Wearing the Cape 6: Team-Ups and Crossovers

by Marion G. Harmon

  I finally argued her around to my plan, and she countered by bringing out extra insurance. While I’d been traumatizing myself surfing the internet, she’d been busy; now she presented me with my new costume. Apparently the villain-style biker outfit had just been for barhopping.

  “Ta-dah!”

  It was a black skintight bodysuit that covered me from ankles to wrists to a high closed collar. It wasn’t all black; my crest and thick white seam lines broke the suit’s darkness. The center seam bisected the suit down the middle of the front from collar to crotch and up my back, and matching seams ran from my collar down my sides, arms, and legs. Despite the seams and texturing it felt sprayed on, and the white crest...

  “Real subtle, Shell.” The crest lay across the center seam and it was my white eight-pointed star, only with a thick black diagonal bar through the center to cut it in two broken pieces.

  She snickered. “Really, it is. You’d be amazed how many female capes have adopted some variation of your star since you saved the president of the freaking country and killed Seif-al-Din with his own sword.”

  “And died. I did that too.” I swallowed, looked away from the mirror and grabbed the matching white gloves and boots. “The cleaning bill is going to be huge.”

  “It’s Vulcan’s stuff—dirt and blood will come right off and it’s almost as tough as you are. It’s chameleon cloth, too—it’s got a stealth mode.”

  “And the helmet?” The white shiny-visored half helmet matched the suit.

  “That too. It’s rigged with full heads-up-display and com links, not that you’ll need them with me.”

  It also came with another black wig, visible below the helmet once I’d put it on. I hadn’t worn a wig with my mask since being outed as a cape and wasn’t really used to it anymore, but it was a smart precaution. Still…

  “And check this out. Bibbity, bobbity, boo!” Shell wiggled her fingers and the suit shifted to brilliant white with blue seams and crest. Even the helmet changed.

  I laughed. “So you’re my fairy godmother now? Well the back seam is riding up my— Anyway, I don’t think I’ll be using this setting. It’s way too on the nose.”

  She sighed and the whole outfit went chameleon-mode. “But you look good. I’ll arrange to get Jamal into Westcamp as soon as he calls, you go close the deal with muscle-guy.”

  I was beginning to think that any actual supervillain organization that had Vulcan and Shelly as their suppliers would be unstoppable. Giving her a mock-salute, I stepped out on the balcony and went straight up into the deepening blue of the evening sky.

  The suit and helmet covered everything but the top of my neck and lower half of my face, making me virtually invisible from more than ten or a dozen yards away in its chameleon mode. “Helmet telemetry and coms check,” Shelly—Cypher—said in my ear. “If we’re going to do it old school, this’ll work.”

  “Paint me the rendezvous?”

  She brought up a targeting icon on the visor heads-up display, thoughtfully added a countdown to the meeting time, and I grinned. “More detail than I needed, but thanks.”

  “Any time, I’ll leave you to it.”

  I dropped into a swoop, gliding along about a hundred feet above the rooftops. The chosen spot sat north of Southcamp, about equidistant from Chicago and West Chicago, in an abandoned vehicle park. Storage buildings hid the park from the street, giving us open space and privacy; it was just us and some feral cats. Landing lightly, I dropped my camouflage and my potential recruit stepped out of the shadow of an unhitched semi-trailer.

  “You’re early,” Bony said. His voice sounded like grinding rocks, and the bone spurs that pierced his tough hide gleamed white in the moonlight. He glowed like a furnace in my infrared sight.

  I laughed. “I thought I’d get here first and see how you arrived. At least that was the plan. Is Nix with you? Or Nox?”

  I take my priceless moments where I find them, and this was so absolutely one of those moments. Grendel flinched, his whole body one big twitch. And that answered my question; whatever the reason for his really different look, this Grendel worked for Ozma. Or had.

  “And you can take off that ugly hat. I know how you are about the hair.”

  He actually growled. It had sub-harmonics in it, and I couldn’t keep the wide grin off my face. “But thanks for almost coming to my rescue, back at Dante’s. That is what you were doing when Mother clocked you, right?”

  “What do you want?” Not How do you know me? Not Who are you? And that told me something else. He took something out of his pocket and looked at it before scanning the night sky. I didn’t ask; I had bigger questions.

  “It was the Question Box, wasn’t it? It told Ozma to send you on up here to meet me, and you don’t even know why. I wonder how she decoded that poem.”

  “Some shit about finding the maids with Virgil’s disciple.” He still sounded like he was contemplating ripping my head off, but that was just disgruntled Grendel and he did take his awful hat off to release his beautiful dreadlocks. However he might change himself for disguise, he’d never get rid of the hair.

  Speaking of change… “So what’s with the thorny look? Isn’t that a bit uncomfortable?”

  “Not for long.” The bone spurs started receding as I watched, his skin smoothing out. A few breaths later he was the Rastafarian troll I knew and loved.

  I just wanted to hug him; he wasn’t my Grendel, but ever since he’d carried me out of the Ascendant’s base—how we first met—I’d always had a warm spot for him. He might be terrifying to others, but to me he was like a Bengal Tiger, beautiful and wild (and his deep growly voice seriously did it for me). Also my Grendel was a complete softy under his trollish exterior, and I really couldn’t see this Grendel being any different. Not if he was still working for her royal majesty the Empress of Oz.

  “So are you going to tell me who you are and why you know all my shit?” He still stood balanced and loose, ready to rumble—probably why he’d gotten rid of the decorative spikes that could only get in his way. I forced a serious look.

  “I’m part of the Royal Army of Oz, at least I am where I come from. I can’t stay, but if you’ll help me I’m pretty sure I can add to Ozma’s army here. And I’m going after the Ascendant.” This was twice the enigmatic Question Box had directed Ozma and Grendel into a situation where he could learn who’d killed his parents; I had no idea why it was so important in Ozma’s campaign to regain the Emerald Throne, but it obviously was.

  And I’d pushed the right button; just hearing the Ascendant had Grendel bulking up, hunching his shoulders and adding muscle mass until he forced himself straight

  So I gave my pitch, bare facts and no spin. I wasn’t going directly at the Ascendant, just his organization. There’d be no room for personal vengeance, just justice if we succeeded. He didn’t like that, and I was pretty sure that if he ever did actually encounter Dr. Pellegrini then he’d try and rip the man’s head off—which made it good that the odds of a meet were pretty low.

  Even with the stakes involved I couldn’t quite keep the cheer out of my voice; it was great to see him. He picked up on it, which just deepened his scowl. “You’d better not be jerking me,” he said when I finished.

  “No jerking. Promise. I wouldn’t dare.” I tried to look serious. He didn’t buy it, but obviously decided that my only half-successful attempt not to grin wasn’t a sign of untrustworthiness. “So here’s the plan,” I went on. “We need—”

  “Hope, you’ve got incoming!” Shell shouted in my ear.

  “Brian, get out! Now!” I launched into the night sky, doing a three-sixty spin as I rose. Hearing a roar of wind below me, I didn’t look down. Travel Dust—Grendel was gone and I only had to worry about me.

  There—coming in from Chicago, a glow I instantly recognized, Variforce’s softly shining golden force-fields closing on me fast. Oh, crap on a—

  The hit sent me tumbling, and I pushed into the vector of my spin as the sparks
cleared from my eyes. It had been Watchman who hit me, and looking back and up I could see that Variforce had decoupled his towing field to float on his own. And he’d brought Lei Zi and Dad with him, netted in his Watchman-pulled fields for speed. Turning I found they’d bracketed me between them: Lei-Zi, Dad, and Variforce to my north, Watchman to my south. So why was Watchman just hanging there instead of being all over—

  The second hit blacked me out with a star bursting in my brain. This time I cleared to find the ground rushing up at me, barely had time to twist so that whatever weight was clinging to me hit first.

  Which didn’t soften the bouncing, rolling impact at all. My diaphragm froze on the first smash, locking my lungs into gasping spasms as the world spun around me. Completely disoriented, I didn’t even know which way was up and barely noticed the concrete wall that gave its life to stop my sliding crash. When the world stopped hitting me and I finally got a lungful of air I struck out blindly at—Iron Jack.

  My swinging fist caught him beside his ear, but I didn’t have the right angle for it and he barely moved his head. Lei Zi had fired my dad at me; he still sizzled and sparked from the after-effects of being shot at me like an iron bullet from a virtual railgun of her electromagnetic fields—I’d seen them practice the move back home.

  “Stand down!” he yelled. “Stand down! We don’t want to hurt—” My bear hug wasn’t any kind of fighting move at all.

  I let go instantly, but not before Variforce’s fields settled over us both like a tide of mercury, fluid and heavy, to forcibly separate us. I didn’t resist; a wrong move now would bring a bolt of current down on me that I’d survive but not enjoy one bit. I could take Lei Zi. I could take Variforce. I could escape Dad, maybe even Watchman. I couldn’t handle them all. Variforce’ field loosened its hold and, and I put my hands on top of my helmet (which Vulcan had designed really well). Shelly wasn’t talking, electronically or virtually, and I could only guess that she’d gone silent to avoid discovery or she was being blocked. Either way, I was on my own for now—the good news was that having all of their attention on me meant that Brian had likely gotten completely away. No roaring or sounds of things smashing gave me hope of that.

  Dad—Iron Jack—stood and pulled me up. I let him, rising slowly and making no move to take my feet off the ground, as the others touched down around us. The whole heavy team. Somebody really wanted me bad.

  “You’re under arrest for violations of the Public Safety and Security Act,” Dad said. “An arresting officer will be here shortly to read you your rights. Don’t be stupid.”

  I’d never thought faster. I was not going to let myself get taken into custody by the CPD in a city run by Mal Shankman; the police might be staging a covert Blue Rebellion, but I couldn’t count on that meaning anything for me and Shankman’s people. Can’t run. Can’t fight. Can’t be taken—

  “I demand to be taken into federal custody,” I blurted, dropping my hands.

  That set them all back. Lei Zi’s eyes narrowed. “This is a city and state matter.”

  “No, it’s not. I’m an incursion, and that puts me directly under the jurisdiction of the Department of Superhuman Affairs.”

  Incursion. Someone or something entering the world from an extrareality. By definition from somewhere else, therefore foreign, therefore the DSA’s concern, not to mention the State Department’s. Lei Zi’s eyes widened, and then her face set. Sparks crackled along her skintight bodysuit.

  “Take off your helmet.”

  I shook my head. “Not until you order a coms blackout for Dispatch and stand the police down. National security.” It was a bluff, but a small one. Clenching my fists to hide shaking hands, I didn’t look at Dad.

  Lei Zi didn’t like that, either, but she half turned away and started talking into her Dispatch link. I could have listened, but the approaching sirens were more than a little distracting.

  They stopped approaching, and I stopped breathing.

  She turned back. “Dispatch has routed us directly to the Chicago DSA office, and is not listening or recording at the Dome. That’s the best you’ll get.”

  I nodded, took a steadying breath, and slowly reached up. Unbuckling my chin strap, I lifted my helmet and wig off and dropped my hands to let it swing at my side.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  I ended the night in a nice hard cell.

  Before the wagon arrived—a DSA bus, not a CPD one—they had me put my helmet back on and then cuffed me. The Blacklocks were wide and thick, joined by only a thin wire, and Watchman promised me that if I broke the wire the cuffs would put enough volts into me to knock out Atlas. And of course a GPS trigger would do the same if I tried to just fly away.

  The DSA agents—all of them Platoons—didn’t lock me down in the bus. My team stood and watched, Dad taking an aborted step towards me as they closed the doors and got us moving. On the other end of my ride, the doors opened on a familiar bay and I relaxed. A little. They’d played it straight and brought me to the DSA’s Chicago center, and they had their own hard cells and guards. Good so far…

  It was a risk; if I’d gone into the CPD system, I could have yelled for a lawyer immediately and been pretty sure of getting one quick—possibly Legal Eagle—before the federal government learned of my existence and moved to take custody. But the DSA could drop me in a hole for days with only their own cleared federal judge knowing of my existence while they determined my status. Technically an illegal alien and potential security threat, I could find myself in the cells of our Guantanamo naval base without ever speaking to anyone else. So if things were too dicey since the Pulse…

  Platoon treated me nice. Maximum-security procedure called for a strip-search, but they just took my boots, gloves, and helmet, letting me keep my costume on after passing a wand over it—not that I could have hidden even a credit card under it. One of them had me recite my Miranda Rights and I ended with “I understand these rights as I have just stated them.”

  He smiled. “Good to see you again.”

  “Tell Bob, Tom, and Willis I said hi. Oh wait, you don’t have to.”

  Nothing looks funnier than synchronized smiling, but that was the only unprofessional word out of the five Platoons escorting me as they logged me in at the processing station, took me to my cell, and detached the wire on my Blacklocks, leaving the wide cuffs on but my wrists freed.

  The only non-Platoon agent present, a young woman probably just a couple of years older than me, logged my lockdown on her epad with one of their thumbprints and her own. Agent Alexis Grace had me state my own name for the record as well, let me know that she was my custodial agent and I could call if I needed anything, and closed the cell door. It closed on hydraulics and with a decidedly solid sound, telling me it was as thick as the walls.

  Not that I needed to be told, having escorted a few villains into them myself.

  Still no Shelly. Did the DSA know enough about quantum-signaling transmission to detect or block her? Or was she mum since I was most certainly being monitored at every level—probably right down to a brain-activity scan.

  I shrugged. It was a nice cell, much nicer than the ultra-secure one Defensenet had put me in a few months ago. It had a connected bathroom that offered the illusion of privacy, a bed, and a wall-mounted table with two chairs; it even smelled fresh, in an institutional way. It was the kind of cell given to a breakthrough whose powers made her tougher and more dangerous than anything in the cell she could possibly use as a weapon.

  And I was glad to finally be “alone.” Dropping to the bed, I stared at the ceiling.

  “I need to talk to Veritas,” I informed my listeners, and closed my eyes to think.

  Or try not to think.

  Dad. He’d just stood there, not saying a word. Which had been exactly what I’d wanted him to do, at least until I wasn’t under arrest anymore, or not until they understood anyway. I really couldn’t begin to imagine what he had to be feeling. I was dead. Heroically and horribly dead. So what was
I now? Who was this person, who looked and sounded like his daughter? I could be a trick—a shapeshifter (even if one strong enough to mimic an A Class Atlas-Type was pretty unlikely). I could be a delusional Astra fan who became the object of her obsession. Really, I could. Or I could be a lost Hope Corrigan, from a world where she hadn’t broken her promise to her parents and died.

  I sat up, rubbed my eyes with fisted hands. Would he tell Mom? No. Not until he was sure, one way or the other. Maybe not even then—how could it be good for Mom, for anybody? It was my worst-case scenario come to awful life.

  And this wasn’t doing any good. Folding my legs into lotus position, I began Chakra-taught breathing exercises. Getting half blind-sided by Watchman and shot with my dad had left me a bundle of aches, but I eventually relaxed enough to sleep.

  They provided a toothbrush and a laundry service with a nice robe until I got my costume and underwear back, making this officially the nicest cell I’d ever been in. Just the thought of how wrong it was to be able to make that kind of comparison made me smile, but if it wasn’t for the vault door and the titanium cuffs with voltage I was still wearing I wouldn’t know I was detained. Breakfast was butter and syrup-drenched Belgian waffles.

  I hadn’t been dressed and finished eating for more than a few minutes when the door opened again and a guard—not a Platoon—appeared with Agent Grace; nobody ever came through the door without her attendance. The guard took my breakfast tray under the agent’s watchful eye, and left. Which left me with my custodial agent. She gave me a friendly smile. “Are you ready for visitors?”

  The waffles settled uncomfortably. “Who?”

  “You asked for Agent Veritas last night. He’s here.”

  Yes! No. Wait. I felt hot and cold at once. I’d said it almost as a test—to see if the Cutter of Gordian Knots was still alive in this reality and if I had enough juice to get him here. I couldn’t lie to him, but did I want to? Did I have anything, now, to lie about? And my encounters with the man had left me with the sneaking suspicion that he couldn’t lie to me, either; he might not tell me everything, but maybe, just maybe, he had clearance high enough to tell me what I now desperately wanted to know. How bad is it? Really?