Shades of Gray (2 page)

Chapter 47 - Night

Interlude

Part 9 - Now

Chapter 48 - Jet

Chapter 49 - Iridium

Chapter 50 - Iridium and Jet

Chapter 51 - Iridium

Chapter 52 - Jet

Interlude

Part 10 - Then

Chapter 53 - Night

Chapter 54 - Arclight

Chapter 55 - Night

Interlude

Part 11 - Now

Chapter 56 - Jet

Chapter 57 - Iridium

Chapter 58 - Jet

Chapter 59 - Iridium

Chapter 60 - Jet

Chapter 61 - Iridium

Chapter 62 - Jet

And in the End …

Epilogue

About the Authors

Copyright

What Has Come Before

I
t’s a dark world out there. Whether it’s from the ever-present pollution layer in the sky or from the power-hungry tentacles of corporate consolidation, none can truly say. It’s a world of gangs and guns, of good people scurrying like rats and trying to avoid notice. It’s a world where you have to be some sort of hero to change the way things are.

That’s probably why the heroes—the powerful extrahumans in the Squadron—are all under strict control by the megalomaniacal global enterprise known as Corp-Co. But the heroes are too busy to notice, what with fighting crime and working for their corporate sponsors. (After all, heroes need to earn their keep when they’re not off battling for justice.) Some members of the Squadron, like the Shadow-wielding Jet, resent that photo ops are just as important as keeping the streets safe. But there’s no changing the system.

Then the day comes when Iridium, daughter of New Chicago’s most infamous villain, and Taser, a vigilante, attack Corp through its Academy for extrahuman students. The duo’s intention is to take down Ops, the high-tech operations system that links Corp to the Squadron. Iridium thinks this will simply leave the heroes without Corp eyes and ears.

Instead, it destroys the only mechanism that keeps the extrahumans—
all
Squadron extrahumans in the United and Canadian States of America—under Corp-Co’s thumb. Once Ops goes down, the subtle brainwashing signal that had reined in the heroes is cut off.

And suddenly, hundreds of superpowered men and women realize they had been slaves. For years.

Most of them don’t take the news very well.

PROLOGUE

Channel Surfing

N
othing good on the tele anymore. Hey, thanks for the drink.”

“No problem. You checked everything already?”

“Mostly. Pretty much everything’s just more of the same. Depressing stuff. Here, see for yourself.”

**BLINK**

[Mega Broadcasting System’s
Financial News,
with Miles McCormick, already in progress]
MILES:
… again, the Dow dropped more than eighteen hundred points today in the wake of what seems to be an unprecedented Squadron rebellion—

**BLINK**

[United and Canadian Broadcasting System’s
Evening News,
with Gena Mead, already in progress]
GENA:
… more reports of citizens being victimized by those they turned to only yesterday to protect them: the Squadron. Hospitals are filling beyond capacity—

**BLINK**

[The News Network’s
Spin Room,
with Tom Carlin, already in progress]
TOM:
… seriously, I want to know: who laced the extrahumans’ food with
junk
? If this isn’t an incredibly bad drug trip, then I don’t know what the hell is happening in the Americas. Someone better tell the Super ’Roids we ain’t the bad guys. And for the love of Jehovah, can
someone
get more from Corp-Co Chairman Stan Kane than “No comment?” Really, Stanley, what the hell happened to your supersoldiers—

**BLINK**

[Transnational Broadcasting System’s
Evening News,
local edition, with Shannon Beverly, already in progress]
SHANNON:
… five Squadron heroes have smashed their way into Bank of Americas over on Lakeshore, destroying most of the building, terrorizing the bank staff, and taking off with more than e500,000 in digichips. Fifteen people, including eight police officers, were hurt—

**BLINK**

[The News Network
’s Headline News,
with M’Chelle M’bachu, already in progress]
M’CHELLE:
… Everyman Society Chairman Frank Wurtham is demanding immediate action against not just the Squadron but all extrahumans.

[CUT to FRANK WURTHAM in a press conference, outside Everyman headquarters in Boston]
WURTHAM:
It’s not just
unthinkable
, it’s
un-American
for us to sit back and watch everything our fathers and their fathers and their fathers before them struggled to build, watch it all pounded to dust by a handful of genetic
freaks
. It’s our duty to the Americas, and more than that—it’s our Jehovah-given right as
normal, everyday citizens
to fight to protect ourselves and our country against these abominations of nature. All of us must rise up and—

“Jaysus,
please
shut him up.”

“Sorry. He can be mesmerizing.”

“You just have a thing for redheads.”

“Mmm. Lucky for you.”

**BLINK**

[American Public Television’s
The Captain and the Kid,
already in progress]
… CAPTAIN COURAGEOUS puts a gloved hand on KID POWER’s shoulder, stopping the youth from running into the dark cave that hides LADY EVIL and her captive.

“Deadly.”

“Yeah, this is a good one. I saw it when it first aired …”

“Shhh.”

CAP:
Really, Kid, ya gotta … take a breath and think before ya go chargin’ in headfirst like that.

KID:
See, that’s the problem, Cap. You think too much. While you’re so busy exercising your graymatter, there’s a
girl
in there—an innocent
girl
—who’s terrified and alone and has no one to help her!

CAP:
I know ya got … feelings … for the girl. But ya gotta use your head, Kid.

KID:
I love her, Cap. And I’m not letting Lady Evil get away with her dastardly plan!

KID POWER shrugs out of CAPTAIN COURAGEOUS’s grip and runs pell-mell into the cave.

CAP:
Kid, wait!

From inside the black cave, a shout of surprise … and then a long, bloodcurdling scream.

CAP:
Dang it, Kid.

CAPTAIN COURAGEOUS shakes his head. Then he clenches his jaw determinedly. With his cape billowing heroically, he marches toward—

[BLACK SCREEN]

“Hey …”

“You blinked.”

“Not this time. Damn it, I like this one. Lady Evil’s going to get the captain all horned up …”

“Hang on. Something’s happening.”

[American Public Television logo appears, followed by a close-up of
APT Evening News
anchorwoman Randi Rose]

RANDI:
Good evening. At 7:13
P
.
M
., President Kirby, in an effort to contain the extrahuman revolt in New Chicago, New York, Toronto, Los Angeles, and other cities across the Americas, has invoked the Insurrection Act. That’s right: he’s sending in the troops to rein in the superheroes.

[CUT SHOT of PRESIDENT JOHN KIRBY in the Rose Garden, illuminated with plasbulbs and vidlights, standing at a podium with the presidential seal.]

KIRBY:
My fellow Americans, we are in the midst of a crisis of epic proportions. The extrahumans, whom we’ve come to trust and depend on, have suddenly, tragically, turned against us. They are unleashing horrors in our cities, destroying property, harming innocents. While some of the Squadron have contacted us, and promised that they were doing everything they could to stop these so-called rabids, it’s clear that we can no longer depend on extrahumans to protect their human cousins. Their acts of violence are nothing short of terrorism. And so it is with a heavy heart and a firm hand that I have invoked the Insurrection Act. I have authorized five hundred thousand members of the National Guard to join their brothers and sisters in the police force to do whatever it takes to once again bring order to the United and Canadian States of America.

[SCREEN SHOT of SCREAMER and THE ANGLE demolishing a building in the Downtown Grid, pre-Flood district; citizens watch in horror, and the police use their riot shields to keep the flying debris from pummeling them.]

[RANDI in a V.O.]
For the past two days, it’s been chaos in the streets and in the air, as Squadron members have unofficially declared war on standard human authority.

[CUT SHOT of COLOSSAL MAN, smashing the Old Millennium Park Field House with a giant booted foot.]

COLOSSAL MAN:
You think we’re still your
prisoners
? You think we’re still your
dogs
? You can’t command us anymore! We don’t hear you anymore!

[RANDI’s V.O. continues as additional footage of SCREAMER and THE ANGLE rampage through Old Downtown.]

RANDI:
We still don’t know what has caused these heroes to turn against the very society they have sworn to protect, or why they have come to blows with the men and women in the police force who have risked their very lives to maintain order. But it’s clear that the president—

“Turn it off.”

“Garth …”

“
I said
turn it off
.”

**BLINK**

“Happy now?”

“No. Jaysus. I’m not happy. I …”

“Garth?”

“We have to call the Network.”

“…
Excuse
me?”

“We have to. Everything’s falling apart. The Squadron’s gone insane, the police can’t handle it, now the troops are coming in …”

“Let Corp fix it. They always do.”

“So why haven’t they? No, something’s wrong. It’s all banjaxed. We have to help—”

“Have you gone totally daft? We
can’t
help! You know what’ll happen if we do.”

“But what choice do we have?”

“Let Corp clean up its own mess.”

“Julie …”

“Garth, I love you. But I swear to Jehovah above, if you pick up the phone and tell Terry to get the Network in place, you’re doing it on your own.”

“…
Julie
…”

**BLINK**

[American Public Television special emergency broadcast, already in progress]
RANDI:
… what this means for society at large, or us here in New Chicago, remains to be seen.

“Come on, Julie. Turn it off.”

“You can damn well turn it off yourself, Garth McFarlane. While you’re at it, you think long and hard before you do something that can’t be undone.”

A moment later, the door to the bedroom slams.

Garth McFarlane gets up and walks over to the plasiscreen and turns it off. In the dim living room, his eyes glow softly, almost thoughtfully.

Looking at Julie’s unfinished drink sitting on the coffee table, Garth thinks, long and hard.

When he opens the bedroom door some time later, Julie turns to face him. The lights are off, but he sees her perfectly well—her halo of fuzzy blond hair, the shimmer of tears in her hazel eyes.

And he tells her what he’s going to do.