“Yeah,” Alex said, though the diamond didn’t look common to him. He wasn’t sure what she was leading up to.
“What happened today?” his mother asked, leaning against the edge of the table, her arms crossed loosely.
“Like I said earlier, the door was too heavy,” Alex said, the words rushing from his mouth. “I just wasn’t ready. If I had been given a little more time—”
“That’s not what I meant,” his mother said, cutting him off. “The vault was a long shot from the beginning. We’re going to have to change the focus of your training from precision to strength. I’m talking about what happened with Titan and the girl.”
A moment passed between them. Alex wasn’t exactly sure what his mother meant. She had been inside the bank, so she probably hadn’t seen what happened. But she was a mind reader, and while he hadn’t felt her probing his subconscious, it wasn’t out of the question. He thought it best to respond as vaguely as possible.
“She was better than us,” he stammered. Then, realizing that this made his team sound weak, he kept going. “None of us expected her to be so fast or so powerful. She caught us off guard, and we never got back in control. Next time she won’t be so lucky.”
“You pushed her out of the way when Titan attacked her,” she said, staring into his eyes, unblinking. Alex opened his mouth to speak, but Shade kept talking. “Don’t try to deny it, Alexander. Even if I weren’t a telepath, Titan’s anger was almost palpable.”
“I—”
“Just tell me why.”
“I don’t know. That hydrant would have killed her.”
“Can you be sure of that?” his mother asked. “She’s a shape-shifter, after all, and you know how resilient the Rangers tend to be.”
“But if she wasn’t . . . ,” Alex said, floundering for an excuse.
“She didn’t seem too concerned about wounding Titan when she was slashing at his chest,” Shade said. Her speech was becoming short, her tongue snapping on each word, chewing into each consonant.
“She’s just a girl. She’s my age!” He was almost pleading now. “I didn’t want to watch her get killed.”
“She is the enemy. And I guarantee that had your roles been reversed, she would not have hesitated to let you die.”
Alex’s eyes fell to the floor. Pushing the girl out of the way had seemed like the natural thing to do—the right thing to do. But how could he explain this without sounding like a traitor to Cloak? He had trained so hard, had dreamed so often of destroying the Rangers of Justice and making the High Council proud.
His temples began to tingle and the hair on the back of his neck prickled. His thoughts were jumbled for a split second, like his mind hiccuped. It was a feeling that might have gone unnoticed by most people, but Alex recognized it immediately. He looked up at his mother to see that her eyes were a glossy silver color: pupil-less metal staring deep inside him.
Before he realized what he was doing, Alex imagined a box of blue energy inside his head and pushed all thoughts of Kirbie and the mission inside it. He stared at his mother’s cold, lifeless eyes, silently focusing on the box, reinforcing its walls. Suddenly it sparked with energy. His mother had found it.
Shade winced slightly and raised a hand to her temple, as if she’d been overcome with a headache. Her eyes went back to normal, and she looked both impressed and annoyed by the strength of her son’s mind.
“My darling boy.” She reached out a hand and smoothed down his hair. “This is no game. This is our life. The world may put the Rangers up on pedestals, but they are the cause of all this city’s problems. They parade around talking about truth and justice, but what have they really accomplished? They’ve crippled the city, made the citizens weak and dependent on them. They pretend to care about the people, but all they want is the flattery and praise.
“The Rangers call us villains, but that’s just because they don’t understand us. They’ve forced us to stay underground, terrified that we will take over and show the world what poor leaders they really are. When we are in control—and we will be in control, make no mistake about that—the people of this city will know exactly where they stand. The strong will join us, and the weak will fall by the wayside. Order will be restored. It’s better for everyone, and once the world realizes that, they’ll welcome us with open arms. Trust me.”
“I’m sorry, Mother,” Alex said. And he meant it.
“Today you disappointed me,” she said, frowning. “I can’t take the risk that your unpredictability will interfere with this attack on Justice Tower. The Cloak Society cannot risk it. Unless you can prove yourself loyal and ready in the coming months, you are off the strike team.”
“But—”
“It’s not open for discussion. I hope you’ll change my mind before the time comes. I want my only son to be there when we defeat the Rangers.”
“This is totally unfair!”
Shade narrowed her eyes. Alex slumped.
“Is that all?” he asked.
“You may go to your room,” she said, turning her head away from him.
He nodded to himself and walked away. When he was almost to the door, his mother spoke again.
“Alex,” she said. He turned to see that her face looked softer, almost caring. “Do you remember your first lock-picking set? The one we gave you for your seventh birthday?”
“Of course,” he said quietly. He had spent countless hours tracing the outlines of the cool metal wrenches and pins with his fingers.
“What did I tell you when you got upset because you couldn’t get any of the complicated locks open?”
Alex thought back to sitting on the floor of his room for days, various padlocks and old deadbolts spread around him. He remembered how frustrated he’d become, his fingers and eyes sore from concentration, and how his mother had made him feel better.
“You said I was thinking too hard. To just close my eyes and feel for the pins and levers. That I just needed to believe I could do it.”
“Trust your power, Alex,” his mother said. “Remember that the next time you find yourself up against a vault door. Or any other big metal problems.”
Alex nodded.
“For the glory,” Shade said.
“Hail Cloak,” Alex replied automatically.
As he walked out of the War Room, Alex’s mind flickered with the events of the day. They had retrieved the diamond and served as proper distractions, so Alex could feel good about that, at least. Whatever his future held, he promised himself one thing: He would be at Justice Tower when Cloak defeated the Rangers.
His mother’s parting words reminded him of the countless nights in his younger years when she would tuck him into bed, chanting a short poem along with him, calming him as he drifted off to sleep.
For the glory of the Society,
I will grow mighty and strong.
For we were born to rule the weak,
And right a world that’s wrong.
Hail Cloak.
4
A Visit from the Mist
The original headquarters of the Cloak Society was a Gothic-style mansion built by an eccentric oil tycoon, all dark-bricked spires and stained-glass windows. It looked like a miniature castle compared to the sleek modern homes going up a few miles away. Everyone who saw it assumed it was haunted, which helped in terms of privacy. For the better part of a century Cloak plotted and schemed within its wrought-iron gates. Sometime before Alex was born, they realized how conspicuous and somewhat cliché their base of operations had become and proposed a move to less obvious quarters. In the end it was decided that it was time for Cloak to go underground. Literally.
From there, it was merely an issue of location. Twenty miles away from Sterling City they found the perfect spot in an area that looked like the backdrop to an old Western film, all cattle fields and barbed-wire fences rising from rust-colored dirt. There sat an abandoned drive-in movie theater—the Big Sky—that hadn’t been used for at least a generation. It
was located far from the highway, at the end of a long dirt strip of potholes and weeds that had once been called a road. The entrance was gated, and surrounded by tall fencing. A dense screen of trees added to its privacy. Its inaccessible location served as the perfect cover for Cloak’s new underground headquarters. The Big Sky was purchased under a false name, as was all the land for miles around the site. Soon, building began.
Back then—before the battle at Victory Park—it was a very different Society. That was when the team was in its prime, and the numerous sets of superpowers made building and installing an entire underground living facility little more than a weekend project. First, the Big Sky was cleared away. One of the Cloak members controlled earth and minerals and was able to move tons of ground with little more than the flick of her wrist. Once the base was in place and covered, the Big Sky was painstakingly reassembled in all its run-down glory. There were only a few adjustments. The projection booth now hid an elevator. The snack bar was equipped with antiaircraft weaponry.
Aside from tech and security updates, little had changed within the compound since its creation. It was made up of three circular levels that got smaller as they went down, connected by two elevators that ran through the center of the complex. The lowest level housed the War Room, and the apartments and common areas for the High Council.
But it was the middle level that Alex was most familiar with. On one end lived the Gammas—Cloak kids whose powers had yet to surface, and perhaps never would. Not all descendants of the founding scientists developed Umbra powers. Those who didn’t served the group in other ways, outside the underground base. They ran for office, took jobs in the media, and were the deans of schools. It was possible, though, for the gifts to skip a generation. Therefore, all children born of a Cloak bloodline were raised in the underground base, where they could both learn the ways of the Society and be watched closely. All the Betas had grown up in the Gamma wing except for Mallory. According to Shade, Mallory was living in the city when her abilities developed. She couldn’t control them and a fire broke out, claiming the lives of her parents. Cloak then swooped in and rescued her. Alex had asked his mother on more than one occasion why Mallory had been raised outside the base, but each time his question was met with a pat on the head and the promise that this was a story for another day.
On the opposite side of the middle level, the Beta Team was lumped together in one wing, with their own private common area and study rooms. The floors were all stained concrete, and the walls and ceilings were shiny stainless steel, which made footsteps echo loudly throughout the long corridors. The living quarters for Alex and his friends weren’t especially cramped, but they lacked a certain homey feel. The rooms were designed for utility and function. The walls were all a clinical white, and the lights were fluorescent fixtures that buzzed quietly when turned on. A sink and mirrored medicine cabinet came standard in each bedroom, along with a dresser and nightstand of matching dark wood. In one corner, Alex’s twin bed sat unmade, across from a desk covered with a few books, a pile of pens and markers, an open laptop, and a small circus of origami animals that were the result of hours he had spent honing his telekinetic precision.
Alex had tried his best to make the room his own. Tacked to the wall above his desk were newspaper clippings that spanned decades, telling stories of Cloak missions and the resulting clueless police investigations. There were pictures of him and the Beta Team, a few of his parents, and a portrait of his maternal grandfather, Grim. Alex had heard stories of Grim’s ferocity, and how his Umbra powers reduced brave opponents to sniveling cowards. His eyes would turn black and glossy, and anyone who looked into those dark pools would see their worst fears play out in their minds, causing them to sink into madness. Grim was the one who had led the charge against the Rangers in Victory Park, and had died for the Cloak Society. His portrait was a daily reminder of Alex’s proud ancestry, giving him plenty toward which he could aspire.
Alex was glad to be back in his bedroom and alone with his thoughts. He tossed his Cloak uniform into a corner with the rest of his dirty clothes and threw on a fresh T-shirt and athletic shorts. As he changed, he could feel the tender places on his body where bruises would form overnight. Scrapes and bumps and small cuts weren’t unusual for him, or any of the Betas. They were used to getting thrown around in training exercises or while testing the limits of their powers. First aid was one of the skills they learned as Gammas.
Alex sat at his laptop and opened a file that held descriptions of the powers and potential weaknesses of the Rangers of Justice, along with photos and biographical information. All of them looked younger than Cloak’s High Council, and had a charismatic air to them that Alex could pick up on even in the photographs. He’d read these briefings many times before, but now that he’d actually seen Lone Star, he was anxious to compare his own notes with the text. Alex had to admit that the superhero was astoundingly powerful. If the other two Rangers had even half his strength, Alex could understand why Cloak had had so much trouble defeating them over the years. Lux, the only adult female Ranger, had powers much like Lone Star’s, with the ability to fly and produce concentrated beams of light. A few pictures of her showed hair that glowed so brightly it appeared to be white, luminescent, as if stars had been woven into it. Dr. Photon, the third Ranger, specialized in manipulation of magnetic fields and wore thick-rimmed glasses over his dark eyes. Alex wondered if he’d be able to control Titan’s metal skin. He smiled at the idea of Titan being forced to dance around like a marionette.
At the end of the file were short descriptions of the Junior Rangers. Alex made a mental note to write up reports to flesh out these profiles now that he’d come face-to-face with them in combat.
He stretched, which made him realize just how sore his muscles were going to be the next day. He walked over to the mirror and inspected a particularly tender spot at the top of his forehead, near his hairline. Thoughts of Lone Star’s impressive entrance filled his mind as he inspected his face. Inhaling deeply, he puffed out his chest and pursed his lips, trying to obtain the majesty and confidence that had radiated from the Rangers’ leader when he floated in front of them earlier that day.
Behind him came a short, high giggle.
Alex jumped, accidentally letting off a tremor of telekinetic energy, shaking the flimsier items in his room and pushing his paper menagerie from his desk to the floor. Standing in front of his still-closed door was a short, freckled ten-year-old girl. Her hand was clamped over her mouth and her green eyes were wide, as if she were wishing she could take back the escaped giggle. A silver headband held back her remarkably red hair, which fell in curls to her shoulders. She wore a black shirt, purple plaid skirt, black leggings, and fuzzy purple slippers.
“MISTY!” Alex yelled, louder than he had intended. “How many times do I have to tell you to knock?”
“How many times do I have to tell you that my name’s not Misty?” she asked, “No one is afraid of someone named Misty. I’m ‘the Mist.’”
“What are you doing in here?” Alex asked. Misty had a habit of popping up unannounced and uninvited. “Gammas aren’t supposed to be roaming the halls.”
“I’m not a Gamma anymore! I have powers!”
“Well, you’re not technically on the Beta Team yet either, so . . .”
“It’s time people started calling me by my new name,” she said, ignoring his statement.
“We’ve been over this before,” Alex said, exasperated. He plopped down into his desk chair. “No good code names start with ‘the.’ It gets too confusing. It’s like having to say ‘the Alex’ every time you mention me. ‘The Alex, make your bed. The Alex, come out with your hands up.’ It sounds stupid.”
“No,” she said in defiance. “It sounds scary. ‘No one escapes from the Mist.’ It’s perfect.” She crouched, one arm outstretched before her in a dramatic pose, looking at imaginary opponents who would surely have recoiled in fear.
“You can’t choose a name bec
ause it sounds good when you recite one rehearsed line. You’ll start to sound like one of the Rangers,” Alex said. He began picking up the scattered origami animals and putting them back on their feet.
“There’s a reason your aunt goes by Phantom now and not the Phantom Queen,” Alex continued. “The same reason we usually just say Cloak instead of the Cloak Society. It’s too long. People are going to drop the ‘the’ and you’re just going to be Mist. And no one is afraid of mist. You might as well go by Spritz or something.”
“Well, it’s better than Misty!” she exclaimed.
“Don’t blame me! The Mist was your idea. I suggested Smog.”
Alex spun back around to face her, only to find that her body was now framed in a thick haze. The edges of her ears and the curls of her hair were disintegrating into the air, hovering around her body, as if she were made up of dustlike flecks now breaking apart.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Alex said, raising his hands up in defense. “Pull yourself together, okay? You know I was only joking. ‘The Mist’ is a great code name. Just don’t worry about it right now. In a few years, when you’re old enough to be a full-fledged Beta, no one will call you Misty. I promise.”
She took a long look at Alex before shaking her head, bringing everything back to normal. Alex was always impressed by the control Misty had over her powers, especially considering what had happened when they manifested. A year earlier Misty had mysteriously disappeared from her room. The entire compound was searched over the course of a few days, until Alex came across a cloud of particles in the hallway that matched the exact shade of Misty’s red hair. After analyzing the flecks, it was agreed that the only way for Misty to regain her natural form was by her own will. But just to be sure that no pieces got lost in the compound, Gage constructed a modified vacuum and a large glass cylinder to keep Misty contained until she figured out how to rebuild herself. The High Council called her power “sublimation,” the ability to turn from a solid state into a gas. She stayed in her glass container for a week, nothing but a sentient cloud, until Phantom, her aunt and guardian, walked in one morning and found her sitting cross-legged in the tube. She asked for a grilled cheese and lemonade, as if nothing had happened.
The Cloak Society Page 4
