Driven

by Robert J. Crane

  “Gift horse,” I muttered, and swung the bar back again, busting a little more wall out of my way. I hooked the curved end on brick from inside and ripped away a couple more feet as I pulled it out into the alley. Busted brick crumbled and fell to the asphalt, dust rising all around me.

  “Still clear,” Angel said, loud enough for me to hear it over my demo work. I broke a few more feet of brick, giving us a nice, four-foot by four-foot hole to climb through. Stepping inside, I listened for any alarms and was rewarded with …

  Silence.

  “What the hell?” I asked as Angel stepped in behind me, murky clouds of brick dust thick in the air, puffing into my nose through my mask like smoke but a little thicker and chalkier. “Where are the security precautions? How did we just bust through the wall and there’s not so much as an alarm?”

  “This place looks like it’s been here a while,” Angel said, surveying the lines that stood to our right, just over the teller counter. We were back where the bankers stood. “Bet it hasn’t been upgraded, security-wise, since the metahuman announcement. It’s not a big company, after all; it’s a local bank.”

  “Huh.” That worked well for us, but not so well for their depositors. I looked back into the alley. “Man, someone could just plow through a wall with a vehicle, smash and grab.”

  Angel shrugged. “I’m guessing the vault, where they keep the money and goods, is probably sturdier. And if I were designing this place, I wouldn’t have wasted my money reinforcing that wall, either. Think about it—it borders an alley. No one’s gonna ram a vehicle against that wall. Only a metahuman or someone with a jackhammer was going to come through that way, and I doubt most criminals are going to use a jackhammer.”

  “Fair point, I guess,” I said, looking around. “Safe’s over here.” I reached into my back pocket and deployed a garbage bag that Jamal had given us from the office kitchen. He’d mumbled something about not going into a “robbery” without bringing something to haul off your loot. Otherwise this would look like a targeted thing, an appearance we did not wish to give.

  The safe was obvious and large, the door to it just like the ones in the movies, with a lock and big swinging grips like the steering wheel on a ship. I gave it a once over, then tapped the door frame with my bar, just to see.

  The drywall broke cleanly, and I swept it away with the end of the bar. There was concrete block underneath, and I made a scoffing noise. “Really, guys?”

  “That’d deter most people, you know,” Angel said, a little defensive on behalf of the owners of this bank.

  I brought back the pry bar and swung it forward. It plunged into the seam of the concrete block, shattering it as I buried it into the wall. Once it was in, I angled the bar and started to push, using it for its actual intended function—prying. The entire door let out a fierce squeal as I put some leverage against it, and a sturdy crack issued forth from the frame as the whole assembly budged about an inch.

  Then the concrete my bar was wedged against crumbled, and I lost my leverage point. “Shit,” I muttered. There was a good inch gap between the concrete and the seam of the steel door now.

  “Come on,” Angel said, stepping up and putting her fingers in the artificial seam I’d created. I went low, wedging the pry bar against the wall. “On three.”

  “On one—one,” I said, and started to apply force again. Angel matched me, and the safe door squealed as it came loose from the wall. We both moved aside and it came crashing down into the floor, rattling the whole building with its weight.

  At first, I thought my ears were ringing, but after a second I realized—

  “Now the alarm is going,” I said, with a little sigh.

  “Yep,” Angel said, sweeping into the vault through the opening we’d made. “You didn’t think we could remove the whole door without any consequence, did you?”

  “Based on what I’ve seen of the security here thus far? Yeah, I kinda did,” I said, following her in. I glanced at the watch on my wrist, another “gift” from Harry. 12:15 AM. Police response time to this location according to Jamal: four minutes.

  We had four minutes to find what Miranda had left … or we’d be up to our eyebrows in cops.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Angel

  Four Years Ago

  The police were there quickly. They spoke to her in quiet tones, to her and her neighbor Janelle both, gathering their stories. Now that her story was done, Angel had the requisite emergency blanket draped over her shoulders, and she was just sitting there outside her apartment building, watching the milling crowd gathered round the perimeter of the police line as cops filtered in and out the front door.

  What must they be thinking? It was a funny thought, but one that occurred to her as surely as if it were something important … like, what would happen to the restaurant today? She checked her watch again; it was already half past eleven, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to stand. Shock, one of the officers had explained to her. She couldn’t remember his face, it had been kind of blurry—or maybe her eyes had been—and she continued to just stare into the distance. Concentrating was a problem, her mind flitting from thought to thought without easily settling anywhere.

  One led, though: What would Miranda say?

  Followed by: How could she even tell her?

  And then: What was going to happen next?

  Repeat, ad infinitum.

  The crowd was restless. She could hear people trading stories about what had happened, endless speculations. The police had seemed very interested in how she’d dodged the men who’d attacked her. She hadn’t known what to tell them, so she’d settled on the truth.

  She didn’t know how she’d dodged them. They’d seemed to be moving in slow motion.

  The officers had nodded, looked around, and sort of … whispered to themselves.

  She’d heard the word, the whispered word, but couldn’t believe it.

  Metahuman.

  That was an easily dismissed theory. Angel was way beyond the age to be one of those. She’d watched the specials that aired after the Minneapolis thing three years ago. She knew the basics. Metahumans got their powers at age 18 or so.

  Angel was way past that. She’d just turned 22.

  A ripple ran through the crowd, and Angel blinked, jarred from her meandering thoughts. The crowd was pointing at something, talking, buzzing. She stared at them, uncomprehending, then looked up, where they were pointing.

  A woman was descending from the heavens as though by a string, leather jacket flapping in the wind as she traversed the last few feet to the ground as easily as though she were taking a mere step instead of dropping some twenty feet. She didn’t even land in a crouch from the impact, just started towards the head detective on the scene, her dark hair a little windblown and tangled.

  That … that was …

  The woman spoke to the detective for just a moment, and then her eyes flicked past him to—

  To Angel.

  Her eyes settled on Angel’s, and a moment later she brushed past the detective, locked on Angel. She reached her in a few dozen steps, threading around the ambulances and fire trucks and police cars with a practiced ease and dexterity that made her movements absurdly fluid. She was graceful, but her eyes were always in motion, finding Angel for a second or two and then moving beyond her to the crowd, seeking threats and danger, it was as obvious as the calm upon her face.

  “Angel Gutierrez?” the woman asked. She was young. And pale. And … kinda short, compared to how she’d looked on TV.

  “You’re … “ Angel started.

  “Sienna Nealon,” the woman said, her mouth a thin, forced smile. “You’ve heard of me, I take it?”

  “Who hasn’t?” Angel asked.

  Sienna smiled, again, forced. “You probably know why I’m here.” Angel shook her head. That made Sienna frown. “Houston PD called in a metahuman incident. That’s my department’s bailiwick, see?” She flipped open a badge, and Angel had a quar
ter second to catch it before it was flipped closed again. “I’m with the Metahuman Policing and Threat—you know what? We just call it the agency.”

  Angel just nodded. What were you supposed to say to that? “The men who attacked me … they weren’t metahumans,” Angel managed to squeeze out.

  Sienna nodded, smile becoming more sympathetic. But still forced, like she was doing something she didn’t want to be doing. “The police don’t think these men were metahumans. They’re both dead from gunshot wounds, which—metahumans can be killed by gunshot wounds, don’t get me wrong, it’s just … tougher.” Her gaze settled on Angel. “The cops … they think you’re a metahuman.”

  “I—I—I don’t see how,” Angel said, shaking her head. “I’ve been a normal human all my life, never had—powers.” She couldn’t stop shaking her head. “Not that there’s anything wrong with—well, you.”

  That caused Sienna’s eyebrow to arch. “Good to know there’s nothing wrong with me,” she said dryly. “Others might disagree.”

  “I didn’t mean it like—” Angel’s neck muscles sagged and her head lurched forward.

  “You’re under a little bit of pressure,” Sienna said, sliding onto the back of the ambulance next to her. “In shock, the cops say. This the first time you’ve witnessed actual violence?”

  “Yeah,” Angel said. Her voice sounded hoarse, almost a whisper.

  “Then this is hardly shocking,” Sienna said, and now she was whispering. Very quietly, in fact. “Your body is adapting to new inputs, to new sensations. Ever been in a car accident?” Angel shook her head. “You really have led a nice, charmed life, then, haven’t you?” Angel just nodded. “Good for you. By the way—you can hear me?”

  Angel nodded, brow furrowing. “Of course.”

  “I’m speaking so low that no one but a metahuman could hear me right now,” Sienna said, meeting her eyes. “Boosted senses are part of the deal.”

  Angel blinked. “No—I couldn’t—”

  Sienna tossed something at her, and Angel reached out and grabbed it before it hit her in the chest, which was where it was heading. The motion was quick, or else the throw was slow. Angel stared at the object caught deftly in her fingers. It was long and thin—a pen.

  “Nice reflexes,” Sienna said, slapping both knees with her hands and standing up. “I think you might be faster than me, even.”

  “I—I …” Angel held up the pen, then looked into Sienna’s eyes. “How?”

  Sienna shrugged. “You heard the TV special thing? About manifesting taking place at eighteen or so?”

  “Yes,” Angel said, swallowing heavily. “But I’m not—”

  “It’s a guideline,” she said. “It’s not chiseled in stone and handed down from on high, okay? I know one guy who manifested at birth. You don’t look that old.”

  “I’m twenty-two,” Angel said lamely.

  “On the metahuman age scale—and given your speed of movement, I’m guessing you’re up the power curve a ways—yeah, four years is nothing.” She smiled. “Congrats, you’re definitely meta. I’d shake your hand, but …” She tapped the side of her head. “I think you probably know I have enough company in here already.” Her eyes moved slightly, as though reacting to something someone had said within her own mind. “Don’t be a dipshit, Wolfe.”

  Angel just blinked again. She really did hear voices. That was almost as weird as … well, anything that had happened this morning.

  “These guys that attacked you,” Sienna said, folding her arms in front of her. “Any idea why they came for you?”

  “I …” Angel’s thoughts were thudding. She’d told the police about what had happened yesterday at the restaurant, of course. She might have been fear-addled, but the threat like Jorge had made? It wasn’t the sort of thing she was used to dealing with, and it stuck out like a duck breast in a pack of chicken. “There was … something that happened yesterday … at my restaurant.” She explained quickly, and a little haltingly, and when she was done, Sienna’s brow was knitted in concentration. “… I don’t know if Jorge sent them, but the things they said … about me being …” She shook her head. “I … I don’t know how I could be metahuman like you.” Angel let her neck sag again, staring at her bare feet. “I couldn’t even put out a kitchen fire the other day. I just stood there, rooted to the spot. My cousin had to do it for me.”

  “So … you’re basically a freezer,” Sienna said, and Angel brought her gaze up to find the woman peering at her with vague interest, one eyebrow arched.

  “A … what?”

  “Someone who freezes in a crisis,” Sienna said. “Fight, flight, or freeze, and you freeze.”

  “I … thought it was just fight or flight?”

  “Uh uh,” Sienna said. “Primal instincts, right? Fight and flight are the ones everyone knows, but freeze is a legit third way. The idea being that when a predator appears, movement draws the eye. If you freeze, you might be overlooked. Now, that was programming that goes back to default stuff in the deepest part of our brains, so it’s pretty useless in a modern context, but it’s still there, and lots of people do it in a pinch.”

  “You … you don’t do that, though?” Angel asked. She found it hard to believe a superhero would freeze. Ever.

  “I probably had it trained out of me by my mom from an early age,” Sienna said, and Angel picked up on a little tension there. “It’s fixable. Don’t sweat it. Now that you’re meta, your reaction times are going to give you a little more margin for error, a little more time to bust through that fifteen second or so freeze.” She stood a little awkwardly. “So … if this guy, Jorge … was coming after you because of what happened at the restaurant yesterday …”

  “Yeah?” Angel asked.

  “We need to go talk to your cousin. Like, now,” Sienna said.

  “Oh … okay,” Angel said, not making a move to get up. “I … guess we could drive over to her firm—”

  Sienna made a face, humor laced in with a dash of scorn. “Drive? Why would we do that?”

  Angel just blinked. “What else would we …?” She didn’t even have to finish.

  Sienna was already floating a couple feet off the ground, a little impish smile over her pale lips. “Driving is so passé.” She held out a hand, and Angel reluctantly raised her own after only a moment’s hesitation. Sienna took her by the wrist, then grabbed her other one. “Now … make sure you hold on tight. Meta tight, okay? But don’t give me all you got, because that could break even my wrists. Snug hold?” She had a pretty tight grip on Angel’s wrists, clutching against the sleeves, and Angel had her sweaty palms on the leather of Sienna’s jacket but gripped fairly tightly. “Here we go—”

  And they launched off into the air. Angel couldn’t even muster a scream as they soared up, up into the sky, Houston appearing past a patch of trees as the desire to scream, to panic, to thrash gave strange way to something else—

  This was …

  It was …

  Angel took a breath. Her hands were clamped tight on Sienna Nealon’s wrists, and the city of Houston was growing large before them, as they soared in from the suburbs toward downtown.

  This …

  Angel couldn’t blink, could barely breathe, and then it all came rushing in with one long breath.

  She had powers.

  She was metahuman.

  She was …

  Flying.

  And somehow, in those short moments of flight, dangling beneath the most powerful woman in the world …

  The fear, that crippling fear that had seemed to cloud her every day, her every waking moment—worries about money, about failing, about losing the restaurant—somehow, every single one of them left Angel alone for the space of that flight.

  And when she came down … they didn’t come back, at least not right away. It was as though Sienna Nealon had somehow pulled them from her very skin, even though they hadn’t touched.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Sienna


  Now

  The air was thick as I stepped into the vault, pry bar heavy in my hand and the coat of dust drifting through the air, motes as drifting as if they’d been illuminated by a spotlight, even though emergency lighting was all we had to work with. The air in the vault was thick with tension as I glanced at my watch again.

  Only thirty seconds had elapsed since the alarm had started, but it felt like an hour of precious time evaporated. Three and half minutes to go until the cops showed up.

  I picked a random safe deposit box just inside the entry and forced my pry bar in the little door gap, ripping it cleanly off in one move. Sliding that one out, I put it on the table in the middle of the vault and broke it open. Documents, some jewelry. I threw it all in the bag, which I placed on the table, then shunted the box aside.

  Angel gave me a look. “What?” I asked.

  “You’re actually going to rob the place?” she asked, meta-low to defeat any listening instruments in the room, paused across the table, where she was searching for Miranda’s deposit box.

  “Something I thought about after Augustus handed me the garbage bag. Yeah, we gotta at least try and take some stuff. We can just leave it behind in the lobby when we make our escape in a ‘panic.’” I used scare quotes. “It’s good fodder for ‘World’s Dumbest Criminals,’ and it makes it look like we were attempting an actual robbery instead of targeting one specific box.”

  “Ah,” she said, and went back to searching while I broke open another box at random and dumped the contents—some family photos from the black and white era (you know, the real kind, not the Instagram filter kind or the sort where you dress up like cowboys and Puritans or something and get your picture taken). I cringed as the glass in the photo frames broke, but alas, what could you do? I resolved to handle the bag with great delicacy from here, and maybe just leave it on the table in my ‘panic.’

  “Found it,” Angel said, the klaxon wailing around us. I tossed her the bar and realized at the last second she wasn’t looking at me.