The reason behind this emergency resolution was about as shitty as they could get.

  Skimming the rest of the email, she learned that most of what followed was irrelevant drivel about liability and public safety. When she was done, she opened up a new document and titled it Wardens’ Action Plan. Not like she had much of a plan at this point, but at least it was a start. After a moment of consideration, she typed out a quick to-do list for herself.

  To do:

  Find way to deal with danger sense side effects.

  Figure out why my force field failed vs Mirage. Maybe ask Mrs. Clarence?

  Thinking of her confrontation with Mirage brought another issue to mind. What was up with Radiant? From what she knew of him, it was unlike him not to show up for a major villain attack.

  Chris tapped her fingertips on the table, thinking. Solv
ing her own issues was one thing, but figuring out what the Wardens needed to successfully combat supervillains without breaking too many of the rules imposed on them was another. Finally, she typed out her thoughts.

  Main Obstacles:

  1. The Covenant is vulnerable, needs a change of strategy to keep the world order.

  2. Nora can’t act against strict probation terms.

  3. Radiant’s defection?

  The fact was, the world needed Radiant. His power to cross the globe in an instant was both unique and indispensable. The thought led to another. Mobility.

  4. The Wardens have no mobility. We’re grounded without a teleporter.

  The EU has a teleporter now, Chris recalled. She wondered what his maximum range was, and she didn’t expect to be able to speak to Checkmate anytime soon. Athena had informed her that he would remain in hospital for another two or three days.

  The other problem was that no one could tell where the bad guys were anymore. Queenie had been the only known Evolved whose power allowed her to track powered Individuals across the globe, as well as identify their individual powersets. With her gone, villains enjoyed much more anonymity and were much harder to track down.

  Chris paused to rub her face and relax her eyes. In her mind’s eye, the young blonde heroine in the lacy white-and-gold skirt flashed her a victory sign beneath the table. The reality of her death was more than just a little saddening. She was killed by a long distance sniper shot, unable to escape or even defend herself. That wasn’t how hero and villain battles were supposed to go down.

  The memory of Queenie brought Chris to her next points.

  5. Hostage situation. Where are those kidnapped UNEOA employees? No demands so far. No clues. Maybe an attempt to destabilize International Community?

  6. New transitions are a big question mark with Queenie gone. Who is going to keep tabs on them all?

  7. Gentleman?

  Reading over her notes now, she wasn’t sure why she added that last point. Her index finger hovered over the delete button, but didn’t press it. A little voice at the back of her head told her to leave the villain’s name for now.

  She double-clicked the Wardens logo on her desktop, connecting to the secure Wardens WiFi before searching online for a complete version of the Liverpool villain broadcast. It didn’t take long to find an anonymous upload of the whole thing on an illegal website. At a little over five minutes long, it was an appeal to governments and common people alike to become more open-minded and cease all execution orders because it was estimated that Evolved deaths triggered power surges in those with a similar classification. It sounded surprisingly … reasonable.

  Unless there was a coded message in there somewhere.

  She furrowed her brow and discarded the thought. When Teresa Mullen mentioned the power feedback effect in the video, it had sparked an idea Chris wanted to explore instead.

  Anyone with an interest in Evolved news knew that Barrier, the last known Guardian to transition before her, had committed suicide in South Korea a few months after his transition. It took her ten long minutes of digging, but in the end the cockamamie notion planted in her head by the villain’s propaganda video was confirmed. His time of death translated to Saturday, the twenty-sixth of May, at 9:15 U.S. Pacific Standard Time.

  The same day as my transition, Chris realized, her pulse racing. Hell, nearly the exact same minute as my transition.

  “Shit.” She slumped back in her chair. Teresa Mullen could be onto something here, but why hadn’t anyone else noticed the connection before now?

  As Chris typed the names associated with a few other transitions into a search engine, her cell phone rang before she hit enter. Pulling her mind back to the here and now, she glanced at incoming number—a landline she didn’t recognize.

  For a moment she thought about rejecting the call. But she remembered it could have been Emily’s home number, which she never saved to her list of contacts. Surely the girl would be home by now. It was reassuring to know that the Bell family home was only a fifteen-minute drive from the Wardens’ HQ, close enough to stop by anytime.

  She picked up the phone to answer the call. “Hello?”

  “Hello, Christina,” Athena’s voice said.

  If that’s Athena, what’s up with the unknown number? Chris frowned. Then again, it wasn’t unthinkable that the Covenant used randomly generated numbers to make untraceable calls.

  “Oh, hi,” she said. She was never one for phone chats.

  “I hope I am not reaching you at an inopportune time. Are you by yourself right now?”

  “Yeah, I guess. I’m in my room. Can I … help you with something?” Since she didn’t have any idea what the heroine could possibly want from her, Chris decided to leave her answer vague.

  “Actually, yes. I have a favor to ask of you. Perhaps in exchange for the one I did for you yesterday?”

  Chris didn’t like the sound of that. Checking on Ryan wouldn’t have been such a big deal for Athena in the first place, but something told her that the return favor would be a lot more involved. She brought a hand up to rub her face. “Okay, what is it?”

  “You should first know that we have requested an invitation for you to join the Covenant, but your government has refused.”

  What? You’re shitting me.

  “I assumed they did not tell you,” Athena continued, a hint of weariness to her voice. “However, we believe that this should be your decision to make, not your government’s.”

  Chris faltered, her mind barely capable of processing the heroine’s statement.

  “Think of the benefits, Christina. With a Guardian on our team, we could work much more efficiently….”

  Are you for real?

  Chris stared at the screen in front of her, at a loss for words. Less than a week ago she was a prisoner, and now the Covenant wanted her on their team?

  “So I am calling to ask if you would be interested in going through alternative channels to fulfill our request,” Athena went on, encouraged by the lack of resistance. “If you wish, you could take the initiative. I can give you a list of contacts within the Department of Defense’s chain of command, people who would listen and push your request forward.”

  For a moment Chris just sat there, slumped in her chair with the phone pressed to her ear as she tried to figure out how she felt about this. Yes, she understood why the Covenant would want a Guardian on their team, and there weren’t many of those to pick from. It didn’t look like Saint was going to recover, and Sanctuary had fallen off the radar at the same time as the Oracle. No one knew their whereabouts at this point, either.

  Beyond that, this could be her chance to get off her butt and actually do something good. Actually help people. That had been her goal all along, ever since she arrived in Seattle in that stupid bear costume of hers.

  Maybe this is my best chance…. There was a caveat to this, and it wasn’t one she could easily ignore. Nora was brash and unapproachable more often than not, and Peter’s attention-seeking attitude made her want to smack him at times, but she still couldn’t find it in her heart to abandon them. They were the closest thing to friends she had. What’s more, they accepted her the way she was, powers and all. She needed them as much as they needed her. And what if Emily needed her? She couldn’t help the girl if she was all the way in New York.

  “What would happen to Nora?” Chris finally asked. “You know, since we made that deal with the Covenant and everything.”

  “I have already discussed that matter with Paladin,” Athena replied. “I can assure you that Nora will be taken care of in a safe facility, with everything provided for her comfort.”

  Safe facility? What a fancy term for prison.

  “Couldn’t she join the Covenant, too?” Chris heard the note of desperation in her own voice.

  Athena didn’t pause to consider it. “I am sorry, but that would be impossible at this point in time.”

  Chris gripped the phone hard. She might n
ever get a chance like this again—a chance to be a real hero instead of a fake cardboard version of one.

  “I can’t do that, Athena,” she finally said. “I can’t abandon the others. And not just Nora. I mean, what if Emily ever … needed me or something?”

  I wouldn’t be able to help her if I was all the way in New York. She swallowed the words, feeling them as a lump in her throat.

  “I assumed you would say no, but I had to ask.” Athena didn’t sound surprised or disappointed.

  Chris didn’t know what to say. “Well … thanks for asking, I guess.”

  “Now I would like to ask a different favor. Please get in touch with Radiant. I will provide you with the means to contact him.”

  Again, Chris was speechless. Why don’t you get in touch with your boyfriend yourself?

  She glanced at her laptop screen with her open brainstorming list, where Radiant’s name was listed with a big fat question mark next to it.

  “Why would he want to talk to me?” she asked.

  Athena sighed. “Radiant is looking to pool his experience with rogues who do not necessarily want to be associated with the Covenant. He is working to bring everyone together in his own way.”

  Good luck with that after what he did to Shanti.

  Instead of voicing her doubts right away, Chris gave her mind free rein to consider the idea. She used to have a favorable opinion of Radiant, but now she wasn’t so sure. Still, if she was serious about making her mark on the world—without joining the Covenant—it made sense to talk to the guy who accumulated more hero experience than almost anyone else.

  Her eyes went to her document again. “Fine, I guess I’ll do it.”

  “Good. I am going to give you a number. You are to memorize it, not write it down. Do you understand?”

  Chris agreed, and Athena recited a ten-digit number. After hearing it twice, she was able to repeat it back without messing up.

  “Good. You will reach an answering machine on a secure line. Leave a message letting him know how to get back to you.”

  With that out of the way, Chris took her chance to clear up another point from her list. “I have another question. Just curious, but do you know how I can get in touch with the European hero team?” She didn’t add that she was interested in Checkmate, their new teleporter.