Tony nodded again. "The Cowl could only exist because they wanted him to exist. The Cowl justifies the existence of the Seven Wonders."
"And allows them to maintain their grip on City Hall. And by extension, because the Seven Wonders still exist, so too the global network of superheroes. If the Seven Wonders control San Ventura, then heroes must be in control all over the world."
Tony whistled, but then shook his head, waving at Jeannie and his face clouding in annoyance again. "But you still haven't told me why you're the Cowl's girlfriend when you know he murdered your parents. And what happened to him, anyway? Why did he abandon this place, and where did he go?"
Jeannie sighed and lowered herself to the floor, her tight catsuit stretched even tighter as she dropped into a cross-legged position. She carefully placed her bird mask in her lap.
"I was working on the same project my parents were. MIC-N − Meta Induction Coupling and Negation. It's a machine that removes superpowers. Theories about the MIC-N have been in development for decades, but… let's just say I got a helping hand. The MIC-N is a powerful tool…
"As soon as I found out the Cowl was responsible for the death of my parents, of course I wanted revenge, I wanted personal justice. I'm a supervillain's sidekick, revenge and violence and vengeance are what I'm about. But I discovered the MIC-N has other uses. It can remove superpowers from one person and transfer them to another."
Jeannie fell silent. Tony's expression darkened.
"Wow," he said at last, his voice nothing but the whisper of a disappointed man. "You met me in the bar, got under my skin, and gave me his powers. I knew it was too good to be true – I knew you were too good to be true." He slapped the computer desk angrily, and spun the chair halfaway from Blackbird, covering his face in his hands as he leant on the desk.
"It's not like that, Tony." Jeannie could reach his knee from where she sat; he flinched at the touch, turning the chair fractionally away to slip her hand off. "You and me, when we met… that was all real. That was the turning point. You were worried about the city. You hated the Cowl. I could give you his power, enough power to remove him from the city, and even clean the place up, using your powers for good, for doing the jobs that the Seven Wonders never did."
The two sat in silence for a while, the cavern echoing faintly with the sound of a hidden power generator.
After a few minutes Tony moved the chair around slightly, and picked up the Cowl's discarded mask. He held it up, fingers poking through the eye sockets from the inside. Another few minutes passed in silence, then he asked again: "So where is he now?"
Jeannie looked up. She ran her hands over the wings that curved out from the back of her mask. "I honestly don't know. He's completely unpowered now, and the last couple of fights he got into busted him up pretty good – me too. I think he freaked out, ran away. He might be dead, but I doubt it. He's most likely not in the city, anyway. Possibly travelling, trying to get his old friends together to help stage some kind of comeback. But I don't know, I'm theorizing. He's afraid, that's for sure. The removal of his powers had more of a psychological effect than I had predicted."
Tony put the mask down and sat up straighter in the chair. He looked up at the six dark screens, and across the myriad of controls on the computer desk.
"I guess we should finish this then. The Cowl is gone, that just leaves Aurora and the Superfriends."
Blackbird stood and moved towards Tony. She placed her arms around his neck, and this time he didn't shrug her off.
"Whatever you think of me, Tony, I understand. But I thought I was doing the right thing. I fell in love with you. I gave you power - the power to change things, to change the city. The power to change the world. I helped you, trained you. Love me or hate me, I'll understand. But right now you're the most powerful man in San Ventura, and I'm your sidekick. What do you say?"
Tony thought for a moment, then turned to her. He took her chin in his hand, and planted a delicate kiss on her dry lips. They smiled at each other. He glanced down at his tattered pajama bottoms, and held up the Cowl's mask to her.
"The Justiciar needs a new costume."
Jeannie smiled. "The Justiciar also needs to make an entrance, an announcement. He needs to tell the Seven Wonders that there is a new boy in town who's not going to take the same old shit."
Tony straightened, his eyes fixed on the Cowl's mask.
"An… entrance? What did you have in mind?"
Jeannie stood and took the Cowl's mask from Tony's hand.
"Oh, it's just a little idea…"
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Sam had only ever been inside the Citadel of Wonders once before, accompanying Captain Gillespie and the mayor on a civic tour last year. She'd found the place showy, fake somehow, but could never quite place a finger on why. Now, following one step ahead of her partner and surrounded by five of the city's superheroes, she saw how the earlier visit had been a charade stage-managed for publicity.
No sooner had they entered the building's magnificent glass lobby, a vast atrium of crystal shards stretching up several stories, sending natural light cascading across the lobby floor in spectacular prismatic patterns, than they turned abruptly through a nondescript side door rather than continue through the grand gateway ahead. Beyond the publically accessible area of the superhero headquarters, the architecture became less decorative but certainly no less impressive. Glass and natural light was replaced by glowing white wall panels and discreet computer displays. Each door they passed was marked with a dense barcode and every corner contained a three-lensed security camera, although Sam wondered if anybody had seen these corridors outside of the Seven Wonders and their immediate associates.
Aurora strode on, forcing Sam and Joe to walk at an uncomfortably fast pace. Sam noticed that Bluebell had the same difficulty, dwarfed at her husband's side and taking small, quick steps to keep level with him. Behind them, the Dragon Star's powerstaff clacked loudly on the floor. The rhythm didn't match their walking pace, and it irritated Sam. She was wound up enough as it was; realizing she was getting unnecessarily tense, she momentarily closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
She walked straight into Aurora's back, the hot surface of his costume causing her to cry out in fright. Joe caught himself just as he was brought up short by Sam, and put a hand on her shoulder. She turned and saw the Dragon Star standing a few paces behind, her hooded and masked face looking at them.
Sam felt the hairs on the back of her neck go up. There was something about the Dragon Star that unsettled her. The superhero wasn't cold, or unfriendly. She was just… blank. Expressionless. Even SMART seemed to have more emotion.
But then not everyone was suited to small talk. Aurora handled all their PR with admirable flair.
Aurora didn't seem to notice that Sam had walked into him. He'd stopped by an elevator. Neither he nor Bluebell, nor any of the others had spoken since they had entered the building. He led them inside the elevator in silence.
The elevator took several seconds to rise, and when the double doors opened Aurora led them directly into a large conference room, a vast, triangular space that, Sam realized, matched the glass pinnacle of the Citadel. Ahead of her, the two great glass walls met, giving a spectacular view across San Ventura. The Citadel of Wonders was the tallest building in the city by at least three or four floors, allowing an almost unimpeded view across the rooftops and out to the coast.
An elliptical conference table in opaque black glass occupied the center of the room. Sam counted twelve chairs around it. As their group walked into the room, she could see that one was already occupied. Such was the splendor of the view – and of the room itself – that Sam had totally failed to see him. The man seated at the head of the table stood and briskly walked around the table to greet the party.
"Aurora, Bluebell." He nodded at the Dragon Star, Linear and Sand Cat, standing at the back of the group, then looked at the two detectives and smiled. "Detectives Millar and Milano, a pleasure
to see you again." He extended a hand.
The man was dressed in a black costume, flexible but heavier than the usual spandex and covered in strategic places with sculpted body armor. The exposed fabric visible between the plates had the same metallic, scaly look as the fragment of the Cowl's cloak they'd retrieved from the alleyway. The plates met in the front to create a crucifix-shaped seam, picked out boldly in white across the chest.
The man did not wear a mask. His short brown hair was stylishly coiffed, and his warm smile showed off expensive dental work.
Aurora gestured to the man and turned to the detectives. He didn't say anything and Sam couldn't tell where he was looking, but she was sure his eyes were fixed on hers.
"Detectives," he said. "This is the eighth member of our team, Paragon. Real name…"
Sam stepped forward and took Paragon's outstretched hand. She felt breathless.
"Real name Geoffrey Conroy," she said. "I know."
They shook hands, and Conroy – Paragon – took a small bow.
"Detectives, a pleasure to see you again." He released Sam's hand and shook Joe's. Joe's grin stretched from ear to ear.
"So the Seven Wonders have a secret extra member?" Sam felt breathless at being let in on what appeared to be the city's biggest secret. The city's biggest benefactor and one of the wealthiest men in the world… was a superhero?
Sam's mind raced, and then she saw Aurora's smile twitch, just a little, just enough to indicate that something else was going on. She raised an eyebrow, and found her gaze drawn back to Conroy.
"No, detective. Mr Conroy is a new addition, one who has not been announced publically yet. Formerly, he was known as the Cowl."
Sam stared at Conroy. Conroy smiled. She heard someone else speak, but the world was suddenly packed with cotton wool.
The Cowl. The world's last supervillain. Latest member of the Seven Wonders. One of the country's richest men.
Then her ears cleared, and she felt hot, and she needed to sit down. She turned to Joe. His mouth worked up and down a little before he spoke.
"Fuck me," he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The Justiciar and Blackbird flew high over San Ventura, Jeannie clutching to Tony's back as he wheeled in over the harbor, taking in a perfect view of the city as it baked in the summer sun. At this time of day, the Citadel of Wonders was a glowing crystal shard, refracting a rainbow of light across the city. As Tony weaved around the buildings, picking their approach with the mathematical precision of a fighter pilot, they were bathed in a glorious spectrum of color. He heard Jeannie laugh, the beak of her mask brushing the back of his hood, before he called over his shoulder to hang on and put her head down.
Joe saw it first, a small black object flitting across the rooftops. The meeting with the Seven Wonders had been lengthy and exceedingly dull, and it was only his inattention that alerted the others. How could a room full of superheroes not notice a speeding missile heading straight for them? Joe nudged Sam and pointed. A second later she called out to Aurora and the room exploded.
They came in out of the clear blue sky and through the observation deckcum-conference room of the Citadel in one sudden, subsonic dive. Tony angled his body to protect Jeannie and timed a superpowered punch just as he reached touching distance of the building, shattering the window and filling the conference room with a hailstorm of deadly shards.
Tony came to a standing stop, Blackbird cartwheeling off his back, over his head and onto the conference table, where she quickly struck a fighting pose. They'd caught everyone by surprise, which was the intention, but – unfortunately – nobody seemed to have got hurt. The two detectives from the apartment were there, picking themselves up off the floor at the back of the room, with Bluebell. Aurora and the Dragon Star stood square on either side of the conference table, the leader of the Seven Wonders holding one hand out, projecting a plasma shield protecting one side of the room from the imploding window. Next to him, the Dragon Star had her powerstaff raised, emitting a similar energy shield; where the swirling red of Aurora's field met the translucent purple of the Dragon Star's, the two energies fizzed and popped. At the back of the room SMART began unfolding the arsenal hidden inside its arms and rotated its dome-like head, assessing the threat. Its maker, Hephaestus, stood by the robot's side, brandishing the massive blacksmith's hammer with one hand, and wiping his other on his dirty apron.
Standing before the destroyed plate-glass window, Tony uncurled to his full height, his long scalloped cloak sweeping across his front in the wind blowing in from fifty stories up. The breeze tugged at his hood, giving glimpses of the tight skullcap and half-mask underneath.
"Well now, they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." Conroy stepped out from where he had been sheltering behind SMART. As he moved forward, Jeannie dropped her fists and tilted her head in obvious surprise.
Conroy walked as close to the inside of the energy barrier as possible, and reached out a finger to touch it before pulling away and instead clasping his hands behind his back.
"Hello, Blackbird. I assume Cowl the second is something to do with you. Looking good, supervillain, even if I do say so myself." He looked Tony up and down, nodding appreciatively. "Very dramatic. Great design, isn't it?"
Tony hadn't moved; in truth he was beginning to panic. Attacking the Seven Wonders head-on sounded great back in the Lair but was now looking like a fucking stupid idea. Of course, that was why Blackbird had been the sidekick and the Cowl the boss – you could never trust a sidekick to come up with a plan. But there was something in Conroy's words: the hood, mask and swirling cloak… it had a power all of its own. Tony's fear fell away, replaced by confidence. Their entrance had certainly taken the assembled heroes by surprise.
Tony smiled at Conroy and dropped his voice to an imitation of the Cowl's characteristic growl.
"I thought the Seven Wonders had, y'know, seven members. You know this guy, Blackbird?"
She stepped back carefully, retreating along her side of the table top before hopping delicately off the end and moving backwards to stand beside Tony. She nodded, and when she spoke her voice had a low, metallic quality.
"Geoff Conroy, superpowered billionaire playboy, city benefactor, and he who used to be the Cowl." She laughed, the sound filtering through her mask like somebody rubbing bricks together. "Powerless, defenseless, he crawls to the good guys and begs for help. Pathetic."
Truth be told Tony was impressed with her attitude, but then he supposed she'd had years of practice at playing it cool. Even as she stood beside him, she'd struck a pose, legs apart, balled fists held low, head held up, the winged mask elegant and arrogant. She was a pro, no mistake about it.
Tony spoke, and taking a leaf from his partner's book, kept his voice low and even so as not to betray any emotion or surprise he felt at discovering that the Cowl hadn't left the city but had apparently swapped sides as soon as the going had got tough. Estimating the odds, he decided to take down the least-powered heroes first, which meant − apparently – Geoff Conroy, the former Cowl's powers now residing within him. Tony had wanted to rid the city of the Cowl, that was the whole point, but now seeing him switching allegiance to save his own skin, Tony felt even more disgust. Murderer and terrorist to… what? Superhero? Eighth member of the Seven Wonders? What did that say about him, or perhaps more importantly, about the superheroes themselves? Could you change sides so easily? The Cowl was an evil killer, not someone to invite around for afternoon tea.
The Dragon Star twisted her staff into a fighting posture. Tony saw the opportunity, the microscopic breach in the energy shield as the field emitted by her alien device realigned itself. From a standing start he flew forward, several inches from the floor and at near-supersonic speed, punching through the gap in the shield and tackling Conroy, forcing the superteam to separate. Pinning him with one foot, Tony brought the heel of the other down on the floor. The marble split under his boot, then shattered as the structural integrity
of the floor failed. Tony leaned down and grabbed Conroy by the shoulders, before accelerating downward in flight, crashing through the floor.
In an instant, Aurora dropped his energy barrier and jumped feet first into the chasm, followed quickly by SMART, blue rocket jets firing from the bottom of its feet to control its descent.
Blackbird stood alone. The remaining superheroes were formidable opponents, although Bluebell seemed to be preoccupied attending to the detectives. Of Linear and Sand Cat, there was no sign; she presumed they had followed the other two, the speedster racing down the stairs and Sand Cat freefalling through the floors in her spirit form. Hephaestus and the Dragon Star stood together, ready for battle. Behind them, the two detectives and Bluebell were talking. Blackbird focused her mask audio on their muffled conversation, but only caught the meaningless end of it before they both darted out of the room, leaving Bluebell to face Blackbird.
Seven Wonders Page 24
