by Ruth Diaz
TJ drew a short, deep breath, and her expression softened. “Thanks.”
* * *
“Heidi, calm down,” Sean said. The superhero nickname grated on TJ’s nerves, but it beat HH. There just weren’t many good ways to shorten “the Hidden Hand.” “He doesn’t know where you are.”
It was too bad superpowers weren’t the limitless solution the public perceived them as. If they were, she could have delivered a telekinetic slap by way of Sean’s webcam. “Sean,” she asked politely, “do I look or sound anything but calm to you?”
The union rep hesitated, a visibly caught-out expression on his freckled face. Forty-plus years since the women’s movement began, and a dozen since the union was established, and superheroines—especially superheroines of color—still had to convince the men in the system that they weren’t emotional (and what the hell was wrong with being emotional when the situation deserved it?) before they began the much more difficult business of trying to get themselves taken seriously. “You’re asking for a panic button. You know we don’t issue those unless there’s an imminent threat.”
TJ kept her voice carefully even. “Yes I am.” The lighting in Sean’s office made the map on the wall behind him glow green in a way that hurt her eyes. “There is an imminent threat. I’m telling you exactly what will happen. Singularity will tell the Iron Fist that he wants to get his kids back. He will take on any mission they might assign him as payment for resources. He will take care of it quickly and efficiently, because that’s just the way he operates, and then he will set about finding us.”
Sean’s eyes betrayed his discomfort as his gaze drifted away from the webcam. “You can’t know that. And anyway, your building’s shielded. I pulled some serious strings getting you that footage yesterday. I can’t get you a local panic button without some proof he’s coming after you.”
TJ resisted the urge to rub her temples. “Sean, I’ve got two seven-year-olds and their very patient nanny here with me. For defense, they have a chemistry set and a fire extinguisher. By the time you get that proof, it may be too late. Building shielding is good, but you can track down anyone if you’re determined enough—it doesn’t take superpowers. Check my reliability matrix. I don’t panic, and I’m almost never wrong on a tactical question.”
Running his fingers through his thinning red hair, Sean appeared less uncomfortable and more genuinely unhappy. “Look, I’ll see what I can do. But I’ve got to take it upstream, Heidi. Even if I get the go-ahead, it’ll take a while.”
“It is what it is.” She managed not to sigh. “I appreciate the help, Sean.”
He nodded. “Take care of yourself, okay?”
“Yeah, you too.” She clicked to end the call and checked the clock in the bottom right corner of her screen. It was just after 10:00 a.m.—Sean had been in a meeting already when she’d called the first time.
She leaned back in her chair for a moment, contemplating the ceiling, and then straightened, glancing at her empty coffee cup. Tempting, but she was keyed up enough just wondering where Singularity was. The extra caffeine wouldn’t help, it would just give her a false sense of control, when the truth was she couldn’t control everything about this situation. She shouldn’t even try. She needed to soft-focus and see patterns, not hard-focus on the individual details. If Sean needed proof, she’d get him proof.
She clicked the first contact in her list—the one represented only by a number—and requested a voice call.
Control picked up before the first ring even started. “Hello again, Heidi.”
TJ had made her first call to Control at seven-something in the morning, just as soon as Annmarie had arrived and the kids were settled. She knew Control hadn’t found any indications of the use of gravity powers yet, because the AI would have messaged her immediately if something’d come up. “Sorry to bother you again, Control. What ever happened to that shark?”
Control might not be capable of sounding surprised, but the little hesitation before she answered gave it away. “Does this have to do with the search for Singularity?”
TJ stared abstractedly at her closet door. “I don’t know. It’s just a bug in my brain right now. The shark could have been a coincidence, or it could have been a deliberate distraction while the Peacekeeper breakout was going on. But either way, it had to come from somewhere. Mutant animals take time to engineer.”
“I see. Lightning Bug stuck a tracker on it and lured it out into the bay. We had hoped to track it back to its point of origin, but it self-destructed when it reached open water.”
“Self-destructed? Not died?”
“Both, actually. The self-destruct mechanism was not a part of the living shark, but it did kill the creature in the process.”
That poor shark. Not like it had looked terribly viable as experiments went, but still. “Is the autopsy file restricted? Can I have a copy?”
“Your union clearance is adequate. I’m placing a copy of the results on your hard drive now. The analysis is incomplete, but you have all of the raw data.”
At least it would keep her busy until she got some solid leads on Singularity’s whereabouts. “Thanks, Control.”
“Of course. Good luck, Heidi.”
The type of research she did for the Foreign Service was easy compared to the autopsy file, but by noon, TJ was confident she understood. Giant mutant cyborg sharks. What the Iron Fist had wanted with one in the first place, she couldn’t begin to guess, but it had obviously been drawn away from some other project. The legs were newer than the rest of the creature, and she got the impression the union scientists had a betting pool going on whether the metallic skeleton had been in the original plans.
It also had no relationship to gravity powers that she could find, or any of the Iron Fist’s known projects, either.
She pushed back from her computer, stood and stretched, noticing the state of her bedroom as she did. God, Annmarie had seen this room yesterday. TJ hadn’t even replaced the bed since before the kids were born, let alone painted the walls. First she hadn’t had the money, and since that had changed she hadn’t had the time. She did a few squats and a back bend and then set about making the bed for the first time in longer than she could remember. You could still tell she hadn’t bought anything for herself since college, but at least it was neat.
She changed out of the blouse and jacket she’d put on to make calls and into her purple Alice in Wonderland T-shirt. She hesitated a moment, then ducked into her bathroom to check her hair and dab just a little lavender oil behind her ears. She hadn’t put any on this morning, since she wasn’t actually going in, was all. It had nothing to do with Annmarie. Okay, they’d had that weird moment last night after the scotch where TJ’d been so drawn to her, but it couldn’t happen. It wasn’t fair to hit on somebody who was technically sort of working for you.
When she left her bedroom, she found the twins sitting at the table, Marisol painting with watercolors while Esteban read a book. They weren’t quite their usual chipper selves, but they were both better than they’d been this morning, let alone yesterday. In the kitchen, Annmarie glanced up from stirring something in a saucepan and smiled.
The corners of TJ’s mouth tugged upward in return. She realized it looked goofy, and turned away to ruffle Esteban’s hair. “Hey, mijo. Feeling better?”
He put a bookmark in his book. That was her little pedant, all right. “Lots. Annmarie said if we stayed at the table for a little while, she could make us macaroni and chee
se instead of soup.” He made a face. Esteban hated soup and only ever ate it when he was sick.
She chuckled, glancing over his head at Annmarie. “Bribery will get you everywhere. Is there enough for four? And what can I do to help?”
“You can sit down and not jog my elbow.” She poured a splash of milk into the saucepan, seemingly unafraid of splatters hitting her casual T-shirt-over-camisole combination. The shirts still didn’t reach the top of her jeans, even though they weren’t borrowed, leaving three lovely inches of waistline exposed. My God, does she actually have time to go to the gym, or is she one of those lucky people who just got good genes?
Dragging her gaze away, TJ took her seat at the end of the table, inspecting Marisol’s artwork. “What’re you painting?” she asked. Marisol treated her to a five-minute explanation of Magic Girl Something-she-couldn’t-pronounce, who was apparently defending the world in a skirt just shy of indecent. TJ was sure that had something to do with her daughter’s artistic skills—she didn’t let her kids watch anything with hemlines quite that short.
It could be worse. Instead of magic girls, it could be princesses.
While Marisol explained, Annmarie set the table and put out glasses of juice for the kids and water for herself and TJ, pausing occasionally to stir something on the stove.
My God, it’s like having a wife.
TJ finally convinced Marisol to let her put the painting on top of the fridge, where it would be out of harm’s way when Annmarie dished up. By the time she was seated again, bowls of macaroni in some kind of white sauce, complete with cheese sprinkled over the top, sat on the table. Esteban was already chomping away, as thoroughly sick of soup as she’d expected. Marisol stuck her fork into the noodles, lifting one to her lips and brightening considerably when she tasted it.
“Oh my God, is there real cheese in this sauce?” TJ asked, stunned.
Annmarie blinked blue eyes at her, then laughed. “I saw the boxed stuff, but you had everything I needed to make real macaroni and cheese, and the kids and I weren’t in any hurry. So I figured, why not?”
“This is really good,” Esteban said through a mouthful.
“Esteban, don’t talk with your mouth full,” TJ corrected automatically.
“It tastes different,” Marisol said.
“Marisol, Annmarie went to a lot of trouble to make this!”
Unrepentant, Marisol said, “It’s really good, Mama, it just doesn’t taste like macaroni and cheese.”
TJ rolled her eyes heavenward, feeling the blood rush to her face and hoping Annmarie wouldn’t notice. The other woman’s eyes held subdued laughter, and the dimple marking her cheek gave her away again. “Everybody say thank you to Annmarie,” TJ said firmly, trying to regain control of the situation.
“Thank you, Annmarie,” the twins chorused dutifully.
“Thank you,” TJ added for herself.
“You’re very welcome,” Annmarie said.
They ate in silence for a few minutes, and TJ realized this was probably her best opportunity to tell the kids about Singularity. Something inside of her cringed at the thought. But they weren’t really sick anymore. The longer they were out of school, the wilder they’d get, and the harder it would be to focus them.
She just hated having to do it at all.
Ignorance was nobody’s best defense, though—she’d decided on that policy years ago. “So I had some news yesterday that I have to share,” she said quietly. “It’s not good news, but everybody has to know, okay, Mari, Esteban?”
She waited until both kids nodded before going on. “Remember how I always told you that Daddy would be in prison for a long time? Well, he got out yesterday, but not because somebody let him out. He escaped with the help of some very bad people.”
Marisol stopped chewing mid-bite, holding her fork in midair as if she’d forgotten it. “But I thought you said Daddy wasn’t a bad man.” Seven-year-olds just were not designed to deal with shades of gray.
“Chew your food, please, Mari,” TJ said. “He’s not, but sometimes he doesn’t understand that he does bad things, or that the people he knows are bad people. There are lots of good people searching for them right now, but we don’t know when Daddy or the others will get caught.” She took a deep breath, trying not to be obvious about it. “In the meantime, there’s a chance that he might come here.”
Esteban, bless his heart, asked the question she needed. “Why?”
“To take you away from me.” She followed that quickly with, “I won’t let him. I know he loves you very much, but he would be a very bad parent, so I won’t let him take you. But that doesn’t mean he won’t try, and I don’t know if he’ll do scary things while he’s trying.”
Marisol put her fork down, an unfamiliar worried expression on her small face. “He won’t hurt us, will he?”
The look tore at TJ’s heart. “No, mija, Daddy would never hurt you.” She got up from her chair to hug Marisol, who, for once, didn’t squirm and hugged back.
“Mama, the bad people—are they supervillains?” Esteban asked. “Because you said Daddy was in Peacekeeper, and only supervillains go there.”
She’d said he was in Peacekeeper? TJ winced. She supposed she might have let that slip at some point. Well, it was probably better that they knew. “Yeah. Supervillains and the people who get caught up with them. And I helped send him there when I realized what he was doing, so he’s probably very angry with me.”
“So if they were supervillains, it’ll be on the news, right? Can we watch?”
TJ hesitated. She glanced at Annmarie, who appeared sympathetic, if not especially helpful. “Would you feel better about it if you saw it on the news?” she asked Esteban.
He nodded. “I think so. And if Daddy’s coming here, maybe the news will say so.”
Mijo, I only wish it were that easy.
The kitchen clock showed two minutes till noon. “Okay then. Finish your lunch if you want to watch, and then we’ll turn on the news.”
After that, TJ didn’t have much appetite, no matter how tasty lunch was. But the kids were finishing theirs, and with Singularity on the loose, she had no idea if she might suddenly have to do battle before supper. So she ate the rest of her macaroni and cheese anyway.
“I’ll clean up,” Annmarie said. “You go watch with the kids.”
Channel 7 always had news at noon, usually with a local slant. TJ sat on the couch, and Esteban and Marisol curled up one on each side of her.
After finishing up the story about a fire in an old apartment building across the river, the news anchor said, “And once again, our top story of the hour: half a dozen Superheroes Union offices have been broken into this morning.” TJ’s blood ran cold. “The break-ins all appear to have been staged by the Iron Fist Guild, and there are few reported injuries. We take you now to SMA Local #14’s offices, where Latanya Wheeler is on the scene…”
Chapter Three
When TJ had told Annmarie that her union rep would be coming over, her tone had made Annmarie wonder what he’d done to piss her off. Nevertheless, Mr. Lowe had been very good about answering questions for the kids, despite having butterfly bandages holding a cut on his forehead closed and TJ glaring daggers at him. They were all seated in TJ’s dining room, and once the kids were out of questions, TJ let them go play.
Mr. Lowe sighed and bent to pick up his briefcase from the floor, his eyes closing briefly even as he grimaced.
“Can I get you some Ty
lenol?” Annmarie asked reflexively. In her own apartment, she’d have offered a beer, but she wasn’t comfortable offering TJ’s whisky.
Mr. Lowe said, “No, thanks. I took some, it’s just going to hurt for a while.”
TJ’s shoulders sank, and some of the anger left her face. “I’m sorry you had to find out the hard way, Sean. What happened? The Iron Fist doesn’t usually care about bystanders one way or the other.”
“I know.” He avoided TJ’s eyes as he set the briefcase on the table and opened it. “I went out front and tried to reason with them. After they shoved the bookcase over on me, I didn’t make that mistake anymore.” He took out a necklace that was undoubtedly far more complex than the golden capsule on a cord suggested and handed it to TJ, who examined the capsule and then put it around her neck without asking questions. “You’re going to be the nanny until we have this resolved?” he asked Annmarie.
She nodded.
This time he took a ladies’ watch from behind a flap in the case’s lid. “There’s a panic button built into this watch. You have to twist the knob on the side first—that’s what keeps it from accidentally going off. Then just press it in. If you do that, every red phone in the local chapter goes off and Control grabs your GPS coordinates. Every superhero who isn’t fighting for his or her life will come running.”
Annmarie stared at the watch in his hand. It was a whole lot of responsibility, but she couldn’t help wondering how growing up would have been different if she’d had one of these on her wrist. If her parents had had the guarantee that someone besides them would always be watching out for her, would they have been more tolerant of juvenile behaviors instead of trying to turn her into a well-behaved little adult? “I understand.”
“Once you press that, it can’t be undone. After that, the only way to call it off is if TJ calls in from her own red phone to tell us the situation’s taken care of. The idea is that, since you aren’t a meta, no one will even look twice at the watch. It will keep giving us your location no matter what happens. At that point, your job is to sit with the kids and wait to be rescued.”
