Black and White

by Jackie Kessler

  Iridium slowly got to her feet. “I swear to high heaven, I’m going to kill you.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Insert idle threat here. Move it, Callie. And if you think about getting ornery, I’ll prod you like cattle.” Sparks jumped from his fingertips.

  Iri let loose a string of curses that nearly set Jet’s ears on fire, but she grudgingly walked out of the room, sparing Night a scathing look of pure hatred before she strode out of Jet’s view. Taser sauntered after her, all lazy confidence.

  Jet grimaced as she watched them go. Light, she’d let that man into her bed. Into her heart.

  She was a thrice-damned fool.

  Night looked down at her, his cape billowing around his ankles. “This is it, Jet. The moment I’ve been waiting for. And I’m going to let you share it with me.”

  The world lurched again. Damn it, nothing made sense anymore. She whispered, “Sir?”

  “We’re done with all the politics, with all the rules, with all of Corp and its two-faced ideals and backhanded promises.” His grin stretched into something horrific. “We’re done with the Squadron playing the part of lapdog, with extrahumans bending over backward to gain public trust and corporate sponsorships. Done with looking the other way when Everyman bites. This will be the dawning of a new era, Jet. The era of Shadow.”

  “Sir,” Jet said slowly, “you’re talking blasphemy.” And lunacy.

  He chuckled at that, a dry, raspy sound, altogether unpleasant. “Corp has preached its gospel long enough.”

  Her head buzzed angrily, and she said, “You can’t mean that. Corp stands for justice.” She heard herself say the words, and she wanted to scream.

  “Ah, Joan,” Night said, laughing softly. “By now you know you’re just parroting the party line, don’t you?”

  She did. But she couldn’t help it.

  “It’s not your fault,” he said, smiling at her—a gentle smile, like one she’d never seen on his face before. “The conditioning has been working on you for years. And being what you are, you were already primed before you ever put the comlink into your ear.”

  “You did this to me,” she spat.

  “Not at all. Corp did that to you. I merely gave you a way to block out the voices. You still hear them, don’t you? Not Ops. The real voices. The ones that whisper from the dark. Whisper about the dark.”

  She swallowed thickly, refused to answer.

  “Of course you do,” he said, nodding. “That you’re here shows me you’ve been fighting them even still. I’m proud of you, Joan. Very proud of you. Even though it’s all for naught.”

  Part of her preened to hear such praise, even knowing that Night had set her and Iri up. And Jet hated herself for it. “Iridium took out Ops. I shouldn’t still be …” She couldn’t bear to say “brainwashed” aloud, so she shrugged.

  “Oh, the other extrahumans are free, no doubt,” Night said. “And what a mess Corp will have on its hands, trying to contain that situation. But you, Jet, you’re a special case. You’re used to hearing things. You can’t turn off their conditioning just because their signal has been interrupted. I’m afraid you’re doomed to go quite mad.”

  His words chilled her to the bone. But in her soul, she wasn’t truly surprised.

  Everyone knows what happens to Shadow powers. Eventually.

  “Either you’ll be a perpetual slave to Corp,” Night said, “or you’ll give in to the Shadow.”

  Either way, she lost.

  Jet sucked in a breath, held her head high. “And here I thought, all this time, you were the one Shadow who’d escaped it.” Say it aloud; give voice to it. “The one who stayed sane. You’d given me hope that maybe I wouldn’t go crazy like …”

  “Like your father? Mmm, well, these things happen. Genetics. It’s how we’re programmed, on the cellular level. When he killed your mother, he did it the same way you killed Lynda Kidder.”

  Jet’s breath caught in her throat.

  “Actually, I stand corrected. Not exactly. He did it all of his own accord. You I manipulated, to get you down into the tunnels. But you both used Shadow to squeeze the life out of your victims.” He smiled thinly. “A signature move.”

  Through clenched teeth, Jet hissed, “Why? Why’d you send me after Kidder?”

  “Why, to kill her, of course. I had to see if you would do what you needed to do to survive.” The smile bloomed into something full and rotten. “And you did. Beautifully.”

  Fury seared her. Trembling with rage, she stared at the man she’d trusted and admired for ten years, her vision narrowing until all she could see was his cold smile, cast in shadow.

  “Don’t you see, Joan? You deserve to stand by my side. Not just acting as my hand, no, but standing with me as an equal.” His teeth gleamed as he grinned.

  “You’re insane.”

  “No, Jet. I’m a visionary. Picture it: Corp is out of the picture for the moment. Between a number of the Squadron being trapped in the Rat Network with no Ops to maneuver them around and coordinate them, and no ultra-high-frequency happy thoughts beaming at the extrahumans, I’d say Corp’s due for a bit of a revolution.” He chuckled. “Just like Everyman predicted.”

  “You knew all along,” Jet snarled. “Not just about Everyman taking Kidder, but about the serum they’ve created. You know what Everyman’s looking to do against the extrahumans.”

  “Joan, who do you think allowed Moore to get the information in the first place?”

  Outside of the room, Jet heard Iri shriek.

  “Ah,” Night said. “Sounds like your friend isn’t using good manners.”

  “Let her go!”

  “I can’t do that. I’ve worked too long to set events into play to let it unravel now. Had my fingers in too many pies.” Beneath his cowl, Night’s eyes sparkled. “I made sure that Peter Ivanoff got caught for stealing Corp funds, that certain files were just within reach for Martin Moore to hack. And that was just to lead to chaos within the Academy and the Squadron. But the real plan’s been under way ever since I became your mentor.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “The real plan?”

  “Ever since I realized the scope of your powers, I’ve worked toward this day.”

  “I cast Shadow,” she said, “same as you.”

  “No, little Shadow. I repel light. You absorb it.”

  She blinked, her surprise overriding her fury. “No, I cast Shadow.”

  “Merely a side effect of your true ability,” he said with a snort. “I’ve known it ever since you tried to absorb my light. My life force, if you want to get melodramatic.”

  “Since I what? I never—”

  “But you did,” he insisted. “You were waiting for me to speak about mentoring you, and when I saw you there on the floor in the hallway, your eyes black, your face deathly pale, I knew the Shadow had you. And I felt for you, Joan,” he said softly. “Truly, I did. So young, and already tortured by the voices. So I touched you, held your shoulders, tried to offer you comfort as the Shadow held you. And then you almost sucked me dry.”

  She couldn’t breathe. “You’re lying …”

  “I’m not. It was such an odd sensation. Freezing cold, so cold that it seared me. And I felt myself dying, Joan. I felt you stealing my life. And around us, the shadows bloomed. My death was giving them life. Rather beautiful.”

  He had to be lying.

  Night smiled, shook his head ruefully. “But I’d been around far too long to let myself get snuffed out by some preteen hero-in-training. I slapped you. And that was all it took. Just that little shock woke you up, and the Shadow let you go.”

  Jet trembled, wanting his words not to be true … but knowing in her heart that he was telling her the truth.

  “Expelling Shadow is your body’s way of processing the energy,” he said. “It’s a waste product, if you will. Your true strength is absorbing light. And when I realized that, everything started to fall into place. That was when I started grooming you, as well as your friend.”

>   “My …?”

  “Iridium.”

  “Damn it, leave Iri out of this. Let her go!”

  “Such a fragile bond,” Night said drolly. “They tell us there’s no place for friendship if you’re a hero. But they’re wrong. Friends keep you strong. Friends encourage you to do your best. Friends would die for each other. Yes,” he said. “Friends are the ultimate leverage.”

  “Shut up!”

  But Night kept talking. “I was all too happy to watch the two of you grow closer. And even in the face of adversity, you two prevailed. Down to you begging me to speak up for her after what she did your final year of Academy. After that, I knew it was just a matter of time.” He smiled coldly. “Much as it had been for that large Earth power, back during your Third Year. What was his name again? Samwise?”

  “Samson,” she whispered.

  “Ah. Right. Samson. You gave him your heart, and then he went and died, didn’t he? Such a shame.” Still smiling, he shook his head. “But then you became perfectly malleable. Anything to make the pain stop. You threw yourself into your work. Such a good little girl you were. And think of how the last of your backbone would have snapped when your best friend in the whole wide world died also.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Iridium would be dead, and you’d have no emotional connection to anyone but me. You’d have done everything I would have told you to do, with no hesitation.” He sighed. “But Iridium, she just wouldn’t die when she should have.”

  Jet remembered that day in Fifth Year, when Iri had fallen to the street and Jet had called it in. Jet had followed procedure because that was what heroes did—she’d called it in, and Night had told her to leave Iri and file her report directly.

  Night had told Jet to abandon her friend. And Jet, oh so eager to please, had complied.

  “Worse than roaches when it comes to killing her,” Night said.

  Jet’s eyes snapped open, and she glared at the man she’d admired for so long. “Sorry she spoiled things for you.”

  His smile twisted into a sneer. “You have no idea. First she didn’t die, then she had to go and escape. And instead of you becoming the perfect machine, you had to become the perfect hero, and fight the good fight instead of fighting my fight. That little bitch cost me years of planning.”

  “Planning what?” Jet said, her voice dripping with scorn. “What’s this master vision you’ve been working toward?”

  “Why, the end of everything.” His sneer stretched into a malefic grin … and then with a press of his hand, he shut off the lights.

  No!

  They started immediately—whispers, verbal caresses, teasing laughs. They touched her, probed her … wrapped her in silken, black arms.

  “You see,” Night said, “I’m going to blacken the sun.”

  Oh Light, he really is insane. She took a deep breath, held it, tried to ignore the way the voices were giggling.

  “Today’s the big day, Jet. And you’re going to help me.”

  help him help him hear him ramble ramble in the dark

  Eyes squeezed shut, she whispered, “I don’t think so.”

  “We’ll blot out the sun,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken, “and the world will succumb to Shadow.”

  succumb succumb to Shadow sweet Shadow crunchy sweet

  He kept speaking, his voice taking on the hypnotic tones of the Shadow, his words as compelling, as enthralling, as the dark whispers. “The normals will crawl away and die in the dark.”

  die die down in the dark

  Don’t listen to them!

  “And the strongest of the extrahumans will have the entire world to rule as they see fit.”

  Over the voices, she hissed, “With you in charge, no doubt.”

  “I have no ambition to rule, Jet.” She could sense him shrugging, even though she was blind in the dark. “I’d let you do so, if that was your desire. For me, freeing us of the shackles of Corp and the humans is enough.”

  Keep talking. The voices recede when you’re talking. “People don’t shackle us. We help them.”

  “And it never stops, does it? We help them and help them, and they never learn. They never bother to take care of themselves, because we’re always the ones who save them, again and again.”

  “We’re supposed to,” Jet said tightly. “We’re heroes.”

  “We’re their slaves!” The word echoed in the dark, and she heard a quick intake of breath, then the slow hiss of an exhale. “But no more. After today, we’re done with them.”

  done done done with them all with them squeeze them hurt them feel them crunch

  “You’d sentence billions of people to death,” she shouted over the Shadow, “all because you don’t want to serve as a superhero anymore?”

  “They’re only people.” His words were like silk, flowing over the whispers in the dark. “If they’re not strong enough to survive, they’re not worthy.”

  The voices agreed with him.

  Panting, Jet pushed them away—but they flowed around her, held her. Desperate, she said, “You’re utterly mad. You’re not powerful enough to Shadow the sun.”

  “Of course not. I repel light. That won’t help at all. But you, on the other hand, absorb it.”

  Jet’s stomach dropped to her knees. She swooned … and the Shadow caught her.

  little girl little lamb lost little lamb

  “Here’s what will happen, Jet.” His voice warped, distorted, and she wrenched herself out of the black grip of madness to focus on his words. “You don’t have to think. Just let my machine guide you, aid you as you absorb the sun’s light.”

  suck out the sun eat the light

  “It will help you drain Iridium dry. And then you’ll start to cast Shadow on the sun.”

  wrap her hold her hear her scream

  “No.” A soft denial, a sound almost like a sob as she bowed her head. “I won’t do this.”

  “But you will,” Night said—so close, whispering in her ear. “My machine will force you to do it. Of course, it would be better for you if I didn’t have to force you. It would be better if you do what I tell you to do. And you will, won’t you? I know you, Jet. You’re a Shadow, just like me. You’ll listen to me. You want to listen to me.”

  you’re Shadow you’re

  Jet trembled, fury and despair warring in her heart as the Shadow reached up again to embrace her. “Stop,” she whispered, either to the Shadow or to Night or to herself. “Don’t do this.”

  A hand on her cheek, cold as death. Stroking her face. Lifting her chin. In the dark, she saw his teeth flash in a grin, heard him purr, “Do this, Joan.”

  do this

  “Do this for me.”

  “I …”

  “Do this.”

  do this

  The blackness held her, rocked her, and she felt herself drifting.

  When Night spoke again, his voice was cold, regal, and his words were not for her. “Eavesdropping is rude, Taser.”

  She tried to move, to turn her head, but the Shadow kept her still.

  “Came back to bring Jet inside,” Taser said, his voice faint. “But you and she were having such a nice heart-to-heart, I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  “How considerate,” Night said. “Take her. Strap her to the core of the machine. She won’t fight you. She’s lost to the Shadow.”

  Me, she thought dimly, he’s talking about me …

  Shhhh

  She shushed.

  “So, boss,” Taser said. “You’re planning on wiping out the entire world, huh? That’ll really limit my opportunities.”

  “If you’re strong, you’ll survive. You may even rule.”

  “The thing is, I sort of like the sun where it is.”

  A flash, bursting through the darkness—a bolt of electricity, surging past Jet. An afterimage of Night deflecting the bolt, as if it had struck a shield.

  “Oh,” Night said, and Jet heard the grin in his voice, felt his insanity
seep out of him, staining him like a shadow, “that was an incredibly stupid thing to do.”

  CHAPTER 62

  IRIDIUM

  AND JET

  I’ve seen heroes fight villains, both extrahuman and the normal sort. And I admit, it’s always a rush to see these small gods wielding their powers.

  Lynda Kidder, “Origins: Conclusion,” New Chicago Tribune, June 18, 2112

  IRIDIUM

  Strapped to a huge machine, all Iridium could do was watch—it was like she was in her childhood apartment all over again, and again. A hero from Corp came through the door and took everything.

  But Night was no hero, not anymore.

  Taser stumbled backward out of the cell. Night followed him, spreading his hands wide to send a wave of Shadow forward. It washed over Taser like a tide, and he gasped for air as Night drove him to his knees, then shoved him prone.

  “Bow,” Night said. “Beg.”

  Taser fought against him, much longer than Iridium would have been able to against the Shadow. But soon enough he shuddered, then went still.

  “Hey you,” she shouted, “crazy man with the Jehovah complex! You don’t think you can really get away with this, do you?”

  Night turned away, ignoring her to brush his body armor with his palms as he returned to the cell. A moment later, he dragged Jet forward. She walked on rigid legs, her cheeks white and her eyes unfocused. She tripped over Taser’s body, and she hesitated, looking down at him.

  “Bruce …” she murmured.

  “Is not going to be bothering you again,” Night soothed. “Come on, Joan. I’ve got you.”

  She held her ground, her gaze riveted on Taser. “You’re insane,” she said, her color rising again. “You’re worse than my father. Worse than Everyman.”

  “Gee, you think?” Iridium said, straining against her bonds. The steel bands were too tight for her even to wiggle her fingers.

  “Hush,” Night said to Jet, and she quieted. He looked over at Iridium, shaking his head. “Oh, Calista.” He sighed. “You never could sit still.” Leaving Jet in her stun-cuffs, he walked up to the machine and unstrapped Iridium’s hands.