by Matt Carter
“So, the police are on it? The Guardians?”
“Guardians, no. Police, yes, but they’re not making this a high priority. His distaste for the police is well-documented, and if I’m being honest, even if they didn’t have a hand in doing this themselves, I doubt they’ll ever solve it.”
I sigh, running a hand through my hair.
“Miss Herron—”
“Ruby,” she interjects.
“Okay, Ruby. While I love a mystery as much as the next Joe, I have to tell ya that you’ve got the wrong guy. If you’re looking for someone to take pictures of your two-timing ex, I can do that no problem, but no matter what all the old black and white movies tell you, solving murders ain’t exactly covered by my license. If you’re really desperate for information, I’ve got names of people who got no problem working slightly outside the law to get things done.”
“So you won’t help?”
“As I said, it’s not my thing.”
Crossing her arms under her impressive breasts, she turns from me, walks to the front office window and slams her hand on the wall, dust flying outward.”
“Miss Herron …”
I get up and walk beside her as she turns back toward me, tears begging to streak her makeup. “I have been fighting for three days, trying to find someone, anyone, to give a damn, even if I have to pay them to, and when I finally find someone I can pay to give a damn he says no? How am I supposed to respond to that?”
I get a box of tissues from my desk drawer and offer her one, though she declines.
“I thought you, of all people, would care about this.”
“I of all people?”
“Quentin Julian was a remarkable man, and all he ever wanted to do was make Pinnacle City a better place, for everyone, especially those who’ve had it as rough as those from out past the Crescent. Even the longhairs.”
The bar code on the back of my neck tingles at the thought.
“You’ve done your research, I can see that.”
“I’ve asked around, trying to find someone to dig up proof about what happened to Mr. Julian. I know you’ve got the superpower to know with absolute certainty who killed him, and that you can generate evidence that even the police can’t ignore. I know that you’ve done bad things, but that despite the image you’ve cultivated, you’re making a serious effort to be a law-abiding citizen, and are prone to doing the right thing just because it’s right.”
I consider what she’s saying. A job like this is a dead end if the cops are already on it. But if they’re not, if she’s right about them wanting to bury it …
No, I can’t get into shit like this. Even considering this case is asking for trouble. And while I don’t mind the occasional bat fight, getting caught in the crossfire of dirty cops … hell, it’s not juvenile detention anymore; I’d go to a real super prison and never see the light of day again.
But she’s right about one thing: you do have a bad habit of doing the right thing.
“You know I can’t make you any promises, right?”
“I understand.”
“And that this work won’t come cheap?”
“Money is not an object.”
Now there’s a tune I can appreciate.
“All right,” I say, trying to goad my computer to life. “Let’s print you up a contract.”
CHAPTER 4: THE SUPERHERO
The sky is clear for the first time since October, and bluer than a vacation postcard.
I couldn’t have painted a better morning for my official induction onto the Pinnacle City Guardians, even if I could paint.
Mom called last night and offered to send a car to Juniors Ranch for me, but I told her I wanted one more flight through the city as Glitter Girl before I officially become one of its Guardians as Solar Flare.
She laughed at me, saying it was the same city I’d been protecting since I was eight and that it’d be the same city tomorrow, but didn’t try to talk me out of it.
I soar over the Seaside Shopping District, the one beautiful stretch of beach south of all the old abandoned port facilities with its quaint, pastel-painted shops, returning the waves and greetings of the shopkeepers hanging up their Christmas decorations. I swoop down close to the pier until the spray from the ocean tingles on my excitement-heated skin, and then rocket through the sound barrier over to the hills, over all the cute houses balanced along the ledges like ornaments on a tree.
Barrel rolling between the skyscrapers of downtown, I spread my arms to catch the breeze, watching the blue above switch places with the post-rainstorm sparkle of wet glass and concrete below, then slow down to smile and flash a peace sign for a group of office-dressed women about my age trying to catch me on their phone cameras.
When I draw level with the tops of the buildings again, I check my own phone.
Text from Leah.
Sneaking out early? Don’t worry, I didn’t eat TOO much of your surprise going away cake :p
Text from Cory two minutes later.
Don’t think you’re gonna ditch us that fast. Silver Cowl tonight, 9:00, the Justice Juniors PARTY!
I start a group text back, add Derek, and then, mostly because it’d be way too obvious if I didn’t, Mason too.
I’m there. Silver Cowl at 9. Love you guys, always.
Checking the time, I turn to take another joy lap of the city center, to burn off some nerves, and instead catch sight of the outlines of the old Killtron battle wreckage in the distance.
I see it every day, but something makes me stop in midair to look.
Uncle Ethan’s accident happen during that battle. He can still fly, even now, but he retired from active duty as Solar Flare when it became clear he’d never walk again.
That was before I was born. I’ve only ever seen pictures of him out of his floating leather chair, let alone in the Solar Flare suit. I wasn’t around to remember the days he talks about, when the famous Pinnacle City skyline stretched all the way down to the river and back, when the Pearl Theater stood where the burnt-out shell of a giant Killtron bot’s torso compartment does now, so I usually don’t think much of seeing it sticking out of the horizon like that, the way it has all my life.
Today, it reminds me of Quentin.
His shelters are out there somewhere, on the far side of the city, and he still hasn’t contacted me about whatever project was so urgent and dangerous at the gala. All I have is his company email, which he hasn’t been answering. If I don’t hear from him soon, I might fly out there and see if I can find what he’s working on.
But I’ve stalled long enough.
I turn back toward Guardian Tower, its spire stretching ten stories higher than any other structure in the city, and zoom toward it.
At the front desk, I receive a temporary access card, along with about ten pounds of questionnaires and contracts regarding my specific weaknesses (which I decline to state), my powers (which I include), my Tax-ID, R-SAL information, and the legal ownership of my image and likeness.
It’s all so official. So real.
It’s far from my first legal agreement, but it’s my first one with the Pinnacle City Guardians, and my pulse thrums stupidly fast in the fingers I hold the pen with.
Twenty minutes past the start of my appointment, I’m finally ushered to the elevator to go up for my orientation.
I calm my nerves by playing the elevator game I made up with Dad as a kid. He wasn’t a super, just a new money technology upstart my mom loved enough to take his weightless name, always a favorite romantic scandal story just mild enough to be shared around family dinners. I was only six when he was murdered by some third-string villain looking for a quick buck, but I remember scraps here and there, mostly the way I could make him smile by showing off my flying tricks. He worked at the top of an office building nearly as high as Guardian Tower, and every time I got to ride up and down the elevator with him, I’d hover a couple inches off the floor and try to fly at exactly the same speed as the car, then stop fast
enough to avoid hitting my head at the top.
Ready, steady …
Nailed it.
“Engage stabilizing thrusters!” Dad would’ve said.
“HUMAN! DESTROY!” says the gray, windowless, basketball-court-sized room, right as the elevator closes behind me.
And then the robotic spiders start crawling out of the walls.
Each one is about the size of a Saint Bernard, and at least twenty of them emerge from the panels sliding open on all sides, hissing up a storm on their pneumatic pistons and scuttling toward me on serrated metal legs.
I lift off, hovering out of their reach.
“Hello?” I call out. “Guardians? Did I catch you in the middle of a thing here?”
No answer.
When the spiderbots find me beyond the range of their clacking steel pincers, they all turn, lift their abdomens, and fire their spinnerets at me.
I dodge most of the sticky jets of fiber, but one catches me around the ankle with an acidic sizzle.
It can’t damage my skin, but it itches like crazy to let me know it’s trying, and clings when I try to kick it off.
After my own startled yelp, I hear what I’m certain is a stifled chuckle coming from the room itself, the way the voice did before.
I’m being observed.
The certainty puts me at ease.
“Okay, I’m going to take care of this, is that cool?” I call.
I take the second shower of webbing as a yes.
The strand around my ankle tethers me to the floor, giving me a flying range about seven feet in diameter, but that’s enough to let me evade further entanglement while I shoot a few energy blasts at the nearest spiderbots.
I put a little more bite into it here than I did at the gala, and the metal spider shells crack open, spilling out computer guts. The legs of a few of them shut down and curl inward, rolling harmlessly onto their backs.
A double charge of energy through my leg not only disintegrates the tether but is conducted along it to char and warp the floor panel it’s anchored to.
From there I decide to put on a bit of a show. If they’re watching me, I might as well give them something to enjoy. I take an arcing dive around the room, punching through giant spider motherboards before they can turn to get their pincers around me.
For my big finish, I grab one by its sharp little feet and spin around in the air until I feel the centrifugal tug, then add a particularly shiny energy blast like a bottle rocket behind it when I let it go, sending it boomeranging through the few spiderbots left intact on the floor.
When it comes to rest, there’s nothing left but parts.
I land gracefully in the middle.
“Hello?” I call out again. “Anybody?”
“Shit, shit, I told you!” says a voice from everywhere.
“Don’t you put this on me; you were laughing your ass off!” another argues back.
“What’s going on in here?” a female voice joins two male ones.
“Nothing!”
“END SCENARIO,” the room announces mechanically, straining to close its metal doors over the spiderbot debris in the way.
Finally, a panel slides open in the ceiling, and three faces peer down at me from a control room. Oh my god, oh my god, it’s Demigod and Bear Man and Strongwoman. I don’t know who else I expected it to be in Guardian Tower, but I can’t get over the fact that it’s really them.
The three of them drop into the room, and I’m wiping my hands sweatless on my skirt to shake theirs, but Bear Man crouches down by one of the gutted spiderbots instead.
“Yeah, dude, I don’t think we can salvage any of this,” he says to Demigod.
“No shit,” says Demigod, nudging the broken floor tile with his lightning-patterned boot and quirking his lip at me. “You’re more powerful than they warned us.”
“Um, thanks?” I say, not sure it’s a compliment, and more than a little disoriented by the fact that Demigod just spoke to me, and cursed in front of me, all in the same breath.
There’s no reason he shouldn’t, I guess, it’s just that the Guardians all come off so … dignified, when they talk in public.
“For the record,” says Strongwoman, “the bot shutdown is over there.”
She points, and the little red button with the word SHUTDOWN written under it, half-hidden between the shadows of two gray wall tiles, suddenly looks perfectly obvious.
“The objective of that scenario was only supposed to be to get past them,” she says.
“Oh. Oh god, I’m so sorry.” Panic fills my chest as I begin to tally up an invoice in my head and imagine going back to Mom and Uncle Ethan and the Justice Juniors to explain that I didn’t end up being a good fit for the PCG after all, on account of my thoroughly trashing their state-of-the-art training room on my very first day. “I’ll cover the replacements. I didn’t know—”
“No,” says Strongwoman. “It’s fine. No one bothered to tell you.”
She directs this more at the other two than me.
I try not to accept the relief too readily, which isn’t too hard when Pinnacle himself levitates down through the hole in the ceiling, his cape of the city’s flag billowing behind him in the still air.
“This is the Erickson girl?” he asks, arms folded as he silently assesses the damage.
“These two knuckleheads thought it’d be funny to intercept her elevator on the training floor and toss her into scenario twelve without a tutorial,” says Strongwoman.
“Is she mute?” asks Pinnacle, and it takes me an embarrassing number of seconds to realize that he means for me to answer for myself.
“Uh, quite garrulous, actually!” I assure him, reaching out my hand, which is sweat-slicked all over again. “And it’s Kline, Kimberly Kline, but I’m an Erickson on my mother’s side. Ethan Erickson was my uncle. Is my uncle. It’s a real honor to be here.”
Pinnacle takes my hand in a grip I doubt even I could break, sweat-aided or not.
“It’s an honor to have you here. I had the pleasure of working alongside your uncle for a few years. It was after the accident, but he was a credit to the name Solar Flare,” he says in the way people say nice things to distant acquaintances at funerals.
“Whoa, I would never have guessed,” I say.
He gives me an odd look, and I clarify.
“Not the part about him being credit to the name. I mean, just that you two were on the team at the same time.”
It’s supposed to be a compliment, about how even though he’s visibly the oldest person in the room, he doesn’t look a fraction of his fifty-odd years. It’s the kind of thing my mom would say, or want someone to say about her.
He looks like he’s trying to decide whether I’m deficient at history, math, or both.
“Not that I’m doubting your experience or anything.”
His face says that now would be a good time to become dramatically less garrulous.
“We’re running behind schedule,” he says. “The ceremony starts in an hour, but we can fit in the nickel tour first.”
“Yes, please.”
He’s already levitating back out of the hole, and I hurry to follow.
Strongwoman catches my wrist on the way.
“Grow a skin,” she mutters into my ear, neither kindly nor unkindly, only urgently. “Grow it fast, grow it thick.”
I nod my thanks and fly after Pinnacle.
I have a skin. After all, I’ve been in the public eye my entire life. I learned how to ignore pornographic fan art of myself when I was ten. A skin I can provide. I just have to do a better job of showing the Guardians that.
The room above the one I wrecked is full of control panels and monitors showing the remains of the spiderbots.
“You’ve already made the acquaintance of our training floor,” Pinnacle says, moving on and taking a right down a short corridor of closed doors. “This is your room,” as he demonstrates the code on the number pad next to the door.
The doo
r slides open to reveal what looks like a small but comfortable hotel room, decked out in blue and brown.
Perched at the end of the queen-sized bed, someone’s left a box of tampons (“super” absorbency, naturally) and an official Glitter Girl toiletry kit wrapped in a big, pink bow.
I don’t actually like the acrid cherry fragrance they insist on using for everything in those kits, but it’s the thought that counts … I think.
Pinnacle takes note of the welcome package but doesn’t comment.
“You’re welcome to stay here as much or as little as you like, but when we hit crisis mode, I don’t care how fast you are, you’re going to want to be able to sleep in the tower.”
That works out nicely. It was going to be awkward still living on Juniors Ranch without being on the team anymore, and I’ve been praying I wouldn’t have to crash back with Mom while figuring out the transition.
“I’ll be moved in by the end of the week,” I promise.
Pinnacle pushes the tour along.
“This is the commissary,” he continues, turning into a dining room built to accommodate a busload of visitors on top of the six PCG members (seven now, including me!). The last two of said members, Hedgehog and Mental Man, are currently playing an intense-looking card game over their bowls of Jell-O, rocking their shiny, circular steel table whenever they slam their cards down.
“Hot meals are served from six to eight, twelve to two, and five to seven daily, with snacks and beverages available around the clock, all free perks to members and up to three registered guests at a time,” Pinnacle rattles off. “Downtime bonding among members is highly encouraged. Gentlemen,” he prompts Hedgehog and Mental Man, “do you want to say hello to our new teammate?”
“Hello, new teammate,” says Hedgehog.
“Hi, Solar Flare.” Mental Man waves to me over his shoulder.
Mental Man just called me Solar Flare!
Pinnacle is already hovering purposefully through the door on the commissary’s other side.