After the Golden Age

by Carrie Vaughn

  After the newspaper and a cup of coffee, and after changing into jeans and a sweater, Celia went to the guest room where Analise slept. She knocked, listened, heard nothing. Softly, she opened the door. Inside, the lights were off, the curtains drawn.

  She crept into the room, opened the curtains, and put a chair by the bed, to sit and wait.

  Once the room grew light, Analise turned, stretched, and hissed in pain. She touched her bandaged shoulder and opened her eyes.

  “Hi,” Celia said.

  Analise rubbed her face, then pulled off her mask and threw it aside. She lay back on the pillows, staring past Celia’s shoulder to the far wall.

  Celia could sit there all day, watching her friend, waiting for her to say something, but Analise didn’t look like she was ready to talk.

  “I brought you some clothes to change into. There’s coffee and bagels in the kitchen,” Celia said. “I can clear the place out, if you don’t want to see anyone. Or you can sleep all day. Or something.”

  Analise was stubborn. She was just as capable of lying there, silent, as Celia was of sitting there. More than anything, though, Celia hadn’t wanted her to wake up alone in a strange place after all that had happened. Typhoon didn’t have a team like the Olympiad to back her up, or to pick up the pieces.

  “Mentis,” Analise said finally. “I could feel him in my mind, shutting me down.”

  “He thought it was best. He didn’t want you to panic.”

  “He had no right.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  Analise bit her lip and rolled to her side, so that Celia had even less chance of looking her in the eyes. She’s going to crawl into a hole and never come out.

  “He knows who I am. What am I going to do, Celia?”

  Two rooms over, some eight years ago, Celia had woken up in her bed the morning after the Destructor had abandoned her, after her throw-down, screaming argument with her father. She wouldn’t let either of her parents approach her, and Celia remembered the profound look of hurt on Suzanne’s face, the reddening that meant tears were on the way. Celia couldn’t have hurt her mother more if she’d stabbed her in the gut and wrenched the knife. Mentis and Robbie had had to corner her, calm her down, and take her home themselves, where the telepath had finally made her sleep.

  Convenient, being able to knock out anybody you had a problem with at the moment.

  She’d woken up and asked herself, What am I going to do?

  After Appleton arrested, then released her, she’d ended up packing a duffel bag and going to a homeless shelter.

  To Analise she said, “You take it one day at a time. You move on.”

  “But what I did—”

  “One day at a time, Analise. My parents will probably let you stay here as long as you need to. This is all part of something bigger. We’re trying to clear it up.”

  “We? You a hero now? You going to help save the world?” She smirked bitterly.

  “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything. It’s down the hall.”

  Analise stared at the wall, eyes closed, hand on her forehead.

  Her mother was alone at the table when Celia returned to the kitchen. She held a mug of coffee in both hands and pretended to read the paper.

  “How long? You and Arthur, I mean,” Suzanne said.

  Slowly, Celia took a seat and tried to catch her mother’s gaze, but Suzanne wasn’t looking up.

  “Not long,” she said. It wasn’t her mother’s business. It wasn’t anyone’s business. She resented the need to defend this. If he had been anyone else, some stranger she could have invited over for dinner, Suzanne would have been ecstatic.

  “I know you’re both consenting adults, and I shouldn’t say anything, but … but it’s very strange. He’s known you since you were young.”

  “I know,” Celia said, looking away. She hadn’t realized how securely she’d locked her old life away, that it took effort to dredge up those memories now. That it was like she’d died and become someone else. “After I went away, though … I came back, and everything was different. Everything.” That was all she could think to say. Her only explanation.

  Finally, Suzanne looked up. She was smiling. “I still see the little girl in braids and a white dress. I’m sorry, I always will.” She quickly brushed away tears.

  Celia’s throat closed up. God, now Suzanne had her doing it. If she opened her mouth, she might burst. So she came around the table to Suzanne, knelt by her, and gathered her into a hug. Suzanne needed it, and it didn’t cost Celia anything.

  “He’s the only person who sees me for what I am, Mom,” Celia whispered. Suzanne squeezed harder.

  Someone cleared her throat.

  Analise stood in the kitchen, her gaze on her feet. She wore the T-shirt and sweatpants borrowed from Celia and carried a wadded-up mess of blue fabric in her hands—her costume and mask.

  “Oh!” Suzanne said, recognition dawning. “Oh my—can I get you some coffee? Analise, isn’t it?”

  Analise nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Celia pulled out a chair and made her friend sit. “You decided to get out of bed.”

  “Had to sometime.”

  “Without the mask.”

  “I don’t think I can do that anymore.” She dropped the costume on the table and grimaced at it.

  She’s going to give it up, Celia realized. The idea of it seemed wrong, out of alignment with the rest of the universe. She couldn’t give it up; she was the next generation the Hawk was talking about. Wasn’t she?

  “Celia, you knew all along, didn’t you? That Typhoon, and she—”

  “Yeah,” Celia said.

  Handing Analise a cup of coffee, Suzanne said, “I have to ask: How on earth did you two meet?”

  “By accident,” Celia said. “It turns out I have a knack for recognizing supers without their masks. God knows how that happened.”

  Analise gripped her mug with both hands, as if it were an anchor. “Are you going to hand me over to the cops?”

  “No,” Suzanne said. “I might think about talking you into turning yourself in. But not right now. Not until everyone calms down.”

  “You’ve done this for how long, and you never killed anyone in all that time,” Analise said, low and tired, so unlike her. “And here I am—”

  “Oh, I’ve killed,” Suzanne said. “We all have.”

  “Bad guys, sure.” As if that made a difference. “In self-defense. What am I going to do?”

  “You’re going to wait here,” Suzanne said calmly. “We’re going to let things settle and make sure you get a fair hearing.”

  Analise frowned, making her whole face pucker. She wasn’t used to taking orders or listening to advice. She wasn’t used to waiting. But she nodded now, no wind left in her sails. She was broken. Celia hated seeing her like that.

  The men had retreated to the command room, waiting for the next crisis. Celia didn’t think anything would happen during the day. The explosions always came at night. She wondered how Arthur and her father were getting along. Probably ignoring it, pretending like nothing had happened.

  Robbie suddenly appeared in the kitchen. He’d run from the command room, followed by his trademark wind, which ruffled the women’s hair. To them, however, he just appeared.

  “The Strad Brothers aren’t finished yet. Or maybe not the Strad Brothers. It’s a new MO. It could be somebody brand-new. It isn’t robberies this time—it’s bombs.”

  Celia stood. Suzanne was already on her feet, but she stepped forward, an intent look on her face.

  Leaving another breeze behind him, Robbie disappeared, back to the command room.

  “It is the Destructor,” Suzanne said softly. “We should have known, no jail can hold him—”

  But Celia knew that wasn’t right. She’d seen the Destructor, Simon Sito, a shriveled old man ranting in his cell. The three women followed Robbie to the command room.

  On the view screens in the darkened room, Celia saw
the nightmare her parents had always dreaded, the vision of what would happen if they failed to stop the Destructor or any of the other ultraambitious villains who’d come along: fires burning, the city in ruins. Their city, her home.

  One screen showed a map of the city. A half-dozen flashing red dots marked trouble spots. They lay scattered all over the city: one by the harbor, another by the university, a couple in the south end—one of them only a few blocks from her apartment. None of them was in the downtown area, near West Plaza. And none of them was in the northeast warehouse district. Those areas showed dark.

  The other screens flashed between images captured on security cameras or broadcast by news teams. Fires burned everywhere. Flames engulfing buildings filled up the screens. Firefighters ran, lugging hoses. Water and fire retardant sprayed and arced toward the blazes, seemingly futile. The liquid droplets were so tiny.

  “The bombs went off simultaneously,” Robbie explained, his voice steady and somber. “Incendiary, rather than explosive. Like whoever did this wanted to set half the city on fire, to keep us fighting all day rather than causing one round of damage and letting us pick up the pieces. This is about chaos.”

  “We’ll help,” Warren said. “Suzanne, do you think—”

  Her lips turned up wryly. “Fighting fire with fire? Maybe. Find out where the flames are spreading fastest and I can try to create firebreaks.”

  “Me, too,” Robbie said. “Scare up a little wind, steer the flames back on themselves.”

  Warren turned to Arthur. “Doctor?”

  “I’m sure I can think of something.”

  Typhoon stared at the screens without blinking. “I should go. This was made for me—”

  Suzanne touched her shoulder. “No. You’re hurt, and you’re wanted by the police. Stay here, monitor the situation, stay by the radio. If we need your help, we’ll call you.”

  Celia was shocked when, instead of arguing, Analise nodded and sank into the chair by the computer.

  Warren had already marched to the hangar elevator.

  Suzanne quickly smoothed back Celia’s hair. “Hopefully this won’t take too long.”

  “Just be careful,” Celia said.

  Suzanne and Robbie—no, Spark and the Bullet—joined her father, Captain Olympus.

  Arthur hesitated. Without a word—without even a thought for once—he gripped the back of Celia’s neck and kissed her on the lips, quick and heartfelt. He drew away quickly, looking in her eyes before he turned to join the others.

  The Bullet was sputtering. “Hey—what? What the hell was that—”

  The elevator doors closed on the quartet before Celia heard the others’ response.

  Her lips were still tingling.

  “What happened to the cop?” Analise said.

  “I don’t know,” Celia said, and she didn’t. At the moment, Mark was out in the city somewhere, dealing with the bombings, with the fires and chaos. Saving the city. “Are you okay? I mean, really okay. I know you want to be out there—”

  “No,” Analise said. “I should. I should want to, but … Do you have a glass of water? Is there a glass of water somewhere?”

  “The kitchen.”

  Analise stood and ran from the command room. Celia followed more slowly. She still had a headache.

  When she arrived in the kitchen, Analise was filling a glass from the faucet. When it was full, she set it on the counter by the sink and glared at it. Both hands braced on the edge of the counter, her back bent, her face puckered in concentration, she watched the glass like she expected it to get up and dance.

  “I can’t do it anymore,” Analise said, with a strange calm. “I ought to be able to make that water jump out of there. I ought to be able to soak the whole kitchen with it. I can’t do it.”

  Celia didn’t know what to say. She managed to choke out, “You’re just tired. You’ve had a shock. You’ll get it back.”

  “What if I don’t want it back, Celia?”

  Would Analise be Analise without the part of her that was also Typhoon?

  Analise picked up the glass and drank all the water out of it. She finished, wiped her mouth, and gave Celia a bitter smile. “Guess I’d better keep an ear on the radio like your parents asked.”

  Head bent, she went back to the hallway that led to the command room.

  Celia didn’t know what to think.

  She went to the living room and the windows. From here, she could see the smoke rising from three of the fires. The two on the south end were close together, the harbor fire a ways off to the right. Pillars of black rose into the washed-out sky, pulsing as they grew and shrank, as new flames fed them or other flames were put out. A gray haze filtered the sun, bathing the city in pale orange light. News and police helicopters swarmed like moths.

  The whole city could burn to the ground in hours, if no one was there to fight it.

  Her phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Celia? It’s Mark. I don’t know who else to go to. You’re in the middle of this as much as I am. You seem to know more about it than I do.”

  He sounded panicked, as if the Destructor was breaking down his door then and there. “Mark, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  “This is all a distraction, isn’t it? Like the kidnapping plots, like all the crime sprees. Something else is at the heart of it. I think I’ve found it. There’s a place, a building, the Leyden Industrial Park.”

  Celia’s nerves stretched, as if they all waited to snap at once. She stared out at the burning city.

  Mark continued. “The place was supposedly mothballed fifty years ago, turned over to the city for urban development. It was slated to be demolished for the highway plan, but that got held up. Celia, the place is active. My father’s been channeling money out of his office. Embezzling.”

  Embezzling. That spoke to her line of work, and the professional side of her interrupted him. “Mark, how do you know? What evidence—”

  He kept talking, like he had to get it all out at once before he lost his nerve. “Phony payroll, phony contracts, grant money to nonprofits that don’t exist.” All rote stuff, downright mundane. Paulson deflected attention from such activity with smoke and mirrors—with an orchestrated crime wave. “There’s more. I found evidence of payoffs to all the robbery suspects, and the bus hijacker. The rest of the money is going to this Leyden Industrial Park.”

  Pieces snapped into place, almost too neatly. If Mark had all this evidence, he could serve his father up on a platter.

  If he could turn in his own father.

  “Mark, we shouldn’t be talking about this on the phone.”

  “I’m going there, to the Leyden building. I have to see for myself.”

  “No, you should call the police.” But he was the police. “Call for backup. You don’t know what he’s doing, he could have an army in there—”

  “Will you meet me there, Celia? I need to talk to you. I need your help.”

  “Yes, of course,” she said without thinking.

  “Meet me there in an hour.”

  “Mark, hold on, you shouldn’t—”

  He hung up. She growled at the phone. He was being an idiot. He only had half the pieces and couldn’t see the whole picture. He probably thought his father was running some sort of gambling or drug ring. He probably thought he could talk to Paulson, make him see reason, convince him to turn himself in. He wouldn’t be able to stand up to Paulson and arrest the guy.

  If she got there first, maybe she could talk him out of it. Maybe his call to her was a suicide’s cry for help. She ran to the foyer, then hesitated, thinking of Analise in the Olympiad command room. No, her parents might need Analise where she was, able to survey the entire city and monitor police activity. They might need her more than Celia did.

  Celia entered the elevator. Inside, she punched the button for the parking garage. Going down.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  ON the elevator ride down, she thought about calling Arthur’s
cell and leaving a message. Then realized he must already know what she was thinking, what she had planned, even across the city. The thought was both ominous and comforting. There was a time when all she wanted to was to be alone. But if she got in trouble, Arthur would know.

  Michael was on-call, but not in the valet office when she reached the basement parking garage. She wasn’t about to ask him for a ride anyway.

  The key card her father had given her worked on the West Corp valet office, where the keys to the fleet cars were kept. Not that she’d driven at all since Michael taught her how when she was sixteen. Assuming she found an inconspicuous car, and assuming she could drive it, and assuming she didn’t get pulled over by hyper police—

  She found a dark blue sedan, automatic transmission, and matched the license plate to the keychain. Settling into the driver’s seat, she reacquainted herself with the controls and dials. She could do this, she could do this. Key in ignition, turn, shift gears, press gas pedal.

  The engine revved, but the car didn’t move.

  Then she remembered to release the parking brake.

  So slowly the speedometer barely registered, she pulled out of the parking space and up the ramp leading to street level. Once on the street, she pressed the gas a little harder—if she drove five miles an hour the whole way, she’d take all day to get there. She sat leaning forward, her back rigid and away from the seat, clinging to the steering wheel and peering fervently through the windshield.

  Fortunately, with the city blowing up around them, not too many other people were on the road. She had little traffic to contend with, and the cops were all in areas of the city where bombs had gone off.

  Carefully, she drove northeast.

  The warehouse district was an area of wide streets and cavernous buildings. This was a whole other city, the opposite of the one she looked down on from her parents’ living room. Here, she was an ant staring up at concrete walls that went on in all directions. She was trapped at the bottom of a canyon.

  Slowing down, she looked for street signs, made out address placards bolted to the sides of buildings—some of them rusted and illegible. She found the right street and was afraid she’d spend the afternoon driving back and forth along its length, looking for the right building.