She opened and shut her mouth a few times. “The governor wants this? Really?”
Shell appeared on her living-space TV. “Are you kidding? He wants it like his hope of salvation! His decision to keep all Illinois CAI capes in-state for the duration is already polling as the most unpopular move he’s ever made! Most of the public thinks he left you no choice but to violate his order! He rescinded it less than twenty-four hours after you left—and doing something to make up for it is the only shot he has at getting reelected next year.”
“What she said,” he confirmed. “However, Shell, do this while I’m not here and you’ll be violating the terms of her house-arrest.”
“Bite me.” But the screen went dark.
“Blackstone’s directed that all electronic communications be recorded and infractions of the terms reported,” he told Hope, completely deadpan and glad he was wearing his tactical shades. “Outside of that your privacy will be respected of course. But you know this will mean termination of your membership in the Chicago Sentinels. The charter requires State Guard membership.”
She looked sick, but nodded. “Do you remember being twelve? When ‘That’s not fair,’ was pretty much central to every thought? Boys were in there too, somewhere. And capes.”
He chuckled. “I vaguely remember.”
“Well I grew out of the ‘That’s not fair!’ stage before my breakthrough. Atlas always said, ‘You’ve got to know where you stand, and then you’ve got to stand there.’ He wasn’t big on words, but he knew the important ones. I knew where I stood and what it meant when I left.” She didn’t look defiant. Just sad.
What a shit-show.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Article 86-10
a. Text. “Any member of the armed forces who, without authority—
(1) fails to go to his appointed place of duty at the time prescribed;
(2) goes from that place; or
(3) absents himself or remains absent from his unit, organization, or place of duty at which he is required to be at the time prescribed; shall be punished as a court-martial may direct
Hope woke up the next morning when she rolled over and her hand smacked something that shouldn’t have been there.
She opened her eyes.
It wasn’t Kitsune. “Shell?”
Her BF appeared wearing a pair of orange pajamas that read Property of the State of Illinois. “Now that’s different.”
“Isn’t it a little early for pranks?” Hope pushed hair out of her eyes. “Or are you making a statement?”
“I didn’t do it, I swear. Annnd I just checked the security logs.”
“And? It couldn’t have been one of the GI Juniors outside my door. No way they could carry it.”
“Also, they can’t come in,” Shell agreed distractedly. “Also, no access to The Pit.”
Hope squinted at her friend. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“This. Watch.” Shell created a virtual screen at the foot of the bed. It showed Vulcan’s lab, Joyeuse sitting on a table surrounded by all sorts of unnamable science stuff. Then it wasn’t there anymore. “And this.” An image of Hope’s bedroom, and her, sound asleep. Her hair was a mess.
“Hey!”
“Don’t spaz, it’s the secure-circuit system. Erases after six hours, nobody sees it unless something happens that needs to be seen.”
“Like what?”
“Like this.” And Joyeuse occupied the bed with her. “Now that’s just creepy.”
Hope groaned, covering her face. “I’m breaking the terms of my house-arrest. This is great.”
“What’s freaking me out is it didn’t set off any alarms. The whole Dome is wired for teleport-detection. Should have set it off both places.”
“This is great,” Hope repeated. “What am I going to do?”
“Shelly says use your Changing Ring to tuck it away. Do it now—she wants to check something.”
Hope didn’t ask. Pulling down her sleep-tee—Shell’s assurances were great, but it would be her luck if an investigation required review of these minutes—she swung her legs out of bed and stood up before turning her ring. She’d changed into a fresh costume after showering last night out of habit, and the skirt settled around her hips in a flash, the restraint of the armor pulling her back straight. Breastplates were great for posture.
Reaching across her rumpled bed, she grabbed up Joyeuse and brandished it in the direction of the camera before twisting the ring again to change back to her sleepwear. “Okay, now what?”
“Now wish really really hard that you have it in your hand.”
“Oh, come on—really?”
“Really.”
Hope sighed loudly, held out her hand and pictured Joyeuse in it. And it was. She almost dropped it. “Oh, come on!”
Hope had Shell fill Blackstone in after ring-changing Joyeuse away again; she thought of just dropping it in her closet, for about a second, before imagining it deciding to join her somewhere in public. Like at court.
Eeep. No.
The rest of the morning had all the ritual of a kabuki theater performance. Hope sat through a stilted legal consultation with Tommy, and got her “one phone call” with her mom—Ann-Marie Corrigan was back in town and Doing Good. Then she and her entourage went to Daley Plaza.
The attack had damaged the Daley Center, but only in its upper floors and the ISG had requisitioned one of the courtrooms for the performance—lots of room inside the courtroom for an audience, outside the courtroom for photographers and press.
Tommy had told her they’d already initiated the probable cause hearing required under Article 32—it wasn’t like the evidence for the charge had required much time or effort to gather—and since she’d already opted to plead guilty there’d been no need for the Adjutant General to select a panel of officers, only a single officer sitting in judgement.
Her court martial took less than fifteen minutes.
Colonel Waters, the senior officer sworn in as judge for her court martial, read forth the charges against her, accepted her plea, and rendered the sentence: a dishonorable discharge and ten years imprisonment. As gasps echoed through the courtroom, the governor’s representative stood and, with the permission of the court, read off the prepared pardon for “gratitude for great service rendered,” and the direction of clemency and a “full and honorable discharge from her service.”
The concurrence of the court, the bang of a hammer, and that was it.
Hope politely brushed aside every request for comment on her way out; honestly, she didn’t know what she’d say if she opened her mouth. Shell babbled in her ear but nothing stuck, low-priority to the echoing thought that she wasn’t a Sentinel anymore.
What do I do now?
The captain announced their approach to O’Hare International Airport and Shelly buckled her seatbelt without breaking her quantum-gestalt with Shell. Shell/Shelly watched the gavel fall on the US Congress’s formal declaration of war “upon the Ascendant, the Green Man, such persons who materially aid them, and such nations as physically shield them, also directing the President of the United States to issue such Letters of Marque and Reprisal as necessary to supplement national military efforts.”
They smiled. Game/freaking/on.
“I’m calling it ‘flatinum,’” Vulcan said distractedly, without looking up from the series of modules he had open on his workstation.
“Flatinum.” Hope had gone down to The Pit while Shell did the packing upstairs with three Galateas. It was like her BF was reading her mind.
“Flatinum. It’s a tool for flattening things. Mass-density measurement confirms it’s what your angel advertised. It’s denser than osmium, more than double your old weight. I didn’t test durability, but spectroscopic and chemical analysis of whatever it is confirms it’s probably as durable as advertised. It’s not conductive to electricity, and it’s completely non-ferrous. I stopped there.”
Hope nodded. “Thanks? And Vulcan? Thanks for t
aking such good care of Shell.”
The man swept his tangled rats-nest of hair aside, finally looking at her. “She’s not going anywhere, is she? I mean, she’s—” He wiggled fingers about in a way that said all over.
“No. . . .”
“So you’re going to be hanging out all the time.” He lunged at another table, grabbed something she hadn’t had time to examine, threw it at her. She caught it. “New helmet. No place for the wig, but it’s got more coverage and a built in Head’s-Up-Display—Shell will be able to feed you visuals when your quantum-thing is down if she still has radio contact. Now get out, I’ve got to finish this.” He turned away, shutting her out of his world.
Hope turned it over in her hands, tapping the thick “glass” in the eye slits. It looked kind of like Ajax’s old vaguely-Greek helmet design. Nobody’d be able to see her face, it wouldn’t be something she’d wear at press-conferences. On the other hand, it might make her look a little more intimidating in a fight. . . .
She went back up to her room to find Shell using a Galatea-shell to pack up the last of her personal stuff. “You know they’re going to throw you a sorry-you’re-leaving party as soon as the dust settles, right?” her BF asked.
“And I’ll be here for it, I just—”
“Yeah, I get it. This isn’t your place now. Let’s go.” She picked up two boxes big enough she could barely see over them, and only then did Hope realize she was wearing the gynoid drone-bot shell she’d taken down to Littleton for lakeside sunbathing. Shell grinned. “It arrived with the rest while you were downstairs. Come on.”
Mystified, Hope grabbed the other two boxes and followed her. Shell took her up the elevator and through the below-ground lobby past Bob’s station, and out through the long tunnel to the underground garage across Michigan Avenue on Wabash and Jackson.
Hope knew where they were going. After getting outed as Astra she’d rarely used the condo apartment her mom and dad had bought for her in Boyd Tower. It had just been an awesome party-site. Boyd Tower rose over the Metropolitan Tower on Michigan Avenue, giving the bay windows of her condo apartment a great view of the Dome, Buckingham Fountain, and Lake Michigan.
After she’d been outed, she’d gotten permission from the building owners to install a window exit so she wouldn’t need to race up the last few flights to the roof to leave in an emergency. It hadn’t been hard to do; post-Event a lot of taller buildings were installing upper level entries for emergencies. She’d never used it, though.
Not being an idiot, Hope figured out what had Shell excited before she opened the door to her apartment, so she didn’t drop anything at the “Welcome home!” shouted at her from all sides of her living room. Dane and the Bees had come back with the Shell-shell. And Shelly.
Hope got the boxes out of her hands before Shelly crashed into her and held on. Shell ruffled the hair on her shorter “twin’s” head, earning a swat. Hope skipped over the obvious stuff—Why is everyone here? Duh. “Thanks for coming back, everyone.”
Dane shrugged. “Shelly thought you’d need the moral support. And Littleton was boring.”
“The others are still getting here from Europe,” Shell said—others obviously meaning Jacky—“and Mal and Jamal are still in the hospital.”
“So where’s—” Hope looked around, spotting Kindrake lounging on the couch eclipsed by Dane’s broad frame.
“Hi.” The girl waved nervously and Hope stopped herself from rolling her eyes.
At least she doesn’t look too broken up over hearing about Ceres. But then the girl had been a Hollywood Knight for less than a year before coming to Chicago and Ceres was older. “Thanks for coming, Ellie.”
“I heard about the view. Nice place.”
“Jacky’s plane’s landing soon,” Shelly said. “She’s coming right here and Shell’s getting Mal and Jamal on the screen when she does.”
“Guys . . .”
“Don’t go soppy on us,” Megan smirked. “We’ll have to kick your ass.”
“Thank you. Everybody.”
Shelly leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Kitsune will be here tonight. He had something he needed to do for me.”
Eric didn’t get many visitors. He didn’t blame anybody; the Detroit Supermax had so many security layers it took an hour for a civilian to get from the first gate to the hardened Visitor’s Block if they were lucky. He’d never met this girl. The smartly dressed Asian redhead looked like an attorney-type, but her smile was warm and un-shark like. He’d been told he was meeting a Rei Miyamoto from the State Department, but she didn’t look like a Washington gun either.
Rei Miyamoto. Nice name. He shifted in his seat, careful to stay on the edge of his side of the wide metal table. His Blacklock shackles clinked, but she didn’t flinch. “Thank you for seeing me, Mister Ludlow.”
“I don’t see many outside faces, ma’am.”
“No, I imagine not. I’m told Astra visits regularly?”
He squinted at her. “Once a month. Nice kid.” And that was all he was going to say to someone he didn’t know. “Why?”
The woman set a cellphone on the table beside her. “Agent Veritas, you’re there?”
“Quite here.”
“Good. Tell me Mister Ludlow, you’ve had a lot of time to think and discuss things with your assigned psychiatrist, how do you feel about The Ascendant today? Would you be willing to assist Astra?”
And there was the shark smile. “Your country, too. We’re forming a line.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“History doesn’t tell you Joyeuse Guard was founded over pizza and bottles and bottles of soda around Hope Corrigan’s kitchen table. But there’s a lot that history doesn’t tell you.”
Power Chick
Blackstone called not long after Ozma and Brian joined the party, and Hope took it on her bedroom TV. She’d expected him to not let her out of the Dome before a visit in his office. She’d expected him to be at the court martial, but Shell’d told her the commander chosen to preside had ruled out all but her counsel in the courtroom. And Quin had decided that the less exposure other members of the team had to the press outside the better.
Something about not wanting any of them to get goaded into saying what they thought of the shit-show.
The older gentleman kept it brief, only making her departure from the team—with all honor—official. If his eyes were a little shiny, Hope’s were too and they both ignored it. He’d held her once before when she’d completely fallen apart, and he didn’t ask how she was doing now because he knew. She listened without processing until a word caught her ear. “What?”
“I said I’m proud of you, Hope. I couldn’t be prouder. This throws a monkey-wrench into my plans, but you couldn’t have done other than you did. Nor is this the end of it. I’ll let you get on with it, but stop by my office when you can. Please.”
“Thanks.” She nodded spastically. “I will.”
“Good. And—for God’s sake, Hope—please be careful.”
Hope stared at the blank screen, shook herself. That certainly killed any impulse she had to wallow. “Shell, what’s going on?”
“Now that the gang’s all here—minus the ones still out sick—it’s time to find out.” Her BF sounded totally uncharacteristically subdued. “Dane and the Bees have left with virtual hugs and kisses. Julie says ‘Don’t get stupid.’”
“Don’t—Shell!” It actually took a moment for Hope to work up the nerve to open her bedroom door; what was she going to find out there?
What she found was Shelly’d taken over her kitchen/dining room space, expanded her dining table with every leaf insert it had, and thrown a rollup touchscreen down on it. Every active-duty Young Sentinel plus Artemis stood around it, Shelly at the head.
“Duh duh duh!” Shell intoned dramatically. “We need movie music.”
“Don’t you dare.”
Five minutes later Hope looked up from the screen. “Shelly, you’re talking about mounting a major mi
litary operation. Out of this apartment!”
“No, I’m talking about a surgical strike with overwhelming force, with the superhuman powers in this apartment—plus a bench I’ve put together with Kitsune’s help. They’re all on their way.”
“Who?” All heads turned to Shelly.
“Sifu. Iron Jack. Sif. Eric Ludlow. Morrigan. Kukkuu. Malmsturm.”
“Why them?”
“The Europeans are free-agents and they all have an axe to grind. Kukkuu is the closest to being a national agent, and her military commission allows for ‘contract work.’ Morrigan is a Heroes Without Borders cape, and Malmsturm is a vigilante. Sif—you haven’t met yet but we need her— is a CAI cape but her state allows outside contracts. Sifu and Iron Jack are reserve Sentinels, their State Guard commissions are only active when they are and they both went inactive this morning. This might stress some professional relationships a bit, but it’s never been tested. They’ll be fine.”
“So,” Hope said and all heads turned back to her, “to be clear, you’re talking about creating a new team from scratch and using it to invade another country. If you know where the bad guys are, the government knows where they are. Congress has declared war. What about our own super-soldiers?”
Everyone turned back.
“It’s politics. We know where they are—sort of and we’ll know more, fast—and they’re on the soil of a country very unfriendly to us right now. If the US Military goes in after them, it’s a national military force invading a sovereign state. A sovereign state armed with nukes and superhumans of its own. But we have this.” Shelly dropped a courier case on the table, opened it and withdrew a sealed letter. She cracked the seal before Hope could get a look at it, cleared her throat.
Repercussions (Wearing the Cape Book 8) Page 23