Dreadnought

by April Daniels

  Utopia has found her feet, her nimbus of blue and silver beginning to flicker back to life. She turns toward me. There is an infinitely small and infinitely bright point of light hanging inside the open cavity of her chest, like a fleck of a blue star ripped from the cosmos and hung between her ribs. She still has some of her organs in there, run through with plastic tubing and synthetic replacements for her lost biology.

  “The key component of this weapon is material that was salvaged from the asteroid the Legion Pacifica stopped last year,” she says. “That asteroid was part of the Nemesis once, flung ahead of its master by the tides of gravity. This is what a single kilogram of that thing can do to the world, Danielle. Imagine what thirty million tons of it could unleash if it even passed by our moon.”

  I push a fallen industrial lathe off of me and clamber to my feet. “Then come with me and tell the world what you know so we can defend ourselves.”

  “My long experience with the governments of humanity has left me with no confidence in them. I dislike killing children, Danielle.” Utopia points to something behind me. “Attend to your friend, or she will die.”

  “What?” The fear in my chest explodes into ice. I look around frantically. Calamity lies on her back, her hat knocked away. Her breath is coming in short, hard gasps. The left side of her body is a ruin. Her charred skin weeps at the cracks. Her arm…oh God…her arm. It’s nothing but ash and gore, more bone than flesh. The melted remains of her pistol have fused with what was her hand.

  A stupid, feeble protest bursts from my lips. “No!”

  It’s not fair. That’s what gets to me. It’s not fair. This isn’t right. She was the one who knew what she was doing. She was the one who had training and experience. She was the one who was really a hero, who didn’t flinch at going into danger. This doesn’t make sense. It’s not supposed to go this way. Calamity is too smart to lose, too brave to die. I am a child. In one hideous epiphany I realize that, powers or not, I’m just an idiot little girl who is in way over her head.

  Utopia is rising on pulses of blue light that flash from the small of her back. “It would be prudent to kill you now, but I am serious when I say I have renounced unnecessary violence. Do not come for me again; I will not extend my leniency twice.”

  She powers away on jets of blue fire, up through the holes in the ceiling and out into the night. I could follow her. Utopia fired twice, and then needed to reload before she fired once more. I’m thinking that means she’s got, at most, one shot left in that inversion beam. I could dodge it and then she’d be helpless for long enough to comprehensively destroy her.

  And then Calamity would be dead.

  It’s not a hard choice. It’s barely a choice at all. I rush over to Calamity and scoop her up in my arms. Her gun is fused to the ground, and her hand with it. She comes with me. The hand stays behind. We fly out through the roof. Once we’re clear of the fire, the air is shockingly cold and clean.

  Sarah sucks in a breath, and then begins to cough convulsively. She vomits against my chest, and her breathing slows. I turn toward downtown, ready to push for all the speed I have, but pull back when I realize Sarah probably wouldn’t survive being exposed to the winds at my full speed even if she were in the peak of health. Mach 3 winds would rip the skin from her body.

  “Take me home,” she mumbles against my chest.

  “I’m taking you to a hospital.”

  “No hospital. I’d get…” She has to swallow. It’s costing her a visible effort to speak. “I’d get put into the foster system. Never see them again. Take me home. I want my family.”

  “You’re going to die!”

  “Danny.” Even saying this much seems to exhaust her. “I’ve been ready to die since I was four years old. Take me home.”

  We hang in midair while I try to think. It feels like my gears are locked, like I can’t put two ideas together. The words come to me before I really know what they mean. “I can take you to someone who will help. Not a hospital, but a doctor.” It occurs to me, finally, that I’m talking about Doctor Impossible. She’ll help. She’ll have to.

  “No hospital…” says Sarah, and then she passes out.

  I fly her as fast as I dare, barely more than eighty miles an hour, straight toward downtown. It is more frustrating than anything I have ever done. I can feel her growing weaker in my arms, literally feel her breathing get shallower and her muscles go slack. Her life is slipping away by seconds, and there’s nothing I can do about it. The mantle makes me stronger, faster, and tougher than almost anyone else in the world and none of it matters.

  Legion Tower is at the north end of the main skyline, which runs north to south along the southeastern edge of Puget Sound. Flying in a straight line from the industrial park, it still takes more time than I would have believed to get to Legion Tower. Minutes tick by. Sarah passes in and out of consciousness. She shivers in the icy wind. Her moans are getting weaker. I bump the speed up a little. Her bandanna gets ripped away. I press my cheek to her forehead—it’s the only exposed skin I have—and she’s ice cold.

  “Calamity! Wake up!”

  Nothing.

  “Sarah! Sarah, can you hear me?”

  Her eyes flutter, and then nothing. She’s stopped shivering.

  We come to Legion Tower at speed and I don’t slow down before the long skid across the landing pad that barely brings me down to a running pace before I hit the glass doors. One of them shatters under my boot, and I punch the elevator call button. “Come on.” The elevator is taking forever. “COME ON!”

  An intercom clicks on. It’s Graywytch. “What are you doing?”

  “It’s my friend! She’s really hurt!”

  “I’m sending an elevator and waking Doctor Impossible,” says Graywytch.

  I’d be surprised but the relief so strong it blots out all my other feelings. The elevator doors open, and I step inside. Why are these elevators so goddamn slow? Who decided to make them this way? Finally they open again. Doc Impossible is waiting, her face tight with concern. The airlock is already open, and she beckons me inside.

  “What happened?”

  “We were looking for Utopia—”

  “What?” Doc Impossible is staring at me in open-mouthed shock.

  “We found her. She shot Calamity with the beam she used to kill Dreadnought.”

  I can’t meet her eyes. She doesn’t say anything while we wait for the decontamination beams to clear us.

  Two of her robots are waiting on the other side of the door with a gurney at the ready. I lay Calamity down as gently as I can. Her skin is pale and waxy. If not for the slight wheezing of her breath, I would think she was dead. She is much smaller than I remember her being. Just a kid, really. We were so stupid.

  “I’m going to have to take her into surgery,” says Doc Impossible. She is clipped and distant. “Wait upstairs in the lounge.” She strides off deeper into her lab. The robots follow with Calamity.

  The airlock closes behind me with a thuh-thunk of magnetic bolts, and it’s hard to shake the feeling that I’m never going to see her again.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  With hot water and several wads of paper towels, I wash Calamity’s blood and vomit from my chest. There’s some dark stuff caught in the seams, which, after a moment, I realize is her ash, and I almost barf with disgust. I peel my mask and cowl back, and find myself sitting in the lounge, dazed and staring out at the fallen-star canyon of the city at night.

  The lights here are kept dim enough that there are no reflections in the glass, but a man the size of Magma is not the kind of person who can sneak up on you. I sense his bulk before he sits down on the couch next to me and holds out a steaming mug. I take the hot cocoa but don’t drink.

  “What happened?” he asks softly.

  “We found Utopia.”

  “I see.” There’s no judgment in his voice, and for that I am more thankful than I can express. He doesn’t push. He waits for me to keep going.


  “I’m not…I’m not sure I’m cut out to be Dreadnought. I wanted…” God. What had I wanted? Why had this seemed like a good idea? It’s so hard to remember now. “When he gave me the mantle, and my body changed, I was so grateful to him. It was every dream come true. The flying and the strength, that’s cool and all, but being able to look the way I’m supposed to, that’s the important part. That’s the best thing anyone has ever done for me. I promised myself I would repay him, ya know?”

  Magma makes a noise of understanding and nods, but no more.

  “So Calamity shows up at my bedroom one night and says we’re going to go find Utopia—” Wait. No. I’m sick of lying. “That’s not true. She came to me, but she just wanted to go caping. So we ran up to McNeil Island and looked around until we found a liquor store robbery to stop. And it was fun, and I liked it, but I knew you guys wouldn’t want me to be doing that, so—”

  “This isn’t about what you did wrong, Danny. Just tell me what happened.”

  “I told Calamity I wasn’t sure I was good enough be Dreadnought.”

  “That’s why you’re wearing green?”

  Crap. Yeah, I still am. “Yes. Nobody would talk to me in throwaways and it seemed wrong to wear his colors.” I tell him about the research we’ve done into Utopia’s robberies, about staking out the Flying Dutchman, about how we tracked down Gerald and got him to give us some idea of when it was all going down. I tell him how we went to the Artificer, and about our argument over how to get the N2 canisters. I tell him she said they’d arrested her dad, and Magma only says, “It was more complicated than that, but go on.” I describe how Utopia showed up, and how we went in to fight her, and about the things she said to me down in that small pit of hell. When I tell Magma she knows my real name, he shows emotion for the first time. Grief, but not surprise.

  Magma is silent for a long moment. Finally, he speaks. “Danny—”

  “I know, I screwed up. I should have come to you the moment we were done with Gerald.”

  “Yes, you should have, but I was going to say you did the best you could under difficult circumstances, and I think we owe you an apology for not being a more hospitable source of guidance for you.”

  I look up at him, not quite sure if I should believe what he says. “Really?”

  “Yes. Absolutely. And if I’d known Calamity was Ricochet’s daughter I would have contacted her as well. This isn’t high school. We don’t give detention for sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong. If I’d known you were this close to being ready, I’d have found something for you to do. Sidelining someone as strong as you, with as little experience as you have, was a damned dangerous mistake. Power is difficult to live with sometimes, especially when you’re young. You shouldn’t have been left on your own to learn things the hard way. There are excuses I could make, but they don’t matter. We failed you, and she paid the price. But you? You did the best you could.”

  Goddammit, I’m crying again. Magma plucks the mug from my hands as they go slack, and I lean into him and sob. They are convulsive, twisting sobs that come hard and seem to rip at my throat. I feel stupid at first, but he rests his hand on my shoulder and the weight of my tears flushes all self-consciousness downstream.

  I come back to myself in bits and pieces, and realize I’m still leaning into him. I sit up straight and pull myself inward, suddenly embarrassed. “Thanks,” I whisper.

  He pats me on the shoulder. “You’re a good kid, Danielle.” His smile disappears. “Are you going to be okay?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Good. I have to make some calls. I’ll be back in a bit.”

  “Okay.”

  Magma gets up, and the whole couch seems to leap with relief.

  “Is…is Valkyrja around?” I ask as he leaves. I hate how plaintive I sound.

  “I’m afraid not,” he says. “She and Carapace are out of town. I’m going to see if I can get them back. We need to see if this information helps us understand what Utopia is planning.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll have the doctor check in on you when she’s out of surgery.”

  “Thanks.”

  Magma leaves me alone with a mind blissfully free of thoughts. I feel empty, which is a relief. The cocoa is sweet, but it’s gone tepid. Nuking it in the microwave helps, and I curl back up on the couch, sipping hot chocolate and feeling nothing at all. Somehow I find myself dozing, and I wake with a start when Doc Impossible sits down next to me. Her braid is loose and her face is drawn. An unlit cigarette dangles limply from her lip.

  “Hey, kid.”

  “Hi, Doc. Is she okay?”

  “No, Danny! She’s not okay. I had to cut her goddamn arm off.” Doc Impossible presses her eyes closed with her fingertips. “Shit, I’m sorry. It’s…I just hate treating kids. I never had the stomach for it. She’ll live. She’s stable for now, but her body needs rest. She and I have some decisions to make in the morning.”

  “Okay.”

  “Did you get hit in the fight?”

  “No.”

  “Good.” She pulls the cigarette from her lip and takes a long sip from her own mug. Her hand is shaking.

  “Can I see her?”

  Doc Impossible shakes her head sharply. “She’s asleep. She needs rest.”

  I bolt upright with a sudden realization. “Somebody’s got to tell her family.”

  “Unless you know who that is, it will have to wait until she’s awake.”

  “Her dad was Ricochet.”

  “Really? Shit.” Doc Impossible sets her mug down and starts fishing around in her pocket for a lighter.

  “What happened with him?”

  She flicks open a flame, and sucks it into the cigarette until the end glows. “It’s a long story.”

  “We’ve got time.”

  Doc Impossible tilts her head back and shoots a pillar of smoke into the air. “He was an associate member. Part-time, only pulled in for the big stuff. We were fine to let him do his own thing, but he started going after the government.”

  “She said he had proof the CIA was smuggling for the cartels.”

  “He was probably right,” says Doc Impossible. She shrugs. “That guy he killed worked for them. We sent a delegation to his funeral to mend some fences.”

  “Why?” I feel like I’ve been kicked in the gut.

  “Look, we know the government is dirty. Parts of it, at least.” Doc Impossible’s shoulders sag a little, and disgust is written all over her face. “That doesn’t change the fact that he crossed a lot of lines we can’t let one of our own cross. You think tonight was bad? Things that are ten thousand times worse happen when capes try to police the government. It would turn us into a police state overnight, and if we were really lucky that’s all it would do to us. It’s happened elsewhere, and it almost happened here once. Ricochet shouldn’t have killed that man, no matter how crooked he was. Too many things rely on us and the government staying out of each other’s way. Even when it sucks. Or, especially then. Government corruption is out of our jurisdiction, and he knew it.”

  “Maybe you were wrong,” I say. “Maybe he was framed.”

  “He wasn’t.” She shakes her head. “The video that convicted him wasn’t faked; I know, I examined it myself. Ricochet handcuffed a CIA officer, and then shot him in the back of the head. It doesn’t get more premeditated than that, and we do not let our people sink down to that level.” She takes a long drag, taps her cigarette in an ashtray. “But no, that doesn’t make it any better for his kids.”

  Does it make me a horrible person that I feel nothing but relief from hearing her say this? Calamity has done so much for me, believed in me more than I ever did myself. I should be loyal to her and her family. But I don’t want Doc Impossible to be one of the bad guys. I don’t want Magma or Valkyrja to be people I can’t trust. I don’t think I could stand that. Not right now, and probably not ever. Tomorrow it might get complicated again. Tonight, I just want it to be simple. Th
ey’re the good guys. They’re helping Sarah. That’s the important part.

  “Danny, why do you want to be a superhero?” Doc Impossible looks at me. She seems so incredibly tired.

  “I don’t.” The answer comes before I think about it, and I feel vaguely guilty about it.

  “You wouldn’t have been out there tonight if this wasn’t what you wanted,” she says. “You just haven’t given yourself permission to admit it.”

  I think of Charlie, and how reluctant he was to come with us, and I realize she’s right. There’s too much self-loathing bottled up inside me. It gets in the way, keeps me from seeing myself, and what I really want.

  So finally, finally, I tell her the truth and hope it doesn’t sound vain. “I want to help people.”

  “And that is beautiful, and you’re amazing.” She takes my hand and squeezes it. “But there are a million things you could do to help people that don’t involve pissing off superpowered psychopaths. You could be the best firefighter in the history of fire. You could be a one-woman space program and explore Mars for us. Every single person who has put on the mantle and used it to fight has been killed in action. Every one of them. It is a job with a one hundred percent mortality rate. You could be anyone you want to be, do anything you want to do. Why do you want to get murdered?”

  “I don’t! I just…I got pushed around a lot when I was little. Even after it eased up when I hit my growth spurt, I still don’t feel safe at school unless I’m hiding in a corner where nobody goes. But now, I’ve got these powers so nobody”—my father looms in my mind’s eye—“can push me around anymore. And I don’t want to let them hurt anyone else, either.”

  “Damn,” says Doc Impossible quietly.

  “What?”

  “That’s one of the classics, all right. You might be in the right place after all.” She smiles. “God help you, kid.”

  The way she says it makes something click. For a moment I stare into my cocoa and try to figure out how I want to phrase this. “Doc, can I ask you kind of a personal question?”