#Herofail

by Lexie Dunne

  “Duh,” Rodrigo said. “It’s why she’s Fearless. Did you not know that? Have you not read her file?”

  “I was kind of hoping she’d die of old age in prison so I wouldn’t ever need to,” I said. “How the hell do you fight somebody who knows what you’re about to do?”

  “Hit them a lot?” Vicki asked, which didn’t surprise me, as that neatly encapsulated her preferred strategy.

  “Overwhelm them with numbers,” Angélica said.

  As a plan, it wasn’t a bad idea, except: “This is why she always surrounds herself with so many allies,” I said. “Split the attackers, make sure no more than one or two can be fighting her at the same time.”

  “Bad news,” Naomi said. She held up the file on the Provenance. “I figured out where this thing is being kept.”

  “Well?” I said.

  “It’s under Navy Pier.”

  So we were actually going to Navy Pier. Guess I hadn’t lied to Eddie after all.

  “Phantom Fuel and Invisible Victor apparently spent the rest of their lives trying to extinguish the Provenance or at least stabilize it,” Naomi said, flipping through the old xeroxed pages. She began laying them out on the floor to form a complete diagram. “They never quite got there, so instead they built a force field to keep it contained.”

  “Why under Navy Pier?” I asked. “Why near so many tourists?”

  Naomi put down another sheet of paper, this one a crudely drawn map. She stabbed at it with her finger. “It needs constant power, but it also needs to not draw attention. Hydraulic power, in particular. It’s being fueled by the Chicago Harbor Lock.”

  It took me a few seconds to process that. I’d been through the Chicago Harbor Lock a few times, on the very rare occasion I’d made it out onto Lake Michigan on a friend’s boat. Everybody who went from the Chicago River to the lake had to pass through the lock. It was supposed to be an engineering marvel that raised and lowered the water level as boats entered and left, keeping the river clean and sending all of our waterborne diseases down to St. Louis.

  “The good news,” Naomi went on, “is that Phantom Fuel and Invisible Victor were supergeniuses and the force field is really stable. They’ve got fail-safes on top of fail-safes. I don’t think even Rita has the ability to deactivate it.”

  “What if she blows up the harbor lock?” Guy asked. “Does that mean the explosion would take out the pier?”

  Naomi pulled out more engineering diagrams, passing those directly to me. “In the event the Provenance overwhelms the field or the power is cut, it gets catapulted straight through these doors here—” she pointed to them on the drawing “—and shot out like a cannonball. It’s slated to go fifty miles in like, twelve seconds, so maybe don’t be standing in the way if everything goes wrong.”

  “What’s fifty miles away?” Vicki asked.

  “The deepest part of Lake Michigan that the Provenance could reach without exploding,” I said, as the drawings were beginning to make sense to me. I handed them back to Naomi and sat down, running my hands through my hair. “So best-case scenario: Sal has stopped Rita, we don’t have to worry about anything, and we can all go home and get some rest.”

  “Hey,” Jeremy said.

  “Except for Jeremy, who needs to go collect his nanobots from the now-traumatized infected citizens on the Ferris wheel,” I said without missing a beat. “But yay, everybody’s happy, and this crisis is over. Worst-case scenario is Rita follows through on her lifelong obsession, destroys the force field, and sets the Provenance off. Bye, Chicago. Hello, new world superpowers for everyone who survives the nuclear winter.”

  “Let’s . . . not let the worst-case scenario happen,” Kiki said. “Davenport’s already nearing capacity as it is.”

  “We’ll do our best,” Guy said, patting her shoulder.

  “Hey, not to be a downer, but I’ve got more bad news,” Vicki said from the copilot seat.

  I squeezed between Guy and Naomi to get a look at the holoscreen Vicki had pulled up. While we’d been reviewing the files, she’d apparently been making use of the Raptor-drones in Chicago, for they circled over Bucktown.

  What had once been Mind the Boom was now a smoking crater. Two people in bright yellow and green stood in the middle of the rubble, arms crossed over their chests. As we watched, one attempted to fire-bolt the drone out of the sky. No way in hell was a hologram going to fix all of that, I thought, my stomach tightening as I studied the debris.

  There was no sign of Rita or Sal.

  “That entrance looks like it might be a no go,” Guy said, frowning. “Are you sure there’s no other way to get to the Provenance?”

  “Sal said that was the only safe way and . . .” I paused. Safe. That meant there had to be a risky way. I slipped back and snatched up the engineering drawings. Underneath those were plans for the harbor lock, which I scanned until I finally found it.

  God bless the Davenports and their ever-expanding nest of secrets, honestly.

  “There’s another way in,” I said. “But it doesn’t look very big. In fact, I’d say only a very small person could fit through.”

  “So what’s the problem?” Guy asked.

  “It’s deep underwater,” I said. I’d never been a strong swimmer, even before I’d become physically dense. Neither Guy nor Vicki would fit through the little entrance. And Jeremy wasn’t powerful enough to take on the villains within the stronghold alone. It would need to be me. “That’s not really my preferred milieu.”

  From the back of the Raptorjet came the sound of a throat clearing and then Rodrigo swaggered up. “I believe,” he said, “that my time has come.”

  My stomach sank like I would when dropped into water. Tactically, it made sense. I could hold my breath, but not that long. If the door proved difficult to open or unforeseen circumstances arose, I’d be completely out of my depth. And this really was where Shark-man excelled.

  But I absolutely did not want to face Rita’s worst minions—and definitely not Rita herself—with only Sharkbait for backup.

  But it looked like I wouldn’t have a choice.

  Chapter 23

  Miracles apparently could happen: in a small jet hurtling toward Chicago at a blistering pace, carrying within it six superheroes and one journalist, we came up with a plan—and every single one of us agreed with it. Even Rodrigo.

  Naomi met my eyes and raised her eyebrows over that one, but it didn’t surprise me. Sharkbait could be placated with a good water fight every time. So many took place on dry land, he liked to complain. It was like wet-lander oppression.

  But since this plan would start with the two of us dropping into Lake Michigan and sneaking by the battle on Navy Pier, he was fairly vibrating with excitement. Guy, who had his arms folded over his chest both to save space and to fight off his displeasure, didn’t seem nearly as satisfied. He’d wanted to go to Navy Pier, but somebody needed to take on the two supervillains guarding the destroyed entrance at Mind the Boom. And he was more familiar with it than Vicki.

  We all put in earpieces as we finalized the details. Angélica planned to fly to the Nest and provide support—and hopefully keep Naomi far away from the fight. Jeremy would focus on getting nanobots out of the people on the Ferris wheel if he could. Vicki would be Vicki, providing all the shock and awe needed to give Jeremy space and do his work. We plotted it out with great cheer, even some gallows humor, but underneath it all lay an uncomfortable truth: if Guy was unable to get through the Mind the Boom entrance and the hatch to get inside was as small as we expected, I would be facing Rita alone.

  One final Fearless and Raptor fight. Final because there was close to an absolute chance that I would be a Gail-shaped grease stain under her boot before the day was out.

  “Three-minute warning,” Angélica called through the cockpit.

  At two minutes before the launch, Guy pulled me to the back of the jet and kissed me like he feared one of us might actually die. Since I kind of agreed with him, I kissed him
back.

  Both of us glared at Rodrigo when he gagged loudly.

  “You know,” I said to Rodrigo as Guy pulled his mask down, “there’s a reason nobody likes you.”

  “Please,” he said. “There are like ninety.”

  I couldn’t exactly argue with that. I clicked my tongue to call the Raptor mask into place and joined the group gathered at the exit ramp, breathing the way Jessie had always taught me to suppress the nerves.

  Rodrigo began fidgeting when Angélica called out a thirty-second warning. “What are you doing now?” I asked.

  “I’m aquatic. Sharks do not fly through the air,” he said, attempting to look dignified.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “It’ll be quick whether or not I get it right.”

  From the sour glare, it was obvious that he didn’t appreciate the humor. The light over the rear hatch switched to yellow, so I gave Guy one last look and took a deep breath. As soon as it turned green, I yanked Rodrigo close and launched us both into empty air.

  Rodrigo screamed. I didn’t blame him this time.

  I waited until the water was inches away from my boots before I released both of us out of the phase, sending all of the gathered energy straight down. Water fountained in all directions right before we hit. If he was at all stunned, Rodrigo didn’t show it. He immediately began to descend, so fast that my ears popped.

  I clutched the armor’s dorsal fin for dear life and held my breath, wanting to preserve the suit’s small air tank as much as I could. Water rushed by. Rodrigo kept his arms pinned to the side, knifing through the water like the shark he claimed as his mascot. Deep under the surface, the mottled gray armor camouflaged him. Witnessing his abilities in person, I could see why San Francisco hadn’t been successfully attacked from the ocean in years. Didn’t make him any less of a jerk, though.

  The blueprints for the holding facility had included the back door entrance, disguised as a vent. They hadn’t included details on how to access it, but if I knew Jessie, there would be deterrents. To keep from being spotted, we’d been dropped a mile from the pier, which Rodrigo claimed he could traverse in under five minutes. Jeremy and Vicki, leading an assault on the supervillains holding the hostages on the pier, would be at least three minutes into their own fight by the time we arrived.

  I wasn’t sure if the lack of explosions as we approached the access point could be considered a good thing or not. Rodrigo slowed his pace abruptly, nearly throwing me forward through the water, but I held on. I shot him an annoyed look that I hoped he could read through the mask.

  Where? he signed to me.

  I held up a finger as my mask scanned the nearby topographical area for any abnormalities. After an agonizing thirty seconds—still no explosions from above, what was taking Vicki so long?—my scanners pinged on a small tunnel, mostly hidden by rocks. I pointed, and Rodrigo swam off without me. I rolled my eyes as I followed him.

  At least he managed to clear most of the rocks before I got there. He went in before I could tell him to wait for me to scan the place, so I didn’t have much choice but to follow. My mask switched to the nightscope as we left daylight behind. Given how narrow the tunnel was, all I could really see were the soles of Rodrigo’s Crocs as he swam in front of me.

  Pressure built in my ears, which told me we were descending. And it kept building, even as the depth gauge in my suit remained steady.

  What the . . .

  I heard a hissing sound and saw a stream of bubbles shoot out of the top of the pipe over Rodrigo’s back. Instinctively, I grabbed his ankle to yank him toward me. He must have had some kind of sharky precognitive senses of his own, for he twisted. The dart missed him by millimeters and embedded itself into the pipe below. Hard enough to pierce armor, I realized.

  Rodrigo looked from the dart to my face and mouthed a word that I didn’t need to hear to understand. I lunged forward, hugging his ankles, and he shot off. We hurtled along, Rodrigo doggedly twisting and dodging every time the pipe spat out a geyser of bubbles, the prelude to another dart. I could only hold on and hope he knew what he was doing.

  Whoever had designed this access point was an absolute sadist. We made it through the first tunnel with only one mishap, and I definitely did not like the way Rodrigo’s eyes had flashed red at the sight of the blood around the dart piercing my shoulder. A whirlpool nearly sucked us into the floor in the second tunnel. I came close to getting electrocuted—twice. And if it weren’t for my unnaturally fast reflexes, Rodrigo would probably have been chopped in half. When we finally reached an underwater chamber and climbed out of the water, I wanted to sag in relief. But there wasn’t time: we found the hatch, but the access panel next to it required a code.

  Rodrigo shook himself like a dog. “I don’t suppose you magically know that code,” he said.

  “No, but Angélica might.” I toggled on my comms. “Are you back at the Nest yet, Angélica?”

  “Little busy,” she said. “What do you need?”

  I activated the suit camera at my shoulder and pointed it at the access panel. “Is this in Jessie’s records anywhere?”

  “Try 0000,” Rodrigo suggested.

  “No, don’t do—” I sighed as he reached around me and punched in the numbers “—that.”

  “Huh,” he said. “It didn’t work.”

  Not only did it not work: in the distance I heard a crashing sound. I whirled just in time to see a door slam down over the tunnel, locking us in. My stomach dropped to my knees and stayed there as water began to pour from a hatch in the ceiling. A lot of water. Filling the room very fast.

  “Huh,” Rodrigo said again.

  “If I know Jessie, the access panel is a trick,” Angélica said as water reached our ankles.

  “Decoy?” I asked, my heart hammering. I shoved down the instinctive terror and methodically began to run my hands over the walls, feeling for a secret latch.

  “What are you doing?” Rodrigo said.

  “The real access panel is somewhere. Help me look!”

  He stuck his hand against the wall. “Oh, here it is.”

  Of course he’d found it on the first try. I didn’t waste time being annoyed, instead hurrying over through the knee-high water. A retinal scanner greeted me.

  “God, I hope Jessie put me on the access list,” I said, clicking my mask open. I put my chin on the strap and tried not to flinch as it scanned my eye. If we couldn’t get through the door, I was royally screwed. My air tank had been almost depleted on the trip to the hatch. Even if we did get the tunnel back open, no way would I make it to the surface.

  My heart began to pound. What was taking so long? Why was it—

  The scanner blinked over from red to green. Instantly, the water stopped, and I heard the tunnel door slide open.

  The access hatch clicked and opened a miserly inch. Relief nearly made me dizzy.

  I yanked Rodrigo back and went first, hauling myself up since it was nearly at shoulder height. The hatch led into a supply closet full of cleaning supplies. I pulled my stun gun out of its holster and signaled to Rodrigo that I’d go first.

  “Yeah, not gonna fight you on that,” he said, not bothering to whisper.

  I shushed him.

  “You realize Fearless could be on the other side of that door?” he asked, mercifully lowering his voice. “What’s it matter when we’re about to die anyway?”

  “Thanks, Captain Optimist,” I said.

  He scowled. “Captain Optimist works in Oakland, and I’m clearly from—”

  I didn’t bother to shush him; instead I eased open the door and peered out. A cinder-block hallway lay beyond, lit by humming fluorescent lights. The air tasted faintly electric, like a moment before a very close lightning strike. I’d felt the same way standing close to Jeremy’s avatar. That was . . . concerning. But the coast seemed clear, so I stepped out and began creeping down the hallway.

  “Made it inside,” I said over the comms. “No sign of any supervill—spoke too soon. D
ammit.”

  A butch woman in a Roman breastplate, helmet, and an old-timey little skirt rushed from one side of the hallway. On the other, a man in a red cape and mask that looked like a red chess piece hurtled toward us with his mace out. They had definitely been waiting for us.

  Rodrigo and I immediately moved back-to-back. I wound up facing Gladiatrixie as she charged me with her legionnaire shield and spear. I hadn’t fought her before, but Jessie had, and the suit spit out a list of her weaknesses. She clipped my chin hard enough with her shield that I saw stars, but twenty furious seconds later, she lay out cold on the tile. I turned to help Rodrigo in time to watch him head-butt the Red Sentinel to the ground. “Which way?” he asked, panting.

  “Follow me.” No need to worry about stealth, not with the war cry Gladiatrixie had let out. With every step, that feeling of being close to something electric and dangerous only increased until it was a low-key chant in the back of my head that something in the air was wrong. The Mobium in my system, always focused on keeping me alive, wanted me as far from this place as possible. I only ran faster.

  Right as we reached the corner, the tiles beneath our feet shook. My shoulder hit the wall and I grunted, bracing myself until the shaking stopped. “What the hell was that?” I asked over the comms.

  “No idea. All of the readings at the Nest are going haywire, but there was a huge energy spike—”

  “She’s at the Provenance,” I said, running again. Following the map in my head, I rounded the corner to one of the server rooms and skidded to a halt.

  Wrestling Maniac blocked the door on the opposite side of the room, a wide smile on his face as he cracked his knuckles. His unitard seemed even sparklier than ever. On his left, the woman from the raid on the secret Feared Five base hovered a good three feet off the floor, her arms encased in sleeves of golden fire. My mask ID’d the villain on the right as the Ack-Man I’d taken out with one hit on that rooftop weeks ago. He seemed to have gotten all of his toys back.

  None of that worried me as much as the two chairs in the center of the room, each containing a bound and unconscious woman. No wonder there hadn’t been any sign of Brook in the past couple of days. Rita’s goons likely hadn’t taken her defection too well. Even unconscious she looked pissed off. In the chair next to her, Sal appeared to have survived the assault on Mind the Boom remarkably unscathed.