Carrie Vaughn - Dreams of the Golden Age

“That’s your power?” her grandmother asked, looking thoughtful. “We’d been wondering. That’s … all right.” Anna realized just how closely her family had been watching, waiting for her to reveal … something. If she’d been anything like Captain Olympus, they probably wouldn’t have had to wait so long. She’d never have been able to keep it secret.

She probably shouldn’t have kept it secret for so long. “It’s not very impressive,” she said, frowning.

“Don’t sell yourself short. You knew instantly that something had happened to Celia,” Arthur said, not turning from the computer displays.

“But if they’ve got somebody who can block mental powers, then I can’t do anything, none of us can do anything—”

“We can always do something,” Suzanne said. Anna suddenly felt better. They were the Olympiad.

“I’m afraid we’re at a bit of a loss here,” Arthur said. “Paulson will do what he can, but this came out of the blue, and we’re not expecting any ransom demands—”

“No, it didn’t,” Anna said. “It didn’t come out of the blue. Mom was leaving the courthouse after the hearing about the lawsuit. What if … she thinks the lawsuit happened because someone wants to stop West Corp from getting the city planning contract. She must have gotten the lawsuit thrown out, and what if those people are working for whoever wants to stop her?” The empty office building. Superior Construction’s fake lawyers. If this had anything to do with the lawsuit, the trail would start there. She blushed.

“Yes, Anna?” Arthur prompted gently. “What is it?”

She was thinking out loud but afraid to speak too quickly lest the pieces that were falling into place got jostled. “I think I know where we can go to figure out who took her.” She explained about Horizon Tower, about tracking down information for the lawsuit, about the empty law office. Her father politely didn’t ask her how she knew so much about all this.

“It’s as good a place to start as any,” Arthur said with a renewed sense of purpose. He picked up the phone again and talked to Paulson, passing along the information and closing with, “Wait for me, I want to be there when you go in … Well, I don’t exactly know what good I can do, and I won’t know unless I’m there, will I?”

He hung up the phone and started to flee the room before turning back. “Wait here. I’ll call as soon as we learn anything.”

“But Dad—” Anna called after him, but he was already gone. The real superheroes were on the job. Fine, okay. She returned to pacing.

Suzanne sat with Bethy at the conference table and took her youngest granddaughter’s hand. “It’ll be all right, I promise you. We’ve always gotten Celia back in situations like this.”

“How many times was Mom kidnapped?” Bethy asked, shocked.

“I … you know, I lost track.” Her brow furrowed, revealing bemusement.

Anna’s sense of panic was growing. The old Olympiad had always gotten Celia back, but the old Olympiad wasn’t around anymore. Just the elegant older woman who hadn’t, as far as Anna knew, used her power for anything but making crème brûlée in twenty years, and the telepath, and she knew very well how effective mental powers weren’t in a straight-up fight, especially if someone was blocking them.

She had to do something, so she got out her phone and pressed buttons. “It’s not working, why isn’t it working?”

“The room’s shielded, outside signals can’t get in,” Suzanne said.

Anna marched to the door, following her father.

“Anna, who are you calling?” Suzanne asked.

“Everybody.”

In the hallway, she sat on the carpet because her legs were shaking. “Come on, come on…”

Teddy answered on the first ring. “Anna, oh my God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t think you were ever going to talk to me again—”

“Teddy, shut up, I need your help. I need everybody’s help.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Somebody’s kidnapped my mom and they have some way of blocking mental powers because I can’t find her, my dad can’t find her. But I think we know where to start looking.”

He paused for a long time. “And you really think we can help? I mean, this is serious.”

“Exactly,” she said, exasperated. “You wanted to stop screwing around, so this is it. If we can’t rescue my mother, what good are we?”

“I’m just saying … maybe some of the other supers…”

“Fine. You don’t want to help, I’ll call Teia and Sam—”

“No, of course I want to help. We’ll get her back, Anna. You call Teia and Lew, I’ll call Sam. We’ll meet you at West Plaza, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay. Teddy—thank you.”

Suzanne stood by the entrance to the command room, watching Anna, her expression thoughtful. Anna prepared her usual defensive glare.

“Don’t tell me that I shouldn’t go out, that I’m too young, that I can’t handle it—”

“I’m not going to do that. Wait just a minute, though.”

Back in the command room, Suzanne went to one of the metallic cabinets along the side wall and opened a drawer. She didn’t have to dig around long before drawing out a set of thumb-sized devices and wires—earbud and microphone sets.

“Take this,” she said, hooking one of the devices around Anna’s ear, settling the bud in place. “It’ll keep you in contact with the command computer. We never had to use them much because of Arthur. I hope they still work. Bethy, here, you take one, too. We’ll need you to monitor the computer scanner and keep us all in the loop. All right?”

“You want me to help?” Bethy stared at them both. Anna wanted to hug her.

“I won’t have to teach you how to use the computer,” Suzanne said. “You’re your mother’s daughter, you know very well it isn’t all about the powers.”

“Bethy, you’re the smart one,” Anna said. “Everybody knows it.”

She had a look on her face like she didn’t believe them.

“Oh, Celia used to look just like that when she was your age.” Suzanne chuckled.

Bethy quickly hooked the speaker over her ear and turned to the console.

Back in the hallway, Anna’s phone beeped a missed call at her. She hit Reply. “Teia?”

“Teddy just texted and said someone grabbed your mom.”

“Yeah, I really need your help, can you come?”

She gave a short growl. “We’ll try. We usually sneak out after Mom’s asleep, but she’s up now and practically sitting in front of the door. But we’ll figure out how to get past her.”

Anna had a radical proposition. “Maybe if you just told her what’s happening—”

“And tell her everything else? I don’t know that I’m ready for that.”

“What is it?” Suzanne said.

Anna realized she was going to have to tell her grandmother everything. “Okay—Teia and Lew, they’re … they’ve got powers, too. We … we’ve all been practicing together, and we have to figure out how to convince their mom to let them go—”

“Anna, let me talk to Teia,” Suzanne said, holding her hand out for the phone.

Confused and caught too off guard to argue, Anna said, “Teia, my grandma wants to talk to you.” And she handed the phone over.

“Teia? This is Suzanne, is your mother there? May I talk to her? Just tell her Suzanne wants to talk to her.” A few moments ticked by, then she said, “Hello, Analise. Yes, this is Suzanne West. How are you? Not great, I’m afraid … Celia’s missing. That’s right. Can you help?”

Anna would have given anything for five minutes of superhearing, to be able to follow both sides of this conversation.

“Frankly, I don’t much care about that,” Suzanne said, hand on hip. “But will you please let Teia and Lew come over? Anna very much wants their help on this … Yes, Anna, too, they’re all in on it together … I know, but what did you expect? Yes, Arthur and I will be there looking out for them. So will Mark Paulson … That’s fine, just get over as soon as you can. Thank you.”