by Ruth Diaz
On another occasion, it would have made TJ smile. “So if they had a technopath, what else do you have on me that could be compromised?”
He frowned. “Other than your health insurance choices and what your pension plan is like?” He reached forward, tapping keys on his laptop. “Emergency contact. That’s it. Your address isn’t anywhere but in my head.”
There was a limit to what any superhero wanted to keep on file in a location where people kept track of them as superheroes. TJ’s emergency contact was Todd Chang, her boss and the man who covered her tracks when she had to take off on an emergency superhero call. Todd was a good guy and, after working for him for the past four years, a good friend. He was the one who had insisted her badge needed to identify her as Department of State, not just Foreign Service, because someday, she might need access to places Foreign Service personnel didn’t usually go. But he hadn’t signed on for this, and God knew no one else at her office had, either. She made a face.
Sean raised his eyebrows in response.
“That may be all, but it’s enough. Protect that head of yours, Sean.” Her lips pressed together in a grim line. “I don’t know about you, but I’m about to have a very busy morning.”
He nodded. “Here, too. I’ll see you when I’ve got that phone.” He ended the call.
TJ’s gaze was drawn inexorably back to Control’s blinking light bulb. An unhappy foreboding feeling tightened her chest, but when she clicked it, she found a synopsis of the Coast Guard rescue of that fishing boat instead of some new sign of Singularity. She almost closed it again in disgust, but she noticed the header on the Mayday transcript belonged to union dispatch, not the Coast Guard. Why had a simple Mayday come in through the union’s dispatcher?
Skimming through the transcript, her eyes caught on the words “like a shark’s fin, but much too large.”
Apparently she was right that the Iron Fist had recycled the first cyborg shark from some other project. What the hell was the villains’ guild doing under the sea? And why do it in this part of the ocean, where they were bound to run into problems with commercial fishing sooner or later?
She put in another request with Control, this time for an exhaustive listing of oceanic projects and events within 200 miles of Trade City. The search could run while she warned Todd that the Iron Fist Guild might be making a visit to his office. She’d also make calls to her counterparts in research-for-the-local-government across three continents, broadening her quest for rumors about gravity misbehaving.
Somewhere out there, Singularity’s distinctive powers would give him away. And if she managed to find out why the Iron Fist was playing Not-So-Little Mermaid with a bunch of sharks in the process, it was a windfall she wouldn’t refuse.
* * *
Keeping both the twins occupied and in sight now that they were well enough to be rambunctious again was challenging, but it was a challenge Annmarie thoroughly enjoyed. She’d never understood parents who just wanted their kids to play quietly and stay out of the way. Her own childhood had been full of that kind of solitary play, and while there was something to be said for toys and library books and a computer, kids needed social activities, not just at school, but in their recreation.
Esteban wanted to play with a toy monorail set, and Marisol wanted an adventure video game instead. Annmarie supposed each could have played with their own game, but she said, “Why don’t we flip a coin?”
Esteban shrugged. “Mom doesn’t like flipping a coin because she never wants anyone to think she made it come out the way she wanted.”
Annmarie blinked. There were disadvantages to being a superhero she’d never thought of.
Before she could suggest an alternative for deciding on a game, Marisol said, “Yeah, but she’s not here. I call heads! Annmarie, you flip it.”
Bemused, Annmarie looked at Esteban. He shrugged again, and she went to get a quarter out of her handbag.
“Okay, you’re supposed to say it while it’s in the air, Marisol.” She balanced the coin on her thumb and flicked it, sending it spinning while Marisol called heads again. She caught the coin as it came down and slapped it flat on the back of her left wrist.
Esteban and Marisol both leaned in to watch as she drew her hand back, revealing George Washington’s face. “Heads! Come on, Esteban, help me get the mats. We’ll play monorail later.”
Esteban didn’t seem too heartbroken as he and Marisol dragged a pair of square video game mats—the kind that always made Annmarie remember her college years, when a pitcher of strawberry daiquiris and a dancing game was cheap entertainment—from behind the entertainment center and plugged them in.
“We’ll have to take turns,” Esteban said, “so Annmarie can play too.”
Never let it be said that they hadn’t learned how to share. “You’ll have to teach me how to play first,” she told them.
“It’s easy,” Marisol said, feeding the game disc into the player while Esteban turned on the TV.
It was, and if it wasn’t the same as being able to run around outside, running across bridges and swinging on jungle vines at least let them burn off some energy while staying entertained. Video games had definitely gotten cooler since Annmarie was growing up.
When that got old, Annmarie cut up apples for a snack and made the twins wash their hands afterwards before they started in on the monorail.
Marisol was still laying monorail track and Esteban was fiddling with the magnets in one of the cars when TJ wandered out of her bedroom, wearing a blouse that was undoubtedly meant for work, not play, and a distracted expression. She walked into the kitchen like she wasn’t really seeing it, set her coffee cup down on the countertop and picked up the coffee pot. When she started pouring without noticing the pot was empty, Annmarie swallowed against a giggle, got up from the sofa and took the empty pot from TJ’s hand while the erstwhile superhero was still staring blankly at it.
“Somehow, I don’t think coffee is the solution.” She bumped TJ’s hip with her own. “Want an apple? Brains work better when you’ve had food, and it’s been a long time since breakfast.”
TJ focused on her. “Oh. Sorry. You’re right, I should eat something…”
The coffee pot went back in its proper place, and Annmarie gave the other woman a gentle shove toward the dining table. “Sit down. Right now you’d probably cut yourself with the paring knife.”
TJ rolled her eyes. “I’m not that bad, it’s just my brain is very full right now.”
Annmarie chuckled as she washed a nice pink apple. “I can tell. You look like Esteban does with that monorail car, like there’s got to be some way to make it run better or the magnets aren’t operating quite the way he wants.”
“That’s not so far from the truth.” Snatching the apple away before Annmarie could do more than reach for the paring knife, she took a solid bite out of it, chewed and swallowed. “I’m at that point where I know I’m on to something, but I don’t know what. What am I missing? It won’t jump out at me, no matter how much I stare at the screen.”
But that doesn’t stop you from trying. Aloud, Annmarie said, “So do something else for a while. Eat your apple, watch your kids build a monorail. Clear your head.”
TJ smirked. “You’re right. I know you’re right. That doesn’t mean I’ve gotta like it.”
The two of them made their way back over to the kids, TJ sitting on the sofa studying the monorail track while Annmarie sat on the floor beside an elaborate curve Marisol had built in. Which is why, while Esteban and Marisol argued about whether the monorail would jam going around the curve, Annmarie was in a position to see TJ’s face go still, her eyes wide and her lips slightly parted. She stood abruptly, the half-eaten apple apparently forgotten in her hand as she walked quickly back toward her bedroom, disappearing around the corner and through the door.
Annmarie gri
nned when she heard a printer start running in the bedroom. Neither of the twins looked up. “Why don’t you try it and see?”
Marisol nodded vigorously, while Esteban frowned. “But it’s not finished yet.”
Annmarie chuckled. It was a very Esteban kind of answer. “I know, sweetie. Look at it this way—will it break anything if you try it now?”
The frown lifted slowly. “No. And then we’ll know if we need to fix it before we do the rest and have to redo all of it.” He repositioned himself at the start of the track.
Marisol came to kneel beside Annmarie, where she’d have a good view of the curve. “It’ll work,” she muttered under her breath. Annmarie squeezed her shoulder.
Esteban put the toy monorail train on the track and flipped a switch. The monorail started to move, picking up speed as it went, until it was doing a pretty good clip for a plastic toy. As it neared the questionable curve, TJ came back out of her bedroom, spreading a sheaf of papers out on the dining room table and arranging them carefully.
“Oh, darn it!” Marisol’s exclamation made Annmarie turned back to see that, sure enough, the monorail cars were jammed, angled far enough over that the train dragged on the track.
Scooting over on his hands and knees, Esteban said, “I’m sorry, Mari.” He draped an arm around her shoulders and hugged her a little. “If I had better magnets, or if they made the track pieces angle more, we could fix it. But it’s just a toy.”
Over in the dining area, TJ drew a sharp breath. Esteban looked over, and so did Annmarie. TJ was staring at her papers, holding a—was that a crayon?—as if she’d forgotten it, her hand hovering above the printed sheets.
“So we have to fix the track,” Marisol said. “How wide should I make the curves?”
Esteban jerked his gaze away from his mother and started helping Marisol disassemble the track. “I’m going to go check on your mama,” Annmarie said quietly. The twins both nodded without looking up from their task. Annmarie shrugged to herself and stood up.
Over at the dining table, the papers TJ had been arranging turned out to be a large-scale map of the coastline spreading out on both sides of Trade City. A big box of sixty-four crayons sat to her right, and she’d been shading and circling and making notations in several colors. As Annmarie watched, TJ located the red crayon and circled a tiny inlet to the north of them.
“TJ?” Annmarie kept her voice low.
TJ looked up with an unholy joy in her eyes. She answered just as softly, “I don’t know where he is. But I think I know where he’s going to be.”
Chapter Five
TJ jumped up as soon as she heard the door chime. No matter how antsy she was, she forced herself to walk slowly over to the screen mounted in the kitchen wall and check the image there before pressing the button to raise the gate to the building’s garage. But she had to admit, antsy didn’t begin to cover it as she waited for Vincy to park the SUV and take the elevator upstairs. She turned around, watching Esteban making faces as he dutifully finished the last of his carrot sticks, until the chime sounded again.
Vincy was waving at the camera in front of the apartment door. TJ took the three steps from the viewscreen to the door, unlocked it and pulled it open. “Thanks for coming. I take it Gigi got held—?”
“Tia Vincy!” Marisol shrieked. TJ smiled and stepped out of the way, the utter normality of her daughter’s reaction relieving a tension she hadn’t even known was there.
“Hey there, kiddo.” Vincy stepped inside, scooping Marisol up and holding her on one outthrust hip like the seven-year-old weighed nothing. Which, to a meta with super strength, she did.
Closing and locking the door again, TJ caught the direction of Annmarie’s gaze. Was she trying to see the superhero hiding in Vincy’s street clothes?
It’s amazing how much difference spandex and a mask can make.
TJ had never seen anyone look twice at Vincy in her street clothes for any reason but her enjoyably feminine attributes. And while TJ might occasionally be jealous of the kind of flat butt that required both good genes and a metahuman metabolism to maintain, she had to admit she’d much rather hold the slight curve of Annmarie’s in her hands.
She gave herself a little shake. She could think about that kind of thing later—right now, she had to make sure the kids ate and Annmarie was comfortable with Vincy maintaining a superhero presence here while TJ and Gear Girl went up the coast. “Marisol, you need to finish your lunch before you can play with Tia Vincy. Vincy, have you eaten?”
Vincy nodded. “Had a couple of hot dogs from a cart on my way to the garage. I tell you, of all the good reasons to move to Trade City, no one ever mentioned the hot dogs. Where are their priorities?” She grinned broadly and plunked Marisol back into the empty chair across from Esteban. She walked around the table to ruffle his hair. “Hey, squirt.”
“Do you want a chair?” TJ asked.
Shrugging, Vincy slung her backpack to the floor beside the sofa and perched on its arm. “I’m fine.” Her eyes went to Annmarie as TJ reclaimed her own chair. “You must be the nanny TJ mentioned?”
Annmarie was her normal unflappable self as she answered, “Yes. Annmarie Smith. You’re TJ’s partner?” Her voice hitched a little on the last word, and she blushed faintly.
TJ picked up her tuna sandwich just in time to hide her smile. She’d broken Annmarie’s composure. It’s not just convenient sex, she really does like me.
The thought made her stomach flutter.
Vincy chuckled with her usual equanimity. “Not that kind. Call me Vincy, please—the superhero name gets to be a mouthful after a while. Nice to meet you. I’m glad TJ found somebody willing to take care of the kids till we find this—” She glanced at the kids and visibly changed what she’d been going to say. “—guy. Not a good time to have your attention split.”
TJ silently thanked her for not using rude words for the kids’ father in front of them—no matter how much he deserved it. “Speaking of splitting attention, I feel much better making this field trip knowing that Annmarie’s got her eyes on the kids and you’ve got your eyes peeled for Singularity.”
Esteban swallowed his mouthful of sandwich in a hurry. “Is that Daddy’s supervillain name?”
TJ tried not to wince. She should have called him Jon, but she wasn’t sure there was much of Jon left in the man who wanted to rule the world for its own good. “I wouldn’t call him a supervillain, mijo.” Not yet, anyway. “But yeah, that’s what he calls himself.”
Esteban nodded seriously. Marisol didn’t even appear to notice, which was troubling. TJ wanted to know what was going on inside her daughter’s head, but now wasn’t the time to ask—not when Mama was about to go out the door to try and stop Daddy before he could actually commit a crime. When she’d turned him in to the Peacekeepers, he’d endangered a whole lot of people, but he hadn’t actually gotten away with the prize.
She’d like to keep it that way.
“So what held Gigi up?” She remembered to eat her sandwich as she waited for an answer.
“Some super-secret project she couldn’t tell me about.” Vincy shrugged. “I don’t know why anyone worries—it’s not like I speak enough technomancer to make sense of it anyhow.”
TJ grinned, and Annmarie snickered and then looked embarrassed. “Sorry, sorry. It’s just, I’m sure it wouldn’t make any sense to me either.”
Vincy waved off her apology while TJ was still swallowing tuna sandwich. “Why be sorry?” Vincy asked. “Some of us aren’t cut out to speak machine. I don’t know what makes my computer work, either, or my cell phone. Oh. That reminds me, TJ. Sean drafted me when he found out I was headed over. I’ve got your new phone.”
TJ leaned back in her chair, relieved. “Oh thank God. You’ve got no idea how happy that makes me.” With an active red phone, she wouldn’t feel s
o cut off.
Vincy’s smile was lopsided. “Actually, I can take a guess.”
Stuffing the last of her sandwich in her mouth, TJ pushed away from the table, chewing as she walked over to collect the phone. She caught the roll of Annmarie’s eyes in passing and felt a little sheepish. Annmarie was right—if TJ wanted Esteban and Marisol to have proper table manners, she needed to model better behavior. But she’d been sitting on her hands for so long, waiting for something she could actually do… It felt so good to take that phone in her hands and find Control on the speed dial and confirm that she was on and active at this number.
As she finished calling in, Annmarie let the kids get up from the table and started collecting the dishes. TJ felt vaguely guilty, but Annmarie had pointed out yesterday that cooking and cleanup were part of her job. She’d be doing it if TJ were physically at her office, and TJ had things to do.
Except at the moment, TJ didn’t have things to do. All she could do was wait on Gear Girl. And besides, this was Annmarie—she’d stopped being just a babysitter at dinner yesterday. She was more like a partner…
Oh God, I don’t know her well enough to feel that way.
Annmarie gave her a conspiratorial glance, shooing her toward the kids, who had dragged Vincy into the living room.
TJ tucked the phone in her back pocket and turned that direction just in time to hear Marisol begging for an airplane ride. “Oh no,” TJ said preemptively. “No airplane rides for half an hour, Mari. You’ll throw up, and we’ve had plenty of throwing up already this week.”
