Dreams of the Golden Age (16 page)

“So you can get beat up again?”

“I’ve gotten better,” he said, frowning. “Let’s try, just once.”

He was so eager, she couldn’t say no. That floppy hair, that innocent smile. So straight and tall he might have been a figure on a recruiting poster. I want
you.
“You’re such a Boy Scout,” she said. He blushed.

They made a plan to meet that night. Just to see.

Anna had math class with Sam in the afternoon. She wasn’t prepared to face his sneer and whatever so-called witty insults he came up with. So she moved to the front of the class while he went to the back, bent her head, and frowned in anticipation. Ten minutes into class, she glanced back to see him with his head down on his desk, asleep. The glamorous life of the costumed superhero—there it was, right there. She was absolutely gleeful, in a petty, vengeful way, that he was so tired. But she also felt sorry for him. Just a little.

The teacher hadn’t noticed yet, mostly because he was facing the chalkboard, writing and explaining. Quietly, Anna tore a page from her notebook, crumpled it up, took aim, and threw. Didn’t quite make it—the projectile bounced on his desk instead of hitting him directly. But he started awake anyway, blinking sleepily. She noticed the shadows under his reddened eyes. He looked around, saw the paper and her staring back at him. Figured it out, pressed his lips into a chagrined pout. She turned back to the front before the teacher noticed.

*   *   *

They met at the fountain in City Park and made plans from there.

Teia and the others—Anna refused to call them the Trinity, whatever the newspapers said—were also out and about that night. They were in the harbor district, though, and Anna made sure they would all stay carefully out of each other’s way. She wondered how Sam was coping, how many ultra-energy drinks he’d downed in order to be able to function tonight.

She’d had a cup of coffee from the shop around the corner from West Plaza.

Midnight at the fountain, they masked up and started a circuit that tracked around the park’s perimeter and pushed into neighboring cross streets. At the wilder corners of the park, it was easy to imagine that the place turned into a forest at night, oak and maple trees sending skeletal canopies across bike paths, surrounding buildings giving the impression that they were trapped in a canyon, traveling toward an unseen exit point. The chill on Anna’s skin came from more than the winter air. Her breath fogged.

They didn’t speak. They both looked around as if searching, but Anna didn’t see anything but rocks, trees, lawn, benches, skate park, duck pond. Only what was supposed to be there. When shrubbery rustled, it was always an animal, not a hideous criminal who’d decided the lilac bushes were a great hideout. Her mind wandered. She should probably be in better shape for this. If they were going to be spending a lot of time running around the city on foot, they probably ought to work out in the meantime. And keep up with school, and continue pretending that absolutely nothing was out of the ordinary. Right.

They circled back around to the fountain after a couple of hours. Nothing had happened, not even on the bad side of the park. Not a single crime in progress or any nefarious goings-on. All they saw were some harmless street people and a stray dog. Teddy suggested that maybe they could catch the dog and leave it at an animal shelter where it could get help, but when they tried to go after it, it ran out of sight. They couldn’t even heroically save a stray dog.

They had a scare at one point. When they reached the west edge of the park, a police car turned the corner and cruised right along the sidewalk where they walked. They froze, and the car’s spotlight turned on and swung over them.

The cop definitely spotted them. The light hesitated for a second, and they stood like idiots, staring back at it. But the light passed on, and Anna was able to see into the car well enough to spot the cop talking into his radio. The next thing he’d do was come after them, tell them to stop, question them, maybe even arrest them. Well, arrest
her,
since Teddy could use his powers to escape. But the cop didn’t stop the car and continued down the street and out of sight.

Anna’s knees went to jelly and she almost had to sit down.

“That was close,” Teddy said, heaving a nervous breath. “Do you think he saw us?”

Yeah, Anna knew they’d been spotted. But they weren’t important enough to do anything about. Figured.

Walking patrol didn’t provide any more opportunities for immediate action than searching crime-ridden neighborhoods for evidence did.

“Maybe that wasn’t such a great idea after all,” Teddy said, finally breaking the silence. His voice seemed loud. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, it wasn’t a total waste. It proved I need to take up running or something to get in shape. Is it too late to join the Elmwood track team?”

“Maybe we can try again tomorrow,” Teddy said.

“Maybe.”

The routine of getting home was well practiced. She took the late bus, got off to walk the last couple of blocks. Before reaching home, though, she stopped, her gaze gone suddenly fuzzy. A presence intruded on her awareness. Someone familiar but not family. She hadn’t been looking for him, he wasn’t a part of her everyday awareness, so she noticed only when he got close. Right before he sailed out of the sky, almost on top of her, and fell to a three-point landing a few yards away. She didn’t flinch.

“Eliot,” she said. He was wearing his mask and costume tonight. “Were you following me?” She flushed, all her embarrassment at their last encounter rushing back.

“I spotted you at the park, sure.” Didn’t seem at all apologetic. She’d been so focused on Teia and the others, and looking for bad guys, she hadn’t thought to look for him. All he had to do was track the bus from the air. If he’d followed her all the way home, that would have been a disaster.

“Why not show yourself there? Why follow me?”

“Don’t get so worked up there, kid.”

He was making fun of her. She marched off, determined to be angry.

“Hey, Rose—wait a minute. I’m sorry. I wanted to talk to you. Just you, not your friend.”

In spite of herself, she felt a bit of a flutter at that. Maybe he wasn’t making fun of her. No, either way, she was being stupid. But she stopped and waited for him to catch up. “Okay.”

“We can talk on the way to wherever you’re going—um, where are you going?” He looked around to the skyscrapers and office developments of the downtown business district. Not someplace she’d be expected to stroll around in the middle of the night. The glowing blue logo at the top of West Plaza glared like a beacon, the crescent shape like a half-lidded eye surveying her, judging her.

She pointed in a random direction opposite West Plaza. Some bars and all-night food stands lined the street a few blocks away; that ought to distract him. They walked.

Eliot said, “You know Commerce City better than I do, since I’m not from here—”

“Where are you from?”

He hesitated, not wanting to give up information any more than she did, and she was about to tell him it didn’t matter, but he said, “Delta. Ever been there?”

“No. Is it cool?”

“About the same—big city, with all the big city stuff. Commerce City is always better if you like superhumans.”

“Or worse if you don’t.”

He smiled. “Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, I’ve been going out. Like you guys, not really doing anything but just looking around. And I’ve been hearing rumors. Commerce City hasn’t had a real supervillain since the Destructor. Is that right?”

Anna said, “It depends on what counts as a supervillain. There was Steelyard, the carjacker. He didn’t have powers, he was just the ringleader of all the grand larceny in town for a couple of years, and the Block Busters took care of him. Techhunter shows up every now and then, but nobody knows if he really has powers. I don’t know if he’s a real supervillain; he’s pretty small scale, robberies and pranks and stuff. He’s never tried to take over the city or anything, and no one’s been able to find him to go after him.” Every few years saw a new master criminal looking to take over the title of Commerce City’s grand archvillain, but none of them had risen to the level of fame and terror the Destructor generated. Her own family’s history with the Destructor was the stuff of legend. When Anna read the old news stories, they felt like fairy tales. She did the research on the old heroes at the school library, so no one in her family would see the books or look up her browser history.

Most commentators claimed that for whatever reason, the city’s golden age of superpowered heroes and villains had long since passed. Everything after that would necessarily blaze less brightly. All the city had now were petty criminals and clueless kids playing dress-up.

“So if I told you I was hearing rumors about a new supervillain on the rise, you’d be surprised.”

“A little, maybe. I mean, anyone can call themselves a supervillain but they’d need to prove it.”

“This one’s subtle, apparently. Works behind the scenes, gets others to do the real dirty work. Has a long-term strategy. Taking-over-the-city stuff, but doing it without anyone noticing.”

“Subtle, huh? Like what, bribing politicians, buying up property?” Because that was how she’d do it. Maybe run for office. It wouldn’t even be illegal.

“Yeah, along with powers like mind control.”

She gave him a look, her brow furrowed. “Really?”

“The thing about mind control, you wouldn’t even know it was happening, would you?”

She couldn’t tell him that she was very familiar with how mind control worked. “You think there’s a villain mind-controlling the whole city to do his bidding?” The thing was, it wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility. The implications were frightening, so she wasn’t willing to latch on to the idea just yet.

They were approaching a noisy part of downtown, and she guided Eliot down another block. They were both still dressed up and would attract too much attention.

“People—the people I’m hearing the rumors from—are calling him the Executive.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Is that supposed to be scary?”

“Ominous, I think. You have to admit, if you think about how much someone can do behind the scenes, it is pretty scary.”

“I haven’t heard anything about it. You want us to keep our eyes open for anything suspicious? Anything out of the ordinary that might suggest a mind-controlling supervillain?”

“We’re probably not ever going to catch someone like that directly, but we should be able to find the effects of his power.”

“I guess you needed help after all, didn’t you?” She grinned at him, feeling smug.

He spread his arms in a shrug. “And I let you know, just like I said I would.”

“Now it’s gotta work both ways. If you find out anything about this Executive, you’ll let me know?”

“Then I need to know where I can reach you.”

A cute guy was asking for her phone number. She didn’t even care that he wasn’t talking to
her,
but Compass Rose. Or that she couldn’t really give it to him. The mystery just made it all more interesting, didn’t it?

She wrote down her e-mail address, the anonymous one she’d used to send the pictures to the cops. Then he waved good-bye, stepped back, and launched himself skyward. He landed agilely on an art deco overhang of a building, and a second leap carried him out of sight.

*   *   *

To hear Eliot talk, this villain, the Executive, was less than a rumor. More like an idea he just came up with. If Commerce City really did have a nascent villain, surely she’d have heard about it. Rooftop Watch or one of the other superhero fan blogs would have mentioned it.

Shockingly, when she went searching, Rooftop Watch did have a few hits. The site didn’t use the name Executive, but there was speculation. A hint here, a bit of gossip there, nothing more than that. No confirmed sightings, no verified activity. Just conspiracy theories thrown into the ether. Anna read them all.

The Executive was a shadowy figure, of course. So shadowy nobody knew anything about him—or her. In fact, this supposed villain was mostly a convergence of patterns: city government made unexpected decisions that coincided with certain political scandals, that removed a specific person from office, that allowed passage of a new set of legislation, and suddenly the whole future path of the city changed.

The Executive was a villain for the conspiracy minded. The so-called clues involved shady real estate deals, buildings downtown that might or might not have been built to code, which meant they might or might not harbor deadly secrets—West Plaza was the prime example of how a seemingly ordinary building could be fitted with hangars and bunkers and fantastical gear. The Franklin Building, Horizon Tower, even City Hall was suggested as having a secret subbasement containing the evidence collected from past supervillains—a tempting target for new villains, perhaps? Were they secret supervillain lairs? And how would one tell? It was all woolgathering. Nobody could ever point to an individual behind the conspiracy, though some people tried—the mayor, the DA, and even the owner of the Commerce City Chargers baseball team, who had apparently benefited from a change of zoning laws that allowed a new stadium to be built. But commentators figured there must be someone or a cabal of someones acting as the secret masters of the city. Of course, and this was more likely, it could all just be coincidence.

Anna thought of something her mother said sometimes, with a grin and a knowing look, suggesting a joke no one else got: There’s no such thing as coincidence in a world with superhumans. The website featured occasional posts from various contributors suggesting that this news item or other indicated another piece of evidence as to the possible existence of the Executive. The recent series of city planning meetings was a popular topic of discussion. If someone like the Executive existed, certainly the planning committee would attract his attention and serve as a tempting target for interference. Someone had even done a chart of all the people who attended the meetings and which of them might be the Executive. Anna’s mother was on the list, but without any accompanying notes or evidence. Too prominent, the commentators agreed. She couldn’t possibly be a shadowy, behind-the-scenes manipulator simply because she was too well known, as the daughter of the Olympiad who had so publically rejected that part of her life.