Dreams of the Golden Age

FIVE

ARTHUR came back to bed around three in the morning. Celia was waiting up for him.

“Well?” she asked, as he closed the door and began unbuttoning his shirt in the glow of the lamp on the nightstand.

“That girl has so much on her mind I can hardly make sense of it all. Poor thing.”

“But she’s okay, she’s not hurt or in trouble?” She had reconciled herself to not learning the details. But she wanted reassurance. A basic, simple yes or no. Was it so hard?

“She’s fine, for now. But she’s determined to have this secret life of hers.” Tension in his mouth, around his eyes, showed through his habitual calm. His anxiety made her even more anxious.

Celia rubbed her face. She was exhausted, but there was no way she could sleep while worrying about Anna.

“If you tell me she’s okay, not doing drugs or working at a strip club or anything, I’ll trust you. But I really wish you’d pry, just this once.”

“It wouldn’t be just once, that’s the problem.” He finished undressing, switched off the light, and climbed into bed with her. His skin was chilled, and she shivered at his touch. They hunkered under the covers together to warm up, and he wrapped his arms around her. Only then did Celia start to relax. “She found one of the old Olympiad escape elevators and got it working. That’s how she got out of the building. May I recommend not sealing it up, at least not right away?”

“Because if we know where she is we can keep an eye on her. Yes, I know. At least let me put a camera in there.”

“If I may be so rude as to point it out, this was what you wanted: You wanted the children to find each other and help each other learn to use their powers. If they’re taking the effort farther than you’re comfortable with, you can’t complain.”

“I just wish she’d talk to us. She’s never shown any sign of having powers—what could she possibly be doing?”

“You should ask yourself if you really want to know,” he said, chuckling. “I’m sure it would appall us.”

“I always hoped she wouldn’t have powers. That she’d have a nice, boring life.”

“I don’t think she wants a boring life, love. At least she hasn’t roped Bethy into things. At least not yet.”

Bethy was the sensible one, except she worried too much. Maybe superpowers made people crazy. Celia wouldn’t know. “Can you tell me that everything’s going to be all right?”

“Everything’s going to be all right,” he said dutifully, with that sinister, studious look in his eyes. Even Arthur had this weird, mad look to him sometimes, when he knew something that the rest of the world didn’t.

“You’re lying.”

“You didn’t even have to be telepathic to know that,” he said, kissing her forehead.

The next day, Celia had her weekly lunch date with Analise Baker. No matter how busy she got, she couldn’t miss this.

Their preferred spot was a downtown diner. As usual, Analise had gotten there first and claimed a table in back. She stood, arms open, to greet Celia with a hug. The brown-skinned woman was tall and had filled out some in her middle age, but the extra roundness made her seem even more statuesque and impressive.

She hugged the woman hard, and Analise laughed. They’d been friends for half their lives. Celia didn’t have many friends from her early days. Burned too many bridges back then. But Analise was still around.

“What’s the news?” Analise asked, after they ordered their salads.

Celia could feel the war-weary, startled look in her eyes. “I have teenage daughters, how about you?”

“Twins, Celia. You will never one-up me.” Analise pointed with her fork. “But tell me the dirt anyway.”

Celia tore a corner off her paper napkin and mangled it while the wheels in her mind turned. The impulse to keep secrets was strong. But few people would understand like the woman sitting across the table would.

“I think Anna has powers, but she won’t talk about it. She won’t tell anyone.”

Analise was quiet a moment, her expression still, like she hadn’t heard. Finally she said, “She setting pillows on fire or what?”

If only it were that obvious. Then she could sit Anna down and wheedle it out of her. Turned out this was worse than the birds-and-bees talk. That had been easy compared to simultaneously wanting to treat Anna like an adult while learning all her secrets. Celia shook her head. “I think she takes after Arthur. Some kind of mental power, something nobody would know about unless she said something. I just don’t know how to get her to talk.”

“You ought to bug the girls’ restroom at Elmwood if you want to find out their secrets.”

Celia had considered it but ran into Arthur’s perpetual problem: How much did she really want to know? “This too shall pass, right? Arthur won’t pry, and he’s right not to, but anything he’s learned by accident he won’t talk about until Anna talks. That’s the right call, too, I’m sure. He says she’s fine, but…”

Analise sat back in the booth and smiled. “But it’s totally outside your control, and that drives you nuts.”

This was why she and Analise had been having lunch almost every week for two decades. “Bingo.”

“If it’s any consolation, I’m sure my kids are up to something, too. Creeping around like spies, not saying a word they don’t have to.”

“Powers?” Celia questioned, even though she already knew the answer.

“Probably. But it’s the same problem you have with Anna—if they’ve got powers, why won’t they just tell me?”

Celia picked at the lettuce on her plate and smiled. “Because they don’t know who you are—were—and they don’t think you’ll understand. Because they have to protect their secret identities if they’re going to go fight crime.”

Analise looked at her as if the concept had never occurred to her, which had to be a supreme case of cognitive dissonance. Then she slumped. “Oh, God, I hope not.”

Back in the day, Analise had been Typhoon. She hadn’t worn her costume or used her powers since she’d accidentally killed a cop with a flood of water through the streets downtown. Guilt had shut her down. Celia constantly wanted to ask if she’d tried using her powers since then, if she ever hoped that she would get them back. But Celia didn’t have the courage to open that old wound.

“I’d hoped whatever it was that got me would pass them over. Like it did you, you know? I figured you were proof that I couldn’t pass my powers on to my kids.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I just—” Analise leaned her elbow on the table, her brow furrowed. She worked hard to appear calm and in control, but this worried her. “They’d better not do anything to lose their scholarships. I don’t know how they managed to swing them in the first place, but they’d better not screw it up. It’s too big a chance for them.”

They wouldn’t lose their scholarships to Elmwood Academy, not unless they did something to get kicked out of the school entirely. Celia had given them their scholarships anonymously, through a charity that assisted the children of firefighters who’d been killed in the line of duty, as Analise’s husband had been.

“They’ll be fine,” Celia said. “They’re good kids.” Because that was what you said to your best friend about her offspring.

Analise shook the thought away. “Whatever’s going to happen is going to happen, whether we like it or not.”

The conversation turned to other topics, normal topics, like jobs, politics, school schedules, and the tragedy of aging.

Analise seemed happy, Celia reflected. But as she often did, her expression held a sadness. A resignation. Such mundane domesticity was not where the original trajectory of her life had aimed her. As a young woman, she’d never planned on being the widowed mother of twins.

Once again, Celia was on the verge of asking. Pushing her water glass forward, casually suggesting that Analise try to spill it with only her mind.

“You are thinking deep thoughts, my friend,” the woman said finally.

Celia smiled. “Oh, not so much. Just the usual.”

“You might think about taking a vacation,” Analise said. “We haven’t all gone to the beach house since the kids started middle school, and you’re looking tired.”

“I can’t look any more tired than I normally do.”

“Yeah, you do, actually.”

Great. Just what she needed, to start looking like crap as well as feeling like crap. “I’ll see what I can do. I keep thinking maybe once the kids are out of school.”

“That’s years away. Go on vacation and take them with you. You used to be able to manage a trip every summer.”

“I’ll think about it.”

They could all make the trip together. Sit around stewing about why their kids wouldn’t talk to them, and didn’t that sound like fun? Still, it was nice to know she wasn’t the only one who worried.

Didn’t a vacation sound lovely? Someday soon, she promised herself.

The city planning committee initiative, and her determination to make sure West Corp’s bid was the one the committee picked, was the culmination of some five years of work, of reviewing civil engineering surveys, ordering a dozen or so studies of population and community patterns, making countless projections of all possible plans and outcomes to find the one that didn’t just work, that didn’t just make money, but that made Commerce City better. This drive, this loyalty to the city, wasn’t entirely hers, Celia knew that. She worked for this plan for the same reason her parents had donned skin suits and battled villains for most of her childhood: It was in the blood. The powers written into their DNA had to be used for the protection of the city. She didn’t have powers, but ultimately she had that need. She didn’t argue with it.

The city had a process for getting things done, and she was adept at operating in its bureaucracies to make her plans work. She wasn’t worried that the West Corp proposal would lose out. But the arrival of Danton Majors was a variable she hadn’t expected. The most prominent outside participant in this dance, of unknown reach and resources, he made her nervous, and she wanted to know more.

She searched online databases and news services for every reference she could find on Danton Majors. A native of Delta, comparable to Commerce City in population and resources, but inland. Proud citizen, et cetera. The articles she found were mostly shiny puff pieces in financial publications, extolling his genius and virtues. She read between the lines, decided he’d had a couple of lucky breaks but had parlayed that luck into a substantial business. Publicly, he did what self-made men usually did with their money: attended society functions, patronized the right charities. He was married—twenty-two years, impressive—had two college-age kids, though his family stayed out of the public eye. The man was careful with his image.

She’d have to dig somewhere else to find any dirt on him, so she called a contact at the Commerce Eye. Over the years, the onetime tabloid rag had turned respectable by scooping its rival, the Banner, on a string of big stories. In the meantime, the Banner had gone stodgy and eventually folded.

“Hello, Mary? It’s Celia West. I need a favor.”

She could almost hear the reporter sputtering on the other end of the line. Celia had done her a few favors over the last couple of years—an exclusive interview, some on-the-record quotes about West Corp, and even a statement for a memorial retrospective about her father. Mary Danforth owed her big-time but probably never thought Celia would actually call her on it.

Mary managed to recover some kind of enthusiastic demeanor. “Certainly, Celia, whatever I can do to help.”

“Have you ever heard of a guy named Danton Majors? From Delta, rich real estate tycoon, he’s in town for that city planning meeting. You have anything unofficial on him?”

She hesitated. “You know, that’s funny.”

“What’s funny?”

“Well…” The reporter didn’t want to tell her.

“Out with it, Mary. It’s no big deal. If he’s going to bid on the development initiative, I just want to know more about him.”

“The thing is, I spoke with Majors a day or so ago. He was asking me for information about you.”

That wasn’t a shock. Guy was smart, covered his bases. “What did you tell him?”

“That’s just it. I started to tell him all about West Corp—nothing serious, you know, just all the public record stuff. I mean, that’s all I really know.”

“But?”

“He wanted to know about the Olympiad and whether or not you had powers.”

“I don’t have powers, everyone knows that.”

“Yeah, but … he seemed to think that maybe you’d hidden it. I told him that was silly. You’ve publicly distanced yourself from superhuman vigilantes your whole life. And you know what he said?”

“That the very fact I’ve distanced myself suggests I’m hiding something.”

“Uh, yeah, that’s pretty much it. Celia, I have to tell you, and my instincts are pretty good on this sort of thing—I started wondering if he’s got his sights on you. From a business perspective, I mean.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened. Thanks a lot, Mary. I owe you one.”

“Then how about giving me an early look at your annual report for last year?”

“We’ll talk. Later.” She said farewell and hung up before Mary could do any more cajoling.

The message light on her phone was flashing, and she picked up the line. “Celia, it’s Mark. I’m sending you a file. Let me know what you think.”

She checked the encrypted e-mail account she and Mark had set up for this sort of thing.

This new video came from a traffic camera. In color this time, a little better quality, but still no sound. Didn’t matter, because there wasn’t much to the clip anyway. The scene showed a deserted intersection, half an hour after midnight. She double-checked the location—near City Park. She knew the place.

A figure darted into the frame—straight down into the frame. A flyer, then? No—he descended at speed, landed in the middle of the intersection, absorbing the shock of impact in his knees, ending in a crouch. Straightening, he looked around, then gathered himself, pulling his arms close, bunching his legs. He launched himself into an epic leap that took him once again out of the frame of the camera, straight up. Not a flyer but a jumper. Celia was impressed in spite of herself.

She isolated a frame of film that gave the best view of his figure and features. He had a confidence in his movements that pinned him as just a bit older than teenager. He was lean and muscular and had a determined set to his angular jaw, the thin frown that jutted out under his helmetlike mask. He had a good-looking outfit, a green skin suit that showed off his physique, as was tradition, and that slick helmet. He’d put some thought into this, even if he hadn’t gotten a whole lot of publicity out of it. Yet.

But something about him wasn’t right. She took out her list of the Leyden Lab employees, the points of origin for them all. Studied the names, though by this time she had most of them memorized. She knew them all, and that was what bothered her. This new guy wasn’t the right age. Justin Raylen’s and Ed Crane Jr.’s kids were elementary school age; next oldest came the slew of them currently in middle and high school. The few descendants who hit in between that younger generation and her own hadn’t shown any sign of powers. Everyone older than Arthur was retired.

This guy didn’t match anyone on her list.

Which was impossible, or should have been impossible. She’d spent hundreds of hours and almost twenty years tracking down every single descendant of every single person who had been present in Leyden Laboratories when Simon Sito’s experiment failed. Every single person who had even a hint of potential. She’d pulled strings and broken laws to get access to adoption records, to track down secret affairs and illegitimate children. Every time a new superhero appeared, she’d been able to trace them back to one of these families, and she’d learned the secret identity of every superhuman who’d ever gone vigilante in Commerce City. She knew.

Except for this guy.

Her hands felt cold as she picked up the phone handset and called the precinct. Once she got past the gatekeepers, Mark answered. “Captain Paulson.”

“Hi, Mark, it’s Celia. I just watched that clip you sent over.”

“And?” He sounded so eager.

She shook her head, an unconscious show of confusion. “And I don’t know who he is.”