After the Golden Age

TWENTY-EIGHT

ON the elevator ride down, she thought about calling Arthur’s cell and leaving a message. Then realized he must already know what she was thinking, what she had planned, even across the city. The thought was both ominous and comforting. There was a time when all she wanted to was to be alone. But if she got in trouble, Arthur would know.

Michael was on-call, but not in the valet office when she reached the basement parking garage. She wasn’t about to ask him for a ride anyway.

The key card her father had given her worked on the West Corp valet office, where the keys to the fleet cars were kept. Not that she’d driven at all since Michael taught her how when she was sixteen. Assuming she found an inconspicuous car, and assuming she could drive it, and assuming she didn’t get pulled over by hyper police—

She found a dark blue sedan, automatic transmission, and matched the license plate to the keychain. Settling into the driver’s seat, she reacquainted herself with the controls and dials. She could do this, she could do this. Key in ignition, turn, shift gears, press gas pedal.

The engine revved, but the car didn’t move.

Then she remembered to release the parking brake.

So slowly the speedometer barely registered, she pulled out of the parking space and up the ramp leading to street level. Once on the street, she pressed the gas a little harder—if she drove five miles an hour the whole way, she’d take all day to get there. She sat leaning forward, her back rigid and away from the seat, clinging to the steering wheel and peering fervently through the windshield.

Fortunately, with the city blowing up around them, not too many other people were on the road. She had little traffic to contend with, and the cops were all in areas of the city where bombs had gone off.

Carefully, she drove northeast.

The warehouse district was an area of wide streets and cavernous buildings. This was a whole other city, the opposite of the one she looked down on from her parents’ living room. Here, she was an ant staring up at concrete walls that went on in all directions. She was trapped at the bottom of a canyon.

Slowing down, she looked for street signs, made out address placards bolted to the sides of buildings—some of them rusted and illegible. She found the right street and was afraid she’d spend the afternoon driving back and forth along its length, looking for the right building.

She shouldn’t have worried.

A shroud of smoke covered the city, along with a smell like a furnace, making the sky like dusk, dark enough that she could see her destination lit up like a storm cloud. Crackling electrical lights glowed through clerestory windows like faint bursts of lightning. Something was happening inside a building that was supposed to be abandoned and crumbling to ruin. That had to be the place.

It had taken her too long to get here. Mark would be here any minute. She couldn’t let him face down his father. No one should have to do that, no matter how great they were or how great their father was. She drove around the block and when she didn’t see his car, she parked, got out, and waited on the corner.

Twenty minutes later, twenty minutes of pacing the sidewalk and wondering about the crackling electric hisses that occasionally whispered from the warehouse, and wondering if maybe she shouldn’t be standing in plain sight, Celia began to think she’d been too late after all. Mark had been smart enough to not park right in front of the building and hid his car on one of the side streets.

Maybe he’d already gone inside.

Maybe she should try to talk to Paulson herself. And say what? You’re a jerk, just like your father?

Actually, that had its appeal.

She could just sneak in and take a look. If she saw Mark in there, if he was in trouble, she’d call Arthur, the police, and Analise at Olympiad HQ and get help. If they weren’t too busy keeping the city from burning down.

Celia approached the front door. Glancing nervously at the windows high on the warehouse walls, she hoped no one was watching. They looked too frosted to see out of.

What she took to be the front doors, double steel slabs that swung open, had chains looped through the handles, secured with a padlock. Just what she’d expect to find on a shut-up building. She walked around. In the back she found a loading dock, and a sliding steel door that was not only unlocked, but open a crack. She climbed up on the ledge and squeezed through.

She entered a dark receiving area, a block of bare concrete, cold and musty, with an air of abandonment. Continuing through it, she stepped softly, aware of the numbers and depth of the shadows, and how much danger might be waiting for her.

She reached the door in the back of the warehouse area. Standard size, simple knob, unlocked. It led to a hallway. She passed a few doorways with frosted windows showing dark interiors. Ahead, though, a light with a bluish tinge showed. Voices murmured. Mark, was Mark in there?

The rectangle of light before her beckoned. Pressing close to the wall, she crept forward until she reached the frame, where she could peer into the main room.

This was it. This was the lab where Sito performed his great experiment, where the accident happened, where a dose of radiation bathed a dozen technicians and instigated mutations that no one had expected or understood.

And now, Anthony Paulson was trying to re-create it.

She looked into the cavernous heart of the building. The ceiling reached up three stories, and the tile floor stretched fifty yards across. Most of the space was empty. All activity congregated in the middle, in an area that could have fit in any of the rooms she’d passed. She expected dust, the stale smell of air that had been locked behind walls. But the air was fresh—the hum of fans and filters edged the background noise. Floodlights blazed down on a clean room, spotless lab benches, cabinets, tables, monitoring equipment. In the center of it all stood a device mounted on a wheeled pedestal. A hundred wires looped from point to point, from a box underneath that might have been a battery or a power relay, to bolts protruding from steel rings looped around a cylinder that made up its bulk. The thing looked like a cannon, tapered at one end, where a series of glass or crystal nodes reached out, aimable and threatening. Toward the back, coils of copper wire glowed, like the interior of a toaster grown too hot.

A half-dozen people worked, some of them studying equipment, making adjustments and scribbling observations onto clipboards. Another half-dozen, burly men wearing dark clothing and brooding expressions, stood at the periphery, armed with machine guns. She recognized Paulson’s ubiquitous aides and bodyguards among them. More pardoned convicts? Loyal henchmen?

She found nothing unexpected here. Nothing particularly impressive. Nothing she hadn’t seen before. Like father like son. This might as well have been the Destructor’s Psychostasis room.

Or this might have been a scene from fifty years ago. She could almost see it, in the black and white of newsreel footage. Her imperious, bearded grandfather standing to the side, cane in hand, observing; a young Simon Sito bustling around the equipment, perhaps rubbing his hands together in anticipation; and a dozen scientists and techs, innocent, just doing their jobs—George Denton, Anna Riley, Emily Newman, Janet Travers. Young faces from personnel files, come to life in Celia’s imagination. History changed here, and none of them ever knew it.

She didn’t see Mark.

“Ah, at last. Ms. West, I’ve been expecting you.” His voice echoed, a rich tenor used to giving speeches to filled auditoriums. Anthony Paulson emerged from behind a bank of computer servers and strolled toward Celia. The sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up, the collar undone, tie missing. A couple of the lab people glanced up, frowning.

Celia blinked, stunned, a deer staring down the barrel of a hunter’s rifle. She’d been quiet, she’d stayed hidden, she hadn’t made a sound—Paulson must have been watching the door. He’d left that loading dock door open just for her, and made sure she found her way down exactly that hallway.

She turned to run. Behind her, two gunmen stepped out of formerly shut rooms, barring her escape. They moved toward her, threatening with their weapons, herding her through the door and into the warehouse, into the glaring lights.

Flanked by her captors, she approached Paulson.

Mark told him he’d called her. Mark told him she was coming, that was the only way he could have known to look for her. Still, she said, cautiously, “How?” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Paulson raised his hand, showing her the mini digital player he held. He touched a button, and Mark’s voice played back at her:

“Celia? It’s Mark. I don’t know who else to go to. You’re in the middle of this as much as I am. You seem to know more about it than I do … This is all a distraction, isn’t it? Like the kidnapping plots…”

Goddamn it! She fell for that stupid, idiotic trick again. She stamped her foot and growled, rolling her eyes to the ceiling and mentally beating herself up.

Paulson said, “I’ve been recording Mark’s phone calls for some time now. He made this one to Chief Appleton an hour or so ago. I had my people doctor it up a little for you. Fortunately—for me—the good chief has his hands full with other business right now and can’t spare anyone to send over here.”

Celia shut down her emotions and recalled the bitter teenager who would have sought out this situation. People like Paulson, like Sito, expected people like her to be cowed by their power and intelligence. They expected that a bright-eyed young woman would want everything they had to give—or that she could be frightened into putting herself in their control.

They expected her to care.

That was the trick: be blasé enough that nothing they did affected her. She crossed her arms, turned her back to the gunmen, and faced Paulson. She locked a careless smirk on her face and raised an eyebrow. She watched him like this was all some silly joke. Stayed quiet, because she couldn’t think of anything witty to say.

She kept herself from looking at the gunmen. They weren’t going to kill her. Paulson needed her or he’d have had her killed already. One of them reached for her shoulder. She sensed him approach, timed it, and stepped forward before he could touch her. Heart racing, stomach knotting, she walked toward the lab area and the machinery.

“What are you going to do with me?” She wanted to laugh. Almost, she let herself laugh.

“Nothing special,” Paulson said. “Human shield. Keep your parents out of my way.”

The usual reason, which meant he wasn’t any different than the others. She was only ever a tool to them. Which was a good thing—no one ever expected a tool to fight back.

“Huh,” she said, like she thought this was an interesting but irrelevant conversation, and turned her attention to the tower of glass, wires, and steel. “So this is it? Sito’s machine?” she said, gazing at the device as if it were a piece of incomprehensible art in a museum. “You know what it does, right?”

Paulson said, “Do you know what it does? Exactly how much do you know?”

“I have a guess. Did you have to rebuild it, or was it intact?”

“It had been stored—wrapped in plastic and shoved in a closet. The place hadn’t been touched. It’s like someone expected to come back to it.”

But no one ever had. Sito’s depression and madness consumed him, the other techs had signed nondisclosure agreements. Had her grandfather saved the lab? Had he suspected how the device had worked?

“Hmm,” she murmured, by way of polite observation.

“Ms. West, I’m curious. What do you think this does?” He watched her, gaze sharp, smile amused. His intensity burned; she felt like a mouse to his cat.

Calm, stay calm. “You know, I could make the argument that all this really belongs to me, as Jacob West’s direct descendant.”

“I heard that your father disinherited you. Or that you disinherited yourself.”

She gave a noncommittal shrug. “People hear lots of things.”

“Be that as it may, I claim salvage rights on behalf of the city.”

“You’re not doing this for the city.”

“Oh? Really?”

She tested her range, strolling a couple more steps toward the machine, moving partway around it, looking it up and down, purely out of curiosity. The gunmen didn’t move to stop her. All three men watched her closely, but she might as well have been a bug in a jar for their lack of apparent concern.

No one was afraid of her; she didn’t have any powers. But she wouldn’t flinch. That was her talent. That, and recognizing people under their masks.

“No one ever does anything like this except for themselves.” She offered him a sad smile, full of condescension.

“You sound so sure.”

“You’ve killed people to get what you want. The good guys don’t do that.” She made it an observation of fact, not a judgment call. Like she didn’t care that he’d killed.

“Weber, hand me that folder. Yes, that’s the one.”

One of the people in a lab coat brought Paulson a thick file from the top of a filing cabinet. The brown pressboard folder looked familiar; Celia had been looking through similar folders all week. The texture of files from that era was distinct.

Paulson passed the folder to her. “Take a look at this.”

She opened the file, balancing the spine in her left hand. Stacks of pages were fastened to both sides. She flipped through, taking in random lines and data. Charts, graphs, diagrams, rows of jagged lines labeled with numbers, black-and white-photographs.

The top page of text read, “Use of Directed Radiation to Induce Neurophysiological Responses, with the Intent of Encouraging Specified Emotional Traits in Human Subjects.”

The early West Corp logo, before the last couple of redesigns—the crescent moon as the arc of a bow and an arrow tipped with a star preparing to launch—was printed on the bottom of the page.

West Corp didn’t have a medical research division. At least, it didn’t now.

“This is the original lab report,” Celia said. “I found the financial statements, but not the research notes.”

“Because I found them here months ago. One of my aides uncovered this place during a survey of the area. This is what I put the highway plan on hold for. Go on, keep reading.”

Sito, a psychologist with an interest in how the physical structures of the brain contributed to the development of personality and psyche, had been experimenting with methods of altering the brain physically to treat mental illness, as an alternative to medication or shock therapies. Other potential applications had presented themselves.

In a memo to Jacob West in which he urged secrecy, Simon Sito outlined the potential applications of his procedure. Some of the most promising involved nonlethal crowd control: draining aggression from people at the touch of a button, or pacifying prison populations to prevent riots. The process could curb the sociopathic tendencies of habitual criminals.

Initially, Sito planned on concentrating his efforts on one emotion, one simple but particularly useful personality trait: loyalty. With a press of a button and a dose of mild radiation, the test subject would become instantly loyal to the chosen ideal or person. Convicted criminals could finally be made into useful citizens. And more—the military and police forces would have nothing but intensely loyal soldiers and officers in their ranks. No more treason, no more bad cops.

Sito had identified the characteristic that he believed held society together, and he wanted to learn to manipulate it. This was the same technique he would later use to develop the Psychostasis device, which used radiation to erase his victims’ basic sense of self and individuality. Like the rest of his psyche, he’d gone from wanting to alter—to improve—to wanting to destroy.

“I don’t understand,” she said, not because she didn’t, but because she didn’t believe it. She didn’t believe she could possibly understand what she was reading. The conclusion refused to allow comprehension.

The superhuman mutation was a side effect. Completely unintentional and unobserved by everyone involved in the experiment. It was crazy. But it wasn’t. It was all right here. She couldn’t let her shock show. She had to be vaguely interested. Not appalled.

Paulson said, “If it had worked, West Corp would have had a monopoly on the human spirit. Too bad for you it didn’t. Your father might have been the mayor now.”

Now that was an appalling thought. But he was missing something. He didn’t know about the superhuman connection.

“You know there was an accident, right? You may have the lab report, but I’ve seen the accounting files. The employees were paid off.” The lab file didn’t have anything about the accident, as if no one had thought to update the information after that. The report was frozen in time.

“Nothing happened,” Paulson said. “The device released a benign dose of undirected radiation. It had no effect.”

So she did have something to hold over him. She had a lot of cards, in fact. Play them one at a time. Let him think she was giving him something.

“Would you like to hear some of the names of people who worked here at that time? The people who were present during the accident? Jacob West, father of Warren West, also known as Captain Olympus. Anna Riley, who went on to have a daughter, Suzanne, who became Spark. George Denton, father of Robbie Denton, the Bullet. Emily Newman was the mother of Arthur Mentis. I’m not through tracking everyone down. But I think you get the idea.”

She let him consider that. The look of wonder growing on his face was rewarding.

“Really?” he exclaimed finally. “Sito accidentally created the superhumans? That’s kind of ironic, isn’t it? It almost makes me wish we hadn’t fixed the thing. Oh well.”

He didn’t want superhumans. He wanted a troop of undyingly loyal supporters. He didn’t want anyone stronger than he was getting in the way. That was why he’d worked so hard keeping the Olympiad busy, wearing them down, distracting them from the real danger.

She stopped her slow pacing around the machine and looked at Paulson across the radiation emitter.

“Have you considered something?” he said. “The device must have worked partially, even when it malfunctioned. Why do you think the superhumans have all become crime fighters and not circus freaks? Something inside them drives them to it. They’re loyal to this city over everything else in their lives. You know that better than anyone.”

She’d asked Arthur if people were born or made. Maybe they were both. She could be forgiven for feeling that her entire life had brought her with purpose to this point.

But the process wasn’t perfect. Janet Travers should have passed along the mutation to Anthony Paulson—and she had, Celia supposed. The man had become mayor, after all. But he’d inherited Sito’s megalomania as well. For every person Paulson successfully converted, how many would he push into insanity? Did he, in the end, think he was doing this for the good of the city? Then again, maybe the loyalty experiment had been passed on untainted to Janet’s grandson, Mark, the dedicated cop.

And what of Jacob West’s granddaughter, who had spent half her life standing on the cusp between success and disaster?

In a low voice she said, “You think you can make the experiment work.”

“I have.”

He had a room full of loyal scientists and bodyguards here to prove it. And more—

“You tested this on Andrea.” Instead of a sullen woman who’d grown tired of politics, he now had the eternal publicity photo standing by his side.

He just smiled.

Nothing frightened her anymore. She had to remind herself of that. Otherwise, her hand would shake. She closed the file and set it on a nearby table. One of Paulson’s technicians glared at her and shoved it away from where he’d been working.

“Great. Now what?”

“Ah. This is where I make an unlikely speech revealing all my plans, thereby giving you a chance to thwart me. That doesn’t happen in the real world.”

“Who says I’m trying to thwart you? You know my history. Maybe you’ve shown me where the cards are falling. Maybe I want to ask you for a job.”

“I’m curious, what exactly do you think you can offer me and my operation? What did you bring to the Destructor’s operation when you joined him?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Figures. Too bad I’m not in need of a staff accountant.”

The evil masterminds never were, more’s the pity. Accountants knew when to shred the documents.

“Then what can I do for you, Mr. Paulson?”

“Sit quietly in the corner like a good little hostage.” He smiled.

At some unseen cue, the two henchmen took a step toward her, preparing to herd her off again. As soon as they moved, she jumped.

“Don’t shoot, you’ll hit the machine!”

They’d raised their weapons; Paulson had stopped them. At least something had played out in her favor.

She jumped onto the lab table. If she’d thought about it, she wouldn’t have done it. It was too far, too crazy. But she didn’t think. She jumped again—toward the radiation emitter.

She only had to knock some of the cables off, or break the glass focal points, assuming they were breakable, or throw it out of alignment. Mysterious devices always had alignments they could be thrown out of. Her heart was beating too hard, her blood rushing too fast for her to worry about what would happen to her after she crashed into the thing.

She landed awkwardly, scrabbling at narrow handholds, kicking to keep her balance. For all its bulk, the machine was delicate, spindly almost, balanced on a single-wheeled column. The column spun, the whole thing rolled, and cables came unplugged in her hands, emitting sparks and crackles. Lab workers scattered, and Celia managed to slide to the floor, stumbling but keeping her feet and clutching the machine for balance. It gave a few more sickly sputters for good measure. Static prickled along her arms. She let go, brushing her hands and wincing.

That would delay the plan. Probably even long enough for those with experience in battling evil masterminds to get here.

She assumed the Olympiad would show up. They always did, somehow.

Please, Arthur. Get here quick. God only knew if he’d pick up on her thought. Could he hear her across the city? Only if he was listening? Or would her thoughts pull at him like a fish hook? After they’d slept together, did her thoughts feel any different to him?

The two henchmen tackled her. She went limp and let them, offered no resistance, gave them no reason to start pounding her with the butts of their weapons. Or start shooting. They each took a shoulder and shoved her to the floor, facedown, then pried her arms back. It felt like they used duct tape to bind her wrists together. When they’d finished, they hoisted her to her feet.

“You do have a death wish,” the mayor observed. “You weren’t lying when you testified at Sito’s trial.”

Nobody trusted her. Not even the bad guys. She didn’t glare. She wasn’t even angry. She’d accomplished something: She’d learned what Paulson was planning, and she’d delayed him. Apart from that, let him think she was crazy. That was easy enough for most people to do.

She gave him a great, smug grin, like she didn’t care, like she thought he was an ass. And on one level she didn’t care, because this wasn’t about her. It had never been about her. When she was seventeen and thought everything should have been about her, that was when she grew angry. But now, she knew better. Commerce City ran on the blood of all its people.

His frown grew deeper, emphasizing the lines of his face, making his cheekbones hollower, and for a moment she saw in him his father, Simon Sito. She saw a bitter old man bent on chaos. Paulson’s rhetoric about the greater good aside, whatever he did would result in chaos. And she’d stopped him.

“Put her over there.” He pointed to a chair, out of the way by a bank of computers. The henchmen pulled her off her feet, dragged her over, and slammed her into it, jamming her bound arms behind the back. Her shoulders ached. Paulson regarded her with a sense of smug triumph. “Good thing I have an updated model.”

He shoved the now-broken model—a mere prototype?—out of the way.

“This is the wide area broadcast version.” He pointed up, to the end of the warehouse, where a similar device but newer looking—sleek, modern—was mounted on a platform, suspended from the roof. Instead of the focusing materials on the narrow end, however, it had a parabolic dish that would beam out radiation to as great an area as possible.

One of the lab people pulled a large knife switch on the wall. A panel in the roof slid open and, with a mechanical whine, the platform rose. Cables trailed from it, along the ceiling, secured to the wall, and leading finally to the computer banks.

He wasn’t going to use the machine on his underlings, or his political opponents, or the prisons. That wasn’t his plan.

“You’re going to use it on everyone. The whole city.”

“Think of it: every citizen working for the common good. Everybody feeling a deep emotional connection to every other citizen. There’d be no more crime, no more selfishness—”

The communist ideal obtained through the wonders of modern technology.

“What about free will?”

“What about it? What has free will done for you in your life, except brought you trouble and heartache? Commerce City doesn’t need free will, it needs direction.”

“Your direction,” she said.

“Of course. Who else has the vision to lead this city? Your grandfather might have had it, once. But your father surely doesn’t.”

The place, the situation he described, was no longer Commerce City. Celia could act like she didn’t care—that holdover from her teenage personality filled her so easily. Maybe she hadn’t changed so much after all. But in the end, she did care about at least one thing. There was a reason she’d never moved away.

“You just did it, you know,” she said.

“Did what?”

“Told me your plan.”

“So what? You’re tied up.”

Celia couldn’t pretend not to be appalled. She had run out of tricks, and she’d run out of attitude. “My parents will stop you. The Olympiad will stop you.”

“Oh, they will? Because they always stop the villain? They may try, and they might even believe they’re doing the right thing. But they’ll have to realize that I’m the one working for the greater good here. And they’ll have to get through you to get to me.”

“That’s never worked for anyone else.”

“I’m not anyone else, am I?”

She wriggled her hands, strained her arms, but the tape held tight, pinching her skin in the process. This was wrong, all wrong, like some kind of tabloid headline gone astray. The son of the Destructor and the daughter of Captain Olympus—but Paulson didn’t know. She had to assume that the mayor had never learned who his father was. He was as wrapped up in the history of this experiment as she was.

She shook her head. “You’re just like everyone else. I’ve heard this all before. I’ve seen it all before. No one who’s ever tried to destroy Commerce City like this has ever succeeded.”

“I’m not trying to destroy the city—”

“But you might succeed anyway. Your father would be so proud. He was always trying the direct approach.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your biological mother was a technician in this lab fifty years ago. She was present when the accident happened. Your father, Simon Sito, was also present. It begs the question: What mutation did their genes pass on to you?”

He laughed nervously. “I think you’ve just crossed the line into madness.”

“I looked up the adoption records.”

He stopped his pacing, his gloating over his accomplishment, and stared at her. She might have played the card too early. Distracted him at the wrong moment. But she had to buy time. She had to trust that someone would come get her. Her lack of fear, all the times she’d been in situations like this and been able to hide her fear—it hadn’t been out of indifference, or boredom.

She’d always believed her family would rescue her.

Nothing to do but keep on. “Haven’t you ever wondered about your real parents? Haven’t you ever wanted to find the records? You’re the mayor, you could have seen the files whenever you wanted.” When he didn’t reply, she kept on. “You’re like me. You inherited the mutation from both sides of the family. But what did it do to you? You have to ask yourself that now, don’t you? What has the mutation done to Mark?”

He went to the table, found the roll of duct tape, and cut off a piece. Returning to her, he slapped it over her mouth. Didn’t bother securing it all the way. It didn’t matter—she couldn’t open her mouth at all.

She couldn’t gasp through her nose; she tried catch her breath and to stay calm. Maybe she could scoot the chair over to the electrical outlet and pull the cord out with her feet.

Her cell phone rang. It was still in her front pocket. She hadn’t turned it off. She’d done stupider things in her life, she supposed.

Everyone in the room—except Paulson—checked pockets and belts. Paulson looked at her, then came over. Checked her out, found the pocket. Moving to stand behind the chair, he reached forward, almost embracing her, and worked his hand into that pocket. He didn’t bother trying to be quick about it, or gentle. He moved slowly, searching, kneading along her hip. If her phone hadn’t been in the way, he’d have done more, reaching as far as the pocket would allow. Her skin crawled. She looked over her shoulder at him. Glared, trying to catch his gaze. The bastard was groping her and wouldn’t even look her in the eye.

He finally pulled out the phone, with enough time to answer before the ringing stopped.

“Hello? Who is this? Mark, hi! This is your father. Yes, she’s here, but she’s a little tied up at the moment.”

Why did people think that was funny?

Celia wished she could hear Mark’s reply. He wasn’t shouting, which was probably good. Was he here? Outside the building? Had he found the car, traced it to West Corp, and guessed it was hers?

Paulson continued his side of the conversation. “No, I haven’t hurt her, except maybe her pride. Hopefully the situation will stay that way—”

He lowered the phone, regarded it thoughtfully for a moment, then clicked it off and tossed it on a nearby table. “Oh well. Weber, how close are we?”

“I’m still not sure we can draw enough power—”

“You’ve been working on that problem for weeks.”

“Yes, I know sir, and I swear we’ve done everything we can—”

“It’ll have to be enough, won’t it? We’ll probably have some unwelcome visitors shortly. We have to do this now.”

Now. Now the Olympiad would crash through the doors, flames bursting and a wind buffeting in their wake. Her mother would come to her first, rip off the duct tape, and start crying.

The mechanical grinding of a generator motor started. The computers whined, ramping to a higher level of activity. The floodlights overhead flickered and dimmed.

Above them, the device started a low, electrical throbbing. It threw off a shower of sparks. This sent the technicians into something of a frenzy, running to monitors and checking cables.

“Weber?” Paulson asked.

“Systems nominal, sir.”

The device sat just below the roofline, visible over the lip of the platform. The parabolic dish, the emitter, protruded above the roof at an angle, westward, toward the center of Commerce City.

Paulson watched her staring at it. “The dish will emit a pulse of low-grade radiation. Not harmful in any way. But it’s designed to leave people disoriented, open to suggestion. Ready to be led. Ready to be loyal. Then, as the dutiful mayor, I’ll step forward and offer my guidance.”

His voice had to compete with an increasing volume of noise. The generator was screaming now. The device crackled, and more sparks arced away from it. Some of its cables glowed white.

One of the computers in the work area caught fire. A henchman rushed forward brandishing an extinguisher. The odor of chemicals and burning plastic became overwhelming.

“What’s happening, Weber?” Paulson said.

“A circuit breaker’s malfunctioned. We can’t regulate the flow of power.”

“But the device will still work?”

“Yes. I mean, I think so. It may work a little too well—”

Celia wasn’t strapped directly to the chair. Theoretically, she could get up and … throw herself at something. Kick a computer or knock Paulson over, maybe. Before somebody shot her.

“Weber!” Paulson had stormed forward to grab the scientist by the collar of his lab coat. He hauled Weber around and held him so they were face-to-face. Weber was pale, bloodless, just a shade lighter than his coat. His eyes were wide and shocked. The man was trembling in Paulson’s grip. “What’s happening, Weber?”

“It’s out of control! We were having trouble finding enough power, but I think we overcompensated, reducing the resistance in the fuses … it’s caused an overload, but the device is still online, it’s still—”

“What are you saying? Will it work? That’s all I care about.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, we’re using the circuit breakers from the original equipment—fifty-year-old equipment—and they can’t handle this kind of power. The surge has overwhelmed them all. The emitter still works, but the power flowing into it is completely unregulated. The radiation burst will be equivalent to that produced by a hydrogen bomb.”

“The radiation. Not the explosion?”

“Yes, nothing will be destroyed, but the people—”

A hydrogen bomb going off in the middle of the city. Millions affected. Radiation poisoning would burn them all. He’d stop it, the mayor would stop it, now that he knew it wouldn’t work. Celia worked her mouth, trying to loosen the duct tape so she could shout at him. Her fingers were tingling; she’d cut off circulation in her hands in her struggles.

“Can we stop it?” Paulson asked.

Weber shook his head. “Not in time. The building’s circuit breakers are shot, we’d have to get the power company to shut down the entire grid in this area. The emitter’s cycle has already started. It’ll launch the radiation burst in minutes!”

At the roof, the device hummed, like a continuous spark of static. Many of its parts were glowing now, including the parabolic dish. It was spliced directly into the building’s electrical wiring. There wasn’t a cord to unplug.

Paulson stared at it a moment. At this stage, the criminal masterminds, the ones like Sito, would rant about their imminent failure, scream about how close they’d come, carry on about the general unfairness of the universe, then they’d escape through whatever back door they’d made for themselves. Had Paulson built himself a back door?

He said, “We’ll have to get underground. That should protect us, shouldn’t it?”

“Yes, yes,” Weber said. “But the city—”

“The city will need a steady hand at the helm after a disaster of this magnitude. I’ll have to make sure it has one, won’t I?” He raised his hand and signaled to the rest of his technicians and henchmen. They gathered and followed Paulson as he marched out of the room, to the corridor that led to the loading dock. Presumably the building had a basement. Presumably it would protect them from the blast.

No one even looked at her as they left.

She threw herself sideways, tipping herself and the chair over. Kicking the chair away, she extricated her arms from around the back. Partially free. With a bit of contorting, she tucked her legs up and pulled her arms under them, so her hands were now bound in front. She ripped the duct tape off her mouth and took several deep, heaving breaths. She could breathe again. She’d thought she was going to faint.

Lying on her back, she stared up at the roof, at Paulson’s doomsday device. The thing glowed white-hot, searing her eyes as the rest of the room’s lights flickered. No cord to unplug, no way to shut down the power. No way to get up there and break it. No way to throw herself on that grenade. She couldn’t fly, she couldn’t send a lightning bolt to destroy it.

Maybe she could audit it to death.

Then again maybe, just maybe, she could limit the danger. Contain it. Save something. Hope Mark put the pieces together and brought his father to justice. What a mess. And how terrible that she had time to think about it. To consider. To decide.

Her life had brought her to this moment. She had practiced for it. She didn’t hesitate.

Hands still bound, tucked to her chest, she ran to the knife switch that controlled the platform. With her luck, the power to it would be fried, sucked into the radiation emitter. Maybe it was on a different circuit.

How much time did she have? Minutes, seconds—

Holding her breath, forgetting to inhale, she reached the wall, crashing into it because she hadn’t thought to slow down—it would take too long, slowing down. She grabbed the switch with both hands, got under it, shoved it up.

Another spark flashed, a hiss like the circuit was failing—then gears creaked. The platform mechanism groaned to life. Slowly, the device sank below the roof, and the steel roof panel slid closed. The device, now enclosed inside the metal and concrete warehouse, glowed like a sun.

Next, she went to the computers. She’d fight it; right to the last moment when she didn’t have any time left, she’d try to stop it. Because if the radiation could penetrate walls, she hadn’t saved anything. At random, she toggled switches, hit keys, pulled cords.

The emitter’s noise changed, the whine rising in pitch. The light faded to orange—the color of something overheating, not the color of deadly energy. A shower of sparks flew, raining down on her like burning snow.

She laughed. She didn’t know if what she’d done would help anything. But she’d done something. Maybe it had helped. She’d tried, and that had to count for something. So she laughed, because the weight of something she couldn’t quite identify lifted from her. Elation made her lighter than air.

This was what her parents felt every time they saved the city, every time they battled evil and won. It was a high, addictive, they couldn’t stop. Something like that thrill she got when she found a lost piece of data, but so much more. Infinitely greater. As big as the world. Superhuman.

“Celia!”

Captain Olympus stood in the doorway that led to the loading dock. His fists were clenched, arms bent in his fighting pose.

“Dad!”

He ran to her. He wasn’t fast, not like the Bullet. He seemed to take forever to cross the distance. She wanted to meet him halfway, but her legs had turned to butter. She was melting in place. The room was getting hotter.

Then, he was right in front of her. He ripped the tape off her hands, gripped her shoulders, so full of intensity she could barely look at him.

“We have to get out of here, the thing’s going to blow up, Paulson said it’s radiation, going to kill everyone. I tried to stop it—”

“Shh, Celia, it’s okay, you did okay.”

The ambient noise shaking the room—electrical, mechanical, vibrational, pervasive—increased in pitch again, sliding upward in anticipation.

There wasn’t time to do anything.

“Get down!” Her father pulled her to the floor, hunched over her, gripped her in a rib-crushing embrace. She curled up like a little child, fetal, as small as she could make herself, huddled in the shelter of his body.

A boom rocked the building, the steel girders, sheet metal, and concrete. The pulse lasted only a second, but the vibrations continued. The trembling of the floor traveled to the marrow of her bones. The sound, like an electric shock, but larger, slower, lingered in her ears. Her whole body shook.

The air smelled of ozone. Of burning.

A weight pressed down on her, like something had fallen on her. She was hurt, all her skin tingling—part of what was burning. Pushing up, she struggled to get out from under what trapped her.

Her father fell over.

He was burned. The invincible Captain Olympus had lost most of the hair on the back of his head. The scalp underneath was blistered. Most of his uniform had melted away. Strands of it melded into blackened skin.

Around her, the whole room was black, scorched. The platform, which had sunk halfway to the floor, had disappeared. The struts that had held it swung, flames trailing up their length. The device itself had fallen to the floor, and was now melted to an unrecognizable lump. The computers and equipment were smashed and burning, weak yellow flames licking and spitting from crumpled plastic and steel. The walls were scorched, the floor was black with soot—except for a circle around her, a body-size shape where she had been sheltered by her father. The fire had only reached her extremities: the bottom half of her jeans were blackened and torn, the skin underneath red and tender; her arms had also burned to a cooked lobster shade; her hair had singed. She was hurt, but she was alive, and she could move.

Her father wasn’t moving.

“Dad,” she whispered.

Wincing, he shifted, a flinch moving through his arm. His face was intact, the whole front of his body looked unhurt. But how deep inside him did the damage reach? She started to roll him over, but he cried out. She couldn’t touch him without hurting him.

“Daddy, what do I do? I don’t know what to do.”

He opened his eyes, reached for her, found her hand by touch. Squeezed it hard, but not as hard as he was capable of. Not Captain Olympus hard. Could he see? Was he even seeing at her?

He whispered, “You’re safe—”

He died with his eyes open, looking at her.

She pulled his limp body onto her lap, cradled him as if it would help, as if it would comfort him somehow. As if it would comfort her. But it didn’t, because the skin on his shoulders came off in her hands.

Captain Olympus hadn’t died saving Commerce City, as he’d always vowed to do, as everyone thought he might. He’d died saving her. Just her.

Twenty-three years ago:

“Suzanne, that’s not normal, is it? A two-year-old shouldn’t be able to lift that much weight.”

The weight in question was an oversize pillow from the sofa. The lifting was nominal at best. Celia had managed to stand the thing upright and was valiantly maneuvering it so she could leverage it over her head, for some arcane toddler purpose. She’d get it off the ground an inch before the weight overbalanced and the whole thing slid out of her hands. Determinedly, she bent over and tried again.

Suzanne stood in the doorway to the kitchen, drying a plate. “Actually, I think that’s pretty normal.”

“Look at that,” Warren said. “Persistence. That’s a good trait.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Celia!” Celia looked at her father and grinned at the wide-eyed hopeful expression he wore. “Come here, Celia. Come on!” She ran to where he sat a few feet away—jerky, toddler running steps—and jumped at him. Laughing, he caught her. “You’re going to be a runner, aren’t you? Fastest girl in Commerce City.”

“Warren, her powers might not manifest until she’s a teenager, like it did with me. Ten more years at least.”

He was tickling Celia now, and she was squealing happily. “I know, I just can’t wait to see what she’s going to do! You know—” He pointed excitedly at Suzanne. “I’ll bet she flies.”

She rolled her eyes. “So help me God if you throw her off the roof to see if she can fly, I’ll roast you.” Suzanne could do it, too.

“I wouldn’t do that.”

She smirked at him like she had her doubts.

Celia squirmed and laughed, oblivious.

She was still on the floor, holding her father half sprawled on her lap, pietà-like, when the others arrived. She heard footsteps echo, then more footsteps—too many. She looked up, through squinting eyes. The rest of the Olympiad was there. Robbie, Arthur, her mother.

She ought to say something. They’d expect her to say something. She opened her mouth, intending to apologize. She choked on a sob instead. Tears fell.

“Oh, Celia.” That was Arthur, because of course he took one look at her, took one glimpse inside of her, and saw it all.

Robbie touched Suzanne’s arm, but she moved away from him, stepping toward her husband and daughter. Maybe she’d been expecting this moment for a long time. Maybe she’d never believed it would happen. Celia didn’t know, and she’d never ask.

Suzanne knelt by Warren’s body, touched his chest, looked on him with such tenderness that Celia held her breath. This will kill her mother. She’d watch her mother die in front of her as well.

Suzanne looked at her and smiled. She cupped Celia’s cheek in her hand, leaned forward, and kissed the top of her head, as if she were a child who’d skinned her knee.

Then she stood and walked away.

When Arthur came to her and touched her shoulder, all strength left her. She let him fold her into his arms and take care of her.

Robbie looked after Suzanne. Not that Suzanne needed looking after—she appeared elegant and stoic, regarding the proceedings with the cool detachment of a goddess. But he’d look after her anyway. Just in case.

Celia left the building, gingerly holding on to Arthur around the middle while he carefully gripped her across the shoulders. Eventually, she’d go the hospital for the burns on her arms and legs. In the meantime, they fit together and she wasn’t going to leave him.

People would tell her later that there was nothing she could have done, that she had succeeded in saving the city, the building had contained the explosion, and her father knew the risks of the role he’d taken on. Every hero, even an invincible one, had a weakness, and subjected to a high dose of the radiation that had a part in his creation proved too much for the great Captain Olympus. People told her this over and over, trying to be helpful, not understanding that Celia had accepted her own death, and now had to accept the death of another instead, which was somehow harder.

Appleton was there, supervising the throng of cops sent to clean up the mess. He stopped her.

“We’re okay,” he said, pointing at her like this was another accusation. The look in his eyes, though, was pleading. “From now on, you and me, we’re okay. Right?”

She only nodded.

Anthony Paulson and his scientists had been found hiding in a basement storeroom. Mark himself put the handcuffs on his father. He spotted Celia, and his eyes lit, then darkened when he saw her nestled against Arthur.

After Mark had secured his father in the backseat of a patrol car, Celia detached herself from Arthur to go talk to the detective.

“What were you even doing here? I know you suspected my father, but you should have come to me—,” he said.

“He set a trap, and I fell for it.” She shrugged. That moment seemed a long time ago, now.

He laughed, a stifled, bitter chuckle. “You always complain about having superheroes for parents. I’m guessing that’s nothing compared to having a supervillain for one.”

He looked to the backseat of the patrol car. Around the glare on the window, Paulson stared back. Both men’s expressions were taut and unhappy, the family resemblance reflected back at one another. Celia and her father spent much of their own lives looking at one another like that. At least she’d had the excuse of foolish youth. At least she’d been able to make some repairs to that bridge. A few patches.

The mutual bitterness before her was palpable.

She looked away. “Mark, there’s something you need to know. I looked up your father’s adoption records. I talked to some people. You probably ought to do a paternity test to confirm it, but I’m pretty sure your father’s birth father was Simon Sito. I don’t know what it means, if anything. But you should know.” Not just the son of a criminal mastermind, but the grandson of one, too. How did that feel?

Might as well tell him he was the king of Prussia, as blank as his expression showed. No, not blank. Scarred. The vacant stare of a disaster survivor. He couldn’t take another blow. He was done processing. It would have to wait.

He said, “I think I’ll want to do that paternity test. To confirm that.”

“Of course.”

“I’m sorry about your father.”

She didn’t really believe it herself. That would have to wait until morning. “Thanks.”

“What happens now?” He looked pointedly at Arthur Mentis, who was watching them.

“A funeral. Another trial.” In which she would have to testify again. The cycle continued.

“What about us?”

The question evoked no emotion in her.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mark. I … I’m just sorry.”