Black and White

by Jackie Kessler

  … and snapped the bonds.

  Jet gasped from the pain. It felt like something in her head had snapped along with the Shadow, like a hot blade had seared her and cauterized the wound before the blood could flow. Tears blurred her vision, and she blinked them away to see Kidder stomping toward her with murder in her eyes—her fists already raised for striking.

  Lips peeled back in a snarl, Jet reshaped the broken Shadow into a graymatter shield, threw it overhead just in time to deflect the sledgehammer blows. The impact sent Jet to her knees, but she kept her arms raised and her shield up.

  Kidder slammed her fists down again, and Jet cried out when the shield cracked—a sudden, stabbing pain in her head overrode everything else. She doubled over, clutched her head in her hands. Her body trembled, and her mind screamed that Kidder was right there, damn it, keep fighting! But she couldn’t move. Light, she hurt so badly, she almost wanted to die.

  Something wrapped around her left arm, brutally yanked her forward.

  Jet’s eyes snapped open, and she stared into her opponent’s face. If there was any part of New Chicago’s fearless reporter left, it was buried far beneath the monstrous beast that possessed Lynda Kidder’s body. Nothing remotely human stared back at Jet; just animal eyes, filled with a mad desire to rend and tear and maim.

  “Lynda,” Jet whispered. “Don’t—”

  Kidder grinned, and Jet’s words shriveled on her tongue.

  Gripping Jet tightly by the arm, the massive woman swung her back. Jet screamed as her shoulder popped from its socket. Kidder pitched her like a fastball, and Jet hurled backward through the air, still screaming as she flew—and then crashed into the wall.

  IRIDIUM

  “Hey—hey, damn it, get back here!”

  Iridium turned to see the old man darting down the tunnel, heading away from the commotion.

  Taser let out a snort. “That’ll teach me to get distracted by the sounds of certain death. You want I should go after him?” In the other direction, the screams and grunts continued. The walls of the tunnel shook, and the lights flickered as another crash echoed.

  “Never mind him,” she said, turning back to whatever lay ahead. Part of the wall had caved in; a gaping hole, easily large enough for her to step through, yawned between the bricks and plast. Iridium slowly walked toward it. “The Undergoths will find him before he finds the surface.”

  “Fine by me,” said Taser, falling into place beside her. “What on the scorched earth is that racket?”

  “Jet,” said Iridium in surprise, staring through the hole in the wall. Careful to avoid the ragged pieces of broken brick and pipe, and especially the dangling wires, she watched Jet launch herself out of view.

  Iridium turned to see who Jet was fighting … and her jaw dropped as Jet impacted against something far too big to be a person. The creature lost ground, and Jet landed on her feet in front of it, breathing hard.

  Christo, Iridium thought, her eyes wide. What is that thing?

  The monster laughed, then charged Jet—who dodged the enormous fists, then maneuvered close enough to jab the creature with small punches. Jet stepped back, out of the thing’s reach.

  Iridium bit her lip to keep from shouting out. Shadow, Joan. Use your damn superpowers instead of proving how tough you are.

  “That … thing is …” Taser shook his head. “What is that?”

  “Some sort of sewer mutant.”

  Taser turned to her, the eye slits in his goggles narrowed.

  “What?” she demanded, glaring at him. “They exist. I saw it on Mysterious Chicago.”

  “If you say so.”

  She turned back to see Jet finally getting smart—the hero had bound the mutant in strips of Shadow. About time. Iridium was about to suggest that she and Taser quietly back away when the monster snapped her bonds and charged. Jet got a graymatter shield up in time—barely—to avoid getting flattened by the thing’s huge fists. The impact sent Jet to her knees. Another blow, and Iridium flinched when Jet cried out, doubling over.

  “We going to help her?” Taser asked, his voice low.

  All you have to do is use one strobe, Iridium thought, and it would all be over. Jet would never even know you were here.

  And in her mind, Lester’s voice spoke, harsh as stone. Don’t tell me you still have feelings for those people.

  “No,” Iridium said aloud. “No, we’re not getting involved.”

  “I think the sewer mutant is lining up to kill the hero.”

  “Well that’s not really our problem, is it?” Iridium hissed at Taser, using harshness to cover her moment of weakness. “Just let them finish and get out of our way.”

  “Your call,” Taser said.

  That was when the mutant grabbed Jet and pitched her like a baseball. Iridium watched Jet crash into a wall, and told herself that she didn’t care.

  “Use your damn Shadow, you stupid girl,” she whispered.

  JET

  Jet crumpled to the ground, her shoulder blazing, her head spinning, her right leg screaming. She cradled her dead left arm, tried to push past the agony. She didn’t want to think about her leg, which was twisted beneath her. Over her ragged breaths, the comlink whined in her ear feedback loop.

  And beneath that, the voices giggled. And began to whisper.

  Kidder was still grinning as she lumbered forward, her fist cocked.

  No choice.

  Teeth clenched, Jet unleashed Shadow and wrapped it in a blanket around the reporter. Just for a moment, Jet told herself. The cold blackness would steal Kidder’s breath and knock her out—and if the woman saw anything in the dark that made her piss her pants before she succumbed, oh well. She could get therapy. The traditional kind.

  Kidder struggled against the Shadow, punched at it, but it squeezed her and squeezed her, forcing her into submission. Still the woman fought, and roared a muffled roar.

  IRIDIUM

  Iridium watched as Jet wrapped the giant in Shadow, and shuddered as she remembered the feeling of the cold nothingness pressing against her, suffocating her.

  Hidden in Shadow, the mutant began to scream. The sound reverberated off the tunnels and inside Iridium’s skull. Peripherally, she saw Taser press his hands over his ears.

  A scrim of frost stole across the water and the damp tunnel walls—that was Jet, pushing more and more effort into her Shadow prison. The mutant writhed in a black cocoon, twitching and convulsing as the darkness got under her skin.

  Iridium shivered, and watched.

  JET

  The Shadow squeezed, and Jet’s eyelids fluttered. Another squeeze, and the world dimmed. For a long moment, all Jet could do was breathe around her pain, and pray that the voices stayed locked away. Her shoulder and leg screamed at her, and she felt like she had to vomit. The dimness threatened blackness. Jet had a sense of drowning, of losing herself in that blackness …

  … and then a burst of white clawed her back to consciousness.

  She blinked, and the world came back into focus. She was propped against the damaged wall, sitting amid the floating debris, clutching her left shoulder. In front of her was a black bundle.

  Kidder.

  Jet released the Shadow, called it back into herself. It caressed her in a cold, comforting embrace before it dissipated, giving Jet a sorely needed energy boost. Now she didn’t feel like she was already dead; instead she merely felt like she was dying. Something was better than nothing …

  Kidder swayed on her huge feet, then toppled forward. She hit the ground with a tremendous crash.

  IRIDIUM

  The giant fell. Jet stayed where she was—on the ground, clutching her left arm, her leg twisted beneath her. Iridium watched Jet breathe, the small woman’s ribs heaving like butterfly wings as she sucked in air.

  She was hurt. Bad.

  Iridium shut her eyes, felt the bright hot place in her mind that would keep out cold and dark.

  Then she pasted a thin, nasty smile on her face and steppe
d into Jet’s line of sight, clapping.

  JET

  Kidder was prone on the floor. Not moving.

  Ambulance, Jet thought dimly. Got to get her to the hospital.

  Using her right hand, she pulled herself to a sitting position—oh, Light, her leg was on fire—and nearly fainted from an overwhelming wave of dizziness and nausea. Leaning against the wall, Jet took deep breaths, forced her sickness down. Vomit after. First get help for Kidder.

  Her hand was halfway to her comlink when she heard the clapping.

  Jet pivoted right, her left side shielded, her right fist out.

  There, looking like she’d just come from a cover shoot for Extrahuman Weekly, was Iridium. Behind her stood a man in black, his face in a ski mask affixed with goggles, his arms folded, his manner suggesting boredom.

  Iri grinned. “A nine, definitely. I’d give you a ten, but the blood really detracts from your style.”

  CHAPTER 39

  IRIDIUM

  There’s no one more dangerous than a criminal with a grudge … except for an extrahuman with a grudge.

  Lancer to his third-year students in Advanced Street Fighting

  Jet’s face, what little Iridium could see under her cowl, was whiter than the skin of a drowned corpse and her lips had a ring of blue around them. Blood trickled from her nose, and Iridium gritted her teeth when she saw Jet’s skin-suit was ripped and bloodied across the abdomen.

  She stuck out her hand. Maybe this didn’t have to turn into a fight. If she was lucky, Jet was too concussed to remember she even saw her. “The sewer mutant really did a number on you.”

  Jet made like she would take Iri’s hand, and then scissored her legs out. Iridium fell backward, landing in the slough and on the concrete at the bottom, water made icy by Jet’s shadows soaking the back of her unikilt. “Christo!” she shouted. “You bitch!”

  “You had something to do with this,” Jet hissed. She braced one gauntlet against the tunnel wall and pulled herself up, protecting her left side. The blood from her nose flowed more freely with the effort. “You set me up.”

  Iridium rotated her head to Taser. “A little help?”

  “All this water is going to fry my circuits, darlin’,” he said, leaning down over the fallen mutant—from Iridium’s quick look, the thing seemed like a grotesquely muscled corporate type, complete with pearl necklace straining against a huge, corded neck and a permawave that was the latest style. “I think you’re on your own with the nutso hero.”

  “Swell,” said Iridium, jumping up to face Jet.

  “You and Everyman set me up,” Jet barked. “You think I’m stupid, Iridium?”

  “No,” said Iridium, drawing out the syllable, “but right now you are acting a little crazy, Joan.”

  “Don’t call me Joan!” Creepers of Shadow writhed around Jet’s feet, and Iridium created four strobes in front of her to keep them back. They hissed, nothing but toothy little mouths made of darkness.

  “Fine,” said Iridium. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re rambling about nothing, Jet. How hard did you hit your head, anyway?”

  “Holy Jehovah,” Taser said. “Is this Lynda Kidder?”

  Jet made a noise halfway between a laugh and a sob. “Pretending like you don’t know, Iridium? That’s cute. But it won’t work. Not after this.”

  She swung at Iridium, a movement far slower than Jet usually managed, and Iridium ducked and blocked, letting the blow bounce off her forearm.

  “Stop it,” she warned Jet. “I’m not down here for you. You … why are you down here, anyway?”

  “As if you didn’t know,” Jet hissed. “How could you? How could you be working with Everyman?”

  Her words shocked Iridium enough that Jet landed a solid blow to her face, snapping her head back. Iridium spat blood and pulled her unikilt aside at the neck, exposing the white line on her breastbone.

  “Bitch, does this scar make you think I’d ever work with Everyman?”

  “Scum always floats together eventually,” Jet snarled, sending a creeper across the space between them. Iridium fried it with a light beam and Jet grunted, swaying on her feet.

  “Catchy,” said Iridium. “The banter writer who came up with that must be so proud. Now stop it, Jet. You’re hurt, and I’m not keen on beating up invalids.”

  “So pithy,” Jet said. She attacked Iridium again, a basic combo that they learned their first year of field training, but Iridium didn’t fight back, just deflected, because where was the fun or point of hitting someone who should be on an ambulance hover headed to the hospital?

  “Damn it, Jet, knock it off!”

  “Always so superior,” Jet growled. “Thought you were so much smarter than me!”

  She hit Iridium in the gut, and Iridium let her, then grabbed Jet’s fist and twisted her right arm into a restraining hold. The only way out of that would be for Jet to break her arm to wriggle free. “I am smarter than you, Jet, especially now. I’m not going to warn you again. Let’s talk about this.”

  Jet thrashed against her, the water around their feet turning black with creepers. Iridium sent light refracting through the water to scare them off.

  With a grunt, Jet twisted violently, and a crack echoed in the tunnel as she pulled free. She didn’t seem to notice her newly broken arm.

  She’s really lost it, Iridium thought, grabbing Jet in a bear hug to stop the small woman from hurting herself even more. Blackout all over again. “Jet, stop!”

  Then she cried out as Jet slammed her head backward into Iridum’s nose. Iridium felt the give, the hot rush of blood, and pain exploded like supernovas in front of her eyes. She released Jet to clasp both hands over her nose.

  “Who’s the genius now?” Jet panted, raising her broken arm. “You may not be so pretty after this, Iri. But hey … at least you’ll still be smart.” She slid into her textbook stance, Shadows growing around her.

  Iridium tried to focus on a way to end the fight through the pain. Jet had fought dirty, and she’d gotten her. What a time for Joannie to finally grow some balls.

  “Hey,” Taser remarked conversationally, from where he’d been ministering to the fallen mutant. “Kidder’s dead.”

  Jet slackened, her hands dropping and her eyes behind her goggles going wide. She turned to face Taser. “What?”

  Iridium spun-kicked, her foot connecting with Jet’s jaw. Jet crashed into the wall and slid down it. She landed in a heap, and didn’t move.

  “Yikes,” Taser said. “Remind me never to whack your nose.”

  “You, I’d just kill,” Iridium said. She bent over Jet, pushing her goggles aside with her fingers to peer into Jet’s eyes. “Joan?”

  Jet’s jaw was swelling into a ball-shaped bruise where Iridium’s kick had made contact. She muttered something unintelligible.

  “That’s enough,” Iridium said. “Stop fighting me.”

  Jet whispered, “Leave me … ’lone.”

  “No. You have to stop this.”

  Jet tried to sit up, and Iridium pushed her back down.

  “Joannie, you’re hurt. Bad. Is heroing worth tearing yourself apart?”

  Jet’s mouth set in hateful lines, and Iridium felt like she’d been headbutted all over again. Whenever Jet reminded her that she hated Iridium, that she believed Corp’s lies, it started Iridium’s memories and her own hate all over again. “I’ll die if it means I stop you,” she rasped. “All of you rabids.”

  Iridium felt the air chill again and saw the creepers Jet had formed behind her back grow into a Shadow tree. “Have it your way.” She sighed, and hit Jet across the face.

  Jet’s head snapped back, and she fell against the wall.

  “Come on,” Iridium said to Taser, standing up. “We gotta move.”

  “She’s barely awake,” said Taser. “You smacked her good.”

  “Yeah, but if she managed to signal Ops before she and I danced, in about two minutes her backup is going to be here.” She stared at J
et’s crumpled form. “I’ve had my fill of Corp lackeys for the day.”

  “We’ll split up, meet at the downtown junction,” he said. “It’ll be faster than trying to evade the heroes and the Undergoths together.”

  “One hour,” said Iridium. “If you’re not there, I’m going to assume you’re dead.”

  “Likewise,” said Taser, turning and jogging down the tunnel past Jet.

  Iridium gave her fallen friend one last look, then started running.

  CHAPTER 40

  JET

  The one thing you can count on is that heroes tell the truth—even when those around them don’t.

  Lynda Kidder, “Origins: Part Twelve,” New Chicago Tribune, June 11, 2112

  Jet tried to pull herself up, but she didn’t have the strength. Pain streaked across her battered limbs, leaving behind a miasma of sensations that made her hiss—a sharp stabbing in her leg and arm; a steady agony in her shoulder; an almost gentle throb in her jaw. Her body must have been five shades of purple beneath the skinsuit, bruised to the point that just breathing made her want to weep. And her head felt like Colossal Man had used it for a soccer ball. But none of that mattered.

  Lynda Kidder was dead.

  No, Jet thought, trembling. He lied. The man in the black mask must have lied.

  I didn’t kill her.

  She tried to move again, to go see for herself, but her body simply refused to obey. Between Kidder’s abuse, then fighting Iri—again, twice in a handful of days, and damn it all she got away again— Jet’s body was on strike. And broken in at least two places, to say nothing of her freaking shoulder.

  Or her head. When she realized her vision had doubled, she focused on the large body on the ground. And got horribly dizzy.

  Okay, focusing wasn’t such a terrific idea.

  Bile rose in her throat, and she swallowed thickly. No way was she vomiting. She was so exhausted, she wouldn’t even be able to turn her head away so that she didn’t puke all over herself.

  Grunting, she lifted her broken right arm just enough for her to tap her comlink. A man’s voice replied, and she whispered, “Backup. Fix on … coordinates …”