Shades of Gray

by Jackie Kessler; Caitlin Kittredge

  “A normal life?” Iridium screamed. She stood up, hurling a strobe of her own at her father. He batted it aside, hissing as it burned his hand.

  She could do the same to his strobes. They’d be at this until one of them got tired. Or died.

  STOP it!

  “You call the life you gave me normal?” she shouted. It was more than distraction, now. What Lester had said was too close to the bone to be only Hypnotic’s doing. “I had a father I never saw, a father who got himself carted away to prison when I was a tiny girl and left me with nothing but the privilege of being the daughter of a rabid! You left me alone, Dad! You left me!”

  She flung another strobe, and Lester didn’t bat this one away. He sat down hard, blinking the stars from his eyes.

  “Yeah, you gave me everything a daughter could ask for,” Iridium snarled. “Thanks for fucking nothing, Daddy.”

  Lester could have blocked her final strobe, but he didn’t. He just stared at her, the pain in his face nearly crumbling the wall around Iridium’s heart. For a moment, she thought Hypnotic’s hold had loosened. But then his expression twisted.

  “You never did know your place, girl.”

  Iridium didn’t reply. She released her strobe, and Arclight fell back, unconscious.

  She swiped away her tears before anyone saw, pretended they were only from the unbearable brightness of her power and not for her father, lying cold and still on the floor.

  JET

  Jet turned again, slowly this time, her hands twitching. From elsewhere in the building, something crashed heavily to the floor. She tensed, debating whether to go back to help the others. In the mirrors, Doctor Hypnotic had put his hands on her shoulders. Jet couldn’t tell if she really felt gentle pressure near her neck, massaging away the tension, or if it was all in her mind.

  “Please,” he said. “Come in.”

  Lifting her chin, she stepped into the room. As soon as she cleared the door, it shut behind her, locking with a soft click. “Nice trick,” she said, keeping her panic at bay. She still didn’t see him.

  “Once my power touches you,” he said, “you’re mine anytime I wish it. You’re under my power, Joan. You have been since we first talked all those days ago.”

  “That sounds like something out of a cheesy suspense vid.” Iri would have been proud of her quip.

  The lighting dimmed so that all she could see were the dozens of mirrors, all of them reflecting her and Hypnotic … whose hands were moving lower on her body.

  “Stop that,” Jet said, resisting the urge to slap at her breasts. His hands weren’t really on her. They weren’t.

  “Of course,” he murmured in her ear.

  She refused to react to his presumed nearness. Either he was there or he wasn’t. She smelled a whiff of musk and sweat, a completely masculine smell that made her light-headed.

  In the mirrors, his hands went back to her shoulders. Possessive. “I love what you’ve done to your hair,” he said, sounding pleased. His reflection stroked the loose tail of her blond hair, his long fingers entwining strands of gold.

  Not real, she told herself. Speaking to the mirror directly before her, she said, “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Entrance innocents, putting them in hospitals.”

  “But Joan, that had been your idea.”

  The audacity of his words hit her like ice water.

  “Don’t you remember? You said I could help make a difference.” His reflection smiled broadly. It was a good smile. “And so I have. I send my power out, and it gives each mind it touches its own version of paradise. Those people aren’t unhappy, Joan. Far from it.”

  “No, they’re just stripped of their free will.”

  “A small price to pay for paradise.”

  She wanted to tell him he was wrong, that the price was much too great. But that wouldn’t reach him. So instead, she fed his ego. “How are you doing it? A device to amplify your ability?”

  The smile gave way to bemused laughter. “No, Joan. That’s just me. Oh,” he said, perhaps in answer to Jet’s gasp of surprise, “even I’m not strong enough to broadcast widely for very long. And then it takes me the better part of a day to recharge enough to send out another signal. The mind is willing,” he said, grinning, “but the body is weak. For now. After I rest, my strength will be greater. And then I can travel the Americas, giving everyone, human and extrahuman alike, their own personal utopia. Think of it, Joan!”

  She did, and it made her want to vomit.

  “But don’t you see?” she said, a note of desperation in her voice. “It’s not utopia. You’re stealing their lives. You’re making it impossible for them to make this world, the real world, a better place.”

  “Because they’ve done such a marvelous job of it already,” he said, his mouth twisting into a sneer. “They pollute the sky and land. They attack each other with words and fists. I may be stealing their lives, Joan, but they’ve been stealing from one another for centuries! Money. Power. Love,” he said, his voice breaking. “They steal, and they don’t care who they hurt.”

  “That’s not everyone,” she said. “Some, yes. But not all.”

  “There are only two kinds of people, Joan. Those who steal from others, and those who’ve had things, people, stolen from them. They stole your mother, Joan.”

  In the mirror, Jet and Hypnotic disappeared. In their place was a woman a little smaller than Jet, wearing a sparkling white skinsuit and flowing cape, her sunlit hair playful around her face. She had a breathtaking smile.

  Her mother.

  No. Jet’s fists clenched so hard her hands shook. Not real.

  “They stole your love.”

  Next to Angelica, Samson appeared, so big and broad and full of life.

  Jet squeezed her eyes closed, turned her head away. “Stop it.”

  “I didn’t take them from you,” Hypnotic said. “But I can give them back to you. Why wouldn’t you want that?”

  Her voice a whisper, she said, “Because it’s not real.”

  Hands on her shoulders, turning her around slowly. “Honey,” a silky voice said, one that made her tingle, “I can make it so real that you’d never know there’d been anything else.”

  She opened her eyes and saw Bruce Hunter standing before her, hugging her, his bright blue eyes wicked, his sensual lips set in a hungry smile. His hands flowed over her back, pulled her close.

  “Holly,” he murmured, leaning down as if to kiss her. “I’ve missed you so.”

  No.

  Her power sprang to life, flowing through her and around him, wrapping him in a lover’s embrace. She squirmed out of his grip and stepped backward, watching as the Shadow lulled him. She raised a shaking hand to her mouth. Her mother and Sam were dead, and Light, she missed them so. But having Bruce—not Taser with his smug, hidden grins and cocksure attitude, but Bruce Hunter, the man she’d taken to her bed—so close to her had almost been her undoing.

  Hormones really were going to be the death of her.

  The Shadow-wrapped man collapsed to his knees and slowly fell to the floor. She called her power back, touching one of her belt pouches to take out a pair of stun-cuffs.

  As the Shadow seeped into her, she realized that she hadn’t felt Hal’s light—that she’d blanketed him, but she hadn’t sensed the man beneath the Shadow.

  A crushing pain in her back, a blow that sent her to her knees.

  “That,” Doctor Hypnotic said, “was incredibly rude. And after I’ve done such nice things for you.”

  She rolled and came up on her feet, her power pulsing through her. “I told you before, Hypnotic. I’m duty-bound to this world. The real world. You can’t buy me with your version of paradise.”

  A smile crept over his mouth. “Maybe I should unlock the Shadow voices once more. Let them whisper to you and steal your soul.”

  She froze.

  “What do you say, Jet? Shall I let you go crazy again?”


  She allowed herself a moment to enjoy the feeling of the Shadow working its way through her without the struggle to hold on to her sanity. “So be it,” she whispered.

  And then she leveled a Shadowbolt at him, hitting him square in the chest. He flew backward and hit the wall—went through the wall, stopping only when he hit another wall, one Jet hadn’t been able to see until just now. They’d been in the front lobby the entire time, somehow avoiding the other extrahumans in their duels and battles. Even now, the others didn’t seem real—they were ghostlike, walking dreams that warred with one another.

  Nice trick.

  Hypnotic was already pulling himself up, still smiling at her. “Your mother would be proud of you, Jet. And so would your father.”

  In her mind, the cell holding the Shadow voices evaporated. And the Shadow let out an ecstatic roar.

  little girl little Joan missed you missed you so very much …

  Adrenaline and rage and fear warring within her, Jet snarled as she hit him with another burst of Shadow.

  IRIDIUM

  After she’d given herself a few seconds to collect her emotions, cage them up, and tamp them down, Iridium turned to help Taser. He and a rabid—Gaslight, Iridium thought—were circling each other warily, until finally the petite heroine blinked. “Dude. Who the hell are you, and why do you have on that stupid mask?”

  “Taser, is she …”

  “She’s in her right mind.” Behind her, someone put a massive hand on Iridium’s shoulder. She turned to see Protean looming there, smiling. “As are we all.”

  Iridium felt herself physically sag with relief. Protean gripped her, holding her up. In her ear, he murmured, “See to your father.”

  “We still got a problem here,” Taser said. He ducked a cloud of noxious poison from Gaslight. “These guys aren’t our friends!”

  “Burn in hell, Corp puppets!” Gaslight screamed. The dozen other rabids in the room all turned on the small knot of allies.

  “Oh, bollocks,” Kindle said.

  Peripherally, Iridium saw Nevermore take flight, saw Lionheart shift into his cat form. Next to her, Protean curled his fists.

  “Everyone take a rabid,” Iridium barked. “Subdue, don’t kill.”

  “Speak for yourself, Princess!” Nevermore screeched. She and Freefall were engaged in a midair tussle, Freefall’s antigravity field making Nevermore sway drunkenly as she fought to keep aloft.

  Iridium herself went to ground under the onslaught of Knife, his steel fingernails slashing the air where her face had been.

  Protean grabbed him and flung him into the far wall, but the Judge swung his massive gavel. Protean joined Iridium on the ground, dodging the blow.

  “Get your father to safety,” he said, pointing to where Arclight lay in the midst of the tussling extrahumans.

  Before Iridium could move, Sonic Scream opened his mouth and unleashed a wave of sound. Iridium hit the ground for a second time, cradling her head in her arms to keep her eardrums from rupturing.

  “This isn’t working!” she screamed at Protean.

  He just shook his head … he couldn’t hear anything in the onslaught of sound.

  Well, the douche bag had to run out of breath sometime.

  Iridium tossed a strobe at a lizardlike rabid who was sneaking up on Lionheart, then another at Freefall as he and Nevermore tumbled back to ground.

  The rabids shied away from her strobes, gathering like a Roman legion in the corner of the lobby.

  Iridium grabbed Kindle by the shoulder. “I have an idea!” she shouted, hoping he could read lips. She snapped a finger at the rabids, used her other hand to shape a cage.

  Kindle nodded and pantomimed getting the rabids closer together.

  “Lionheart! Protean!” she bellowed, flinging another strobe as Creeper started to stretch out and sneak toward her from the group.

  The heroes caught on, and Lionheart bounded around the group, nipping at their heels. Protean simply picked up anyone not already in the corner and threw them like they were luggage on an international flight.

  Dry heat swept Iridium’s face as all of the moisture evaporated from the air, the precursor to Kindle’s pyrokinesis. The Irishman furrowed his brow, and a spot of flame appeared, hanging in midair like a tiny sun.

  Sonic Scream’s sound wall fell as Protean punched him in the gut.

  “Get clear!” Iridium shouted in the silence. “Get out of the way!”

  With a whoosh and a roar of displaced oxygen, Kindle’s fire cage sprang into being, like a vision or a mirage of the most beautiful oasis Iridium had ever seen.

  She rubbed her pounding head. “Thank Christo for small favors.”

  Protean, Lionheart, and Nevermore formed up around Kindle as he stood with his hands out, sweat beading on his forehead. “You all right?” Nevermore said. She actually sounded like she cared.

  Well, Kindle was sort of cute. If you were into old guys.

  “Be fine,” he gritted. “Just don’t break me concentration.”

  Iridium knelt next to Lester and slapped his face gently. “Dad.”

  After a moment he opened his eyes, and groaned. “Bloody hell, Calista. You strobed me.”

  “I had to,” Iridium said crisply. “Only way to break Hypnotic’s hold.”

  “Callie.” He caught her hand. “You have to know I had no control over what I was saying. Seeing. You have to know I didn’t mean any of it, girl.”

  Iridium looked at his hand on hers, his eyes, which were clear and warm once again. But those words were still there, ugly, hanging over her head.

  “Bloody hell, Callie. Say something.”

  “You already said it.” Iridium pulled away and helped him up. “We need containment, backup, and crowd control before—”

  There was a massive crash, scattering the group of Blackbird inmates.

  From nowhere, Doctor Hypnotic suddenly appeared, groaning as he sat up. Iridium saw Jet nearby, her fists clenched, Shadows leaking between her fingers.

  Protean, Lionheart, and Nevermore scattered from Hypnotic like he was radioactive. As they scampered, Jet slowly approached him, Shadows writhing around her.

  “Impressive, Joan,” Hypnotic slurred. He pulled himself up, swaying like a drunk, and a deep gash in his forehead spoke to a concussion. “But can you keep the whispers away long enough to finish me?”

  Jet hesitated.

  “Just what I thought.” Hypnotic purred. “You can’t do it. You know what’s inside you and you’ll never let it out. The Darkness has its teeth in you, Joan, and it’s consuming.”

  Jet’s forehead furrowed. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

  Iridium stepped up beside Jet. “What are you waiting for?” she murmured. “Finish him off.”

  “He …” Jet let her hand drop. “He took away my Shadow. It was … it was …”

  “Wonderful,” Hypnotic purred.

  Iridium felt a strobe grow reflexively. “You shut up.”

  “I don’t have to say a thing,” Hal said. “Joan’s a prisoner of her power.”

  Iridium looked away from him, trying to block out that smooth tone, that seductive voice that could give her anything she ever wanted. “No, Joan,” she said softly. “He’s lying to you.”

  Twin tears worked their way down Jet’s face. “We can’t beat him.”

  “I can’t,” Iridium said softly. She put her hand on Joan’s shoulder. “But you can.”

  Jet shivered under her touch.

  Iridium put a little light heat into her grip. “You don’t have darkness inside you, Joannie,” she whispered. “You have bright, beautiful things. I know.”

  Jet sniffed hard. “How do you know?”

  Iridium sensed Hypnotic looming closer, and she tightened her grip. “Because I know you, Joan. I know you.”

  Iridium turned, and before she even thought about it, she released the heat in the hand that had been holding Jet. Jet’s creeper hit Hypnotic at the same time.

  “You t
hink that’ll stop me?” he bellowed, staggering. “Nothing stops me! I’m Doctor Hypnotic!”

  Iridium strobed him again, and Jet’s Shadow creepers grew ravenous.

  “Christo,” Jet said tiredly. “Shut up, will you?”

  Hypnotic crumpled to the ground.

  Iridium kept strobing him, and realized she was screaming. She didn’t care, didn’t stop hurting the monster who’d taken her mind and now her family from her.

  Gloved hands pulled her away and Taser wrapped his arms around her, making her still.

  “It’s over,” Taser whispered. “Callie, stop.”

  Iridium felt his heart beating under his Kevlar, the rapid rhythm in time with her own.

  “Callie? Can I let you go?”

  Iridium forced herself to breathe. She looked at Hypnotic’s bloody, still form on the floor and nodded, slowly and shakily. “It’s over.”

  JET

  Sighing, Jet stared at the fallen man. Doctor Hypnotic looked so old, lying there on the floor. So helpless. Difficult to imagine he’d entranced hundreds of people … or that decades ago, he’d caused the deaths of hundreds more, scarred the minds of thousands.

  scars and screams and sweet sweet sounds …

  She clenched her fist. Shut up!

  The voices giggled, and receded. For now.

  “Well,” Taser said. “That’s a big win, yeah?”

  Someone brushed past Jet, nearly pushing her off her feet. Rubbing her bruised arm, Jet glowered at Arclight, who knelt and inspected Hypnotic’s face. He was silent for a long moment, then he spat on the unconscious man’s cheek.

  “Hey,” Jet said, affronted.

  “Don’t you ‘Hey’ me, little girl. You don’t know what he made me see.” Arclight sneered at Hypnotic’s crumpled form before he pulled himself up to his full height.

  “He’s sick,” Jet said quietly, only somewhat surprised that she was making excuses for one of the most feared supervillains in recent history. “He needs help.”

  Arclight laughed, the sound harsh and cruel. “He needs a bullet through the brain.”