by Lee Winter
She did. Their vaunted super bosses routinely censored their people’s failings from newscasts if it was within their ability. Occasionally minor stuff slipped out on the indie media channels, such as a costume malfunction, but the guardians’ PR machine was pretty effective at controlling the big stuff. It helped enormously that Lena, along with the other commons at the Facility, had all signed non-disclosure agreements. So, to the world at large, no guardian had screwed up in any major way. Ever.
“So, let me understand this,” Lena said, “a founder, an actual icon no less, has been on the run for eighteen months and no one’s seen her anywhere? How is that even possible? Who’d you send before me?”
“Sachs, Ferretti, Cragen, and Miller.”
She stared. They were all elite trackers.
“I suspect,” Dutton continued with a sigh, “that Shattergirl somehow knows when they get near. Her spy network must be as good as yours. Every time she finds out we’re coming, she relocates before we get close. Hence, the reports that all say ‘no trace of her found.’”
Lena considered that scenario, knitting her brows together. Overdues tended to be loners, not part of any network. All her instincts told her Dutton was dead wrong. Shattergirl barely seemed to tolerate her own people, let alone Earth’s commons. The idea she was networking expertly to evade capture seemed ludicrous. It had to be something else.
She tapped her lip. From what she knew, Shattergirl did not suffer fools at all, was scary smart, and, unlike her eternally beaming brethren, refused to fake a damn thing. Lena smiled. Having a real challenge and a halfway decent guardian to track would make a change for once. She straightened.
“Why the screaming hurry that you had to recall me from Beast Lord mid-capture? I had to send him home in restraints, but I was this close to a voluntary return. You know that’s always better for rehab long term.”
“I know that, but we’ve just received a credible tip-off.” He tapped his computer keyboard. “Shattergirl’s been reported on Socotra. It’s the first fresh lead in six months.”
“Socotra? Where the hell is that?”
“Did you pay any attention at school, Silver?”
“Enough to know it was a waste of my time,” Lena said, shooting him a shit-eating grin.
Dutton sighed and pointedly pressed a key. “Okay, I’ve uploaded it all for you. We need this overdue back by August twenty-first. I know it’s less than a week, but at least we’ve narrowed it down to one tiny island for you. That deadline is fixed, by the way. Talon Man has his thing planned.”
His thing. Right. That was one word for the over-the-top extravaganza marking the first centenary of the guardians’ arrival on Earth. No expense had been spared. You couldn’t even buy tickets for it anymore, no matter how much you offered the scalpers. Obviously it wouldn’t do to have only forty-nine of the fifty founders present to celebrate landfall.
“Now I understand,” Lena said, checking her FacTrack had uploaded Dutton’s data packet. The file blinked at her. She gave him a knowing look. “I get why you so badly need my silver tongue.”
“Thought you might,” Dutton said. “We need this. Questions from the highest level will be asked if there’s a spare seat on that podium come the end of next week.”
“Yeah, god help us if the guardians look unable to control one of their own,” Lena muttered. “Fine, leave it with me. Fortunately, I have skills the precious guardians don’t.”
Dutton’s shoulders relaxed for the first time since she’d sat down, and he offered a rare smile. “I knew you were the tracker for this.” He adjusted his glasses. “Oh, and Socotra?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s also called the Island of Bliss.”
Lena grinned, pleasantly surprised. “Anything above freezing is bliss to me right now.”
“I’ll bet.” He looked at her seriously. “Pack your Dazr.”
CHAPTER 3
Lena unbuckled her seatbelt once they hit cruising altitude, little yellow light be damned. She ignored Air Yemenia’s shopping channel playing on multiple screens overhead. No, she did not want a “half tola of genuine Arabic oud perfume.” She scrolled through her FacTrack and called up the archival vids menu.
The early black-and-white data reels she’d loaded up on the founders before leaving home were interesting. Of course, she’d seen the footage before over the years, but a refresher couldn’t hurt. She pressed “Play” on the video of first contact with the founders.
Fifty super-fit humanoid survivors had suddenly appeared on the lawns of England’s Houses of Parliament—the epicenter of Earth’s power at the turn of the last century—as their spaceship broke up in the upper atmosphere. It was all avidly captured by movie news crews for the cinema houses.
There they sat, strange-looking creatures, barely humanoid a few of them, these oddly dressed refugees from another world. They ignored the growing, fearful crowds of hatted men in long coats and women in narrow, ankle-length hobble skirts and high blouses. They didn’t blink at the parade of rickety, black vintage vehicles and horse-drawn carriages, nor even seem to notice when a row of converted double-decker buses creaked to a halt.
From them disgorged a snaking line of soldiers, quickly surrounding the arrivals. In the silent, crackling, monochrome vision, Lena watched an officer with a wide, white mustache and matching bristling sideburns shout a command. The soldiers’ weapons snapped to shoulder height.
She held her breath as the gathering mob hungrily watched the aliens’ reactions to this provocation. The beings didn’t so much as twitch, but their gazes shifted to one among them. Then a shimmer of electrical, flickering energy sprung up around them.
The officer’s mouth opened and bellowed a single word. The caption read: “FIRE!”
Smoke, recoiling weapons, contorted faces in the crowd…chaos filled the footage, everywhere except at the very center of the scene. The aliens hadn’t even flinched.
Bullets had hit the shimmering protective dome, melting into it.
The commander ordered the men to repeat their attack, yielding the same result. The soldiers lowered their weapons helplessly.
The founders continued to sit there, in the strangest impasse ever seen. Lena supposed it was disturbingly human to fire at the aliens first and try to make peace second. But it was 1916, and half the planet was gripped in a war, so nerves were long frayed. In the hours and then day that followed, there came the first feeble attempts at diplomacy.
Lena jumped the archival footage forward.
Representatives of most nations—many already in London to discuss the war efforts—came and went, trying to reach the aliens in their various tongues. Each government’s agent made assorted demands, bribes and appeals, but, as was plain to see in the footage, none received a response.
The aliens waited for thirty-seven hours until their group’s empath, Mind Merge, had assimilated enough of the planet’s languages to work out the patterns and nuances of each, and finally began to speak in the dominant one.
Lena watched the disbelief on the crowd’s faces when Mind Merge suddenly opened his eyes and spoke in perfect King’s English, looking directly down the camera lens, explaining his group’s plight. His statements were added to the silent footage in subtitles, and screened for months in cinema houses worldwide.
She closed that video. She didn’t need to see the news footage that immediately followed, of the riots and hysteria, religious vigils, and other doomsday predictions that an invasion was imminent. As the months rolled on, every founder became part of a charm offensive and made it their mission to win over planet Earth and its anxious people.
Well, every founder except one.
Lena jumped ahead to the footage of the first global press conference. She pinpointed the dark-skinned woman hanging back, silently watching proceedings with mistrustful eyes, her arms folded, as their leader, Talon Man, leapt through the diplomatic hoops and amused the throngs with his charismatic routine.
Shat
tergirl looked unimpressed and irritated to the point of miserable.
Lena snorted. She couldn’t blame her. Politics were a cure for insomnia. She skipped forward three months to the most famous footage of all. The day the world’s media had gathered at Regent’s Park in London for a demonstration of the new arrivals’ abilities. One by one, they showed what they could do. It was one part theater, one part silent plea to their new world to allow them to make a home here.
She watched as the rugged Talon Man soared elegantly before landing in front of a tree and whittling at it with the sharp protrusions that ran along his arms and legs.
His movements were faster than the old movie cameras of the day could follow, so he appeared as a blur. When he stepped back, it was a stunningly accurate carving of their host nation’s prime minister. The man in question, watching in the crowd, beamed as the media behind him could be seen apparently “oohing” in delight.
Lena shook her head. Pure circus.
She ran the video forward again, past guardians with dragon breath and super strength, ones who could melt rocks, or jump a hundred feet. Then, it was Shattergirl’s turn. She stepped into the center and, without a word, turned her head sharply to the side, before slamming her hands together in a clap over her head.
Two black automobiles parked on the street suddenly flew into the air above the greened area, smashing spectacularly, raining debris on the grass before them. There appeared to be some sort of startled shout of dismay from two reporters, no doubt recognizing their respective company vehicles, and the faces of the rest broke into laughter.
Shattergirl’s expression betrayed nothing as she lowered her arms and stepped back.
In the background, Lena could see furious looks shot at her by several of her group, remonstrating with her silently. She grimly pressed her lips together and stared them down. They broke her gaze and didn’t make eye contact for the rest of the segment.
Lena wondered why she’d never seen this footage before. She checked the vid’s details. Her eyebrows shot up. Shattergirl’s segment had never aired. Huh. Well, with forty-nine other talents putting on a show, the news editors of the day obviously preferred to skip the one unwilling to pretend that this was anything but a debasing dog-and-pony show.
Her fingers tapped her FacTrack and loaded up the video of the day of signing the Pact. It was the guardians’ peace deal with the people of Earth. They received a guaranteed safe haven, where they would not be hunted, and the guardians would regulate and govern themselves, and ensure none of their kind stepped out of line.
They were assured, given that a world war was raging, they would be allowed to remain neutral in all human politics, and any country that sought them out for military ends, covert or overt, would lose the services of all guardians within their borders forever.
The guardians agreed, in turn, not to break any human laws except to save a life. They also conceded they would wear special tracking timeslides, alien tech they’d brought with them to Earth, as part of a registry of their whereabouts, updated weekly. And they agreed to always make themselves and their special talents available for the protection of the people of their adopted planet.
It took Lena ten minutes of hunting the crowd scenes to find Shattergirl hidden in the throngs of the clapping, back-slapping world leaders, diplomatic hangers-on, and guardians at the signing. Eventually she spied her, leaning against a pillar, rubbing her temple. She looked like she was thoroughly over everything and utterly miserable.
Lena jumped ahead two years. London. Opening day at the first Facility of a dozen to be set up worldwide to educate, heal, train, and govern guardians. In a stark contrast to landfall, this time the crowd was cheering their protectors’ arrival in their city.
She spent another hour studying photo after photo of Shattergirl from news events. The talent’s ability to shift large, dense matter effortlessly saw her appear often at landslides, mine collapses, fires, building implosions, and earthquakes.
Many photos captured her profile staring darkly at a horrific sight after having pulled the people to safety. She ignored the thanks of those around her as though they were as ridiculous and pointless as the requests for autographs and photos.
Lena was getting the picture now. Shattergirl did her duty as a guardian, sure, but rarely was she at any of the group photo ops. When she was caught on camera at some media or political event, it was always wearing the same pained expression. Lena zoomed in. She had seen this exact look before. Many times, in fact, and not on Shattergirl.
A startling theory formed. She could be way off base… Hell, she probably was.
Lena skipped to the last piece of Shattergirl footage. The video from just over a decade ago that made Shattergirl, until then a virtually unknown guardian, world famous. This was also the only interview with her in all the time she’d been on Earth. Lena hit “Play.”
“Shattergirl, Dave Monroe, The Daily Express. Do you have any comment on the photos in the paper today which caught you kissing a mystery woman? Are you a lesbian?”
“By what right do you ask me this?”
“As a journalist. I—”
“By what right do you assume to know any part of my private life?”
“Well, the public would really like to know—”
“How does their curiosity give them any rights to my personal business?”
“You’re a public figure, a guardian. And a founder. Shattergirl, you face scrutiny because you’ve chosen to be in the public eye.”
Her eyes flashed darkly. “I chose none of this. Not one part of this was ever my choice.”
“But—”
“No! And shame on you for asking.”
“Now come on a minute, I—”
“Shame. On. You.”
Her parting, enraged glower was flashed around the world and sparked an international debate about what rights, if any, the guardians had to their privacy. Of course, such thorny issues were forgotten by the next month. But for a young Lena, Shattergirl’s blunt interview had been the most telling thing any guardian had ever said in public in the past century.
She’d been sixteen back then, in awe, and had damn near cheered Shattergirl putting the reporter in his place. How much simpler things had been then. Before she’d learned the truth about guardians. Before she’d seen how pathetic they really were. Weak. Whiny. Entitled.
Lena considered her options for bringing Shattergirl in. Every instinct told her that with one so smart, the best offense would be no offense at all. Lena’s best skill was in getting others to open up to her. To keep them talking and talking, and to slowly bend them to her point of view over days or weeks, while convincing them the decision to return home was all their idea. In this area, she was unmatched.
She knew she could swing even this most private and reluctant guardian if she was on her A-game. And really, when wasn’t she?
With a cool smile, she turned off her FacTrack and closed her eyes.
Lena dodged an orange-and-white goat on the heat-shimmering tarmac as she followed the disembarking passengers from Air Yemenia’s weekly flight into Socotra. The desolate, squat, cream-and-white terminal building looked like it had been dropped in the middle of what could pass as a vast salt plain, bounded by distant purple mountains.
Hot winds laced with microscopic amounts of sand pummeled Lena. Her mouth was instantly sucked dry, and her eyes blinked back grit. She could smell dust on the whipping wind, with a hint of fusty goat. This was the Island of Bliss? The longer she was here, the more she wondered why Shattergirl would come to any part of Yemen.
Despite her boss’s claim it was only one little island, Lena had now learned the Socotra archipelago had four small islands just off the Horn of Africa, according to the guide book she’d read on the plane. She had ruled out three of the four islands on the way over, as being too tiny or barren to interest Shattergirl. So that just left this, Socotra’s main island, as her likely destination. It had enough of a main town for a
guardian to obtain supplies, and also enough isolation to hide out, undisturbed, for as long as she wanted.
Lena made it to the front of the queue and placed her Dazr on the customs official’s counter, careful to block anyone else from seeing it. The exotic weapon, by law, always had to be declared at airports, but it was also “need-to-know” only. She slid it next to her global authorization papers and waited.
“What is it?” the Middle Eastern man asked her in heavily accented English.
“A Max-fire Dazr. It’s a special gun. It shoots a mesh around a person and holds them for an hour to a day, depending on the setting.”
“Not that,” he grunted. “That.”
She followed his gaze to her arm. A curling, deep, parallel set of three scratches spiraled up her forearm.
Lena considered her response. She could hardly say an attack by the mentally unstable Beast Lord. She wasn’t entirely sure whether anyone around here had even heard of Beast Lord. Besides, she was under standing orders not to disabuse commons of the notion guardians were anything but cuddly, safe, and, most especially, sane.
She self-consciously lowered her leather cuff that had ridden up, to hide the scars. “A disagreement with a cooking knife.”
“Three of them?” Disbelief settled on his face.
She blinked at him innocently, shrugged as though she could barely remember the incident, then offered her most winning smile.
Suspicion now radiated from him. The official made a science of shuffling his papers. “Reason for visit?” he barked.
Lena studied his aggressive body language with growing disquiet. She had talked suicidal guardians down from mountain ledges. She’d convinced one who’d threatened to blow up an entire suburb with his creepy lava eyes to instead go to sleep. She simply explained to him that he was really, so very, very tired. And he’d just closed his eyes and curled up and slept, right where he was. Yet some pissy customs officer was looking at her like she was selling him a bag of dead squirrels? She clearly needed a holiday; she was losing her touch.
