#Herofail

by Lexie Dunne

  I heard a grunt of pain as I landed by the employee exit and grasped the doorknob.

  “Girl?”

  The familiar voice made me whip into a fighting stance.

  Lady Danger, the Victorian menace of the South Side, waved at me, like she wasn’t ringed by waiters and cooks convulsing and twitching on the floor. She had on a burgundy gown with a bustle and ruches, with a lacy little parasol propped over one shoulder.

  None of the aesthetic lessened the intensity of the two snarling mongrels at her side.

  “I thought that was you!” she said, as I gawked. “I didn’t know you were on this crew, too! It really is a small world, isn’t it?”

  “Uh,” I said, since Lady Danger was smiling at me like we were friends. We’d done time together, but her hounds were also the source of a very specific set of scars on my back. “Hi. What are you—are you working with Tamara Diesel?”

  “Of course I am. You know she pays well,” she said. The dogs snarled louder. Lady Danger irritably batted a fan at them. “Be nice, Viceroy Fitzhubert, Esquire and Captain Fortescue the Third!”

  Those would be the dogs, I hoped, and not any of the kitchen staff because: yeesh.

  “That was quite the hit you landed, tsk tsk. Did you not see that it was me?” Lady Danger asked.

  “Yeah, about that—” With no other way out of the conversation, I flung a frying pan at her head and bolted out the door. I scrambled onto the handrail. Rain immediately soaked my dress, getting into my eyes when I looked up.

  Two seconds later, as I clambered up the side of the building, the door burst open and Viceroy Fitzhubert and Captain Fortescue barreled through. They snapped at my ankles, barks sounding like sonic booms in the night.

  “This is why I’m a cat person,” I said under my breath, and scaled the side of the building. The Raptorjet had been parked on the roof and cloaked, so I nearly tripped over it. I found the doorway by feel and ducked into the jet when the door hissed open.

  Inside the jet, two suits of armor waited like silent, faceless mannequins. I hovered with my hand extended to my normal armor. It was as functional and hardy as the Raptor armor, with as many gadgets and all the same tricks.

  But Kiki had a point. Raptorlet was fine for facing a two-bit villain from Hoboken. Tamara Diesel demanded more of a presentation.

  Raptor needed to save the day.

  I jumped into the armor, moving even before it finished molding to my limbs. The diagnostic systems blinked on in Jessie’s red rather than my chosen blue. I vaulted out of the jet and ran along the roof, switching on the infrared. Lady Danger would no doubt find her way to the roof, or send other villains, so the kitchen as an entry point was a no go. Jessie’s suit had already tapped into the security cameras, and they painted a grim picture of overpowered security staff at every exit. I needed another way in.

  All of the ballroom cameras had been blacked out, but the infrared scans showed that most of the people were still on the floor. In the center of the room was a blazing bright spot that I assumed had to be Tamara Diesel.

  Where are you? Kiki asked, making me jolt.

  On the roof. There was trouble in the kitchen.

  Hurry—it’s Jessie—

  My head snapped up. The gunshot I’d heard—had that been . . . ?

  I started running, throwing two little discs out in front of me as I did. A hissing noise filled the air as the lasers got to work, cutting a square into the roof. I took a running leap and drove the heels of my boots into the center of the square, plummeting through the perfectly cut hole left behind.

  I phased down, throwing all of my momentum into the act so that my boots slammed down, cratering the floor around me. Instantly I whipped about, stun gun up, ready to use the advantage of surprise—

  My grip on the hilt actually faltered. Blood, was all I could think, so much blood. Jessie lay on the stage, Kiki desperately holding a soaked jacket against her stomach.

  Beyond that, it grew even worse: five people hovered in a line ten feet off the ground. A handgun dangled over each of their heads, all held up telekinetically. Everybody affected by the gas seemed to have recovered somewhat. Now they’d all frozen in terror. Two of the people in the air were sobbing.

  “At last,” Tamara Diesel said.

  It was difficult to hear her over the pounding of my heart, but I stood there with my stun gun raised. Frozen. Breaking every rule of being the Raptor. No way in hell I’d be fast enough to save five people.

  “I wasn’t even sure you were coming!” Tamara said, laughing like it had been silly to worry.

  Nobody moved, not even the stunned and gassed people still on the floor. Angélica, one of the five in the firing squad line, glared at me, eyes cutting from Tamara to the stun gun in my hand. I didn’t need to read her mind to know the message: finish her!

  “Welcome to my party, Raptor,” Tamara Diesel said. “I can see what you’re thinking, so I’ll answer the question you’re asking yourself: no, you probably can’t take me out before I pull at least one of those triggers. I’ve done the math.”

  So had I. My math focused on the amount of blood on stage and the faintness of Jessie’s heartbeat.

  “It’s so rare to see you indecisive,” Tamara said, clicking her tongue. “Did you know, there’s a theory about you in the villain community? It’s exactly why I put on this little show.”

  My hand flexed on the hilt of the stun gun. I couldn’t answer her. Anger boiled through my whole body. Maybe if I waited her out, her telekinesis would wear out.

  One of the men in the line of five whimpered.

  “Rude. Witty banter only works if you respond,” Tamara said.

  Backup’s on its way, Kiki thought at me, her voice beyond strained. Jessie’s heartbeat grew fainter.

  “Oh, well, I don’t care,” Tamara said as I continued to stare at her, the stun gun aimed at her chest. Holding five people and the guns up together required more finesse than I’d ever seen from her. She strode closer and I shifted my stance, warningly. “Did you know there’s a deeply held belief that the Raptor actually has no powers?”

  Oh.

  So that’s why she’d done this. I clenched my jaw and locked eyes with Angélica. Behind her, on the ground, I could see Rodrigo inching his way closer to her. I hoped he wouldn’t ruin everything. Either way, I needed to do something.

  “So I brought you a present,” Tamara said, apparently not noticing. She whipped around, too fast even for me, and blew a cloud of green-gray gas in my face.

  I stepped into the cloud of smoke and calmly fired the stun gun right into her chest. Angélica fell, plowing three of the others in the firing line to the side. Rodrigo tackled the fourth right as all five guns went off.

  The bullets chipped the wood of the stage.

  I ran at Tamara, firing repeatedly even as she telekinetically swatted the stun bolts away. Something very like fear flashed in her eyes as she dodged backward, coattails flapping on her thighs. “Better luck next time!” she said, and slammed a telekinetic blast into the floor so hard that it catapulted her into the air and right through the hole in the ceiling I’d created. I swiped at her, a second too late.

  A chunk of floor caught me hard in the shoulder right as my left boot slid on debris. For one harrowing second, I hung there in midair, watching Tamara Diesel escape.

  And then I hit the floor ass-first. Somewhere in the room, a light flashed.

  I ignored all of that, springing to my feet and taking two running steps to the stage. I had my medkit. I had all of Jessie’s tools. If I could get to her, if I could help her, she might be okay—

  “What the hell are you doing? You have to get out of here! Go!” Eddie shoved at me with what little strength he had. He sounded desperate and panicked for the first time all night. “Go! Go, before you ruin everything!”

  I started to move around him, digging at my belt pouch, but Kiki shook her head. “Listen to him! I’ve got this!”

  If I couldn�
��t help Jessie, I could at least solve another problem. I tossed my suit’s medkit at Kiki and shot a grappling hook at the hole in the ceiling. Two seconds later, I scrambled onto the roof.

  No sign of Tamara Diesel. I flipped on every possible sensor on my suit, but she’d already left. Growling, I ran to the side of the building and dropped down. If I couldn’t take my frustration out on Tamara, maybe Lady Danger would still be around to answer some questions.

  No such luck: only the kitchen staff remained, trussed up on the floor with gnawed up animal bones strewn messily on the ground between them. Dammit! I punched the wall, leaving a considerable dent behind. The staff jumped at the noise. Guilty, frustrated, I cut through the ropes of the two nearest me. They’d have to free their compatriots on their own. I was too busy vanishing into the darkness like the Raptor should, climbing the building and out of sight.

  I was still up there, crouched on the roof and cloaked in shadows and rain, when the ambulances arrived.

  Chapter 6

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay on that rooftop long. First responders rushed into the ballroom, so I shed the armor in the Raptorjet and sneaked downstairs, where an EMT grabbed my arm and hustled me toward one of the stretchers.

  Pretending to be sick when all I wanted to do was get to Jessie’s side—well, I couldn’t call it torture, as I had a healthy respect for actual torture. But it came close. They took us to the Infectious Gas Ward at Singh Memorial. Several of the city’s most elite were on the guest list. Davenport spared no expense, whisking them away to private rooms. As a nobody, I wound up in a quarantine ward with the catering staff, Angélica, and Rodrigo.

  Naomi had been sorted into another group, but I’d spotted her—dark complexion washed out—firing questions at an EMT as I’d been carted off.

  “You didn’t leave?” Angélica asked, sitting on the bed next to me.

  “I was on the guest list,” I said. Documentation of Gail Godwin at the party would only look suspicious if I vanished—especially if it was around the same time Raptor had arrived.

  “Good call,” she said. She turned away from the group harassing the nurse at the front of the ward. “How are you feeling? You took two blasts of the gas. Any nausea? Dizziness?”

  I shook my head. “I feel normal. Have you heard from Kiki? What’s going on with Jessie?”

  Angélica shook her head. “Don’t panic. She’s strong.”

  My throat felt hot as I nodded. There’d been so much blood, but Jessie had survived worse in her tenure as the Raptor. I pushed all the worries screaming at the back of my mind away and focused on something that had been bothering me. “Is it weird that the gas didn’t affect Sharkbait or Kiki either? They don’t have Mobium. Our powers aren’t exactly homogenous either. How would it know to differentiate? Is it like the Demobilizer?”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Angélica said, but her tone indicated her thoughts had taken a similar track.

  In my time at Davenport, I’d learned that powers came in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and rarely had a single thing in common. The only substance that had ever managed to differentiate between powered and nonpowered individuals had been a serum: Demobilizer. It had been created by Dr. Mobius, the same man responsible for the Mobium Angélica and I shared. According to Kiki, his intellect went decades beyond what current scientists knew about superheroes. And she’d know: she’d graduated at thirteen and had more PhDs than I had degrees total. Also, she happened to be the man’s granddaughter.

  “Is this Mobius?” I asked, ignoring Angélica’s warning look. “Did he escape and somehow begin working for Diesel?”

  “I don’t know. He’s not the only mad scientist out there, unfortunately.” She turned and sighed. “Oh, it’s you.”

  Rodrigo, in gray scrubs, wrinkled his nose sarcastically as he approached. “My foot hurts where you stepped on it,” he said to Angélica.

  “Please hold your breath while I decide whether or not to apologize,” Angélica said.

  “I’m shark-based, I don’t actually need to breathe.”

  Angélica and I squinted at him. “Do you want to tell him about gills, or should I?” I asked.

  “Shut up,” Rodrigo said. He leaned toward me with a smug look. “I know your secret.”

  Any other time, my stomach would have dropped in dismay. But I’d faced down Tamara Diesel, I had no idea if Jessie would even survive the night, and there was a horrifying new gas out in the world, so a perfectly apathetic shield had formed around me. “I’m shocked. It would take a genius to realize I left the party right before Raptor came in, and you don’t qualify.”

  “What?” Rodrigo’s eyes widened. “You’re the Raptor’s apprentice? You? I was talking about the fact that Hostage Girl had powers.”

  “Ugh,” I said, as smacking myself on the forehead would take up too much energy.

  Angélica grabbed Rodrigo’s shirt and yanked him down to her level, a considerable drop. “Tell anyone and you really will be shark bait.”

  Huh. So that was what Rodrigo looked like when he was afraid.

  Before he could reply, a Davenport nurse I recognized from Medical called us to the front of the tent. We had to step into decontamination showers and were then corralled into hazmat suits. I tried to ignore the rest of the people looking on enviously as we left.

  I hoped there was a cure for whatever Tamara had done to them.

  In the elevator, the nurse, Zack, hit the basement level button four times in quick succession. “I’m here to take you in for tests. How’s everybody feeling?” he asked us.

  We all shrugged in unison. “Any news on Jessie?” I asked.

  “She’s in surgery and it’s too soon to know anything,” Zack said.

  The elevator took us below the basement level. Given that Singh Memorial was only a couple blocks from Davenport Tower, I wasn’t entirely surprised when the doors opened straight into Medical. I’d passed this spot dozens of times without considering that there might be a door there at all.

  Medical usually served as a well-lit port in the storm: bright and minimalist, it resembled a futuristic computer store. That calm façade had evaporated; people in scrubs raced from one room to another, machines beeped, and staff workers shouted instructions to one another that I didn’t understand. I swallowed past the lump in my throat and did my best to stay out of the way as I followed the others to one of the exam rooms.

  “Gail!” Naomi, weaving a little, pushed off of a cot and staggered across the room to give me a hug when we stepped inside. “There you are. Finally.”

  “Are you okay?” I grabbed her by the elbows when she stumbled. “Should you even be up?”

  Naomi coughed. “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

  “Yes, obviously, we can see that,” Zack said.

  Naomi waved at him. “Why you gotta drag me like that? I’m fine.”

  It was clearly a lie, but she still peppered us with questions as we peeled out of the hazmat suits. Did we have any idea what Tamara had been up to? Had she really developed a chemical agent specifically to take down the Raptor? How come nobody had known she would attack? Were we feeling anything from the gas at all?

  “There’s no chance of the gas actually knocking her out now, is there?” Angélica asked me in Portuguese.

  “I may not speak that, but I still get the gist,” Naomi said without looking up from her notepad.

  “Dr. Davenport wants us to research the pathogen ASAP,” Zack said as he filled up a vial with Angélica’s blood. “I want to compare powered and nonpowered samples. Natural powers, synthetic powers, and—” he looked at Angélica “—a mix of both.”

  I sighed and submitted to the blood draw when my turn came. “So,” Rodrigo said to me, looking away from the needle, “how does one go from ‘Kidnap me! Kidnap me!’ to becoming the Raptor’s apprentice? I bet there’s a story there.”

  Angélica put her hand over her face as Zack did a double take and gawked at me. “What is the numb
er one rule?” she asked Rodrigo. “Don’t compromise identities. Idiot.”

  “I do have feelings, just so you know,” Rodrigo said, and Naomi rolled her eyes.

  “Jessie’s going to come out of surgery to put me through three weeks on the obstacle course for giving away my identity in the first place,” I said morosely.

  Zack looked between the four of us, obviously twigging to Angélica’s seriously-contemplating-murder expression. “I’ve got all the samples I need. If anybody wants to wait in the lobby while I run some tests, that’s fine.”

  Rodrigo, it seemed, could take a hint. He slunk out there with his proverbial dorsal fin drooping. Once he was gone, Zack set the sample tubes into a feeder, all business, though he regularly sneaked glances at me. Great. Somebody else who knew my secret.

  “Did you feel anything from the gas at all?” he asked, fingers flying over the keyboard.

  “It smelled and tasted pretty foul. Like burning tar,” I said. “By the time I noticed it was only affecting people without powers, there wasn’t much we could do but lie down and fake a seizure.”

  “Mmm-hmm. Smart,” Zack said. “Tamara Diesel is bad news. You should see what she did to my cousin’s car last time she attacked Bleecker Street. Well, let’s see what Señor Spectrometer has to say about this new lovely nightmare. There’s the readout now.”

  The three of us crowded in to look over his shoulder. The image that showed up, a blurry mess of little fuzzy dots moving around, made absolutely no sense to me. Three more versions popped up on the screen. Same fuzzy dots, but no movement.

  “That’s my blood, isn’t it? What are those things? Oh, god, are those parasites?” Naomi asked, elbowing me to get a closer look at the first screen.

  Zack hit a button and the screen enlarged, zooming in on a sector of Naomi’s blood sample.

  As the picture rendered, the door behind us opened. I had a brief impression of Guy rushing toward me before I was swallowed in a giant hug. “Thank god you’re okay,” he said. “I heard there was an attack, and gas? I got here as fast as I could. You’re not hurt, are you?”