Red and Black

by Nancy O'Toole Meservier

  “Don’t think I was meant to hear. The Mistress wasn’t happy. Amity just laughed her off. Said there was no way we would betray her to the Forgers.”

  “The what?” Four paces. Three.

  But before he could answer me, a car behind us leaned on its horn. I had no idea why it happened. I was so focused on Sully that an accident could have taken place right behind me and I would have been completely ignorant. Still, the sound spooked me, making me jump.

  And unfortunately, it did the same to Sully.

  I watched his feet slip from the fence, his body beginning to fall. His hand hadn’t even left the railing by the time I launched myself at him, but when I got there, he was in complete freefall. I dove over the railing, reaching for Sully. And then, just like in the movies, everything seemed to slow down. I could see Sully’s face, his eyes wide and surprised. That stupid creeper mustache. The silver fillings in his teeth. His hand, reaching out for mine as he fell to his death. His hand, which I grabbed with my right.

  Thank God I had latched on to the bottom railing with my left.

  I lost a second or two there. My mind just blanked out. What brought me back was the sound of Sully’s harsh breathing, the cries that escaped his lips. Were they of fear…rage?

  No, pain.

  I looked down at our joined hands to see that they were bloody, and that his hand felt…wrong beneath mine.

  Whoops. Looks like I had grabbed on a little too hard. Super-strength. It has drawbacks!

  How the hell were we going to get back up without me injuring him further?

  “Oh my God!” I heard from behind me. “Miss? Red and Black?”

  I craned my neck upward to see a man standing above us. A thankfully tall and muscular-looking man in a Bailey College sweatshirt. I felt my face break into a grin at the sight of him.

  “Hello,” I said, voice strained. “Citizen, I believe I may require your assistance.”

  It was all I needed to say. The man behind me fell to his knees and stuck his large arms through the narrow slots of the fence, squishing his face against the metal.

  And then, I probably did the most awkward, one-armed pull-up ever.

  I could feel the metal of the fence bend beneath my hand as I pulled myself and Sully upward. When the bottom of my ribcage met the bottom of the fence, the stranger reached through and started to pull Sully toward him, using the guy’s uninjured hand. After that, pulling him over the fence was awkward, but ultimately a piece of cake.

  Sully collapsed on the ground and began to sob. Big, ugly sobs that you wouldn’t expect to see from a rough-looking guy like him.

  But then again, nothing I had witnessed from this guy matched the stone-cold criminal I had seen just a week ago. He seemed…well he was almost like a completely different person.

  What could have done that?

  And who were the Forgers?

  10

  Alex

  Noel reared back with all his strength and sent his right fist flying in a cross. I swatted it to the side with my gloved hand.

  “You’re telegraphing, No,” I said. “If you keep on dropping your right like that—”

  “I know, I know,” the kid replied.

  He swung again, and I took advantage by smacking him across the face with a left hook. I didn’t put much power in the swing, making it more of an annoyance than anything else. He stumbled back and shook his head.

  “Can’t say I didn’t warn you,” I said with a shrug.

  Noel’s only response was a single grunt. Sensing his mood, I chose to pull back.

  “How about we take a break?” I reached for the straps on my gloves.

  “Sure,” he replied, half breathless.

  Noel walked to the corner of our makeshift boxing ring where he had stashed a water bottle. He started to remove his own set of gloves.

  I had to admit he looked a little silly. I had found him workout clothes from the lost and found at Colossus, but while they fit his rail-thin frame, they were a tad too short for his long limbs. He wore protective headgear, and the results made his curly hair stick out at odd angles. He reminded me of this skinny kid who came into Colossus in hopes of “bulking up to get ladies.” And while Noel (and that kid) would never be a body builder, I had hopes of at least helping him protect himself.

  “I suck at this,” Noel said after taking a long drag out of his water bottle.

  “Nah, you’re just not used to it. I take it you didn’t get much exercise before this?”

  “Unless you count walking to class.” He shrugged, then winced. It had been a few days since the Hamilton job, and Noel had missed multiple classes. I could tell that bothered him.

  “You’re just on day two,” I said, walking over to where he stood. “If you had improved all that much over the last couple of days, I’d give up this life of crime and start selling my foolproof boxing method down at Colossus. Be rich in no time.”

  “Yeah, but that would mean leaving the Mistress.” Noel let out a laugh and shook his head. I felt my smile falter.

  The kid placed his water bottle on top of one of the trash cans we had set up to form the four corners of our “ring.” We were in the garage, far away from the crack I had made in the floor just a few days ago. This meant we didn’t have much privacy. There was always someone down here, whether they were working on a car or (more often than not) just killing time. From the way I caught them looking at me from across the garage, I knew it wouldn’t be too long before I had more than a class of one.

  “Faultline?”

  The sound of Amity’s voice brought me to attention. I noticed it had the same effect on Noel, who straightened up. It was interesting, the impact she had on the drones. She didn’t demand the same type of devotion as Calypso, but pretty much everyone was a little terrified of her.

  I turned toward the elevators and nodded.

  “Amity,” I said.

  For a moment, her gaze lingered over the boxing ring. She smiled. I prepared myself for some sort of catty comment, but when she opened her mouth again, she was all business.

  Mostly.

  “I’d hate to break up this play session, but Calypso needs your help on the benefit,” she said.

  “Right now?” I frowned. “But my armor’s not ready.”

  “Plain clothes only this time.” She raised a single finger and shook it back and forth. “Callie just wants you to take a look at the site and see if you can eliminate any…issues in advance.”

  Right. Issues. Like the fact that none of her drones were qualified to pull off something like this. Hell, I wasn’t qualified. I was just a high school dropout, after all.

  Of course, I had a feeling those weren’t the “issues” Amity was talking about.

  “Sure,” I said with a sigh. “How am I going to get into this building?”

  In response, Amity looked up and over my shoulder.

  “Marty? Could you come here, please?”

  Marty, who had been sitting with a group of guys, looked up, then rose to his feet. As he walked toward us, I noticed that he held a tire iron in his right hand. I frowned. Was that the same one he had been carrying during the Hamilton job?

  “’Sup,” he said, drawing close.

  “Marty’s parents own the building where the benefit is being held,” Amity said. “They’ll let him in, no question.”

  “Yeah, the Harvest Ball?” Marty nodded. “The Mistress filled me in. Said I had a role to play.”

  “Oh, and bring this one.” Amity gestured toward Noel. “Another set of eyes might help.”

  “Aren’t these guys supposed to be under house arrest?” I frowned.

  “We decided on a few test runs before letting our happy helpers run free. There was one call to the police station connecting the two of them to the event, but it’s been taken care of. Hopefully, things will get back to normal soon.”

  “Thank God,” Noel said, closing his eyes in obvious relief.

  The smile on Marty’s face f
altered.

  “You two have been wonderfully devoted to the cause,” Amity said. “I know our dear Calypso has noticed.”

  The two drones straightened up at the praise. Amity bid us good-bye and headed back to the elevators. I sighed and went to my gym bag.

  “Do you need anything to get ready?” I asked Marty.

  “Oh, I can totally handle this. I just need to make a couple calls,” the kid said, then half-walked, half-ran across the room, almost smacking another drone with the tire iron in the process.

  “A whole afternoon with Marty,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  Noel smiled.

  “Sounds memorable,” he said.

  “I wonder if Amity remembers that my powers are triggered by rage.”

  Noel, the little shit, could only laugh in response.

  One of the things that surprised me the most about Calypso’s drones was how many of their job descriptions could be summed up as just “driver.”

  There were people who drove to and from jobs, people who drove to pick up food and other supplies, and people who just drove Amity around the city (I had never seen Calypso leave the Grand Bailey). This meant a lot of the drones technically never got in too deep. That role was saved for people like me, who could take (and dish out) a punch or two, and people like Marty, who had this mysterious thing called “connections.”

  It did explain why Calypso had recruited him in the first place.

  I glanced back from the passenger seat to where Marty and Noel sat in the back. Both of their eyes were focused, in opposite directions, on the tinted windows of the car. I guess it had been a few days since the two of them had been outside.

  “So,” I said, breaking the silence. “What’s the plan?”

  Marty didn’t answer at first, then swung his head toward me.

  “Uh…what?” he asked.

  “The plan,” I repeated. “What’s our cover?”

  “Oh…we’re going to the party.”

  I blinked.

  “And we want them to know that?”

  “I always get invited.” Marty shrugged.

  “Yeah, and do you always arrive a couple weeks in advance to case the building?”

  “Um…no? I don’t see why it matters. They’ll let us in. I called Jacob. He’s, like, my parents’ secretary or something. Always hooks me up.”

  “So he lets you into your parents’ building, no questions asked.”

  “Why wouldn’t he?”

  I could tell from the expression on Marty’s face that, according to him, I was the moron in the car.

  “Listen,” I said. “If I’m holding this fancy-ass party, and a handful of guests are abducted in the middle of it, I might look back and say, ‘Gee we had three guys randomly checking out sight lines and exits a couple weeks before. Wasn’t that a little odd?’”

  I saw Noel suppress a grin.

  “I guess,” Marty replied with a frown.

  “Listen,” I said as the car slowed to a stop. “We just need to make sure we have a good reason to be in there.”

  “Oh! That, I have handled.”

  And before I could ask how, he was pushing open the door and stepping out onto the sidewalk.

  “Marty, wait!” I hissed. “And stop laughing, Noel!”

  My new workout buddy did not listen. I opened my door and jumped out onto the street, then watched as Marty made his way to the front door of a very large building.

  The Tong Building was one of busiest in Bailey City, not so much for what took place inside of it, but beneath it.

  The tram was the lifeblood of Bailey City, snaking up and down the east, central, and west sections, aboveground and below, carrying commuters, students, tourists, and anyone else who didn’t feel like getting behind the wheel of a car or dealing with a bus. As someone who had taken a close look at some of the aboveground tracks west of the river while my powers were active, I refused to take it. Hell, I even made my sisters promise to stay away. It wasn’t like the thing was set to fall apart at any moment, but I wasn’t blind to the underlying structural issues that could be a problem.

  But here at Central Bailey Station, everything was solid. The image of a sleek silver tram car emerging from beneath the concrete-and-glass building above was used in pretty much every commercial for Bailey City tourism.

  Above the station was the prestigious Tong Building, known for holding big city events and housing people who earned more money than any single person should ever make in a year.

  You can see why someone like myself had never had the pleasure of stepping inside the building.

  Marty jogged up the stairs like they were his front steps. I noticed that he was making his way toward a slim, short man with dark hair and brown skin. He wore a dark-brown suit and held a cell phone in one hand.

  “Hey, Jacob!” Marty said, walking up to him. “You get my text?”

  Oh no, that smile on Jacob’s face didn’t look forced at all. In fact, as I drew closer, I realized that he wasn’t a “Jacob” at all. His name tag clearly read “Jason.”

  “Of course I did, Marty,” Jason said. “But your parents aren’t in today.”

  “Oh, that’s all right. I just wanted to check out the party.”

  Jason frowned.

  “Ah…the Harvest Ball. It isn’t set—”

  “Yeah, I heard you guys were gonna set up soon. I, uh…wanted to make sure my costume matched the decor.”

  I closed my eyes in frustration. This was Marty’s plan?

  By this time, Noel had made it up from the car. We both flanked the shorter guy like we were his bodyguards.

  “Oh, and this is—” Marty began.

  “We’re friends from school,” I said, not wanting to connect the name “Alex Gage” to the building.

  “Nice to meet you both,” Jason said. “I…guess we can show you the decorations? They did just arrive.”

  The inside of the Tong Building left me nostalgic for the tidy Commerce Center. Sure, some of the elements were the same. There was a large lobby with metal detectors (meaning we either had to skip weapons or figure out a way to smuggle them in), and a security desk in the front. But that’s where the similarities ended. Don’t get me wrong, the Commerce Center had been nice, but the decor here was another level, all gold and rich, polished woods. To our left was some fancy seating area with tons of green plants. The wide windows that made up most of the front wall let in tons of natural light, but, in preparation for more cloudy days, someone had hung what were probably considered rather tasteful chandeliers. You know, what every office building really needs.

  Jason led us down a long hallway and through a pair of double doors that required the use of his key card. (Huh, those doors would probably be open during the event, but what about the rest of the building?) From there, we entered what was clearly going to be the room for the Harvest Ball.

  The ballroom could have easily fit three of the Grand Bailey’s larger conference rooms inside. A dance floor stood in the middle, with a stage set up on the back wall, plenty big for a DJ or live band. Several carts of decorations had been placed next to a back entrance. From where I stood, I could make out bright-orange flowers and skeletons dressed in suits.

  “This is a big room,” I said. “Do you really think you’re gonna fill it?”

  Jason nodded before speaking.

  “This is our third year in a row hosting the Harvest Ball. Hundreds of guests arrive. For charity, of course.”

  “Right.”

  I looked around the room. Hundreds of people were going to be here. And we were going to be looking for four of them. How much time would it take just to locate the marks?

  “Do people always show up in costume?” I asked.

  “Quite a few of our guests do,” Jason said. “Although some simply arrive in style. For those, masks will be provided at the front table, near where people can sign up for the door prizes.”

  Inwardly, I groaned. Great. Now we had to find four people weari
ng masks.

  “Door prizes?” I heard Noel ask.

  “Oh yes. They’re…quite a draw,” Jason said, glancing down at his phone. “Some have even been donated by the Tong family. They see it as part of their duty for keeping participation up.”

  Now that was interesting…

  Jason checked his phone again.

  “Jason, we’re probably keeping you from your work,” I said. “Marty can show us around.”

  “Thank you,” he replied, relief plain on his face. “But if you have any questions—”

  “Oh, I know your number, Jake,” Marty said with a smile. “Thanks for letting us in.”

  Jason walked toward the door, his footsteps quick, fingers tapping across the screen of his phone.

  “Marty, you know his name is Jason, right?”

  “What? No. Come on, I’ve known the guy for years.”

  I locked eyes with Noel, and mouthed, “Years?”

  “Marty?” I said. “If you don’t mind me asking, how the hell did you get into Bailey U?”

  “What?” Marty asked. “The same way everyone else did. Great grades, high SAT scores, extracurriculars. I mean, it’s not like school is hard or anything. Hey…are those the masks?”

  And with that, he headed off to a large box of masks. Some were spread out over a table as if for inspection.

  “I can’t believe that. His parents have to be bribing the school or something,” I said, turning to Noel.

  “Actually, no,” Noel replied with a sigh. “I’ve taken classes with him. He’s really smart. He just doesn’t present himself well, I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  “Yeah, it drives me a little nuts sometimes, you know? Because it’s not like he even tries all that hard.”

  “What a horrifying world it would be if he did.” I shook my head. “So what’s up with the masks?”

  Marty had picked up one of them and was holding it up to his face. It looked like a skull, stark white but decorated with electric-blue flowers.

  “It’s a sugar skull mask,” Noel replied. “Which…is kind of weird for an October party given that the Day of the Dead isn’t until November.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a Mexican Holiday, about honoring ancestors. I actually did a report on the masks for an art history presentation last semester.” He shook his head. “Man, my parents were so mad when they found out.”