Dreams Of The Golden Age Part 11

The feeling was so strong she wanted to run. Instead, she put her hand over her mouth to stifle laughter. Oh, G.o.d.

The radiation from the psychostasis ray that her father had died to protect her from. He'd died thinking he'd saved her, that she was safe, but she wasn't, the radiation had just taken twenty years to kill her.

She swallowed back the scream that came next. Calmed herself.

"Celia," Arthur whispered. His expression was taut, scared. His fear pressed out, against her mind. She squeezed his hand back. She was okay. She was going to be okay. She decided, right there, that she had to be.

-The girls, how am I going to tell the girls about this?- -Wait.- Arthur urged calm without speaking.

She took a breath and settled. Looked straight across the desk to the doctor. "What do I do?"

The treatment plans were extensive and arduous. Her case would go through a panel review in the next few days, and the panel would likely recommend chemotherapy, which ought to be started as soon as possible. The doctor encouraged her to do as much research as she could in the meantime.

Oh, would she. She would kill that research. She'd started her career in forensic accounting; nothing would escape her hunt for information.

"How am I going to tell my mother?" she said abruptly as the car pulled onto the ramp that sloped down to West Plaza's parking garage. "I don't know how to tell my mother." She didn't want to tell anyone. She wanted to pretend this wasn't happening, but she wasn't that good an actress. "I don't want to tell the girls. Not yet, not till I know what I'm doing next."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"Is that the telepath or the psychiatrist talking?"

"It's the man you've been living with for twenty years and the father of your children talking," he said. "We're already keeping so many secrets." He actually sounded sad. Tired, maybe.

She leaned against him, snuggled under the crook of his arm, and let the warmth of his mind as well as his body envelop her. He could whisper hush directly into her panicking hindbrain. She'd never tried to keep secrets from him.

"We'll wait until this city development deal is finalized. It should just be a couple of weeks, then I'll tell. I've got sharks circling for me, and I don't want them finding out about this. I can install equipment for treatment in West Plaza. No one will ever see me at the hospital, and I'll tell people when I want them to know. I can do this."

"We, Celia. We can do this. It's going to involve all of us sooner or later."

One day at a time. She had her plans, they were all in order, it would all work out. She just had to keep telling herself that.

Arthur held her hand in a gesture that seemed desperate.

Her mother was gone from the penthouse when they returned, so that was one decision Celia could put off until later. Suzanne had left a note about shopping at the Asian market on the north side for dinner ideas, and reminded her that she'd invited Robbie over for dinner and she hoped they could all be there because it had been quite awhile since they'd all gotten together, what with the girls being so busy with school, and so on.

It was like she was still in high school herself. Only back then, the notes Suzanne left were just as likely to be about some mysterious unnamed "errand," which always meant that the Olympiad was off thwarting plots, and if she got hungry there was lasagna that she could put in the oven.

Celia stared at the note a long time until her eyes brimmed with tears, which she scrubbed away a moment later. She didn't have time for that.

Sitting at her desk in her office seemed remarkably futile. She had the work she'd abandoned, the day's task list, and the mental acuity needed to perform a simple task like open her e-mail folder seemed monstrously difficult. Arthur took one of the chairs and sat, legs stretched out.

"Are you going to be all right?"

She wondered sometimes why he bothered asking.

She didn't have to say anything, but the silence was harsh, so she did. "I thought work would distract me. I don't want to tell them, Arthur. I just don't. I can already see the looks on their faces, and with Robbie coming over tonight..." The weight of all their stares, all their pity. Their fear for her. She just couldn't.

"You may be right, for now," he said. "We can at least enjoy tonight."

She was surprised he agreed, and she stared at him for any nuance in his expression. He radiated only calm, with no indication of how hard he had to work for that calm.

"I love you," she said.

That night, the kids roared home from school like a whirlwind. She didn't need to check the cameras because it seemed she heard them all the way from the ground floor. They stormed into the penthouse, Bethy going on about two friends at school fighting over something ridiculous, and Anna grumbling at her about how there were more important things to worry about and could she please grow up, then Bethy insisting she was grown up, and Anna declaring she was going to take a nap and could everyone please leave her alone. They used to play together, Celia thought wistfully. They still had tubs of dolls and blocks in their bedrooms that they hadn't touched in years.

From her office, Celia heard Suzanne call from the kitchen, "Don't forget, we're having company for dinner, so you can't skip, okay?" Mumbled acknowledgments followed.

If Celia could just forget that she was sick, she'd be able to get through the next few hours without a problem.

She wrapped up her research, carefully purged her web browser of all medical links, and locked file folders in the safe. By the time she'd finished, washed up and changed into jeans and a blouse, and returned to the living room to crack open a bottle of wine, building security announced that Robbie Denton had arrived and was on his way up. She was at the front door to meet him when he emerged from the private elevator.

Once upon a time, Robbie Denton could run faster than the eye could see. As the Bullet, he had joined the Olympiad and battled crime and defeated supervillains. He was legendary.

Now he walked with a cane, held discreetly at his side to prop up a weak leg. Arthritis in the hips, the degeneration of joints that had worked many times harder than they'd been designed to. When he finally retired a good eight or so years ago, he revealed that he'd been in pain for a long time. He'd been slowing down, hoping no one would notice, until he finally stopped. He'd had hip replacement surgery. There'd been complications-his mutated physiology rejected the implants. Further surgeries kept him on his feet and out of a wheelchair but hadn't given him back his speed.

He was terribly good-natured about it, Celia thought. He smiled and made jokes about the rest of him holding up just fine, and how he was lucky to have survived long enough to have these problems. Which made her think about her father, who'd had so much of his ident.i.ty wrapped up in his powers that he probably wouldn't have survived losing them. At least not easily.

Celia let Robbie fold her into a squeezing one-armed hug while he leaned on his cane.

"How you doing, kid?"

She would always be the kid to Robbie, even though she had two kids of her own now. Her smile turned stricken, but she moved on quickly, hoping he didn't notice the hesitation. "I'm fine. Busy, tired, the usual, but fine." And she would be, as long as she kept declaring it.

"Your mom in the kitchen? Is that stir-fry?" Robbie took a long breath through his nose.

"Yup." They could hear the sizzling all the way in the foyer, not to mention smell the spices and vegetables. If they went to look in on her, they'd find her, wok in hand, pan spitting hot, stove cold. Still using her powers to do something as simple as cook a meal. She hadn't burned herself out, so to speak. Powers were so unpredictable, so chaotic. Celia didn't like to think what would happen if Arthur ever lost his powers-or lost control of them.

She quickly tucked that thought away because Arthur came in then from the elevator. He'd retreated to his own office to wrap up the week's paperwork-pretty much at the exact moment Celia decided she'd be okay on her own, with her computer and a project. He'd probably been listening-sensing, scanning, however he did it-and knew that Robbie had arrived. The two men shook hands. Standing next to his former teammate, Arthur looked older. Not old-he was ten years younger than the rest of the Olympiad. But the sheen in his hair had begun to go silver, noticeable next to Robbie's icy gray.

They were all so much older.

The kids came out a moment later, and Robbie gushed over them. He was their Uncle Robbie, and even Anna smiled for him. They trekked to the dining room adjoining the kitchen, and the evening rolled along nicely after that. The kids set the table. Everyone asked Suzanne if she needed help, but the cook shooed them away.

Sitting at the table next to Arthur, across from her children, Celia regarded the pleasant chaos of her life, which suddenly seemed fragile.

The food arrived, stir-fried pork with an amazing array of vegetables and perfectly seasoned noodles, and everyone oohed and ahhed, then debated the merits of chopsticks, the skills required to use them, and commenced eating.

Conversation started innocuously enough with the perennial topic of school, and Bethy went off for five minutes about math and thinking about trying out for the school play and the stupidity of book reports because it was all just opinion anyway, and she finally took another bite of food, which slowed her down. Anna stared at her plate, industriously paying attention to her bites and not much else. She didn't even roll her eyes at Bethy's monologue, like usual. Teia and Lew were back in school, she reported. They didn't know why they'd been taken out in the first place. Their mother was having a midlife crisis or something, was Teia's opinion.

Everyone else reported on the state of their lives. Celia made what she hoped was an una.s.suming comment about too many meetings, hoping to avoid an interrogation. She did, and talk moved on.

Then Robbie said, "How about the news lately? That new super team? Looks like we might finally have that second Olympiad we've been waiting for."

Suzanne lamented, "Oh, yes, that photo. They all look so young. We were never that young, were we?"

Robbie snorted. "Everybody looks young to me these days."

They're Anna's age, Celia thought, clamping her jaw shut so she wouldn't speak. They're Anna's friends. Children. What would he say if it were Anna under one of those masks? She glanced at her elder daughter, who was staring at her plate, but her fork was still.

Celia's father, Warren West, the legendary Captain Olympus, had wanted more than anything for Celia to follow in his footsteps and become a superpowered hero. He hadn't gotten that. What would he think of his granddaughter following in his footsteps? Celia couldn't even guess. She was so young.

Arthur, eternally serene, said, "The real test will be if they stick around, or if they quit after a year when they realize how tough the job is."

"They do seem to be more enamored of the publicity than is really good for them, don't they?" Suzanne said.

"I don't know," Robbie said, spearing noodles with a fork. "There's something about these guys. I think they may be in it for the long haul. They have some real hard-core powers. They aren't going to sit on the sidelines. And you know that anonymous tip that took down Scarzen? I think that might have been them, too."

Celia realized the awful, ironic truth: In his retirement, since he was no longer able to live the vigilante lifestyle himself, Robbie had become a superhero groupie.

She said, as gently as she could manage, "What you really want is to sit them down and dispense advice, isn't it?"

"If I thought they'd actually listen to an old man like me. But no, the books are out there, let them read up on me if they want advice. It's all on paper."

"You think they can do it?" Anna asked, after her long and pointed silence. "I mean, do you really think they can be like the Olympiad?"

"I really think they're crazy," Robbie said. "But then again, we were crazy." He chuckled like it was a good thing. "I'm looking forward to seeing what they do, that's for sure."

"It'll certainly be interesting," Suzanne added.

"Can we talk about something else?" Anna said. "This ... it's just sensationalism."

"Sometimes I think that's the point," Robbie replied.

"Anna's mad because she wishes she had superpowers," Bethy observed.

"No, you're the one who wants powers," Anna shot back, more a reflexive argument than one that made sense.

"Girls," Celia said in a warning tone that was rapidly losing its effectiveness. Soon, they'd stop listening to her entirely, and wouldn't that be a fun day?

"It's not even about the powers, isn't that what you're always saying?" Anna looked straight at Celia, a challenge or a warning. "It's about doing good whether or not you have powers. Right?"

"Exactly," Celia said, but without confidence, worried where this was going to go next.

Robbie shrugged. "It's still the superpowers that make Commerce City what it is. It's part of your family heritage."

"See?" Bethy proclaimed.

Celia glared at Robbie, with a curl to her lip. "I don't know. Not having them is a pretty big part of their heritage, too."

"Can we please talk about something else?" Anna pleaded. She propped her head on her hand and was looking a bit green.

"G.o.d, you're so touchy," Bethy shot back, and Anna rounded on her.

"Girls," Arthur said softly, and wonder of wonders, they shut up. Celia was pretty sure he wasn't even using his powers on them. But when he looked at them, like he was looking through them, they were very aware that he was likely seeing more than they wanted him to. It would shut anyone up.

They focused quietly on their plates.

"I have dessert," Suzanne said brightly, making her way to the kitchen. The old defense mechanism, not a bit rusty.

"I'm not really hungry. Thanks for dinner, Grandma," Anna said, then shoved away from the table to stomp off, not looking back.

Celia was relieved that no one called after her. That left them all a little bit of dignity, at least. Anna was in a mood, pleading with her wouldn't change it. She remembered what it was like, wanting nothing more than to be left alone. She wondered if the others remembered.

The fruit and sherbet tasted as wonderful as expected, but they were all distracted, and conversation stumbled. Bethy finished only half of hers before fleeing, claiming a mountain of homework. Then, oddly, Celia felt like the kid at the table. The evening ended quickly after that. Robbie said enthusiastic thank-yous and made farewells. Arthur walked with him to the elevators, leaving Celia to help her mother clear up.

Suzanne, who usually bustled through the kitchen cleaning up after meals, was slow to start. She sat straight in her chair, in her place at the head of the table, gazing over the remains of the meal. Mostly successful, despite the moodiness of teenage girls. But tonight, Suzanne seemed sad.

"Mom?"

"I miss your father," she said.

Celia started crying. She couldn't help it. All day long, all the reasons she'd had to cry and hadn't, not once. She was saving it up, she told herself. She'd cry later. But then her mother said exactly what she'd been thinking and it all came out, tears streaming, her swallowing her own breaths to try to keep from making noise.

"Oh, honey, shh." And just like that Suzanne came to her and held her tight, and Celia clung back. She almost told her mother everything. But she just cried until they pulled apart, and Suzanne smoothed back her hair and kissed her forehead, and they cleared away the dishes. Everything back to normal.

TEN.

WHEN Robbie insisted that Teia and her bunch had been the ones to tip off the cops about the drug dealer, Anna nearly screamed. Everything after that, she deserved a medal for self-restraint. Turned out she did care about publicity. Or at least recognition. Who knew? But she kept her mouth shut. She could lead the secret double life of a superhero vigilante, just watch her.

She practiced. She looked for Mayor Edleston after watching videos of his speeches and reading articles about him from the last campaign. Found him, but only when he was where she expected him to be-City Hall or the mayor's mansion, for example. She attempted to track down various celebrities and found she could really do it only when she knew what part of the city they were going to be in anyway. She tried to hunt them down after only looking at a picture, but that didn't work-she actually had to know something about them, which meant trolling celebrity gossip websites. It was a frustrating handicap. And she gave herself a headache.

She'd started searching missing children websites and reports. She hadn't yet gotten enough information to be able to find them. But she kept trying, because if she could save just one kid she'd at least feel useful. Most of the stories just made her sad.

The next day, superteen trio made the news again, stopping a gang fight outside a convenience store late the previous night. Five guys with knives and lead pipes about to pound each other into goo, and they'd been stunned and frozen in place-obviously the calling cards of Lady Snow and Blaster. The official police statement repeated well-worn phrases about not condoning vigilante justice, even as they took the gang members into custody. The tabloids and hero groupie websites were rapturous: "Commerce City's New Ice-Cold Supers Are Red-Hot!" The accompanying pictures were stills from black-and-white security footage, and the darling among those showed Stormbringer and Blaster high-fiving while Lady Snow looked on proudly, hands on hips. Anna could have gagged.

The trio had gotten a name, as well: the Trinity. The Super Attention Wh.o.r.es would have worked just as well.

Anna wasn't ready to give up, but she and Teddy needed another plan. Another mission. So what if they didn't get credit. They did this because it needed to be done, not because they wanted attention. They just had to keep going until people realized that there was another, subtler, more mysterious team at work in the city.

At school that day, Anna avoided Teia. The car pulled along the drive, and Anna knew Teia and the others were hanging out by the front steps like usual, probably grinning and ready to brag. Anna wasn't up for it, so she asked Tom to continue on to the middle school. She would walk back.

"I need the exercise," she explained. A really lame excuse, but she didn't care.

"I'll just nag you for five more minutes," Bethy said. "Who are you avoiding?"

"I'm not avoiding anyone."