by Lexie Dunne
“Ruined or not, you seem to have turned out quite well, dear Girl.” Mobius remained sitting in the little wheelchair they’d given him. He had a pleased look on his face that made my skin crawl. His cell was the last place I wanted to be, but Kiki had a point: we needed the antidote. She had a team of Davenport scientists working on it, but according to her, Mobius’s brain operated on an entirely new level. The fact that he’d created a substance that could kill so many types of powers while leaving the original host in one piece and human was apparently a scientific breakthrough beyond anything Davenport could hope to put out in the next ten or fifteen years.
“Great,” I’d said when Kiki had brought it up. “So you can’t replicate it, either.”
“Somebody with knowledge of it might be able to, if they were familiar enough,” Kiki had said. “Like Elwin Lucas.”
So even if Brook didn’t hand over the Demobilizer, Tamara Diesel potentially had a way of making more on her hands, provided she could motivate Elwin Lucas properly. She’d have no trouble with that. I’d seen firsthand how good she was at providing incentive.
So now I stood in front of my tormentor, something I’d never wanted to do ever again, and glared at him as he looked me over earnestly, proud his experiment had gone so well.
“The Mobium was an accident, you know,” Mobius said, pushing his fingertips together to form a steeple with his fingers. He ignored the death glare I shot at him. “Obviously I had no intention of making it. Can you imagine? A world with superheroes is bad enough. The ability to make more? Absolutely dreadful. Worst idea I’ve ever had, not to destroy those notes before Lodi found them.”
“You seemed to have no problem using it on me,” I said.
“You served a purpose. And you proved to be an amazing specimen.” He wheeled closer. “You are a gift to science, Miss Godwin.”
I took a step back. “Make the antidote,” I said.
Mobius’s face went even more ghoulish. “The thing I hate most in this world is superheroes. Why do you think I would ever assist you in returning more of them to the fold?”
“Your granddaughter has powers,” I said.
“Precisely.” He smiled, revealing yellow teeth that definitely needed a dentist. They’d been like that before his captivity with Elwin Lucas, though. “Why do you think I created the Demobilizer in the first place?”
This time my step back was out of shock than a desire to protect myself. “You made it for Kiki?”
“Her grandmother has Villain Syndrome, and her father, that unfortunate layabout, suffered from the same. My daughter was sacrificed to that man’s sickness. I will not allow my granddaughter to fall prey to the same.”
My throat closed up. Kiki had told me about her father, Marcus Davenport. I knew he was dead and I knew he’d gone crazy because he had Villain Syndrome, a unique brand of dementia that affected some villains. They wanted to save the world by destroying it, essentially. Rita Detmer, the world’s first supervillain (and Kiki’s grandmother on the other side), was the most famous case. But I didn’t know Kiki’s mother had died because of it. Somehow or other, Mobius had lost his daughter to a supervillain’s machinations. It didn’t make him a good guy, but he hadn’t deserved to be held captive and forced to create things by the evil Lodi Corporation, either.
“Does Kiki know you did this?” I asked, looking toward the two-way glass on the other side of the room. Kiki was on the other side of it. Somehow I knew the answer to the question would be no.
“This was the first chance I have had to see my granddaughter in a long while, Girl,” Mobius said. “But everything I do, I do for her. She’s all I have left.”
“What about Brook?” I asked. “You took her from Lodi when you escaped. She must have meant something to you.”
“You and Brook are my creations. Of course I have some manner of affection for you.”
And just like that, I was back to feeling grossed once more. “Great,” I said. “Well, I don’t think of you as a father figure. Unless that prompts you to make that antidote.”
“I won’t help this insipid corporation ruin more lives,” Mobius said. I could hear his heartbeat, so even without looking at the stony set to his features, I knew he was absolutely telling the truth. Nothing I could say would change his mind.
“Your Demobilizer hurt my friends,” I said, trying, anyway.
Mobius leaned back in his wheelchair. “That’s fair,” he said with a small nod. “As much as it pleases me to hear that there are two fewer superfreaks on the street, there is the small matter of reparations for the pain and suffering I have caused you. Therefore I will promise you this: I will not make any further Demobilizer, save for what is needed should my granddaughter require it one day.”
“That doesn’t help my friends now,” I said, wanting to deck him.
“We must all get used to disappointments in this life.”
“With you, disappointment seems to be the only thing I get.” I didn’t storm out because that would be immature, but I didn’t bother letting the door shut quietly behind me. Thankfully, the hallway was abandoned since everybody was in the observation room. It gave me a few precious seconds to gather myself. My hands shook, but there wasn’t really anything I could do about that.
One quick breath to brace myself, and I stepped into the observation room. As expected, Guy looked frustrated. Kiki’s face was a carefully blank slate, but her presence felt like a shout in my brain. If I felt like I was breaking into pieces, she was a thousand times worse.
Everything that was happening was because of her.
“Hey,” I said. “Don’t blame yourself.”
Kiki looked at me swiftly. “How . . . ?”
I shrugged. “Trust me, if there’s anything I can tell you from my Hostage Girl days, it’s that no matter how sane or crazy the villain seems, their actions are never your fault. Even when they try to pin it on you.”
Kiki didn’t look reassured, though I didn’t figure she would. Instead, she had her eyes narrowed.
Guy cleared his throat. “You okay?” he asked.
I nodded and batted distractedly at the back of my neck. The base of my skull felt funny, but given how tense I’d been while facing off against Mobius, it was to be expected. “Some things get better with age. He’s not one of them.”
“Are you okay emotionally?”
I leaned my weight against the railing beneath the observation window until I heard it creak. In the room, Mobius wheeled over to the desk and picked up an empty journal that had been left for him. The man really liked his journals. He made my stomach turn. “I hate that guy so much. Sorry, Ki.”
“Your feelings are justified,” she said, her voice neutral. “You gave it your best shot and didn’t punch him. You were close, weren’t you?”
“It was that obvious?” I asked.
Guy frowned. “You were close to punching him? I couldn’t tell.”
“I dislike him immensely. He’s not going to help. But he did at least confirm that an antidote is possible, so there’s that. Can I . . . am I allowed to roam for a bit if I don’t leave the complex? I need to . . .” I gestured vaguely in the direction of my forehead. Mobius had made me furious to the point where I’d felt my blood pressure rise, and it was affecting my head.
Kiki handed over a badge. “Try not to run into Eddie. I’d rather not face a lecture.”
“You don’t want company, right?” Guy asked.
I gave him an apologetic look.
“Perfectly fine,” he said. “I’ll go see if I can bake something so you’re not stuck with crap-cakes this whole time.”
“Or you could try resting since you’re no longer unbreakable,” I said, giving him a quick kiss before I took the badge and left.
I considered for a moment dropping by to see Jeremy, as that was always oddly calming. But if I l
ooked at his face, all I would think about was how he’d been injured because of something Mobius and Rita Detmer had set in motion. So instead, I wandered. Memorizing the layout of Davenport had been easy with my sense of recall—Vicki had walked me through once, and that was all it took—so I headed for the Indoor Arboretum, figuring that would at least be peaceful. After everything that had happened with Raze getting hurt at Mind the Boom, keeping Brook from killing Elwin at Wrigley Field, trading Elwin for Guy at O’Hara’s, facing off against Dr. Mobius, I really needed a chance to be alone and sort things out.
I took a seat in the arboretum, away from the few trainees gathered to one side, and stared into the fountain in the center of it all. Artificial sunlight filtered through panels in the ceiling, illuminating the lily pads and water flowers growing in the fountain. Soft sounds of water burbling reached my ears, laying out a perfect blanket of peace in the air. If I’d stayed with Davenport, no doubt this little corner of tranquility would have become a preferred spot.
“Hey, mentor,” I said without looking when I heard footsteps behind me.
Vicki sat next to me on the bench. “I’m not exactly your mentor without powers,” she said.
“There’s plenty you can still teach me.” I cuffed her shoulder gently. Without his powers, Guy felt different, less like stone, but Vicki seemed the same, all sinewy muscle. It made sense. She wouldn’t get far in an industry where quite a lot of people had to touch her for fittings and photographs if it was obvious she was a superhero by feel or sight.
But I could sense something was off. Not anything physical. She wore jeans with no shoes and a ripped tank top that I recognized as one of Jeremy’s. Her hair was piled messily on top of her head and her makeup was as perfect as usual.
“Is it stupid to ask how you are?” I asked.
“I think I feel better than you look right now.” She reached up and brushed her fingers through my hair. Of course, as curly as it was, all she did was wind up getting her fingers stuck in it, but she tried in vain to brush out some of the mess. “What happened here?”
“Good news: we’re getting a new version of Wrigley Field.”
“It’ll be as cursed as the last six,” she said. “You need a shower.”
“And a nap. I have no idea what time it is or even what’s going on. Been a long day.”
“I should’ve been there,” Vicki said.
“If you had, I’d have even more dust in my hair.” Plain Jane famously wasn’t bothered if a building or five was in her way. Davenport paid for the damage, of course, but I imagined Wrigley Field wouldn’t have slowed her down at all.
She laughed, a noise without much mirth in it. “You may have a point.”
“I thought you’d be in, like, Tokyo or Milan on a runway somewhere,” I said, since there were two halves to Vicki and they were both inordinately busy. I had no idea how she juggled it all. Just thinking of being a superhero with a sedentary office job during the day made me feel tired enough.
“I took the week off.” Vicki pulled one of her impossibly long legs up and wrapped her arm around it, resting her chin on her knee. “I just ran into Kiki. She said you tried to get Mobius to make an antidote.”
“Not very successfully.”
“Still. I appreciate that you tried.”
“And Kiki appreciates that I didn’t deck her grandfather. It’s nice to be appreciated for the things I bring to the table.” I stared at the fountain and the lily pads with their bright pink flowers. It was such a peaceful contrast to all of the calamity that I imagined was happening out above the surface between the forces of good and evil. This little slice of tranquility was always here for anybody who needed it, I realized.
Staying with Davenport wouldn’t have been entirely terrible.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you before now,” I said.
“You’ve been trying to save the day. I can get behind that. It shows good character.”
“I have a good mentor.”
Vicki laid her cheek atop her knee, some of her hair slipping out of its bun. Even though she wasn’t at a photo shoot or getting ready to walk a runway, she still looked amazing. Losing her powers couldn’t rob her of the things that made her Victoria Dawn Burroughs. It would be a matter of time if the same thing was true for Vicki Burroughs, Plain Jane.
“Have you been to see Jeremy?” I asked.
She nodded. “No change.”
“He’s stubborn. He’ll wake up when he’s good and ready and not a second before.”
“Jeremy? Stubborn? I’d never have guessed.” Vicki left her cheek resting on her knee. “Losing the power sucks, don’t get me wrong. And I have done plenty of bitching about that—”
“Maybe I’m lucky I was so busy,” I said.
She bumped her shoulder against mine, a gentle scold tempered by a smile. “Thanks, you. Anyway, as much as I want to bitch about this damn Demobilizer, I can’t help but think that it would help Jeremy.”
“Maybe. The powers might be the only thing keeping him alive,” I said. The doctors had no idea what was going on with Jeremy, why he hadn’t woken up. And nobody knew exactly how the little flickers of static discharge in the webbing between his fingers would manifest into actual powers when he was conscious.
“If Kiki’s grandfather is as smart as she claims, he could probably figure it out.”
“He’s self-serving. Mad scientists tend to be like that.”
“Maybe you should punch him.”
“Not without pissing Kiki off,” I said, shaking my head. “It also probably wouldn’t help much, but it sure as hell would make me feel better.”
Vicki cuffed me on the arm. “That’s the spirit.”
CHAPTER 18
I hated waiting.
I especially hated waiting while stuck in a facility that held the dubious honor of also storing the man who had turned me into what I was. After I had been let out of Jessie’s supervision and had subsequently gone on a trouble-streak that had ended with Brook absconding with the Demobilizer and Tamara likewise taking off with Elwin, Eddie wouldn’t let me crash at the Nest again. So for three days, I stayed in Guy’s apartment and dodged increasingly irate phone calls from my coworkers.
That wasn’t much of a surprise. I was one of the few people in that office who could find the shortcut for Excel on her desktop, after all.
Of course, as much as I hated waiting, I also excelled at it. And I’d rarely had to wait on my own. Supervillains could be oddly good at small talk as we waited for Blaze to arrive and for the battle to start. Though she’d once turned me green in a move that later proved to be oddly supportive of my romantic choices, Venus von Trapp had given me tips to help me save an ailing African violet I’d kept (it had later been smashed by Captain Cracked, but before its untimely demise, I’d managed to nurse it back to health). So I was used to having all manner of strange people waiting with me.
Having friends instead of villains was even better. Guy still had his apartment in Davenport Tower, so I wasn’t in a cell. And I really wasn’t going to complain if Guy cooked shirtless because neither of us had anywhere to go. Though that only happened when he wasn’t using hot oil.
I had to look away from the TV to check my text messages. “Vicki says she’s not coming over for dinner because she’s got a thing with . . .” I blinked at my screen. “Yeah, that actress is incredibly famous and also I’m afraid saying her name out loud will somehow summon her here. So just assume famous and go with that.”
“Sounds like Vicki.” Guy pulled the duck á l’orange out of the oven, making careful use of the oven mitts. He’d forgotten them the day before and now he had bandages wrapped around his left hand. Medical had said it would probably leave a scar; Guy had ruefully noted that maybe it was for the best, since now he would remember not to simply grab hot cookware.
Angélica and Kiki had shown up armed with a full set of oven mitts when they’d dropped by for dinner the night before. It had been a strange meal. Angélica wasn’t any happier about being quarantined than I was, not with her gym having to be shut down. And Kiki had been slanting me curious looks all night, like I might know something more than I was telling. Since Brook hadn’t emerged from the woodwork, and I’d been the last one to see her, that was probably fair. At least no other heroes had been attacked with the Demobilizer. So maybe she hadn’t handed it over to Tamara Diesel and Elwin hadn’t been able to replicate Mobius’s results.
Every day that passed without news became more unnerving.
I turned my attention back to Guy since I didn’t want to think about that. The duck smelled sinfully delicious. He’d tripled the recipe and had chattered on about different alterations he’d made to each batch. Luckily, he didn’t seem to mind that half of my focus was clearly elsewhere. I eyed his chest and shoulders, sculpted from his weight-lifting regimen. I could map out all of the raised, horizontal scars, old scrapes that started at one shoulder and spread all the way across his chest. Most of them, he’d told me, had come from the explosion where he’d gained his powers, but there were fainter burn marks on his skin that had been a gift from Brook trying to destroy him in a rage.
Either way, it was all suitably distracting.
“Gail?” Guy said.
“Huh?” I blinked and looked up to find him smirking at me.
“My eyes are up here,” he said, pointing.
I threw a piece of carrot at him and he laughed. “Want a taste?” he asked.
I had to hop up and lean over the counter to take the proffered sip from the spoon. “Needs more garlic.”
“You think everything needs more garlic.”
“It’s good for memory or something. I think.”
Guy obligingly added more garlic, making a noise in the back of his throat. “Having memory troubles, huh?”