Young Sentinels (Wearing the Cape) (Volume 3) (42 page)

Here we come to save the day
...

“Everyone is the center of their own story, and thinks that they know what is going on and that they have some control over the plot. The truth is that everyone has plans for you or plans that don’t involve you, and really all you can do is choose what to do with what happens next.”

Hope Corrigan,
Notes from A Life.

Believe it or not, I enjoyed cleanup. For Watchman and Riptide and Variforce and me it meant two solid days of non-stop clearing, uprooting the trees that had shattered and covered Lake Shore and Columbus so that the Crew could lay passable roadway. Till they finished, Michigan Avenue would be a bumper-to-bumper nightmare. For the rest, there was already talk of leaving the new primeval forest more or less intact except around the Dome, filling in Monroe Harbor (which was half-choked and half-wrecked now anyway), and rebuilding the landscaped park and fountain on the new land.

Virtual Shelly picked up for Shell without a hitch, though she had to settle for tele-operating an older Galatea model.
Shelly
left the Dome to stay at my place while Mrs. H got everything settled for her, which was all good as far as I was concerned. She wasn’t acting mad, or sad, or
Shelly
. She was still scaring me, and Mom would know what to do.

Blackstone used the cleanup days to pull together a detailed after-action briefing of the Green Man Attack. He gave us huge props for the way we handled it — they were going to give Megaton a medal for sure, at least, I hoped so — and saved his comments on my misuse of Tsuris for a private conversation.

He was right; I’d misused Tsuris for civilian rescue when I should have put him on holding back the green as soon as the other flyers arrived. When Vulcan’s heat-bomb didn’t do the job, he’d ignored my instruction for all fliers to assist with evacuating the park. Instead he dropped to the south end of Grant Park and used his ground-stripping winds to keep the Green Man from outflanking the CPD’s fire moat. From the reports of his officers on the spot, Big Red pretty much concluded that Tsuris stopped the Green Man from tearing into the Loop south of Roosevelt before Megaton and Galatea blew him up.

But Blackstone also said, “Hope, when Charlie dances the foxtrot, you bring your moves — you don’t sit it out trying to think of the best moves.”

And he used the briefing to finally share the preliminary DSA analysis of the Detroit Breakout. Redback (obviously boosted to A Class or higher) “hijacked” the body of a prison officer to get inside, used codes provided by Phreak to hack the security system, and released Dozer from his hard-cell confinement. With the cell blocks locked down, Dozer cleared the room for Drop to teleport everyone else in on his nifty platform. They had plenty of time to free exactly the prisoners they wanted before we even got there, but they focused mostly on juvenile breakthroughs. Blackstone had no idea why Dr. Pellegrini wanted a bunch of kids, at least nothing he’d share, but it couldn’t be good.

Three days after the attack, we got our first Young Sentinels team picture on the I Love Me wall; Powers Magazine took the picture for their next cover, all of us standing in front of the wrecked Atlas Memorial; Galatea, Crash, Megaton, Tsuris, Ozma, Grendel, me, clean and shiny in our best costumes. Nox and Nix rode Grendel’s shoulders for the picture, and everyone behaved at the magazine-sponsored photo party for us and the Guardian teams (well, almost everyone — Tsuris hit on Safire and Blue Fire before Ozma shut him down by miming a hat).

And then I took off, the old-school way by taking the backdoor and
driving
home. Our security reported a few die-hard paparazzi lurking on our street, but Ozma stopped me on the way out of the Dome and handed me a small case which turned out to hold a stylish pair of nonprescription glasses. She’d inscribed
Anonymity Spectacles
inside the case in gold; apparently, so long as I didn’t do something startling like strip naked or, more realistically, start flying, even my own family wouldn’t recognize me when I put them on...

Magic is just weird, and on any other day just thinking about using
glasses
as a disguise would have had me in a fit of giggles. Shelly would have found it totally mock-worthy. She wasn’t mocking anything right now.

The leaves had started to turn, tints of yellow and orange hinting at Oak Park’s extravagant explosion of color to come. I parked down the street, just in case watchers might know the make and model of my car. I’d kissed Seven and driven away less than a week ago, but it felt like forever. Dad waited for me at the door, and he knew exactly what I needed.

“Where’s Shell?” I whispered, finally pulling out of the hug.

“Your room, where else? Come see me and your mother when you’re finished.”

Sunlight turned the wood floor into warm gold and sparked off school trophies and pictures. I found Shelly on my bed with Graymalkin stretched out on her lap, his tail flipping gently. For Gray, any lap was cat-heaven. Shell looked up when the door creaked. Her eyes and nose were red, and it took me a moment to look down and see what she’d spread out on the bedspread.

The Christmas tin. Our notes, pictures, plastic jewelry, and her funeral memorial program, black and silver-gray.
“In Loving Memory
.
”

She’d never asked to see it.

“Hey,” I said. “Mrs. H. says you guys are leaving tomorrow.”

She nodded. Blackstone had pulled strings, gotten her a legal new identity: Shelly Hardt, and the only lie about it was her age — it bumped her birthdate up to match her sixteen real years — and her hair color (and she was going to change that).

“Nervous about meeting your new dad?”

Mr. Hardt sounded like a keeper; apparently he’d called Shell as soon as Mrs. H. dropped the news on him, refused to stop talking until she believed a surprise teenage daughter was what he’d always wanted. I was prepared to love him unconditionally for that.

Shell ran her fingers over the stiff parchment program.

I swallowed, pushed a drift of pictures aside, and carefully perched on the bed.

“Can you still taste your own spit?” That got a chopped laugh out of her, but she didn’t look up again.

I’m sorry.
I couldn’t say it — I wasn’t, really, I couldn’t be. Not ever. But I couldn’t say
nothing
.

“I talked to Vulcan. He says he’s been working with Virtual Shell and once you’ve got the neural receiver grown he can tie you in through her so you can tele-operate a Galatea like you did the first time, before you moved yourself in permanently. Virtual Shell’s not going to do that again. She said she’s decided that living inside a titanium head where someone can shoot at you isn’t the smartest thing to do after all and she’s going to stay where the Anarchist hid her — ”

“Shut up.”

“So you can patrol with me all the way from Springfield, and you’ll be back here and on the team as soon as you graduate — ”

She flipped around so fast her hair whipped her face.

“Shut up. Dummy.”

I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t. “Shell, please...”

“Dummy.” She sniffed, pulled a sleeve over her wrist to wipe her nose. “I messed up.
I
did. I left you and Mom and... For three years! We couldn’t last a
weekend
without each other, had to do summer camp together.”

“Springfield isn’t far, I can fly — ”

“Like you’ll have time
ever
. That’s not — I mean — I broke us up. Shelly and Hope. Power Chick and Awesome Girl.” She held up the program, shook it. “I missed
everything
, I wasn’t
there
— ”

“Shell — ”

“Shut up!” Tears dripped off her chin. “I didn’t know, it wasn’t three years for me! I was gone and then I was back and I said ‘Sorry!’ and you said ‘Okay!’ but it
wasn’t
, I was
gone
and you were...you had to...”

I scooted over, feeling lighter than I had in days, and pulled her head down to my shoulder. She pushed back, punched at my arms until she didn’t have room.

“Shell — ”

“I’m
sorryyyyy
.” Her wail trailed off into wet hiccups against my neck.

“You’re the dummy.” I laughed, light-headed, happy enough to sing. “I forgave you before the funeral. It took a while, but I learned how to last the weekend. You’re just figuring this out now?”

“It’ll be three years!”

I couldn’t help the giggles. “It won’t be the same. There’s calling and texting and — again — you’re going to be back piloting a Galatea, though Mrs. H will probably limit your hours during the week... She never let you play videogames that much!”

Finally
she laughed, a real laugh this time even if it was a bit soggy. Gray protested, pulling himself out of her lap to stalk off with the offended air only cats can manage. I shook her gently.

“So, sleepover? You’re not leaving till tomorrow, and you are
not
going back to the Dome tonight — Virtual You can’t keep her mouth shut and both of you together would make heads explode. I’ll bet we can get Mom to make funnel cake...”

“Deal. Game night?”

“Sure. And it’s Shelly and Hope always, so no more tall buildings, right? Ever.”

“Deal.”

“Best friends forever.”

Of course it never ends. You just sweep up and move on.

Toby got out of the hospital and came home to get better (I think Chakra had something to do with how fast he went from Critical Condition to healthy enough to release). Having him back home wasn’t
fun
but — shock — he didn’t blame me for what had happened. Which didn’t mean we were going to bond over it.

Jacky stayed around and took Acacia “hunting,” and three nights after the Green Man attack, the five goons who beat Toby half to death turned themselves in. According to Fisher, they gave full confessions and even provided enough physical evidence to make it an open and shut case. He said it had been a beating-of-opportunity; one of them had been at a bar popular with college students out slumming, heard Toby fight with his drinking buddies over the coolness that is me, and called up some friends when he stupidly decided to blow off his buddies and walk back to the dorms alone. The idiot.

The goons never said why they suddenly decided prison was safer than the streets, and I was never,
ever
, going to ask Jacky about it.

With the Green Man dealt with and the Wreckers out of our jurisdiction, we shifted to crime-fighter mode with the Guardian teams to get a lid on the goon and supervillain violence. It kept me busy, but Blackstone hadn’t been kidding about moving me up — team leader meant more than a token hat, and orienteering and training was another full-time job.

We managed to dodge the bullet with Grendel. The DSA had no interest in complicating things for us, and since the details of the Detroit Supermax Breakout were sealed — and almost completely unrecorded due to Phreak’s blackout — we were able to suppress his part in the fight completely. Of course it wouldn’t stick, but it would at least get us to Brian’s eighteenth birthday.

And of course Shankman started making noises again as soon as he was strong enough to get in front of a microphone, calling for new laws restricting power use (like supervillains would pay attention to
that
). Humanity First endorsed his campaign, but at least Mal’s dad was out of that. Mr. Scott had joined the local Families with Breakthroughs organization along with Mom and Dad. Now that I was public, Mom could make the FWB a new favorite cause (she would probably make me show up at a meeting and
talk
).

And Sunday I went to St. Chris’ memorial mass. It took everything I had not to hide behind the Anonymity Specs, but I sat with Mom and Dad and the Bees and remembered the names and prayed for their families as we all held candles. Sure I got a few stares (and I was going to be dealing with some almost hysterically excited kids after the mass), but I could feel the people who’d known me all my life closing ranks around me. Family. And as Father Nolan led the Prayer of the Faithful even Virtual Shelly joined in, a blythe and solemn spirit at the altar. Only I heard her echoing
“Lord, hear our prayer.
”

Amen
.