Dreams Of The Golden Age Part 10

What she wanted more than anything was to go to school and rub Teia's face in their success. But Teia still hadn't returned to school, third day in a row. This became apparent on the car ride over, and Anna grew more anxious, until Bethy asked, "What's wrong, you have a test today or something?"

"Yeah, that's it," Anna muttered.

She'd printed out the article about the arrest and the anonymous tip. She wanted to frame it, but she couldn't, so she kept it folded up in the pocket of her uniform blazer. She kept hoping to sense Teia's approach, hoping that her mother had changed her mind about pulling the twins from Elmwood.

But no, Teia was at home. Again. Anna ducked behind the corner of the building and called her.

"Where are you?" she said when Teia answered.

"You know exactly where I am," she shot back.

"I thought your mom would change her mind and let you come back."

"Not a chance. She's definitely taking us out of Elmwood. We're home until she can get us enrolled somewhere else."

"She can't do that, can she? Not in the middle of the school year."

"I keep trying to talk to her and she just tells me I don't know what I'm talking about. Elmwood is suddenly evil. I mean, we all know it's evil, but not like that, you know?"

"I'm really sorry, Teia. Maybe my mom could talk to her."

"I don't think anyone should talk to her, the mood she's in."

This proves I'm right about publicity being a bad thing ... She didn't say that because that would just twist the knife, and she wasn't that petty. Only sort of petty.

Anna continued, casual-like, "I don't suppose you checked out the news this morning? Look up the Eye, on the front page."

A few minutes pa.s.sed while Teia found the website. Anna waited, smug, sure Teia would be impressed.

"Wow," she said finally, as amazed as Anna could hope for. "Pretty cool."

"See?" Anna pointed out. "No publicity, no exposure. Fight crime and stay secret, no problem."

"That was you and Teddy who sent in that anonymous tip? Really?" Teia said.

"Yeah," Anna said, trying to keep the grin off her face.

"Prove it."

The breath went out of her, just for a moment. Anna didn't cough, sputter, tear up, or shout, even though she could have done all of those things. She had never wanted to punch anyone before, but she did, right then. Not because Teia was being mean, even though she was. But because Teia was right.

Anna hung up on her.

NINE.

WHEN Anna came home and told Celia that Teia and Lew hadn't been at school the last couple of days and were likely withdrawing from Elmwood, Celia wasn't surprised. It was what she'd have done, finding out her children had this shadow life that her best friend had been manipulating behind the scenes.

What she had to do now was figure out a way to change a.n.a.lise's mind. To recruit her to the cause.

She called Mark. He'd left her three messages about the latest vigilante news story. She hadn't gotten back to him because she'd been distracted with a.n.a.lise, the doctor's appointment, a burgeoning hypochondria spurred by the doctor's appointment, and so on. The vacation was sounding better and better. Surely the city wouldn't crumble to pieces if she left it alone for a week. After the development plan was settled.

"Finally. I've been trying to get hold of you all day," he said, fl.u.s.tered, and she worried about his heart.

"I know, I'm sorry, I've had a lot on my plate."

"Well, I've got another one for you. We arrested Jonathan Scarzen based on an anonymous tip. Good information, the DA thinks she's got a case, we're moving forward."

She had to remind herself who that was, what it meant. Crime lord who'd kept himself very underground. Right. "That's great, isn't it?"

"I'm pretty sure the tip came from a team of vigilantes. A different team of vigilantes than the kids at the fire."

Oh. Oh, dear. "How do you know?"

"We got a call from a cabby about some suspicious activity in the area. He picked up a fare, a couple of kids dressed in black. He thought they might have been cat burglars or something. The timing puts them a few blocks away from where we arrested Scarzen. Frankly, I don't know whether to be amused that they're taking cabs around town because they can't fly or p.i.s.sed off that they're putting themselves in so much danger."

Teddy Donaldson was one of them, she'd bet. He hadn't been part of the first group, Teia and company. "What are their descriptions?" Celia asked.

"I don't think I'm going to tell you," Mark said, sounding entirely too gleeful. "You've been holding out on me, now I'm holding out on you."

She did not have time for this. "I'm just trying to keep you from pulling up to these kids' houses and arresting them on some trumped-up curfew charge or whatever the h.e.l.l you're planning."

"Celia, it's for their own good. They're running around h.e.l.l's Alley in the middle of the night, they're going to get hurt."

He was right, of course. It was the same reason a.n.a.lise was so angry about it. He kept on, "I've got two brand-new superhero teams. .h.i.tting the streets now, and neither of them knows what the h.e.l.l they're doing. They're kids playing with dynamite, and it has to stop before one of them gets killed. You know who they are, you have to stop them."

"You know how I can tell you don't have teenage kids?" Celia asked.

"I get teen delinquents in here every d.a.m.n day. Don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about," he said, sharp as a razor.

She'd cut too close. Mark didn't have kids of his own, not because he didn't want them but because he'd made a responsible choice not to inflict his genes on the next generation. Guy ought to get a medal, not her sarcasm. Backing up, she tried again. "It's not a matter of making them stop. You've been dealing with supers as long as I have. It's a compulsion with them."

Mark understood the compulsion, because along with the powers came a need-a need to protect, to act, to control. It was why he'd become a cop when he could have been anything he wanted. Sometimes the Leyden descendants were born without powers, but still they felt the compulsion.

When she was younger, people used to ask Celia why she didn't just leave Commerce City if she wanted to get away from her parents' shadow. She could never adequately explain why she had to stay. It was her city, she always said, vaguely, earnestly. She couldn't leave.

Maybe Arthur was right. She was trying to do too much. Maybe it was time to delegate. Mark was already half on her side. He might be able to help her get a.n.a.lise on their side, too.

"Mark, I want you to meet someone. Can you pick me up and go on an errand with me?"

She was grateful when he agreed.

Celia was even more grateful that a.n.a.lise didn't slam the door in her face when she and Mark showed up. It was early evening, when a.n.a.lise was home from work at her job managing the downtown rec center.

"I'll tell you everything, I swear," Celia said, before h.e.l.lo even, and a.n.a.lise paused. She and Mark must have looked very serious, standing there together, both of them still in their business suits from their workday.

a.n.a.lise glanced over her shoulder to the staircase and, by extension, the kids' bedrooms above them. "All right, but let's go somewhere the kids can't eavesdrop."

A block from the town house, a small park occupied an empty lot between cross streets. After dark, the place was empty, and they gathered on a secluded bench.

Celia started, "a.n.a.lise, I don't know if you remember Mark Paulson-"

"We met briefly," Mark said. "I don't know if you remember, that stint Celia pulled in the hospital after the bus crash."

Celia had forgotten that they'd both been in her room when everyone came to visit at once. Not that she'd been thinking too straight then, drugged up and suffering from a concussion.

"How can I forget the cute detective you ditched for the freaky telepath? I remember," a.n.a.lise said.

They both blushed at that one, how could they not? Didn't help that Mark was still awfully cute. But with his serious calm and salt-and-pepper hair he also resembled his father, onetime mayor and Commerce City's last serious supervillain. Kind of weird.

"Um. Yeah. Mark, Lady Snow and Stormbringer are her kids. I thought she should be in on the conversation about what to do about them."

a.n.a.lise's gaze burned fierce. "You are not going to arrest them-"

"No, not at all," Mark said. "This is entirely off the record. This ... this all has to be off the record." He looked to Celia to explain. She gathered herself and did so, carefully.

"There's a genetic component to superhuman powers. It has to do with an accident that happened at a laboratory run by Simon Sito, the Destructor, that was funded by my grandfather and where your father worked. They were both there during the accident, along with a dozen workers. The powers originate there, and they're pa.s.sed down from parent to child. Not always." She and Mark exchanged a glance there, because they'd never been entirely sure how much of their makeup came from that accident-they didn't have powers, but they both had a love for and loyalty to the city that was almost superhuman. Was that part of the Leyden Labs inheritance, or a coincidence? "But sometimes, yes. I found this out by accident, but I've been tracking the lineages ever since. With our kids. .h.i.tting p.u.b.erty, along with about a dozen others, I wanted to get the potential inheritors into one place, so they'd be safer. So we could watch them."

a.n.a.lise glared at Celia. Wondering how much she'd told Mark, no doubt-or if Mark had guessed. It wasn't hard, once you put all the pieces down on the same surface.

Mark made a peace offering. "Since we're sharing secrets, I'll tell you mine: Simon Sito, the Destructor, was my grandfather. I didn't inherit anything, but I could have. That's why I'm working with Celia, to try to prevent another Destructor from happening to the city."

Celia expected shock, even horror from a.n.a.lise, processing that information. But it was old history now. Abstract, irrelevant. Then, her friend's brow furrowed as she decided if her own history was old enough to reveal.

But a.n.a.lise shook her head. "As much as I'd like to go public some days, there's still a warrant out, and no statute of limitations. I can't say anything." It was as much an offering as a.n.a.lise could give, and it was enough.

"I understand," Mark said.

Somehow, moving on after that became easier. They all knew where they stood now, even if the words hadn't been spoken.

"I've been thinking," Celia continued. "We know we're not going to stop them from trying to be heroes. The powers come with the need to use them. Our choices are to lock them in their rooms until they're eighty, and have them bust out anyway and do something crazy. Or we give them an outlet, and we supervise them." Like keeping the secret elevator open. At least they would know where their kids were.

She looked at Mark. "I can give you my files-but only you. None of this gets recorded. And you have to keep the police off their backs. Watch them, supervise them, keep them out of serious trouble-h.e.l.l, give them missions if you want. But keep it secret. Give them the freedom to figure this out on their own. It's not like they'd actually listen to us. a.n.a.lise, you know what they're going through. Let them go back to Elmwood and be with their friends. They can help each other."

a.n.a.lise sat on the park bench, a little apart. She closed her eyes, put her face in her hands-thinking. And if she said no, absolutely not, and kept the kids out of Elmwood and told Celia and Mark to stay the h.e.l.l away, would Celia stay away? No, she realized, she probably wouldn't.

"Single parenthood's been hard enough," she said finally. "And now you slam this on me?"

"This is supposed to help them, a.n.a.lise. To help you. It'll be better, with more of us looking out for them."

"You're not doing this to try to manipulate them into creating a second Olympiad."

"That's an unintended side effect. Honest." She wasn't sure a.n.a.lise or Mark believed that one, the way they were looking at her.

a.n.a.lise said, "I just want to keep my kids safe. Whatever it takes."

"Me, too," Celia said. "And I have some ideas about how to do that."

For a stretch of time in her teens and early twenties, Celia had been the object of about a dozen kidnappings. Her parents' secret ident.i.ties had been revealed, the Olympiad's cover blown, and she became the ultimate target for villains and supervillains who thought they could attack the heroes by holding her hostage. The scheme never worked, and the Olympiad rescued her every time. She'd never been seriously hurt, and only a little traumatized. Okay, maybe a lot traumatized.

Now, sitting in a nondescript, inoffensive doctor's office waiting to hear the results of a barrage of tests felt a little like being kidnapped. Time had slowed, her future had become fuzzy. But she couldn't see her captors, and she had no bindings to struggle against. To ground her. She felt like she was floating, and her heart raced. She had been kidnapped in a sense, hadn't she? It was enough to make her nostalgic.

But this time, she couldn't look her captor in the eye, there'd be no pompous monologue about his nefarious plans. And the Olympiad wasn't on the way to save her.

She took Arthur's hand, held it a little more tightly than she meant to.

The checkup three days ago hadn't gone the way Celia expected. She expected the doctor to tell her she had a cold or some other virus. Mono, maybe. That she needed to rest, take a vacation like Arthur said. She'd have her temperature and blood pressure taken, her heart would race a little, the doctor would tsk at her and send her home with anti-anxiety medication.

No, be honest: That was what Celia had hoped would happen. She had hoped very hard for something simple and nondisruptive. Something she could laugh about in a week, while teasing Arthur for being overprotective.

But then the clinic had called. "We have your results. We'd like you to come in to discuss them," they'd said, which meant bad news. Not just bad, but the worst. They wanted to see you only when it was bad. She hadn't been able to focus, so Arthur had had to call the town car and guide her down the elevator and to the garage.

Arthur didn't say a word the whole time. Just kept hold of her and grimly took charge of the situation until they were sitting in the clinic waiting room. Waiting. Anyone else would have muttered vague, untrue rea.s.surances the whole time, but not him. He knew exactly what she was thinking and that there was nothing he could say to comfort her. He was there, and that was enough.

If he was angry, upset, or scared, he couldn't show it. He controlled his emotions because they'd impact the people around him, and she'd long since gotten used to him reacting like a stone to the most chaotic situations. But just this once, she wanted to know what he was feeling. The tension in his face had become constant.

A receptionist called them in and locked them away in the quiet of a doctor's office. Not an exam room but an una.s.suming office with a plain desk and uncomfortable padded chairs. Diplomas on the wall, family pictures on the bookshelves.

When the door opened, Celia flinched, and Arthur squeezed her hand.

Dr. Valdez approached, full of pleasantries, shaking their hands before setting down a manila folder, then sitting behind her desk like it was a s.h.i.+eld. Celia didn't hear a word of it, and when Valdez stopped moving and she finally got a good look at her, the doctor's smile seemed stricken.

"As you might have gathered from my call, the results of the blood work weren't normal. In fact, it's rather more serious than was initially expected, which is why you were asked to come in."

That switch to business pa.s.sive voice grated on Celia's nerves. The woman really didn't want to talk about this, and Celia was trying to figure out how to interrupt the awkward introduction to get to the actual diagnosis when Arthur did it for her.

"Leukemia," he said. "It's leukemia."

Having a word made it somehow less nerve-racking. Celia could breathe again. She couldn't think, but she could breathe.

The doctor appeared to deflate, unable even to fake a smile. "Yes. I'm sorry."

Celia kept repeating the word to herself. It was bad, okay. But how bad? And how had it happened in the first place? It wasn't like catching a cold, was it?

"Do you know what could have caused it?" Arthur said, voicing her question before she could formulate it herself.

"We're not really sure. A variety of causes have been shown to have an impact in some cases. Particularly if you've ever been exposed to powerful radiation-"

A wave of vertigo shook her and she clung to the arm of the chair. A flashback, a visceral smell of a secret laboratory in the process of burning, and her father coming to save her ... The Psychostasis Device exploded, and he'd hunched over her, s.h.i.+elding her from a ma.s.sive burst of radiation. "You're safe," he'd whispered, his dying words.