How to Save the World

by Lexie Dunne

  “Got it,” Guy said, pulling his arm out. “Help me out?”

  The punch had shattered the drywall, making it easy to peel away. It revealed a metal wall behind it, now bearing a nice puncture from Guy’s fist. Without a word, we each took a side of the puncture and pulled. The metal groaned but eventually gave way, widening into a hole large enough for me to poke my head through.

  It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The lair below was open and dim, lit by a strange indigo glow. “Yup,” I said, pulling my head out of the hole, “someone had a secret lair under here. God, I hate secret lairs.”

  “You and me both,” Guy said, though Naomi looked absolutely delighted, poking her head through to get a good look. Guy scratched the back of his head. “I don’t suppose you saw a way in?”

  “Staircase,” I said. I pointed. “Behind the wall right there. I’m assuming there’s a secret catch somewhere, but the door’s wood if you want to skip the rigamarole.”

  “Excellent,” Guy said, and kicked the wall. More dust pattered to the ground, and the door flew off its hinges. I heard it bouncing down the stairs. “I’ll go first, if you don’t mind.”

  “Yeah, sure, ignore chivalry,” I said, and Guy smiled at me.

  Naomi followed on his heels, phone camera clicking away, so I brought up the rear, keeping my senses open for any signs of danger or booby traps. The lair wasn’t large, but it was decidedly out of place in the middle of an abandoned business park. I looked for any sign that it belonged to Lodi, but unlike Davenport, they weren’t really all that big into splashing their name everywhere.

  I wrinkled my nose. The lair was so typical. Underground, moodily lit, filled with scientific apparatus crowding the desks that I never had a hope in hell of understanding, equations written on chalkboards. The sight of a mussed cot and the shackles in the corner turned my stomach.

  A second cot in the opposite corner didn’t contain shackles at all.

  Naomi clicked away like a fiend. “Mobius was definitely here, right?”

  “Trust me, he was here. The place reeks.” I could smell him most strongly on the sheets of the cot with the shackles. A fireplace in the corner showed evidence of papers that had been burned, likely in a hurry. Destroying the trail. I bent to run my fingers through the ashes. “Looks like they left in a hurry. You definitely upset something with your snooping, Naomi.”

  Guy looked apologetic. “I need to call this in,” he said.

  “What? No! There’s so much here, there’s no reason to tell Davenport yet,” Naomi said. “This isn’t their find.”

  “Supervillains are going to be looking for this place, too,” I said.

  “Why?”

  I stared at her. “Everybody and their brother is looking for the person who took Plain Jane’s powers away. This place is a solid clue. Most of them are dumb as a box of rocks, but some supervillains would be smart enough to track this place down. Until this guy is found and all of the depowering agent is secured, anybody that knows anything about Mobius is going to be stuck at Davenport. That means you and me.”

  “Like hell I will,” she said.

  Guy raised his eyebrows at me as he stepped away to make the call.

  “Sorry,” I said when Naomi whirled on me in indignation.

  “I thought you hated Davenport.”

  “I do, but this is huge.” I continued to comb through ashes. Luckily, the fire hadn’t destroyed every scrap of paper. “To give you some perspective: Tamara Diesel is involved. She fights Raptor, and that’s way over my usual level.”

  Naomi snorted. “You’re Hostage Girl. You don’t have a usual level.”

  “I was Hostage Girl. Now I’m an office worker with superpowers who ended up in a fight against Scorch today.” My stomach rumbled, a reminder that I hadn’t eaten the five-­course meal I needed to recover from that. I picked up a half-­piece of paper, rolled my eyes at the indecipherable formula on it, and set it aside for the Davenport techs to comb over later. “Scorch kicked my ass, for the record.”

  “You seem fine now, though,” Naomi said.

  “Blame the Mobium.” A second scrap caught my eye because it had red pen marks scribbled all over it. As Naomi poked through a filing cabinet, I held the paper up to the light, recognizing Dr. Mobius’s handwriting from his notebook. Only one word proved legible. “Demobilizer,” I read aloud. “What do you suppose that means?”

  “Demobilize means to remove somebody from military ser­vice,” Naomi said.

  I snorted under my breath. “Nerd.”

  “You asked. Whatever it means, it’s mentioned in some of these files, too.” Naomi pulled out a little wooden box and tried to wedge her fingernails underneath the lid. “Hey, can you get this open? I want to know what’s inside.”

  She tossed the box. Right as she let it go, her fingers must have brushed against a secret latch, for the lid slid right open. I saw a telltale flash of very familiar blue that made me shout, but it was already too late. The box arced through the air.

  “No!” In a burst of speed, Guy jumped right between us and batted the box away. Blue powder exploded where he’d hit the box—­right into his face.

  CHAPTER 10

  Unlike Vicki, they put Guy in quarantine.

  Unlike Vicki, they didn’t let me anywhere near him. No matter how hard I tried or how many Davenport techs I threatened to deck, even while Guy repeatedly said, “Gail—­Gail, it’s fine,” trying to get me to stop. Davenport’s crew descended on the lair, hauling the weak and dizzy Guy one way and me another, and panic scrambled in my chest like a living creature.

  “Hit her with reusabital or something,” one of the techs grunted as four of them struggled to pull me away.

  They did. It made me dizzy for half a second. Apparently they weren’t up to date on my file or the fact that repeated exposure to the knockout drug had made me immune. I lunged forward, ready to race for Guy and the stretcher until Naomi choked out, “You’re going to get us killed, stop. He’s fine.”

  But he wasn’t fine.

  After they dragged us back to New York, I couldn’t see him at all. In fact, I couldn’t see anybody: they dumped me in a cell not unlike the one where they’d put Brook. This time I didn’t have Kiki’s credentials to get me in and out. It was for my own good, the tech had claimed when they’d shoved me inside.

  And for my own good, I’d made some sizable dents in the wall. In addition to bruising my fists, it did absolutely nothing to quell the tidal wave of panic and fear building inside of me. Whenever I closed my eyes, I could see that moment, the blue powder exploding, Guy’s horrified face as he fell to his knees and coughed, just like Vicki had. I saw the pitiful little flame of Vicki’s last power vanishing, only now it was happening to Guy, who’d always been strong and unstoppable and almost immovable.

  And they wouldn’t let me see him.

  I punched the wall until I ran out of energy. Hunger, a constant companion, gnawed and churned away at my stomach, so I sank to the floor, inadvertently mimicking the same pose I’d found Brook in earlier right next door. I’d done absolutely nothing criminal—­well, okay, a little breaking and entering, technically, but was it really criminal when it was land owned by a corporation that had once been about to murder me?—­and I was being treated like the actual supervillain next door. This was ridiculous. This was why I hated Davenport.

  To make matters worse, the root cause of my loathing for Davenport showed up in my doorway. And he had the audacity to be holding a very full tray of food, the absolute bastard.

  “You,” Eddie Davenport said, “are a goddamned menace.”

  “Fuck you, too,” I said. “Why am I in here? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “I explicitly ordered you and your buddies to stay on the premises.” Eddie’s too-­handsome face twisted into a scowl. “We’re dealing with
one of the biggest crises this community has ever seen, and you can’t even obey a simple order. And now yet another one of my top heroes is currently out of commission. That’s two cities that are missing their headlining heroes, Miss Godwin, and you just happened to be present for both of those events.”

  Yeah, because I had the luck of a one-­leaf clover. I raised my chin, folded my arms across my chest, and tried not to let him know how damn good the food smelled. My stomach didn’t seem to be falling in line with that agenda, though, for it gurgled. “You can’t pin that on me. I had nothing to do with it.”

  “You disobeyed orders.”

  “Hey, genius, I don’t work for you. I don’t work for any of you. In fact, I’m pretty sure I explicitly told you to do something illegal to a farm animal, and the ironic thing is that by keeping me in this cell, you are going to eventually interfere with my actual job. I don’t have to follow your orders,” I said. As best I could tell, it was the early hours of the morning on Sunday, so I actually had a little time before my coworkers would miss me—­not that they really would—­but I felt my point stood. “I want to see Guy.”

  “He’s in quarantine right now.” Eddie set the tray on the room’s desk. “Medical informs me that you’ll begin to suffer if you go much longer without nourishment. Consider this a gift from the company you don’t work for.”

  “You mean the company holding me hostage, and believe me, that’s not something I say lightly.”

  “Why did you go against my orders? I told you to remain on-­site.”

  “Because Naomi knew something that could help Vicki.” Duh.

  “And you had to drag one of my headliners into it?”

  “It’s not like we knew there was Demobilizer there. It looked abandoned. It was an accident, and it’s the last thing I could have wanted to happen. I wish it had hit me instead.”

  “I do, too. Except that it did.”

  The temperature in the cell immediately plunged into arctic territory. I’d been exposed? I was going to lose my powers? I hadn’t breathed in any of the powder, I didn’t think. After Guy had fallen over, coughing, he’d waved at me to stay back. But if I had been exposed . . . “What? I’m infected?” My voice wavered and cracked.

  “That’s the interesting thing, Miss Godwin.” Eddie pulled his phone out and showed me the screen. “This is what Medical found when they tested your blood. Apparently some of the toxins got into your bloodstream at Union Station.”

  “But I don’t feel any different.” I didn’t have any flashy powers that would be obvious to lose like Guy and Vicki did, but I still felt normal if a bit hungry. The food Eddie had brought was outright taunting me now.

  “That’s because you appear to be immune to this Demobilizer powder.” Eddie glared daggers at me, like this was somehow my fault. In his version of the narrative, it likely was.

  “The Mobium,” I said, breathing the word. It had caused so much trouble in my life, but it had also saved me so many times. “Did . . . did I adapt to that? Like I did with the pepper spray and the knockout drugs? The Mobium can fight off something that powerful?”

  “We’re still running tests.” Eddie pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed through his teeth. He really didn’t want to tell me whatever he was about to. “The current hypothesis is that it’s possibly a companion to the Mobium, which makes sense given that the two appear to have the same inventor.”

  “God, I hate that guy,” I said without thinking.

  Eddie looked like he very much wanted to agree. “We’ve got nothing conclusive, but for right now it looks like you’re immune. So congratulations on that, Miss Godwin.”

  “Congratulations? Congratu—­Guy and Vicki don’t have powers right now, and I’m supposed to be happy that I’m immune to whatever it was that knocked them flat?” I snatched a roll off the tray and considered flinging it at his head. The sick feeling in my stomach grew. Guy had to be going crazy. He’d had his powers for a decade, ever since the explosion had granted them to him and his siblings. What must he be going through right now? What did that even feel like? “Excuse me if I’m not exactly thrilled about this news.”

  “Trust me, I would much rather it were you than them. Your return to Class D status would solve a lot of my problems,” Eddie said.

  Prick.

  “You’re trouble,” he went on, “and an amazingly large pain in the ass for somebody of your stature. I should have let you rot in Detmer.”

  “Bullshit prison sentences do appear to be your specialty,” I said.

  Eddie breathed through his teeth again. “Here’s what is going to happen,” he said. “I am facing one of the biggest crises this community has ever seen, so you hopefully can understand that I am too busy to run herd on some problem-­causing Class C who can’t follow a simple directive. But we find ourselves at an impasse because, right now, you are one of three ­people immune to the very chemical agent I can’t safely send any of my troops to face. Which means I am conscripting you to fight in the name of Davenport.”

  “I already have a job,” I said, my own jaw clenched.

  “Right, yes, that little assistant editor job you play at. When are you going to grow up and see that your place is here? You’ve got superpowers now.”

  “It’s still my choice,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” Eddie said, his voice patently insincere in a way that made me want to drive my fist into his nose, “my mistake. Did you not want to help Mr. Bookman and Ms. Burroughs? Would you prefer they languish forever without their powers? Medical is hopeful that if we can secure Dr. Mobius, he might have a solution.”

  “You think Mobius is going to have an antidote?” I asked, scoffing.

  “You’ll find we have ways to persuade him to make one, if an antidote is indeed possible.” Eddie tucked his phone away into his suit pocket and brushed off his sleeves. “Until then, try to consider the job voluntary. It’ll make it so much easier on all of us.”

  “Why me?” I asked. “Angélica worked for you for years.”

  “She has powers outside of the Mobium. Are you really asking her to give those up?”

  Dammit, he had a point.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll help you out, but only for Vicki and Guy’s sake.”

  “I’m glad we’ve reached something of an agreement. Enjoy your dinner. We won’t take it out of your paycheck.” He strolled to the door and waved his badge at the scanner. At the last second he turned. “An orderly will be by with updates on Mr. Bookman’s condition, and I’m sure they’ll let you in to see him in the morning if your attitude has improved significantly.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I said, though the words tasted like poison on my tongue. “For the record, you’re a dick.”

  “Stay classy, Miss Godwin.”

  And with that, the door shut behind him. I considered throwing the crushed roll in my hand at it, but that would only be a waste of food. With a scowl, I ripped into it with my teeth. It felt horrible to idly sit and eat when I knew my friends were going through something so awful as losing their powers, but my body needed the fuel. I worked my way methodically through the dishes Eddie had left behind, cleaning each one off in turn, barely tasting anything. So the Demobilizer didn’t do anything to the Mobium. Were they related? Would the Mobium cancel it out somehow and give the powers back?

  If anybody could figure this out, it would definitely be Kiki and her team. On one of my rare visits to her actual office, I’d seen her diplomas on the wall. She must have been a genius to get through as many of them as quickly as she had. Vicki and Guy meant a lot to her. They were her friends. She could figure this out.

  When the door opened, I’d finished most of the food and was reaching for the final plate. I tensed, spoiling for a fight, even though it was probably one of the orderlies. It wasn’t.

  “Great,” I said, closing my eyes. “Yet a
nother Davenport. Just what my day needed.”

  Jessie took the insult well, all things considered, and tossed something at me: my jacket. “Huh?” I asked.

  “I convinced my brother to let me spring you,” she said. “The beds in this compound are shit. Come on.”

  I didn’t need to be told twice. I didn’t quite understand why Jessie had taken such a liking to me, but anything was better than staying in a cell. I’d had enough of that to last a lifetime. “I want to see Guy.”

  “Medical’s not letting anybody in. They’ve got him sedated—­it wouldn’t do you any good.”

  But I’d be able to see him. It would tell me something. What it was, I had no idea, but I didn’t exactly care. I needed to see him.

  “We’ll come back first thing in the morning,” Jessie said. “Promise.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to retort that a promise from a Davenport meant nothing to me, but all things considered, Jessie had done her own fair share of watching out for me. Maybe I should wait to look this gift horse in the mouth until I was a little less exhausted and worried about my friends.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, following her out of the cell.

  “The Nest.”

  “The what? Oh, god, please tell me that’s not what you call your base.”

  Jessie had the decency to look at least a little uncomfortable. “It was Audra’s idea,” she said. “I wanted no part in it. But what Audra wants, Audra gets.”

  I didn’t sleep well, which went without saying.

  Part of the problem was that when Jessie said I could sleep at her base, she literally meant in her base. Not in a guest bedroom or anything: in the base itself. We traveled by ’porter to Chicago and she set me up on a cot right next to one of her many, many tactical vehicles in the parking bay. Apparently Jessie babied her cars more than anybody I’d ever met, because the atmosphere control was phenomenal, not too warm or too hot. But it was still an eerie place to be expected to sleep. And I didn’t enjoy the fact that I was in Chicago and Guy was in New York. Sure, it was one ’port away, but it was still too far.