Red and Black

by Nancy O'Toole Meservier

  “But as entertaining as that may be, that’s not what’s really important here. Let’s take a closer look into those memories of yours. After all, it’s not like I recall seeing you mentioned…”

  Her voice drifted off. The smile fell from her face.

  “What is it?” I asked, instinctively drawing back in fear.

  “You have a disturbing gap in your memory, girl.”

  I blinked.

  “You…can’t recall erased memories?” I asked.

  “Of course I can, if I was the one who did the erasing,” she replied, voice sharp.

  Amity moved to her feet and walked across the room to where the mini-fridge sat, with several bottles of alcohol and glasses stacked on top. She grabbed what looked like a bottle of scotch and a shot glass.

  “So…someone else did it, then?” I asked. “Erased my memories.”

  “So many questions about a time you want nothing more than to forget,” Amity said, pouring herself a drink. “It’s the monster under your bed, after all. And nothing scares you more.”

  The words, as before, hit hard, but I couldn’t help but notice a tremor in her voice that hadn’t been there before. And the hand that poured the liquor—was it shaking?

  The hotel room door opened with a creak.

  Amity’s head shot up. She placed the glass and bottle of alcohol on the mini-fridge with a noticeable thunk. I craned my neck toward the door just in time to see Callie Saunders walk into the room.

  “Callie?” Amity asked.

  No, walk wasn’t the best way to describe it. She half-stumbled, looking dazed and distracted. She looked around the room once, then her gaze landed on me. She seemed to regain her composure at this point.

  “Is that her?” she asked.

  “Yes, but…” Amity’s voice drifted off.

  Calypso crossed the room, reaching out toward me. I jerked back, not wanting her to do the same thing to me as she had to Alex, but found that she was only inspecting the bloodstains on my shirt. They weren’t alarmingly large, but the sight still made her frown.

  “Faultline said she had healing powers,” Calypso said.

  “She does, but all abilities have limits. You should know that, Callie.”

  As she spoke, Amity walked forward until she was standing next to me.

  “When do you think her powers will start to come back?” Calypso asked.

  Amity paused, looking between the two of us.

  “May I speak to you outside?” she asked.

  Calypso’s gaze went distant again, but she nodded, then turned. Amity followed, closing the door behind the both of them, leaving me alone.

  The implications were clear. If what Alex had said was right, I was vital to Calypso’s plans. The fact that they had left me alone and unguarded clearly stated how much of a threat they saw me as.

  Not one at all.

  And really, could I disagree with them? As Red and Black, I could have torn the boards off the windows and jumped to safety. I could have saved the hostages and prevented Alex from being taken.

  But I couldn’t do any of those things as Dawn.

  “I told you there would be consequences!”

  Amity’s voice rang out from the hallway, breaking me out of my self-pity. Grabbing hold of my wheelchair, I wheeled myself toward the entrance of the hotel room. The door, I noticed, had not been closed all the way, giving me a view of Amity’s back.

  “I’ve held this many before,” Calypso said, her voice distant. “Back when Sully was here.”

  “Sully wasn’t Empowered, and it probably didn’t take much of an effort to sway that simple mind. But Faultline—”

  “I can handle him.”

  “And maybe you can. That’s the thing that scares me the most. Think about it. Weeks from now, when the bond is fully formed? Your little followers turn insane, Callie. You understand that. They do enough damage without that power to knock down buildings!”

  Calypso didn’t respond.

  “Break the bond,” Amity said, lowering her voice. “Break it now, while it’s still fragile. It’s too—”

  “Dangerous?” Calypso interrupted. “You think I don’t know that? Or is little Calliope Saunders too damaged to realize the truth when it’s in front of her?”

  “I…didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Yes you did! Telling me what I should do. Barking out orders. You sound like them.”

  There was a long stretch of silence in the hallway. Amity was the first to reply, her voice low.

  “I haven’t worked for the Forgers in years, you know that. Not since—”

  “But they raised you, didn’t they? They were your family.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  Calypso let out a cry of frustration.

  “You just don’t understand,” she said, as if speaking through clenched teeth. “Faultline betrayed me. He could do it again! I need to be better prepared.”

  “That…I understand what you’re saying here. But there are other solutions. I could—”

  “It shouldn’t surprise me that you’re not supportive. I knew you wouldn’t agree with my plan for her, either.”

  “Is that why you didn’t tell me at first?”

  “Of course it is,” Calypso snapped. “I…I…”

  I heard a rustle on the other side of the door and watched Amity jerked forward, as if to catch her. Had Calypso stumbled?

  “Callie…are you okay? You need to be careful.”

  “I’m done with being careful.”

  Then I heard the clacking of shoes as Calypso stalked away, leaving Amity alone in front of the door.

  With me directly behind it.

  Oh, crap.

  I grabbed at the wheels, trying to push myself backward, but got caught on one of the cords to those stupid desk lamps. The door swung open. Amity came up short, blinking at the sight of me.

  “Well, that shouldn’t surprise me at all,” she murmured before shoving her way around me.

  She crossed the room, going straight for the booze. As I struggled to turn the wheelchair around so I was facing her again, she tilted her head back and drank it all in one go. She made a face, then immediately poured herself a second, more generous, drink.

  “Enjoy the show, did you?” she asked with a sneer.

  “I just…wanted to know what was going on with Alex,” I replied. “You mentioned the bond…that it took a few weeks to form.”

  “Huh? What of it?”

  “Well, if Callie doesn’t want to break it…could there be another way? Could you?”

  “Break it? Could you be more ignorant? Do you realize how difficult it is for one Empowered person to undo the work of another? If erasing little Ally’s memories would do the trick, I’d already be on it.”

  Amity downed her second drink and reached for the bottle again.

  Okay. Okay. Think, Dawn, think. Use your brain.

  Fighting Amity was out of the question. And allies…well, there wasn’t much that Detective Bronson could do from across the hotel. That left one thing: talking.

  Which, as established on multiple occasions, I wasn’t that good at.

  But listening…

  “This must be so disappointing to you, girl,” Amity said, making her way to the bed and plopping down on it. “You think your first big entry into the world as an Actual will bring you up against a brilliant nemesis. And what do you get?” She raised her glass again. “One big mess.”

  “Your…plan at the benefit was pretty effective?” I went for flattery, but it came out all awkward.

  “Hmm.” Amity raised her eyebrows in my direction as she took a sip. “Please. That one was mostly Faultline’s plan. I disliked it at first, but it didn’t turn out to be all that bad. Not what I suspected when we took on a big, hulking, high-school dropout.”

  “And now you have all five of people who were supposed to originally make Calypso an Actual.”

  “Huh?” Amity frowned. “Ah yes…you saw…
some sort of tape, didn’t you? Hamilton’s video diaries?”

  Oh? Now that was interesting. After she had looked into my past, she had pulled from my memories quite easily. Now it seemed like it took a little extra effort. Was it the alcohol (there went drink number three), or the fact that it had been a few minutes since she had looked into my head?

  “Yes…and I get the revenge plot,” I said. “It’s obvious that Calypso…Callie…is not quite right. At least compared to how she was before. Now she’s distant…distracted. She was made all these promises and something went wrong. And now she wants to make the people she holds responsible pay.”

  Amity snorted.

  “Something like that,” she said.

  “What I don’t get,” I continued, “is where you fit into all of this.”

  Amity blinked.

  “Where I…fit in?”

  “I mean…I wondered if you might be in charge. People are pretty scared of you, after all. But Callie…if you don’t mind me saying…she didn’t seem too keen on taking orders from you. At least…not when you wanted her to do something that she didn’t.”

  “That’s certainly true.” Amity took another sip from her glass.

  “And then I realized something important. The drones call Calypso Mistress. And Alex…Faultline…calls her Calypso. You’re the only one who calls her by her real name.”

  “And?”

  This wasn’t working. I should have kept quiet. She was down to monosyllabic answers now. But at the same time, I just had to know…

  “Well, first I assumed it was because of, um…your powers and all of that. But…it doesn’t have to mean that. It makes me wonder if maybe…just maybe you knew her before she was Calypso. Before everything went wrong?”

  Amity suddenly went very still. Her drink was raised to her lips, but she didn’t take a sip. Instead, she lowered it to her lap.

  “Oh. I’d say so. We met when we were practically children.”

  I blinked.

  “That’s…I’m sorry, did you say children?” I asked.

  “Practically,” Amity replied, voice flat. “I was fourteen. She was twelve. Her parents wanted to make her Empowered.” She paused, shaking her head. “Of course, we didn’t use that word back then. Empowered, Actual, Costume…All made up years later by some journalist. Once that annoying metallic archer and psychic came along, once E-day happened, having powers became less about lineage and more about tight costumes and masks.” She snorted. “Pathetic.”

  “I…do you mean to say that Silver Shot and Golden Strike weren’t really the first Actuals?”

  “The first Actuals, yes,” Amity said. “But the first people to discover they had enhanced abilities? The first to be truly Empowered?” She sniffed. “Now that’s been going on for a long time. Don’t worry. I won’t bore you with the history lesson.”

  “But…you mentioned lineage.” I leaned forward in my seat. “Does that mean powers are hereditary?”

  “Why, yes. Just like blue eyes and musical ability!” Amity said with false perkiness, then rolled her eyes. “That was the line they always used. Of course, just like every child of a virtuoso violinist isn’t destined for Juilliard, not all Empowered people give birth to Empowered children. But all come to the Forgers to see if they can make it happen.”

  I shook my head. There were theories out there about where powers really came from, but no one really talked about their origin stories. Sure, they existed in Hunter Davies’s comics, but they were usually so off the wall that no one really bought them. Could it be true that everyone got their powers from these Forgers?

  Even me?

  “So…Callie’s parents,” I began. “They brought her to these Forgers to become…to have…”

  “The correct term is ‘Awakened.’ Very self-serious and dramatic, of course.” Amity paused to pour herself another drink. She sat back down on the bed, and for a moment just watched the liquid slosh back and forth. “But not everyone’s special snowflake can become the next Golden Strike. There’s a process. The higher-ups must approve.”

  “But…why so young? I mean…who would want a twelve-year-old with superpowers?”

  “The window only lasts for so long. Want an Empowered child? Then you need to do it at their most volatile and transformative stage: puberty.”

  I frowned at that. But I didn’t have powers during puberty. I’m pretty sure I would have picked up on the super-strength.

  “Anyway, there were several visits,” Amity continued. “We were in Hartford at the time. Her parents would drive all the way down and spend their time whining over the unfairness of their lives and how her mother had all these family legends. All these ancestors that people were just drawn to. Would do anything to make them happy. Going all the way back to Greece. They thought Callie might have these abilities as well. And someone like that…well, she could solve all of their pesky little problems!”

  She paused to sip her drink.

  “I didn’t see the point of all those meetings. Why would the answer be anything but yes? Having someone with a magnetic personality…well, that it wasn’t that big of a deal. But I never complained, because every time they came meant that I got to see her again.”

  “So you…became friends?”

  “It was a bit of a new experience for me, I must admit,” Amity said, her voice suddenly softer. “From the point I was Awakened, when they learned exactly what I could do, people reacted the same way. They were afraid of me, but also wanted to use me. And Callie…she was just…nice. Sweet. Then the decisions came from the higher-ups. Awakening Callie’s powers would be too dangerous, so I was to wipe her family’s minds instead. Taking away their memories of their meetings with us, and all those family legends, too.”

  “That seems kind of harsh.”

  “Standard procedure,” Amity said. “Most people don’t take ‘no’ well. And there’s always the threat of exposure. It’s one thing when you’re part of the secret, but when you’re just a reject…” She shrugged. “I took care of her parents, no problem. They were pretty awful anyway. And then it came to Callie…” She shook her head. “I just…couldn’t do it. Instead, I told her to forget and hoped for the best. It would take me nine years before I realized what a mistake I had made.”

  “Nine years?” I frowned. “But that would bring us—”

  “Right up to Dana Peterson’s screwball idea? Of course! We didn’t see Dana coming. In all our records, we had never come across someone like him, and, trust me, those records go back a loooong way. During an Awakening, you bring out the powers already inside someone. You’re not supposed to be able to transfer powers from one person to another. And the higher-ups didn’t catch on to it until pretty much the very last moment.”

  Amity paused to cross her stocking-clad legs beneath her before continuing.

  “So Dawny, picture this. I’m with a couple other Forgers, and we’re all under oath to stop this man at any cost. We find them in this half-abandoned facility owned by SynergyCorp, really shifty. We burst in the door and bam! All I see is all this bright-green light. We’re too late. The Transference has already started. That annoying Kent charges one of my men, breaking his arm, the big lug. But I push forward with my remaining colleague. We get to the center of it all and I see her. Callie Saunders. All grown up and…” She paused, shaking her head. “I realize this at the very moment I tackle her, breaking the connection between her and Dana Peterson. The green light goes out like a broken light bulb and Callie starts screaming.”

  “Something went wrong.” I shook my head. “I assumed that the people involved just backed out. But what really went wrong on that day—”

  “Was me,” Amity raised her glass, then lowered it without taking a sip. “I stopped the procedure midway. I knocked Callie onto the floor. I was the one who broke her mind.”

  “She…she doesn’t know, does she?” I asked.

  Amity snorted.

  “Of course she doesn’t,” she said. “Al
l she knows is she spent almost nine years in some insane asylum that the Forgers whisked her off to, screaming at the voices inside of her head and pulling out her own hair. I, of course, had no idea until I was on records duty and saw her name. And then…well…I found myself somewhat upset.

  “No effort had been made to take care of her, to try to fix what went wrong. I had wiped all the minds of the people involved, of course, but the Forgers had told me they were taking Callie to some psychic healer. And now I knew that was a lie. I went to check on her and I was both horrified…and intrigued.”

  I frowned.

  “What do mean by intrigued?” I asked.

  “Well…the nuthouse was forming a reputation for being a wee bit cursed. People seemed to just get nuttier inside it. And I’m not talking about the inmates, but the staff. And all of them kept on talking about this “Mistress.” It wasn’t until I saw it for myself that I began to understand. The Transference may have been interrupted, but Callie did receive some sort of powers. With just the right touch, just the right look, she could make someone intensely loyal to her. And when she did this, the person she had taken over seemed to be almost infected with her insanity. But with every person she took in, the more clearheaded she became.

  “This was my chance, I figured. A way to set things right. She had only infected four or five people while in that asylum, and we were already starting to see a noticeable change. What would happen if I threw a dozen people at her? A hundred? At first, it was easy. She started to regain some of her old self. We were making such progress. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that Callie hadn’t just been kind to me.

  “When she saw what she was doing to other people. Well…she was horrified. Taking regular people and turning them into drones—as Faultline likes to say—that had never been her intention. She wanted to save people, all noble-like. And when she figured out how to release people from her control…the results weren’t good. She began to regress and the drone…well, you’ve seen what that’s like.”