Young Sentinels (Wearing the Cape)

by Marion G. Harmon

  Whoa. That’s just —

  “The shoulders are padded to de-emphasize your waist,” he said. “But you’ll probably work off your leftover child fat if you stay.”

  That brought me down. “I can’t — I haven’t been able to control it yet.”

  “Are you going to give up?”

  “No!” I caught The Harlequin smiling. Andrew made a forget-about-it gesture and winked at her.

  “They’ll get you straight, then. Might hurt. Might not. So, the design?”

  I couldn’t stop staring at it. “Yeah. That’s just...”

  “Amazing,” he finished for me.

  “Yeah. But I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, yet.”

  The Harlequin coughed, making me look up.

  “Assuming we fix your trigger — and there are plans for that — we’re going to make you an offer you can’t refuse. No details, just assume it’s an apprenticeship like Jamal got. The question is, do you want to be a hero?” I looked at the epad again, but couldn’t stop seeing the wrecked bus, crazed and bloody glass. Megaton. The name was as much as warning as anything.

  “I — I don’t know. I don’t want to — you’ve seen what they’re saying online.”

  She nodded.

  “I don’t want that being what everybody remembers, but I don’t know if I can — I don’t want to hurt anybody else.” I hadn’t thought about it in those words, but it became true as I said it.

  I couldn’t read the look she gave me. “Then we’ll leave it here for now,” she said after a moment. “If you decide to wear the cape, Andrew will help. The right look and name is important, not that Andrew can do the impossible. He tries, but without that huge mallet she carries, Astra can’t do threatening at all.”

  Andrew smiled like it was an old joke, and I wondered who he was fooling. Designer, right — the guy was the total alpha-male without even trying. He was a cape. Had to be. And he and The Harlequin looked at each other like Mr. Brian and Ms. Steward, the two voted most likely by secret student poll to be doing it in the faculty restrooms.

  He started to say something, but the lights dimmed and came back with a red tinge. The Harlequin held up her hand, listening to the earbug they all seemed to wear. She stood, all humor gone. “Possible situation developing. Move, people. Outside.”

  Astra

  As Watchman headed out and I scrambled to get into uniform, all we knew was that the Daley Center had dropped completely off the Dispatch grid. Something had cut the building’s landlines without triggering an alert, which shouldn’t have been possible. Shelly confirmed that the building also had zero cell reception before I’d even made it to my rooms.

  “Who are they sending?” I asked Shell as I buckled up.

  “Just Watchman and Safire so far — she’s close by on her own Guardian patrol — and they won’t be diving out of the sun, either. After all, it might be nothing, and even if it is something, Lei Zi says one stampeding mob is enough for Daley Plaza this week.”

  However serious the situation, Shelly’s grin said what she thought of a Watchman-Safire teamup. Mr. Military and Ms. Party Girl; just the mental image of his military styled one-piece uniform and her purple-and-pink flame latex bodysuit in the same picture made me smile, and Shell’s grin widened off of mine.

  “Rush and Seven are right behind them on Rush’s bike — she says we’re the reserve.” She actually sounded put out, making me laugh as she transformed into blue-and-silver Galatea and we headed up to the City Room to watch the screens and listen to the chatter.

  Blackstone was already there, out on the Dispatch floor with Chakra and Lei Zi to watch the screens. Quin, Andrew, and Mal watched from the office balcony. The big screens showed street-camera shots from Daley Plaza, and everything looked normal — just the usual midday business and public-servant crowd. The protesting crowd was gone since nobody in a mask was testifying today and Shankman wasn’t there to bring his people, but Protest Man stood in his usual spot in the northwest corner of the plaza, dressed in his business suit and domino mask and holding one of his usual obscure protest signs (today, it said “Stop the black cars!”). Safire, Watchman, Rush, and Seven had already gone inside — and dropped off the Dispatch net.

  I stopped at David’s station. The senior dayshift supervisor surrounded his workspace with Sentinels and Guardians bobbleheads; when we were in the field, he’d perch our figures on top of his station’s dividing wall. He’d held his post for five years and had dozens of little superstitions like that, but he knew the feel of a situation like nobody else. (Atlas had introduced us on my first patrol day and asked him to look after me, and when Villains Inc. attacked the Dome last spring, he’d stayed at his station and directed the citywide Dispatch response.)

  “What do you think?” I asked softly. He looked up, played with his loose tie.

  “The whole building’s a dead zone — no electronic penetration. Something’s happening in there and somebody doesn’t want us to see it. Dammit!”

  The street cameras didn’t give us sound, but the flashing lights announced the arrival of the first squad cars and I relaxed a little; the CPD was good at clearing an area fast. Chakra didn’t relax. If anything she wound tighter, and she looked across the room at me. What —

  “Doors!” David shouted; on the screens, the first of the silently screaming mob fleeing the building hit the glass doors and pushed through them into the plaza at the head of the flood — lawyers, bailiffs, businessmen, journalists, judges, the denizens of the halls and lower-floor courts and offices. Above them, Safire came through the windows in an explosion of glass, flying like she’d been shot from a cannon, to crash into the base of the Picasso.

  “Astra, Galatea, go!” Lei Zi snapped. “No loads!”

  “But — ” Shell started to protest as I grabbed her and flew us up the emergency shaft to the launch bay. The bay doors barely had time to make a crack for us before we were up and out. In the open air, I torqued us around in a g-pulling turn and threw us up Congress Parkway at just above streetlight level, pulled us up and over Chase Tower in a steep rollercoaster arc to drop into Daley Plaza.

  “Drop Galatea outside,” Lei Zi instructed through Dispatch; when I let her go, she stuck an indignant three-point landing beside Safire and the twisted wreck of the Picasso. It made sense; she could remain outside the dead zone and follow the action inside by auditory analysis (she could even analyze ground vibrations) and let Lei Zi know what was going on inside. Did she like it? No.

  Atlas Rule # Something: Never make a hole when you can find a hole. I flew in through the hole Safire made on her way out.

  Safire had gone through a couple of inner-office walls, but nobody had been in her way. Outside the office and across the hall was, yes, the courtroom hosting Mr. Larkin’s trial, and it looked like her involuntary flight had started inside, where the fight continued. The floor shook as something hit the other side of the wall beside the wrecked doors.

  “Dispatch?” I whispered, just to see. Nobody came back. Okay, onward. No one needed assistance in the hallway — I saw that much before I felt and heard the crash and the power cut out. The emergency lights came on, and I stared at the hole where the courtroom doors had been.

  Someone had thrown Safire through those doors and three walls, was still fighting Watchman, and at least Rush should have come out and reported the sitch so we’d know what we faced — that was procedure. The floor shook again and wall-dust puffed out through the broken doors. Anything could be in there. I’d met anythings before and didn’t want to meet them again without backup, but we were already mixed into it.

  Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more. College Literature was good for something.

  You never go in at head-height — it’s a natural zone of attention; gripping Malleus, I went in fast and high, through the hole and brushing the ceiling as I aimed at the back of the courtroom, taking in the scene as I flew.

  Rush was down, sprawled across the cent
er aisle, and the bystanders who couldn’t get out crouched between the benches on either side for cover. No Seven, and my heart clenched. Please God, let him be all right. Watchman stood mixed in with a big, armored brawler by the shattered judge’s bench and a big hole in the wall, along with another armored guy twisting him up in...steel tentacles? A third armored villain stood back from the fight, at the center of an orbiting cloud of softball-sized spheres.

  Spheres that spun towards me.

  If they were effective against Watchman, they’d be on him, so I ignored sphere-guy and went for the one tangling him up.

  Wrong move; the spheres went for me.

  I barely had time to flinch before the first one hit my leg and exploded, a shaped-charge punch that threw me off course to crash through the jury box rail. I twisted, swung to crush one, sent another flying, and they swarmed me. FLASH! Blind, I desperately rolled through the chairs, blinking while all my eyes’ photoreceptors tried to reset from the flashbang blast and my ears came back from the high-decibel attack. Bangbangbangbangbang. Muffled gunshots — whose?

  Bangbangbangbangbang. Seven’s grouping, yes! I could see again, sort of — like looking through a tissue blindfold — and caught another sphere flying at my face, crushing it before it could suicide. And where is sphere-guy?

  He flung his guardian spheres across the room at Seven, who’d stood up from behind the back row of benches, the swarm of balls disintegrating as Seven’s dead-eye target shooting blew them apart. I shook off the last of the vertigo and leaped again for Tentacle Guy, to get him away from Watchman. A thick steel cable snaked from each of his arms and he’d wrapped one around Watchman’s neck, pulling him off of Big Guy. The other whipped out at me.

  I ducked, realized he hadn’t been aiming at me as the cable buried itself in the wall and wrapped around a support beam. He heaved on the other, and suddenly Watchman was flying. Oh — We went through the wall together in an explosion of plaster dust and snapped conduits and I lost Malleus.

  This time the whole world wandered away for a moment. Maybe I wasn’t quite recovered from my earlier sparring head-smash? Must have Dr. Beth check me out. When the world came back, Watchman had his hand out. He spat drywall dust. “You okay?”

  “Gee, don’t know, somebody threw the Dome at me?”

  He actually laughed as he pulled me up. “Bright side, nobody’s shooting at us. Use the courtroom door, get Rush out.” And he was gone back through the new hole. We’d gone through a couple of walls and I oriented myself fast, missing Shelly like crazy. Out into the hall, around a corner, and through the broken doors, grabbing one on the fly.

  Seven ducked as I flew over him where he stood at the back of the courtroom, and I swung the door at the thinning cloud of spheres harassing him. He continued to methodically pot them. Bang. Bang. Bang.

  He popped a new clip. “Cavalry coming?”

  “Me?” I tried to count spheres, and why weren’t they just burying us? “Cover me?”

  He laughed. “Always.” I dropped to the floor, holding my piece of door, and flew low down the aisle to where Rush lay exposed while bits of spheres that got too close sprinkled down. Had lain — where was he now?

  “Astra!”

  I twisted around. Dan Raffles hadn’t made it out of the courtroom, and he’d risked dragging Rush out of the aisle and between two benches while I’d been getting knocked through walls. The man was totally freaked; he stared at me, eyes wide, and flinched at each gunshot.

  “I think — I think he’s stunned. He hit his head on a bench when he fell.”

  “Thank you.” I couldn’t believe he’d done it. “Are you hurt?”

  When he shook his head, I quickly examined Rush. Bad bump on his head, but no obvious spine trauma, breathing and pulse regular. How had he lost his helmet? Was he safe to move again? Then I knew, feeling the warm certainty of Chakra’s mental presence like a wind of blossoms. Okay.

  “Stay down,” I said. “Crawl to the back, you’ll be all right. Seven is there.”

  Raffles nodded spastically, started crawling. I slid Rush out and onto the door in one smooth heave, grabbed the edges on either side of his body, and flew, low and fast and holding him so close between me and the door that, if he were awake, he’d be making improper suggestions. Out of the courtroom, through Safire’s exit, and down onto the plaza by Shelly and Crash, who’d obviously arrived while I was busy.

  “Astra,” Lei Zi spoke in my ear, confirming I’d cleared the dead zone. “Chakra reports severe injuries inside. We’re inbound, but we need you to get it done as quickly as you can.” I laid Rush down and the two equipment-laden paramedics with Crash got to work. Safire was already gone.

  I nodded automatically. “On it. Galatea?”

  “Stays on post. Go.”

  I launched, not looking at Shelly — this time I knew the route, and used it. Get it done. The walls and broken doors blew by at blurring speed as I went in hard.

  The spheres might have been able to knock me down, but they had to be directed; I blew through the wrecked courtroom without slowing and into Big Guy, going for the clinch. We crashed past Watchman and through the remains of the judge’s bench. Wrapping my legs around his armored waist, I hammer-punched him with the base of my fist. His battered helmet crumpled with a tin-can crunch, tore away on my second hit — and I stared, paralyzed.

  No. It wasn’t — It couldn’t possibly be —

  “Nobody move or the hostage gets it!” Tentacle-Guy had dragged a business-suited victim from the benches. Spheres surrounded the poor man as he hung wrapped in the animated cable, loafers kicking uselessly. Watchman froze, stood back, and I didn’t — I couldn’t —

  Tentacle Guy shook his victim. “Back up! I mean it!”

  I let go of Mr. Ludlow and the three armored villains moved in together, Tentacle Guy dangling his hostage between him and us. “Look,” he said, sounding calmer through his voice-distorting helmet. “We did what we came to do, no need to wreck the building. We’re leaving now.”

  “Put the hostage down, and nobody else dies.” Watchman said it like he was talking about the weather. It’s raining; you should wear a coat. The depleted sphere-swarm gathered in around the three.

  “You’re right,” Tentacle Guy said just as reasonably, and the hostage’s loafers touched the floor. FLASH! I threw up my arms as at least five spheres exploded, blinked, blinked again to clear tearing eyes. Horribly abused, my ears barely registered the panicked bystander screams and the rain of thumps as the remaining spheres hit the floor. When my ocular and aural nerves unfroze — lots faster than any normal person’s would — I wanted to swear. Or cry.

  They were gone.

  Episode Two

  Chapter Twelve: Megaton

  One thing you get used to fast, is going into situations that are “developing,” when you have only half an idea what’s going on — and that’s if you’re lucky. Which makes it nice that you usually get to bring friends, lots of them. In shows and movies, superheroes go one-on-one with supervillains all the time; in real life, there’s no such thing as too much backup.

  Astra, Notes from A Life.

  * * *

  Back out on the balcony with The Harlequin and Andrew, the City Room was totally different than it had been when I’d passed through on my way upstairs. They’d dimmed the lights, and the atmosphere on the Dispatch floor felt tight, intense. The big screens showed the Daley Center, flanked by rows of icons I guessed represented different heroes. Lei Zi arrived quickly, followed by Blackstone and Chakra. Lei Zi and Blackstone conferred and studied the screens.

  “Roster check,” The Harlequin explained quietly. Leaning against the railing beside me, she pointed to two bright icons as they came up: a circle in an inverted triangle and a pink “S” in purple flames. Both were crossed by diagonal yellow bars. “Watchman and Safire are heading for the scene. The steady icons show who’s on-site. The flashing icons show who’s available, relative brightness indicating who can resp
ond most quickly. The yellow bars mean they’re out of contact. Someone’s made the Daley Center an electronic dead zone.”

  Rush’s angled “R” and Seven’s “7” started flashing before she finished explaining. Then their icons yellow-barred too.

  The City Room doors opened and Astra and Galatea came through them. Galatea almost skipped, obviously impatient, but Astra moved through the dispatch stations like — I wasn’t sure what, but in armor and absently holding Ajax’s maul, I couldn’t see the peppy and earnest kid who’d swung her legs from the Assembly Room table and then practically cried for me. She stopped at a colorfully decorated station to talk to the guy there, not taking her eyes off the screens. He answered back, shrugged, obviously frustrated.

  Lei Zi started giving instructions.

  “Doors!” the guy with Astra shouted as a mob erupted from the Daley Center’s glass doors, pushing and shoving to escape the building. Suits, mostly, but nobody looked businesslike now. Then Safire burst through the windows, practically destroying the ugly Picasso sculpture in front of the building.

  “Astra, Galatea, go!” Lei Zi snapped. “No loads!”

  Galatea started to say something, but Astra grabbed her by what looked like a handle that popped up between her shoulder blades and they were gone, through a hatch I hadn’t seen. One of the screens switched to a dizzying picture marked with Galatea’s symbol, gears and a lightning bolt. A mounted camera? It took us down a street, up and over a high building too fast for me to catch which one it was, and down to the plaza.