‘At least you’re getting some of the credit,’ June pointed out.
‘Yeah, well, if Andrea hadn’t taken the evidence to Jacob Dannon yesterday, I’d probably still be in hiding.’
June sighed. ‘She took the information from the office with her too, didn’t she?’
‘Yeah. Now might be a good time to capitalise on your new modelling celebrity.’
The presenter was still going on, despite having given all the information she had given previously.
‘…a major gap in the Ultrahuman protection of the city. It will be a tough act to follow, but experts suggest that Cygnus, now proven innocent, is likely to take over Ultranova’s role as the official protector of New Millennium.’
‘You what?!’ Penny exclaimed.
18th December.
‘Well,’ Twilight said, ‘you did kind of kill the last one. It’s only fair.’
Cygnus glowered at her. ‘Please don’t remind me. I’m still trying to work through that one. If I burst into tears at some point, don’t sweat it.’
‘I’m not sure what the problem is. I left Conrad to bleed to death and I had to cut my own brother’s heart out, and I’m not blubbering.’ The black-clad heroine paused for a second and then added, ‘Anymore.’
‘I just… I keep seeing his face looking up at me over where my fist was buried to the wrist in his ribcage. He looked so surprised.’
‘He was overconfident. If you think no one can beat you, it tends to be a shock when they do, and he killed Bobby.’
‘No, Heartbreaker…’
‘He’s as much to blame as she is, probably more, and you know it.’
‘Yeah… Look, I’ll get over it. I just need some time.’
Twilight gave a nod. ‘Don’t take too long, it’s almost Christmas and Red isn’t going to want you moping around at her party.’
‘Huh, no. And by then I suspect I’ll have more to mope about. I’ll probably be unemployed.’
19th December.
When it happened, even though both Penny and June knew it was coming at some point, the way it happened meant that they did not really have to stretch their acting skills to feign shock.
Penny was at work, as usual, though Mister Leighton had been looking very concerned about her since she had returned and everyone was under orders to avoid over-stressing her. Officially she had had a minor breakdown over her ‘friend’s’ death. Someone had, apparently, neglected to tell the police about her low-stress environment since two armed SWAT officers burst into her room without warning, followed by a tall, dark-haired woman holding a handgun.
The woman checked a notepad. ‘You’re… Penny Worthington?’
‘Uh… that’s right.’
The woman nodded. ‘I’m Detective Warner. Please step away from the computer.’ She produced a sheet of paper from her pocket, handing it to Penny. ‘That is a copy of our warrant to seize all records from this company, both paper and electronic.’
Penny scanned the form. It looked real. Then again, she had been expecting this for days, just not with MP5s. ‘Okay. Uh, were the sub-machine guns really necessary?’
Warner gave her a smile which did not reach her eyes. ‘These men will take you to Justice Square. We’re interviewing all the staff there.’
Penny pushed her chair back and got to her feet. ‘Is it okay if I take my bag? Or do you want to search it first?’
~~~
‘Mister Leighton is upset, of course,’ June said glumly. ‘I think it’s mostly because he didn’t know. He told me he had a few suspicions, mostly about DeWitt. Jonny Tonaldo being on the board…’
‘Not anymore,’ Penny put in. ‘Getting caught red-handed with illegal weapons and a lot of bodies… He’s going away. There is no way his lawyers are getting him out of this one.’
‘True. But Mister Leighton didn’t have a clue about the Ghostfire accounts. Thorpe handled all of them personally.’
‘Which isn’t going to look good for Mister Thorpe.’
‘Couldn’t have happened to a nicer man, but Leighton and Thorpe will lose its licence, Mister Leighton’s sure of that. He says he has enough money to retire, once his assets are unfrozen. Most of the company’s work didn’t involve laundering money for criminals. He should be okay, but…’
‘We’ll all be out of work.’
June nodded. ‘That. Yeah.’ She leaned over, wrapping an arm around Penny’s shoulders and pulling her in for a hug. ‘We’ll be okay. I’ll call my agent, and Dom, after New Year. I bet there’ll be work coming in.’
Penny tried to stop herself tensing, but did not quite manage it. June loosened her grip and settled back on the sofa as though nothing had happened. Neither of them was mentioning the elephant in the corner. Cygnus had seduced June, though ‘seduced’ was probably not the right word, and then she had survived and Penny had to deal with it. Thinking of it as something Cygnus had done made it a little easier on both of them. A little.
20th December.
‘Tonaldo will be back to hating our guts,’ Cygnus commented as she watched men and women being loaded into police vans.
‘Yeah,’ Twilight said, grinning maliciously, ‘but that’s how I like it. Plus, I’ve been wanting to take this lab down for a couple of months and he’s been getting off lightly recently.’
‘We got his brother locked up.’
‘Relatively lightly.’ Twilight looked up at the sky. There were two helicopters up there, almost as per normal: the NWCPD one and the ACPN one. There were reporters waiting to talk to them outside the police cordon, and if she was really lucky she would get her partner to handle all of that. Cygnus, she told herself, needed the good publicity at the moment. She frowned. Something else was in the sky, something small… ‘What’s that? Can you make it out?’
Cygnus followed her pointing finger, squinting up into the sky. ‘Uh… Wow, that’s doing its best to remain hidden. Some sort of drone?’
There was a sound, something like tearing fabric, or a very turbulent flow of air through a narrow tube. The air in the middle of the circle of police vehicles rippled, twisting almost as though they were looking at a pool of water. And then two figures stepped out of the distortion before it closed behind them.
One of them was immediately recognisable. She was tall, slim, and beautiful. Her hair was a cascade of shimmering, platinum blonde, her eyes were the clearest blue, and her skin was alabaster. She was dressed in a flowing, white gown, split to the hip, which was her off-duty costume. She was Brightstar, one of the highest-ranking members of the Union of Ultrahumans.
The other took a second longer to register. About the same height as Twilight, he was an average sort of man with average, brown hair cut short. His eyes were hazel and he looked a little skinny. Not obviously heroic material, until you saw the bright spark of intelligence in his eyes, the way he seemed to observe everything, taking it in and filing it for later. He was Hugh Charles Last, Doctor Ultimate, possibly the most intelligent man on the planet and the last time Penny had seen him he had been making a guest appearance on True Powers.
It was a little like having royalty turn up to the dinner party you had organised for a few friends.
‘Sorry,’ Ultimate called out. ‘Sorry everyone. Unexpected visit. Urgent need to talk. Thought this was best. Carry on.’
Brightstar, apparently used to her friend’s manner of speaking, smiled at the two girls in front of them. ‘What Hugh is trying to say is that we need to talk to Cygnus.’
‘Uh… oh!’ Cygnus replied. ‘Well… go ahead.’
‘In private,’ Brightstar added.
Cygnus frowned. ‘As I’m sure you know, this is Twilight, my partner. I don’t have any secrets from her.’
Ultimate seemed to either not get the slight barb, did not care, or felt that it was fine. ‘Ultranova needs to be… Uh… Where was I?’
Brightstar sighed. Doctor Ultimate’s brain tended to be occupied with at least three things at once, on top of what was happ
ening in the world outside his head. He occasionally lost track of a conversation, had two of them at the same time, or repeated words for no obvious reason.
‘You get used to this,’ she said. ‘We need a replacement for Ultranova and we would like you to join the Union to fill his place.’
‘Isn’thawhaIsaid?’ Ultimate stated in a jumble of syllables. He also forgot to slow down his speech to normal human comprehension rates at times too.
‘Almost.’ Brightstar looked pointedly at Cygnus, awaiting an answer.
‘Just like that?’ Cygnus asked.
‘You’re the obvious choice.’
‘Group dynamics,’ Ultimate said. ‘Spread of powers, accepted power levels, and then there’s the obvious really when you think about it.’
Cygnus decided she was not even going to try. ‘What about Twilight?’
‘Oh… I’m not their kind of person,’ Twilight put in. ‘I’ve got my hands full here, and I’m nowhere near the magnitude they need.’
It was true that the Union had been formed to handle large-scale events, big threats. They had stopped an asteroid from crashing into Earth, halted wars, handled famines. Twilight was not the kind of hero they needed. That did not mean Brightstar could stand there with a patronising smile on her face…
‘I have my hands full here too,’ Cygnus said. ‘My partner needs my help. The city has just lost its most famous Ultra. It’s an honour, it really is, but I’m going to have to say no.’
Brightstar’s eyes widened for a second. She did a lot of the political work for the Union and she was good at hiding her emotions. There had to be a lot of surprise there.
Ultimate, it seemed, was more nonplussed. ‘Has anyone ever turned us down before?’ he asked without a single diversion or stutter.
‘No,’ Brightstar replied.
‘First time for everything,’ Twilight said brightly.
‘Ah,’ Ultimate said. ‘Well, worth a try. I got to see Kopf’s data on you, young lady. Even if you’re not going to join up, I’d like the opportunity to talk to you about it. Drop me a message on UltraNet.’ He turned, producing a device from somewhere on his person and tapping a button. The shimmer in the air appeared again and he stepped through without further comment.
Brightstar nodded to them both before following him.
‘She wasn’t pleased,’ Twilight commented. There was a mile-wide grin on her face.
‘She’ll live,’ Cygnus replied.
~~~
‘You refused Brightstar?’ Red said, her lips curling further upward at the edges the more she thought about it. ‘Oh… she’s going to hate that.’
‘She’ll live,’ Andrea said, grinning. She had taken less persuasion than usual to come to the Den after the lab bust.
‘I’m not letting them put me on call all the time just because they lost one scumbag member,’ Cygnus added. ‘I’ve got responsibilities here. There’s plenty to do and, frankly, I’m going to need a new job next year.’
‘Maybe,’ Red said. ‘Oh, while I remember… I don’t want to bring the mood down, but the executors of Bobby’s will contacted me. They need Cygnus at the reading, and June, and me. It’s on Monday, ten o’clock.’
‘Not like I have to go into the office,’ Cygnus replied. ‘It’s closed until further notice, probably for good.’
‘There’ll be clean-up to do,’ June put in, ‘but you’re right. I shouldn’t have a problem either, but why do I need to be there.’
Red just smiled. ‘Have to wait and find out.’
21st December.
Of course Saturday afternoons were the worst. Normally Penny would have changed and flown to Bobby’s house. They would have thrown each other around the dojo, and then made love until neither of them could move. Now it was just Penny, watching television with the voices as a constant backdrop.
ACPN was still playing stories about Ultranova’s death, and each time one aired Penny thought the voices whispered, ‘You killed him,’ over and over again. But when she focussed on the sounds at one point all she could hear was the usual gibberish and she concluded that the voices did not care about it. She was hearing what she wanted to hear, or did not want to hear, in the random noises.
‘You should go out,’ June suggested when the moping had become too much for her. ‘Go find some criminals to smack around.’
‘What if I hurt someone?’ Penny replied.
‘That’s the idea.’
‘I mean really hurt them.’
‘Pen, have you ever hit anyone as hard as that before?’
‘Pulya…’
‘Was in a suit of armour. I’m talking about the thugs and purse snatchers? The drug dealers I think you could hit harder, but it’s not my call.’
‘There’ve been some broken bones, but… no.’
‘Right. Ultranova was trying to kill you. From the state of your face when you got home, he could have done it, and everyone knows he had some fairly heavy defences of his own. Bullets bounced off the guy. You did what you had to do to defend yourself.’ She paused and then added. ‘Red thinks it’s better he didn’t live to stand trial.’
Penny looked up at her, shocked. ‘She what?’
‘This way they can cover up the fact that he was basically using his hero identity to put down the opposition while committing some pretty unpleasant crimes himself. She did a little checking. He’s taken down a disproportionate amount of Tonaldo’s people and he’s been Hell on independents. His people, though, or the ones suspected of belonging to Ghostfire anyway, he hasn’t touched one of them. When he has shown up the crooks usually get away. The last lot that were caught were in that car you grabbed.’
Thinking back on it, him firing at the getaway car had had the effect of making the cops back off rather than stopping the bad guys. At the time Penny had assumed that that was accidental.
‘Bastard,’ she muttered. ‘I used to idolise that man.’
June grinned. ‘Yeah, and then you met him.’
23rd December.
It was not until Monday morning that Penny realised that Cygnus had nothing formal to wear. She felt a little uncomfortable in a black mini-dress at the lawyer’s office, but it was the best she could do and no one else seemed bothered.
‘This shouldn’t take long,’ the lawyer said. He was suitably old: grey hair, grey eyes, dressed in a grey suit, and probably considering retirement. Penny liked him just for that. ‘Mister Lee wrote a new will three months ago and the terms are very clear.’
The old man gave Red a smile. ‘As you know, Miss Jacoby, Mister Lee has left you his collection of Japanese Kyūjutsu books and manuscripts.’
Red glanced at Cygnus. ‘That’s Japanese archery. Bobby has a very extensive library of martial arts texts going back centuries.’
‘To Miss June Summerfield,’ the lawyer went on, ‘the sum of fifty thousand dollars “to let her take the modelling world by the throat and show it who is boss.”’
June gave a little giggle. ‘That sounds just like him. That’s wonderful, and very useful considering.’
‘It should tide you over until you can get modelling to pay,’ Red agreed.
‘Finally,’ the lawyer said, ‘the remainder of Mister Lee’s estate goes to the Ultrahuman known as “Cygnus.”’ The subject of the final clause let out a gasp. ‘There is a fairly substantial lump sum, his house, the remainder of his martial arts materials, and a number of long-term investments. I’ve been instructed to make arrangements to set up access to the accounts via the Federal protocols for use of a pseudonym. I’ve done this sort of thing before.’
‘Uh… right,’ Penny said. ‘Thanks.’
~~~
‘You don’t seem especially happy,’ Red commented.
‘I’m… a little shocked,’ Penny replied.
It was the first time she had been back in Bobby’s house since she had found his body and Penny was feeling a little uncomfortable. Being Cygnus just then had been a decision of necessity; the voices wo
uld have been roaring in her head if she had been Penny.
‘I can understand,’ Red replied, ‘but it’s yours now. You could move in here if…’
‘Not yet,’ Penny replied quickly. ‘It’s too soon. Besides, if I do that I’m almost committing myself to being Cygnus full-time.’
‘Not really. This place is out of the way and the security systems are first rate. There’s plenty of privacy if you want it. Here’s an idea: invite Twilight over. Use the dojo. You need someone to spar with. Come over to check on the place now and again. Spend some time in the guest rooms.’
June had been silent up until now. She turned and looked timidly at her friend. ‘Maybe… Well, maybe we could have the Christmas party here rather than at Red’s. There are enough rooms, and it would be like… like having Bobby with us.’
‘I’ll cry,’ Penny asserted.
‘No one is going to think less of you because of it,’ Red told her. ‘Come on, I’ll show you where he kept his texts. You’ve probably never been in the basement.’
‘I didn’t even know there was a basement.’
Red grinned. ‘Where do you think his wine cellar was?’
24th December.
‘Okay,’ Andrea said as Cygnus put her down on the floor of the dojo, ‘yes, I think I could get used to this.’
‘Red thought we could spar here,’ Cygnus replied. ‘I’ll show you the martial arts books in the basement later. Bobby left them to me, aside from the archery stuff. Though if you’re interested in that Red’s leaving them where they are since it’s all climate-controlled down there. I don’t think she’d mind you reading them.’
‘I’ll leave the bow and arrow stuff to her. Are you really okay with this? He meant a lot to you, and obviously it was reciprocated, and now you’ve got this place to remind you of him all the time…’
‘I’m good,’ Cygnus replied, and then frowned and let Penny out, at least vocally. ‘Well, actually I’m not good at all, but I’ll get over it. This place has a lot of memories in it. The vast majority are really good and once I’ve got over the bad one I should be fine.’
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