Black and White

by Jackie Kessler

  But because Night, too, was a citizen, Jet continued to give him the benefit of the doubt. So she kept examining the apartment.

  The furniture, to Jet’s eye, was tasteful yet common; it served its function while not drawing attention away from the important pieces in the apartment: items about Lynda Kidder. Along with all the pictures, framed copies of her articles lined the walls of the small apartment, as well as even larger framed pictures of articles about her. “Fearless Reporter Unmasks Rabid Killer” got the top spot in the living room; “Kidder Takes New Chicago” was the piecè de résistance in the bedroom.

  And over the mantelpiece, of course, was the coveted Pulitzer for her work on the Icarus investigation, showcased in the Origins feature that ran over thirteen weeks in the Tribune.

  Jet ran her fingers over the old-fashioned engraved award, a Shadow-layer between her gloved hand and the plaque. On the base, the Pulitzer read: “Awarded to Lynda S. Kidder of The New Chicago Tribune for her persistent, painstaking reports on Icarus Biological and its controversial connection to Corp-Co and its affiliated Academy of Extrahuman Excellence.”

  Icarus.

  Jet frowned. She knew precious little about the fertility clinic from the end of the twentieth century; the Academy didn’t encourage studies in that direction, and getting information from Corp about the clinic that reportedly was connected to the first-ever wave of “superheroes” was nigh impossible. Students who attempted to learn more were gently—or forcefully—steered to another topic of interest.

  Until the Origins piece, the most that Jet could have said about Icarus was that Corp bought the company, Icarus Biologicals, back around the turn of the twenty-first century. Public information about the pre-Corp Icarus facility was all but missing; other than a one-paragraph description of the clinic’s purpose and its founder, there was nothing. It wasn’t as simple as the records being confidential, or top secret, or even code black.

  The records had been expunged. From both public and private databases.

  That tidbit came from the data Night had sent her yesterday, and it nagged at her as she moved through Kidder’s cozy apartment, taking in tiny details of the missing woman’s life. As she noted the small collection of kitten figurines—kittens, how very adorable—Jet wondered how Kidder could have gotten any real leads on Icarus.

  She blew out a frustrated breath. The only ones who had access to the information were from Corp. Kidder, therefore, had to have an inside connection to Corp.

  It was after the Origins feature started running that Corp had openly frowned on Kidder’s work: a press release officially censuring the investigation; a few well-placed opinion pieces on the net; sound bites making the evening news. That sort of thing. Obviously, Corp didn’t want Kidder snooping around the extrahumans’ origins.

  So why would Corp have helped her with that information in the first place?

  Jet pictured New Chicago’s fearless reporter on her beat, shamelessly waving a mic in front of Superintendent Moore from the Academy, or Dawnlighter as she left one of her innumerable cosmetics sponsorships, demanding answers about where the heroes had come from—and why the heroes had come at all. It wasn’t like there was a Where Do I Come From? The Extrahuman Edition available at the library.

  Kidder wasn’t the sort to be easily cowed. So how did one shut up an investigative reporter?

  One gave her some information.

  A red herring, perhaps, Jet thought. Or just insipid background material that the EC had carefully vetted and deemed irrelevant. Give her some answers, pat her on the head, and send her on her merry way.

  But Kidder wasn’t the sort to stop with only a bare handful of answers. Kidder craved the truth—or, more likely, craved the attention that came from uncovering the truth. One look at all the kudos framed around her apartment was proof of that.

  Did the reporter do her job too well? Had she learned something about the extrahumans that Corp didn’t want her to know?

  Feeling a headache kick up behind her eyes, Jet kept moving through the apartment, her mind working even as she took in the details of Kidder’s life. Jet couldn’t investigate Kidder’s possible connection to Corp, because (A) Night was certain someone from Corp was behind Kidder’s disappearance, and (B) unless you were on the Executive Committee, there was no way, nohow, you could tap into Corp records.

  Unless you had an in.

  “In your face,” Ops had snarked just an hour ago, when she’d requested the personal time so she could investigate Kidder’s apartment. It had been too much to hope that Meteorite or Two-Tone or one of the other former heroes had been on call. “Oh, damn, she was in your face! Iri wiped the floor with you!”

  Jet gritted her teeth and bore the humiliation. He had reason, after all. “Can you please refrain from the comments and just log the personal time for me?”

  “Aw, poor Lady of Shadows got her panties in a knot?” Frostbite laughed, sounding bitter and angry. “The golden girl is slipping off her pedestal, finding out that the ground where we mere mortals walk is hard and uncaring and cold?” He paused, and Jet felt the hatred flowing from the comlink. “Sound like anyone you know, Jet?”

  “I know you’re glad she escaped,” she said quietly. “I understand.”

  “No, Jet. I don’t believe you do.”

  “Will you file the request? Or do I need to come in and do it personally?”

  A snort. “Can’t have our precious heroine all plumb tuckered out from doing such mundane tasks as filing a request, can we? I’m on it, Ms. Jet, ma’am! Let me go ahead and type in the painstaking code of numbers and symbols that indicate that you, Ms. Jet, ma’am, have requested two hours of personal time, effective immediately, ma’am! I would be remiss, ma’am, if I didn’t remind you that you have a ten-thirty appointment with Rabbi Cohn, ma’am, and that if you miss it, you would be in deep shit, ma’am!”

  “Thank you,” she said politely.

  “Drop dead. Ma’am.”

  Remembering the earlier conversation with Frostbite, Jet sighed. She understood why he despised her. But that didn’t make coping with his hatred any easier. It never did.

  Yet if there was anything Frostbite hated more than Jet, it was Corp itself. If she had to, she could turn to him. Not that he would actually help her.

  And not that she would actually need to go to him at all. Because Night was wrong. Corp wasn’t involved in Kidder’s disappearance. Corp couldn’t be involved.

  Night had to be wrong.

  Enough, she told herself as she entered Kidder’s bedroom. Worrying about Night was pointless. She was here as a favor to the old man; she should at least give the apartment a thorough search. There was still some time before she had to get over to Cohn’s for her ten-thirty.

  In the small bedroom—with a lonely twin bed, she noticed—Jet stared at a framed picture on the nightstand. It showed Kidder as a young woman—twenty, maybe, looking happy and ready to take on the world—with her arms around the neck of an older man who had features similar to her own. Kidder’s father, probably.

  Jet picked up the picture. And she smiled at the easy way between daughter and father, at how proud the older man looked.

  You’re a bad girl, Joannie. You broke the rules, didn’t you?

  Her hand trembled. Shut up, Papa.

  In her mind, her father laughed.

  She didn’t realize she’d broken the picture frame until she heard the crunching of broken glass. Freed from its frame, the photograph of Kidder and her father floated down to the carpet, where it lay atop a pillow of gleaming shards.

  Cursing, she glared at the warped frame in her hand. And there, sticking out of the bent silver, was a black square.

  Jet plucked the object from the broken frame. It was a memory stick—a tiny thing, no larger than her thumbnail. Frowning at the electronic device, Jet absently summoned Shadow to suck up the broken glass.

  A hidden file.

  It was probably nothing; just family photos or so
me such, placed inside the picture frame for easy storage.

  When the carpet was once again clean, the Shadow folded in upon itself and flew to Jet’s outstretched hand, the one holding the memory stick. The black shape shuddered, then flowed into the leather gauntlet and, beneath that, into Jet’s flesh. She didn’t notice the sudden chill of Shadow against her skin.

  It’s nothing, she told herself again. Even so, she padded over to Kidder’s desk, sandwiched between the bed and the window, and fired up the computer there. She connected the device. And then she accessed the contents.

  An hour later, she slipped out of Kidder’s apartment. In one of the bulging pouches of her belt were the remains of the picture frame. In another was the memory stick.

  The photo remained behind, on the nightstand. In it, Kidder grinned and her father beamed, as if they were thrilled that a secret had been uncovered.

  CHAPTER 26

  IRIDIUM

  What do villains do when they’re not trying to take over the world? Do they ever get a chance to relax? Or are they constantly looking for a new opportunity to get rich, or to seize power, or to make a statement?

  Lynda Kidder, “Flight of the Blackbird,” New Chicago Tribune, July 2, 2112

  Iridium waved her wristlet at the warehouse’s big doors and they rolled back, silent in their tracks. Taser followed her in, close but not too close—arm’s length, the distance it would take to reach out and snap her neck. “Who trained you?” she asked.

  Taser faltered and cocked his head. “Nobody trained me. I’m a one-man show.”

  “You move like military,” said Iridium as the lights flickered on. “Or maybe cop. You an ex-cop with a beef, Taser? Trying to reprogram the system?” There were other, less savory possibilities, of course—the explanation of how he’d evaded Corp long enough to grow to adulthood couldn’t be all rainbows and roses. There were rumors of gene therapy to keep you off the scanners, back-alley surgeries in places like Bangkok 10, removal of the portion of the brain that gave extrahumans that extra.

  Taser laughed. “You’re adorable when you’re interrogating someone.”

  Iridium took off her wristlet and rubbed the joint underneath. Her comm followed, her belt with its old-fashioned picklocks, cash, credits, and fake ID, and the steel baton she kept strapped to her leg under the unikilt.

  Taser whistled. “For a renegade antihero, you sure pack a lot of crap.”

  “At least I didn’t steal my crap from Corp,” said Iridium with a pointed look at Taser’s armor.

  “This?” He tapped his breastplate. “Fell off a truck. I bought it in the gray market. Got the bill of sale right here.” He started to unstrap the armor but she held up her hand.

  “Never mind.” She mounted the rickety metal stairs to the enclosed second floor.

  Taser sauntered around the workshop, stopping by the large table near the back. He picked up the neural inhibitor lying there and turned it over in his hands. “These things are illegal.”

  “Yeah, and so is dressing up like a ninja and playing hero, but you don’t see me complaining.” Iridium turned back at the door of her bedroom. “Make yourself at home, as long as it doesn’t involve touching my things.”

  She slid the opaque glass door to and watched Taser’s shadow move away to explore the rest of the workshop.

  Iridium took her time undoing her unikilt and sliding it off, courteously ignoring the shuffling and muffled thud as Taser searched her hideout.

  She’d do the same, in his position.

  Iridium pushed Light into the bioluminescent gel on the walls, causing it to glow with green undertones and illuminate her bedroom in soft contrast to the tube lighting in the warehouse.

  In her plain white underwear, Iridium unpinned her hair and let the black waves fall and brush her shoulder blades. Her curls were sticky with sweat and pollution. Staring at herself in the mirror over her dresser, she touched her fingertips to the two-inch puckered scar on her breastbone. Corp had offered to remove it when she came of age and went on active duty; scarred female heroes didn’t brand well.

  She’d told them exactly where they could stick their removal surgery. She had other scars, too—a Talon cutter in her lower back when a motorcycle chieftain in Little Shinjuku took exception to a rabid on his turf; the pale line across her knuckles where she’d fallen off a hover and dragged her hand along the pavement back when she was six.

  Her memory flashed to that day—her father had carried her into the house, and while her mother chewed on her lip and worried about the carpet, he’d slapped a cauterizer patch on her hand and held her close when she screamed. The bandages were usually worse than the cuts themselves, but it had healed almost completely.

  Taser rapped on the glass. “You alive in there?”

  Iridium grabbed a T-shirt and cotton pants from a drawer and slipped them on. “You finished searching my place?”

  Taser slid the door open. “No booby traps. I’m disappointed, darlin’.”

  “I’ll have the gas-deploying wall sconces and the pit of live tigers up and running next time you visit me, I promise.”

  “So, I’ve been wondering,” Taser said, following Iridium into the small square of mats that served as her practice area. “What exactly are we planning?”

  Iridium shrugged as she took a practice swing at the heavy bag. “I’m not sure yet. But big. It will be big. Public. And embarrassing.”

  Taser stopped the bag with one arm. “Do you ever relax?”

  Iridium glared at him. “Having a masked vigilante trailing after me isn’t very conducive.”

  “What do you do for fun?” he asked. “Do you have any?”

  She imagined that if she could see Taser’s face, it would have one of those smarmy smiles that heroes like Lady Killer made sure to flash in the cameras anytime press got close.

  “Are you here to help me, Taser, or hit on me?”

  “Is there some law against both?” His mask crinkled along his smile lines.

  She regarded him for a moment before she spoke. “I spend most of my waking hours looking over my shoulder for heroes desperate to drag me in for fame and a fifteen-second sound bite on the evening news. I spend the rest keeping Wreck City from turning into another slum like the rest of the flood grids. I keep the gangs from burning Wreck City down and I keep the cops from bleeding it dry, which is more than I can say for the rest of the grids. Everything I take, after expenses, is either funneled back into Wreck City or goes to bribing the administration at Blackbird to keep them from overdrugging and torturing my father.” She strobed the bag and it sprouted a singed hole, sand running out. “So no, Taser, my life is not all rooftop escapades and an adrenaline rush from dressing up and running around under Corp’s nose. My life is hard. It’s too hard. Corp made it that way, and it’s time they paid.”

  Taser held up his hands. “Iri, I didn’t mean—”

  “I told you not to call me that.”

  “Iridium.” He said it very quietly, the word muffled by his costume.

  She turned away from him, pushed past him. Taser came after her as she walked to the industrial kitchen and got a glass of water.

  “When I was seven years old,” he said, “my mother and I were living in this shitty block housing in the Manhattan Quarantine—you know, before they firebombed and started over.” He blinked, his goggles irising. “This rabid came in, one of the Mental ones, and he took my entire block hostage … made us see things. Terrifying things.”

  “Doctor Hypnotic,” said Iridium. The Siege of Manhattan was a standard in tactics training for Corp.

  “Anyway, that’s not the point.” Taser sighed. “After five days, the heroes broke through Hypnotic’s henchmen. When they caught him, he was on top of our block.”

  Iridium remembered the plain photographs on her datascreen—no 3-D printing back when she’d been a student. Ruined, burned, twisted metal. Screaming civilians. Chaos.

  “They fought,” Taser said softly. “They
destroyed our block. My mother and a few of my friends were crushed in the wreckage from the fight between Hypnotic and some musclehead extrahuman. Corp didn’t let in rescue workers, regular cops. Three months later, I got an apology and a check for e3,000 from the New York Squadron branch.” He laughed once, bitterly. “And that was it.”

  “They took something from both of us, then,” said Iridium. “I’m taking it back.”

  Taser nodded slowly. “And I’m right there with you.”

  CHAPTER 27

  JET

  While certain leaders have shown a marked hostility toward the extrahumans, in the religious communities, there is more often than not a cautious tolerance. But, safe to say, no reverence. Religious leaders, after all, answer to a higher authority.

  Lynda Kidder, “Heroes Among Us,” New Chicago Tribune, March 5, 2112

  Thank you, David,” Rabbi Cohn said, taking the cup of coffee his assistant offered. “Unless Jet needs anything, I believe that will be all.”

  “I’m fine, thank you,” Jet murmured, holding her own cup. She was far from fine; what she had read was still screaming in her thoughts.

  David nodded and closed the door of the rabbi’s office behind him as he left.

  Jet forced herself to smile pleasantly and pretend she wasn’t fighting a migraine. Feigning interest in the rabbi’s office, she glanced around. Small room, somewhat cluttered with a large desk and leather chair, as well as a cluster of smaller, plush chairs around a circular coffee table, where she and the rabbi were seated. Somber colors dominated the room, accented with thoughtful paintings here and there. But the true attraction for her was the dilapidated bookcase, overstuffed with titles. She and the rabbi seemed to share an affinity for old-fashioned books. If she hadn’t been so distracted, she probably would have struck up a conversation about what they liked to read.