Carrie Vaughn - After the Golden Age

After a moment’s pause, her father grumbled, “I was doing fine by myself.”

“Fifteen against one says otherwise,” the stranger said.

“We told you to stay in the command room,” Robbie said, threateningly.

The stranger replied, offhandedly, “I can tell what you’re saying about me from a hundred feet away, I might as well be here so I can defend myself.”

Celia lay there, clutching her swimming medal, her heart racing. She desperately wanted to jump up, run out to the kitchen, and demand to know what had happened, who the stranger was, and was Dad okay—

“You know you have an eavesdropper?” the stranger said. “Next room over.”

Celia held her breath—she hadn’t made a sound. Who was this guy? Did he have amplified hearing and sense her heartbeat? Could he smell her?

After a pause, her parents both said, with an air of frustration, “Celia.”

Her mother’s soft footsteps approached the area where the kitchen opened into the living room. “Celia? Why aren’t you in bed?”

She hesitated. Maybe she could pretend she wasn’t here, that the stranger was wrong. But all Suzanne had to do was enter the room and look at the sofa. Celia answered, “I wanted to watch TV.”

“Why don’t you come on out?”

Celia stared at the darkened ceiling. “I don’t want to.”

“Well, come out anyway. I don’t want you sneaking off with only half the story.”

Sighing heavily, Celia lurched off the sofa and prepared to trudge to her mother. She tucked the medal under her nightshirt. As soon as she appeared, Suzanne put her arm around Celia’s shoulder and guided her to the kitchen.

Her father stood near the table, arms crossed, glaring at the world in general. Robbie leaned against the wall nearby, looking equally sullen. They’d focused their attention on a man she’d never seen before. He stood at the end of the hallway, his hands tucked in the pockets of his brown trench coat, open to show a dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar. He had pale hair, ruffled back from a long face. His gaze was piercing. He studied her calmly.

“This is our daughter Celia. Celia, this is Arthur Mentis.”

“Hello,” he said.

She didn’t say anything. Just glared. He quirked a smile, like he understood her mistrust.

He looked at Suzanne. “She knows? Your secret identities, everything?”

Suzanne said, “We didn’t see a point in keeping it secret. She’d find out eventually.”

“She was supposed to join us one day,” Warren said, his voice flat.

Supposed to. No one expected that to happen now.

“Then you don’t have any particular … talents, I take it?” he said to her. That he spoke directly to her, and not through one of her parents, surprised her. He looked a lot younger than them, but he wasn’t intimidated by them, which made her warm to him.

That didn’t mean she had to answer him, especially when her father’s tone had made the answer obvious. “So what do you do?” she said, frowning.

“I spend my free time cheating at poker to pay for medical school. Not quite as glamorous as being the Olympiad. But there you are.”

“He’s a telepath,” Suzanne said.

Celia flushed, her cheeks burning. She suddenly felt naked—all her thoughts and frustrations, he could see them all. He could see that at this moment, she wasn’t particularly fond of her parents, and she certainly wasn’t interested in being nice to him. He must think she was awful.

“Then he knows about you guys,” she said.

“We’re working out what to do about that,” her mother said.

“Is everything going to be okay?”

“Everything’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it. Go on to bed, okay?”

Mentis said, “It’s hardly fair, asking her not to worry when you’ve exposed her to your world. How could she not worry? She’s been worrying her whole life.”

“It’s not really any of your business, now, is it?” Warren said, glaring.

But that was it exactly, she’d been worried her whole life. Worried, scared, frustrated, embarrassed, disappointed.…

“Go on,” Suzanne said, patting Celia’s shoulder. “We’ll see you in the morning, all right?”

Celia approached the hallway obliquely, keeping as far away from the stranger as she could. He appeared to not pay any attention to her.

She had moved past him when he said, “Congratulations on the silver medal.”

Celia was startled into politeness. “Thanks.”

Then, she ran down the hall to her room.

MARK and Arthur both told her what they’d learned from the poolside kidnappers. They weren’t part of the so-called Strad Brothers, the group that masterminded the heist at the symphony gala. They were, however, working for the Strad Brothers. Criminal subcontractors, which would have been laughable if Celia hadn’t seen that kind of organization in action. It hinted at a larger conspiracy. The details were murky. They’d only been instructed to take Celia West alive. A new conspiracy, with her at the center?

The evening news didn’t mention her, thankfully. They had a bigger story. She and Mark lounged on her sofa, watching.

The pretty anchorwoman read her cue seriously. “Our top story, a robbery has taken place at the Commerce City Botanical Gardens. The perpetrators are believed to be the same group of thieves that stole four priceless Stradivarius instruments from the symphony gala last week.”

Celia turned the volume up.

“The thieves’ target this time? Three prize-winning koi. Because of their breeding potential, these koi were estimated to be worth tens of thousands of dollars.”

Mark huffed. “ Fish? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Witnesses say the thieves took the fish from the Garden’s Japanese pond, an ornamental landscape that forms the central attraction of the Garden’s collection. Apparently, the fish were taken alive. Garden officials expressed some hope that they could be recovered in the same condition.”

They should be so lucky. This gang obviously knew what it was doing and chose its targets carefully: unusual, high-ticket items that would be impossible to unload on the conventional marketplace.

“They’re making a statement, not robbing for money,” she said.

“That means there’s a pattern. It makes them easier to catch.”

Both robberies coincided with her kidnapping attempts—just like her kidnapping off the bus coincided with a city-wide crime spree. She didn’t think she rated classification as a valuable cultural artifact. But in all three cases, she’d provided a distraction. Law enforcement and the supers had been looking at her, not at any robberies.

Until the Strad Brothers were caught, this was likely to happen again.

Now that she knew what to look for, she could spot her bodyguards. The next day, gazing upward, she caught a glimpse of Breezeway jumping from one building to the next, across the street from where she waited for the bus. He had a good view of her and all the streets around her. She almost waved hello.

Back in college, Celia had taken perverse delight in walking across campus alone in the middle of the night. As a freshman she’d gotten tired of the women’s groups and security activists insisting that no girl should ever venture forth into the darkness without a can of mace and a uniformed cop escorting her. That reeked of regressive Victorian thinking. Celia made a point of walking alone, with enough of a badass attitude that no one ever approached her.

One night, a breeze kicked up autumn leaves as she marched from the library to her dorm, half a mile away. It was a nice night for a walk. Her peasant skirt swished around her legs, her oversize cotton tunic was cozy. In another month the air would be too cold for comfort.