Black and White

by Jackie Kessler

  She whispered, “What on the scorched earth are you talking about?”

  He laughed mirthlessly. “Can’t make the newest Shadow go crazy too soon.”

  Jet swallowed thickly. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I agree,” he hissed. “We shouldn’t have been coddling you. Because you’re the worst of them.”

  “Derek …”

  He motioned at her, a lazy flip of his wrist. “You parrot everything. You’re all about rah, rah Academy, rah, rah Corp. You’re so impressionable that there’s no Joan left. Just what they made you. Just Jet.”

  It’s the Therapy, she told herself sadly. It’s made him crazy.

  “I promise you, Just Jet, if Iri gets expelled tomorrow, or worse, because she’s too busy protecting you to remember to follow procedure, I’ll find you. And I’ll make you pay.” He delivered the threat perfectly—quiet, assured. Stating simple truth.

  “There’s nothing for you to worry about,” she said, feeling sorry for him, for what he’d lost. “I promise, we’ll be fine.”

  “You better.” With that, he turned to face the blank vid screen, dismissing her.

  Outside of the room, Jet let out a shaky breath. Iri said softly, “You okay?”

  “Yeah. That was just … hard.”

  “I know,” Iri said, her voice tight. “It’s not our Derek anymore.”

  But Jet had a feeling that it was the real Derek, just stripped of his mask.

  CHAPTER 55

  IRIDIUM

  Police officers were good, and city workers—cleanup crews and the like, yanno? But the best was a hero … jumping a hero and winning would make you a god on the streets.

  Jasper Kane, former leader of the Asphalt Kings gang, during his intake interview at the Illinois State Correctional Facility

  Jet piloted the hover, and Iridium rode shotgun, tapping her fingers against the control panel in a rhythm she used to telegraph boredom to the world at large.

  “Would you stop that?” Jet demanded. “I’m nervous enough as it is.”

  “Nervous?” Iridium snorted. “This assignment is bull. I can’t believe this is all it takes to graduate and get active duty. In my father’s day, they used to actually, you know, stop crime.”

  Jet stiffened. “Keeping the city free of vandalism is important, Iridium.”

  “Whatever,” she muttered, looking at the directive on their datapad again. Patrol Grid 23. Remove any instances of vandalism, gang activity, and illegal street art. Pass three training checkpoints and report back no later than 1400 hours.

  In other words, jump through hoops like the trained seals they were.

  “There,” Jet said, pointing to a flagpole protruding from the front of the grid’s community center. The flag had been replaced with a gang banner. “That’s checkpoint one.”

  She pressed a few buttons, and the hover slowed, pausing in place. “I think we can request a landing slot on the roof,” Jet mused. “And ask the citizens to allow us access to get the art down …” She scanned the center’s landing pad. “Blast. They’re closed today. We’ll have to call the building super.”

  “Christo.” Iridium rolled her eyes. “I’ll take care of it. Get closer.” She popped her hatch and jerked her earpiece out, tossing it in the back of the vehicle.

  Jet’s eyes went wide. “Iri, what are you doing?”

  Iridium swung herself sideways, the toes of her boots standing on nothing except the street, twenty feet below. She grabbed the stabilizer fin of the hover and pulled herself out of the cockpit, standing on the running board and half-dangling into open space. “Hurry up, Jet!” she ordered. “We’ve only got an hour to patrol this whole grid. And it’s freezing out here.”

  “This isn’t procedure.” Jet worried her lip. “Our points could be docked.”

  “We could fail out of the training program if we don’t complete this assignment,” Iridium reminded her. “Do you want to sit on your butt in Ops with the other washouts for the next twenty years?”

  Jet sighed. “Hang on.” She guided the hover in until the vehicle’s nose bumped against the bricks of the community center. Iridium reached out and grabbed the flagpole with her free hand, planting her foot on the ledge. It was icy and crumbling, and shifted under even half her weight.

  “Be careful!” Jet cried as Iridium swatted at the gang banner.

  Iridium heard the rumble of the bus and felt it parting the air behind their hover. It was going too fast for a residential grid; when the wake hit, it pitched the hover sideways.

  Pitched Iridium into the brick face of the center, her foot losing purchase. She fell.

  She felt herself punch through the heavy-duty plastic roof of a shanty at the street level, and darkness closed in as she disappeared from the hover’s view.

  Iridium bounced off something—an old-style gasoline auto, abandoned along the street, and landed in a heap on the slush-covered pavement.

  “Brilliant,” she groaned. She looked through the hole in the plastic and saw Jet circling the hover.

  “Iridium! Are you okay?”

  “Bloody wonderful!” Iridium yelled back. “Land that thing and get me. I’m soaked!”

  “I can’t!” Jet sounded panicked. “The autopilot is programmed for the checkpoints. This is a dangerous grid—no landing without backup!”

  “Override the fucking thing! I’m going to freeze to death, Jet, and then you’ll have to walk alone at graduation in front of all those news cameras.”

  “Hang on, I’m calling Night right now!”

  Iridium cursed, and rubbed her arms for warmth. And waited for Night to tell Jet to get her ass off the hover and rescue her already.

  Two minutes ticked by before Jet called down: “Night says that I have to check in directly to give my report.”

  “WHAT?” Iridium screeched.

  “He said something about getting a witness for the unconventional request, paperwork or something. It’s procedure, he says—”

  “Fuck that, Joannie! Get me out of here! Now!”

  “It … it’s procedure, Iri. I’m going to report this directly, and then I’ll be back with help. Stay put.”

  “Procedure? Are you smoking junk? Put the thing on autohover and help me!”

  “I will,” Jet shouted, “I promise! But I have to do what Night says. I don’t want us both to fail for this. I’ll be back before you know it!”

  She righted the vehicle and sped away. Jet would go report directly, as Night told her to, before coming back to do the right thing.

  “Oh, sure,” Iridium muttered. “I’ll just go get a latte while I wait.”

  “Hey.” A bum shuffled out of the broken shanty. “You okay, kid?”

  “Just banged up,” Iridium said, brushing herself off. Her costume was soaked, and she started to shiver.

  “Hell of a fall,” said the bum. “You from Corp?”

  “Maybe,” said Iridium. “Maybe I just had a bad day and fell out of the sky. You want to tell me how to get to the metro station from here?”

  The bum snorted. “Nearest metro is a good two miles away. You can walk it if you cut through Alleytown, then go up Broadway.”

  Alleytown appeared to be the dark warren of shacks and jury-rigged lightpoles over the bum’s left shoulder. Iridium sighed and wrung out the hem of her skirt. “Thanks, Grandpa.”

  “You be careful now!” he called after her. “Alleytown’s a rough place!”

  It wasn’t any rougher than the neighborhood where Iridium had lived with her family. She didn’t remember living with Corp—Lester was rabid before she was really aware of anything. Most people in Alleytown were inside their shanties or instablock houses, warding off the cold. Iridium wrapped her arms around herself. The one time she needed the damn earpiece, and it was back in the hover with Jet, who was on her way back to the Academy, while Iridium froze her ass off.

  She was probably more upset about the possibility of failing than about Iridium.

  The unch
aritable thought stole in along with the frigid wind, and Iridium focused on her footsteps and avoiding the ice rather than get any angrier.

  You’ll admit, girl—this was your own fault. Your little friend had the right idea about procedure.

  “Shut up, Dad,” Iridium muttered out loud. Jehovah, he could be annoying.

  Voices started up from around the corner, one crying and one laughing. Iridium slowed her pace, reflexively putting her back to the wall nearest her and glancing toward the voices without revealing herself.

  A woman in a pink fur jacket and a short skirt was sprawled on the ground, her neck and face bloody. A number of small cuts covered the deep V her stretch top left open.

  The man standing over her was wholly unremarkable—short, brunette, with a sallow face and dark eyes. He was holding a Talon cutter and loosening his belt.

  “Shut up, bitch!” he bellowed when she raised her hands and begged incoherently. “You won’t take my money, so what am I supposed to do?”

  “Don’t,” she choked. “I’m off a half an hour ago. I can’t process the transaction …”

  “You will,” he snarled at her, sweat beading on his face. “You will. You bitches are all the same. In the end, you want it.”

  “Please,” she sobbed. “I’m just making a living.”

  “Whore!” he screamed, and stopped fumbling with his pants to kick her.

  Time for Iridium to show herself.

  “Hey,” she said, stepping into view. “She’s got a job, at least. What do you have to show for yourself, pencilneck?”

  He pointed the Talon cutter at Iridium. “Fuck off. This doesn’t concern you.”

  The prostitute saw Iridium and started screaming afresh. “Please help me! He didn’t pay. He cut me up and he’s going to hurt me!”

  “That true?” Iridium asked the man.

  “Who cares?” he spat. “What does a hero know about hookers? Keep your middle-class Corp ass out of this, you little bitch.”

  “Sex workers must present valid ID at all times, as well as proof of health,” Iridium recited. Thank Christo she’d paid attention in Heroic Law instead of cheating her way through like she had with Extrahuman Ethics. “If they are not accompanied by a licensed business manager—colloquially known as a pimp—and if their mandatory eight-hour shift has ended, it is illegal to process a business transaction, and their license may be forfeit.”

  “I’ll cut you up if you don’t shut your mouth,” the man growled. “You think this sorry sack is the first bitch who’s said no to me?”

  Iridium looked at the sobbing woman and the grin on the man’s face.

  “You’re done,” she said, and was almost surprised at how cold her voice came out.

  The man was surprised, too, because he blinked and started for Iridium. “You need to learn to watch your mouth!”

  “And since you just threatened me, while I’m acting in my official capacity,” Iridium said, dropping back to a fighting stance, “I can do whatever I need to pacify you, all without repercussions.”

  “I’m going to shut that mouth of yours,” he sneered.

  She dropped her gaze to the girl on the ground. “You might want to run.”

  The girl jumped up and stumbled away down the nearest alley. Iridium turned her attention back to the man with the Talon cutter. “I’m Iridium,” she said conversationally. “I should ask your name, seeing as how I’m about to beat you unconscious.”

  “I’m Paul Collins. And after I’ve cut you, little girl, I’m going to fuck you.” He grinned. “You’re not the youngest I’ve ever caught, but you’re definitely the prettiest.”

  Iridium felt the cold stealing over her again, almost as if she were wrapped in one of Jet’s creepers. She knew, in that moment, that Paul Collins would never face justice in the way the Academy taught it. Prostitutes couldn’t testify in open court. In Alleytown, there were probably a hundred Paul Collinses.

  No one saw them. No one wanted to see. Jet and the others were exactly what Night had said to her that day in the hallway: poses and public faces. That was all the Academy wanted her to be. Corp pretended this dirty alley, this man with a blade, didn’t exist.

  And that meant his victims didn’t, either. And it wasn’t right, wasn’t fair.

  Iridium suddenly understood exactly why her father had walked out on the Squadron.

  Paul Collins was on top of her.

  Iridium fell for the second time that day, smelling his breath as she hit the ground. It was slightly stale, like warm beer.

  “Very pretty,” he whispered, clutching at her, ripping her unikilt.

  Iridium strobed Paul Collins. She strobed him over and over, until he let go of her. Until he dropped the Talon.

  Until he couldn’t do anything except scream.

  And even when he stopped screaming, she kept strobing him.

  They’d have no choice but to see, now. She’d dragged it into the Light.

  So why did she still feel so cold?

  When Collins was still, Iridium grabbed him in a medic carry and followed the faded signs to the police precinct for Grid 23. Before she could mount the steps to the office, a pair of officers came running toward her, their faces crinkling in disgust when Iridium dropped the burned, bloody mess at their feet.

  “What the hell happened to him?” one officer asked. He didn’t seem angry to see Iridium, a hero in his precinct; that was something, at least.

  Now she just had to see how he felt about a dead body.

  “Him?” Iridium said. She shook all over, but with a deep breath she stilled herself and looked the police officer in the eye. “Justice.”

  CHAPTER 56

  JET

  It’s unfortunate that so many with special abilities feel the need to work outside the law, turning extrahuman against extrahuman. The Academy exists to stamp out such dangerous thinking and turn tomorrow’s vigilante into today’s protector.

  Night, in an address to the Concerned Parents of New Chicago

  Jet’s feet hurt from pacing so long.

  She stared at the closed door, wishing for the zillionth time that Sensor Girl was with her so she could hear what was being said inside.

  Iridium had been in the conference room for three hours. The Containment officers had dragged her in, still in her torn unikilt, her hands trapped inside stun-cuffs, her eyes glazed. All of the Academy superiors had already jammed inside the room, from the twelve proctors to the head instructors to the Superintendent himself. And then the suits from Corp had arrived, their faces stark, their spines rigid.

  And Jet waited.

  At least Iri hadn’t been hurt, she thought yet again. And there were no media. Small favors.

  Two Runners had tried to get Jet to leave, to go to class, to eat something, to rest in her room. She’d ignored them until one dared lay a hand on her shoulder. Then she’d allowed a creeper out to play. The Runner had paled and done as his title suggested.

  Iri was going to be okay. She had to be okay.

  Jet wrapped her arms around herself, shivered. Light, all of the blood. Jet had been sure it was Iridium’s, when she and Night and the Superintendent had found her at the police station … until Jet had seen the man’s body. Iri had killed him.

  Heroes don’t kill.

  But this was Iri …

  Her head throbbed when she tried to make sense of it, so she stopped thinking about it.

  A short eternity later, the door opened. Iridium was marched out, still in her cuffs. Jet tried to catch her eye, tried to stop the Containment unit, but they bulldozed past her like she was insignificant.

  A shadow.

  Out came the suits, looking stern and self-important. Then the Superintendent and the other Academy officials. Last one out was Night.

  “Sir,” Jet said to him as the others filed past. “What did they decide?”

  Night’s jaw clenched. “Therapy.”

  Jet’s breath caught in her throat. “No,” she whispered. “No
, they can’t. They can’t do that to her.” She saw Dawnlighter, the Stepford Superhero; saw Frostbite with his impotent rage. “Not Iri.”

  “Yes,” he snapped, and for a blistering moment, his fury rolled over Jet and evaporated her horror. “Damn it!” He slammed his fist against the wall; overhead, the lights died.

  Jet bit back a cry as her optiframes irised to allow for night vision. Nothing to panic over. She had her goggles. She had her earpiece. She was safe from the Shadow.

  “Sir,” she said, touching his arm, “can’t you appeal? Intervene?”

  He pulled his arm from her grasp. “Don’t you think I tried that? They wouldn’t hear of it. Bad press, they said. All this work, all this time, wasted, because they’re worried about the media. The media!” He bellowed the word and slammed his fist against the wall again.

  “But Therapy will kill her,” Jet whispered.

  “No, it’ll leave her alive,” he snarled, as if he were as offended by the notion of a scooped-out version of Iri as Jet was. “She couldn’t follow procedure this one time, play the wooden soldier when it mattered most. Damn her! That stupid bitch!”

  “That bitch is my friend,” Jet snarled, forgetting to be awed by his power or cowed by his ire. “And I won’t stand here and listen to you insult her.”

  Night froze, his shadowed face a twisted mask of rage. And then, incongruously, he started to laugh. “And what can you do about it, Joan? What makes you think that you can defy the will of the Academy and Corp?”

  “I won’t let them destroy her,” she vowed. With that, Jet spun on her heel and marched out the door, rushing to catch up to the cold men in their proper suits.

  When she reached them, they almost refused to listen to her. But she was Jet, the darling of the Academy and, more important, of the press. So they listened to her words.

  And to her wild suggestion.

  And after a short deliberation, they agreed to her request.

  CHAPTER 57

  IRIDIUM

  For a hero, there is no acceptable shade of gray. There are only shades of justice. Black, and white.