* * *
I was sweating with nervousness.
"I can't believe you talked me into this," I hissed.
"Relax," Atlas whispered in my ear. "It'll be over before you know it."
He gave me a push and I stepped up to the starting square.
Since the best outcome remained finding Il Doppio before zero-hour, Seven had traded me for Artemis. Hopefully she wouldn't kill him. He'd escorted me back to the VIP lounge first and Atlas had taken me back out with him. I'd begun to feel like the little lady who needed to be squired about in public, but codling me was hardly Atlas' intention.
I took a deep breath and looked around at the cheering crowd as the announcer called out my name. The team vs. team battles of the morning were finished and they'd set the stadium up for track and field—the superhuman version of track and field, which for the aerobatics event included free-strung hoops, lofty poles, elevated bars, and spaced-out flag and ring stations. Despite the fact that I'd been flying for less than two months Atlas said I had to "show willing."
"Let them see you when you're awful—they know you'll get better." Well yippee skippy. I was determined not to be awful.
All competing flyers flew the course once together. It started with an almost vertical launch to the top of a pole with an attached ring you had to hook, then down to a series of nearly ground-level hoops with a flag at the end, a slalom course of bridged poles with a second ring, a high and track-circling circuit of strung hoops with a flag at the tightest part of each end turn, and finally a last ring to capture on the way back down to the starting square. You got points for time, staying in the course, and each flag and ring taken.
The course was really all about control; Dreadnought, the powered-armor wearing gadgeteer who went just before me, had had the speed but only poor handling of his suit's heavy mass (the vision-obscuring helmet probably hadn't helped either). I winced when he lost control and took out several rings on the track. I had speed, but aerobatic ability... I wasn't great. But I'd paid careful attention to the way they'd scored Dreadnought, and thought I could at least Not Stink.
But it wasn't going to be pretty—in fact it would probably go viral on ViewTube.
I gave Atlas a last look and set my feet. When the starting horn blared I launched myself.
I angled my ascent so that I hit the top of the pole at a steep angle. I hooked it, using my hands like spikes, and flipped around using the pole as an anchor. In the flip I knocked the ring off its stand and I snagged it on the way down, letting it slide up my arm. Accelerating hard, I twisted and kicked off from the base of the pole less than a body length from the ground. The pole split with a crack as I shot into the hoop line, grazing the bottom of the first.
At the end of the hoops I grabbed the first flag in passing, then lifted higher and sped up again. The slalom poles were concrete, and as I passed between them I pulled tight somersaults, kicking off from the outer pole of each pair as I went by to change direction without losing speed, like a pinball bouncing between bumpers.
I had to play it straight for the circling track and nearly missed the hoops at the corners, but I got both rings and the flag at the end, then punched down for the square to finish it, impacting in an explosion of sod and dirt.
Bobbing up out of the crater I heard wild whistles and cheers. Atlas looked stunned.
I laughed, giddy on adrenaline. The high pole had fallen, three of the slalom poles cantered crazily, and they needed to fill in my divot, but who cared? These were high-impact games with no points for style.
I'd been the tail in the flying order, and when the judges announced the final rankings the crowd went crazy and I grabbed Atlas in an impulsive hug. He'd scored first place, an amazing flyer named Heaven Dancer had taken second, and I'd smashed my way to third. I decided to consider it a good omen for the more serious challenge to come.
And I needed to think positive; zero-hour arrived with no call or text telling me Seven and Artemis had neutralized the bad guy.
Chapter Twenty One
Verne-type superhumans—more often called gadgeteers—are probably the strangest superhumans around. They don't do impossible things, they make impossible things. In the Pre-Event comics they were the Tony Starks and Reed Richards, making powered armor, jet packs, robots, ray guns... If Verne Science designs worked for anybody else we'd be living in the world of tomorrow. Usually stuck in a workshop if they aren't armored up to play in the field, they can make anything out of anything. And most of them I've met put the mad in mad scientist.
Astra, Notes From A Life
* * *
The cosplay competition is one of the highlights of Metrocon, and while it's pretty free-form it does have some rules. Would-be contestants present themselves at one of the event registration tables beforehand, in costume, and convention officials manning the tables can deny registration if they judge the costume not "family friendly." This meant there would be no Mr. Magical Japanese Princess making me want to scrub my eyes with bleach, and I was very grateful for that as I looked over the crowd gathering in the hall.
Because some of them definitely came close.
"We saw your win," Seven said, sliding into the seat beside me. "Congratulations."
The judge's table sat on the right end of the stage. Contestants would enter on the left, take a turn up and back on the catwalk projecting into the audience, make any costume-appropriate poses, then exit left again. Baldur had yet to appear, and Atlas stood offstage talking to a couple of convention officials.
"Where have you been?" I whispered back.
"Searching for the perfect gift. No luck. And smile—this is supposed to be fun."
"Fun?"
"Like you were having in the arena. They showed it big-screen down here and I'm pretty sure it's going in the convention's best hits clips along with Dreadnought's little blooper reel." He shook his head. "The man's a veteran of the China War. I wonder— There's Baldur."
He was right; an excited stir started in the back of the hall when Baldur made his entrance. His power is light projection, and in costume (white leather pants and jacket with lots and lots of gold-plated buckles) he always emits a soft golden aura. Add piercing eyes, high cheekbones, a noble brow under blond curls and a girl got weak just looking at him. He looked like a pagan god of light and beauty, knew it, used it. He'd even named his ginormous yacht Hringhorni, after the Norse god's mythic ship. Both Atlas and Seven were good-looking men; Baldur was too beautiful to be real.
Seven's laugh broke my distraction and I blushed.
He leaned in. "If it helps, tell yourself he's gay."
"He is?" I squeaked.
"No." He laughed again. "And neither am I. What's with your friend? She seems kind of cold."
"Artemis?"
He nodded. "She should be... there she is." He pointed towards the back and I realized she'd made it in. She hugged the wall behind the last row of chairs. Quite a few other heroes had come to watch the contest (Rook and Dreadnought were both there), but she should have stood out more in her hooded black costume. I wondered if she was using some kind of I'm-not-here Jedi mind trick.
She saw me look her way and shook her head. Drat.
"This is getting too—" I began. Seven stopped me, tapping the base of the mike sitting in front of him, and I cringed. It was probably live, from us to the sound box anyway.
"Just relax," he said. "We'll get you through it."
Then Baldur reached the stage and Atlas joined us, sitting down and giving Seven a nod while tweaking his cape out of the way in a practiced move I decided I needed to learn.
"Alright people," he said as the lights dimmed and the event announcer stepped up to his free-standing mike. "Let's do this."
I'd always loved the costume contest, and Shelly and I had even competed in it the year before she died. But now I was a nervous wreck. It took all of the poise I'd learned from years of trouble-shooting for Mom at foundation events to keep the bubbling panic off my fa
ce.
After the officials closed the doors Artemis circled through the crowd, then managed to maneuver herself close to the stage door to get a sniff of the contestants as they went up. Il Doppio couldn't get by her, so I watched the back as well as I could. When the lights came up on the first intermission I breathed a sigh, though I had no reason to feel relieved—he had to be in here with us. So why couldn't Artemis smell him? Even Seven was getting twitchy. Catching my stress, Atlas leaned in as we stood.
"Is everything all right?" he asked.
Then in the back of the hall Dreadnought raised his arm, and I knew.
I grabbed the heavy oak table and heaved it up, scattering pens, paper, and water bottles before the micro-missile he fired blew it apart, flinging chunks and slivers of oak around the hall. Screams of pain and shock from the audience punctuated the blast.
The stage gave us no cover but Seven spun Baldur around, pushing him towards the wings, keeping between him and the hall. Atlas didn't hesitate and the second missile exploded against his chest with no effect beyond shredding his suit. He launched himself over the screaming audience and across the room. Crashing down on Dreadnought, he ripped the missile-launching gauntlet off his suit before the heroes standing around them could react.
I sagged with relief, then choked on a horrifying thought.
"Atlas!" I yelled. "Get him out of here!"
He heard me and he did, going straight up through the ceiling, and since the hall was on the ground floor, through two more ceilings and into the open air before Dreadnought's armor exploded, knocking him out of the sky.
Chapter Twenty Two
Rules of Engagement in a Civilian Environment: avoid an encounter-with-force if at all possible, use only powers that can be applied without collateral damage, use all powers that can be applied without collateral damage, do not escalate, stop any escalation, and neutralize civilian risks as quickly as possible.
Chicago Sentinels Training Manual.
* * *
Dreadnought, a retired Verne-type supersoldier and an actively blogging anti-government libertarian, must have seemed the perfect shooter for the plot we couldn't tell anyone about. With Il Doppio's body vaporized, Dreadnought would have been forever smeared as a wannabe assassin if not for Atlas. When he ripped the gauntlet off a couple of fingers came with it.
Eeww. Just, Eeww.
DNA analysis confirmed it had been Il Doppio in Dreadnought's armor. The subsequent investigation proved inconclusive, but the fact that Il Doppio had been a known hitman led the political pundits to draw the exact opposite conclusion from the one Artemis said his employers had wanted them to draw. They never found the real Dreadnought's body, poor man, and never determined whether or not the self-destruct device installed in the armor had been triggered by Il Doppio or remotely.
As for us, Seven explained our fast reaction by spinning a story of him telling me Dreadnought's horrible racing performance had bugged him. Which was true. And he had "by sheer luck" focused my attention on the gadgeteer hero. Also true. He didn't tell them about my horrified epiphany when I'd realized that, whoever Il Doppio disguised himself as, Artemis would have sniffed him out if he hadn't been wearing an environmentally sealed powersuit!
Fortunately nobody in the crowd had gotten seriously hurt, but Seven's power actually scared me. The chain of serendipitous events that saved Baldur went far beyond luck and over the deus ex machina event horizon. Even Atlas' unintentional dismemberment of Il Doppio had provided a "lucky" clue allowing the investigators to clear the real Dreadnought and thwart the intent of the attack.
Of course my shouted warning to Atlas meant the story Seven spun didn't fool him. I didn't even try. At least he waited to confront us until we were back at the Dome.
* * *
"How could you have been so goddamned stupid?"
Seven, Rook, and Baldur had come back to the Dome with us. Blackstone and Ajax joined us in the Assembly Room. There I'd related the whole story, holding back only my suspicion of who Il Doppio's employer might have been. Atlas was almost speechless.
Almost.
"It was my idea," Seven interjected before I could respond, not that I could have said anything coherent in my defense.
"So Rook gets to kill you first," Atlas ground out without shifting his focus from me.
"There were no guarantees, Seven," Rook said calmly, "other than that you wouldn't get hurt."
Seven winced.
Blackstone rapped the table to get everyone's attention.
"I have read Seven's team file," he said quietly. "While sometimes his luck operates on a simple You Missed Me basis, at other times it creates a veritable Rube Goldberg confluence of events. The fact that Astra, who knew Artemis, who knew about the planned assassination attempt, just happened to be a last-minute switch onto the judging panel Baldur was on when the attempt was made, would seem to indicate that this was one of those times. Also, Seven's intent seems too often drive events, and he certainly intended to protect his teammate."
Baldur nodded, turning to me. He'd been amazingly calm through the whole thing.
"Your friend... Artemis? She said that if the assassin couldn't get his shot at me he would shoot up the convention?"
I nodded and he smiled drily.
"I'm not that good an actor; if someone had told me to play a target I'm pretty sure that a professional like Il Doppio would have gotten a good look at me and known the game was up. He might have just shot up the hall. Or his controllers might simply have detonated him right there when he told them the game was blown."
Rook and Ajax were nodding thoughtful agreement, but Atlas didn't join them.
"How you rule on Seven's actions is your own business," he said to Rook. "But they took a terrible risk, allowing a fight in a civilian environment without telling us." He turned back to me. "Even agreeing that it might have been a good decision to keep Baldur in the dark, telling me would have doubled his protection at the table. Telling Rook would have placed another alert party in the hall. Both of our teams could have been fully present and ready."
He shook his head.
"What are the first and last rules of engagement in civilian environments?"
My throat had gone so tight I could barely breathe, but I held myself rigidly upright in my chair.
"Avoid an encounter-with-force if at all possible, and neutralize civilian risks as quickly as possible."
"Did. You. Do. That?"
I shook my head and he sat back.
"You disregarded both the rules of engagement and team protocols. In the normal course of things, at the very least a detailed statement of censure would go in your file. Since, however, the full facts of the incident are not on the books, this action will be written up as an impressive success. Certainly the public will love it.
"But I am very disappointed."
I nodded, my face cold. I must have been deathly pale.
He sighed. "I think we're done, then."
Rook nodded to the two of us with some sympathy, and Seven and I got out. I managed to make my exit with back straight and eyes dry, at least.
* * *
Atlas was right; the public loved it. Since multiple conventiongoers had been taping the contest they even managed to splice together a pretty good show out of it. It showed me exploding into action with Atlas right beside me, Atlas' long-range tackle, and his straight-up exit with the bad guy. Chatter dubbed it our first official mentor-sidekick adventure, and slivers from the table sold on eBay. Seven didn't get credited at all, but on the bright side there wasn't a whisper of Artemis' involvement—the only really good thing to come out of it, so far as I was concerned.
Naturally the attack, and subsequent police proceedings, had derailed the costume competition. The convention organizers managed to shuffle it to the second day and when Atlas and I arrived for it we were greeted by ringing applause. After that I managed to avoid Atlas' company except for our official hosting duties, and spent a lot of time wand
ering the convention with Seven.
Who seemed perfectly capable of shrugging off our secret disgrace.
"Astra," he said bluntly over pizza on Main Street. "It's a messy world. We get lots of kick-down-the-door-capture-the-bad-guy jobs, with briefings and prep work. Other times the job jumps up and kicks us in the head without introducing itself. Yesterday was closer to number two."
I focused on my pizza. He didn't understand. I didn't understand. I felt bad over my ongoing fight with Dad and Mom, but not this bad. I’d become as sensitive to Atlas' criticism as I was to his compliments. But Seven was still wrong.
Wearing the Cape Page 14
