Shades of Gray (41 page)

And the sex had never been better.

There were even hints from Val about a second child. Lester let that bring a smile to his lips as he stepped through the melted front door of First Federal and into an onslaught of press.

Some things never changed.

“Arclight! Do you really think you’ll get away with this?”

Lester flashed his smile into the cameras—the smile Corp had taught him, charming and devoid of real feeling. “Abso-bloody-lutely.”

A wail of sirens in the distance put him on to the appearance of New Chicago’s Finest, which meant he had less than a minute before some hero or another showed up.

“Anything to say?” another reporter shouted. “Anything to say to Corp?”

Lester tipped a wink at the reporter, a petite blonde with an unfortunately nipped and tucked face.

“As a matter of fact, I do.” He hefted his loot so that the First Federal logo would be sure to show up on the newsfeeds in a few hours.

“And what’s that?” the reporter prompted.

Lester grinned. This time it was real. “Catch me if you can.”

“Where have you been?” Valerie demanded as Lester stripped out of his cape and dumped the two bags into the floor safe in their closet. He kicked a pile of dirty laundry over the spot, and spun to face his wife, who handed him a shirt and tie with a frown on her face.

“Check the vid. You’ll see.”

“Did you forget that your daughter has a birthday party going on as we speak?”

Lester skinned into the shirt and tie—nothing he’d have been caught dead in, in his old life. But this wasn’t life. This was a cover. Charlie Ryan wore poncey ties even at home, so Lester donned it without complaint.

“Of course not. I told you I’d make it in time, didn’t I?” He smoothed down his hair in the mirror. Now that Corp had stopped demanding he dye it, there were a few streaks of white creeping into the black, premature reminders of the hard road he’d taken so far.

“Callie’s been asking for you.” Valerie wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed the top of his ear.

Lester turned so he could return the gesture. “I’m just relieved she hasn’t accidentally strobed the clown unconscious.”

“There
is
no clown.” Valerie cocked her eyebrow. “He’s late, and his comm goes straight to messaging.”

“Bloody hell,” Lester swore, disengaging from Valerie’s arms. “For the amount of cash I gave that wanker, he should be turning backflips while he makes balloon animals and whistling ‘God Save the Queen’ to boot.”

“Les.” Valerie swallowed when he frowned and started again. “Charlie. I handled it. Go enjoy the party. And for Christo’s sake, tell your daughter happy birthday.”

Lester nodded tightly and went through the hallway into the living room, where nine sugar-injected seven-year-olds were alternately shrieking, jumping on the sofa, and stuffing their faces with more sugar.

“Where’s my birthday girl?” Explaining to Callie why her father was sometimes British and sometimes not had been a trick, but she’d adapted.

“
Daddy!
” she shrieked, leaping from the sofa and into his arms. “Did you bring me a present?”

“Indeed, I did,” he said. “But that will have to wait.”

Callie squirmed free and went back to her game. She’d blossomed since they’d left Corp, even with the fake names and the anonymous suburban house. No Runners watching her every move, no Yuriko scolding her that she’d be too fat for Branding if she ate a candy bar.

No one spying on his little girl, waiting to see if she’d be fit fodder for Corp’s hero machine.

“Daddy, did you see the cake Mommy baked?” Callie shouted. “It’s this big.” She spread her arms wide, fell off the sofa, and collapsed into a giggle fit on the floor with some of her little friends.

“Be careful,” he said. “Can’t have any cake if you’ve got a concussion.”

The door chime sounded, and Lester muttered “Bloody finally.” Those bastards at Party City were giving back every cent of his deposit.

Years later, Lester would remember that he didn’t check the security camera before he opened the door. He had been distracted, irritated, and preoccupied, like any father of a small, excitable child. If he’d seen the static obscuring his state-of-the-art security system, he would be a free man, he’d think, time and time again.

But he opened the door, and instead of a clown there were six impassive faces in riot shields.

The leader raised his shock pistol. “Lester Bradford. You are hereby ordered to submit to the authority of Corp-Co and appear before the Executive Committee on charges of robbery, fraud, and assault. You have the right to remain silent.”

Blind panic was not something Lester indulged in. He had one second of mild shock, one
Oh.

“Who wants cake?” Valerie called from the kitchen. “Put your party hats on for the birthday song!”

Lester stared at the leader of the Corp Containment squad, and the leader stared at him.

“Well,” Lester said, not bothering with the fake Chicago accent. “Boris, isn’t it?”

The leader blinked in surprise, then nodded. “That’s right, Bradford.”

“Boris, my daughter’s in the kitchen having a birthday party. If you’d be so good as to have your gents come in, I’d prefer she didn’t see this.”

Boris peered in to check that Lester was really alone, then nodded.

“All right. For the kid’s sake, Bradford.”

Lester stepped aside, fingers digging divots out of the front door as his palms heated.

Boris held his shock pistol in Lester’s face while his unit filed in and took up defensive positions. “This isn’t personal, Bradford. You know that.”

Lester shut the door and turned the dead bolt home with a soft
click
. Couldn’t beat a good old-fashioned bolt.

“I know, Boris. Neither is this.”

He released the energy he’d stored up in the minute since the Containment squad appeared on his stoop.

Boris, blinded, staggered and raised his shock pistol. Lester grabbed it, twisted his wrist, disarmed him.

In the kitchen, the kids and Valerie started singing “Happy Birthday.”

“Charlie! You’re missing the big moment!” Valerie called. “Hurry before she blows out the candles!”

The next Corp thug went down with a shock blast at point-blank range, his vest absorbing the small sound of the pistol. The third got an elbow to the throat, the fourth and fifth a broken ankle and wrist, respectively.

Lester didn’t need his power when he had to be quiet. He’d learned how to inflict quick, subtle pain long before Corp. All it took was a cigarette butt, a blow to the soft tissue that wouldn’t bruise, a hand on your throat, choking off your air.

The last squad member dropped. Valerie’s tidy front hall looked like Jonestown.

Boris moaned in his sleep, and Lester took a moment to get his heart rate under control. All six were subdued, but they’d found him. Found Valerie.

Found Callie.

And there was no hero with the unit, which was against Corp guidelines as he knew them. Extrahumans for extrahumans. People like Boris couldn’t be expected to take on Arclight with some shock pistols and body armor.

Someone had called off the hero.

Lester knew only one man with the clout and the single-minded arrogance to think he could take on the former Hero of New Chicago, defeater of the Ominous Eight, capturer of Doctor Hypnotic, protector of the people, alone.

He smoothed down his hair, not that it did any good coupled with his flushed face, skinned knuckles and torn shirt, and stepped into the kitchen.

Callie held out a piece of cake to him. “I made a wish, but I can’t tell you what it was, because then I will have wasted it,” she said solemnly. “But you can have the first piece.”

“No, no,” Lester said. “That’s for you, birthday girl. All for you.”

“Mister Ryan,” said Callie’s little friend—Tiffany or Swarovski or some ridiculous designer name—with a frown, “your accent is weird.”

Valerie gave him a drill-bit look over the heads of the children.

“I’ve got some bad news, kids.” His voice cracked, but at least it sounded closer to his cover of Charlie Ryan, lifelong resident of New Chicago.
Get it together. Breathe, refocus, and get it together, Lester.
“I’ve got an important meeting, so it looks like the party is over.”

“Whyyyy?” Callie demanded with a whine. “I want to open presents!”

“Honey,” said Valerie sharply, “don’t talk back to your father.” She gathered coats and party favors. “Come on, girls. Let’s get you ready.”

“You take them home,” Lester said. “No need to call their parents.”

Valerie stopped helping Tiffany-or-Swarovski into her shoes. “What are you doing?” she whispered.

Lester took her hand, which was cold and shaky. “What I have to.”

“No.” Valerie’s eyes filled, not with tears but with fear. “I can’t do this without you.”

“Yes, you can. You’re my Valentine. You’re the strongest person I know.”

“Come with us,” Valerie begged. “Right now. The passports are under the front seat … we don’t have to come back.”

“You know there’s no time.” Lester smiled softly at her. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

But all good things ended, crumbled to dust.

Valerie grabbed him in a tight, fierce kiss. “Mom, Dad,” Callie complained. “Gross.”

“Take good care of her,” Lester whispered against his wife’s mouth. “And for Christo’s sake, woman. Run.”

Valerie let go of him, got the children in a line and out to the hover pad. She only looked back once.

When the shrieks and giggles had faded and the hover lifted off with a hum, Lester stood in the silent kitchen, listening to the cooling unit tick and the whisper of the house bots as they went about their tasks.

He took off his wedding ring, and set it on the kitchen table next to the remains of Callie’s birthday cake. He took off the ridiculous tie, and slung it over the back of a chair.

In the drawer by the sink were a few knives, small ones for when Valerie felt like cooking rather than having a bot do it, or for making Callie a snack.

Lester shoved them into his waistband, leaving his shirt untucked.

He didn’t know if the blades were to avoid being taken, or to avoid being taken alive. But their weight was a cold comfort as he walked down the hall of the stuffy little prefab house, stepping over the unconscious Containment officers, and opening the door to chill, crisp air.

Lester stopped on the stoop and looked at the figure on the walkway. A slow wind ruffled the black cloak and cowl.

“Hello, Arclight,” Night said.

CHAPTER 55

NIGHT

Vids showed Night on the way to Blackbird. Tried to destroy the world. Can’t wait any longer. Will roll out phase 1 of Project Sunstroke tonight. Sheer numbers will make up for whatever failings remain in the formula.

—From the journal of Martin Moore, entry #293

S
tanding in the doorway, Bradford smiled at Night, a perfunctory flash of teeth.

“Night,” his former teammate said. “If I’d known you were coming, I’d have baked you a cake. Oh, wait.” He snapped his fingers, and a light strobe popped.

Night’s opiframes irised, canceling out the blinding flash. Automatic response. Night didn’t move.

“I did bake a cake,” Bradford said, stepping forward. “My daughter’s birthday cake, to be precise.”

“How is Calista?”

“Disappointed. Her birthday party was ruined when Corp rent-a-cops decided to crash it.” He was out of the doorway now, standing on the top step of the front stoop. Free to move. “Do you have any idea how long we’ve planned this for her?”

“I know you placed the order for the clown a month ago. I know all the guests invited were normals, their parents in the dark as to who you really are.”

“Been stalking us?” Bradford laughed, bemused. “How long’ve you known where we were before your masters allowed you to come play fetch?”

Nine months. Nine tedious months of waiting for the paperwork to play out, of waiting so very patiently for Corp to finally assign him to the Bradfords—specifically, to Arclight. Glitter Vixen was camera fodder, but Lester Bradford was truly dangerous. Nine months after pinpointing Arclight’s secret civilian identity, Night was finally allowed to bring him in.

Nine fucking months.

But Night kept that to himself—that would be something for him to hang over Corp’s collective heads, leverage for him to move up from instructor to proctor at the Academy. Instead, he hit Bradford where it hurt most: his pride and joy. “I know Calista’s been giving her first-grade teacher fits because she’s too smart for her own good.” Night smiled, showing teeth. “I know she loves the spotlight. Wonder which parent she gets that from?”

Bradford’s face hardened. “My little girl has nothing to do with this. This is between me and Corp.”

“The girl’s part of Corp,” Night said, twisting the knife. “You and Vixen might as well have signed up for the breeding program. They’ve already slated a spot for Calista in the Academy once she turns twelve.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Melodramatic.” Night sighed. “But then, you’re a Lighter.” With that, Night released the Shadow.

Bradford threw himself to the left just before the blast smashed through the front door. Night pivoted and the Shadow arced with him, hammering bullets of Darkness against the side of the house. Bradford was on his feet, hands out in a shooting motion, glowing white-hot. With a flicker of thought, Night had a Shadowshield before him. The Light missile bounced off, harmless. As did the second, third, and fourth.

“I repel light, Lester,” Night taunted. If he got the man mad enough, he’d expend his energy that much sooner. “Your fireworks can’t hurt me.”

“No, but they do a fine job distracting you.” Bradford pulled something from behind his back and hurled it—a knife, point gleaming.

Shadow could stop flying blades, but Night had to see them coming.

He saw the first knife. And the second. But after another burst of Light—a rat-a-tatting of strobes that went nova a second after Bradford released them—Night missed the third. It landed solidly in the meat of his left shoulder. He went down on one knee, grunting from the pain.