by Ruth Diaz
“Still not seeing anything. I thought you said he’d have to get close?”
Her hands clenched into useless fists at her sides. “I thought he would. He’s got to have line of sight, and I can’t figure out where he is that he’s affecting this volume of water without our being able to see him.” She forced herself to relax. She wasn’t sure she could get out through the dry land exits in time, anyway. “Right. The Hidden Hand stays with the observatory, then.”
It was one thing to know that the water level was dropping and to reinforce the windowed wall that faced out toward the open water with the power of her will. It was another to watch the water brighten and then recede, waves splashing their way down the windows and then giving way to sunlight and ocean floor. The tidal turbines were still.
“I see them!” Mulligan shouted in her ear. TJ flinched, while Gear Girl didn’t even appear to notice. “There’s some fuckin’ big thing out there. Barely comes up out of the water, and some guy’s standing on it. Can’t properly see it—must be some kind of cloaking—but I see him.”
TJ growled. “And it fooled the sonar too. You’ve got to reach him before he goes back inside.”
“You think I don’t know that? I’m on my— Oh, fuck.”
Since she’d moved to Trade City, TJ had heard Mulligan in every mood from drunken camaraderie to screaming rage, but she’d never heard quite that note of horror in his voice. A looming sense of dread crept over her. “Mulligan?”
“There’s some damn fools up by what ought to be the beach. They’re down there looking at beached fish, and they just keep going. Fucking tourists!”
She swallowed hard, shaken by his tone of voice, even if she didn’t understand quite why that was so bad.
Gear Girl said, “So? Their feet’ll get a little wet.”
“A little wet? Lord give me patience with youth, and when you get home, Gear Girl, you look up the tsunami that killed all those Hawaiian schoolchildren who’d gone out to look at the fish flopping around.” His rant cut off abruptly. “Heidi, I’ve got to get them out of there.”
Sick to her stomach, she said, “I know. Go. Control, can anyone else get here in time to help?”
“The closest red phone to your location is fifteen minutes away, best response time,” Control said.
TJ stared out the windows and through the gaps in the turbine blades. “Singularity is out there,” she whispered, “and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Gear Girl’s low voice rang as hollow as TJ felt. “Gravity is like that.”
Chapter Six
It was almost 8:00 when the door chimed. Vincy checked the screen and let TJ in. The slump of her shoulders told Annmarie more clearly than words how her errand had gone.
“Damn,” Vincy said quietly as she closed the door again.
TJ nodded. “We were so close.”
Vincy gave the shorter woman a quick hug and then held her back at arms’ length. “We’ll get him. He still doesn’t know where you are, and we’ll get him before he has a chance to find out.”
TJ smiled, but it wasn’t her usual bright smile. It made her look tired.
“Quit it! Annmarie, Esteban splashed me!”
Annmarie ducked into the bathroom to mediate in the “She stole my toothpaste”/”He splashed me” dispute. By the time the teeth were brushed and she had both kids tucked into bed and waiting for a story, she’d heard the outer door close again. She wasn’t too surprised when, a few minutes after she’d started the story, TJ slipped into the room to say good night.
“Did you get him?” Marisol asked as TJ kissed her cheek.
“Not this time. But we will.”
Marisol nodded with a child’s faith and hugged her tightly.
“Did you remember to eat?” Annmarie asked dryly.
TJ gave her a slightly amused dirty look. “Not yet, but I’ll do that.” TJ moved to the edge of the other bed and kissed Esteban’s cheek too, before leaving Annmarie to finish the story.
After the story was finished, the lights out and the door closed, Annmarie found TJ perched on the edge of the kitchen counter, staring glumly at the box of crackers in her hand. She’d made it out of her business suit, at least, and into ragged cutoff denim shorts and a black camisole that didn’t hide her white bra straps. As Annmarie approached, she set the unopened box down again. “I know, I’d be setting a terrible example. For what it’s worth, I think I’m going to pass on the crackers and go straight to chips and salsa.”
Annmarie shrugged. “Nothing wrong with comfort food.”
TJ hopped down, opening the pantry door to exchange the crackers for tortilla chips. A trip to the refrigerator produced a mostly full jar of salsa, and once she’d poured some into a bowl, she took everything out to the table.
It was better than the counter, anyway. “There’s some leftover chicken if you want something to go with your empty carbs,” Annmarie offered, keeping her voice dry. She couldn’t offer much in the way of comfort, but she could inject enough humor to lighten the mood.
One corner of TJ’s mouth curved. “I’ll think about it.”
Annmarie followed her to the table, sitting down at right angles to her in the chair that was usually Marisol’s. “So you were right about where he was going?”
TJ licked salsa and salt off her fingertips. “Yeah, I got that far. But I was wrong too—he never actually had to come into the installation, or right up to it on the outside. He did what villains do best. He cheated. He managed to interrupt the generator turbines from a distance. If Gear Girl hadn’t been there, he’d have destroyed them, and he almost killed a bunch of people just as a side effect. God knows what’ll happen when tidal power is ready to go large-scale. After this little stunt, the major seaboard cities may not be willing to risk turbine installations.
“I couldn’t fly after him, and Mad Mulligan had to rescue some folks who would have drowned otherwise. So Singularity got away.” She looked vaguely guilty. “It’s all been personal to me, so I handled it personally, instead of like a real Iron Fist threat. I didn’t take a full crew with me, and he got away.” Behind the dull, distant note in her voice, Annmarie thought she heard a trace of some other emotion. Sorrow, maybe.
Maybe that was what became of love when it didn’t turn into hate, but everything else was gone.
“But you were right about where he’d be,” she insisted. “And if you were right once, you’ll probably be right again. You knew him, once upon a time, before he was a villain.” Annmarie shivered. What must that be like, to have known someone so intensely, to have loved him and planned to have kids with him and then watched him become someone who did everything backward from your own priorities? “So you’ll be able to figure out where he’s going next. You’ll get to him before he can get to you and the kids.”
TJ stopped munching long enough to sigh. She dipped another chip into the salsa, the vivid colors of tomatoes and peppers a sharp contrast to the white corn, like the picture in her bedroom against the otherwise-empty walls. “I know where he’s going to go next, but it doesn’t help any.” She put the chip in her mouth, chewing and swallowing mechanically. “He’s going to my office. Except that he’s in the Iron Fist’s good graces right now, which means he has help. So he’s not dumb enough to go in person. If someone gets caught there, it won’t be him.”
Annmarie tried to puzzle through that. “Not the local office for the Superheroes Union. He’s already been there. Your day job?”
TJ nodded. “I called my boss this morning. Told him not to get in the way if they showed up. I can’t be there to protect people, and it’s too easy for supervillains to take hostages in that kind of a situation. On the superheroes’ side of things, we’ve got a handful of junior cops doing unobtrusive surveillance on the building. We’d do it ourselves, but there are never enough heroes to go around. T
he money isn’t in saving the world, it’s in using just enough power that you can line your own pockets without anybody catching on to the fact that you’re a meta. It’s one of the reasons we try so hard to recruit like-minded metahumans any time we hear about them manifesting.”
That explained why it was always so easy for Mom and Dad to move to a new city. They’d be wanted anywhere they could go. It had always seemed like there ought to be more superheroes in the world, but Annmarie’d never really thought about why there weren’t.
“So the cops will see them go in, but no one will be there in time to intercept them. Your boss will let them take whatever they want?”
“Yeah.” TJ stared at her half-eaten chip like she couldn’t remember what it was for. “Safest way. The union should have some people there by the time they leave. Of course, since they haven’t hit the office yet, odds are they spotted the cops, no matter how sneaky they thought they were being. By this point, anyone who belongs to the Iron Fist Guild ought to be coming up with a plan that gets them in and out without getting caught. That’s the problem with smart villains.”
Annmarie shook her head. “That sucks.”
TJ’s laugh was more like a snort. “Yeah, it does. But that’s the way the game is played. The good guys have to follow the rules. The bad guys get to cheat.”
How depressing. “You can’t save the world right this minute. And you’re not eating.” Annmarie took a deep breath. So much had happened since she’d turned off TJ’s alarm clock this morning. What if TJ thought they’d both be better off if it were a one-time thing? “Come to bed?”
TJ bit her lip. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea. The kids—I mean, this won’t last forever. Eventually we’ll get him back into prison or run him off.” The belief in her voice was weak, but it was there. “In a way, I’m on vacation right now, the same as the kids are. When it’s over…I already told you, I won’t have time to date. There’s just too much to do.”
Annmarie reached over and curled her fingers around TJ’s limp hand. “Not good enough. You don’t have to promise me forever, TJ.” Although maybe it could be forever. She’d never imagined she’d ever want to try that with a superhero. But when TJ explained the ins and outs of what made a hero a hero, and not a villain or just greedy, it made it easier to think about sticking around and finding out. “Just promise me tonight.”
TJ’s dark eyes went inexplicably bright. She lay her other hand over Annmarie’s. “I promise.”
* * *
There was something beautiful, almost sacred, about undressing Annmarie. Last night, it had been about moving clothing aside and burning away her fear with desire. Now it was almost act of worship, removing her clothes while they still stood beside the bed, exposing creamy flesh to the slightly-too-cool air and running the surface of her tongue along goose bumps.
“Tease,” Annmarie said softly.
“Only sometimes.” TJ drew Annmarie’s T-shirt slowly over her head, murmuring approval as the blue satin bra beneath it proved to be a demi-bra that didn’t quite cover dark pink areola. “You have beautiful breasts,” she murmured, dropping the shirt to the floor.
The paler woman’s faint flush colored not only her cheekbones, but the long column of her neck and the tops of those breasts. It suited her. “Small breasts,” she countered.
“Perfect,” TJ said. “Soft and high and just exactly right.” She cupped one, loving how it just exactly filled her hand, and bent her head to lick her way around the other nipple, the flat slickness of satin strange on the back of her tongue as she tasted the puckering flesh. She sucked the hardened bud into her mouth, listening to Annmarie whisper her name and not stopping until she drew a soft whine of pleasure.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you you’re beautiful?” When Annmarie didn’t answer, TJ straightened up, finding her lover’s clear blue eyes gone distant. “Annmarie?”
Annmarie turned away. “I think I was always too busy noticing what I wasn’t. Not enough up top. Not curvy enough. Not super enough.”
TJ pulled her close, wishing she could go back in time and tell a younger Annmarie how little that mattered. “Being super doesn’t fix everything. You know, the first time my parents knew I had powers was when I was fifteen and they caught me sneaking out my bedroom window to meet my girlfriend?”
“Second-story window?” Annmarie’s soft voice went faintly amused.
TJ still remembered the lecture she’d gotten about how she could have broken her neck. She smiled. “Third. As the oldest girl, I got to have the attic bedroom. I finally told them that if they’d let her pick me up, I’d go out the front door like a normal person.”
Annmarie chuckled in her ear. “How’d that go over?”
“A lot better than I thought. My nana wasn’t real happy, but she got to brag about her granddaughter the superhero. She just went on and on about how I’d meet the right boy and forget all about dating girls. I didn’t try to tell her dating girls had never made me forget about boys.” TJ snorted to herself. Nana had been so happy to find out TJ was pregnant, like it proved something. “My parents, on the other hand, were much longer forgiving me for going out the attic window, levitation or no levitation, than for being bisexual. They have grandkids. They’re happy.” She stroked the soft skin of Annmarie’s back.
A silent minute passed. Annmarie worked her hands into the back of TJ’s slacks and under her panties, leaving her shivering at the light touch that skimmed over the bare skin of her ass. “Undress and come to bed.”
TJ’s breath quickened, and her nipples hardened beneath the white blouse that was never intended to be worn without a suit jacket over it. Lips brushed her ear, and the sudden sharp pinch of teeth on the lobe made her gasp with desire as a corresponding sharp pleasure shot through her abdomen. She let go of Annmarie and stepped slowly backward, sorry to lose the other woman’s touch. She unfastened her slacks and let them fall to the floor, heedless of wrinkles—after today, she’d have to have them dry-cleaned anyway. Her blouse went after it, followed by the white lace bra that didn’t show under that shirt and its matching panties.
Annmarie smiled as she shimmied out of her jeans and underwear. She unfastened her bra, and TJ let her gaze linger as it bared those perfect breasts.
“I want you face-to-face,” Annmarie said, sitting on the edge of the bed and patting the spot beside her.
She let Annmarie maneuver them so they were lying on their sides, facing each other, and leaned in. They kissed, and TJ’s eyes closed. Each time Annmarie’s breasts brushed her own, electric shivers raced along TJ’s spine, but it was the unexpected tenderness of their lovemaking that took her breath away.
Annmarie’s hand slipped between her legs, and TJ tried to return the favor, only to be stymied by the fact that she was lying on her right arm. Her left hand was free, but she couldn’t seem to get it to do exactly what she wanted, never mind that Annmarie’s gasps and moans proved the other woman wasn’t complaining. Gently, she hooked her left arm around Annmarie’s waist, rolling onto her back with Annmarie on top and maneuvering their hips so that she straddled Annmarie’s right thigh. She rubbed up against Annmarie as she fingered the other woman’s folds—not teasing tonight, but also without urgency.
Annmarie made a small approving noise. “Is this enough?” she whispered. “Never was much good at balancing on one arm.”
TJ moaned as she pressed up again. “All good. And if…you can still…make sentences, I’m doing something…wrong.” She rubbed her fingertips against Annmarie’s clit more firmly.
Annmarie gasped. “No you’re not.” But she stopped talking, and they pursued each other’s pleasure tenderly, wordlessly, until they reached that shining point where everything came apart into joy and fulfillment.
TJ listened to Annmarie’s breath slowing afterwards and stroked her hair, reasonably content. The sex di
dn’t fix anything—sex never did—but lying in her lover’s arms, at least TJ knew she wasn’t facing tomorrow’s problems alone.
Chapter Seven
She’d warned them, and yet TJ still startled when her phone started playing her work ring tone at not-quite-eleven in the morning. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear the news from the office or not, but she had to know what had happened. She cut Jim Croce off right after “genius” and held the phone to her ear. “This is TJ.”
“TJ, it’s Todd. He’s been here.”
Having expected it didn’t stop the adrenaline spike the words produced. She turned away from her computer, staring at the white wall across the room. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
“You know where the Giordano building is going up across the street? They had an incident with the construction crane. The arm swiveled out over our building, and the operators couldn’t get control of it.” Kinetic, ferrokinetic, technomancer… The list of possible powers that could cause that was endless. “We were evacuated. It all came to nothing, but we spent a couple hours on the ground, and when we were allowed back into the offices—”
Against her will, TJ imagined some group of superpowered cretins strolling through the cubicles and offices of her friends and coworkers. Dammit. “He’d been there. The crane was a distraction.” Both classic and classy—scare a few people, distract the cops, get the witnesses out of the way, but nobody gets hurt, so it doesn’t provoke the type of inquiry the break-in would have otherwise.
“We’d even taken you out of the computers. Kwasi down in HR noticed some of the filing cabinet drawers weren’t quite shut. He’d hidden your file, but we can’t swear they didn’t find it—you know what video coverage is like in this building. We’ve been going over the footage. We’re still at it, but a man and a woman definitely entered while we were evacuated. They’re fuzzy on the video, so we can’t make out faces…”
“A technopath can do that,” TJ said calmly. She had to assume Singularity had her address. Now it was just a matter of how much Iron Fist backing he needed and when he’d make a play for the kids.
