Shades of Gray

by Jackie Kessler; Caitlin Kittredge

  Flitting past the long-rusted bleachers and crumbling bricks, ignoring the broken chairs and tabletops, Jet flew into the abandoned rooftop clubhouse. At first glance, it looked like any onetime pub: wooden-style bar and matching stools; clusters of booths, their built-in seats waiting patiently to be filled; and brick face over the plast walls, complete with a moldering framed poster of an ancient baseball uniform. An old-fashioned refrigerator—complete with a turn-of-the-century Coke logo—lurked behind the bar, backlit and filled with water tabs, caffeine shots, and cold pizza.

  On a closer look, one would see the telltale glow of computer screens peeking out from a section of the bar counter. The constant hum of energy spoke of the power Meteorite and Frostbite had piggybacked from New Chicago Light & Heat. It wasn’t stealing, Frostbite had argued; it was an exchange. He and the others worked their asses off to rein in the rabids, and the good city gave them the power they needed to juice their computers. Jet and Steele hadn’t liked it, but they’d been outvoted four to two. Jet might be team leader in the field, but when it came to operating decisions, that was all done by vote.

  The linoleum floor had been recently swept and scrubbed, and the windows gleamed with the morning sun. Meteorite’s work, Jet guessed. The former Weather power took clutter and mess as a personal offense.

  “Hey, the Jetster made it.” Behind the bar, Meteorite grinned as she tapped on a keyboard. She’d gotten soft in the three years she’d been off active heroing; her gray jumpsuit strained around the middle, and her jaw was round where it used to be chiseled. While she had never been a classic beauty, the former Weather power still hinted at pretty, and that wasn’t due to her stormy eyes or her white-streaked pale hair. Instead, Meteorite had a smile that made her glow like a Lighter and a laugh that was positively infectious. And a sense of humor that rivaled Were’s. For someone who claimed to hate dirt, she had a positively filthy mind.

  “About freaking time.”

  Jet didn’t need to look at Frostbite behind the bar to know that he was sneering. She was too tired to argue, so she simply arched an eyebrow at him. Unfazed, Frostbite glared back at her, his face looking too old for his years. Like Meteorite, he was in a Corp-issued jumpsuit—the same one he’d been wearing for the past three days, based on the coffee stains. And the smell.

  “Cut her some slack,” Firebug said with a laugh, brushing bright orange hair away from her eyes. Her black leather trench coat creaked as she moved her arm—a nod to the chilly October weather outside. “Duty first, eh, Jet?”

  “Not funny, Kai.” Steele, even when not swathed in metallic bands, cut an imposing figure. Nearly two meters tall and quite muscular, she was more masculine than most male Squadron soldiers with extra helpings of testosterone. But right now, Steele’s eyes were soft, and the small frown on her lips was distinctly feminine. “Jet’s fighting the good fight. No need to make it unsavory.”

  “Christo, it was a joke, Harrie.” Firebug placed her hand over Steele’s. “You used to have a sense of humor.”

  “Things have been a little tense as of late,” Frostbite said as he tapped on a computer next to Meteorite. “Maybe you haven’t noticed.”

  “Sorry I’m late,” Jet said, sliding onto a barstool. She nodded cautiously at the only one of the small group who hadn’t acknowledged her.

  Seated at the far end of the bar, Hornblower continued to ignore her. Hulking in the shadows, he flexed and unflexed his massive hands as if eager to crush walnuts. Just looking at his sheer bulk, one would guess he was an Earth power. He wasn’t.

  “No worries,” Meteorite chirped. “We were about to get a game of bridge going while Frostbite manned the screens, but now that’s been blown to hell. Can’t play bridge with five people. So we might as well have our status meeting.”

  “Firebug,” Frostbite said. “Kick it off.”

  The Fire power frowned. “The cleanup isn’t going well. New rabids, old rabids, the gangs, the Families, the petty criminals … Christo, it’s a fucking mess out there.”

  “Language,” Steele chided.

  Firebug shrugged by way of apology, and her coat creaked. “There’s just too much to clean up. And the city’s Finest aren’t making our jobs any easier.”

  “That’s for sure,” Meteorite grumbled. “You should hear what they’re saying on dispatch. Most of them don’t buy that you four are still card-carrying good guys. Lee’s pressuring Wagner to extend the warrants to include you.”

  Firebug rolled her eyes. “Lee’s an ingrate.”

  Jet silently agreed. The mayor was quick to go whichever way the wind blew, especially in an election year. Hard to believe that not even two weeks ago, he’d been presenting Jet with an award for her service to New Chicago. But then, a lot had changed in two weeks.

  “It’s not his fault,” Steele said softly. “How can any of them trust us? Hundreds of other Squadron soldiers are razing the Americas. Why should they think we’re different?”

  “Gee, maybe because you haven’t tried to rip off their heads yet?” Frostbite scoffed. “Or destroy the city? Or declare war against the humans?” He punched in more keyboard commands, then scowled. “Colossal Man’s not helping, what with his ‘We’re not your dogs’ speech. That’s still getting airtime, if you can believe it. Freaking drama king. The media loves him.”

  “We’re lucky that more of the Squadron haven’t gone completely rabid,” Jet said.

  “Lucky?” In the corner, Hornblower let out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, that’s us. Real lucky.”

  Jet held her hands up, hoping to placate him. If anyone loathed her more than Frostbite, it was Hornblower. “All I’m saying is it could be worse.”

  “Yeah, right.” He glared at her, and she felt the heat of his rage rolling off him in violent waves. “You haven’t had to go up against your own family. Oh, right,” he said, snapping his fingers. “You don’t have family, do you?”

  Jet forced herself to unclench her fist. “Tyler …”

  He slammed his palm against the table. “Don’t you ‘Tyler’ me like we’re buddies!”

  “Sorry,” she gritted. “Hornblower. I know that going against Lancer yesterday was hard, but you did the right thing.”

  “Hard?” The large man’s snarl would have terrified a serial killer. “You don’t know anything, you Shadow freak.”

  “Hey now,” Meteorite said. “No call for getting nasty.”

  “I don’t trust her,” Hornblower said, his piercing gaze lancing Jet. “She’s unstable. Always has been. She’ll turn on us faster than Slider can run.”

  “Speaking of Slider,” Jet said, casting one last look at Hornblower before pointedly turning away from him, “she’s one of three I took down this morning.”

  “Rogue?” Firebug said. “Or rabid?”

  It was a fine line between the two. But Jet and the others had agreed that the extrahumans who were merely lashing out at the system were rogues—wannabe anarchists, born-again criminals, petty terrorists who liked the attention. Dangerous, but manageable—possibly even convertible. The rabids, though, were the ones who had lost their minds when their brainwashing stopped. They were the ones Jet and the others had to rein in as quickly as possible.

  “Rabid,” Jet said. “Were and White Hot were borderline.”

  Frostbite blinked. “You went up against Were?”

  She nodded.

  He held her gaze for a moment, then said, “I’m sorry.”

  A sad smile flitted across her lips. For all that Derek hated her, part of him remembered that at one time, they’d been friends—her and Iri, and Samson and Were, and Frostbite and Red Lotus. “Thanks.”

  The others gave their reports, and Meteorite checked off their list of active Squadron members in the Americas. Out of the 412 names, 36 had been marked as either “incarcerated” (for the rabids already delivered to the police) or “pursuing” (for the rogues whom they were trying to talk down from the ledge.) That just left 378 to go. And that didn’t take int
o account any of the missing Academy extrahumans—the students who hadn’t earned their hero status yet, or any of the Ops staff who still held their powers even though they were off fieldwork. That brought the number over a thousand.

  Jet wanted to sob with frustration.

  “There’s more bad news,” Meteorite said. “Everyman’s been making the rounds again. Wurtham’s all over the place, and the demonstrations are getting more popular. They’re giving out badges now.” She snorted. “Badges. The world has gone to shit, and Everyman is marketing.”

  “Language,” Steele sighed.

  “Everyman runs a tight campaign,” Frostbite said. “Always has. Nothing like preaching fear to really capture the minds and hearts of the brainless masses.”

  “Everyman is nothing new,” Steele said. “We can ignore them. The larger threat is the rabids. On top of that is how we’re supposed to work with the police and now the National Guard when they don’t trust us as far as they can spit.”

  “The Everyman Society is more dangerous than you know,” Jet said tersely. “And that’s because of a man named Martin Moore.”

  For the next five minutes, Jet recounted her failed attempt to save New Chicago Tribune reporter Lynda Kidder, and how one of Corp’s techies, Martin Moore, had worked with the humans-first organization initially to kidnap, then inject, Kidder with an experimental serum—one that had mutated her into a monster.

  She didn’t mention how she’d killed Kidder in self-defense. That was still too raw.

  “We know that our former masters were working with Everyman,” Jet said through clenched teeth, ignoring how her head screamed even at the barest hint of slandering Corp-Co. “Whether they sanctioned Moore’s work with Everyman remains unknown. And we suspect this serum is still out there. If so, it poses a real threat.”

  “Even if they spaz out and inject people with that sludge, it’s just normals pretending to be extra.” Hornblower snorted his derision. “What’s the big?”

  “The big, Tyler,” Frostbite said, “is that the normals are innocent citizens. If they get juiced with this serum, we have to fight them.”

  “We? Oh, that’s good. How long’s it been since you’ve been out of your grays, Tinkerbell?”

  “How long’s it been since you actually thought before you opened your mouth, Tyler?”

  “I don’t even want to know what you put in your mouth, fairy.”

  “Boys,” Firebug hissed. “Come on now. Play nice, or Meteorite will take away our toys.”

  Meteorite held up her hands. “Don’t look at me. No way am I getting caught in that pissing contest.”

  “We don’t have time for this,” Jet growled. “There’s more than a thousand extrahumans unaccounted for. Let’s finish our business and get back to work.”

  She was only a little surprised that both men actually listened to her.

  “Just as high a priority as reining in the rabids,” she said, “is finding Martin Moore.”

  “Working on it,” Frostbite said. “I still have my personal back door to Corp’s network. Meteorite and I’ve been downloading files.”

  “Which ones?”

  He grinned. “All of them. Take now, sift through later. Once we’re done with the transfer onto our local network, we’ll start on decryption. That’ll go a hell of a lot faster than the downloading, thanks to our built-in cooling system.” He snapped his fingers, sending a smattering of icicles arcing through the air. “Among other things, we’ll search for Moore’s files. We’ll find him, and maybe even Corp’s role in this mutation serum.”

  “Good.” Jet paused, considering her words. “Things are hitting a crisis point.”

  “Hitting?” Firebug laughed. “Jetster, where’ve you been?”

  Jet spread her hands and looked at each of the heroes as she spoke, silently imploring them to listen. “Maybe it’s time for us to reach out to the citizens of New Chicago, work with them. Build goodwill.”

  “Scorch me,” Hornblower muttered, “she’s freaking branding.”

  “When do you propose we do that?” Firebug asked lightly. “Before or after we chase down the thousand or so extrahumans still unaccounted for?”

  “Firebug’s right,” Steele said. “We’ve got our hands full just trying to do our jobs. We don’t have the time or the resources to play Goodwill Ambassadors.”

  “Maybe we should make the time.”

  “Jet’s got a point,” Meteorite said. “Not that I’m into marketing, but the Squadron approval rating wasn’t even at the 50 percent mark for the last three quarters. Why do you think Everyman’s got such a huge audience?”

  “Money,” said Steele.

  “Or fanatical followers with good messaging.” Firebug shrugged. “Look, I’m just as happy as the next superhero to say that it’s all about the citizens, but that doesn’t mean we should go out of our way to improve our likability scores. Sponsorship’s been sewered. We don’t have Runners, or Corp backing, or any of the amenities.”

  “Hey,” Meteorite said, affronted.

  “Okay, or most of the amenities,” Firebug said. “Now’s not the time for us to be expanding our job scope. Let’s concentrate on going after the rabids and the bad guys.”

  “Agreed,” Steele said.

  “You ladies are forgetting something,” Frostbite said. “Corp-Co is responsible for everything that’s happening now. We have to go public with how they manipulated us.”

  “Take ’em down.” Hornblower cracked his knuckles. “Hit ’em where it hurts: the public eye.”

  Frostbite nodded. “We’re lucky that all they’re doing now is saying ‘no comment’ and dodging the media. Public favor is going to be way down. Now’s the time for us to move against them—loudly. If we do it right, we can get them delisted from the American Stock Exchange. We do it better, we can bankrupt them as well as bring them up on criminal charges. We do it perfect, and Corp-Co is a thing of the past.”

  “It’ll never happen,” Firebug said. “They’re too big.”

  “No one’s too big to fail. You really think the government will bail them out?”

  “Corp’s got governments in their pockets,” Firebug insisted.

  “You’re giving them too much credit.”

  “And you’re not giving them enough.”

  “What’re you afraid of?” Hornblower asked, smirking. “Maybe you liked being their lapdog, huh? Maybe you’d rather go fetch?”

  Firebug stood up, snarling, “Now listen, you oversized junkfreak—”

  “What’re you going to do?” Hornblower laughed. “Sic your girlfriend on me?”

  “Stop it,” Jet shouted, slamming her fist on the bar counter. “This isn’t about … them.” Damn it to Darkness, she still couldn’t even say Corp without her head threatening to burst. “It’s about the people of New Chicago, and the Americas!”

  “You’re all getting ahead of yourselves,” Steele said calmly. “First and foremost, we have to stop the bad guys.”

  “Corp is the bad guy,” Frostbite growled. “Don’t you get that?”

  “No, the hundreds of rabids out there are the bad guys!” Firebug glared at him. “I know you haven’t been heroing in a while, Frostbite, but even grounded in Ops, you should be able to remember that!”

  Ice licked over the bar and cracked over the chairs as Frostbite shouted, “They sliced my brain! They raped my mind! Don’t you preach to me about remembering who the good guys are. Don’t you dare!”

  “Derek,” Meteorite said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, man. Calm down.”

  He shrugged out of her grasp. “I’m calm, Sheila. I’m real fucking calm.”

  “Language, Derek,” Steele said.

  “Fuck off, Harriet.”

  And so it went: Frostbite and Hornblower insisted they concentrate their efforts on taking down Corp-Co. Steele and Firebug remained steadfast in their determination to first rein in the rabids and the other criminal elements in New Chicago and beyond. Meteorit
e tried to get everyone to stop shouting.

  And Jet, meanwhile, sat on her barstool, one gauntleted hand pressed to her temple, willing her headache to disappear. The infighting among the six of them had to stop; otherwise, they’d be doomed to fail.

  Just like she was doomed to go crazy, no matter how she fought it.

  The Shadow voices giggled, and Jet pretended not to notice.

  CHAPTER 6

  IRIDIUM

  I have no regrets. Scientific advancement never merits begging forgiveness.

  —Matthew Icarus, diary entry dated September 20, 1986

  Blackbird Prison sat under a freeway, a sprawl of complexes old enough that the buildings still had bars on the windows. There had been a prison on this spot since the nineteenth century, and Iridium could feel the tang in the air from the security grid that surrounded the place, lasers and bots and traps pocking the old grounds.

  She shifted, her leg cramping. She’d been sitting on the struts of the overpass all night, watching the prison, learning the new routine. It was chaos, like everything else. The striking guards were massed out front. The prison was on lockdown. A snarl of news hovers blocked the access road.

  Iridium had spent hours of her life thinking about how she’d break into the prison. She’d managed it, too. What she hadn’t been able to do was break someone out, and that was what kept her up at night.

  A garbage truck chugged down the access road and up the ramp to the rear of the prison. Whatever else was happening in the world, the garbage still needed to be shipped out.

  Iridium swung herself down from the strut and joined the crowd milling in front of the prison. In her nondescript black outfit, she blended like any other gawker looking for a glimpse of superfreaks. A second garbage truck joined the first, and she waited until it slowed, the horn sounding from within. There was no driver—all of the garbage in New Chicago was bot-controlled, which made it easy for her to climb aboard.

  There were no guards inside. There was a formidable security system, but no one to watch it.