Shades of Gray

by Jackie Kessler; Caitlin Kittredge

  He’s sure Julie would call him three kinds of fool.

  “Well,” he calls out, shutting the makeshift door behind him, “I’m back.”

  CHAPTER 40

  LUSTER

  “This is the world I wanted. But there is still pain, and fear, and suffering. I guess at least now we have a chance to fight back. Against evil. Against evolution.”

  —Matthew Icarus, unpublished commencement speech

  to MIT, class of 1990

  Lester Bradford rarely felt nervous, but he did at this moment, walking down the endless corridors of Blackbird Prison. There were the usual sounds—shouts, screams, crying. The smell of sweat and urine and stale air.

  A cell door clanged, and Lester flinched. He didn’t like prisons. The long hallways and the flickering light tubes and the close, hopeless quiet reminded him too much of the tower block in East London where he’d grown up. Sleeping in the stairwells when his dad had too much to drink. Watching the world go by through stained, impenetrable glass.

  “Thank you for coming,” said the warden. Post, his name was. He was bald and a head shorter than Lester, built like a bulldog and the personality of a rabid ferret.

  “Think nothing of it, mate,” Lester murmured.

  “He’s been asking—well, screaming—for you for the last six hours,” said the warden. “Sedatives aren’t putting a dent in him, so … talking is a last resort.”

  Lester followed the warden as he turned and trundled along the corridor, deeper and deeper into the heart chambers of Blackbird Prison. “You were on his Alpha team,” said the warden. “Any idea what triggered this outburst?”

  Of course Lester knew. It was the six-year anniversary of when they’d put Hal in here in the first place. Six years since the Siege of Manhattan ended. Hal did this every year on this day.

  But the warden could get stuffed. “No idea, sir,” Lester said. “None whatsoever.”

  The regular security wing of the prison ended abruptly at a black wall—tilithium-laced ceramic, indestructible, heatproof, and impervious to sonic interference.

  Lester had helped design the security protocols for the man who’d been screaming his name. He’d known what was coming.

  A guard collected all of his superfluous objects—belt, cape, and fasteners, gloves, even his boots. Post, also stripping down to the basics, grimaced as he snapped on paper booties. “So undignified. But better than the freak hanging himself with my shoelaces, eh?”

  “Oh, Hal’s never been the type to kill himself,” Lester said as he twisted his wedding ring free and dropped it into the bin. “More likely, he’d choke you unconscious and use you as a human shield for escape.”

  That was why, when the two men buzzed through the containment scanner and out the other side, only faceless roboguards greeted them. The roboguards rolled on twin tracks and had guns and laser targeting systems mounted to their fronts.

  There was only one cell in the maxi wing of Blackbird Prison.

  There was only one man who warranted one.

  Post let the door scan his biometrics and keyed in his code. Lester stepped in and the door hissed shut behind him.

  After a moment, a robotic voice announced. “Inmate walking. Gibbons, Harold Wyatt. Code name Doctor Hypnotic.”

  A door rolled up and two roboguards deposited their cargo in the visitor’s cell. On the other side of thick plas-proof glass, Hal Gibbons smiled at Lester.

  Lester sat down and waved his hand at the PA sensor to activate it. “Hello, Doctor.”

  “Please. At least call me by my right name.”

  “Doctor Hypnotic, then.”

  The other man sighed. “Still bitter, I take it?”

  “You lost any right you had to a human name when you killed those people in New York, Doctor.”

  “Don’t be so sanctimonious, Bradford. You know it could have been any of us. Little Georgie Porgie.” He smiled. “Your beautiful wife.”

  Lester felt a twitch develop in his jaw. “You’re on thin bloody ice, my friend. Make a point or I’m out.”

  “Would you hurt me, Lester?” Hypnotic leaned toward the glass. He was thinner, and his eyes were the glassy beads particular to heavy sedation, but he still made Lester jump when he banged one palm flat against the glass. “Would you burn me up, like New York Squadron tried to do?”

  “For my family?” Lester knew he was being recorded, but still thought, Sod it. “Abso-bloody-lutely.”

  Hypnotic sat back with a grin.

  Lester rubbed his forehead. “Is this what you were so desperate to talk about?”

  “No.” Hypnotic trailed his fingers through the air.

  The man was high as a bloody kite and still managed to keep Lester off-balance. Lester didn’t like it one bit.

  “No,” Hypnotic repeated. “I wanted to talk about truth, Les. Truth and justice and the Squadron way …” He dissolved into giggles.

  Lester stood up. “I don’t have time for this. My daughter has a school play this evening, and I won’t miss it to watch your one-man fuckwit show.” He turned his back on Hypnotic.

  “How is the little girl?” From behind, Hypnotic’s voice was chilling as it had ever been. “Calypso?”

  “Calista.” Lester turned around and sat back down, carefully, carefully, so he wouldn’t simply melt the glass and wrap his bare hands around Hypnotic’s throat, burn that smirk off his face and call it done.

  “Do you think little Calista has any future in this world? This world where men like us are leashed like dogs?”

  Lester breathed, in and out, relaxation techniques designed to keep you calm in life or death situations. And this was life or death. For Gibbons. “I won’t discuss my family with you.”

  “Then talk to me about truth.” Something almost pleading made its way into Hypnotic’s eyes, Hal’s eyes, swam there under the surface scum of drugs and hopelessness. “I know you aren’t a hero,” Hal whispered. “Not really. I know what you think about when you hope no one is watching. How you chafe under Corp’s controls and how you look at your little girl and pray that her life isn’t this world, this terrible, gleaming world of profit shares and sponsors and corporate heroics.”

  Lester started. “You read my mind?”

  Hal tapped his temple. “Every day. Before. All of you. Except her.” He slumped. “Does she hate me, Les?”

  “She does, mate. You shattered her only hope that her life wasn’t always going to be the nightmare it is now.”

  Hal put his face in his hands, as much as he could move in his stun-cuffs. “Nightmare, yes. It is a nightmare, what happens in that house.”

  Lester felt his heart skid to a stop. “What did you hear?”

  “I know,” Hal purred. “I know exactly what they did to her, and I know what he’s doing to her now. Blackout.” The name came out like a curse.

  “What?” Lester’s voice sounded foreign, deadened. Valerie hadn’t told him anything was wrong with Holly when she visited. “What exactly was said, Hal?”

  “He was the worst of us, you know,” Hal murmured. “Scared of his own Shadow …” He dissolved into giggles again. “An abusive maniac, with a pretty distraction to keep him sane so the Squadron can use him. Until he breaks her, and they make him a new one. I know, Lester. I was there.”

  “You could be lying to me,” said Lester. “And I’m going now. Home to my wife and child.” His pulse was back now, and throbbing. Not because he thought Hal was lying—because the cold, dreamy harshness in the man’s voice couldn’t be anything but true.

  “You really care about your family,” Hal said, his voice muffled by his hands. “Corp won’t stand for that. Love doesn’t generate revenue. Loyalty doesn’t grab headlines.”

  He pressed his palm against the glass. “You were the best of us, Les. Get out while you still can.”

  “Time’s up,” the robot voice echoed. “Stand and prepare for containment.”

  “Watch the Shadows!” Hal cried as he stumbled away in t
he grasp of the roboguards. “Watch the Darkness. Break away, Les … do what I couldn’t do!”

  His screams cut off when the door shut, and Lester was alone with his own reflection in the glass. It was like Hal Gibbons had ceased to exist.

  CHAPTER 41

  VIXEN

  These special children will receive education tailored specifically to their unique needs. They will be cared for, tutored, and taught to use their abilities for the benefit of all mankind.

  —Mission statement of Corp-Co’s Academy

  for Extraordinary Youngsters, 2018

  More wine?” Holly held out the bottle, but Valerie covered her glass.

  “No thanks, hon.”

  Holly shrugged and filled her own glass to the rim, killing the bottle. Jamie, one of Holly’s two creepy Runners, swooped in and took it away.

  Valerie nibbled on the last of her breadstick, keeping one eye on Callie where she sat on the floor playing dolls with Joan, Holly’s daughter. Everything was going fine until Joan decided she wanted Callie’s Baby Be Mine, and yanked it away.

  Callie burst into tears, and a light panel nearby shorted.

  “No, sweetie!” Valerie jumped up and separated the two girls. “We don’t use our powers on other people, remember?”

  Callie pointed at the doll. “That’s mine!”

  “I know,” Valerie soothed. “And I know Joan is going to give it back. Right, Joan?”

  Joan clutched the doll to her chest. “I want the dolly!”

  Valerie heaved a sigh, slinging her sobbing daughter onto her hip. “A little help, Holly?”

  “George and I will buy you a new one.” Holly drained her wineglass. “Just let Joan have it. She’ll throw a fit otherwise.”

  Valerie massaged her temple with her free hand to quell the throb of what she’d named Mother’s Little Migraine. “Callie, sweetie, you need to stop crying for mommy, okay?”

  She sat back down and let Callie play with Holly’s silver-plated tableware. “Holly. Les and I don’t let Callie have a lot of toys. You know that.”

  “So when Joan’s down for a nap, I’ll weasel it out of her grasp and send Jamie or Jamie your way with it. You’ll get the damn doll back.”

  Valerie frowned at the curse. Holly was working on a drunk. Again. “You have to set limits. Kids act out because they want limits.”

  “I know how to raise my child,” Holly snapped.

  “Of course you do. But you and George—”

  “George is busy,” Holly said crisply. “I make the calls with Joan. It’s my job to oversee things here at home.”

  “You’re also a person who has a job!” Valerie said. “Get a nanny to help you.”

  Holly sighed, pushing a hand through her hair. She looked much older than she had when Valerie met her. Or maybe that was because her Glamique contract had been canceled.

  “I can’t,” Holly said. “George won’t hear of it.”

  “Then maybe George needs to get his hearing checked.”

  Holly smiled nervously. “He has a lot of pressure. You know that. Les must be the same way.”

  “Sure, there’s pressure. But Les is home at night,” Valerie said gently. “When’s the last time George was here when you went to bed?”

  Her friend flinched. “I don’t know what you’re driving at, Valerie Bradford, but you stop it right now. George is just busy.”

  Valerie fussed with Callie’s braid, which refused to stay neat. “So are you, Hols.”

  “It’s not the same,” Holly insisted. “He’s constantly fighting, fighting all the time. He’s so stressed. So I have to be here for him when he needs me, where he expects me.”

  “Holly, you’re a superhero. No one expects you to sit home and bake cookies and do laundry all day.”

  “George does.”

  Something in her friend’s tone made Valerie sit up and really look at her. Holly fiddled with her hair, her wedding ring, looking anywhere but Valerie’s face.

  “Hols,” she said, frowning. “Are you okay?”

  “He just gets … so angry sometimes,” Holly whispered. “I know it’s not him during those times. I know he’s not the George I married. That George doesn’t care if I accidentally burn supper.”

  “Holly,” Valerie said, letting Callie squirm off her lap so she could reach across the table and take her friend’s hand. “Has he done something?”

  “Of course not. We just have our disagreements sometimes, that’s all. Every marriage has some disagreements. Even you and Lester have some, don’t you? That doesn’t mean anything’s rocky or—” Her breath hitched.

  Valerie turned Holly’s face toward her. “Is he hitting you?”

  “No!” Holly’s eyes flamed with panic. “He’s a good man!”

  The lie was all too clear. “Holly …”

  “And if he did, anything that happened would be an accident,” she said too fast.

  “Hols,” Valerie said softly, “George has a problem.”

  Holly’s eyes took on a sinister cast. “At least he’s not a loose cannon like Lester!”

  “Oh, so my husband is the problem now?” Valerie stood up, her chair scraping back. “I have news for you, Holly, news that’s been a long time coming. Your precious George is a whack job.”

  “How dare you …”

  “For Christo’s sake, girl, he’s hitting you! If you can’t think of yourself, think of Joan! What is she going to remember when she’s grown?”

  Holly stood as well, and there was a moment when Valerie saw the old Holly, the firecracker, the one who could smile and laugh as she took down a villain as easily as when posing for the camera.

  “You have no right,” she quavered. “No right at all.”

  “You’re my friend, Hols,” Valerie said softly. “And I’m saying this as your friend. George might be going the way of Hypnotic.”

  Holly shuddered, twin tears working down her face. “Get. Out,” she gritted. “Get out now!”

  “Okay,” Valerie said. “I’m gone.” She gathered up Callie and went into the kitchen to grab her purse. There she saw the cheerful red Panic Button, next to the combox on the wall.

  Seeing it calmed her. If there were a problem, a true problem, Holly would hit the button and the cavalry would come running.

  Tomorrow she’d talk some sense into Holly. She just needed to calm down and sober up, and then they could talk reasonably.

  Tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 42

  ANGELICA

  In retrospect, we were fortunate that Angelica lasted as long as she did.

  —From the journal of Martin Moore, entry #185

  She had the dream again.

  Holly sat up in bed, shivering, wishing that George were there to comfort her. But he wasn’t in the bedroom.

  She wrapped her arms around herself, told herself that it was just a dream, that Hal was still in Blackbird. That he couldn’t hurt anyone ever again.

  That what he’d told her during the Siege of Manhattan had been a desperate lie.

  Shaking, she pulled herself out of bed and dragged on her robe. She tied the belt and tucked her feet into slippers. Padding out of the dark bedroom, she first checked on Joannie—safe in bed, sleeping the sleep of an exhausted five-year-old after a long day of play. Joan had had fun with Callie, even if Holly and Valerie had nearly come to blows.

  No. She wasn’t going to think about that now. And Valerie Bradford could go to hell.

  Closing her daughter’s bedroom door, Holly walked quietly down the hallway, noting the closed office door. George was up, doing … well, whatever it was he did in there. Holly had long ago learned that when the office door was closed, she mustn’t interrupt.

  Her shoulder still had the small, circular scar from when George had first taught her that lesson.

  Holly entered the small kitchen and put on the kettle for tea. She stood there, motionless, as the water heated. When the kettle whistled, she shook herself out of her stupor and killed the s
ound before George could hear it.

  She fixed herself a cup of chamomile and took it to the kitchen table. She carefully pulled out the chair so that it wouldn’t scrape, then sat.

  Holly sipped her tea and didn’t taste it.

  When Blackout came into the kitchen for something to eat, she didn’t notice him—her back was to the hallway, and she was thinking about her dream—the same dream she’d had, on and off, for six years.

  If she felt her husband’s cold gaze on her back, she dismissed it as a chill and took another small sip of tea.

  They stayed like that for twenty minutes: Holly thinking about another man as she took miniscule sips of tea, and her husband standing in the archway, gazing at his wife with his Shadow-filled eyes.

  In Holly’s dream, it’s the end of the Siege of Manhattan, just as Hal has told her that she’d been used, that she’d been forced to leave him and love Blackout. Angelica has just played her last, desperate card: She kissed Doctor Hypnotic.

  But in her dream, she never stops kissing Hal. There is no betrayal, no look of defeat and sorrow in Hal’s eyes. There is only her and Hal.

  Holly didn’t know she was crying. She still felt the tingle on her lips from six years gone, and she knew it was false, that it had been just a dream. But it didn’t matter. The feelings were still there—the passion, then the terror.

  In her dream, Hal seduces her, or she seduces him, and the two of them ride the world in a wave of blood. When she gives birth to her daughter, she sacrifices the baby to the Shadow, deep at the base of the world at the boundary of hell. But it’s not enough—the Shadow rises up, hungry.

  And it comes for her.

  “Sweetheart. What’re you doing up?”

  Holly jumped in her chair. Tea slopped over the side of her cup, splashing her fingers. Holly turned to see George—no, Blackout; he was still garbed in his work clothes—standing over her.