Safely out of stomping range, Georgia gestured, and a forest of vines erupted from the hole in the construct’s shoulder. From his position Kevin could see the plants crawling behind the armor plating, drilling deep into the infrastructure with the same effect of tree roots under a concrete sidewalk.
Calculations bloomed. Three more potential weak points floated into focus, probability coalescing around one of them more heavily than the others. Kevin leapt up from an invisible diving board, executed a perfect back flip, and dove into the golem, both fists impacting the shear point where the head joined its shoulders.
“Hit it there!” he shouted, springing back out of the way.
Spectreum blasted the general area he’d hit with a broad stream of energy. Jitter buzzed up to their altitude, her wrist cannons accurately finding the target.
Lockdown appeared from the golem’s other side. Streams of bright pink energy bubbles shot out from his hands to impact the target point. The bubbles burst on impact, pink sparks arcing across the golem’s metal skin. The combined assault was enough. The entire back plate detached and fell off, enough of the garbage falling away to expose some sort of cube.
The cube was not junk randomly collected, it was shiny and new, chrome illuminated from within by a soft yellow glow.
“Locke?”
“Telemetry reads it as pure energy. Powering the construct. I still say it’s not clean.”
“Icky?” Spectreum snickered.
Magical or physics-based, energy was energy.
Kevin swooped down to street level, grabbed up the broken half of a manhole cover and hauled it back into the air. “Fuck.”
“Language, darlin’.”
“Sorry, Geo. Back not completely healed.” Even in the brief moment it took him to collect the manhole cover, the superstructure of the golem had shifted, protecting the interior control box. Enough was still exposed for a clean shot. “You think if that thing goes, the explosion’s going to be bad?”
“You’re the physics expert.”
“If Locke’s right….”
“And I usually am.”
“It’s science and magic. Unpredictable.” Kevin shook his head.
“Hurry, darlin’, before you lose access.” A metal beam moved as they watched, bracing across the open space.
Kevin calculated angle, distance, metal strength, required speed. He spun in a circle, intending to release the manhole cover like a Frisbee.
The golem moved fast. Faster than they’d ever seen one of Offal’s constructs move. Kevin tried to dodge—he stopped spinning and shut off his flight and let himself fall—but he’d spotted the incoming backhand a second too late.
The Buick, now wrapped in a boxing-glove garbage bin, caught the upper half of his body and snapped his torso back with a sickeningly familiar sensation.
For a moment, he was twenty-two again, feeling his heart drop as his foot slipped on some unidentified dampness and slid off the end of the high dive into open air. The second when he felt his balance go past the point of no return and knew he was going to fall remained wrenchingly vivid.
And then the sharp, solid edge of the dive platform had caught his back just below his shoulder blades and he had simply known.
Fuck.
Kevin tried to suck air into his lungs, but the blow had driven the breath from him. He was unable to push off the air or alter his trajectory. The trajectory taking him directly toward the brick wall of the tenement building.
“Kevin!”
Locke.
Kevin threw his arms up to protect his head and closed his eyes against the force and mass and probability calculations being thrown up into his vision.
The odds were not good. He didn’t need to know the rest.
“KEVIN? Kevin!”
“Codenames, people.” Marlene’s voice was sharp in his ear.
Kevin opened his eyes, sucked air back into his lungs. “I’m here.” The air was dusty and he choked on it, coughing into the mic. “I’m here.”
The space around him was clear. Kevin reached down, not trusting his brain, and pounded his fist against his leg.
It hurt.
He did it again, just to feel it.
“I’ve got you, Captain.” Locke’s voice felt close. Like Kevin could turn his head and look into his lover’s eyes. “I’ve got a field around you.”
Kevin could see it now, faint pink static against the darkness.
“I see it.” He reached up, tapping the shield and the rubble on the other side. He swallowed dry, dusty air, and tapped again in two more places. The primitive sonar was strong enough to echo information back.
“Lockdown?”
“I’m here.”
“I’m….” He had to hold his hand over his mouth and swallow several times to wet his throat enough to speak. “I think your bubble is the only thing keeping this from collapsing on me.”
There was silence on the comm link.
“Well, you’ve been wrong before. But I’ll be sure to stay conscious.”
“When have I been wrong?”
“Every time you argue with me, love.”
Kevin laughed despite himself, feeling the tears leak out the corners of his eyes to soak up the dust floating in his small chamber.
“People, focus.”
“Marlene, don’t distract us.”
Kevin said a silent prayer of thanks for the strength in Locke’s voice. “I might be able to help, if you can feed me telemetry data.”
“Incoming now, sir.” The anonymous HUB tech did his job, and a video feed of the data flickered into view in the darkness.
“I think my goggles are damaged. I’m only getting half the feed. Looks like the”—Kevin closed each eye in succession—“right lens is working. Can you combine the feeds?”
“Adjusting now. How’s that?”
The image resized to a split screen, allowing him to view both the video feed and the incoming sensor data.
“Perfect, thank you. Locke, if we can get access to that energy core again, do you think you can isolate it away from the infrastructure?”
“Instead of the brute force approach? Sorry. Yes, I think I can do that and still keep up the shield around you.”
“Good. Try that. And be careful.” Kevin closed his eyes and reveled in the simple act of breathing. “That thing moves fast.”
“Speaking of telemetry, Captain, why wasn’t yours on?” Marlene’s voice sounded closer than Locke’s had been. Marlene in the small space with him was not a mental image Kevin wanted. “Proximity data would have warned you of that hit in time to get out of the way.”
The heads-up display told him the communication was private. He flicked his own mic output over to the private channel. “Marlene, you know your telemetry is slower than my natural abilities. Reconciling the two takes up all my energy.”
“Regardless, that hit was avoidable.”
Kevin closed his eyes and tried to calm his breathing. “Could we argue about this when I’m not buried under rubble?”
Marlene’s answer was to close the private channel.
Kevin tried to concentrate on the fight, and not the vibrations it sent through the crumbled bricks and mortar surrounding him.
“WE’RE almost through, Kev.” Locke sounded twitchy, despite the tightness in his voice. Kevin knew exactly how he felt.
“Roger.” He sucked in a breath, tried not to cough. It had taken trial and error, but once they’d exposed the core a second time, Lockdown had been able to isolate it with one of his fields. The golem had immediately crumbled.
Bricks shifted to show blue sky, and Kevin flinched, flinging his arm up against the sudden light. Debris slid down only to bounce across the surface of Locke’s energy field. Kevin turned his head against the sight.
Through half-closed eyes, he glanced around the small space he’d been trapped in. It was a circular area, barely long enough for him to lie flat.
“Stand back please, sir,” a voice Kevin didn’t know spok
e.
“I’m the one holding the rubble back.” Locke’s voice was tight.
The bubble opened at the top, turning into a cylinder that pressed against the walls. “Hurry up. I can’t hold it like this for long.”
Three men in firefighter gear swarmed the hole. Despite his protests, they loaded Kevin on a backboard to haul him out. He got a look at Locke’s face as they carried him past.
The dirt and grime at the corner of Locke’s left eye was smeared away, the only clean spot on his face. Locke was concentrating on the hole, not looking over at him.
“Are you clear?”
“We’re clear, sir.”
There was an audible snap and the sound of rubble shifting.
Kevin closed his eyes and let them carry him. He was fine. Locke was fine. No one else was hurt.
“Captain Vector? Are you all right?”
Oh, crap. That voice. Ann Poulson was here? Just what he needed, to do an interview while strapped to a backboard. That was going to make great copy for the evening news.
“Please get Ann the fuck out of here,” he murmured into his microphone, hoping the camera drones weren’t close enough to read his lips. No one responded, including the firemen carrying him.
They set the backboard on a gurney, and EMTs swarmed him taking his vitals. Not the HUB medico’s; normal EMTs. What the hell was going on? Where was everyone?
“Vector? Vector, are you okay?”
The woman checking his pupils was pushed aside by someone in black piped with pink. Locke’s dirty-blond hair was dirtier than normal. Kevin would have run his hands through it if they weren’t strapped down. He opened his mouth to say, “I’m fine, Lockdown,” only to find it filled with tongue, Locke’s hands gripping either side of his head.
Kevin grunted as Locke stepped back and his head fell back onto the head rest. They stared at each other across the short distance, Locke as wide eyed and gaping as Kevin felt.
He wasn’t sure which of them said, “Oh, fuck.”
II
“I AM not happy, Captain.”
Kevin pulled off his goggles and ran his thumb down the seal on his blue-and-white body suit, letting it open. “When are you ever happy, Marlene?” His gloves came off as he veered toward her office, the white fabric stained with grease and rubble.
She punched at the flat surface of her desk, and the wall behind her showed the video—probably captured by one of Ann Poulson’s camera drones—of Lockdown pushing through the EMTs and not even hesitating before planting one on him.
“You have a contract, Captain.”
“I’m aware of that.” Kevin tossed his grimy gloves on her pristine desktop and flopped into one of the chairs.
“So you’re aware the actions captured in this video are a breach of that contract?” Marlene’s suit, as always, was charcoal gray and severely cut. They often wondered if she had just the one suit, or a closet full of identical clothes.
“How did I breach my contract? He kissed me.”
“Nice, asshole.”
Kevin turned sharply, ignoring the lingering twinge in his back.
Lockdown stood halfway into the room, one foot on the entry stairs.
“I’m trying to not get sued.”
“And I was trying to see if my boyfriend needed my support. But I guess he’s got it covered.” Locke turned on his heel and stomped off. Kevin tried to rise and follow, but a pink bubble popped into existence around him and he couldn’t move.
He sucked in breath to yell but static buzzed in his mouth, the field around his tongue making his fillings twinge.
Both bubbles vanished once the elevator doors closed, Locke on the opposite side.
“You promised me you would keep this little… fling discreet.” Marlene was back on track. “And I don’t appreciate you blowing off Ann Poulson’s request for an interview. You know I can’t completely control what she puts in her news broadcasts.”
Kevin ground his aching teeth. “Firstly, it’s not a fling. It’s a relationship. Although with all the sneaking around we have to do, it’s not a very healthy one. Or is that what you’re aiming for?” Kevin bent forward, his knuckles rapping on the smooth surface of her desk. He’d long ago calculated the force and impact point necessary to shatter her expensive little toy. “Secondly, I was injured and had just spent three hours trapped under rubble. You didn’t want me talking to that gossipy little bitch. And thirdly, this is technically a government branch. Whatever happened to equal opportunity?”
“It’s taking a back seat to the need for good publicity which in turn brings us funding. Your battle today took out an apartment building. We need it in the public’s mind the damage was not our fault. Positive news coverage helps us achieve that. We don’t get positive coverage when you piss off the newscasters. And the raw fact is, since you’re so into numbers, the majority of the population is straight. We want women to want to sleep with you, and we want men to want to be you. The percentage of people who identify with you would drop significantly if you came out. We need you to be popular. It’s a simple act of survival.”
“Make someone else leader, then. All the other three are straight. Enough.”
“Spectreum stutters in front of the cameras and can’t get his gaze off the female newscaster’s breasts. Jitterbug can’t stop talking and a yes or no question turns into a fifteen-minute ramble. Geo is….”
“Yeah, I know.” Kevin ran his hands through his hair. “Am I done being chastised?”
“You still owe Ms. Poulson an interview.”
“Arrange something for tomorrow. Tell her I’ll wear the torn-up suit and we can pretend it’s the day of the incident, if she wants.”
“Kevin, you’ve signed a contract.”
“You’ve said that already. When that contract expires in eight and a half months, I’m going to think really long and hard about signing another one. So if you really want to keep me around here? You might want to think about what can change to entice me to stay.”
Marlene was blinking at him. “To be clear, you are threatening to not renew your contract if we don’t allow you to come out?”
“Exactly correct, Ms. Fields.”
She sat back in her chair, hard. Kevin idly noted the higher-than-normal force expended. He may have actually caught her by surprise. “I’m really not sure how our sponsors will take that. They may force us to make someone else the front man for the team.”
“Our sponsors can get the fuck over themselves.” Kevin stood and collected his gloves. “Of the HUB teams operating across the US, over 80 percent of them are led by a man. There isn’t a single openly gay leader in the bunch. Canada has three, England two, and Japan has… well, no one is quite sure what sex Katana is but s/he’s pretty equal opportunity. All of those are top teams, with high visibility sponsors. I can pull you more numbers, if you’d like.”
He doubted she’d ask him to. If she didn’t know them by heart already, Marlene had her own minions for that sort of thing.
“I’ll consider it,” she said after a moment. “I have eight months to change your mind. But for those eight months, you are contractually straight. Have whatever discussion you need to with Mr. Marsh to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
“If he’s still speaking to me.” Kevin turned toward the exit.
“I don’t care who initiates the kiss, Mr. Quinn. If it happens again I will enforce breach of contract.”
Kevin waved over his shoulder with the gloves and stalked out of her office. Not that he had any illusions the discussion was completely over.
He waved off Georgia and Jitter and punched the button for the elevator. He really wanted to go stretch in the workout room and maybe lounge about in the sauna, but that was going to have to wait. Leaving Lockdown pissy for any length of time was not healthy for anyone in the vicinity.
If you left him upset for too long, his mother tended to get involved and, well, that was unpleasant for everyone.
III
“Why do you think I’m mad at you?”
“Because you didn’t say two words to me during dinner.”
“I must be mad at you, then.”
Kevin set the plate aside and counted to sixteen in binary while he dried the next one. “So, why are you mad?”
“I thought you were the smart one. Thought that’s why they made you team captain.” Locke roughly thrust the frying pan into the soapy water.
“I have a suspicion, but you hate when I number crunch you. So I’m asking.”
“Can’t figure it out without the calculus spreadsheet in your head?”
Kevin put the dish down and turned to face his lover. “Why are you avoiding answering? Is this about my contract?”
“Of course it’s about your fucking contract!” Locke shoved the damp and sudsy frying pan into Kevin’s chest. “You spent three hours trapped under that rubble, Kevin! And I’m just supposed to—what? Pretend you being free meant nothing to me? I don’t know why you signed the damn thing in the first place.” Locke threw the dishrag into the sink, sending bubbles flying.
Kevin blinked, accurately predicting ninety-three percent of which bubbles would burst before they hit the counter.
Locke threw the dish gloves in after the rag. Kevin tried to ignore the second batch of bubbles.
“I signed it because my diving career was over. I had no other prospects. And they told me I’d be perfect as a team leader. And it was a year before I even met you.”
“And now I’m stuck with the results of your stupidity.” Locke flopped down on the couch and the TV blipped on.
“Hey! I wasn’t stupid. I had a lawyer look it over before I signed it. And not openly discussing my sexuality was something I was used to from my sports career. It wasn’t a big deal at the time.” Kevin tossed his towel on the still-dripping dishes and strode over to the couch.
“Is it a big deal now?” Locke fought him for the remote control. Static energy buzzed and Kevin snatched his hand back as the pink bubble snapped into place around the remote.
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