by Ruth Diaz
“We think that when they couldn’t get what they wanted from the computers, they broke into the filing cabinets.” Todd sounded frustrated. “Like I said, we’re still looking, but I don’t know how much evidence we’re going to find if these people can play with our security cameras that way. For now, you’d better assume that they know where you live.”
TJ nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. “I understand. Thanks for the heads-up, Todd.”
“TJ, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be. You did what you could.” Given the speed at which bureaucracy moved, TJ was surprised he’d even managed to have her pulled from the computers. “At least nobody got hurt.”
He sighed into the phone. “Yeah, I guess I should look at it that way. Good luck. If there’s anything else we can do…”
“I’ll let you know,” she agreed. She hung up and tucked her phone into her back pocket.
What next? Singularity would move on her building sooner or later. The shielding was good and so was the security, but with her address, all shielding would do was keep them from identifying her condo from the outside. And it didn’t take that much force to break through a window, not even the special kind you couldn’t jump out of or fire bullets through on the first try. Not when there were superpowers in the mix.
First things first. It wouldn’t do any good to tell the kids what had happened, but since Annmarie was in the middle of this, she ought to know.
* * *
Annmarie spent most of the morning doing a little cleanup, helping Esteban spell words and trying to explain to Mari why subtraction really did matter. They had just had a break and settled down in front of their worksheets and textbooks again when TJ opened her bedroom door. She stuck her head out and said, “Annmarie, you have a minute?”
Annmarie looked at the kids. “You two will be okay for a minute, right? Mari, if you need help on a problem, just circle it and we’ll come back to it when I’m done.”
“What does Mama want with you?” Marisol asked.
Probably nothing to make Annmarie blush, but she wasn’t sure that stopped her. “Maybe she needs help with her homework,” Annmarie said, standing and walking toward TJ.
“It’s about Daddy, stupid,” Esteban whispered when she was almost to the bedroom door. She debated telling him not to call his sister stupid, but decided it was probably safest if she pretended she hadn’t heard that.
Annmarie closed the door behind her. “What happened?”
TJ’s face was drawn. “The Iron Fist hit my work. No one’s hurt, but they used a distraction and somebody rifled through the HR records, so it’s a good bet Singularity knows where we are now.”
Annmarie shivered. It was one thing to know that a supervillain wanted custody of the kids in your care. It was another to realize that he could turn up on the doorstep at any time.
“The way I see it, the next thing to do is either move the kids or get a guard on the building. With him this close, I can invoke union privilege for families and keep maybe half a dozen superheroes on the building at all times. I won’t have a shortage of volunteers. The catch is, if he doesn’t have the address, this could be a game to draw me out, get me to give away our location.”
Annmarie made a face. She didn’t even like to think in these terms. If I didn’t want to risk it, I shouldn’t have stayed on to nanny the twins in the first place. I really shouldn’t have gotten involved with their mother. “Unless you turn it around on him.”
TJ raised her eyebrows. “How do you mean?”
Annmarie shrugged. “You said it could be a game. Make one for him, instead. Put a guard on the building, yeah, but take the kids to a safe house upstate or somewhere.”
TJ blinked. “I think I love you.”
Even though it was circumstance that prompted the words, Annmarie couldn’t help the little flutter her heart did in response. She grinned and tried to make light of it. “Love me later—I’ve got to go and help Mari with her subtraction.”
* * *
The only place in the apartment where TJ regularly violated her cardinal rule about not levitating things in the home was the storage closet. It wasn’t even that it was less effort to lift things with her mind than it was to lift them with her body—it took a toll either way. It was that she kept things the twins might need to reach on the bottom two shelves, and as a result, she kept stacking large, awkward things on the upper shelves.
Like the suitcases.
She kept an assortment of boxes and several bags of outgrown clothes in the air until she reached a point where she could see the bright red suitcase set her parents had given her for Christmas when the twins were three. As hints that they wanted to see their grandchildren went, it might not have been subtle, but it had been effective.
If she could see it, she could lift it, up to about 700 pounds. The suitcases, nested neatly inside each other, floated out of the closet and down to the carpet, and TJ put everything else back on the top shelf, rotating and stacking boxes like it was a video game.
“Where are we going?” Marisol asked from behind her.
She put the last bag in place, mentally promising herself she’d take care of the Goodwill stuff before winter, and shut the door. The kids had paused their game of Mario Kart, and two sets of eyes regarded her curiously. “To a cabin on a lake. Annmarie’s going to drive you there when she gets back, and I’ll come up in a day or two.” Once she’d made the arrangements with Sean, TJ had asked Annmarie if she’d mind going to get a union SUV. If Singularity or someone he was working with already had eyes on her building, TJ didn’t want to be seen leaving, but Annmarie could be just anyone who lived here.
“But…what about Daddy?” Marisol asked. Esteban just gave TJ his serious face, the one he wore when he was thinking too hard and not asking questions yet.
TJ crouched down to unzip the largest suitcase. “We’re setting up a trap so that the police can put him back in jail until he learns not to do bad things. It may take a couple of days, and I have to help, which is why I’m not going in the car with you. Do you two want to share the big suitcase, or do you each want one of the small ones?”
“Why won’t he follow us?” Esteban asked.
TJ stopped in the act of pulling the middle suitcase out of the large one. It felt so good to be acting instead of reacting, she hadn’t stopped to think how the kids would react. She’d made it clear they were staying in the apartment to be safe ever since Singularity’s escape from Peacekeeper. Now she was having them leave, and she wouldn’t be with them. She set the suitcase down, straightened up to cross into the living room and plopped right down on the floor between the kids and the split-screened go-carts on the television. “Daddy loves you, mijo. He loves both of you. But he hasn’t seen you since you were babies. He doesn’t know what you look like now, and he’s never seen Annmarie. So we’re borrowing a car, and the three of you will just look like any other family going on vacation.”
If only it really were just vacation. She was looking forward to a week on the lake with her kids, and she really, really hoped Annmarie would stay once she wasn’t the nanny anymore.
The explanation settled Marisol right down, but TJ knew her kids, and Esteban was still worrying about something. She waited.
“But he knows what you look like,” he said.
TJ nodded. “And that’s how we’re going to catch him. A long time ago, before you two were born, my superhero name was Dynama, and I had a costume and everything.”
Marisol’s eyes went wide.
“I’m going to dress up in costume, and a bunch of my friends from the union are going to come here. We’re all going to stay outside the building, like we’re protecting it. Daddy knows there’s no other reason we’d be protecting the building, except to keep him from getting to you. So he’ll come here, and there will be lo
ts of us, and we’ll catch him and take him to the police. And then I’ll come to the lake, too, and we’ll have a real vacation.”
“Should we bring swimsuits?” Marisol asked.
TJ nodded.
Esteban worried his lower lip a little. “Will there be room for the bikes?”
“It’s a big car. We’ll do our best.”
By the time the kids were done arguing over suitcases and TJ was sure they had the essentials packed, Annmarie had returned. “Your parking garage is scary,” she told TJ. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever find my way out on foot. I thought I might have to call for help, and then you guys would be down there with a string tied to somebody’s bumper near the elevator so we could find our way back again.”
TJ chuckled. “Never been down there. I haven’t owned a car since college. Will we be able to find the car when we go down?”
“That shouldn’t be a problem. It’s a big black beast. I’ve never understood who’d want to own an SUV in the city.”
“Any entity that sometimes needs to put five superheroes and two support staff in the same car,” TJ said. “Or in this case, two kids, two adults and two bicycles.”
“You’re all set for that,” Annmarie agreed. “Have you packed for yourself, yet?”
TJ shook her head. “I wanted to make sure nobody was going to forget their toothbrush or clean underwear first.”
“Mama!” Marisol complained, affronted in the way that only someone who’d “lost” her toothbrush on a trip to Nana’s house could be.
“I’ll take over here.” Annmarie grinned. “All I have to do is zip my suitcase.”
It took almost no time for TJ to throw clothes and shoes into a suitcase, and only a few minutes to fill the little travel bottles she hadn’t used since the last time she took the twins to visit their grandparents. She supposed she should grab a light jacket. She hadn’t needed one yet this year, but it might be cool up on the lake. Actually, she ought to pack a spare since Annmarie hadn’t exactly packed with weather in mind when she’d started staying overnight at the condo.
TJ checked the coat closet before remembering that she’d shoved the lighter coats in a drawer when she was hiding the kids’ birthday presents this summer. She went back into her bedroom, checking the drawers under the far side of the bed. The jackets were jammed into the first drawer, like she’d been in a hurry not to leave any evidence. She probably had. She yanked out the red sweatshirt on the top, which made it easier to get at the blue fleece jacket beneath.
A flash of yellow caught her eye, and she swallowed.
Well, she might as well pull it out now.
Her Dynama costume was wrinkled from its years at the back of the drawer, but the fabric would smooth instantly when it stretched over her skin. Plain yellow, thank you, with no plunging necklines or red splashes on the chest to make her easier to aim at. It was warmer than it looked, but breathable, the fabric itself the brainchild of a costumer and a technomancer. It wouldn’t stop a heat ray or a bullet, but TJ had never had to worry about drowning in her own sweat or picking up casual wear and tear in the process of helping save the world. Hell, she’d ripped holes in her jeans as the Hidden Hand, but her Dynama costume didn’t have so much as a scuff.
For a single mad moment, she wanted to put it on now. She could show the kids who Mama used to be. She could show Annmarie what she used to look like back when she could afford to be famous.
But it wasn’t sensible. She left the costume on her bed and folded the jackets so they’d fit in her suitcase. She’d get everyone packed into the car and see them safely on their way.
Then and only then would it be safe become Dynama again.
* * *
“Annmarie, are you sure Daddy can’t find us?” Esteban asked from the middle set of seats in the god-awful big SUV.
They were far enough from the center of Trade City that they’d finally left the skyscrapers behind, and trees hid the houses. Their leaves had just begun to turn colors, despite the unseasonably late summertime weather. Midafternoon traffic ground slowly, if steadily, along the state route Annmarie had chosen over the interstate, despite the occasional traffic light. She risked a glance at Esteban in the rearview mirror. He always came across as too serious, even his laughter mostly in his eyes, but now he frowned and kept glancing nervously out through the windows.
It made Annmarie take another look around, but all she saw were aging homes and shops. “I don’t know how he could even know where we are, Esteban,” she said firmly. “Even your mama doesn’t know exactly where we’re going yet—I’m going to tell her when she calls to say she’s coming out. She wanted to be sure a mind reader couldn’t find out from her. We should be completely safe.”
“Nobody can read Mama’s mind,” Marisol said. “She always says she has really good mind shields.”
Annmarie smiled at the staunch defense. “She told me it would take a really, really strong mind reader, and she didn’t think the supervillains around here had one.”
“See?” Marisol said. “We’re going to go to the lake, and go swimming, and ride bikes, and have no more school, ever!”
Annmarie laughed. “I don’t know about that last part. But we can have French fries. It’s almost dinner time. Do you guys like McDonald’s?”
Marisol cheered, but Esteban only asked, “Could somebody read our minds?”
“I never really thought about it. Why?” Horns began blaring. Annmarie realized the car was coasting to a halt, but she didn’t see any warning lights on the dashboard, and the car was still in Drive. She frowned, ignoring the fingers flying outside her window as cars began passing her. She put the car in Park and turned the engine off for a few seconds. She turned it on again. No change on the dashboard, and when she put the car in gear, nothing happened. The seatbelt tugged against her hip bones, as if one of the kids were pulling on it, but when she turned to them, they were still in their seats. And the horizon out the back window was…wrong, somehow.
“Because I think we’re floating,” Esteban said, his voice thin and tight in a way Annmarie had only heard from a child before when she was doing her internship in the battered women’s shelter downtown. “Is Mama right behind us?” The hope in his voice was the desperate kind she knew from the shelter too—the hope of a child who needed to believe things would get better, even though he didn’t really think so.
Annmarie took one more look all the way around the car. She still couldn’t see anything except other cars, but her vehicle was off the ground and still rising. She swallowed. “No, I don’t think she is.” She turned the button on the side of her watch and pushed it, feeling a little click as it slid home. “But she will be. I’ve just told her we need her.”
Chapter Eight
“I hate stakeouts,” Mad Mulligan complained through TJ’s earpiece. “Too much waiting, too little action.”
From her station on the top of the building, Vincy answered, “Hate ‘em all you want—just quit whining about them.”
Hovering about 100 feet off the ground on the north side of her building, TJ grinned. Vincy and Mulligan got on famously, but they fought like cats and dogs and always had. The pair had been going at it for the last half an hour. It was almost as entertaining as Gear Girl’s ground-based commentary. The news stations, having realized that despite the presence of costumed superheroes, nothing was happening at the moment, had left an assortment of very junior staff with cameras and microphones stationed around the building, and Gear Girl was having great fun describing them and inventing conversations they could be having. Plus, she kept updating Twitter and relaying how #DynamaIsBack was trending.
“Enough, Mulligan,” Lightning Bug said. Control had him stationed on the building’s south side. “If it were your grandkids, would you want somebody on protection detail bitching and moaning the whole time?”
“I suppose not,” he grumbled. He might be pissed off, but Mad Mulligan didn’t risk saying that they weren’t actually a protection detail, they were a decoy.
God, it was good to be back in the air. It was good to be back as a visible, acknowledged part of a team. The superhero gig had good days and bad days like anything else, but when it was good…the adrenaline rush, the camaraderie, the feeling of really having made a difference at the end of the mission…there was nothing else like it.
Steady motion below caught TJ’s eye. A couple of students still in their school uniforms were waving up at her. She smiled and waved back.
“Interrupt. I have an urgent interrupt,” Control said, the AI’s carefully modulated voice overriding all their earpieces. “We have an all-heroes call, coordinates forthcoming.”
TJ’s stomach sank three stories without her. It was a panic button. It had to be. “Control, who else has a panic button right now?”
“Checking.” The AI might not be able to sound flustered, but that didn’t mean she didn’t understand the urgency. “Two panic buttons in service right now. Records indicate both units are issued to the Hidden Hand.”
* * *
Traffic gave them a ridiculously wide berth, which Annmarie took to mean the other drivers could see something that she couldn’t. Since the roof was her only real blind spot, she had to assume it was above them. She had just unbuckled her seatbelt, planning to roll down the window and stick her head out, when the car began rotating. She snapped the buckle back into place, automatically shifting the SUV into Park, and craned her head around so she could see into the backseat again.
Esteban was very pale, and tears tracked silently down Marisol’s face. Through the darkly tinted back window, Annmarie could see police lights flashing and officers dragging barricades into place while litter and light debris spiraled past them faster than the car spun. She swallowed back her own fear.