Seven Wonders (6 page)

  It was much darker up top than it had been in downtown, even though Tony lived, in theory, within the central city area. Pedestrians here were few and the street traffic was light. Tony wasted no time, and after a perfunctory check of the roadway, sprinted across it from the station steps to the almost entirely black shadow cast by the stillunfurled awning of his local grocery. Back flat to the plate-glass storefront, Tony checked ahead, left, right.

  All clear.

  Tony waited a few more minutes. Two people emerged from the subway and walked off together in the opposite direction, but that was it. Tony counted to ten, then up to twenty, before finally settling on thirty. Holding his breath, he peeled off the window and headed up the street towards his apartment.

  Tony slowed as he approached his building. He expected it to be fairly quiet – dead, in fact – at this time of night, but there was no need to burst into the lobby in any kind of rush, just in case. The safest place in the city was Tony's apartment, and priority number one was getting up there in good time and with no suspicions raised.

  Of course the elevator took forever. The building wasn't particularly new, but then it wasn't exactly a rundown dump – Tony had struck lucky finding the place, especially on his limited means. It was just a hair above average, in an OK area with a manageable rent provided he kept up the extra shifts at the store. It wasn't five star living, but it was clean and tidy. And safe.

  The imaginary chase – and it was imaginary, surely – and the interminable wait for the elevator tore at Tony's nerves. He jumped from foot to foot as the elevator rattled upwards, balancing on his toes, almost unable to contain his impatience. As soon as the elevator dinged his level he was tapping at the chromed doors with his door key. His taps left tiny pale marks on the shiny surface, which vanished with a rub of his thumb, and then the doors slid open.

  The next few seconds were a brown blur of communal hallway carpet, slightly muted fluorescent lighting and a parade of gray doors flashing past on either side. At his own door Tony pushed his hand forward, without pause, letting the key mate with the lock in perfect, practiced alignment.

  In the dark of his apartment, Tony leaned against the reassuring solidity of the door, bumping his head back onto it and breathing heavily from his sudden burst of activity. He was panicking again, and he knew it. An overreaction, an irrational fear, a phobia. He closed his eyes, allowing the dark of his apartment to melt into total blackness behind his eyelids. He cleared his mind, slowed his breathing, and focused on the pinging in his calf muscles.

  He stood like this for a few minutes, enjoying the semi-meditative state. Total relaxation, his mind floating free. After a spell, his attention turned to thirst. It was late, and bed called. A pot of tea, a little reading, then tomorrow was a Saturday in summer. If Tony wanted, it could be a perfect day.

  He flicked on the light and, squinting at the sudden brightness, walked into the kitchen. Operating on automatic, he grabbed the china pot from on top of the fridge, spoon from the drawer, and jar of loose leaf from the pantry. He reached for the jug, gave it an experimental waggle to judge the amount of water, then moved to the sink to refill it. His friends at Big Deal ribbed him for his taste in English tea, something he'd picked up from his Anglophile parents. But Tony knew there was just nothing quite like it.

  There was a window above the sink. It wasn't much of a view, just down onto the main street, a windowless beige office building across the way covered with a giant, though dated, mural. If you leaned out a bit to the left, you could see the corner of a small park with a brightly colored plastic playground. It wasn't a bad part of town, not really. But then did San Ventura actually have any good parts?

  Tony caught the thought as it arrived, and stifled it. Enough already. Tea, book, bed. He hit the faucet and filled the jug, then glanced out of the window again.

  Outside, across the street, the old man with the stick was standing, a black silhouette against the milky monochrome of the office block.

  Tony froze. Even at this distance, the man was nothing more than an indistinguishable dark shape, but Tony could see his old, wet eyes glint, just a little, in the street lighting.

  Holy shit. Fuck paranoia, he'd been right.
Damn
.
It.

  Distracted, Tony let the jug overfill, sending lava-hot water cascading onto the back of his hand. He swore, knocked the faucet off, and dumped the kettle in the sink. With his uninjured hand he reached up and released the window blind, sending the thin metal slats snapping down almost instantly.

  Tony jumped in fright, and abandoning his tea making, went to the bathroom − where there were no windows − to run his burnt hand under the cold faucet.

  He'd been right all along. He had to get out of San Ventura.

On the street, in the shadow of the office block, the old man clacked his tongue as Tony's kitchen blinds zipped down with a bang.

  The man sniffed, shuffled the stick into his other hand, and walked away.

CHAPTER FOUR

"Where the hell have you been?"

  Blackbird spun around in the wing-backed swivel chair to address the man as he entered the chamber. Illuminated as she was in the spotlight installed high in the vaulted ceiling of the cavern, she couldn't actually see him after he had disappeared from the security feed displayed on the Cowl's computer and communications deck which towered behind her. The only approach to the platform on which she sat was a narrow bridge of metal gridwork crossing a natural chasm that split the repurposed cave neatly in two. A nice, simple line of defense, she supposed, but then if an enemy had managed to get within a hundred yards of the Cowl's own chair, a sheer drop of a few hundred feet – with the walkway retracted – wasn't really going to pose much of a barrier.

  The platform opposite, like the rest of the cavern, was swathed in darkness. Blackbird knew that aside from pandering to the theatrical side of her boss's personality, the shifting shadows that the place was carefully draped in had a very practical purpose, disorienting any enemies who
did
manage to penetrate the complex, giving her and the Cowl the upper hand. Of course, such an infiltration had never happened, but there was no point in taking any chances, especially if you were the last supervillain in the world.

  There was a cough from the platform, and Blackbird frowned under her mask. The beak-like protrusion that had given rise to her name – that contained a complex image-processing GPU that fed directly to the large circular OLED screens that covered both eyes – didn't allow much facial movement beneath it. Blackbird felt the headpiece tugging at her jaw as her mildly surprised expression pushed against the snug lining. With a thought she switched her mask's powerful optics to night vision, throwing her view of the cavern into brilliant shades of violet.

  "It's getting worse."

  The Cowl's words echoed across the chasm that separated him from his accomplice. As he stepped forward onto the bridge and into her spotlight, she noticed that he was holding his right arm across his chest, the hand hooked over his left shoulder. His walk was slow, hampered by a slight limp. But worse, perhaps, his cloak was missing entirely, the famous hood gone. Without it, the black skullcap and half-mask looked incomplete, unfinished.

  Blackbird leapt from the chair, rushing to meet the Cowl halfway across the gangway. His eyes were unreadable, hidden behind the lenses in his mask, but the corners of his mouth were downturned and twitched slightly as she looped an arm around his waist and led him back to the computer.

  "So where did he take you?"

  The Cowl reached for his chair and slumped into it, sending it spinning about its axis. He corrected the rotation against the computer workstation with his good hand, and let out a deep sigh.

  "Over the bay. He was fast… too fast. Knocked me out cold when he hit…
hrmm
…"

  The Cowl gingerly felt his side, palpating the skintight black spandex at the base of his ribs. He hissed when he found the sore point, but brushed Blackbird's hands away when she tried to help.

  "It's fine," he said. "Broken ribs on both sides. They'll heal overnight. I still have that power, at least. You got back OK?"

  Blackbird backed off and, standing straight, folded her arms. She nodded. "Used one of the emergency one-shot teleport buttons. The hired help should be back in Argentina, memories blanked. And what do you mean, 'they'll heal'? They shouldn't even break! How much have you lost?"

  The Cowl leaned forward, his face hidden from his partner. He breathed deeply, more in exhaustion than pain. She watched his shoulder muscles move underneath his bodysuit and realized she was still seeing the world in night vision. Responding to her thought, the bird mask switched back to the regular spectrum.

  "Fifty percent. Maybe sixty. I can get hurt now, but it heals, maybe a little slower than it used to. Not sure how much damage I can take. Strength is nearly all there I think. Transference gone."

  Blackbird swore and the Cowl looked into her round, expressionless goggles. She dropped to one knee, leather catsuit creaking, so her beak was almost touching the masked triangle of the Cowl's nose.

  "Transference? But you got
into
the bank as planned… How did you get back here? You didn't…?"

  "Walk?" He cut her off, then nodded and almost laughed. "Yes, I walked. It's a long way from the bay." The Cowl took Blackbird's delicate, thin hands, and curled his fingers through hers as best he could. His reinforced gauntlets were almost as thick as welding gloves and his left hand was wrapped tightly in a string of black rosary beads. Blackbird's fingers pressed sharply against them. He must have had a rough time if he'd got those out. She didn't understand it herself, but then there was nothing wrong with clinging to a comfort blanket, no matter what form it took. She preferred hers in a small glass with ice.

  "You walked?"

  "I can't fly anymore."

  "Can't fly?"

  "Nope." The Cowl looked up into the invisible dark of the cavern ceiling, as if he were replaying events in his mind. "When I came to we were well on the way to orbit. Up, up, and away! I get the feeling it wasn't intentional. He was holding on, tight, almost as if he was afraid to let go. But it wasn't me providing the power – he was the one doing the flying. I managed to turn and push him off, but we were high. V
ery
high. He went out cold, must have been lack of oxygen, and let go. I think I blacked out too, for a moment."

  "And?"

  "And, my dear, it was a one-way ticket to ground zero. I couldn't fly. It was all him, whoever he is. If he survived the fall − we were up a good few miles."

  "The Seven Wonders?"

  The Cowl shook his head, then sat back and spun the chair around to the computer. Pulling the small wireless keyboard towards him, he idly tapped for a few moments, bringing up a variety of windows on the giant display almost randomly. Sensing he was deep in thought and not really paying attention to what he was doing, Blackbird reached over and placed her hand on top of his. He stopped typing, looked at her, almost startled, then smiled. She returned the expression, forgetting her mouth was hidden from view.

  The Cowl's smile dropped. "Did you get a look at him? He was one of the customers. I know the Seven Wonders. We both do. It wasn't Linear. Too short. And I don't think I recognized any of the others in the bank. You?"

  Blackbird sat on the lip of the desk. "No, I was preoccupied playing Universal Soldier. We should use machine guns more often. They're fun." She giggled, the sound echoing metallically through the filters in her mask. The Cowl chuckled, but stopped quickly and wrapped a hand over his side as he coughed.

  "Oh, don't make me laugh. You won't like me when I laugh."

  He resumed his one-handed tapping at the keyboard; four keystrokes later, a new folder opened on the gigantic screen. The Cowl leaned forward, just a little.

  Blackbird watched him for a moment, tapping the panel beneath her.

  "What happened to the cloak?"

  "It weighs a ton when it's wet. I dumped it upstairs. You been busy?"

  Blackbird stood, and moved behind the Cowl's chair. Reaching around the wide, winged back, she rested her hands on his shoulders and her chin on his head. Her voice fell to a whisper.

  "Oh yes. We've received the second transmission. Two to go and we'll be able to plot the coordinates exactly. I've also extracted the data from
that
."

  She pulled his chair around and pointed it off to the right. Ahead, on a third shadowed platform apparently floating above the cavern's abyss, was a long table surrounded by medical equipment. On the table lay the mortal remains of Mr Ballard, late of the California Cooperative Bank. The man's head was missing.

  The Cowl swiveled the chair around to face Blackbird. She reached forward, behind his neck, and tugged. The Cowl's skullcap and facemask came off in her hands; his eyes were bloodshot, with dull purple bruises around the sockets. Blackbird ruffled his hair and he smiled.

  "Mask-hair, sorry."

  Blackbird reached behind her own neck, running her fingers down a concealed seam. The black beak in front of her facemask sagged forward, and she pushed the mask up and off. She dangled it from the strap on two fingers and blew her short fringe from her eyes.

  "Me too," she said coyly. "But when we rule the world, we won't need masks, or secret identities. Two more transmissions and we've won."

  The Cowl's smile creased his eyes into thin slits. Oh, she loved that. Blackbird let her mask drop to the floor and pulled a glove off before running her naked finger over his stubbled cheek.

  "Come on, we need to get ready. We've a big night ahead."

  "Oh, that I do not doubt, Blackbird."

  He smiled, and she smiled, and they leaned towards each other, supervillain and sidekick locking together in a deep kiss.