Shades of Gray (14 page)

“And with company, I see.”

Iridium threw a salute at the woman. “Weather Girl, right?”

“Meteorite.” The name came out colder than sleet on the back of Iridium’s neck.

“Right. Sorry.” She needed their help—she’d have to call them whatever silly names they’d come up with.

A door slid open and Frostbite stepped out with a heaping plate of nachos and a Coke. He dropped both when he saw her.

“Callie!”

He bounded over and wrapped his lanky arms around her, and Callie hugged him back. She didn’t have to pretend to get along with Frostbite, at least. “It’s good to see you,” she whispered. She’d stayed in touch with Derek after she’d escaped custody at the Academy, but they couldn’t meet often for obvious reasons.

“You too, Miss Firefly,” he whispered back. Derek was the only one besides her father who could call her that without getting a fist through the teeth or a strobe in the eyes.

Dad’s decision is why you’re here. Get to the point.

“Listen, Jet. Frostbite. Uh, Meteorite. I was hoping to talk to you …”

Her words were cut off by an obnoxious pinging from the console. Everyone snapped their attention to the computer.

She asked, “What’s wrong?”

“It’s a distress call,” Meteorite said. “I’m putting it on speakers.”

Frostbite grabbed a headset and slid into place next to Meteorite. “Triangulating location,” he said, his fingers flying.

Iridium tilted her head toward Jet. “This happen a lot?”

“More and more every day,” Jet said grimly.

“Firebug, Ops,” a strained voice shouted through a haze of static.

“Ops, Firebug,” Meteorite returned. “Go ahead.”

“He’s got her!” Firebug’s voice held real terror. “Doctor Hypnotic’s got Steele!”

Frostbite’s fingers stopped moving. “Oh, she did
not
just say that.”

“Hypnotic?” Jet ran over to the console. “
The
Doctor Hypnotic? He escaped?”

Iridium spread her hands. “Blackbird has a revolving door these days, even in the supermax wing. Wouldn’t you escape if you were Hypnotic?”

Jet slapped a switch on the comm. “Jet, Firebug. Say again.”

“Doctor Hypnotic has Steele!”
The echoes against the mike made Iridium’s head throb.

“She’s in Looptown,” said Frostbite. “An abandoned apartment building. Fixing now …” His screen shrieked an error at him. “Shit! The building has tilithium walls. It’s messing with the imaging. I can’t get a fix on Steele.”

“Firebug,” Meteorite said. “Do
not
engage. Wait for backup.”

“Hornblower is in Joliet, dealing with a riot,” Frostbite said quietly. “At least fifteen minutes ETA in a hover.”

“If that’s really Doctor Hypnotic,” said Iridium, “Steele does not have fifteen minutes.”

“I’m going,” Jet said. “Firebug, wait for backup.”

“No …” the hero’s voice was frantic. “No, I hear her screaming …”

The comm cut out, and Frostbite cursed. “She went in after him. I lost her GPS beacon.”

Jet was already booking for the door. “Download everything you can on that building to my wristlet.”

“You can’t go alone!” Frostbite shouted. “It took the entire New York Squadron and part of New Chicago Squadron to take out Hypnotic twenty years ago!” He ripped off his headset. “I’m coming with you. Sheila, cover Ops.”

Meteorite, panicked, said, “Derek, no! I can’t run the entire Squadron by myself—I need you here, doing Ops with me!”

“I’ll go,” Iridium said, holding up her hand.

“I don’t need your help,” Jet snapped. “I can take care of this.”

“You can barely stand up,” Iridium said. “And Derek’s right. Hypnotic isn’t some idiot in a dime-store rig. He’s dangerous.”

Jet considered for a moment. “Fine. You’re under my orders, and you do what I say when I say it.”

“Fine,” Iridium returned. “Now can we please go save your friends’ lives?”

“Fine,” Jet said.

Hell, Iridium had wanted to get on the Squadron’s good side, hadn’t she? She just wished it wasn’t via fighting a man that even Lester was afraid of.

And how the hell had Hypnotic broken out of Blackbird’s maximum-security wing in the first place? Even with the situation in the regular prison, the supermax wing had roboguards, foot-thick walls, neural inhibitors … a thousand safeguards to keep the monsters in.

Iridium shuddered. Maybe she didn’t want to know.

Aloft on Jet’s Shadow floater, Iridium watched Wreck City slide by on their way to Looptown. Her grid actually looked clean in comparison to the chaos all around it.

Until she saw plasgun fire.

“Bollocks,” she said softly, co-opting her father’s favorite curse. “Jet, I can’t.”

“What?” Jet shouted over the wind.

“Someone’s shooting up Wreck City. Set me down. I’ll catch up.”

It wasn’t a lie. She’d dispatch whoever-it-was and get back to the real business. Deep in her gut, she
wanted
to fight Hypnotic. A
real
villain fight. The one she’d never gotten the chance to have before Corp had tried to ship her off to Blackbird all those years ago.

At least, not from the heroic side.

“Your funeral,” Jet shouted, and the Shadow let go of Iridium, dumping her on a rooftop.

Iridium ran down the fire escape. It was over in three strobes—one for each of the gangsters robbing the liquor depot and one for good measure. They were sporting green and tats. Iridium cursed again and tapped her phone link.

“Oz, it’s Iridium. Arrest Deke O’Connor. He’s officially outstayed his welcome in Grid 16.” See how a few years upstate mellowed that arrogant little Irish prick, thinking he could do as he pleased in
her
grid.

Someone tugged on Iridium’s sleeve and she spun, a strobe growing.

The liquor depot’s owner beamed at her. “
Thank
you,” she said. “Those sons of whores would have taken everything I owned.”

“That’s all right, Mrs.…” Iridium spread her hands.

“Pak. Theresa Pak, and this is my husband, Benjamin.”

Mrs. Pak’s husband threw Iridium a salute. “We know what you do for us. Keeping the gangs out. Keeping innocent people out of harm’s way.” He squeezed Iridium’s hand. “You keep doing it.”

His wife handed him a broom and said something in Thai, pointing at the shattered plasglass of their front window. He sighed. “Duty calls.”

“We’re lucky to have a hero like you,” Mrs. Pak said before she stepped back inside and flipped the holosign on their door to
CLOSED
.

Iridium stared for a long moment. Actual, honest-to-Jehovah citizens, thanking her for being … herself. Calling her a fucking
hero,
as if that weren’t the joke of the century.

“Wonders never cease,” she muttered. Jet would have a conniption when she told her, in that oh-so-polite Jet way.

Jet. Doctor Hypnotic.

Shit.

Iridium grabbed her phone again. “Boxer, bring your hoverbike and meet me by Pak’s Liquors. I need a ride to Looptown.”

CHAPTER 16

JET

Corp is debating whether to reclassify Mental powers as so-called Mind powers. They claim it’s less derogatory. What they fail to understand is that calling a rattlesnake a flower doesn’t change the fact that its bite is poisonous.

—From the journal of Martin Moore, entry #139

J
et landed in front of the condemned building in Grid 21, commonly known as Looptown, and stared grimly at the open front doors. No Firebug.

She tapped her comlink. “Jet, Ops.”

Frostbite’s voice: “Ops, Jet. Go.”

“I don’t suppose Firebug reported in, saying that she had Steele and they were on their way back, by any chance?”

“Nope.”

Kai must have charged in without waiting for backup. Of course. Jet gritted her teeth. Now she had not just one hero to rescue but two.

Terrific.
She sighed, lifted her goggles, and rubbed her eyes. Well, she’d have to fall over from exhaustion later.

Replacing the optiframes to fit snugly on her face, Jet thought about options. From everything she knew about Doctor Hypnotic—thanks to all those classes back at the Academy—he was obscenely dangerous. Charging in would likely get her captured. Or killed. But she was too exhausted to risk a Shadowslide; that would put her at the mercy of the voices that came out in the dark.

She shuddered. No, sliding was right out.

What were her other options? Hornblower was otherwise engaged. Frostbite and Meteorite were grounded. Iridium was off being a criminal. Steele and Firebug were captured. That left Jet herself.

She snorted. No, it didn’t.
This is the sound of my pride splattering on the pavement.
“Ops,” she said, “link me over to the Merc line. Bruce Hunter’s code.”

“Connecting.” If Frostbite had a comment about Jet wanting to speak to a mercenary, let alone her former Runner, he kept it to himself. Derek had always been smart.

On the other end of the connection, the click of someone tapping in. “Taser. Go.”

“So it’s not a press conference,” Jet said, “but maybe you’re still interested in helping. How do you feel about rescuing helpless superdamsels in distress?”

“I love it.” He lowered his voice, the words pouring out syrupy thick. “Is Callie in trouble?”

Jet felt her forehead pound. Through clenched teeth, she said, “This isn’t about Iridium. Firebug and Steele have been captured by Doctor Hypnotic.”

Taser dropped the act. All business, he replied, “Give me your coordinates.”

She did. Just as she was about to tell him she’d wait, a piercing scream filled the sky—coming from somewhere within the abandoned building.
Crap.
“I have to go in.”

“Jet, wait. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Don’t go in alone.”

“Whoever’s screaming bloody murder may not
have
fifteen minutes.”

It was probably Firebug screaming. Kai had a low threshold for pain; Jet recalled that from her fifth year at the Academy. An image danced behind her eyes—one of Firebug cradling her shattered arm as she was whisked away to the hospital wing, shrieking the whole way there. No, Kai would break if Hypnotic was torturing her.

Jet said, “I’ll be careful. But come quickly.”

“Joan, damn it, you haven’t gone after Hypnotic before! Wait for me. I can—”

Another scream—one that cut off abruptly.

Jet switched her comlink to white noise, took a deep breath, then walked through the open front doors.

Analyze.
She took in the details quickly: dark, but her optiframes took care of that. Smells of ash, of stale terror, of dust disturbed. The building’s lobby was from circa early twenty-first century—a doorman station, abandoned; linoleum flooring, cracked and grimy; faux wooden trim, long since eroded by termites and time. Silent as the grave. Up ahead stood two figures, their backs to her. Firebug and Steele.

Battlescan.
No signs of movement, either from her comrades or from Hypnotic, wherever he was. Clearly, a trap.

Confront.
“Firebug,” she called out. “Steele. I’m here to help you.”

No response from them—then a burst of light erupted before her eyes. Her optiframes irised, negating any damage.

She whirled. Saw nothing.

“I’m here for my colleagues,” she announced. “I’m not here to fight you.” Too true; she was too damn tired for that.

“Do tell.” The voice was from everywhere and nowhere; it surrounded her, enveloped her. “And what are you that you ignore my pretty Light?”

She turned again, keeping her frustration in check. Where was Hypnotic? In front of her? Behind? Impossible to tell. “I’m Jet. And I prefer Shadows to the pretty Light. What have you done to my colleagues?”

“They’re fine,” Hypnotic insisted, his voice echoing. “Content. You can be too. Just look at the Light.”

Another flare in front of her face. She batted it aside. At least it wasn’t a heat strobe, like Iridium’s.
Enough talking.
She turned to her mesmerized friends and reached out, summoning a creeper of Shadow. It stretched from her hand, crawled over to Firebug and flowed up until it wrapped around her waist, then looped over to Steele and did the same. She tugged. Neither of the women moved; it was like they were rooted to the spot. Statues.

“A Shadow power,” Hypnotic said, sounding pleased. “How wonderful! You must be Night’s whelp.”

Jet bristled. “He was my mentor.” Why was she answering him?
Shut up, Joannie. Don’t give him any ammunition.

“Shadow is genetic. Your mother or father must have been a Shadow too, little girl.”

More flares of light, so bright that she had to release her leash and shield her eyes.

“Tell me. Which of your parents is a Shadow?”

Despite herself, she said, “My father.”

“Not Night?”

“Blackout.”

The lights disappeared, along with the Darkness. From behind, Hypnotic said, “You’re Angelica’s girl?”

Jet spun, summoning Shadow.

“Stop that,” Hypnotic said. “You’re not here to fight, you said. So don’t fight.”

Jet found herself lowering her arm.
Damn it, get ahold of yourself, Joan!
She clenched her fist. “Let my friends go.”

“What? Oh yes, certainly.” He was staring at her, this tall man with his Earth-power physique beneath those prison grays, his dark hair peppered with white. “But first, tell me about your mother. How is she?”

“Dead,” Jet gritted.

The man’s eyes widened, and to Jet’s surprise, she saw real grief in them. “I’m so sorry,” he said, sounding sincere. “How did it happen?”

“Let my friends go, and I’ll be happy to give you a family history.”

The man peered at her, his gaze boring into hers. “Take off your cowl, those goggles. I want to see your face.”

“Let my friends go,” she repeated.

“Yes, yes. Of course.” He snapped his fingers. Firebug and Steele crumpled to the floor. When Jet made to run to them to make sure they were all right, Hypnotic said, “They’re fine. Sleeping it off. Side effect,” he said with a shrug. “Now then. Your turn.”