And right now, all of that matters about as much as a dog’s wet fart.
I have never been this freaked out in battle before. On a regular basis, people try to murder me, and I laugh it off. But now, I’m that scared little girl again, and there’s nothing I can do. This hearing was hard enough when it was secret. With the circus waiting outside, I might last half an hour before I need to go to the bathroom and lock myself in a stall. The next few hours are going to be miserable. My shoulders pull themselves in tight. I take the wig off my head and shove it under the table. I don’t feel much like Dreadnought right now.
The door opens, and I jump. My parents enter the courtroom. As with all the other hearings, I only see them out of the corner of my eye, my gaze locked forward. Cecilia straightens up next to me, and I glance over at her.
“They’ve got a lawyer,” she says, and now I do look. Shit, they’ve got a lawyer. He’s middle-aged, sort of a ridiculously handsome dude with silver temples and a thousand-dollar suit. They wouldn’t cast this guy as a lawyer on TV because he looks too much like what he is. And then, by accident, I look at my parents.
I almost don’t recognize them. In the last nine months, my mother has gained all the weight my father has lost. Their eyes fasten onto me. My father’s eyes have the familiar cold anger that only people who’ve lived with him can recognize. My mother has an expression I can’t—or won’t—read clearly. She opens her mouth, and I tear my eyes away, very deliberately show them the side of my face and nothing more. Under the table, the wig has already been torn to ratty pieces as I wind the hairs around my fingers.
The judge comes in and the bailiff calls the court to order. The preliminaries hum along, lots of arcane introductions and curiously stilted language.
Then the judge turns to my parents’ lawyer and says, “Mr. Trauth, I’m surprised to see you in here. It is rare that a firm takes a pro bono case on behalf of the respondents in this sort of situation.”
Trauth even sounds too much like a lawyer when he says, “My firm believes in taking the side of the case that, in our estimation, most benefits the child, even if that is at the respondents’ table.”
Go fuck yourself is on the tip of my tongue, but Cecilia lays a hand on my wrist and I let the moment pass.
The judge nods and laces his fingers in front of him. “And tell me, did you have anything to do with our little media powwow this morning?”
“Of course not, Your Honor,” says Trauth. “We were just as surprised to learn that Ms. Tozer had been identified in the press as you are.”
Cecilia stands. “If I may, Your Honor?”
“You may.”
She looks at Trauth. “Do you really expect us to believe that you swooped in to represent her parents, reversed their decision not to appeal the prior motion, submitted a new petition on their behalf earlier this morning, and this all just happened to take place around the time every news outfit in the city learned who Jane Doe was?”
“My clients are in the Federal Witness Protection Program, and have only flown into town from their safehouse for this hearing; of course I wouldn’t compromise their safety by publicizing the event.” Trauth says. He doesn’t seem flapped. “If you wish to allege misconduct on the part of my office, I hope you’ve got more than vague implications to back it up.”
“That’s enough,” says the judge. “Mr. Trauth, since you’ve submitted the latest documents, let’s start with you…”
And the hearing has finally begun. I immediately start trying to tune out. God, it used to be so easy. I could just flip a switch and go blank inside. There’s got to be something else I can think about. Something I can hide behind.
Cecilia’s phone is still on the table. It’s still bricked. My eyes are stuck on it. How’d it die? Why didn’t I get anyone’s calls? Shit, at the very least I should have gotten a notification that Doc’s tilt-engine had landed at her aerodrome on the outskirts of town—I usually get automatic text alerts whenever her jet arrives or departs, and only now do I realize that I never received them. Professor Gothic’s words come back to me: You’ve got enemies you won’t recognize until they attack.
One missed call is unfortunate. Two is a coincidence. Three is enemy action.
The more I think about it, the more I’m sure that this is asymmetric warfare. The enemy—whoever they are—knows it’s a fast trip to the hospital to bring the fight to me in person, so they’re trying to hit me here. But who would want to, and how would they do it? More to the point, how would they even know about—
Graywytch.
She knows who my parents are. She knew I hadn’t told them about being Dreadnought’s successor—it wouldn’t be too much of a leap for her to guess we weren’t a happy home. Hell, after she outed me, she might have gone invisible and stayed to watch the fireworks for all I know. She could know I was petitioning to get emancipated and set this up—and I mean all of it, the reporters, Trauth, everything—to screw with me. But why?
The answer comes to me immediately: she’s a TERF—a Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist, though I hesitate to use the word feminist in there. The difference between an actual feminist and a TERF is sort of like the difference between your average white dude and the KKK. She thinks I’m some sort of monster just because I’m trans, and in her mind, spite is its own reward.
I grab one of the pads of yellow lined paper on the table and scribble bathroom on it, slide it in front of Cecilia. Trauth is having some back-and-forth with the judge. Cecilia looks at the paper and nods. Out in the hallway, a gaggle of reporters look up hopefully from their laptops. A few start shadowing me down the hall.
I turn back to look at them. “You need to watch me shit now?”
At least they’ve got the good graces to look embarrassed and stop acting like I’m in a zoo. The women’s bathroom is around the corner and down the hall a ways. A little past it, a side exit to the building. I push open the door and glance around. Nobody is looking down the side of the building, so I shoot up into the air. The courthouse falls away beneath me, and now I’m all but invisible because most people almost never look up. Wind batters my sweatshirt, flapping and snapping as I push for speed. In a handful of seconds I’m across downtown—
—and punch through the windows of Legion Tower like a cannonball.
The briefing room is not as I remember it. The giant holographic globe is gone, the projector cold and dark. Plastic sheeting has been thrown over all the furniture. Almost nothing on this level is powered on, that much is obvious in the lattice. The lines are live, but nothing is drawing any juice. I didn’t get overly familiar with the layout inside the Tower, but I know the residential levels are below the briefing room and lounge. A few moments later I’ve yanked open the elevator doors and am falling down the shaft. As each floor whips past, I check it for heat and electricity, and catch myself in midair as I pass the fortieth floor. The elevator door goes in with a squealing crunch and then I’m zipping through the hallway, vectoring in on the greatest source of heat.
Graywytch is eating a late breakfast when her front door explodes inward. She jerks back in her chair in surprise when I kick the table against the wall. When I dart in to catch her by the front of her shirt—and God, it is so weird to see her in a baggy t-shirt and sweats instead of that charcoal robe she always wears—she snaps into shadows and slips through my fingers. She reforms a few yards away, a glinting silver athame in her hand. She points it at me and snarls, “Get out of my house.”
“You’re going after my family now?” I shout at her.
Graywytch shakes her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, and for half an instant I falter. But you know, she sure doesn’t seem surprised.
“Bullshit! You’re paying for their lawyer, aren’t you?”
“No.” She smirks. “Maybe you’re not as popular as you think you are.”
“It’s none of your business, Myra!” I stalk across the room, and she backs up just as quickly. “My
family is off-limits. You’re butting out of this fight, do you hear me?” I’ve got her backed up against a wall, but she drops into a pool of shadow at her feet—just sinks right down into the ground and disappears.
“You’re trespassing, young man.” Graywytch’s voice comes from everywhere and nowhere. “And I tire of you. Leave, before you get hurt.”
“Fucking try it, bitch.” My eyes are unfocused. The lattice gleams in the dark. She’s not here. No heartbeat, no heat.
“Did you really think you could do as you please and nobody would speak up? Nobody would do anything?” Graywytch asks. Not even the vibrations of her voice show up in the lattice. “You don’t deserve the mantle. You don’t deserve to be Dreadnought. Your parents know it, and so do I. Give up this farce. You will never be a woman, no matter how many lies you tell.”
Shit, what was the plan here? Stupid, Danny. My fists tighten. If she’d just show herself—but of course she won’t. I should have taken her out straight away. Come through the door and punched her through the goddamn wall. Shoulda, coulda, woulda.
“You’re a coward,” I say.
“No. Only a woman,” says Graywytch. I swear, there’s got to be something in the lattice when she speaks. For an instant I think I see it, some shimmering…then it’s gone. “A woman who has been surviving in a world of violent men since long before you were born. I use the tools that are available to me. Now leave, before we both become embarrassed for you.”
Graywytch’s condo is luxurious. All that work she refuses to do pays pretty well, even if she doesn’t pick up the phone. Dark wood furniture, soft track lighting, and a million-dollar view over downtown New Port. Above her fireplace—and it’s a real fireplace, somehow, even though we’re in the middle of a skyscraper—there is a cracked stone tablet. Circular, with worn grooves in the pattern of a Celtic knot. I cross her main room and pull the disk down off the mantle.
“Put that back,” says Graywytch.
The stone snaps in my fingers like a stale cookie. There is a hiss of outrage, so I smash the two halves together into gravel.
“This is me asking nicely. Next time, I’ll be angry,” I say. “You’re going to pull that lawyer off the case, and you’re going to do it today. I promise, you don’t want me to come back here.”
Graywytch doesn’t have an answer for that. I walk over to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking downtown and kick a hole in one. The entire pane shatters and slumps outward, held fast to the building by the tough safety film. Graywytch’s condo is still empty when I turn to take one last look at it before stepping into the air, but I think she’s gotten the message.
Chapter Eleven
When I get back to the courtroom, the lawyers are still in the early phase of their argument. My little field trip took less than ten minutes, even including the two or three minutes I spent hovering above the alley waiting for a clear moment to drop.
I start doodling on a spare legal pad and do my best to tune out the conversation. A few phrases sneak in. Her own best interest. Financially unstable. And so on. We break for lunch, and Cecilia disappears for a few minutes to call her assistants back at the office. Her lips are pressed tight, and she’s got a look in her eye like we’re going to have to go to war. I want to tell her that it’s all right, I took care of it, but I’m not sure it’s something she’d want to hear. She likes to do things by the book, so it’s best if this stays between me and Graywytch. After lunch, Cecilia immediately asks the judge for a week to consider the new claims my parents’ lawyer has made.
On the way out of the courtroom, I make the mistake of eye contact with my father. His eyes are depthless pits of rage. His lips are pressed tight under his brushy mustache, and every part of his body language gives off the warning signs I spent my childhood learning to avoid. The soft, vulnerable parts inside of me shrivel up and go cold. Cecilia’s hand on my shoulder brings me back to the present, and I manage to keep my face blank as our eyes meet.
My mother pushes past him as we leave. Her face pleads as much as her voice. “Danny, please, won’t you even talk to us?”
Like magic, Cecilia is there between us, gently but firmly pushing her back. “Ma’am, the conditions of your restraining order enjoin you from speaking to my client.”
“Who are you to keep me from my child?” My mother’s voice shakes; her fists are like claws.
“You picked your side, Janet!” I shout as I try to get my feet to move toward the door.
“Don’t talk to your mother that way,” says my father, his voice dangerously controlled.
“Danielle, we are leaving,” says Cecilia, taking me by the arm and shoving any reporter too enthralled with the family drama out of the way. A gaggle of reporters follows us down the hall until we duck into the ladies’ room and Cecilia shuts the door with emphasis. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say, rubbing my arms.
“That was worse than I expected it to be. It’s an asset stripping, just like I thought,” she says. “Most of your income is sheltered by the trust I set up for you, but they’re contesting control of it. There’re some things I need to do to shore up our defenses. Are you going to be okay if I leave you now?”
“Sure.” I’m coming down from the anxiety spike. “I’ll be fine. But give me a moment.”
“Good. Now, there are going to be some nasty stories in the paper over this. Don’t read them, don’t watch the news, and no comment to the press. Okay?”
“What if this blows up?” I ask.
“It will, but no comment. I’ll have my assistant put something out this afternoon.” Beyond the doors we can hear the muted rumble of a gathering press gaggle, waiting to pounce on us when we leave. “You did well today, Danielle. I’m glad you could keep your head.”
My cheeks get warm. “Well, uh, thanks.”
We step out of the bathroom together. The press swarms up to greet us, and Cecilia moves in front of me to start no-commenting. I duck away toward the side door and take off at a forty-five degree angle up into the sky. Little wisps of fog dance around my nose, and I edge back from the sound barrier. I’m not supposed to go supersonic over the city unless it’s an emergency. At a hair under 760 miles per hour, the New Port skyline rips past me, here and gone between one moment and the next. As Doc’s condo tower comes up, I start dumping speed and come down at a skid across the porch.
Karen and Charlie are probably still doing research. I’ve got four hours of patrol scheduled for later today, and I might as well drop in to chat with them for a few minutes after I’ve suited up. But one look at Doc’s face when I slide the glass door open blows that plan right out of the water. She’s sitting in an armchair, facing the patio door, like she was just waiting here for me to get home.
“Um, hi, Doc. How was your flight?”
“Danielle, I still have access to Legion Tower’s security net,” she says.
“Oh?” I try to sound light and unconcerned as I shut the glass door behind me.
“What do you mean, ‘oh’? Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”
I turn back to face her. My toes are clenching inside my shoes, but I won’t back down. Never again. “She brought the media into my emancipation hearing, and she’s paying for a lawyer for my parents. She crossed a line.”
“So did you! You can’t do this, Danny.” The TV blinks on, showing footage of me smashing my way into the Legion briefing room. A few moments later, I’m kicking in Graywytch’s door. “I’ve wiped the footage remotely, but if something like this got out, you’d be done. The government would drop you faster than a rabid weasel.”
“I could find another job,” I say, trying to keep my voice level. “This isn’t even any of your business.”
“It is, actually,” says Doc. “We’re in this together. Why do you think I built all that fancy gear for you? You don’t think I drop a quarter million dollars in hypertech on all my roommates, do you? We were supposed to be partners.”
“W
ell, not about this, we aren’t!” I snap.
“Did you hurt her?”
That brings me up short. “Wha—no! How can you ask me that?”
She softens her voice. “Because people who make you angry keep winding up in the hospital.”
“Blackcapes who are hurting people, yeah!”
“What about Acid Andy?” asks Doc.
I roll my eyes and walk past her through the living room. “This again?”
“He was surrendering, Danny.” She rises from her chair and begins following me.
“Acid Andy is a psychopath,” I say, heading down the hall to my room. “He’s done fake surrenders before; I had to be sure.” As I try to shut my door behind me, she catches it, pushes it back open.
“Yes, and now he’s a quadriplegic,” she says. “This isn’t the first time you’ve gotten close to the line, but it’s the worst, and you have to stop.”
“I’m getting dressed,” I say tightly, and push the door closed. Sweater, shirt, and pants come off. Fancy underwear, bodyglove, and cape go on.
When I come out, Doc is pacing in the main room, arms wrapped around her sides. “I owe you an apology. I should have seen this coming, and I didn’t. If I hadn’t—” Her voice cuts off. She tries again. “I’m sorry. But I’m really scared right now. For you, for me, for all of us.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Do you know how to make someone become a dangerously violent person?” Doc stops pacing. “It’s basically a recipe. You hold them down and treat them like shit. Destroy their self-esteem, strip away all their pride, all their self-respect. Then you give them a chance to solve a problem with violence, and when they do, you immediately reward them.” Doc takes a breath. “Does that sound like anyone you know?”
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