by Lee Winter
Lena’s eyebrow lifted and she nodded once, as though being called to random bloodied emergencies was common. Which, come to think of it, for her it pretty much was. Not that Mrs. Finkel knew that.
“Lead on,” was all she said, locking up behind her.
On her hands and knees on a small balcony, hemmed in by potted plants in various states of age and morbidity, Lena scrubbed a widening pool of blood and feathers. It was a rather vicious-looking double pigeon homicide. She side-eyed Bernstein, the plump, smug-looking cat responsible.
It shut its moody green eyes and yawned.
This was not quite Bernstein’s worst crime scene, but it was up there.
Lena plucked an errant feather out of her hair and considered the feline’s owner. Mrs. Finkel was a sprightly woman for her age. Seventy-one years young, she’d tell anyone who’d listen. Which lately mostly extended to telling the ruthless Bernstein, her goldfish Woodward, and Lena.
The chatty widow had worked all over the US on some of the biggest newspapers—as Lena knew all too well from having her ear bent whenever Lena surfaced to collect her mail, still shaking off the dust from far-flung places.
Pinkish water spattered as Lena dunked her scrubbing brush in the bucket. She wrinkled her nose in disgust, trying to keep it off her clothes.
Damn it, she should be at work by now, finding out what the big emergency was that had yanked her out of Siberia so suddenly. But it was a bit hard to argue a work emergency with Mrs. Finkel given the old woman had no clue what she did for a living, let alone why it was occasionally vital to the human race. For all her neighbor’s natural curiosity, as befitting her former profession, she had never once asked Lena what she did. Nor had she ever enquired too closely about the array of injuries—from black eyes to strange scars and crippled knees—that Lena often brought home from various assignments.
No, she held her own counsel. Lena liked that about her. She also liked her sharp mind, which made her tales from the news desk not entirely terrible to bear for the tenth or eleventh time.
Lena hefted the bucket and trudged inside to flush it down the drain. One more rinse across the balcony, and she’d be out of here. Easy.
Lena perched on the edge of a blue, embroidered, oversized sofa, gaze sweeping a mounted stuffed pheasant to her right, a faded world map on the wall behind her, a typewriter by the windowed desk, and a now relieved Mrs. Finkel in front of her.
Lena was stuck with a cup of tar that her neighbor liked to pretend was coffee. In all their years living across from each other, the other woman had never mastered the art of making liquid caffeine that tasted ingestible.
“Thank you, again, dear,” she was saying, stroking her fat black cat.
Bernstein swished his tail in Lena’s direction and blinked at her. She narrowed her eyes. Smug little shit.
Grimly swallowing more tar, Lena said: “No problem.” She wondered whether two sips was sufficient before she could put the cup down and bolt. She wasn’t sure which was worse—the coffee or having to be sociable.
Mrs. Finkel laughed. “So uptight, dear. We need to find you a way to relax.”
“So you keep telling me.”
“I’m never wrong. You know, my granddaughter’s about your age. And no, no, don’t give me that look again—she’s not like most other young women. Diane’s a war correspondent. Oh, the stories she can tell. She’s very engaging. She’s stateside at the moment, and climbing the walls for things to do and new people to meet. She’d drag even you out of your shell.”
“I like my shell,” Lena said honestly.
Mrs. Finkel laughed. “Well, if you ever change your mind, here’s her card. She’s always telling me how boring people her age are. You aren’t boring, though, are you, Lena?” Her grey eyebrows lifted with a hint of mischief, as they always did when she subtly probed Lena’s working life.
It was a game they played. The shrewd widow always inched the door open a sliver, in case Lena was feeling chatty for once. But Lena never could say a word. No one even knew guardians had meltdowns or went rogue, let alone needed trackers, such as Lena, to find them. That didn’t fit the heroic narrative at all.
“Oh, I’m very boring,” Lena said, pocketing the business card out of politeness. She’d stick it on the fridge and promptly ignore it. “You know me.”
“I wish I did,” Mrs. Finkel said wistfully. “It’s not for want of trying. Whatever it is you do that has you disappearing at all hours, for months on end, it can’t be all that your life is, can it? You need friends, dear. A hobby, perhaps?”
She pinned hopeful eyes on Lena, who smiled, placing the unfinished drink on the wooden coffee table and rose.
“I have to go. I’ll have to run for the train.”
“All right, then. Sorry to have detained you. Thanks for all your help with the mess. Don’t forget, call Diane. Make friends. Live a little!”
When Lena made no comment, Mrs. Finkel gave her a long-suffering sigh, her eyes twinkling. “I don’t know why I bother.”
Lena gave her a wave over her shoulder and opened the door. “Me either. I’m a lost cause.”
“No such thing,” Mrs. Finkel protested as she shut the door behind her.
Lena caught sight of the clock on the ostentatious spire at the top of her company’s American headquarters. She was really late. She quickened her pace as she rounded the side of the black glass-and-steel edifice that had been her workplace for half a decade.
The Facility. What a nice, clean, impersonal name for what they did in there. If only people knew. She hurried to the front of the building, taking the stone stairs two at time.
Lena detested being late for one reason—she liked to know what was going on. And all the decent gossip happened before eight on Mondays outside Dutton’s office. Not post-ten.
As she entered the Facility’s granite foyer, her senses were immediately assailed by the booming, competing giant screens on opposing walls, broadcasting the daily superhero news feeds. Which guardian had saved who and what and how overnight in a light-and-sound spectacle.
Lena rolled her eyes at the excuse to parade an array of straining muscles and cleavages for the commons to get weak-kneed over. Surrounding her in ten-foot-tall, high-definition vision were scenes of adoring fans, their perfect superstars, and the tearful rescued, all on an endless loop.
They were certainly beautiful. But to Lena, the guardians would always be little more than “the talent.” It was all kabuki theater these news reels; everything for show. Censorship was rife. No imperfections in their glossy PR image ever allowed. God forbid.
Even so, it was a little hypnotic. She sometimes watched to find out who was ascendant in the Facility’s world order. Knowledge was more than just power. Knowledge meant control.
And Lena Martin preferred control in all things.
Her eye caught sight of new Talon Man footage. The orange-suited, lantern-jawed leader of the Guardians’ Confederation smiled his toothy, gleaming smile and announced how every guardian lived to serve. His voice resonated across the foyer.
Lena snorted. Sure they did. Three parallel scars on her arm said otherwise.
She flashed her ID at the security guard who was part volcanic rock, part god-only-knows-what. He grunted in reply—which was the most that particular guardian ever said to anyone. She’d never bothered to ask his name, and he’d never volunteered it.
At the elevators, she laid her palm on a chrome wall pad. The doors opened and a computer voice sounded. “ID accepted, Lena Martin, 1342-22A. Tracker First Class. Access granted for sub-levels ten to seventeen. Enter.”
She stepped inside and felt the floor drop. It seemed slower than usual.
“Come on,” Lena muttered, acutely aware of the time. She stared at the dropping numbers in irritation.
A sharp blue light flashed suddenly around the cabin. A random security check, assessing her credentials at the molecular level. It was an unsubtle reminder that the guardians trusted her, and t
he other human subcontractors who did their menial work, about as much as she did them.
The elevator stopped at sub-level eleven. Two more trackers got on. She nodded out of professional courtesy, but she had a healthy dislike for both Wills and Rossi.
“Got a big day?” Wills was asking his colleague.
“There’s a runner and a splat on the eastern division board,” Rossi said. “I’ll take the splat. Easier since it’s Becky’s birthday tonight. My kid’s gonna be ten.”
A splat. She swallowed in revulsion. When superhero powers failed, they really did. Or sometimes they overestimated their own abilities at stopping an out-of-control train or pulling out of a dive and so on. Why Rossi thought cleaning up deceased talent was “easier,” she’d never know. She might not think much of guardians but it was still revolting seeing them in that state. She was glad she no longer did that beat. Having T-stats as high as hers had its perks. She got some say in assignment choice.
“Hey, that’s great. Say hi from me,” Wills said. “I’ve got a break on the south side. Shouldn’t take too long. They already got him cornered in a warehouse. Keeps calling for his mommy.”
Both men laughed.
What asses. Guardian meltdowns—breaks—were happening a lot more often these days for some reason, not that her bosses acknowledged it. In such cases, to be even slightly effective, the Facility needed to send in a tracker who could project empathy. They would pat a guardian’s hand and tell them it was going to be okay. That they’d get help. That they’d come to the Facility and be looked after real nice.
What a joke. The Facility didn’t have a clue what “help” meant. Their secrets ran a lot deeper than being in denial about the fallibility of its super members.
Rossi turned to her. “What you got, Silver?”
Lena shook herself out of her reverie on hearing her nickname. “Not sure yet. Haven’t checked in.”
Rossi whistled, glancing at his timeslide. It was some flashy piece of pure platinum in vogue with all the commons right now. Completely redundant, of course, since he also wore his FacTrack which showed the time, as well as being a databank, multimedia player, GPS navigation, and satellite communications system.
“Shit, you’re gonna get toasted being this late.”
“Whatever,” Lena said. “Not like I’m that easy to replace.”
And it was true. Rossi and Wills exchanged pointed glances. But she wasn’t talking herself up. No one could do what she did. There was daylight between her and the rest of the office. She was the top tracker internationally this year. Same as last year and the year before, when she’d finally beaten Hastings in the London Facility office, which was the international HQ for guardians.
“You just hauled in Beast Lord, didn’t you?” Rossi whistled. “Tricky catch.”
She shrugged nonchalantly, but her bones were still aching from the cold. She wondered if she’d ever feel warm again.
“We any closer to a result on the pool?” Rossi asked curiously.
Lena gave him a thin smile. Beast Lord was a hotly debated topic. At certain times every decade, he became half wild. No one had ever told the trackers why. Hell, maybe their alien bosses didn’t know themselves. So the trackers had a betting pool of theories, ranging from brain-chemistry changes to mating season.
“Nothing new,” she replied.
Rossi shook his head. “Figures. He doesn’t seem the chatty type.” He turned back to Wills. “Here’s what I don’t get. Those guardians hiding in the middle of nowhere, like Beast Lord, why even bother us with it? Ain’t causing commons any problems, right? Just give us the clear-and-present-danger jobs. Not like the masses would be any wiser. They’re clueless. They wouldn’t know, we wouldn’t tell, everyone wins. Right?”
“Are you kidding me?” Lena interrupted, incredulous.
“What?” Rossi’s head snapped around, facing her. “I just mean this is such a waste of resources. Come on, Silver, you can’t have been too happy freezing your tits off in Siberia over a crazy dipshit like Beast Lord. Look, it’s basic math—sometimes the talent runs. So what? Let them, I say, as long as they stay low and off the news feeds. We’ve got enough crap on our plate with all the extra breaks and splats these days.”
Lena glared at him. “You know why. Hell, your kid knows why,” she said in exasperation. “People have a right to know that all the talent in the super zoo is being monitored at all times. It keeps the twitchy masses from losing their paranoid minds about having aliens loose among us.”
“I know that.” Rossi gave her a long-suffering look. He folded his arms. “I meant the public doesn’t have to know they’re missing. Why don’t we use our trackers better? Stick to the guardians who are actually a threat, not the ones who’ve gone to ground?”
Lena threw her hands up. “You’re a damned tracker, Rossi. You know better than anyone else how much raw power guardians have at their fingertips. Now how much damage could a runner do if they went psycho while they were off the grid? What if we couldn’t even find them in time, let alone stop them using their powers on us?”
“One is hardly—”
“What if it’s not just one?” She glared.
“Come on, Silver, they’re harmless.” He eyed her uncertainly.
“Yeah? Tell that to the residents of Oymyakon after all their windows have been shattered every time Beast Lord decides to howl at the moon or whatever shit he gets up to. Tracking guardians protects humanity from potentially lethal weapons.” She gave the now-subdued man a withering look. “I can’t believe I have to explain any of this to a freaking tracker.”
The elevator came to a stop with a shudder and a ding. Lena strode out, ignoring the pair, who changed the topic to debating how bad Rossi’s splat would be.
Gross.
“Silver!” came a bark from the end office as she took her first step into the Trackers’ Control Room. She looked up to see the thin, pinched features of her boss, Bruce Dutton. He was in his mid-forties, and had a nervous tic which made him blink too often. The man reminded her of a highly strung, bespectacled, bureaucratic stork. He was smart, though, and fair, so she tolerated him.
“What time do you call this?”
Lena rolled her eyes. She didn’t make a habit of being late, so what was his damned problem? She didn’t answer, instead raising her chin and sauntering over. “Need me?”
“Check the attitude.” He sighed, pointing at the visitor’s chair. “Sit.”
She plopped into the seat opposite and folded her arms.
“Welcome back from Siberia. Hope you dodged frostbite?”
Lena drummed her fingers on her forearm, waiting for him to get to the point.
“Fine,” he muttered at her non-response. “Upstairs has stepped up the urgency on rounding up all the overdues and getting them back under thumb. Time is a critical issue. We’re not stopping for niceties anymore. Just tag them and bag them.”
Well, that explained her emergency recall. Lena took no small pride in the fact that when a guardian had been on the run for more than a month, their file stamped “Overdue”, it was Lena they called in to get fast results. Due to her survivalist skills, Lena’s specialty was the off-the-grid runners—the sneaky, clever ones hiding out in godforsaken places, their communications timeslides torn off as they eluded capture. She wondered how long she’d be packing her bags for this time.
“How late are we talking?”
“This one hasn’t checked in for at least eighteen months.”
Lena bit back a shocked gasp. Eighteen months? Not only was that an unbelievable length of time for an overdue to be gone, but how had she missed hearing about it?
“We’ve sent four trackers over that time, each with solid leads,” Dutton said. “Good trackers too. They all came back saying there was nothing. No trace at all.”
He tapped a few keys on his keyboard, and a holographic projection appeared between them. Lena studied the back of the floating image, waiting for it to rotate
to the front. “Who is it this time?”
“Surprised you don’t recognize her. She was high profile ten years ago. Like, top-tier famous.”
Lena leaned forward as the hovering shape turned to face her. A lean, muscled, tall torso encased in a black, figure-hugging costume slowly pirouetted. Dark, smooth skin. A closely cut shadow of hair which emphasized sharp, high cheek bones. Generous, wide lips and deep brown eyes that drilled right into you. Eyes that said she wasn’t taking any crap.
Lena started, swallowing her gasp. She was part of history, this one. An actual founder. And she was more elusive than all the other aliens on Earth put together.
Shattergirl had been the forgotten guardian until about ten years ago, when she was outed by paparazzi, catapulting her into the stratosphere as the first lesbian superhero the world had ever seen. Shattergirl had not hidden her displeasure at that. She had an attitude as fierce as her skills, which were twofold—she could fly, and she could fling objects about with her mind, to shattering effect.
“Seriously? Shattergirl’s an overdue?” Lena could hardly believe it. Founders never ran. Some of the second-generation guardians did, sure. And their kids’ kids were even worse, needing a white-knuckled tight rein. Teenage rebellion crossed all barriers and genetics, it seemed. Most of her day job involved third-generation guardian brats.
But the founders, the original group of aliens to make their home on Earth, were supposed to be the standard bearers of their people. They didn’t break or splat or anything else. They were the reason the whole world had fallen in love with their kind. So a founder running? Hell. This was unprecedented.
“Yeah.” Dutton ran his hand over his thinning hair. “Hence the panic from upstairs. Surprised you, of all people, hadn’t heard about it.”
“Have you forgotten I was in Outer Buttfuck, Siberia, for the past four months?” Lena lifted her eyebrow. “Only got in last night. When did I get the chance to see any internal briefings on this?”
“Wasn’t on the in-house briefings. But I know how good your under-the-table intel is. Thought for sure you’d heard something. For the record, this one is marked as a full news blackout, inside and outside the building. You know the drill.”
