Dad’s mouth opens and then closes. Maybe it’s the lack of power, or the jeans and t-shirt instead of his Hero suit, but right now my father looks like a little kid. “Don’t look so scared, Dad,” I say. “Yeah, I’m evil. But we already knew that. It doesn’t mean anything.”
Dad swallows. “That’s not what’s worrying me right now.” He stares at his arm, flexing and twisting his depowered limbs.
“What is it?” Max asks.
“Villains are selling Super power as a drug to humans. Power doesn’t grow like pot leaves and it’s not created in a lab. They’re selling power which means they’re getting it from somewhere. And Evan just said it didn’t all come from a villain.”
The gears in Max’s head turn. “Well there’s not exactly mobile blood bank vans that go around asking Supers to donate power.”
Nova raises her hand. We all turn to look at her. “The depowering machine?”
It takes everything in me not to repeat her words all high-pitched while shaking my head, sticking out my tongue and blowing a raspberry at the end. Of course she would think of the depowering machine first. Of course she would.
“It did take your power and some of mine,” I say to Dad, ignoring my know-it-all of a sister. “That would explain why the power is mostly good. What happens to the power after it’s taken?”
“It’s incinerated.” Dad’s eyebrows knit together. “Of course, that usually happens in the machine’s room down in the medical ward. It’s connected to piping that incinerates everything it takes out. But Aurora uprooted the machine and put it in the Atrium for her little stunt.”
I get chills at how casually he speaks of losing his power.
“So the bitch rigged the machine to keep the power and now they’re selling it.”
“Don’t--” Dad begins before waving his hand toward Max. “Never mind. You’re old enough to curse.” He lets out a snort of laughter. “I can’t believe I still think of you as kids.”
Nova smiles and wraps her arms around Dad’s shoulders. He hugs her back, patting her arm in that fatherly way. As if she were always a part of this family and not a newcomer who doesn’t quite fit in yet.
Of course I might be the only person who hasn’t accepted her completely into the family. And I don’t even care how ironic it is that I’m the one who brought her here.
“We need to find who’s currently in charge of the depowering machine and where they put it after they cleaned out the Atrium. Max and I can pull all the security footage and see who handled the machine. Somewhere along the way, someone stole the power from it. We’ll find out who.”
I grind my fist into my palm. “And we’ll make them pay.”
Max shakes his head. “You should let me handle this, Mace. It’s a villain matter and I don’t want you to violate your probation.”
“What? No! I have to do this.” My lungs are tight as I struggle to breathe. “The power they got came from my arm, too. That’s my power they’re selling to humans. I’m responsible for their deaths. Dad, back me up.”
Dad sighs. He’s been doing that a lot lately. He runs his hand over his face. “Central has always been a transparent government. We don’t operate like the humans do, keeping secrets from our citizens and stretching the truth. But everything I’ve stood for has gone to hell in just a few weeks. I’m harboring a wanted villain who is the daughter I had thought was dead, my other daughter has evil DNA and we haven’t told anyone, I’m willingly allowing Evan to lie about his research.” His hands fly up in the air in a gesture of defeat. “I don’t know, guys. I just don’t know.”
“I’ve got this, Dad.” Max stands to his full height which fills the room with his immense presence. Even Evan seems to shrink back under my brother’s sheer intimidation. “I’ll investigate the depowering machine and find a list of all people who have access to it. And I promise you, Maci, I’ll report everything I find back to you. Don’t give me that look!”
I fold my arms over my chest, clenching my teeth together as I glare at my brother to the fullest intensity.
“I’m coming with you,” I say.
“No.”
Dad speaks up. “I trust Maci to handle this herself but I also trust the examiners to uphold their contract. It isn’t worth it, Maci. You will let Max handle this situation.”
I know he’s right but that doesn’t stop my guttural groan of disappointment. At least this time I don’t punch anything.
In the three days that follow, I am called to stop sixteen drug-induced human fights. Eight humans were already dead by the time I arrived on the scene and two more died at local hospitals. The humans have done a decent job of keeping these incidents out of the media but the popularity of these fights haven’t diminished in the slightest.
I’m dying to check in with Max to see what he’s discovered about the depowering machine but Crimson calls me just before I get home.
“We have a lead on Mara Moone,” she says, sending GPS coordinates to my BEEPR while she talks. “Meet me in five.”
The thrill of possibly finding one of the missing Supers almost makes up for my disappointment about delaying my talk with Max. I follow Crimson’s coordinates to a middle class residential wing on the outskirts of Central. Most Supers in King City live underground near Central in these residential neighborhoods. Sometimes the humans complain that we “isolate” ourselves from their species by living underground in the Grand Canyon. But most of the humans (and Supers) prefer it this way.
I recognize the address as the same one from Mara’s files. “What’s going on?” I ask Crimson. “Haven’t we already searched her house?”
“Not well enough.” Crimson holds up a clue the size of a gum wrapper. It is a gum wrapper. I turn it over and read the words handwritten in purple ink: Club Night Wing.
It’s underlined several times in what must have been hard pressed because two of the lines rip into the paper. “What is it?”
“I found it folded into a tiny square and shoved under Mara’s mattress in her bed frame. I researched Club Night Wing and get this--” Crimson taps her BEEPR to mine and a holograph from a website hovers above our faces. I read the tag line under the club’s logo: Club Night Wing is an exclusive hangout for Super-born humans. We accept all species, even if you don’t accept yourself.
“Super-born humans..?” I look to Crimson for an explanation. If they covered this in school, I must have forgotten it. And Supers don’t forget anything.
She shrugs. “I researched it before I called you up here. It’s like a support group for Supers who feel like they should have been born a human instead of one of us. This was in Mara’s room and it’s her handwriting. Maybe she’s been planning to run away for a while. These people might know.”
I scroll through the holograph website trying to absorb as much information as I can. I’ve never even heard of something like this. I thought all Supers loved being a Super. I know I do. My finger hovers in the air over a part of the website. “Well that’s not rude or anything,” I say, pointing to the part in bolded red letters.
No Heroes allowed.
Crimson nods. “I know. How are we going to gain access and ask them about Mara if they’re clearly prejudiced against Heroes?”
“Are you kidding me? We’re going to gain access by walking up to it and opening the door. We’re Heroes and we’ll do whatever the hell we want, especially in regards to finding a minor.”
Crimson’s lips squish to the side of her mouth. “I like the way you think.”
“Someone needs to have an evil thinking ability around here,” I say as I enter the club’s location on my BEEPR. “I’m glad it’s me.”
Contrary to what its name alludes, Club Night Wing isn’t a wild party spot. It’s also not a club. Not in the nightclub sense, anyway. Crimson and I slip into King City’s Public Library unnoticed by everyone except the elderly librarian behind the front counter. She just glances at us through her thick glasses and then turns her attention back toward the Solitaire game o
n her computer screen. The look on her faces seems more like she thinks we’re just a couple of weird cosplaying teenagers and not real Super Heroes. The back of the library has conference rooms and various meeting rooms.
Meeting room three has a dry erase board on the door.
Junk food and Journaling - Mondays, 4PM
Club Night Wing- Tuesday & Thursday + all Super holidays
Crimson glances at her BEEPR. “Good thing it’s Tuesday.”
I push open the heavy wooden door, readying myself for conflict for when they see us dressed in full Hero attire. My enthusiasm for a fight slips away just as soon as I see the room--a circle of empty chairs and a boring maroon rug on the floor.
“Um.” The meek sound comes from a girl sitting cross-legged in the corner of the room, laptop in front of her on the floor. She can’t be more than sixteen years old but her blonde pixie cut hair means she’s not Mara. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Hero Maci Might and this is Hero Crimson Carlow. Are you a member of Club Night Wing?”
She swallows. Nods. Locks her computer screen.
“We’re not here to cause any harm,” Crimson says, walking over to the girl. I swallow back my annoyance and follow. “We’re looking for Mara Moone. It’s an official Hero mission, so I need you to comply. Have you seen her?”
The girl shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”
I pull up the holograph of Mara and set it on the floor, eye level with the girl. “Look familiar?” I ask as the three dimensional projection slowly turns around the holo-disk. Again she says no. Her power fizzles like a flashlight with dying batteries. She has no superior abilities and it’s as if she’s limited her natural-born Super abilities as much as possible. “Why don’t you want to be a Super?” I ask, unable to contain my curiosity.
“You don’t have to answer that,” Crimson says. I roll my eyes but I don’t complain. Our mission is more important than me questioning a troubled teen on why she hates her species. Crimson gives me a sideways glance and I know she’s about to pull a fast one. “Mara’s gone missing and her parents are worried. Are you sure you don’t have any information?”
Mara’s parents are dead and she wasn’t too fond of her foster family. If this girl knows Mara at all, she’ll react as such. Crimson and I lean in, studying the girl’s face. She doesn’t even flinch. “Sorry. I don’t know her.”
“She’s telling the truth,” I mutter, taking a step backward. “This is a dead end.”
Crimson’s BEEPR lights up with a call from my brother. She answers it privately, holding the device to her ear. “Yeah? No. No. Okay. Yeah it didn’t lead to anything. Okay, will do.” She thanks the teenager for her time and turns to leave, ignoring my super offended look of annoyance about her secret call with Max.
When we’re back in the KAPOW, I cross my arms and lift my eyebrows as high as it takes for her to laugh. “It’s nothing, Mace. I promise.”
“If it’s nothing than why can’t you tell me?”
Lights blur past the tiny KAPOW window as we zoom across the nation in our underground tunnels. Crimson’s super-blonde hair seems to glow in the dim lighting. “You’re my best friend,” she says.
I roll my eyes. “Those are just words. They aren’t the words I want to hear. What’s going on with Max? Why did he call you and not me?”
“Well…” her voice gets higher as she speaks. “He’s under the impression that you’re going to get mad at him if you know where he is instead of where you want him to be, so, he’s just kind of...avoiding you?”
“WHAT?” I bolt out of my seat, realizing a little too late that there’s nowhere to go in this pod but right back into the seat cushion. “He’s supposed to be investigating the depowering machine. That’s where he should be. That’s where he better be.”
Crimson stares at her silvery nail polish and gnaws on her bottom lip. “He found some leads about Li Gou that places him in Japan. So Max felt it would be…” she chooses her words carefully, “...more pertinent to look for a missing Super than to pursue the depowering machine. At least for now. He’s still going to do it, Maci, I swear.”
My eyes focus straight ahead at the stainless steel wall panel in front of me, arms crossed so tightly over my chest that my circulation starts to get tingly. Crimson’s power fills with empathy and pity and that only makes my rage grow stronger. “Max promised me he would look into the machine. He said I couldn’t do it because of the stupid villains. He promised.”
“He hasn’t broken his promise.” Crimson’s voice is sharp like she’s speaking to a child. “We protect the humans but we also protect our own. His lead was stronger than the depowering machine lead, you have to understand that.”
“Really? His lead?” As pissed off as I am, I direct my glare at the wall instead of at my best friend. I love her too much to be a jerk to her. “Was it as good as the so-called lead you and I just followed?”
“I’m sorry. Don’t be mad at him. He’s doing what he thinks is best.”
“He doesn’t know what’s best,” I snap, dipping my chin to look at the floor. I’m pouting. I know. I just don’t care.
Her cool fingers touch my bare arm. She’s only two years older than I am but in this moment, she feels a lot older than eighteen. Her power feels wise, caring. Mine is erratic and hungry. “Maci, Heroes have to think with a clear head and make tough decisions when necessary. We don’t follow our hearts, we follow logic. I know you’re mad but please try to see it from his point of view. Not everyone can just rush off making irrational decisions because they feel like it.”
This time when I bolt up, I have somewhere to go. My hand palms the MOD screen and I shout the word STOP. We lurch to a halt in the middle of nowhere, so deep in the underground tunnels that the overhead lights are just a scatter of dusty bulbs hanging from the ceiling.
Crimson’s eyes go wide but she doesn’t say anything. “Thanks for the pep talk,” I say as I yank open the KAPOW pod’s door. “I really wish I could stay and chat longer, but I just made an irrational decision and I need to go take care of that.”
I jump out and take off running before the door has time to snap closed again. Crimson doesn’t follow after me, but I knew she wouldn’t.
Because that wouldn’t be logical.
A sick feeling of nostalgia creeps over me. The medical ward looks almost the same as it did a few weeks ago, all white and clean and sterile and awful. Supers heal instantly. Supers never come to the medical ward unless something very bad has happened. Yet I’ve been here three times, each time worse than the last.
Nurse Martha isn’t behind the front desk like I’d expected. It’s another woman I’ve never seen before. Much younger, with thin wiry hair and by the smell of it, freshly painted nails. She barely glances up from the MOD screen on her desk when I walk in. I give her a quick nod, an Official Hero Business nod, and she returns it then goes back to work.
Memory takes me through the empty halls, turning left and right and then left two more times. My heartbeat speeds up as I near the room with solid glass walls that I first saw on my sixteenth birthday. A deep breath calms me only a little bit; behind those walls lies the one creation that ripped out all of my dad’s power and almost took all of mine. It is a life-ruiner when it falls into the wrong hands.
Aurora’s hands were the worst.
The taste of copper floods over my tongue. I swallow blood. Then release my jaw so it stops gnawing a freaking hole through my lip. Get it together, Maci. You’re a Hero. Stop being nervous.
I mistake the open air for very clean glass at first. I stop in the middle of the hallway, feeling for the first time in a long time, absolutely nothing. Where a wall of glass used to be is now just empty open space. The big room in front of me that used to hold the massive machine that resembled a CAT scanner is now just a room. The floor is carpeted and clean. It’s as if the machine I’m looking for never existed.
But if that were the case, my right arm wouldn’t be a num
b worthless piece of flesh and bone.
Back at the front desk, the nurse doesn’t acknowledge me until I clear my throat. “You work here?” I ask. She looks up and nods. “Well act like it.”
“We don’t have any patients today,” she says, straightening her spine when she notices the black and white Hero suit I’m wearing. “Um, are you..?” The distinct smell of fear empties out of her pores and although I shouldn’t be so smugly satisfied, I am. I smile. “I’m Hero Maci Might.”
“I’msosorry.” Her words rush out all at once as she jumps from her chair, smoothing her hair down at the sides. “My name is Casey. What can I do for you? Do you need someone?”
“Something, actually.” My thumb points to the right and I almost laugh at the irony of using my depowered hand to point for the atrocity that took the power from it. “The depowering machine is gone. Where is it?”
“Um...I don’t, I don’t know.”
I lift an eyebrow. Her eyes flicker from her MOD screen to the phone and back. “Do you want me to ask someone?”
“Who would you ask?”
“I don’t know. I’m new. I do know that they moved pretty much everything out of here, to other floors. It’s all classified now.”
“Then what is this floor for?” I ask, annoyed that the Heroes weren’t made aware of this change.
“It’s for recovering patients. But we don’t have any right now.”
I feel like smashing my good fist through something but I take a deep breath and think about how my brother would handle this situation. “Okay fine,” I say with a sigh. “Call someone and ask.”
Her fingers fly over the MOD screen until it lights up in a call. Another white-uniformed Super answers, his face appearing in the tiny square on the desk screen. Casey explains that she has a Hero asking for the depowering machine and needs to know where it is. The man on the other end runs a hand over his sandy blond hair and shrugs. “It was moved somewhere confidential. That’s all I know.”
Overpowered (Powered Trilogy #2) Page 11