Carrie Vaughn - Dreams of the Golden Age

“We can talk on the way to wherever you’re going—um, where are you going?” He looked around to the skyscrapers and office developments of the downtown business district. Not someplace she’d be expected to stroll around in the middle of the night. The glowing blue logo at the top of West Plaza glared like a beacon, the crescent shape like a half-lidded eye surveying her, judging her.

She pointed in a random direction opposite West Plaza. Some bars and all-night food stands lined the street a few blocks away; that ought to distract him. They walked.

Eliot said, “You know Commerce City better than I do, since I’m not from here—”

“Where are you from?”

He hesitated, not wanting to give up information any more than she did, and she was about to tell him it didn’t matter, but he said, “Delta. Ever been there?”

“No. Is it cool?”

“About the same—big city, with all the big city stuff. Commerce City is always better if you like superhumans.”

“Or worse if you don’t.”

He smiled. “Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, I’ve been going out. Like you guys, not really doing anything but just looking around. And I’ve been hearing rumors. Commerce City hasn’t had a real supervillain since the Destructor. Is that right?”

Anna said, “It depends on what counts as a supervillain. There was Steelyard, the carjacker. He didn’t have powers, he was just the ringleader of all the grand larceny in town for a couple of years, and the Block Busters took care of him. Techhunter shows up every now and then, but nobody knows if he really has powers. I don’t know if he’s a real supervillain; he’s pretty small scale, robberies and pranks and stuff. He’s never tried to take over the city or anything, and no one’s been able to find him to go after him.” Every few years saw a new master criminal looking to take over the title of Commerce City’s grand archvillain, but none of them had risen to the level of fame and terror the Destructor generated. Her own family’s history with the Destructor was the stuff of legend. When Anna read the old news stories, they felt like fairy tales. She did the research on the old heroes at the school library, so no one in her family would see the books or look up her browser history.

Most commentators claimed that for whatever reason, the city’s golden age of superpowered heroes and villains had long since passed. Everything after that would necessarily blaze less brightly. All the city had now were petty criminals and clueless kids playing dress-up.

“So if I told you I was hearing rumors about a new supervillain on the rise, you’d be surprised.”

“A little, maybe. I mean, anyone can call themselves a supervillain but they’d need to prove it.”

“This one’s subtle, apparently. Works behind the scenes, gets others to do the real dirty work. Has a long-term strategy. Taking-over-the-city stuff, but doing it without anyone noticing.”

“Subtle, huh? Like what, bribing politicians, buying up property?” Because that was how she’d do it. Maybe run for office. It wouldn’t even be illegal.

“Yeah, along with powers like mind control.”

She gave him a look, her brow furrowed. “Really?”

“The thing about mind control, you wouldn’t even know it was happening, would you?”

She couldn’t tell him that she was very familiar with how mind control worked. “You think there’s a villain mind-controlling the whole city to do his bidding?” The thing was, it wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility. The implications were frightening, so she wasn’t willing to latch on to the idea just yet.

They were approaching a noisy part of downtown, and she guided Eliot down another block. They were both still dressed up and would attract too much attention.

“People—the people I’m hearing the rumors from—are calling him the Executive.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Is that supposed to be scary?”

“Ominous, I think. You have to admit, if you think about how much someone can do behind the scenes, it is pretty scary.”

“I haven’t heard anything about it. You want us to keep our eyes open for anything suspicious? Anything out of the ordinary that might suggest a mind-controlling supervillain?”

“We’re probably not ever going to catch someone like that directly, but we should be able to find the effects of his power.”

“I guess you needed help after all, didn’t you?” She grinned at him, feeling smug.

He spread his arms in a shrug. “And I let you know, just like I said I would.”

“Now it’s gotta work both ways. If you find out anything about this Executive, you’ll let me know?”

“Then I need to know where I can reach you.”

A cute guy was asking for her phone number. She didn’t even care that he wasn’t talking to her, but Compass Rose. Or that she couldn’t really give it to him. The mystery just made it all more interesting, didn’t it?

She wrote down her e-mail address, the anonymous one she’d used to send the pictures to the cops. Then he waved good-bye, stepped back, and launched himself skyward. He landed agilely on an art deco overhang of a building, and a second leap carried him out of sight.

To hear Eliot talk, this villain, the Executive, was less than a rumor. More like an idea he just came up with. If Commerce City really did have a nascent villain, surely she’d have heard about it. Rooftop Watch or one of the other superhero fan blogs would have mentioned it.

Shockingly, when she went searching, Rooftop Watch did have a few hits. The site didn’t use the name Executive, but there was speculation. A hint here, a bit of gossip there, nothing more than that. No confirmed sightings, no verified activity. Just conspiracy theories thrown into the ether. Anna read them all.

The Executive was a shadowy figure, of course. So shadowy nobody knew anything about him—or her. In fact, this supposed villain was mostly a convergence of patterns: city government made unexpected decisions that coincided with certain political scandals, that removed a specific person from office, that allowed passage of a new set of legislation, and suddenly the whole future path of the city changed.

The Executive was a villain for the conspiracy minded. The so-called clues involved shady real estate deals, buildings downtown that might or might not have been built to code, which meant they might or might not harbor deadly secrets—West Plaza was the prime example of how a seemingly ordinary building could be fitted with hangars and bunkers and fantastical gear. The Franklin Building, Horizon Tower, even City Hall was suggested as having a secret subbasement containing the evidence collected from past supervillains—a tempting target for new villains, perhaps? Were they secret supervillain lairs? And how would one tell? It was all woolgathering. Nobody could ever point to an individual behind the conspiracy, though some people tried—the mayor, the DA, and even the owner of the Commerce City Chargers baseball team, who had apparently benefited from a change of zoning laws that allowed a new stadium to be built. But commentators figured there must be someone or a cabal of someones acting as the secret masters of the city. Of course, and this was more likely, it could all just be coincidence.

Anna thought of something her mother said sometimes, with a grin and a knowing look, suggesting a joke no one else got: There’s no such thing as coincidence in a world with superhumans. The website featured occasional posts from various contributors suggesting that this news item or other indicated another piece of evidence as to the possible existence of the Executive. The recent series of city planning meetings was a popular topic of discussion. If someone like the Executive existed, certainly the planning committee would attract his attention and serve as a tempting target for interference. Someone had even done a chart of all the people who attended the meetings and which of them might be the Executive. Anna’s mother was on the list, but without any accompanying notes or evidence. Too prominent, the commentators agreed. She couldn’t possibly be a shadowy, behind-the-scenes manipulator simply because she was too well known, as the daughter of the Olympiad who had so publically rejected that part of her life.