Jenny smiled. “The girl should be in her room, fast asleep; the boy should be with her, but he’s actually been courting Daisy for the past five days. And they think that we haven’t noticed.”
“We were all young once,” Lee agreed, gravely. They shared a smile. “How well do they take after their father?”
“Alarmingly well, in some ways,” Jenny said. “I think they have the heroic urge down pat, it’s the restraints and limits that they’re having problems grasping. Charles had been counselling both of them—after all, he lost his legs because he acted without thinking—but the kids don't always listen to him. Marvin gained his powers much later in life.”
Matt nodded. It was rare for children below twelve to develop superhuman powers; in fact, there had only been two confirmed cases and they’d both been in South Africa, when Dr. Death had been experimenting with the superhuman organs he’d pulled from black superhumans, after slowly killing them first. Teens, on the other hand, were alarmingly common—and often, great power didn't lead to great responsibility. Some teens were simply too wild to be allowed to run free with superhuman powers. Poor Marvin’s kids had been on a path that would have eventually led them to the Pit or death if they hadn't been caught in time to save them.
“Call them,” he said. “We need to have words with them.”
The visiting room was intended for parents, should they wish to visit their children who had developed superpowers and had chosen to join the SDI. Not all parents wanted to visit their children, sadly; often, the moment when the kid had sparked was traumatic for both parents and children alike. Other parents wanted to live the life of superhero parents, pushing their kids into a starring career in the Young Stars or a similar group, and resented their children for choosing to join the SDI instead. The room was designed to leave them with a good impression of the training program, with bright photographs of the students in uniform and the superheroes they became after they graduated. Not all of them were marked, Matt couldn't hope noticing. Those who went into the covert team rarely wore spandex and capes while they fought for America.
He looked up as Jack and Jane Lofting were escorted into the visiting room. Jane looked tired—and faintly disturbing to his enhanced senses, as if her skin was concealing something much more than merely human. Jack, two years older than her, had definitely been making progress on his courtship; judging from the faint aroma surrounding him, he’d made it to second base at least. He still looked like a virgin, but now he had reason to hope that he’d make it through that rite of passage sooner rather than later. Matt hadn't been much older than him when he’d sparked, and his powers had sent him crashing into a mental hospital for two years.
In many ways, Matt would have preferred to work with Jack alone—but it was Jane that he needed. The young girl was so black that her skin seemed to be made out of darkness itself, an aspect—he suspected—of her powers. Layla had downloaded him the report, yet the SDI’s researchers hadn't been able to deduce much about her in the short time between her capture and Hope’s invasion of the United States. Their best guess was that she was intimately connected to shadows, allowing her to create deadly shadows to kill and move from shadow to shadow, rather like a teleporter. Once she knew how to use her powers properly, she’d be almost unstoppable at night.
“You’re Fireman,” Jack said, looking at Lee. His face was wide with awe and hero-worship. “Did you know my father?”
“Your father saved my life once,” Lee said, smiling. “And I had the pleasure of watching when he put on the mask for the first time. Things were simpler then.”
“You weren't at the funeral,” Jack said. “Why didn't you come to say goodbye when he left us?”
Matt winced at the accusation in his tone. “I couldn't go, not without bringing the media jackals with me,” Lee said. He hesitated. “I wish your father was still alive. The country needs him.”
Jack looked at him. “You intend to fight Hope.”
Lee nodded.
“What’s wrong with what he’s doing?” Jack asked.
Lee sighed. “Having superhuman powers doesn't make someone more than human,” he said, picking his words carefully. “They only confer might—not the wisdom to use it properly. In the long run, Hope will create—at best—a dictatorship where his laws are the only ones to follow, a dictatorship enforced by telepathy and naked force. What happens if Hope decides that—for example—video games are bad for children, and orders them all destroyed? Who is going to be able to tell him no?”
“Your father understood that smashing enemies wasn't enough,” Matt added. “He could kill a thousand drug dealers and a thousand more would spring up the day afterwards, so he worked to improve the area he lived in by offering new opportunities for children who would otherwise have gravitated to the gangs or prostitution. When he died, the area fell back into the hands of the gangs. Hope is threatening to do that to the entire country, without even trying to offer people another path.”
Jack looked down at the floor. They did have one advantage; Jack had worshipped his father—and his father had worked for the SDI before retiring to raise his children and clean up Hell’s Kitchen. But the young were often susceptible to idealism, particularly the raw idealism displayed by Hope. In a very real sense, Hope had defied the elders of the world to clean up the Congo and the young had responded to that, heedless of the danger. They wanted to do something now. And even though Hope had moved from idealism to blind rage...would Jack be capable of understanding it?
“My father wouldn't have wanted to hurt the country,” Jack said, softly. “I think...I think...”
He looked up, suddenly. “What do you want with me?”
“I need you to join my team,” Lee said. He hesitated. “And I need Jane to do something else, something more complex.”
“She’s too young,” Jack said, automatically. “You can't put her in the line of battle...”
Matt was tempted to point out that Jack had made use of her talents as soon as they’d developed, but held his tongue. Lee would have a far better chance of reaching the teenager.
“She isn't going to be in the line of battle,” Lee said, soothingly. “We need her teleporting talents, not anything else.”
“The shadows scare me,” Jane said, suddenly. There was something plaintive in her voice, as if she’d seen something that no young girl should have to see. “I can feel things moving in the shadows, watching me from the darkness.” She ran her hands down her nightdress. “One day, I will walk into the shadows and never come back.”
Jack reached out to take his sister’s hand. “I won’t let them have you,” he said, firmly. “You can always come back to me.”
“I know,” Jane said. Matt had no brothers or sisters, but he was touched by what they shared, even if it risked their plan failing. “What do you want me to do?”
Matt hesitated; Lee spoke over him. “We need you to take some people somewhere,” he said. “I can't tell you where, because one of our enemies is a telepath. We just need you ready to go when the time comes.”
“And me?” Jack said. “Do I go with her?”
“I think you’d be more useful fighting in the open,” Lee said, after a moment. “We're going to need everyone we can convince to join us. Not everyone is as patriotic as your father.”
“He always used to curse the superstars,” Jack said. “He said that they never did anything useful, never saved lives or caught criminals; they just made money from being lucky enough to become superhumans.”
“He was right,” Matt said, with the private thought that the whole superhuman celebrity buzz had helped to keep superhumans from causing trouble. Who would want to be a supervillain if they made more money from photographs, autographs and carefully-orchestrated charity appearances? The General hadn’t been keen on the whole idea, but there were some people who just weren’t suited to a life of public service. Besides, they made a great deal of money for the government to tax. “But Hope has become
more than a superstar—he’s become a threat to the entire world.”
“One we have to stop,” Lee said. Matt knew that Lee had his doubts, but nothing showed in Lee's voice. “Will the two of you come with us?”
“Yes,” Jack said. He paused. “How many of the students are you going to take with you?”
Matt had to smile. Jack might have been an unregistered vigilante, but he was far from stupid. “As many as will come with us,” Lee said. “The time has come for them to join the fight.”
***
“These things are experimental,” Polly said, in the tech bolthole “We intended to produce a more refined model for general issue, but...”
Jackson took the device she offered him, got a feel for its weight and mass, and studied it thoughtfully. It looked rather like a grappling gun, like the ones they’d practiced using to scale buildings in a hurry. The projectile, however, looked nastier than the grappling hooks that dug into walls and locked solid.
“What does it do?” he asked.
“Several things,” Polly said. “First, the line is”—she hesitated—“I’ll spare you the technobabble. Suffice it to say that the line is pretty much unbreakable, even by a Level 5 superhuman with something else on his mind. You could hang on while he flies off into orbit if you wanted...”
“Which wouldn't be very smart,” Jackson interrupted. “What do we do with it?”
Polly grinned. “You slap this onto him,” she said, passing him a black, disc-shaped object barely larger than a CD. “You know that some superhumans have to have brains that work differently from the average human?”
Jackson nodded. Telepaths had a sixth sense, but most higher-level superhumans had enhanced versions of the mundane five senses, forcing them to work to control them so as to avoid being overloaded with unwanted information. Maybe Hope hadn't been able to control his powers properly, he thought, rather sourly. He’d certainly proven that he couldn't avoid hearing the sounds of people in pain.
“This device is basically an updated Screamer,” she told him. “The standard Screamer produces a great deal of noise to scare the shit out of anyone who doesn't expect to hear it. You’ve used them in hostage rescue simulations. This one not only broadcasts a deafening racket, it produces a racket on levels that the average human simply can't hear. In theory, it will even force superhumans to feel overwhelming emotions, maybe even physical pain.”
“Like a dog whistle,” Jackson said. “And what does it do to them?”
“We never got around to testing it,” Polly admitted. “The SDI promised us that America or one of the other Level 5 superhumans would agree to play target, but we didn't manage to get it done in time for this crisis. Simulations suggest everything from their minds shutting down in self-defence to a few moments of panic—I suggest you use it carefully. And make sure that you wear your earpieces, too—you may not be able to hear all of the racket, but it will still be very disorienting.”
She stood up and paced around the room. “You have the laser—it won’t be much good against invulnerable skin, but someone with a force field that lets in the light is in for a nasty surprise,” she added. “And you have the atomic bullet—and the monofilament knives. We’ve updated the capture glue—Hope doesn’t need to breathe, but even he will have problems struggling against it. And we have...”
Jackson blinked at her hesitation. “What?”
“This,” Polly said, picking up what looked like an oversized pistol. Someone had inscribed DANGER—DO NOT USE UNLESS SHIT MEETS FAN along the barrel. “We were working on this before the Congo crisis and...well, it’s kind of frightening, actually. Ever since Warsaw, we have been working on ways to hit a moving target with a vast amount of energy as quickly as possible. Nukes are ineffective unless they go off very close to the targeted superhuman. This...you hit him, Hope dies.”
“Then...” Jackson hesitated. There was actual fear in her voice. He’d never seen Polly scared of anything before, not even slightly nervous. “What’s so bad about it?”
“It came out of research into nanotech, monofilaments and other tricks we could use against superhumans,” Polly said. “There’s a chance, perhaps a very good chance, that using it in Washington could blow up half the city. I’ll send the notes back with you to your Captain—he can make the final call.”
She hesitated. “One way or another, that genie cannot be let out of the bottle unless there is no other choice,” she said, grimly. “It will change the world.”
Chapter Forty-One
The White House felt different now, even to Hope. It had once pulsed with life, the walls heavy with secrets that shaped and reshaped the world. Now, it was almost empty, apart from the handful of superhumans who occupied the rooms and the former President, locked in his bedroom with his wife. There was something almost sad about its fall, something that touched him even though he knew that he’d had no choice; once, he’d revered the office of President, before he’d discovered that Presidents were mere mortals. But they could still have lived up to the promise of America. George Washington hadn't had superpowers, nor had Lincoln or even FDR.
He found himself in a corridor looking up at portraits of past Presidents, which seemed to be scowling in disapproval at him. Adams seemed horrified that someone could have forced his way into power; Nixon’s face seemed to conceal amusement, even though he’d played a dubious role himself. But all of them had had limits to their power. Hope had none.
He knew that that gave him a responsibility to the rest of the population. Great power brought a moral obligation to use that power in the service of humanity...in a way, he'd been a superhuman for so long that he’d almost forgotten what it was like to be a mundane human.
But Mimic hadn't forgotten, part of his mind nagged at him, and the enigmatic Mr. Harrison had never been more than human. And they’d both tried to warn him that he was going too far. He was doing everything for the benefit of humanity, not out of a selfish desire for power, and yet no one else seemed to realise it. Outside the core group of Saviours, there were people questioning the wisdom of what he’d done—and plenty of civil disobedience outside Washington. Hope would have liked to blame it all on the state governments, which were just as corrupt and tainted as the federal government had been, but there was just too much evidence that that wasn't the case. America was slowly grinding to a halt, and no application of superpower seemed able to stop the decline.
And where was Mimic? He’d asked Gateway, and she’d told him that Mimic hadn't passed through one of her portals. The former SEAL could have asked a flyer for a lift to an airport outside the Congo, or simply taken one of the vehicles and driven out of the country, but that wouldn't have been as quick as using a portal. And if he’d really intended to warn the United States of Hope’s plan to invade, why not use the quickest way to Washington? Gateway wouldn't have known that Mimic intended to betray his leader...
He looked up at Reagan’s portrait and wondered what the former President had thought when he’d uncovered the Slaughter Affair. His own Vice President—and the man he’d nominated for President in the 1988 election—had been responsible for a scheme that had damaged the fortunes of the Republican Party, threatening its grip on power. Not that anything had really changed—both parties were too solidly entrenched to be broken so easily—but Reagan had to have felt betrayed.
Mimic had betrayed Hope. But where was he?
“Hope,” a voice called. The Redeemer floated down the corridor behind him, her presence sending a flash of excitement running through his body and soul. “I thought you were going to hold the trials?”
Hope shrugged. “They can wait,” he said. “I need to think.”
He wasn't in the mood to oversee the trials—and it wasn't as if they needed him either. Washington’s power elite had created laws to protect their secrets from telepaths, but there was nothing actually backing the laws apart from the SDI. Mr. Harrison might be lucky enough to have an unreadable mind; the mass of Senators a
nd Congressmen weren’t so lucky. Hope’s telepaths had already uncovered a surprisingly large number of secrets that might be considered criminal—no, that would be considered criminal, if carried out by someone outside the government. Lobbyists bribing the government to pass specific laws, insider trading, even sexual misconduct and a murder...they had all been torn from their minds and paraded on live TV. Few Americans trusted their government without reservation, not after Nixon had dragged the presidency through the mud, but they hadn't known the specifics, not until now.
“Thinking is what I do best,” the Redeemer said as she dropped to the ground beside him. Up close, she was tiny, barely coming up to his shoulder blades. “What do you need to think about?”
“Mimic,” Hope said. “He tried to tell us that we were going too far. Do you think he was right?”
“I’ve never heard you doubt yourself before,” the Redeemer said, dryly. “You always knew that superpower had to be used in the service of humanity.”
Hope tapped his ears. “Outside, just beyond the gates, there’s a crowd of protesters who want me out of the White House,” he said. “They don’t care about the dangers of challenging superhumans; they just want to be rid of me. I can hear their passion as they demand the return of the President and an end to my reign.”
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