by Various
Kane opened the door, stopped, and checked the mirror. A sea of dark buildings lit in the faded orange of the streetlights was reflected back at him. Looking past the mirror, Kane saw a cloudy glowing sky. It had stopped raining. There were no blimps tonight.
Rad sucked in the cold outside air with a wet slurp, and pushed against Kane, not aggressively but instinctively, and straightened up.
“You OK, buddy?” Kane slipped out from under Rad’s arm and placed one hand on his friend’s chest, one hand on his back. Rad was swaying and it was a steep drop back down into Jerry’s den.
Rad puffed again and nodded. Kane could see that while the cold air didn’t really clear his head, like a shot of coffee it woke him up. Rad seemed to know it himself and nodded again at Kane. An awake drunk was at least easier to move than a comatose one.
“Yeah, I’m good, I’m good. Nice night.”
Kane’s smile reappeared. “You betcha. Come on. Home time.”
Rad huffed the wet air and attempted the second set of stairs. Kane kept his arm across Rad’s back.
Rad stopped. “Listen.” He looked up into the sky. Kane shuffled his feet.
“What? I don’t hear anything. It’s late.”
“Wait, wait… there.” Rad craned his head around to Kane. “The docks?”
Kane paused, squinting as he concentrated. It was late, very late, late enough for the city—this part at least—to be quiet, near silent. The harbour wasn’t far away at all, just a few blocks, but at this time of night even the dockyards were dead.
The sound was faint, caught on a wind blowing in the wrong direction. A heartbeat, a ticking and chuffing and puffing. Faint, but unmistakeable.
“Well now,” said Kane.
“An ironclad?”
Kane nodded. “Sounds it.” He looked at Rad’s swollen face just inches away from his own. At this range, his breath was strong enough to sterilise an operating theatre.
“Come on. Home.”
Rad waved both hands impatiently and rocked on his heels.
“I want to see this. No, I’ll be fine. The exercise and fresh air will do me good. Really. Let’s go. Home, but docks first. It’s not far.”
Rad spun and tottered up the stairs and across the street. Kane almost called out, but thought better of it. Behind him the door to Jerry’s speakeasy was closed and dark, no hint of the illicit nightlife within. There were no blimps, no pedestrians, no traffic. But it paid to be careful. Agents of the State could be, would be, anywhere.
Kane skipped up the stairs two at a time and ran after his friend.
SEVEN WONDERS
(excerpt)
by Adam Christopher
First published as Seven Wonders (2012), by Angry Robot
• • • •
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.
It has been ten years since my last confession.
In that time, I have murdered and terrorized.
I have destroyed the city.”
• • •
SAN VENTURA, CALIFORNIA—Jewel of the West Coast! The Shining City! A modern metropolis of industry and commerce, a city synonymous with progress!
And a city in thrall of THE COWL, that superpowered supervillain whose identity is concealed by the famous dark hood, that evil-doer who enacts his reign of terror with the help of the enigmatic and mysterious BLACKBIRD, the Mistress of the Night, her features concealed behind a bird-like mask!
But hope is not lost, for the Shining City is home to the last group of superheroes, that band of marvels who keep the city safe as they prepare for the ultimate showdown with their arch-nemesis! Watch the skies, for they are THE SEVEN…
Wise is their leader, that champion of champions who carries the amazing atomic power of the very sun itself within him! No villain is a match for the supreme strategies of Earth’s superman, AURORA’S LIGHT!
Out of the ordinary, her mental powers read the secrets of the criminal mind, and in her anger unleash a psychic lightning storm that none can weather! Villains can hide nothing from the penetrating gaze of BLUEBELL!
Night-stalkers, take flight! For there walks among you a magical warrior woman, born of a lost tribe of Arabian nomads blessed with a supernatural link to the animal kingdom! Beware the claws of SAND CAT!
Defying the laws of physics, gifted with access to the Slipstream, that nth dimensional plane beyond the ken of modern science that bestows speed and flight! There are none who can outrace the silver speedster LINEAR!
Exiled from Mount Olympus—the sole survivor of the Hellenic Pantheon! Carrying the Hammer of the Gods with which he creates his magical weapons, this Architect of Power is HEPHAESTUS!
Robotic… yet alive! Forged from a mysterious alloy known only to his creator Hephaestus, no foe dare challenge the Supra-Maximal Attack-Response Titan, the giant machine-man SMART!
Strange is the cold light she wields from the unfathomable depths of space-time, that esoteric energy that illuminates her mighty powerstaff! Mystery surrounds this visitor from another world, for she is THE DRAGON STAR!
“THANKS, MARY, and good morning San Ventura for Thursday the fourth. I’m Sarah Nova and here’s a recap of your top headlines this morning.
“Astronomers at the South Cal Catadioptric Observatory say that this year’s Draconid meteor shower will be the biggest and brightest on record, with up to five thousand meteors an hour predicted to hit the skies over the West Coast at the shower’s peak. With just seven weeks to go, the hills of North Beach are expected to be even more crowded this year as spectators vie for the best vantage point, with officials advising people to get there early. Traffic restrictions will be in place on the North Beach suspension bridge and City Hall has called in extra buses to run on the free shuttle route.
“Shares in Conroy Industries are set to open this morning at a record high after late trading yesterday pushed stock above the $1000 mark. The price represents the highest ever achieved by the San Ventura technology company, which is the county’s leading employer, and puts Conroy Industries’ market capitalization nearly $10 billion ahead of Apple Inc., its closest competitor in terms of value. Conroy Industries’ performance stands in sharp contrast to other tech firms, which are…”
CHAPTER 1
IT WASN’T until the following week that Tony realized he could fly.
He knew it was coming, of course. Well, hoped it was coming. Hell, the last week had been one wild ride, so it was inevitable—he dared to suggest—that the most glorious, most enjoyable of all superpowers would hit sooner or later. Typically, of course, it had been later, the last of his powers to manifest. But who was complaining? Tony could fly, game over.
Sure, he could freeze a can of beer with a glance and light the gas hob on his stove with a flick of the wrist. He could chop firewood up at his old man’s lodge in the hills with his bare hands. He also thought, maybe, that if the skin of his hand was like the steel blade of an axe, perhaps he was bulletproof as well. That would sure be handy in a city as dangerous as San Ventura, but hardly the kind of superpower you could just test, unless you were the kind of guy who got a kick out of Russian roulette.
A city as dangerous as San Ventura. The Shining City, right? Uh… yeah, right. Tony shifted his weight, trying—failing—to get more comfortable in the awkward squat in which he found himself on a warm Thursday morning. He wobbled, momentarily losing his center of gravity, but couldn’t risk moving his hands from the back of his head. But, under the black, empty gaze of the gun barrel that very quickly appeared in his face, he found his balance again and remained quite, quite still. Unspeaking, but apparently satisfied, the gunslinger pulled the barrel of his Kalashnikov upwards and walked on, the wet creak of his leather combat boots loud from Tony’s low position near the floor of the bank.
Tony really hated Thursdays. And didn’t this one just take the cake.
With the thug’s back moving away, Tony glanced around. A few desperate eyes were on him, wide and white, furious th
at he’d attracted the attention of one of the raiders, but relieved in a shaky kind of way that he hadn’t got them all shot. Tony wasn’t sure if an apologetic smile was appropriate, so decided not to bother and returned his attention to the cheap carpet tiles in front of him. A distraction came anyway as the leader of the robbers threw a few more heated words out of the window at the cops gathered in the street outside.
Robbers? The word stuck in Tony’s mind. Fuck that. Robbers? What the fuck kind of robbers walked around with AK-47s, or whatever the hell their guns were? They were big guns, automatic assault rifles, with the distinctive curved magazines that only weapons bought on the Kazakhstani black market had. As far as Tony was concerned, the name “AK-47” applied to all that kind of shit. It was a bad, bad scene.
Which meant they weren’t bank robbers. Bank robbers wore black jeans, and balaclavas, or maybe pantyhose (over their heads, anyway). Bank robbers ran in, maybe three or four, waving handguns and shouting at everyone to get the fuck down and fill this fucking bag, bitch, and nobody fucking move. And a few kicks and punches later, out the door, leaving old ladies to cry and bank clerks to comfort each other while the police carefully crunch on the scattered candy of broken glass spilt from what’s left of the front doors.
Machine guns, combat boots—hell, combat uniforms—weren’t the purview of bank robbers. These guys were pros.
No, thought Tony. Even more than that. Organized, disciplined, efficient. There had been no shouting, no running. A dozen men, black-booted, black-suited, each identical and anonymous behind something approaching a paintball mask crossed with a respirator. They came in silence and calmly took up what must have been pre-assigned positions, before their leader clicked something on the side of his mask and told everyone to crouch on the ground with their hands on their heads. Two of his men broke off and brought the bank manager from his back office, and the leader began politely asking a series of questions.
It was surreal, dreamlike, which at first gave an illusion of safety. It was only when the cramp started to bite that reality began to crystallize.
So not robbers, professionals. Soldiers, masked and uniformed. In San Ventura. Soldiers? No, henchmen. Which meant…
Shit. The one day I go to the bank, the one day I go to the bank in, like, a whole year, and I walk right into a classic piece of San Ventura villainy. Because henchmen and AK-47s and raiding a quiet bank with overwhelming firepower meant just one thing.
The Cowl.
“Your threats are noted, officer, as is your lack of understanding and situational awareness. Discussion terminated.”
The leader turned away from the window and walked behind the main counters, through the now-open security door, around to the main lobby where his eleven soldiers stood over two dozen civilians. One AK-47 for every two members of the public. Tony felt sick.
The bank manager wasn’t talking. Normally, Tony would have seen him as a proud man, defiant to the end, captain-going-down-with-the-ship kind of loyalty—if he was watching this on World’s Most Awesome Bank Robbery Shoot-outs 7. He could imagine the manager’s smoking, bullet-ridden body being stretchered out at the end of a day-long siege, with mugshot and eulogy in Friday morning’s San Ventura Ledger-Leader, with quite possibly a civic funeral the next week complete with police honor guard and respectful mayor in attendance. The mayor would later give one of his all-too-regular press conferences decrying the Cowl and swearing justice would be served, and the citizens of San Ventura would shake their heads and turn off their televisions and lament the dark times that had fallen on the Shining City.
But right now, the bank manager was just being a dick. It’s just a bank, it’s just money, Tony thought. The anger and frustration rose as he watched the Cowl’s mercenary orbit the bank manager like a panther looking for an opening. Stop being such an asshole. Tony’s lips almost shaped the words, willing the bank manager to suck it up and open the safe. Give them the money.
Except… money? It wasn’t money. Couldn’t have been money. The Cowl’s resources were legendary, his ill-gotten wealth rumored to be as close to infinite as any human being could ever hope to approach. The last thing he needed was cash. Diamonds, perhaps? Jewels, or gold? Because all supervillains liked to dive into a vault of treasure and swim around like Scrooge McDuck, right? No. There must have been something else, something locked in a safety deposit box in the vault. Something small, but important; important enough for the Cowl to take it by force, something important enough for the bank manager to risk his life and the lives of his staff and customers, even in the face of a dozen machine guns from central Asia.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The bank manager lifted his chin and pushed his dated, square-framed glasses up his nose a little. A small, defiant act.
“Oh, I think you do, Mr Ballard,” said the leader. “Sure, it’s well hidden here. Who would expect such a small, average branch of an average bank to hold such a priceless artifact. But that’s the whole point, isn’t it? That’s why the Seven Wonders entrusted you with it. Locking it in their own citadel would prove, eventually, to be too much of a temptation, even for them. So, the solution is to lose it somewhere in the city—what, they gave it to you, then Bluebell did a mindwipe on everyone, so even they had no idea where or even what it was? Everyone, except you, Mr Ballard.”
Mr Ballard said nothing. But he wasn’t a professional, not like the mercenary. As the leader spoke in an odd, almost synthesized voice that echoed from underneath his respirator, a hundred emotions flickered over Mr Ballard’s face. Satisfaction turned to doubt turned to fear. Even Tony could see that the mercenary was right on the button.
“Interesting, Mr Ballard.” The leader walked away, casually. After a moment of nothing at all, he gestured slightly with a gauntleted hand. Instantly his eleven men prodded each of the two hostages in their charge with their guns, indicating for them to stand.
Each trio—mercenary plus two hostages—was separated from the next by a couple of feet, the whole group arranged in a neat semicircle in front of the counters. To Tony’s left, a young woman, homely and mid-twenties but with that odd thinness that suggested eighteen with three kids, began to cry. With her hands still behind her head, her face turned red and the tears flowed freely, dripping onto the carpet tiles. Tony looked away, focusing instead on the mercenary leader.
Tony had superstrength, he had freeze-breath. He had superspeed. The only thing he wasn’t quite sure of was whether hands of steel translated into torso of Kevlar. And even if it did, what about the other twenty-three hostages? Perhaps he was faster than a bullet, but he wasn’t really sure—how fast did a bullet fly, anyway? Fast enough not to be visible in flight, but Tony had seen his own reflection in the water yesterday as he’d skipped from one side of the bay to the other. But faster than the high-velocity shells spat by the heavy-duty weaponry carried by these guys? Too much of a risk. Hold back, bide your time. Jeannie’s training was sure going to come in useful, he knew that now.
The leader seemed to be watching the hostages, although it was hard to tell; the wraparound visor of his mask meant that his head only had to turn very slightly to give any indication that he was looking for something. For someone—picking a target.
“You see, Mr Ballard,” the leader continued, turning back to the bank manager, “the method I’m about to employ may well be a cliché. In fact, I guarantee you’ll have seen it plenty of times on the television. Do you watch much television, Mr Ballard?
“Anyway, it’s simple, but effective. You have twenty-four chances to get the answer to my next question correct.”
Mr Ballard didn’t move, but he started breaking a hell of a sweat. Tony felt his anger melt, replaced instead with indignation. The Seven Wonders, he thought. I bet those bastards never told you this might happen.
There was a crack—not a gunshot, but an organic splitting, like a young branch bent off a new tree. One of the hostages—a nondescript man in ordinary gray suit, the color of
which matched his neatly parted hair, mid-priced black leather slip-ons from a mall shoe shop on his feet—twisted, ever so slightly, arching his back almost like he was stretching out a stiff muscle. Then he dropped, knees folding up and his body telescoping almost vertically down beside his paired hostage.
The crying woman moaned loudly, trying to turn her head away from the body. Several others swore and muttered. A couple of people remained silent, unmoved, staring at the body. Tony included. Then he said: “Holy fuck.”
“Oh, language, please.” A new voice now, from the back of the bank, from the direction of the manager’s office. It was male, low and hoarse, not artificially modulated like the mercenaries, but a rasp put on deliberately, naturally, to disguise the owner. “And that’s twenty-three chances, Mr Ballard. My… staff… were never good with numbers.”
The Cowl stepped forward into the bank lobby. He couldn’t have been there very long, certainly no one had entered since the place had been raided an hour ago. Nobody was really sure what the extent of his powers were, but sudden appearances and disappearances were a regular feature of his exploits reported with depressing regularity in the pages of the Ledger-Leader. Tony had only a few days’ working knowledge of superpowers, but here, witnessing it with his own eyes, he began to reel off possibilities in his mind. Teleportation? Had to be.
The scalloped edge of the Cowl’s cloak brushed over the dead man’s face, catching in the wide, rolling red of blood that had started to ooze from his mouth, nose, ears. His infamous hooded head turned down toward his victim, killed without a finger laid.
Psychokinesis. Fucker was a supervillain, all right. The best—well, the most powerful—and the last. The last, because not even the Seven Wonders could take the bastard down.