Carrie Vaughn - After the Golden Age

During another long silence, Celia wished for a moment she was Arthur, so she could know what the others were thinking.

— Or not .—

She glanced up and caught him looking back at her. She blushed and quickly looked away. He’d been prying. Or she’d been thinking too loud. He said that happened sometimes.

Suzanne went to the computers. “Let’s run the mayor through the database.”

The database retrieved and cross-referenced Mayor Anthony Paulson’s information, producing the standard biography and a detailed listing of policy decisions and political records. Anthony Paulson was something of a Commerce City folk hero, a hard-luck case made good, an orphaned child adopted into a middle-class family and risen through the ranks of the city’s elite through his own hard labor. His policies were moderate, he was fiscally conservative, pro-labor, pro-education, and antisocialization. He was a politician everyone could love, and the greatest buried scandal of his life involved a college liaison with an underage girl—he’d been eighteen, she’d been two days from sixteen. The scandal died a quick death—the girl was Andrea, and the couple married three years later.

“We’ve got nothing on this guy,” Robbie observed. “He’s clean as a whistle.”

“If we’re not entirely wrong,” Warren said. “There’s got to be another connection. I still think Simon Sito is behind this somehow.”

Arthur rubbed his chin, considering. “That’s our problem. We have too many explanations that are possible but unlikely.”

“Isn’t that always the way?” Suzanne said.

A photo of Paulson smiled at them from the monitor. That’s what Mark will look like when he’s older, Celia thought. Not a bad-looking man at all. He even had an intriguingly wicked glint in his eye, like he knew very well how to use the power he’d acquired.

Something in his eyes made her stomach go queasy. She’d looked him in the eye before, at the symphony gala, and the dinner at the mansion. But he’d been in a more personable state both times. This photo was from his last campaign; here, he was predatory. Celia recognized the expression. She hadn’t noticed it right away because she’d never expected it. Not in this context.

He looked like a young Simon Sito. He had that glint in his eye that the Destructor always showed before he pressed the button.

“Celia, what is it?” Mentis watched her closely.

She’d been hypnotized by that image without realizing it, gazing into that man’s eyes and falling back in time, even more so than when she stepped into the command room in the first place. She must have looked lost, staring blank-eyed at the screen.

“I don’t know. Just … thinking.” She couldn’t say it out loud. It would sound ridiculous. Sito had nothing to do with this current crime wave. He wasn’t masterminding anything anymore.

Paranoia. It was just paranoia.

Fortunately, Mentis was too polite to press the question.

Warren, Captain Olympus, took charge. “Mentis, see if you can get close to Paulson and read anything off him. We need other leads to confirm this. If he’s behind the gangs, he has to be paying them. We have to be able to trace the stolen items back to him.”

It sounded like accounting to Celia. “I have some sources I might be able to check on.”

“I thought you weren’t working,” said her father.

She was too preoccupied to glare properly. “Public records are public, one way or another.”

“You don’t have to help. Thanks for bringing us this, but it’s not your responsibility.”

“I spent a lot of years in college learning how to do this kind of thing. Let me help.” She hated begging. She ought to just walk out and go back to her ice cream.

The others waited for Warren’s cue. Why couldn’t any of them stand up to him? Because he was the Captain. If he didn’t want her to help, they wouldn’t argue.

“Fine,” Warren said at last. Grudging for no other reason than to be grudging.

The planning continued. Robbie appointed himself for surveillance duty. Suzanne would consolidate information from the captured gang members, to try to learn who had hired them.

Celia continued to think, half-distractedly. Anthony Paulson was adopted. Sito couldn’t possibly be his biological father. That explanation was so mundane. So simple.

And if it were true, it meant Mark was Simon Sito’s grandson. Confirming the relationship should be a simple matter, if she could find Paulson’s original adoption records—fifty years old and certainly sealed. A paternity test would also do the job.

“Mom? Does the computer have Sito’s DNA on file?”

“Yes, I’m sure. We collected everything we could about him. As much good as it did in the end. Why?”

“No reason. Curiosity.”

“Something to do with one of your sources?” Arthur said. He’d be perfectly justified in telling on her. He had to know what she was thinking. Either it was a measure of his trust that he said nothing—or he thought the idea was as outlandish as she did.

“Something like that,” she said.

“You’ll need access to the computer. You should have access to the computer, if you think it’ll help.” Suzanne gazed at Celia, bright-eyed and earnest.

She meant the Olympiad computer. As much raw computing power as Warren West’s fortune could buy, and the Olympiad database, which held information available from no other source. She meant free access to the command room to use the computer.

Suzanne glanced at Warren, who pursed his lips, and while he didn’t nod or give wholehearted assent, he didn’t argue. Didn’t say no.

“Okay. If you think it’s best,” Celia said, a little breathlessly.

“You might need something, and if none of us is around—” Her mother smiled. It was like she’d been waiting for years to give Celia access to the command room. To initiate her into the club.

No one was protesting.

Suzanne brought her to the main terminal and had her put her thumb on a scanner, to record her print, to confirm her authorization. The computer accepted her with glowing green lights.

The numeric code for the outer door was Celia’s birthday.

Her mother fussed over her some more and wanted to feed her even more lasagna, when what Celia really wanted to do was start pouring data into the mainframe. But she didn’t want to do it with everyone hovering over her. Arthur took the cue and excused himself, claiming he had some work to finish up at his psychiatry practice—his office was halfway down the building. So, the group dispersed, and Celia promised she’d get a good night’s sleep, and the data crunching would have to wait until tomorrow.

When she left West Plaza for home, she checked her phone and found she’d missed a call. The Olympiad conference room blocked such transmissions.

Mark had left her a message. He sounded angry. “Celia. I got your call and checked up on your information. I don’t know what you’re implying about my father. You’re obviously bored out of your skull to go through this much trouble to dig up this trash. I think your parents’ paranoia has rubbed off on you. You’re looking for conspiracies that don’t exist.” He clicked off.

Maybe she could find a few of his hairs on her pillow, to compare against Sito’s DNA. She doubted she’d be getting any other kind of genetic material from him any time soon.

THE Banner ’s headline the next morning announced in blazing bold letters: “DEFENSE RESTS IN SITO TRIAL. JURY DELIBERATION BEGINS.” So, the end was nigh.

In a fit of déjà vu, Celia set out for the bus stop, on her way back to West Plaza to feed her information about Leyden Laboratory into the Olympiad mainframe. She was as giddy as a kid at Christmas about what she might find.