Carrie Vaughn - After the Golden Age

“Yes. She won’t know me, but it’s very important I see her. I have news about her son.”

“I didn’t know she had a son,” the receptionist said as she dialed a number on her phone.

Celia smiled innocently.

The receptionist spoke on the phone for several moments, passing along the message. Celia was sure that Janet would refuse to talk to her.

Then the receptionist covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “Would it be all right if she met you in the atrium?”

“Yes, of course, that’d be fine.”

“She’ll be down in a few minutes. You can wait for her, it’s just at the end of the hallway.”

Celia made her way to the atrium. The large glass room was filled with patio furniture, wicker tables, and chairs with big soft cushions. Potted trees and vines flourished, and birdsong chirped here and there. Celia suspected it was a recording. A few people played cards at a table across the way.

She waited long enough to think that Janet had changed her mind. A woman arrived then, her expression taut, frowning. She scanned the room until her gaze found Celia, who was out of place here. Celia smiled in what she hoped was an encouraging manner.

The woman’s shoulders were slightly stooped, but she managed to hold herself elegantly, her chin up. Her hair was short, permed, perfectly arranged, and she wore a fashionable blouse and trousers with confidence. She’d have looked at home anywhere. Whatever had happened to this woman in her life, she’d held on to her dignity.

Celia went to her and offered her hand. “Ms. Travers? I’m Celia West. Thank you for meeting with me.”

Janet didn’t shake her hand. “What do you want with me?”

Celia hadn’t expected this to be easy. “I just want to ask a few questions. I don’t want to cause any trouble, but I’ve got a mystery that I really need help solving, and you may be the one to do it.”

“Then why bring up a son? Because I don’t know anything about that.”

Wincing, Celia said, “Can we sit down?” She gestured to a secluded set of wicker chairs. Reluctantly, Janet joined her there.

“I originally found your name on a payroll report for West Corp. You worked at the Leyden Industrial Park building. The laboratory there was shut down after an accident. I want to know what happened.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Yes. But you must remember something. Simon Sito worked there—”

“I don’t want to hear anything about him.”

“I know this must be difficult.”

“Do you? Then tell me why you mentioned a son. I wouldn’t have agreed to talk with you if you hadn’t.”

She wondered if the old woman realized who Celia was.

“I know who the father was. I assure you, I learned by accident. It’s a long story, but I only uncovered the adoption records after I had suspicions.”

The tension in Janet’s face seemed to melt, as if now that the secret was out, she could stop working so hard to hide it. As if she knew this moment had always been inevitable, but not as terrible as she’d envisioned. She rubbed her face with a bony, trembling hand.

“I should have ended the pregnancy,” Janet said. “I saw what he turned into, and I just kept thinking how I let his genes loose in the world. That evil—” Celia didn’t even have to say the name. Janet knew who she was talking about.

“Did he start out evil? Was he always like he is now? You must have seen something in him, back then.”

“No, no. He was … it was a long time ago. My memory of him is colored, I’m sure. But he was driven, and I admired him.”

A lost love? A quick fling? Celia couldn’t guess what they’d been to each other.

“Ms. Travers, I’m not here about your son, or Sito, or your relationship with him. I learned about all that by accident. But you wouldn’t talk to me when I called you a few days ago. I’m sorry if I tricked you into talking with me, but I’m running out of leads. What I really want to know is what was going on at the Leyden laboratory. Anything you can remember, no matter how insignificant, would be helpful. I’d appreciate it.”

The woman gathered herself, pursing her lips and straightening as much as she could. Her hands lay in her lap, clenched around each other.

“That day, the day of the accident, was the first major test of the equipment.”

“Equipment? What kind of equipment?”

Janet shook her head. “The project involved using radiation as a treatment for mental illness. A generator was supposed to create a specific kind of radiation. I’m afraid I don’t know any more than that. I was a technician; I prepared tissue samples and microscope slides, that was all.

“The equipment … burst, I think. It overheated, or a power surge overloaded it. I don’t think anyone ever learned what exactly happened. It was very embarrassing for Dr. Sito, because Mr. West was there observing—”

“Mr. West. Jacob West?”

“Yes— Wait a moment. Celia West. Are you related to him?”

“He was my grandfather,” Celia said. She could see the light of recognition in Janet’s eyes. Oh, that Celia West. Janet must not have recognized her instantly because she didn’t watch the news. Probably got out of the habit when the Destructor was featured regularly. As reminders of ex-boyfriends went, that had to have been bad. “Please, go on.”

“West Corp financed the whole thing. The only thing worse than failure is failure in front of your investors. But Sito insisted on showing off the experiment. At any rate, instead of focusing the energy in a beam that could be directed at specific targets—such as parts of the brain, for therapy—the entire room got a dose of the radiation. Now, the dose was weak. It was designed to be safe for use on people, of course. I don’t think anyone was hurt by it. But Mr. West shut down the project and gave everyone who was there quite generous severance payments. He decided the research was too radical to continue safely. Dr. Sito never recovered from the disappointment.

“He … he came to me that night. Drunk out of his mind, despairing. He needed comfort. I suppose I felt sorry for him. That was the night I conceived. By the time I learned I was pregnant, Sito had been institutionalized. I couldn’t keep the baby, then. I couldn’t raise it alone, with the father in an asylum—” She looked at her hands and flattened them on her legs in an effort to stop wringing them. The tendons stood out.

“I never saw Simon again,” she said. “At least, not in person. When he started making the news years later, I didn’t recognize him. I’ve avoided hearing anything about him. I must be the only person in Commerce City not following his trial.”

“He doesn’t know that he has a child,” Celia said. Janet shook her head. “You could probably sell your story to one of the tabloids for a lot of money.” She was mostly joking.

“I could,” Janet said, her smile thin and bitter. “But can you imagine if the child— my child—learned the truth about his parents? If he’s still out there—I can’t imagine how it would feel, to learn that your father was someone like that.”

Maybe a little like having Captain Olympus as a father. It would be different, of course, having a hero to look up to rather than a villain to despise. But somehow, it would also be the same.

How was she going to tell all this to Mark?

“Ms. Travers—I know who your son is. I’ve met him. Would you like to hear about him?” He’s the mayor, and you have a valiant grandson who’s a police detective —her genes had done pretty well for themselves.

She looked back, stricken. The yes sat on the verge of trembling lips. Celia regretted this whole trip. She hadn’t wanted to make an old woman cry.