Carrie Vaughn - Dreams of the Golden Age

—Dad? Dad, are you there?—

—I would prefer you staying at West Plaza, out of harm’s way.—

—No, everyone’s here. They have really powerful supers. We can help.—

—I know you can, sweetheart. I’ll see you soon.—

“Dad already knows everything,” Anna said.

“Of course he does.” Suzanne smiled, but the wince didn’t go away.

Sirens sounded in the distance—an arriving ambulance. “They’ll be here soon, Grandma.”

“I know. You all get going.” Absently, she patted Anna’s hand.

Teia pulled at Anna’s shirt. “Come on, let’s go.”

Anna gave in to an urge to throw herself at Teia, wrapping her in a fierce hug. She didn’t even question if Teia would hug back.

“You made it!”

“You need help, of course I did,” Teia said into her shoulder before pulling away. “Now, do you know where we’re going?”

She told them, and they piled into the two cars—the Baker family in one, Anna, Teddy, and Sam in the other—just as the ambulance circled into the drive. They’d take care of Grandma, and Anna let that worry go.

“Hey, Anna,” a voice said through the bud in her ear.

“Bethy! Did you get all that?”

“I’m watching through the security cameras. Is Grandma really okay?”

“I don’t know, she really fell hard.”

“I’m also watching those freaky superhumans—they went around the back of the building. They had some kind of heli-car parked there, they’ve already taken off.”

“Back to Horizon Tower?”

“Let me check … um … yeah. Dad’s there with the cops.”

“He’s not too happy, is he?”

“Whatever,” she said in her snippy Bethy voice. Anna had to smile.

“I’ll check in soon.”

They got stuck in traffic still ten minutes out from the Tower. The enemy superhumans had a head start and plenty of time to prepare. This was going to suck.

“This is so awkward,” Teddy muttered, tapping a hand against the passenger side door. “I mean, look at us, we don’t look anything like superheroes in this thing.”

“You insult my car one more time, you can walk,” Sam groused back.

“Anna, the Olympiad didn’t have any flyers, how did they get around? Didn’t they have some kind of, like, helicopter or supersonic jet or something? What’d they do with them?”

Gave a whole new meaning to asking Mom and Dad to borrow the car, didn’t it? Except they wouldn’t let her drive anything. “I don’t really know—they had some armored cars and a jump jet, I think, but I don’t know what happened to them. They’re probably stored somewhere. I mean, the command room still works. Dad opened it up so we could use the computers to find Mom.”

“Really? Holy cow.”

“That reminds me—here.” She gave them the extra headsets Suzanne had retrieved from the cupboard. “We’ll be able to stay in touch. Bethy’s coordinating from the Olympiad mainframe.”

“Cool,” Teddy murmured, without sufficient gravity or respect for the situation, Anna thought.

“The pipsqueak can do that?” Sam said.

“Yeah. She’s the smart one.”

They didn’t argue with that.

Eventually, after interminable minutes, they reached a police cordon surrounding Horizon Tower. A block in every direction appeared to be shut down with barriers and patrol cars, roof lights flashing. Yellow police tape fluttered, reporters pressed close with cameras and shouted questions, and even a few superhero groupies mingled among the usual onlookers and passersby. A man in a ratty coat held a beat-up sign reading CAPTAIN OLYMPUS: OUR ALIEN SAVIOR WILL RETURN. Anna got a little queasy reading that.

“Great,” Sam muttered. “How do we talk them into letting us through?”

Any sane cop would look at them—three teens in a car wearing masks and homemade superhero costumes—and laugh, not let them past a serious cordon.

“My dad and Captain Paulson are just around the corner, we can call them over—”

The nearest officer came over and tapped on the window as Sam slowed. Dutifully, Sam rolled it down.

“You guys the Trinity? The captain said you’d be showing up. Park there, meet Captain Paulson at the front of the building. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” Anna replied.

Sam complied, and Ms. Baker slid their car to the curb behind the sedan. The boys all piled out and ran up the block. Anna hung back to walk with Teia and her mother. The cops just waved them all on through. Dr. Mentis must have talked them into making this easy. Anna started to get excited in spite of herself. This—the crowds, the orders delivered through a scratching bullhorn, the rabid sense of anticipation—must have been what it was like in the old days.

“This is the most fucked-up field trip I’ve ever chaperoned,” Ms. Baker said, shaking her head.

“Mom!” Teia exclaimed.

Her mother rolled her eyes. “Oh, hon, calm down.”

Anna sidled close to Teia and said, “Your mom seems to be taking this very calmly.”

“Yeah, that’s because it turns out my mom was Typhoon. Should have known, right?”

“ What? Holy shit!”

“Tell me about it.”

Anna took a surreptitious glance at Analise Baker. Aka Typhoon? She tried to picture it—plenty of photos of the superhuman existed: an athletic black woman with hair in cornrows tucked back by a sleek blue-green mask that matched her liquidlike skin suit. She’d been one of the premier supers in her day, but she’d vanished from public view when a warrant was issued for her arrest on suspicion of murder, after one of her tidal waves drowned a cop. The debate about whether that drowning was accidental or intentional still raged. The Ms. Baker Anna was walking next to now was … old. As old as her own mother, and kind of soft, with short halolike hair tied back with a red headband. And she didn’t have any powers, not that anyone knew about. Did she? Typhoon could telekinetically control water and summon rain—storms, in fact, much like Lew did. And Teia’s manipulation of ice was just another form of controlling water, wasn’t it? Teia was right, they should have guessed.

“Why didn’t you ever go public?” Anna asked, blushing at the rudeness of it.

“Because that was a long time ago and it all happened to another person.”

“Well … thank you. For coming out now, to help get Mom back.”

Analise shook her head and seemed sad, full of regret. “I won’t be able to help. I’m here to look out for my kids.”

Anna didn’t press further. She glanced up in time to see a green-garbed figure sailing overhead, as if leaping from one ledge to Horizon Tower’s familiar thirtieth-floor patio. And how had he found out about this? She expected to feel an embarrassed flush at the thought of talking to Eliot again. But she didn’t have time for that right now.

Arthur and Captain Paulson were waiting at the front of the building. A dozen police cars and a SWAT van fanned out in the street, and the place hummed with the tension of a coming battle. Radios crackled with static and orders, and uniformed men and women arrayed themselves like soldiers before a giant.

“You should have stayed home,” Arthur said.

Anna said, “You’re going to need help. They have their own superhumans. People nobody knows about, who’ve never gone public before now.”

“And I’m betting they’re not on Celia’s list,” Analise said, crossing her arms.

Anna furrowed her brow. “List, what list?”

“Never mind,” Paulson said. “There’s a team of supers holed up in there, and I want them out. You guys have any ideas before my people bust in there?”

For the first time, Anna had a chance to study the building. It looked different in daylight, the glass and bronze of it reflecting light and the overcast sky. On the ground floor, solid steel walls were bolted down in front of every available access point, instead of the glass doors, windows, and shop fronts that should have been there. The place was locked down.