Bombs in her belt, extra fuses in her boots, Jet recalled. And there were the metalique hair toys, with about a thousand times more oomph than the exploding snaps children loved to throw to the ground.
After far too many days of battling extrahumans who had been her colleagues, Jet was actually relieved to be confronting a normal wannabe supervillain. It would be quick, and she’d just call in the capture to Commissioner Wagner, and then it would be off to headquarters. She missed her bed, but since the Squadron had lost its collective mind, her Corp-sponsored apartment had been compromised.
That thought—the loss of a comfort as simple as sleeping in her own bed—suddenly enraged her. Channeling that anger, she rocketed straight toward Bombshell.
The woman was so fixated on the burning building that she didn’t notice Jet until it was too late: A Shadow band snaked around her torso and pulled tight, pinning her arms. Bombshell screeched, and the small lump dropped from her hand. But Jet had expected that; a cushion of gray matter was waiting, and the object landed on it with a soft plop.
Too easy. But then, Bombshell wasn’t too smart.
Jet landed in front of the so-called villain and looked up at her. Even without Bombshell’s stilettoed boots—Light, how did the woman walk without falling over?—she towered over Jet.
“Let me go!” the woman screeched.
“I don’t think so.” Jet retrieved the small item from the Shadow cushion. She would have recognized it as one of Bombshell’s calling cards, even without the cursive B, utterly gaudy in neon pink. “I didn’t take you for an Everyman hater, Bombshell.”
The wannabe villain scowled for a moment, then shrugged. “The money was good.”
Oh really? “Work for hire?” Jet said, arching a brow. “You’re branching out.”
“Got to pay the bills.”
“Next time, try a job at the Quick Fix. Who’s got you on the payroll?”
Bombshell shrugged again. “Haven’t met him face-to-face.”
“I’m not asking whether you’d date him. I want the name.”
The white-haired woman lifted her chin. “My memory’s sketchy. A couple hundred digichips might help me remember.”
Jet was too tired to play this game. She constricted the Shadow band, and Bombshell gasped, her breath puffing out in a cloud, her lips turning blue with cold.
“The name,” Jet repeated.
Bombshell looked down at her and snarled, “Get scorched. You’re not like the rest of the freaks. You’re still a good guy. You can’t do shit to me, and you know it.”
She was right. Damn it to Darkness.
Calling up her floater, Jet shoved Bombshell onto it, then stood next to her. “Maybe you’ll feel more talkative when Commissioner Wagner asks you.” Holding on to the Shadow band so her prisoner wouldn’t fall, Jet directed the floater up and into the sky.
Halfway to the station, Ops chimed in: “Babe, you’re not going to believe who I’ve got a fix on.”
Jet sighed. All she wanted to do was curl up and sleep for a few years. She said, “Who?”
In front of her, Bombshell said, “Who what?”
Jet ignored her.
In her earpiece, Meteorite chuckled. “Iridium. Man, when it rains, it pours. You’ll never guess where I found her.”
There was no way Jet could take on another rabid now, not when a strong wind could topple her where she stood. And Light, this was Iri. She was probably falling over with laughter from the chaos she’d inadvertently caused when she’d broken into the Academy and taken down Ops … and fried the brainwashing signal that had turned the extrahumans into Corp’s puppets.
Well, it couldn’t hurt to check and see what Iri was up to. If the woman was looting, Jet would step in. For all she knew Callie was just getting a latte and enjoying the view of New Chicago burning.
“Where is she?” Jet asked.
CHAPTER 15
IRIDIUM
It was the most extraordinary thing I had ever seen. I now understand Einstein, Oppenheimer, Bell. I understand what it means to glimpse the face of God.
—Matthew Icarus, research notes pertaining to
Test Subject 1102, code-named “Alpha”
Iridium looked down at Wrigley Field. The top deck was open to the air, unusual in a city bathed in smog and raining superpowered criminals from the sky.
Iridium had never seen a baseball game. Lester had told her sports were for simpletons. Lester had said a lot of things, like, Trust me, girl, everything will be fine. That had been as they’d walked out of Blackbird and into Gordon’s waiting arms.
Callie sighed. She loved her father, and she knew he was brilliant, unshakable, brave, and had a razor-sharp sense of justice. But he was also an idiot if he thought that he controlled the situation with Gordon. As if he could control it, with only rabids at his side. If they were going to put Corp down for good, they needed real help.
And that was why she’d stormed out of her own warehouse, looking for superheroes.
A chill stole over Iridium’s skin even though hot smoke from dozens of fires still singed the air. She snapped her head up and there was Jet, descending on a column of Shadow like a regular dark angel.
Iridium gave her a nod. “Nice entrance.”
Jet stiffened. “Thanks,” she said tightly. Her blond captive, wrapped in Shadow creepers, tumbled to the ground, as if Jet’s concentration had slipped. “What are you up to, Iridium?”
Iridium sniffed. “Thought I’d catch a ball game.”
Jet frowned at her as she reeled the prone figure, whom Iridium recognized as Bombshell—private name, “That crazy bitch, Bombshell”—back to her side. Jet said, “Really?”
Iridium smiled. “What, you’d rather I’d come to pick a fight?”
Jet’s frown deepened. “I don’t have time for this, Iridium. Enjoy your ball game.”
“Aw, aren’t you going to invite me to your secret clubhouse?” Iridium smiled when she saw Jet twitch.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the Shadow power said stiffly.
“You, Steele, Firebug, Hornblower, Frostbite, and Ops. New Ops. Not freaky brainwashing Ops. You guys set up shop here.” Iridium took a step closer, risking a fight. If Jet knocked her on her ass, the mission was over and Iridium would have to deal with Gordon herself.
But Jet hesitated. She always did when things didn’t go according to plan.
Iridium laughed softly. “I still know you.”
Jet’s optiframes irised, as if she were blinking.
“Look, Jettikins, are you going to invite me in or not? It smells up here.”
“How do you know about Squadron HQ?”
Iridium crossed her arms and set grin to Smug. “Derek told me.”
Far from being the flustered mess Iridium had expected, Jet let creepers explode from every plane of her body before snapping them back just as quickly.
Jet pushed up her optiframes and glared at Iridium. She snarled, “Frostbite compromised us to criminals?”
“Okay, first, I’m not a criminal anymore, as there’s no Corp to have me convicted and the real law has bigger problems. And second, Derek and I are friends. We trust one another with basic information.”
Well, that had shut her up. Iridium looked her former partner in the eye, saw the deep blue rings underneath. Saw bones under Jet’s skinsuit and new lines around her mouth.
“How are you holding up, Joannie?”
“Do not use my name, Iridium. We are not friends.”
Iridium shrugged. “Just making small talk.”
Jet huffed, “I haven’t slept in days, the city is falling apart, it’s taking forever to rein in all the rabids, and to top things off, this silly wannabe—” she shook Bombshell—“firebombed the Everyman regional headquarters, and she won’t tell me who put her up to it.”
“Go to hell,” Bombshell sneered. “I know you won’t dirty your hands on me, Shadow Puppet.”
Iridium snapped her hand ou
t and grabbed Bombshell by the front of her costume. Sweaty and sooty. Great.
Jet’s creepers retreated from the light-heat around her grip. Bombshell let out a yelp. “The hell! I have rights, yanno!”
“Not with me, you don’t.” Iridium used her superior height to walk the other woman backward, rapid time, until Bombshell’s back was pressed against the railing of the upper deck.
“I’m not a hero,” Iridium said. “I don’t know or care why you did what you did. But Jet wants to know.” She leaned close to Bombshell’s face. “You have one chance to tell her.”
“Iridium …” Jet said in a tone Iridium knew all too well. The Can it before we get into trouble tone.
“Fuck you, Snow White!” Bombshell spat. “I ain’t going to say shit! I ain’t—”
Iridium tipped her over the railing.
Bombshell let out a truly operatic shriek as she dangled, Iridium’s hand knotted in her cheap plastic skinsuit the only thing keeping her from plunging seventy feet to the ground.
“You ain’t what?” Iridium said pleasantly.
“You can’t …” Bombshell panted, clawing at her hand. “You can’t …”
“I can,” Iridium said, and pitched her voice down. Her Lester voice. Her villain voice. “And I will.”
“Martin Moore!” The name echoed off the right-field wall of the park. “Martin Moore paid me! Let me up, you fucking crazy bitch! I just did what he paid me to do!”
“Iri,” Jet said, and there was pleading in her voice now.
Iridium held steady, her arm screaming but her face still as she let Bombshell twist in the wind. Literally.
“Iri,” Jet said again. “Don’t kill her.”
Iridium let another second tick by, then she hauled Bombshell back over the railing. “If I ever see your tacky little poser ass in my orbit again, I’ll end your criminal career and very probably your life.”
Bombshell just sobbed and shook, slumped against the last row of seats. Iridium jerked her thumb. “Get lost.”
Jet watched Bombshell run, then looked back at Iridium. “I suppose you think that’s funny.”
“Not really. She weighed a ton.”
Jet rolled her eyes. “You let a criminal go.”
“You want to go catch her? Be my guest.”
Jet sighed, closed her eyes. “Another time.” She sounded so tired.
Iridium massaged her shoulder. “Who’s Martin Moore?”
For a split second, Jet’s shoulders hunched and her cheeks flushed with what Iridium had to describe as shame. “He’s a person of interest. Thank you for the help,” she said brusquely.
Iridium could see the words grating out of her, shredding Jet’s pride. “Hell. What else am I good for except trading on my terrifying reputation?”
Jet bit her lip for a moment, then said, “Indeed.” She paused, then added, “Wrong Wrigley Field.”
Iridium blinked. “Sorry?”
Jet’s smile flickered, quick as clouds over sun. “The secret clubhouse. It’s in the original, not the domed version. Come on, I’ll take you there.”
It wasn’t much of a clubhouse—more like the dorm room of a computer-science student who was also a hermit. Iridium wrinkled her nose at the stale air.
“I’m back,” Jet called out. A plump woman Iridium vaguely recognized from a few years ahead of her at the Academy stuck her head out from behind a Dietrich Systems command console that had to have been lifted directly from the Academy. It was enormous, the hum of its processors overtaking the room.
“And with company, I see.”
Iridium threw a salute at the woman. “Weather Girl, right?”
“Meteorite.” The name came out colder than sleet on the back of Iridium’s neck.
“Right. Sorry.” She needed their help—she’d have to call them whatever silly names they’d come up with.
A door slid open and Frostbite stepped out with a heaping plate of nachos and a Coke. He dropped both when he saw her.
“Callie!”
He bounded over and wrapped his lanky arms around her, and Callie hugged him back. She didn’t have to pretend to get along with Frostbite, at least. “It’s good to see you,” she whispered. She’d stayed in touch with Derek after she’d escaped custody at the Academy, but they couldn’t meet often for obvious reasons.
“You too, Miss Firefly,” he whispered back. Derek was the only one besides her father who could call her that without getting a fist through the teeth or a strobe in the eyes.
Dad’s decision is why you’re here. Get to the point.
“Listen, Jet. Frostbite. Uh, Meteorite. I was hoping to talk to you …”
Her words were cut off by an obnoxious pinging from the console. Everyone snapped their attention to the computer.
She asked, “What’s wrong?”
“It’s a distress call,” Meteorite said. “I’m putting it on speakers.”
Frostbite grabbed a headset and slid into place next to Meteorite. “Triangulating location,” he said, his fingers flying.
Iridium tilted her head toward Jet. “This happen a lot?”
“More and more every day,” Jet said grimly.
“Firebug, Ops,” a strained voice shouted through a haze of static.
“Ops, Firebug,” Meteorite returned. “Go ahead.”
“He’s got her!” Firebug’s voice held real terror. “Doctor Hypnotic’s got Steele!”
Frostbite’s fingers stopped moving. “Oh, she did not just say that.”
“Hypnotic?” Jet ran over to the console. “The Doctor Hypnotic? He escaped?”
Iridium spread her hands. “Blackbird has a revolving door these days, even in the supermax wing. Wouldn’t you escape if you were Hypnotic?”
Jet slapped a switch on the comm. “Jet, Firebug. Say again.”
“Doctor Hypnotic has Steele!” The echoes against the mike made Iridium’s head throb.
“She’s in Looptown,” said Frostbite. “An abandoned apartment building. Fixing now …” His screen shrieked an error at him. “Shit! The building has tilithium walls. It’s messing with the imaging. I can’t get a fix on Steele.”
“Firebug,” Meteorite said. “Do not engage. Wait for backup.”
“Hornblower is in Joliet, dealing with a riot,” Frostbite said quietly. “At least fifteen minutes ETA in a hover.”
“If that’s really Doctor Hypnotic,” said Iridium, “Steele does not have fifteen minutes.”
“I’m going,” Jet said. “Firebug, wait for backup.”
“No …” the hero’s voice was frantic. “No, I hear her screaming …”
The comm cut out, and Frostbite cursed. “She went in after him. I lost her GPS beacon.”
Jet was already booking for the door. “Download everything you can on that building to my wristlet.”
“You can’t go alone!” Frostbite shouted. “It took the entire New York Squadron and part of New Chicago Squadron to take out Hypnotic twenty years ago!” He ripped off his headset. “I’m coming with you. Sheila, cover Ops.”
Meteorite, panicked, said, “Derek, no! I can’t run the entire Squadron by myself—I need you here, doing Ops with me!”
“I’ll go,” Iridium said, holding up her hand.
“I don’t need your help,” Jet snapped. “I can take care of this.”
“You can barely stand up,” Iridium said. “And Derek’s right. Hypnotic isn’t some idiot in a dime-store rig. He’s dangerous.”
Jet considered for a moment. “Fine. You’re under my orders, and you do what I say when I say it.”
“Fine,” Iridium returned. “Now can we please go save your friends’ lives?”
“Fine,” Jet said.
Hell, Iridium had wanted to get on the Squadron’s good side, hadn’t she? She just wished it wasn’t via fighting a man that even Lester was afraid of.
And how the hell had Hypnotic broken out of Blackbird’s maximum-security wing in the first place? Even with the situation in the
regular prison, the supermax wing had roboguards, foot-thick walls, neural inhibitors … a thousand safeguards to keep the monsters in.
Iridium shuddered. Maybe she didn’t want to know.
Aloft on Jet’s Shadow floater, Iridium watched Wreck City slide by on their way to Looptown. Her grid actually looked clean in comparison to the chaos all around it.
Until she saw plasgun fire.
“Bollocks,” she said softly, co-opting her father’s favorite curse. “Jet, I can’t.”
“What?” Jet shouted over the wind.
“Someone’s shooting up Wreck City. Set me down. I’ll catch up.”
It wasn’t a lie. She’d dispatch whoever-it-was and get back to the real business. Deep in her gut, she wanted to fight Hypnotic. A real villain fight. The one she’d never gotten the chance to have before Corp had tried to ship her off to Blackbird all those years ago.
At least, not from the heroic side.
“Your funeral,” Jet shouted, and the Shadow let go of Iridium, dumping her on a rooftop.
Iridium ran down the fire escape. It was over in three strobes—one for each of the gangsters robbing the liquor depot and one for good measure. They were sporting green and tats. Iridium cursed again and tapped her phone link.
“Oz, it’s Iridium. Arrest Deke O’Connor. He’s officially outstayed his welcome in Grid 16.” See how a few years upstate mellowed that arrogant little Irish prick, thinking he could do as he pleased in her grid.
Someone tugged on Iridium’s sleeve and she spun, a strobe growing.
The liquor depot’s owner beamed at her. “Thank you,” she said. “Those sons of whores would have taken everything I owned.”
“That’s all right, Mrs.…” Iridium spread her hands.
“Pak. Theresa Pak, and this is my husband, Benjamin.”
Mrs. Pak’s husband threw Iridium a salute. “We know what you do for us. Keeping the gangs out. Keeping innocent people out of harm’s way.” He squeezed Iridium’s hand. “You keep doing it.”
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