Wearing The Cape: Villains Inc. (21 page)

“What about his CPD file?”

“Nothing there, either, but…”

“What?”

“He’s never been sick—well, he’s taken some sick-days, but he doesn’t have a medical record. Never been injured or wounded, either. And…Hope?” Now she sounded worried. “He doesn’t exist before he joined the CPD. I mean, he has a birth certificate, school records, all that, but the hospital is fictitious. So are the schools. It’s all made up.”

My breath caught. He
couldn’t
be a fake. So he was a secret breakthrough, so what? Not every breakthrough went public or put on tights and a mask. Lots of breakthrough powers were minor, lots weren’t super-heroic. Maybe his power just made him
unkillable
—useful for a cop. I circled around the unthinkable; he could be a plant, an inside-man for the Outfit. They’d known to go after Mr. Moffat, hadn’t they? And he could have tipped off
Millibrand
about the warrant…

But why make up a whole
life
? One that included schools that weren’t there?

I raised my head. “His background. Are any of those schools at the corner of Clark and Taylor?”

Her eyes widened. “No, but the fictitious children’s home is! But—what does that mean?”

“I don’t know! He was looking for the man who wasn’t there. We don’t have time for this!” I stood and stretched, testing my ribs. Ouch-worthy, but getting better. I grabbed my mask.

“I’ve got to talk to Artemis. Shell…”
I hate this.
“I need you to break open every account Fisher has. If he works for the Outfit, or somebody else, there’ll be a trail somewhere. Look everywhere he’s ever spent money. I don’t
know
, and we need to.”

Shelly nodded unhappily, and was gone.

When did I become a liar and a sneak? I forced myself to sit back down and finish my report, omitting Fisher’s undone injury, found the CPD Incident Report number and appended it, and sent it on its way. Then I sat, looking at my mask, debating really taking this to Artemis till she called
me
.

“
Astra? You should get up to the Common Room.
”

I knew that voice: pissed off and willing to share her pain.

Machiavelli once said that it’s better to be feared than loved—which makes me want to go back in time and give him a good kicking whenever somebody quotes him. It’s
much
easier for someone with bad intentions to manipulate people who are afraid of you.

Astra,
Notes From a Life.

Most of the team had crowded into the Common Room, and not around the game-room side. Someone had turned on the big-screen TV to Chicago Nightly News. “After the events of the last two days, questions are being asked,” Carl
Schumberg
reported as they showed clips of Dr.
Millibrand’s
burning house and the blown-up dealership. Someone had gotten hold of the car-place’s security tapes, and had spliced together a deceptive sequence of the robot and dragon attack; watching it, you really couldn’t tell that the murder had happened separately.

The commentators made it sound like the missing Dr.
Millibrand
was another victim, and made no mention that Mr.
Gerrold
was anything but a random victim too. After interviewing several bystanders—who had nothing to add besides
stuff blew up and we were scared
—Carl opened a split-screen dialogue with Mal
Shankman
.

“It’s what I’ve been saying all along,”
Shankman
pontificated. “Our
superheroes
are out of control, they think they can throw down anywhere, go to town without any regard for who gets hurt, who loses their homes or livelihood! They’ve got to be made to understand that their actions have consequences!”

“But the CAI teams work closely with the city police and emergency services, Mr.
Shankman
—”

“They hide behind the law! And the police, whose job is to protect us, don’t know who half of them are! What have they got to hide? And look who we hold up as paragons! Men and women who hide behind masks, who don’t think moral decency applies do them. Look at Burnout! Look at Atlas!”

“But—”

And so it went,
Shankman
ranting right over Carl.
Quin
finally turned the sound off, giving us blessed silence.

“Well, he’s a piece of work,” Seven said mildly.

Quin
grimaced. “News conference tomorrow, and our own website is putting up what details we can release to the public, but
Shankman’s
getting most of the sound-bites because of his election campaign.”

“So how do we fight back?” Rush asked.

“We don’t,” Lei
Zi
said. “The public record is clear—people just aren’t in the mood to pay attention to it. Meanwhile, you
don’t
talk to the press. Al and
Quin
are on that; we just need to do our job to our usual professional standard.”

Blackstone seconded her. “When the Ring attacked Whittier Base, many people blamed the US government’s international policies. Now we’ve got the beginnings of a
supervillain
war, and if there’s collateral damage then people will be blaming us for not being able to stop it before it started, or simply for being the target. But we will
finish
this, and eventually most people will cool down and start thinking again.”

“And meanwhile that
ojete
rides us into office,” Riptide snarled.

Seven shrugged. “Politics.” I wished I could be as uncaring. A final scene showed the crowd of regular protestors shouting for the Domestic Security Act; already someone had pasted Mr.
Gerrold’s
face on some of waving placards, with
How many more?
printed below it. They looked professionally done. At least his widow hadn’t been one of the interviewees. Not yet at least. Oh God, did she know what he’d been doing, what he was? I hadn’t thought about his family at all, and I guiltily resolved to ask Fisher if they could give her a
good
story.

Our circle broke up. Seven and Riptide going back to their pool game, but Artemis caught my eye and we headed for the dining room. She wanted some face time so she could razz me over my new costume, plus Willis had promised her an omelet worth killing for and she insisted on sharing it before I went out on dusk-patrol.

With Shelly around, nobody needs an alarm clock. She woke me singing “
I am the very model of a quantum-set intelligence! I‘ve information personal—
oh, you’re awake!”

I threw
Superpooh
through her. “I’m so going to kick your quantum-ass!”

She stuck out her tongue. “Like you can. This isn’t a good time, but Dane just texted you.”

“What? Why?”

“He wants to meet up. Lots of SOS’s.”

I wanted to scream. And how was I supposed to do
that
, at Def-1? Then I laughed. “Text back. Say ‘Meet at noon, Sentinels’ Museum.’”

“But—”

“He deserves to
know
, Shell. Everybody else seems to. So, why the wakeup call?”

Her grin got wider. “Fisher’s clean. I’ve run his accounts six ways from Sunday, strip-mined his
epad
, broken down every case file, the man is clean
clean
sparkly
clean
. Fact, he hardly spends a dime except on smokes and whiskey, and has built up so much paid leave time his union hates him. Nothing has any connection to his casework—he has the most amazing closing record, it’s like he pulls leads out of his butt.”

I felt a million pounds lighter; I’d
hated
suspecting Fisher. Whatever his secret, I had no urge to mess things up for our favorite chain-smoking gumshoe by telling the CPD one of their senior detectives wasn’t what he seemed. Besides, they might already know.

I stretched. Even last night’s dream didn’t bring me down, since I’d woken up with a semi-solution.

“Shell? Do you think you could dive back into the Future Files today?”

“Sure.” She dropped to the bed beside me. “What never-going-to-happen-now stuff do you want to know about?”

“I’m not sure.” I groped to put words on my thought. “Artemis says we’re fighting with an ‘intelligence disadvantage.’ Villains Inc knows all about us—after all we have our own website—but we don’t know anything about them. Well, we know about two, but how many are there? Who are they? What can they do? What
might
they do?”

In my dream I’d been wandering through the darkened Dome, alone and threatened by shadowed figures I didn’t recognize. They’d posed and leered, but I’d been afraid to attack, not knowing what they could do.

“None of this ever happened before,” Shell said doubtfully. “Or at least it didn’t become part of the public record.”

“I know. I guess what I mean is, can’t you put together a list of
likely
supervillains
? Including bad guys who just haven’t shown up
yet
but might be around now? If Villains Inc. stayed secret ‘before,’ maybe they would have shown up on their own in the future?”

“Oh! Blackstone and Artemis are already working on a hypothetical rogue’s gallery, assigning probabilities that the Wicked Witch has recruited them like she did Tin Man.” She laughed. “Think we’ll meet the Cowardly Lion next? I can add a list of bad guys who
might
be operating now and we just don’t know it, if that’s what you want.”

Since the Teatime Anarchist had left the Future Files to me, she needed my okay to release any information in them. I put on Mom’s serious, Foundation Boardroom Face. “Make it so,” I said. Then I shrieked as she started tickling. Tickle-fights, where your opponent is as solid as a dream, are one-sided and completely unfair.

Unable to go to class, I called around and got the lectures copied and emailed so I could listen to them later, and tried to distract myself with study. It didn’t work, and I finally took an unscheduled morning patrol. Southern winds still warmed the city, and Dispatch had instructions to only call me in for major incidents until we canceled the Def-1, so I enjoyed a quiet flight. I took a break atop the Sears Tower to enjoy the sun and dangle my feet over Whacker Drive.

I couldn’t help remembering what Atlas—John—had called it.
Showing the flag.
Letting people know we were up here, ready to help them, that they didn’t have to be afraid of us. Breakthrough-made
godzillas
. City-shattering earthquakes. Car-flattening iron dragons.
How afraid will people get?

I landed at the Dome’s portico doors, waving back at the applause, cheers, boos, and cat-calls. “Ma’am,” one of the two patrolman on duty said, touching his cap.

The park police had cordoned off a stretch of ground to the right of the Dome’s main doors so the permanent protestors didn’t block the pedestrian avenues. For our part, we’d let the CPD put two officers outside in the Dome’s portico. The current Superintendent of Police wasn’t exactly our friend, but the Dome and the Memorial were city landmarks and tourist attractions, so the mayor made sure things stayed friendly on our front porch.

“Morning, Gabe.” I gave the officer a smile. “Are the concerned citizens restless?”

“No ma’am. Well, we’ve been issuing warnings, but it’s mostly because of tourists here for the museum and memorial. Couple hours ago a pair of Wisconsin
cheeseheads
nearly threw down with some of the mouthier ones. Didn’t like the language they were using, if we hadn’t stepped in, they’d have had the whole pack on them.”