Black and White (22 page)

Iridium narrowed her eyes. “Where are we going with this?”

Lester’s worried face re-formed into the sly grin she remembered from his
WANTED
holopapers, which at one time had covered New Chicago like flickering snow.

“Ivanoff let slip to me during one of our games that he programmed the communication systems that the heroes use from the ground up in the good old days.” He laced his fingers behind his head. “Everything that the skinsuits use to talk to each other, he built.”

Iridium felt her throat tighten. “What did he give you, Dad?”

“Everything.”

Iridium sighed in frustration. “Assuming that he isn’t jerking you around—and may I say that embezzling Corp scumbags aren’t famous for telling the truth—what could we do with some outdated passwords into superhero email?”

“Callie,” he said, shaking his head, “you’re not thinking, girl. Ivanoff programmed
everything.
Including that little voice inside your head when you strap on the costume and go out into the field.”

Iridium’s eyes widened. “Ops? You mean he programmed Ops?”

“Ops,” said Lester, grinning. “He knows every code key, every back door into the program.” He shrugged, the grin still on his face. “I figured it was my duty to pass the information along to my brilliant daughter.”

Iridium felt her heartbeat quicken, heating her up inside the cheap suit. She told herself to calm down. She didn’t have enough information to get too excited. Yet. “Dad, even with pass codes and the like, I can’t do anything with this. Ops is run from a stand-alone mainframe
inside
Corp headquarters.”

“Then your part of this is to find a way in, isn’t it?” He leaned forward in his chair, as much as the cuffs would
allow. “This is it, Callie, and you know it. I’ve been cultivating Ivanoff for months. He thinks we’re friends, partners in crime. Thinks we’re going to siphon off some of Corp’s E and that’ll be the end.”

“If Ops goes down, every hero in this city will be defenseless,” she said, her mind racing. “They’ll have no way to call for backup, no access to GPS, if something goes wrong—”

“If something goes wrong, they should have paid more attention in their field training,” said Lester with a sniff. “In my day, we didn’t have some squawk box in our ear telling us when to duck and when to punch.” He arched a brow. “Don’t tell me you still hold feelings toward any of those people, Callie. They don’t deserve pity. They deserve
nothing.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Iridium said softly. “I don’t miss anyone from the Academy, Dad. I hate them, just like you do.”
Even Jet, damn it. Even her.
“But if I do this—if I hack Ops and take the hero network down, they’re going to know it was me and you. They’ll hurt you, Dad.”

Lester folded his hands. “Callie, I’m in bloody prison for daring to speak my mind. There is nothing in the next world worse than being trapped in a cell, knowing that the people who put me there are out flying around pretending to protect the world.” He reached out, palm up, and Iridium put her hand in his. “We’re going to do this, Callie. You’re going to do it for me. Right?”

“Right,” Iridium said.

“No mercy.”

“No mercy,” she agreed. “I’ll get Ops down.”

“Good girl,” Lester said, sitting back. “Good girl, Callie.”

“We have to do it when something big is going down, though,” Iridium said. “Otherwise, they’ll buy a new mainframe, sweep the mess under the rug, and it will be situation normal.”

Lester tapped his finger against his lips. “This city is ripe for anarchy, girl. It won’t be that easy.”

Iridium thought of the Undergoths, of the ripples through the underworld, the swelling tide she felt under her feet in Wreck City. “I’m not responsible for what happens after,” she said.

“The natural order will happen,” Lester said. “No one will be cleaning up humanity’s messes. It’s time the people of the world learned to think for themselves.”

His words sent a shiver up her spine. Her voice soft, she said, “You sound like an Everyman.”

“Ironic,” he said, laughing. “They hate heroes as much as I do. Too bad we couldn’t work something out with them.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not working with the Everyman Society, Dad.
Ever.”

“We’ll see. I’ll be thinking of you, Callie,” Lester said as the buzzer sounded. The guard was already sliding open the door. Her father whispered, “Send me a message when you’ve done this.” He made like he was shaking her hand, then pulled her into an embrace, the first they’d shared since Iridium was a child.

She thought she did a fine job of hiding her shock.

“There is a postal box in Looptown, inside the Apex Mall,” Lester hissed. “The number is 2285. The digichip with the programming you need to hack Ops is in that box. Ivanoff smuggled it out in a letter to his wife.”

The door slid open, and Iridium pulled back. “No contact with prisoners,” said the guard reproachfully.

“I’m so sorry,” said Iridium. “It was a very intense session.” She smiled at the guard. “Trust me, it won’t be happening again.”

M
idnight in New Chicago.

Jet perched on the windowsill outside of Martin Moore’s apartment, debating if she should break the window to scare the bejesus out of him or if she should Shadowslide and go for the silent approach.

She decided to opt for Shadowsliding. Technically, it wasn’t breaking and entering that way.

Inside, Moore was shuffling around. He’d been home for only five minutes; hazard of pulling second shift at Corp. Jet would give him a little more time to get comfortable, maybe even climb into bed. He was an older man—late sixties—and he’d just pulled a ten-hour shift. He had to be exhausted.

Best to let Moore collapse into bed, then … wake him up.

She’d have felt bad about it if Frostbite hadn’t been convinced Moore was the one who’d spilled information to Kidder.

“You want to talk to a man named Moore, Martin G.,” Frostbite had told her six hours earlier. “He’s the connection between Kidder and Corp.”

Jet was more than a little skeptical; it was distinctly possible that Frostbite was about to lead her on a wild-goose chase—or, worse, on a course that would lead to a wrongful arrest. “How can you be so positive?”

“He’s the on-site tech guru for the EC. He’s got access to all the files that Corp ever created. And,” Frostbite added with relish, “he has a bank account a little too padded for a Corp man. His car’s a little too nice. His apartment’s a little too well furnished. And he has expensive habits.”

“Circumstantial,” Jet said. “I can’t interrogate him based on that.”

“Something else. There’s a mention about a brother, deceased. Based on the birth date, a twin.”

“Anything suspicious?”

“Not unless alcohol poisoning during Rush Week at college is suspicious.”

“Then there’s nothing,” she said glumly.

“No? How about this: His first cousin was an active hero killed in the line of duty. Maybe you heard of him. Green Gaze.”

She frowned. “Not ringing a bell.”

“Mental power. Before your time.” Jet could hear the shrug in Frostbite’s voice. “Hell, before Night’s time. This was back around the flood. He got taken down by the Santini Family, if you go by the official reports.”

“And if you go by the street?”

“There were accusations, quickly covered up, that it had been a case of friendly fire.”

Jet hissed through her teeth. “Not good. Everyman pick it up?”

“Nope, but you’d think so, right?” Even though they were—supposedly—on a clean channel, he lowered his voice. “Instead of joining the Everyman Society for a good ol’ public round of righteous anger against the extrahumans, GG’s family, for all intents and purposes, went underground.”

“What do you mean, ‘for all intents and purposes’?”

“They were suspiciously quiet—didn’t seek remuneration from either Corp or the city, didn’t make waves in the media. It was like they just went away. Maybe they did.”

“Maybe,” Jet said, unease bubbling in her stomach.

“But then they surfaced publicly, all Orwellian and Corp Is Our Friend. Almost fanatical. Became loud defenders of Corp and the extrahumans, and led some short-lived outcry against the Family and the gangbangers. Soon that quieted down, and they became regular civvies. Anonymous. Moore himself hooked up with Corp directly and worked his way through the techie ranks. Been there now going on forty years.”

Her voice quiet, Jet asked, “You think Moore’s family had Therapy?”

Frostbite said nothing, but his silence answered for him. Green Gaze’s immediate family, and probably the outspoken extended family, had been … reeducated.

And if Frostbite was correct, and Moore had been the one slipping incriminating data about Corp to Kidder, then the Therapy was breaking down … or it had never taken, and Moore had just blithely played along. Either way, the man had a motive to want to see Corp taken down.

And based on where he worked, and in what capacity, he had the means.

“Forty years,” she mused aloud. “That’s a long time to build up resentment.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Any drier, and Frostbite’s voice would have been the perfect martini. “I still have thirty-four to go.”

Jet ignored that. “If Therapy wears off after time, then the EC’s going to have problems.”

“Makes me all warm and fuzzy just imagining it.”

She just bet it did. “Thanks for the information, Frostbite. I truly appreciate your help.”

“Don’t.” The clipped humor shriveled, died, and all that was left in his voice was a cold, brutal fury. “Don’t you dare thank me. We’re not buddy-buddy, and we sure as hell aren’t good.”

She sighed. “I know.”

“Just do what you said. If there’s a connection to Kidder’s disappearance and the EC, you go public with it.”

“I will. You have my word.”

“Yeah. And we know how important that is to you.”

Jet frowned as Frostbite’s words lingered in her mind. Her word
was
important. She meant to keep it.

And that meant disturbing Martin Moore’s sleep.

Jet nodded to herself in the predawn light, her black cape allowing her to blend easily with the heavy shadows. Effectively, she was invisible to any passersby on the street, or in the air. And now she was about to take that one step further.

Reaching inside herself, Jet touched Shadow … and
slid.

The world oozed gray, all other color leached away by the power of Shadow. One of her long-gone instructors once referred to the ability as morphing or ghosting or—to appease the scientists among them—molecularizing. But to Jet it was simply Shadowsliding.

And, truth be told, it was a lot of fun. Phasing through solid objects gave her such a rush. Not to mention the look on people’s faces when she appeared out of nothing.

Not exactly heroic, she knew. But at least she was honest about it.

Smiling, she slipped through the locked window and stepped inside Moore’s apartment. She’d entered through the bedroom window—and the man himself had settled
down in his bed, ready for the express to Dreamland. His face was seamed with age; his hair—what remained of it-was as white as Iridium’s costume. Next to the bed was a small table, with an old-fashioned framed photograph of two teenage boys. Jet couldn’t make out the details in the dim room, but it looked like the boys were grinning with all the impertinence of the young.

Like you’re so freaking old.
In Jet’s mind, Iri’s voice chortled.
Twenty-two. Positively ancient! Then again, you act like an old biddy, so the confusion’s understandable.

Hovering by Moore’s bed, Jet froze.

What, am I interrupting something important? Here you are, sneaking into an old man’s apartment to scare information out of him. Maybe you and I aren’t so different after all, Joannie.

At least I’m not a rabid
, she retorted.

Oh, what a comeback! They teach you that at the Academy when I was gone?

Enough. I have a job to do.

It’s all about the job with you
, Iri said with a laugh.
Isn’t it?

Iri’s laughter faded. Face set in a determined mask, Jet approached the front of Moore’s bed. The old man must have just settled down; his breathing was far from the steady, restful pattern of someone truly asleep.

Get it over with
, she told herself.

“Martin Moore.” She pitched her voice low, filled with subtle menace. “Wake up, Martin Moore.”

The old man startled, blinked his eyes. Rolled over to face her. And screamed like a girl.

“Shut it,” she hissed.

His mouth slammed shut. He stared at her, his eyes wide and terrified.

Jet could almost hear his heartbeat thumping madly.
Light, don’t give the man a heart attack.
“Where is Lynda Kidder?”

He paled dangerously, or maybe that was just the
contrast of his skin against the darkness in the room. His mouth gaped like a fish. Then he whispered, “Why
…?”

“You’re the leak in Corp,” she said, her voice almost purring. “You’ve been feeding Kidder code-black files. You’re her Icarus source. Now she’s missing.” So what that she was accusing him without the benefit of proof? If he was innocent, he’d say so. And if he was guilty, he’d crack.

They always did.

He let out a cry, then buried his face in his hands.

Jet let him sob for a minute, watched dispassionately as his shoulders heaved. So it was true: He’d been leaking sensitive information to a reporter. People like him incited riots, caused wars. Behind her optiframes, Jet’s eyes narrowed. “I hope her payoff was worth it, Moore. Corp’s none too gentle on those who clandestinely work against it. I’m curious: What was your thirty pieces of silver?”

“It’s not like that,” he stammered.