“I think I know who’s behind the drones,” Isaac said bluntly, and she blinked. “And I know where he is. Star Central already wants me locked up, and they probably wouldn’t believe me anyway, but you can get to Blacktime. And he has the people to take care of it.”

  “I…” Sarah said slowly, struggling against her instinctive rejection of the idea. It seemed like Isaac wasn’t there for her after all.

  “Believe me, I wish I could have just come here to see you and try to take your power back.” Isaac sighed, clearly not happy about the situation. “You’re probably tired of everything to do with gang stuff, but I don’t really have a choice. You’re the only one I can ask.”

  “Well, maybe,” Sarah said, hiding her own sigh, this one of relief. It wasn’t just business. Getting a call to Blacktime past Mom might take a bit of effort, but since Sarah wasn’t going to be involved it might be okay. “But you know that my Dad would kill you if he saw you, and getting on Blacktime’s list is not that great.”

  “Well, by preference it wouldn’t be me.” Isaac shifted the gym bag he was carrying and unzipped it partway, pulling out a piece of purple-painted foam armor. “I’ve got a magical girl disguise, Ravdia, and that’s who I’d use for all this. Nobody would suspect me of being a magical girl, and I can burn it afterward.”

  Sarah burst out laughing. Partly because of stress, but also because the idea of Isaac prancing about in a glowing costume was absolutely ridiculous. She looked from him to the purple armor, and then laughed even harder. Isaac cracked a smile for the first time, which she found unexpectedly charming, before shaking his head.

  “Yeah, it’s silly, but it’s really good misdirection,” he said with a laugh of his own, trying to be heard over the sound of her cackling. “Starting to wear on me, though, so I’ll be glad to be rid of it.”

  “I think,” she started, wheezing as she tried to catch her breath. Isaac reached out toward her, offering her his hand.

  “Let me see what I can do to try and fix your power first,” he said. “Even if I do everything right, I doubt it will come back right away, though. You’ll need to exercise it, like, I don’t know. Building up muscle after slacking off for a while. So don’t panic if it’s not immediately there.”

  “Okay,” she said, trying to push down the nervousness that suddenly leapt up and tried to close her throat. She absolutely wanted to get back her smoke and her illusions—but she very much did not want to get back into the ganger stuff. It wasn’t just Dad—everyone involved had ditched her the moment she wasn’t useful. So she knew that she couldn’t just resume where she left off, but that didn’t mean she wanted to resign herself to a life without the power she’d had since she was a girl.

  Isaac reached out and took her hand, closing his eyes as he focused. She looked down at where her hand touched his, skin tingling, though she couldn’t say exactly why. Sarah had no idea what to expect—perhaps something transcendent—but there was nothing obvious as Isaac worked his power. Until, suddenly, there seemed to be a faint easing somewhere deep in her chest, like a knot of muscle relaxing.

  Instantly, she tried to call up an illusory cigarette, her fingers twitching in the familiar gesture, but nothing happened. She frowned, gritting back a sudden wave of disappointment that set tears into the corners of her eyes. He said that it would take time, and she might have been imagining things anyway.

  “I think it’s done,” Isaac said, opening his eyes and studying her closely. “Are you feeling alright? It’s not like I’ve done this before, and we can keep trying if it doesn’t take initially. It’s part of my powers I’m not used to yet.”

  “Nothing yet.” She sighed. “But I’ll keep at it,” she continued, trying to hide her disappointment even if, intellectually, she knew she shouldn’t have expected an instant fix. But maybe that was better; if it came back more slowly, it gave her time to really think about how to use it in the future.

  “Good,” he said, looking down at where he was holding her hand before slowly letting go. “Do you think you can help me get in touch with Blacktime?”

  “Probably,” she said, looking at him and pursing her lips in thought. “But what are you going to do afterward? You going to come back to see me?”

  “Hmm?” Isaac looked thrown for the first time that she’d seen, tilting his head ever so slightly. “After I deal with Greg? I’d like to, but I don’t know what’s going to happen with all that. Who can I even be once I burn the Ravdia costume? But I’ll figure something out.”

  “Look, it’s going to take more than that to stay out of sight,” Sarah said, glancing around the park. Though it wasn’t like anyone was paying attention to them. “Especially since everyone’s going to want to know what goes on with this Greg. If you do manage to get to him and take him out, there’s not going to be much to stop Blacktime from operating in Star City. Not until Ike scrounges up another sovereign-class super.”

  “Yeah.” Isaac sighed, tapping his fingers against his hip, his eyes going distant as he thought. “Not much I can do about that. Maybe if I can help you get your power back, I can do the same for Glorybeam, but it has to work first.”

  “Exactly! So, I’m headed down to the Deep Kingdoms with my brother in a few days. Why don’t you come with me? Us? I mean,” she said in a rush, fumbling as she tried to get her thoughts out all at once. “It’ll get you out of the city, and you can keep trying with the power stuff if it doesn’t work right away.” It wasn’t like it was just her and her brother, either. There was an entire diplomatic staff going along, but that hardly mattered. The offer did. The meaning did.

  “I…” Isaac paused, worked his jaw, and then nodded to himself. “It’s going to depend on a lot of stuff. No idea what’s going to happen with Greg and Blacktime and all that. But if I can, I’ll come by afterward.”

  “Promise,” Sarah insisted, and Isaac raised his hands with a laugh.

  “Okay, okay. I promise I’ll be here if I possibly can.”

  “That’ll have to do,” she said, feeling far better about whatever plan Isaac had in mind. “So what did you want to tell Blacktime?”

  Isaac left the park with decidedly mixed feelings. He knew it had been stupid to confess everything to Smokeshow—Sarah—right then, but he couldn’t ask for anything without it sticking in his throat. She deserved better than to just be used for her connections. But ultimately he was surprised by her reaction, how she’d ended up more than okay with everything. Of all things, asking him to stick around was not what he expected, though he certainly wasn’t going to complain.

  It was one thing to have some kind of unspoken thing between them and another for her to choose to invite him closer after all he’d done. Though it was mostly Blacktime he had harmed, and Crash by inference, but maybe she hadn’t been on particularly good terms with her father or something. Regardless of her reasons, there was a plan. Sarah had given him contact information to reach Blacktime once she had done her part, and the follow-up would have him bailing on Star City entirely.

  The current situation, political and otherwise, was an unholy mess that he was at least partly responsible for. He didn’t like the idea of just scarpering rather than trying to fix it—but it really wasn’t something he could fix. The only thing he could address was the depowerment ray, and once that was gone hopefully order would reassert itself. All he could do was the best he could do, as Dolores had often said.

  Once again he changed into Ravdia’s armor, probably for the last time, struggling to get himself back into the character. He couldn’t stop Blacktime or anyone at that level from finding out his real identity if they wanted to, but he was hoping that the supervillain just wouldn’t really care. The only talent they might care about was that he could resist the depowerment ray—but that was of very limited use, especially once those rays were gone.

  He headed into Justice For Hire with his bag, intent on taking his clamshell, costume station, and whatever else he could pack with him. If he was going to wind up heading down to the Deep Kingdoms, he wouldn’t have a chance to retrieve any of it, and some of that was irreplaceable. And not just because he couldn’t afford it; he wasn’t about to let something that Cayleb had made for him get lost.

  As he left, it seemed that the only person around was Lia. The moonie gave him a wave from the office as he passed by, and after a moment of dithering, he stepped in to chat. It would be wrong for Ravdia to just vanish with no warning, even if it was hard to say he’d truly made friends at Justice For Hire. Ravdia wasn’t real, after all. Reaching up to turn off the voice changer, he pulled aside the veil so he could actually make eye contact as he talked.

  “I’m afraid Ravdia is not going to be coming back,” he said, figuring it was best to start out blunt. “I have a lead on the Mechaniacal imposter, but it’s going to compromise the identity.”

  “Really?” Lia blinked at him, canting her head to one side. “Perhaps I’m wrong, but I don’t think you’re at the level to deal with a sovereign-class threat.”

  “Oh, I’m absolutely not,” he assured her. “But I did find out that I can resist the suppression ray. So I’m calling in someone.”

  “You could have asked Justice for Hire,” Lia said, though her voice was doubtful.

  “Do you want to go up against a sovereign-class tinker?” Isaac asked, though thinking on it he had no idea what class Lia was, herself. The only other moonie super he knew of was Moonblast, and she was a sovereign. Lia’s talents seemed to be clerical and perhaps divinatory, not something that was meant for combat.

  “I suppose not,” Lia said, after considering it for several moments. “Captain Multiple would call upon Star Central for something of that magnitude.”

  “Yeah.” Isaac sighed. “And I’d get drafted in anyway to deal with it.” Maybe he should have tried calling on the mercenary house before making plans to bring in Blacktime—but it took a lot of power to deal with a sovereign, even if most of the technology was stolen. That meant Star Central or Blacktime, or some deal with a foreign super. Assuming any super would be willing to risk permanent depowerment, which most of them wouldn’t.

  Of the two options, he figured Blacktime would be less likely to try and keep him afterward, given that Ravdia was at best a common-class power and a supposed friend of Smokeshow. Nor did the supervillain have to account to anyone but himself, whereas with Star Central there would be all kinds of inquiries and polite prying—and the moment they realized it was Isaac, there’d be hell to pay. While there was always an official separation between a meta identity and a civilian one, Star Central could bend that when it came to serious threats. Like, say, someone who had exhibited mind-affecting abilities.

  “I’ll mark down the Ravdia identity as defunct,” Lia said, breaking into the silence stretching between them. “Though you realize this means Justice for Hire can’t pay you any outstanding earnings.” Isaac snorted.

  “That’s the least of my worries at the moment,” he told her. “Have to get through the next couple hours first.”

  “Just be careful,” Lia said, clearly not going to try and talk him out of it. Though she was probably used to dealing with supers, and their stubbornness. Instead, she pulled open a file cabinet and took out a small metal card, runes flashing from her skin and manifesting on the token. “Here, if you need to come back under a different identity, this will let you contact me directly.”

  “Thanks,” Isaac said, taking the card from her and inspecting it. Beyond the runes imprinted on the bit of metal, it had no other distinguishing features. “I’ll try to keep in touch, but no guarantees. If things go well, I’ll actually be out of the city for a bit.” He didn’t want to give away too much information, more for Sarah’s sake than his own, but he also felt he owed some consideration to the people who had given him a home for the past few weeks.

  “Good luck,” Lia said, holding her hand palm-out. Considering that moonie hands were so much larger and fingers so much longer than those of humans, handshakes didn’t work well. Isaac mimicked the gesture, then handed back the comm-band he’d been issued before taking his bag and heading into the city.

  The next stop was to find some cybernet access. He didn’t bother changing out of Ravdia’s costume for it, since that would both take time and people didn’t really stare that much when it came to people in costume. Besides, he just needed to send one quick message, this one to Cayleb. There was no way he was going to disappear again without letting his brother know what was up.

  Logging into his account, he saw a number of messages from Cayleb, but at least two of them were actually from Star Central just using Cayleb’s account. Those he ignored, skimming through the others with his lips pressed tight. It hurt, seeing Cayleb asking him to come in and just work with the superheroes, but things had progressed too far for that. He sighed, grimacing as the voice changer made even that sound wrong, and then started typing.

  Hey bro! You ought to be getting this a day or so after I’ve made my bid to try and take care of the depowerment issue. You remember Greg, the other tinker from foster care? I’m pretty sure it’s him. The drones attacked the care center while I was there, and that makes no sense unless whoever’s behind it is a foster care kid. I put his address at the bottom of the email, and I’m sure Star Central can get it from the housing department to verify.

  Not going to go take him on myself, but since I can resist the depowerment ray, I have to be involved to get rid of that, if nothing else. You’ll probably know whether or not we’ve succeeded, and if we do, then I’m going to be skipping town for a little bit, for obvious reasons. I’ll keep in touch when I can, though. You can tell the powers that be that I’m working on getting stuff under control myself, so there shouldn’t be anyone else affected by the mind part of my powers.

  I’ll catch up with you when I can. Don’t worry too much about me, and have fun tinkering away in that basement of yours. Until Glorybeam gets fixed you’re gonna have your hands full.

  Isaac looked over the message, decided that was good enough for the moment, and strained his brain trying to find the option that would let him delay the post. He knew it existed, but it wasn’t something he used much, and it took an excruciating deep dive into the settings menus to set it, then double and triple check it so it wouldn’t send right away and screw everything up. Only after he was completely satisfied did he hit the enter button, and even then he waited a minute to make sure it wouldn’t show up anyway.

  Closing up the clamshell, he left the café and went to stash his belongings. Underneath Ravdia’s costume, he had the fancy clothes for David Jeffries, so he didn’t actually need to take anything with him. He just needed a place he could pick up his effects afterward, and there were general lockers at the train station near the center of the city. Hardly a secure location, but it only needed to hold for a few hours.

  He skated past the few semi-curious onlookers, the station practically deserted given the recent trouble, and off to the bank of payphones. It took a little bit of doing to maneuver the receiver under the veil, but once there he punched in the series of digits that Sarah had given him. Blacktime’s phone number wasn’t even a normal one, starting with triple nine and having a star somewhere in the middle. Somewhere, a tinker had rigged one of the switchboards or maybe just figured out an existing bypass in the system. He heard relays click as his call was shunted off elsewhere, likely to another city altogether and possibly even out of the Five City Alliance. He didn’t think there were land lines stretching that far, but people had done some wondrous things with radio.

  “Your call has been expected,” a cool female voice said over the line. Of course Blacktime had a secretary—or maybe just one of his lieutenants. The man himself wouldn’t bother with phone calls. “Can you be at the corner of Sixteenth and Spring in five minutes?”

  “Ravdia is on foot,” Isaac said after a moment, consulting his mental map of the city. “Perhaps it should be ten.”

  “Ten minutes, then,” the voice said, and the connection went.

  Isaac hung up the phone and headed for the stairs. Time to meet his childhood nightmare.

  Administrator Ike was not having a very good week.

  Glorybeam’s incapacity was a personal issue as well as a professional one. As prickly as she was, they’d been allies for a very long time. He hated to see her so diminished, though her demeanor had not changed one whit despite the lack of golden armor and sovereign-class power.

  Even now she sat in the corner of Ike’s office, obscured by a tinker field, rapidly and precisely issuing advice over her headset to the teams that were scattered around, above, and below the Five City Alliance. There were few threats she hadn’t engaged at some point in the past few decades, and even if she had the power to crush most of them without finesse, she still knew the nuances of such problems.

  He, himself, not only had his resources strained trying to address all the crime—and more esoteric threats—that had popped up without the implicit threat of sovereign-class power, but also the political fallout. Star City was not the only city in the Five City Alliance, and the rest of the nation was having similar issues, not to mention the official displeasure from the Southern Kingdoms over the Harkeem identity and pressure from the Deep Kingdoms. Everyone was overstretched, bleeding money, and many people blamed him.

  It wasn’t the first time something of that nature had happened, and he’d weathered the storms before. There had been worse crises since he’d become Administrator, after all. The Reverse Emperor had pulled most supers in the area into the past; the Negatronic Warbird had split Star Central into three different timelines. A temporary power vacuum was less dramatic, but it was still a crisis.

  “What color are the crystals? Then keep Whirlpool away, the water will exacerbate the effect.” Glorybeam’s stiff, precise voice came in a constant murmur from the far side of the office as Ike worked the controls of his chair, interfacing with Star Central’s systems to keep up-to-date on reports and dispatch replies and, where appropriate, whatever supers happened to be free.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38