Silhouette

by Robin Hale

  “Didn’t you say that you can’t interact with the security systems from the lab, you can only observe them?” The confusion in the Captain’s voice was understandable. I had said that, but only because it hadn’t occurred to me to approach the problem like a thief rather than a hero.

  “That’s true,” I allowed. “I can’t directly manipulate any of the security systems through the access the Roscoe family has given us. But that doesn’t mean I can’t hit them like any other bad actor.” I swapped inputs on my monitor, switching over to the terminal I’d had running an unsophisticated brute force attack on the contained network within the sapphire vault. “I should be in shortly. Once you open the door, I’ll trigger the attack and the sensor will overload. That’s your chance.”

  “Sounds good to me, Fawn. Let me know when you’ve got everything lined up.”

  It happened quickly. My rudimentary attack on the quarantined network gained purchase on the electromagnetic sensor, and the window was open.

  “Now,” I said through the headset.

  There came the sound of the door opening, the Captain’s voice calling that he was in position, and I flipped the activator on the overloading subroutine. It was clumsy. Simple. A first-year computer science student would’ve come up with a more elegant attack, but it was the best I could do.

  I heard the pop of something electrical, and then the line went full of static before silence reigned in the lab.

  That was it. He’d either gotten her or he hadn’t. All I could do was wait to be told which it was.

  I sat back in my chair, heart pounding in my throat, hoping that I’d managed it. That I’d done something that would make the Silhouette’s eyes light up the way they did when I pushed her on something or when I said something unexpected. It was awful and self-destructive — and if I ever let it slip to the Captain I was sure he’d have me forcibly committed — but it was rapidly becoming the case that my time was marked by the Silhouette’s smiles, and most of my life was spent waiting for the next one.

  So I waited.

  12

  LANA

  Sitting in the back seat of a police cruiser, novel though the experience might have been, was not something I was keen to repeat any time soon. It was interesting, to be sure. Just like it had been interesting to have my goggles fail at the worst possible moment and to find myself captive to the Captain’s famed strength.

  I hadn’t even managed to get the sapphires into a hidden compartment on my belt. I’d just lost out on the score.

  How long had it been since I’d last failed in a job? Ten years? Fifteen? I took a moment to muse over the possibility that I was reaching a thief’s peak performance and was soon to become a shadow — ha — of my former self. Perhaps my glory days were well and truly behind me. I probably ought to write a memoir.

  My pensive stillness dragged on long enough for the officer, some young kid who looked like he was five minutes out of the academy, to get bored of watching me and that was all the opportunity I needed.

  Moving slowly, carefully, I pulled a slim rod from the outer seam of the leg of my suit, drawing it out of the bound channel so as not to draw attention. Once free, it was the work of seconds to insert the rod between the door casing and the window glass, to find the internal lever for the handle latch and release myself from the back seat of the police cruiser.

  That officer would be reprimanded. He’d be a scapegoat for whatever idiot decided to leave the Silhouette under the watchful eye of an infant. But as I slipped into the dwindling sunlight, down a narrow alleyway toward the fire escapes, ladders, and carefully ignored rooftops that would provide my getaway, I couldn’t help but smile.

  I may have lost, but it was the best game I’d had in ages.

  I couldn’t wait to see what she would do next.

  “YOU’RE OVERREACTING, IZZY,” I sighed into the smartphone I’d picked up for the current round of number scrambling. At the end of it, it would be the physical hardware address that would give the phone away. They could be mirrored, spoofed, but I wasn’t enough of a technical genius to manage that for very long, regardless of what Opal City’s journalists seemed to think.

  Honestly, avoid the police for a while and people started to believe you were an untouchable god.

  The main thing, I’d found, was to make sure that you didn’t start believing it yourself. I snorted as the memory of Captain Colossal self-importantly handing me over to the OCPD rose in my mind. I certainly wasn’t at risk of believing I was a god, even if I suspected that it was a goddess who had taken me down and not the city’s favorite hero.

  “I really don’t see how I am.” There was a fierce, protective edge to Izzy’s voice, something that I’d loved about her since she’d gotten sufficiently over her awe of me to start giving me shit. “You got caught. They had you in custody. They only managed not to get a confirmed ID on you because the police department is evidently being run by over-excited corgis rather than professionals.”

  I bit down hard on the inside of my lip to stifle a laugh at that.

  “Listen, I’m on my way to pick up an intel packet and no one will ever take me seriously again if I’m giggling when I get there.” The scowl in my voice was entirely for show and I knew that Izzy wouldn’t be confused by it.

  “Right, right. Go put fear in the hearts of your little minions. Can’t have them thinking that the Silhouette has ever had a light-hearted moment. Chaos, bloodshed, anarchy in the streets.”

  “I love it when you’re in a snit, you know that?” The corner of my mouth quirked upward.

  “That would explain so very, very much.”

  “Mm. Have a good one, Izz. I’ll see you at the Dame later, yeah?”

  “I’ll be there. Glaring at you.”

  There was a short, soft tone and then the call disconnected. I slipped the phone into my pocket as I came around the corner, checking sightlines through long habit and locating the ragged-looking teen leaning against the front step of the apartment building on the right.

  “You’re early,” I remarked, quirking a brow and watching for the physical tics that would suggest that something was amiss.

  “Bus didn’t hit traffic this time.” There was a careless shrug of bony shoulders and then he was fishing a folder out of his backpack and handing it over to me.

  “Mm, thanks. Compensation in the usual way.” I tucked the folder under my arm without glancing at the contents and continued on down the street, offering the teen a lazy salute that he returned with a satisfying lilt of irony. I liked the sullen phase teenagers went through. It made me nostalgic.

  “I’ll keep an eye out for it.”

  MY NEXT ERRAND was painfully simple, and if it had been for any other purpose, I would’ve been embarrassed by the undertaking. But there were smiles at stake. Particular smiles. And I found that I was willing to put up with more than a little humiliation chasing after them.

  “YOU’RE GRINNING.” Izzy’s voice echoed strangely in the wine glass she held in front of her mouth, warm brown eyes narrowed shrewdly as she regarded me over the top of it. Suddenly, a grin split her face. “Is this to do with the good doctor?”

  Some involuntary movement, some micro-expression or whatever it was that let Izzy read me without fail, gave me away immediately. I had no idea how she managed to do it, only that by the time we were adults I couldn’t keep anything from her despite my best efforts.

  “It is!” She practically crowed in delight. An unladylike gulp of wine passed from her glass to her gut — I couldn’t think that she’d even really tasted it — and she set the glass firmly on the table and leaned eagerly across. “What’s happened?”

  Horrifyingly, the smile that I’d been fighting all day, the bubbling excitement that lurked behind every casual thought, chose that moment to burst from my control.

  “It’s like you’ve been body-snatched,” Izzy laughed, a delighted grin spreading over her face. “Honestly. Are you just a late bloomer? Is this the rush o
f pubescent romantic awakening you should’ve gotten in high school?”

  “That’d be one hell of a delay, Izz.” I tried to scowl and felt the expression fall apart like damp paper under the weight of my amusement. “No, it’s…a gift, sort of. A joke. I don’t think she’ll keep it. But, you know,” I shrugged. “Maybe?”

  “Oh wow, you’re not making any sense at all. Is it serious then?” Izzy asked, pretty eyes wide.

  The scoff that time was genuine. “How could it be? It’s not like I can swing ‘round to her place and take her out to dinner.”

  Izzy blinked at me. “Why the hell not?”

  “You don’t think that might constitute a conflict for her?” I lifted a wry, skeptical brow.

  “Oh, please. If you’re interested in her at all she simply can’t be that much of a stick in the mud.” Izzy’s eyes rolled in a theatrical whirl. A sudden frown marred the expression. “Unless she’s said something like that to you. Has she — has she been giving you shit about…all of this?” Izzy gestured in a broad, all-encompassing way that seemed to indicate everything from the Shady Dame and the ill-specified gift I’d mentioned all the way to crime as a general concept in the Midwest.

  “No, not exactly,” I hedged, then quirked a wry grin. “She suggested that I go white hat. Penetration testing security systems for rich assholes.”

  The look of horror on Izzy’s face was worth what the admission cost me. “You’re kidding. God, just imagine that. The Silhouette going straight — in a manner of speaking.”

  “Cute, Izz.”

  “I like to think so.” Izzy took a gleeful sip of her wine. “But it sounds like things didn’t end on too sour a note, if you sent her basically a hand-engraved invitation to the Roscoe job.”

  “Mm, no, not a sour note at all.” I hid my infuriating, inescapable grin as well as I could in the pull I took from my lager. “We didn’t say a whole lot after that. Hard to talk with your mouth full, you know how it is.”

  Izzy groaned like I had physically harmed her, curling her arms into her chest and flinging her head back against the shiny vinyl of the booth’s upholstery. “My god, I need to get laid,” she groused. Her eyes darted toward the bar where my bartender was looking back over at her, heat in her eyes. “Listen, I know you said —”

  “And I meant it, Izz. If you cost me a bartender you’re doing the job yourself.”

  Izzy’s eyes narrowed as she regarded the muscular blonde behind the bar. “Might be worth it.” She dragged an elegant hand through her curls and flicked her glance back at me. “You heard about the Johansson boy’s birthday party?”

  My good mood began to deflate. “No. What’s going on with that?” Abel Johansson was a name I’d carefully avoided since his father was put in Vernal Ward. He was unstable. Unreliable. Just exactly the sort of ankle-weight a jewel thief did not need. And with a family propensity for death cults? I could only imagine what his birthday party would be like. It would be best to steer clear, like I usually did with everything connected to the Gravedigger.

  “The Russians are throwing it. Lots of daddy dearest’s old friends. Lots of big names who seem to think of Abel as their nephew or something.” Izzy shrugged. “They’re hosting it,” Izzy paused meaningfully. “At the country estate.”

  ‘The Russians’ was more than a little tongue-in-cheek. The group of Russo-named crime lords were no more Russian than I was Irish, but they liked the mystique. They liked the idea that someone would think they were connected with the Russian mob. Why build your own empire when you can borrow someone else’s power?

  “Fuck,” I breathed as I settled back against my seat. The uncomfortable tickle of conscience grazed the base of my spine. “Think we should tip him off?” I didn’t need to clarify who I meant by ‘him’. Not with Izzy. Not in Opal City.

  The scowl on Izzy’s face was miserable. “Probably. Ugh. You should really let me pick up your bartender.”

  And all at once the specter of the Johansson boy’s proclivities vanished and I could laugh again. “How about I just pick up your tab instead?”

  “Far less interesting. Tyrant.”

  13

  MOLLY

  Icaught the toe of my boot around the edge of the door and kicked the thing shut as I staggered into my apartment, wincing only slightly at the sound of the heavy wood colliding with the door jamb. Jan wouldn’t be happy about that. She’d been a strange near neighbor, endlessly polite on the surface, with the occasional vicious barb thrown in, meant to put you on your back foot about some appallingly rude thing you’ve done.

  Like letting your front door slam as it closed.

  It was obvious that Jan was a native of the Midwest and had the local dialect down to something of an art form. I’d gotten as far as ‘unfailingly polite’ and ‘kind wherever possible’ but I’d never have the degree of fluency it took for the unassailable cutting remark that signified a native speaker.

  I snorted and shook my head. My scarf and lightweight cardigan sailed through the air in a wash of gray and pale teal as I tossed my things carelessly onto the end of the couch. My boots clomped into place next to the door and my bag sank next to the sofa with a heavy thunk that I hoped was not my tablet striking the hardwood.

  It had been a long day. A long, tedious day.

  Despite our success in interrupting the Silhouette’s theft at the Roscoe vaults, she’d gotten away before a positive identification could be made of the woman behind the goggles. It was a shocking failure of basic police work, and I was sure that there would be consequences for those in charge of the decisions that led to her escape from a police cruiser.

  A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth and I felt my eyes crinkling into a laugh despite my horror at my own lack of propriety. I was far from the only resident of Opal City who found herself cheering on one of the black hats now and then. There were entire fan clubs, it seemed, devoted to the more colorful characters traipsing about town, pulling off ever more ridiculous crimes with theatrical flourishes that other cities didn’t see. Just two towns away, the idea that someone might fawn over a woman who dressed in red and orange and robbed museums with the aid of molten rocks she could summon from practically nowhere…well, that notion would get you laughed out of the room, if you were lucky.

  And yet, it was par for the course in Opal City. There’d always been people fascinated by crime, the more gruesome the better. Why, just look at those people who sent fan letters to serial killers. They’d always been around. But there was something different about the new crop of admirers. Or maybe I just wanted to think there was a difference, since I found my head turned by clever hands, leather-clad legs, and a wicked grin in the dimness of the Silhouette’s preferred hunting ground.

  God, I was a mess.

  I rubbed at my face with both hands and let out a sigh, trying to push the tension from my neck and chest out the way my physical therapist had taught me the last time I was injured in one of Captain Colossal’s mad schemes. It was only moderately successful. I let my mind wander as I padded through the living room back toward my bedroom. I had leftover aloo gobi in the fridge, it’d reheat well enough for dinner that night. And there was a documentary I’d been meaning to watch. Pajamas, comfort food, and an hour and a half of the history of medical approaches to treating invasive bacteria sounded like just the night I needed.

  My fingers slid over the light switch in the bedroom and brought the comfortable lamp light up around me, illuminating my carefully made bed, my painstakingly selected night stands — found in two separate antique malls, but a perfect match for one another — and the artwork I’d selected for my bedroom.

  Then I saw it. There, in the center of my bed, was a package. A gift. Wrapped in gilt-foil wrapping paper and topped with a precisely tied bow. It depressed the smooth white cotton of the bedspread and propped up an envelope, labeled in clear, tidy print ‘My dearest Doctor Fawn’.

  At once, my heart leaped into my throat and the hair on the back of my
neck stood up. The excited rush that flowed through my body sent me lightheaded, and I blinked back the spots that threatened to swarm into my vision. I checked the window and frowned down at the carefully locked latch. How had they gotten in?

  I should call the police, I knew. Or at least the Captain. I absolutely should not open that envelope. I was too smart to do something so stupid and impulsive. At least, I had thought that I was. Reality was turning out to be quite different.

  The envelope was a fine, heavy parchment — possibly handmade? — and I turned it over in my hand to see a carefully melted pool of wax sealing it shut. No water-activated adhesive on something that finely crafted. Instead, the delicate green wax bore the mark of what looked like a cameo, or perhaps a — a silhouette.

  Heat flooded my cheeks and I couldn’t hold myself back any longer. I lifted the seal off of the back of the envelope and retrieved the heavy piece of cardstock inside. It was covered in the same tidy, small-caps print that was on the front of the envelope.

  IT SEEMS I’VE MISSED A FEW OF YOUR BIRTHDAYS, DOCTOR.

  PLEASE ACCEPT THIS SMALL TOKEN AS MY APOLOGY FOR ALL THOSE YEARS I WAS SO FOOLISH AS TO NOT KNOW YOU.

  FROM ONE LARCENOUS HEART TO ANOTHER.

  OH GOD. My pulse fluttered dangerously. She hadn’t.

  But even before I’d touched the small package on the bed, before I had eased the heavy, expensive wrapping paper from around the velvet lined box, before I had opened its lid and revealed its contents to my ravenous gaze, I knew that she had.

  She’d given me the damned Opal City Fire Opal.