“I scanned the newcomers as they came into the city,” she said, without preamble. She already knew how he felt about telepathic scans. “Some are nervous, some are...fans and at least one of them is a spy.”
Hope looked at her. After everything else that had happened, he wouldn't have been surprised to hear it. “I see,” he said, finally. A spy...and one of his people dead. It couldn’t be a coincidence. “Who? And why?”
“Sparky,” The Redeemer said. “Once one of the Young Stars...now, a reluctant spy for the SDI. Apparently they got into a little trouble with the authorities and Sparky is working for them in exchange for...having the records sealed, I guess. She isn't quite sure herself.”
Hope looked down at the city. He hadn’t liked the Young Stars from the start, if only because they represented the worst of the so-called superheroes. They didn't even act as registered superheroes, protecting the population from criminals and corrupt officials. Instead, they were famous merely for being who they were...
...But if one of them had become a spy.
“How dare they?” he whispered. “How dare they force a young girl to become a spy?”
“Rather easily, I would expect,” the Redeemer said. She frowned, thoughtfully. “But why would they send a spy when they know that I’m here? Their spy didn't last five minutes before I detected her.”
Hope shrugged. “It doesn't matter,” he said. “All that matters is making it clear that I will not tolerate such interference in the Congo’s...redemption.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“What a shitty world.”
Chester stood in front of the containment room, looking in at the superhuman teenager. The capture glue had been removed, to be replaced by restraints that should hold anyone up to a Level 5 superhuman. Any resistance would result in gas being pumped into the chamber, weakening the superhuman to the point where he could be carted away by mundane soldiers.
“I'm afraid so,” Lane said, grimly. “Do they know who these...kids are?”
Chester nodded. In hindsight, the answer had been all too clear. “Yes,” he said, shortly. “I know who they are.”
Lane gave him a sharp look. “The boy’s almost certainly Level 3 if not Level 4,” he said. “The medics can’t understand anything about the girl, starting with her unnatural skin colour. They would have classed her as a mutant if it wasn't for the fact she had very definite powers...an affinity for shadow, if you believe that crap.”
“I wonder how much she had to roll to get that,” Chester said, lightly. The joke fell flat. “Level X, definitely; a teleporter as well as a shadow manipulator. If we’d known they were superhumans...”
“We bagged them,” Lane reminded him. “Who are they?”
“Sins of the past returning to haunt us,” Chester said. It had been two years since the SDI had last checked on the children, during which time they’d developed powers and a cause. “I need to talk to them.”
“So does the New York DA,” Lane said. “I can't tell if he wants to have them charged with mass murder or give them the keys to the city.”
“The SDI has jurisdiction in such cases,” Chester reminded him. He looked at the boy and shook his head. “Fifteen years old, and already responsible for at least seventy deaths. And bringing his sister in on the act, too.”
He shook his head. “I’m going in there,” he said. “Keep an eye on us through the glass. Stand by to activate the gas if it goes horrifically wrong.”
The door hissed open when he touched his fingers to the sensor, allowing him to step into the small cell. It felt smaller than he remembered, but then most of the space was taken up by the secure chair. He leaned against the wall and studied the young man, realising just how much he resembled his father. The SDI had definitely dropped the ball on this one, although there had been little choice. Their mother had wanted the kids to grow up without being pressured by the SDI to follow in their father’s footsteps and the General had accepted her argument. But then, she was supposed to inform the SDI if the kids developed superhuman powers.
“Good morning,” he said, as he took the other seat and sat down facing the kid. “Jack Lofting, isn't it?”
Jack started. “How did you...?”
“I knew your father,” Chester said, flatly. “You seem to have inherited some of his powers.”
The premier American superhero was America, a Level 5 superhuman who wore a costume made out of an American flag. He was loved across America as the very symbol of American power, a true hero who served Uncle Sam and his people. What the public didn't know was that there had been several different superhumans playing the role of America, including Marvin Lofting, Jack’s father. But Marvin had retired, then died, the first victim of a plot to trigger a superhuman war. The truth had been suppressed and those responsible for the plot quietly eliminated. Very few people knew the complete story.
Marvin had been Level 5, but he’d married an ordinary woman and had two children. No one understood how superhuman genetics worked, yet it seemed clear that the father had passed on some of his gifts to his children. The real question was if the abilities had been diluted because their mother had been an ordinary human, or if Jack would develop more powers as he grew older. And then his sister, who had abilities that were completely inexplicable. What twist of the genetic lottery accounted for her?
“Tell me something,” he added, after a moment. “Do you think that your father would have approved of such...vigilantism?”
“My father wanted to clean up the area,” Jack said, after a moment. An older man might have kept his mouth shut after demanding a lawyer, thankfully. Bringing in a lawyer would have tied Chester’s hands to some degree. “Do you know how hard it can be for a brother in this world? My father made everything better, and then he died. And then they burned down his gym and took back the streets.”
Chester did understand. When racial features were used as the basis for separating groups of people, those who tried to transcend racism were often shunned by their own kind. Jack would have faced immense pressure to join the rest of the black population in the FTS, fighting the other gangs and probably dying on the streets before he reached his twentieth birthday. His mother could have taken him and his sister away—Chester didn't understand why she hadn’t—but instead they’d been forced to watch as their father’s legacy was destroyed, crumbling back into the poison peddled by the gangs.
“No one did anything to stop them,” Jack continued, heedless of his own danger. “I was so weak! I couldn’t stand up for anyone until my powers developed. And Jane’s powers...together, we were unstoppable. We started to clean up the area until you intervened and stopped us.”
“I think your father knew to build as well as destroy,” Chester said, flatly. “Between us, we seem to have triggered off a four-sided gang war in Hell’s Kitchen. The last I heard, the NYPD had finally been forced into action, sealing off the streets and carting gangsters off to jail. They may have to release them if nothing can be proven, but...”
“Vermin,” Jack snarled. “Let them all die.”
Chester shrugged. “They may learn a lesson from spending a few days in a holding pen,” he said, although he doubted it. A few weeks would have helped many of the gangsters to break their drug additions, but the DA would probably not stand for it. “Tell me something: everyone you killed...do you know that they were replaced pretty damn quickly?”
Jack glared at him. “And I would kill their replacements too, until they got the idea,” he said, angrily. “Do you really want to stop me?”
“There are few situations when an average citizen can and should take the law into their own hands,” Chester said. “If you had stuck to rescuing people who were being attacked, it is unlikely that the SDI would have taken a very grim view of the situation. But killing people you suspected of being gang leaders...”
“They were gang leaders,” Jack insisted. “Don’t you think I was careful enough to listen to the streets?”
“My father died because of his idealism,” Jack said. He didn't know the full story. “Those gangsters bragged about how they managed to kill him.”
“They didn't kill him,” Chester said. “Tell me about your sister.”
Jack stared at him. “What have you done to her?”
“We’ve drugged her to keep her harmless,” Chester said. “Apart from that, we would have some problems charging a thirteen-year-old girl with anything. What sort of powers does she have?”
“Figure them out for yourselves, government man,” Jack sneered. “Why should I help you when you did nothing to help me? Or Hell’s Kitchen?”
“I’m trying my goddamned best,” Chester snapped. “I am doing my best to ensure that you and your sister don't spend the rest of your lives in the Pit, or face the executioner for at least seventy counts of murder. Right now, I am the best friend you have.”
He took a breath. “You’re a superhuman,” he reminded the young man. “Minor or not, that puts you in a very dangerous category. You won’t see your home again until you are freed from the Pit, which could be over sixty years from now. Or you could be executed on the grounds that you are just too dangerous to be allowed to live. Help me help you.”
Jack said nothing for a long moment. “When she turned thirteen, her skin darkened,” he said, slowly. “Mom didn't know what to do about it; lots of kids started to pick on her for being too black. She used to run into the shadows and vanish and...They all called her a freak. I didn't realise what she was until she ran out of the shadows in my room. She had crossed nearly a mile in a split-second.”
“A teleporter who works through shadow,” Chester mused. Teleporters weren’t unknown—and Gateway of the Saviours could open portals from place to place—but the report suggested something more. “What else can she do?”
Jack hesitated. “It sounds really stupid now,” he admitted. “She said that there was shadow inside the shadow and she could command it, pull it out into the light and use it as a weapon. Between us, I thought that we were unstoppable—and she hated missing our father too.”
Chester had to smile. “You should see some of the theories the SDI’s support branch invents,” he said, dryly. “Most of them would have been comic book writers in another reality. Pulling shadow from a dark dimension isn't even the weirdest theory on the books.”
He shook his head. “How many did she kill?”
“None of them,” Jack admitted. “I killed them all.”
“You just used her to get through the guards and into striking position,” Chester said. It hadn't been a bad plan at all, even though it had run into a roadblock in the form of Team Omega. “Tell me something. Have you killed anyone who wasn’t a gangster, someone who didn't already have blood on their hands?”
“No,” Jack insisted. Chester silently cursed his own decision to send Matt Tracker to the Congo. A living lie detector would have come in very useful. “I didn’t even kill Horace when he tried to bully me and the weaker kids.”
“That makes a change,” Chester said. “And your sister never killed anyone...”
He smiled. Superpowers appeared when someone with the right potential was under immense stress, something that included being bullied at school. At least a dozen powerful superhumans had emerged that way, tearing their tormentors apart without ever quite realising what was happening to them. Chester had no sympathy for bullies—bullies were generally cowards, too afraid to pick on someone their own size—but the newly-empowered superhumans had major mental problems that made them dangerous to the world.
He studied Jack’s face for a long moment. “You could be useful to the SDI,” he said. His sister could be even more useful, but he didn't want Jack to realise that—at least not immediately. “Your father once served in the SDI; it taught him the discipline and awareness he needed to start cleaning up the streets. And he made contacts who provided help and a certain degree of political cover when he got to work.
“Right now, you have two choices,” he added. He needed Jack to understand; minor or not, he was in a great deal of trouble. “The first one is that you and your sister join the SDI and train to become proper superheroes, serving your country and your people. If you refuse to join the SDI, it is quite likely that New York will wish to put you on trial for mass murder—and the SDI for unregistered superhuman activity. It will be a very long time before you taste freedom again.”
It might be never, Chester knew. The average human, even a complete psychopath, couldn't do much damage, even if he had a gun and the willingness to use it. But a superhuman could bring down half the city in the space of a few minutes—and taking him down might require weapons that inflicted even more property damage. The Russians had had to destroy Warsaw in order to kill a single superhuman. Unleashing the SDI might cause even more damage to New York. If the court found the two kids too dangerous to live, with no chance of redemption, they would be executed. And, unlike ordinary criminals, there would be no long drawn-out process of appeal.
Jack looked at him, thoughtfully. “Was this how you met my father?”
Chester shook his head. “Your father was already a hero when I met him,” he said. “And he joined willingly.”
He didn't add that Marvin Lofting should have been buried with full honours, but his wife had insisted on a small ceremony to prevent people from realising who she’d married. The media would have been all over her if they’d discovered the truth. People were fascinated with superhuman marriages and they would have asked all kinds of embarrassing questions. No one in their right mind wanted that sort of attention.
He allowed his expression to harden. “Understand something. We know who you are, and we can track you. If you and your sister try to vanish into the shadows, we’ll know where you are and we will track you down. And next time it will be the SDI chasing you instead of us.”
They preferred not to use the SDI against rogue superhumans because of the risks of property damage, to say nothing of bad publicity, but Jack wouldn't know that. Besides, he would probably find the SDI more intimidating.
“This is your one chance to move ahead with your record wiped clean,” Chester said, coldly. “You chose to take the law into your own hands and murder upwards of seventy people because you believed them to be guilty. We cannot tolerate such actions or the very foundations of our society will crumble. Do you understand me?”
He looked into Jack’s eyes. After a long moment, Jack nodded.
“Very good,” Chester said. “The SDI will be along in twenty minutes to take you and your sister to their base. Once you are there, they will start training you—and teaching your sister how to hone her powers. And then you will have a chance to follow in your father’s footsteps...”
“Sir,” Jack said, slowly, “did my father really die?”
Chester blinked in surprise. “Why do you ask?”
“Half of my classmates don’t have fathers,” Jack said. “Their mothers brought them up alone; the father left them when they were kids, or they don’t even know who their father was. Some said that my father had left, too...”
“I’m afraid not,” Chester said. “I saw the body. Your father is definitely dead.”
“But some of the comics say that superhumans can come back from the dead,” Jack objected. Chester wondered just how long he’d been hoping that his father was alive, instead of a dead man he could never quite match. “Can’t he have returned to life...?”
“This is the real world,” Chester said, gently. “Some superhumans can take a staggering amoun
t of damage and their healing powers keep them alive, others are almost invulnerable...but when they’re dead, they’re dead. Your father was dead and no one, not even a Level 5 superhuman, can come back from that.”
There was at least one semi-exception to that rule, but Zombie had been the result of illegal experimentation by Dr. Death in South Africa. His body was dying, held in check only by his immense will and a powerful healing factor...and his mind was retarded. He wasn’t a very powerful superhuman, but almost no one could bear to be near him for long. Talking with him was like talking to a mentally disturbed adult, one who could turn dangerous at any moment.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “Best of luck with your new career.” He walked out of the holding cell and nodded at Lane.
Team Omega Page 23
