The woman took a breath and begged. “Ms. West, please. No one will hold you to it, we can work it all out later. You’re the only one who can stop him.”
“No, I’m not,” Celia said, watching Arthur.
Whose eyes lit at the same time Anna yelled, “Dad!”
“There. There it is.” Arthur scanned the room with a dark, fierce gaze, and a familiar voice called to Celia from the back of her mind: —And there we are. I’ve got you all.—
Majors fell first, his eyes rolling back as he dropped the remote and collapsed. Steel was next, and Sonic and Shark looked at each other, bewildered and comprehending. Then Celia smelled sage, an achingly familiar scent of imposed sleep. She got a glimpse of Anna folding, and Arthur catching her to lower her to the floor, before her vision went dark.
—We’ll be here when you wake, dearest.—
TWENTY-FOUR
ANNA awoke to someone shaking her. Her nose tickled, her head ached, and her brain was full of panic.
Gasping, she tried to sit up, but the headache rocked her sideways and bile climbed into her throat.
“Easy,” her father murmured, propping her up. “Slow breaths. Good girl. I’m sorry I couldn’t let you rest, but I need help. Will you be all right?”
She looked around. They were still in the empty office space in Horizon Tower. A few minutes of fighting had torn the place to pieces. She closed her eyes when nausea hit again, but her breathing steadied.
Her father was a mess, soaked with water, smudged with soot, face cut, eyes sunk with exhaustion. She clung to him.
“Dad, what’s that about Mom having leukemia? Was that some kind of joke?”
He smiled. “Should have known that wouldn’t get past you. I’m afraid it isn’t, love. Can we talk about that later?”
Only a few moments had passed since Dr. Mentis knocked them all out. Having now experienced his mind control power, Anna could confidently say he’d never used it on her before. It was a strange comfort in the midst of the chaos. He’d already found a landline that wasn’t shut down by whatever Majors had done to cut off transmissions and called the police and EMTs. They’d checked the elevators, deemed them safe, and should arrive any minute. Apparently, Mindwall had turned himself in once he reached the ground floor and told them how to disable the rest of the booby traps. Mentis collected weapons from the bad guys and ensured that the detonator was put somewhere safe until the bomb squad could disable it.
“Dad—Sam. Were you able to find out anything about Sam?”
“He’s alive.” And that was all he’d say about it. Anna had a bad feeling. She was certain he was alive—now that she was out of Mindwall’s range, she could feel him. He was at the same hospital as Grandma, which was good. It should have been good. But Arthur wouldn’t tell her how badly he was hurt, and Anna’s powers couldn’t give her any details.
But she was massively, hugely, vastly relieved that she knew where everyone was now. She could feel them all: Mom, Dad, Teddy, Eliot, Bethy, and Suzanne, everyone. All the holes in her awareness filled in. The world had righted itself.
The police and EMTs arrived, and Anna directed them to the aftermath. They went to Captain Paulson first. Anna was afraid he hadn’t survived the wound on top of Mentis’s mind control. But she could feel him, so he was still here.
When he could hand over authority of the situation to the police, Arthur went straight to Celia. Anna hung back.
The wig had been the biggest shock of the day. She’d imagined superhero battles. Not that the real thing was anything like she’d imagined, but none of what happened had been entirely unexpected. Until Celia took the wig off. Seeing her mother bald was just wrong. The expanse of skin made her look scrawny, bony. She had pale freckles on her scalp, mottled spots like an accidental splatter of ink. The shadows under Celia’s eyes seemed so much larger, darker, without hair to offset them.
Suddenly, all her mother’s behavior over the last few weeks made perfect sense, and Anna wondered why she hadn’t figured it out on her own. She hadn’t been able to conceive of the idea of Celia being ill, weak.
As Arthur shook Celia awake, Anna moved to join them, crouching at her mother’s other side and taking her hand. Celia took a long time to wake up, and Arthur didn’t rush her.
An EMT tapped his shoulder at one point. “Do you want us to look at her?”
“Not just yet,” he answered.
Finally, she opened her eyes. Looked at them both for a long time before asking, “Did we win?”
“We did,” Arthur said, stroking her forehead in a movement that would have brushed back her hair, if she had any. “Though you cut it very close there.”
“I had a feeling.”
“Mom,” Anna burst, unable to keep quiet. “Are you going to be okay?”
Somehow, Celia knew that the question didn’t mean right now, right here. She was asking about the long term. The illness. Would her hair ever grow back. Everything.
“I don’t know,” Celia said, squeezing Anna’s hand. “But I hope so.”
Everyone else started waking up on their own. Anna still had a million questions, but they’d have to wait.
By the time Analise walked over, Celia was on her feet, and the two women fell into a deep, rib-crushing hug. Anna eavesdropped.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Celia said.
“And I’m so mad at you I could scream. When were you going to tell me about this?”
“I don’t know. Never mind.” Celia pulled away, held Analise’s shoulders. “What happened? Typhoon?”
Analise just sighed. “I’m still working that out.”
Led by a uniformed officer, Sonic passed by, in handcuffs. She pulled up short, glaring at Celia.
“Why didn’t you just tell him yes? He would have stopped. He would have let everyone go.”
“Are you sure about that?” Celia replied. “He’d taken it too far. Even if I’d said yes, he might still have pushed the button. Just to prove he was right.”
“What are you going to do to him?”
On Arthur’s advice, the EMTs had sedated Danton Majors when he started to wake up. They were strapping him to a gurney now.
Sighing, Celia looked around, taking in the shattered windows, the injured bodies, the exhausted, shadowed expressions. “Take him to Elroy Asylum. Let them decide what to do with him.”
Teia, Lew, and Teddy were standing a little ways off. All here, all safe, if a little ragged looking and beat up.
“What are they saying about Sam?” Lew asked. “Is he okay?” The glint in his eyes had turned shadowed, and his shoulders slumped.
“He’s in the hospital,” Anna said. “Nobody will tell me how he is.”
They were all so quiet. None of that strutting confidence they’d had during their practices in the park. Everything they’d done before this was just a game.
“I hope he’s okay,” Teia said softly.
They watched for a few more minutes, the comings and goings, bad guys arrested, the bomb squad taking charge of the detonator. Anna thought the four of them might be arrested for their vigilantism, but no one said anything.
“Thanks,” Anna said. “Thanks for coming to help get my mom. We couldn’t have saved her without you.”
“Hey, teamwork,” Teia said, her smile lopsided. Anna wiped away a stray tear. Exhaustion, that was all. But Teia caught her up in a hug, and she felt Lew’s and Teddy’s hands on her shoulders, and she started to think that everything really would be all right.
Night had fallen by the time they finally made it back to street level in front of the cordoned-off building. Analise, Teia, and Lew went home after giving statements to the police. The West clan was about to do likewise. Eliot had vanished. Anna focused and found him hanging around outside Elroy Asylum, where they’d taken his father. Not doing anything but watching, the way his presence remained stationary.
“You need a ride home?” Anna asked Teddy. They walked a little ways out by themselves
while they waited for Tom to bring the car. Mom and Dad were still talking to the police. Mom had just spent ten minutes on the phone with Bethy, reassuring her that everything was fine. Except that she was sick. She told Bethy about that part. Celia’d left her wig back in the office. Bethy was going to be shocked at how she looked.
“My folks are going to kill me,” Teddy said, sighing. “I didn’t tell them where I was going.”
“Maybe my folks can talk to them.”
“Maybe I’ll just put up with being grounded for a while.”
She giggled. Walked a few more steps. The streetlights and twilight shadows made the skyscrapers look like towering monoliths. Who knew what secrets they all held?
Teddy said, “Hey, Anna?”
“Yeah?”
“Is this a bad time to ask you if you still want to go to prom with me?”
Maybe that warm flush in her gut was postbattle adrenaline. But she didn’t think so. She didn’t have to think about how to answer this time.
“No. I mean, no it’s not a bad time. Yes, I’ll go to prom with you.”
“Okay. Yeah. Cool.” He had such a goofy, great smile.
She grabbed his hand, touched his face to steady herself, and kissed him. His arms wrapping around her told her that yes, that had been the right call, too.
TWENTY-FIVE
NEWS outlets the next day were filled with stories of the shocking nervous breakdown of Delta businessman Danton Majors, who’d collected his own team of superhuman mercenaries, captured beloved Commerce City icon Celia West, and held her hostage for the outrageous ransom of West Corp itself. That wasn’t exactly what happened, of course, but that was the favorite spin. That was the sequence of events compressed into a simple, repeatable narrative. Even better were the tales of the heroic actions of Commerce City’s own selfless superhuman vigilantes who came to her rescue: Dr. Mentis, of course, but also the Trinity, the two-member team known as Espionage, and a new hero the police had dubbed Weasel. Spark, had emerged from retirement to save her granddaughters and become injured with a cracked femur in the process. The hospital had to ask people to stop sending flowers. And there was even, the Commerce Eye reported, a brief reappearance by the legendary Typhoon, who had often helped rescue Celia in the past. Few believed the accuracy of that rumor. The epic battle and its aftermath would keep a city full of reporters busy for a week. The Rooftop Watch site crashed its servers.
Despite all the news cameras that had shown up at Horizon Tower, the dozens of citizens who’d snapped cell phone pictures, the images that had been grabbed from traffic and security cameras, the only photos that appeared on any of the stories were generic shots of the building, of the glass-strewn street after the windows on the top floors had shattered, the swarm of police cars, and the aftermath: the Delta supers being led away morose and in handcuffs, Majors himself strapped to a gurney, taken away in an ambulance. Dr. Mentis gave a statement, and pictures of him appeared along with the usual quotes about Commerce City being safe once again. People observed that he was no longer the intense young man who’d been a member of the Olympiad back in the day. He was middle-aged, tired, and most concerned, he stated, with returning Celia West to her daughters.
The Trinity and Espionage remained as mysterious as ever, and some reporters murmured that police Captain Mark Paulson had a hand in that. Rumors said that unlike his predecessors, he might be working closely with the young superhumans, who might even be a new, secret arm of the police force. The idea intrigued many, who agreed that with villains like Danton Majors, the Executive, in the world, these new young superhumans might do well to protect their identities.
Majors spent a month at Elroy Asylum being treated by some of the best doctors in the world, specialists in various personality disorders related to megalomania and narcissism. Prosecutors brought charges against him and his entire team. The four members of his team, however, escaped prison when Monica Brooks—aka Sonic—shattered the walls of the city jail with her hypersonic power, freed her colleagues, and vanished. Notably, they did not try to rescue Danton Majors. Presumably, they fled back to Delta. Warrants for their arrest were issued, but no news was forthcoming.
Horizon Tower was disarmed, condemned, and torn down to make way for the city’s new development plan, recently voted on unanimously by the planning committee and spearheaded by West Corp.
Life in Commerce City goes on.
* * *
Anna steadied herself before entering Sam’s hospital room. She’d been told what to expect. She knew the sight of him would shock her, no matter how much she prepared, no matter how much she thought she knew what she was going to see.
Celia came with her and kept a hand on Anna’s arm, a comforting pressure. Anna thought about asking her mother to wait. Then she thought better of it.
“Ready?” Celia asked softly, and Anna nodded.
His parents, George and Melissa Stowe, were there, sitting near the bed, talking quietly. They looked up, blinked in confusion that never really went away, even when recognition dawned.
“Is it all right if we come in?” Celia said, courteous, always so deft in these awkward situations. She always knew exactly what to say. She’d replaced the wig and looked almost normal right now. Except that she was losing weight—Anna could see her growing skeletal. The Stowes wouldn’t notice it.
Sam’s father quickly invited them in, reached to shake Celia’s hand, thanked them for coming, et cetera. Anna drifted to the bedside.
“He’s getting better,” Mrs. Stowe said. Her smile was taut and her eyes red from sleeplessness and crying. “The ventilator came out yesterday. He’s woken up a few times since then. Now he just has to heal.”
Lew and Eliot had saved him, had cushioned his thirty-story fall enough so that it didn’t kill him. But he’d crashed into the side of the building on the way down, collapsed to the concrete below with too much force, even with Eliot breaking the fall. Eliot had been strong enough only to slow him down and catch himself, not stop them both.
Sam looked tiny lying on the bulky hospital bed, connected to what seemed like a million tubes and wires. A monitor clipped to his finger, IV tubes taped to his arms, oxygen tubes in his nose, sheets piled in messy folds around him. A plastic neck brace immobilized him, and his face was covered in cuts and bruises, swollen and purple. His left arm and leg were broken, his pelvis had cracked, his ribs had broken. His spine had survived, he wasn’t paralyzed, but several vertebrae in his neck had cracked, and once he was more healed he would need surgery to repair them. He’d arrived at the emergency room with a head injury, a cracked skull, and excess fluid in his brain, but he’d gotten there quickly enough that doctors had been able to mitigate the worst of the damage. They hoped.
Sam would get better. Everyone said so. But it would take awhile. Anna gave a heavy sigh. She’d been holding an unconscious breath. This could have been any of them. Thinking about that made her numb.
“Can I touch him?” she asked, and Mrs. Stowe nodded. Anna lightly brushed Sam’s hand, squeezing his fingers. Maybe it would help. His skin felt cooler than she expected.
“Mr. Stowe, Mrs. Stowe, I have some information that I think you need to hear,” Celia said in her steady, calming voice. “Do you have a minute?” They did, they agreed. Would here be all right? They liked to be here for the moments Sam woke up.
“Mr. Stowe—”
“Call me George, please.”
“All right. Your father is Gerald Stowe, yes? Do you remember him ever talking about a job he had when he was young, at Leyden Laboratories?”
“No—he had a lot of jobs when he was young. Kept bouncing around, you know?”
“This was a lab owned by my grandfather. The scientist in charge was Simon Sito, the Destructor, and there was an accident. A kind of radiation that affected everyone who was there, including my grandfather. Over the years we’ve found that the children of those affected have about a forty percent chance of displaying some kind of superhuman
ability. I know you were probably asking yourself why this happened to Sam. Well, there’s a reason for it. I bear some of the responsibility for this, I’m afraid. I’ve been tracking the families descended from those who were in the lab. Indirectly, I’ve been encouraging some of them to use their powers. Including Sam. Including my own children.”
“Wait, what?” George Stowe furrowed his brow, baffled. “But I never—”
“No, but your nephew is Justin Raylen, yes? Breezeway? And you might ask your younger sister how much she really knows about Earth Mother.”
“Margaret?” he exclaimed. “Margaret is Earth Mother?”
Celia put a finger over her lips. “You should probably keep that quiet, since she never went public. I’m trusting you with this information, George, because of Sam. You deserve to know. But it’s not for public consumption. You understand, yes?” The Stowes nodded emphatically. “Also, all Sam’s medical bills will be paid for. It’s coming out of the Compensation Fund for Extraordinary Damages, the trust my mother established. Your family won’t have any financial concerns, if that’s all right with you.”
“Yes. Thank you, yes.”
Sam’s fingers twitched under Anna’s hand. His eyes were open, and he managed a smile with his swollen lips.
“Hey,” she said. “How are you?” What a stupid question.
“Crappy,” he murmured, his voice barely a scratch. “We won?”
“Yeah. But this … this sucks.” She blinked fast to keep the tears back.
“Yeah,” he said, the air going out of him in a sigh. He squeezed her fingers, but his eyes closed, and he slipped back into sleep.
This did, indeed, suck. But she finally believed he’d get better. Blaster would return.
Celia touched her shoulder. “We should probably get going, let him rest.”
“Okay.”
The leave-taking was awkward and drawn out. The Stowes seemed more stunned than when they arrived, not less, and Anna felt washed out. Just seeing Sam like that was exhausting. But she had to be thankful that he hadn’t died. How much more awkward, to be standing at his funeral?
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