Dreams Of The Golden Age Part 17

Did she have to keep rubbing their faces in it?

Lew pointed at the gun. "Paintball? That's what you guys are reduced to?"

"Cut it out, it works," Anna said. At least, it worked that one time.

"Tag and bag," Teddy said, like it actually meant something, and hefted the gun like it actually meant something.

"Look," Anna said, wanting to get away before she said something stupid, or rather more stupid. "There's plenty of trouble for all of us. We're wasting time standing here arguing-"

The slide and wail of a police siren echoed down the canyon of tenement buildings. They all perked up like hunting dogs.

"We didn't call the cops," Lew said. "What are the cops doing here, poaching our catch?"

Teia turned to Anna. "This is exactly what I was talking about. We don't even have to call the cops to clean up our bad guys because they're always already there!"

"Guys, incoming!" Sam yelled.

The siren was getting closer. A car's tires squealed against the asphalt, turning a corner at high speed.

"Let's go," Lew said and took off running in the direction of the presumptive car chase. Teia and Sam followed right behind.

Anna and Teddy looked at each other. Teddy shrugged. "I wouldn't mind seeing what they do next."

"We might want to back up a little," Anna said. They pressed back against the brick wall.

Another siren joined the first. The Trinity was strung out along the block when the squealing tires rounded even closer than before, and a battered SUV swung onto their street. The pair of men visible in the cab-the vehicle's headlights were off-must have been trying to lose the cops in the grid of empty streets. But it wasn't working; the sirens were getting louder. And now the SUV raced right toward them.

What happened next might have been ch.o.r.eographed, an elegant display of what everyone who didn't actually have superpowers thought it must be like to have them. Teia-Lady Snow-acted first, jumping into the street. Anna almost screamed at her to get out of the way of the rocketing SUV. But Teia had a plan. Kneeling, she put her hand on the ground and a sheet of ice thick enough to skate on expanded away from her, covering the street to the next sidewalk and for a block in either direction, right before the SUV careened onto it.

Stormbringer moved in. A blast of wind came from nowhere-no, it came from straight down, sliding along the side of the building behind them, hitting the ground, slamming into the street. Anna dropped to the ground to avoid getting smashed by it; they all did.

The SUV spun out. The wind shoved it, and the frictionless ice carried it to the far side of the street, where it jumped the curb, tipped sideways, and slammed into a brick facade, with the crunching of steel and a shattering of gla.s.s.

The crash didn't stop the two guys from climbing out of the wreckage, brandis.h.i.+ng guns. The team backed off, letting the men-typical hoodlum types in leather jackets, worn jeans, dressed up in too much att.i.tude-scramble out of the car and step onto the ice. They held guns at the ready, and Anna figured it was already too late to run.

Blaster's turn to step forward, arms outstretched. Both hands emitted a series of short blasts, pops of light streaming out. Each stream hit one of the guys, who fell back, sliding on the ice, slamming against the wreckage of their car. They were down.

The Trinity really was a team. They really could do anything.

Anna felt a little more useless than usual.

The two men were alive, struggling as they tried to pick themselves up off the ice, falling again, groaning in pain. Lady Snow leaned on the ground again, and another layer of ice grew across the first, thickening until sheets of it expanded and reached up for the men, encasing limbs, locking them in place. Their guns were long gone, shot out of their hands by Blaster's lasers.

Three police cars roared up, two patrol cars and an unmarked sedan. They screeched to a stop at the edge of the ice slick.

"Guys, cops," Lew called unnecessarily, but it drew the attention of the others.

"They ought to thank us," Sam muttered. "Got their guys all tied up for them."

For once, Teia didn't seem inclined to pose for any cameras. "I'm thinking maybe we shouldn't stick around for pictures this time."

A pair of officers from one of the cars was circling around the ice patch to the wreckage of the SUV, shouting orders at the hoodlums to freeze, which should have been hilarious, but no one was laughing. The guys had started to break out of their ice sh.e.l.ls, which ended up being quite thin, but they didn't struggle when the officers picked a path to them, handcuffs in hand. They were wearing cleats on their shoes, Anna noticed. Like they'd planned for it, like they'd dealt with Lady Snow's ice slicks before.

A spotlight from the second car switched on, blasting their side of the street with light.

"Guys, scatter," Teia hissed, and the Trinity ran down the street, away from the cops. They'd had practiced running from cops just as much as they'd practiced everything else. Splitting up, each turned a different corner, in a different direction. To catch them, the police would need manpower and a concerted plan. What they had was two guys cautiously approaching as if hoping to catch a wild animal. Instead of giving chase, they cursed and stopped.

"Anna..." Teddy started, then vanished. Turned invisible and ran. She sensed him retreating.

"Wait a minute-" But he was long gone.

She made the mistake of turning to look straight into the light when she launched her own attempt at escape. Temporarily blinded, hands s.h.i.+elding her face, she ran up the block, but she was well behind the others. In lieu of other targets, the cops went after her. They were calling at her to stop, but they weren't threatening to shoot, so she kept running.

She hadn't noticed that the unmarked sedan had left the scene, circled the block, and now sat parked at the end of the sidewalk. She pulled up, trapped by the cops behind her, the car in front of her, and the ice on the street. She gave a wordless, frustrated scream. Teddy and the rest had all just left her here. The jerks. The a.s.sholes.

The plainclothes cop leaning against the hood of the car ahead of her was Paulson, captain of the downtown precinct. She knew it before she even saw him. Thank goodness she was wearing her mask. It had been a year or so since he'd been to the house for dinner, since he'd seen her. Probably, he wouldn't recognize her. Except he already knew, because he was working with her mother, just like everyone else in Commerce City with any kind of authority.

She'd unconsciously raised her hands, looking back and forth between Paulson and the two uniformed officers, waiting to see who would leap at her first. Neither of them did, but she still stood there, arms up, trying to catch her breath.

"Put your hands on your head," Paulson called, approaching her with a set of handcuffs.

He was really going to arrest her. She was dizzy, her muscles went loose, and she thought she was going to pa.s.s out. This was one of the things she'd always been afraid of, this was why they weren't ready to go out yet. Somehow, she didn't fall over and stayed upright while Paulson turned her so she was facing the wall and took hold of her wrists, bringing them back to clamp the steel of the cuffs over them. This was ridiculous. This was a nightmare.

"So which one are you?" Paulson said. "Trinity or Espionage?"

She didn't dare say anything. If he was working with her mother, he already knew everything. He'd take her to the police station, take off her mask, and figure it out then anyway. She had some vague notion that she ought to keep quiet until she could call a lawyer. Her mother knew lots of lawyers.

G.o.d, her mother. What was she going to say about this?

"Taking the Fifth, is it?"

Again, nothing. Paulson looked past her, to the other cops. "You two, go help Brown and Martino with those slimeb.a.l.l.s. I've got this."

The two uniformed cops returned to their cars without argument, because of course she didn't look like any kind of a threat and hadn't displayed anything in the way of real superpowers. Paulson took hold of her arm and steered her toward the sedan. Her feet scuffed on the sidewalk; her muscles tingled with anxiety.

"Not going to say a word, are you?"

She didn't even shake her head. She was wilting, head bowed, back curved-and stopped herself. She was Compa.s.s Rose, and maybe her friends ditched her, but if she wanted to be a superhero maybe she should start acting like it, even in handcuffs standing next to a cop car. How would one of the old-school heroes stand in this situation? Not necessarily Captain Olympus, who'd bust out of any situation before he could get close to getting arrested, of course. But one of the others, like the Hawk, who hadn't had powers but was clever and strong on his own. Or maybe her father, Dr. Mentis. She'd seen pictures of him when he was younger. He never wore a skin-suit uniform like the others but always appeared in a plain suit and trench coat. Everyday clothes. Maybe she ought to do something like that, fool people by appearing perfectly normal. But everyone knew he had power, and he always seemed like he was studying the people around him, looking right through them.

Rolling her shoulders, she tried to stand like she imagined they would, back straight, chin up, gaze cold, glaring at Paulson. Maybe pretending to be strong was enough.

Paulson sighed then, scratching his head and wincing like he had a problem he didn't know what to do with. "Get in," he said, opening the back door and guiding her inside, hand on the back of her head. She couldn't even come up with a snappy one-liner to throw at him.

He closed the door on her and walked off to confer with the other officers. She perched on the seat, trying not to squish her cuffed hands, and sighed. This was bad. It was a disaster. But it looked like she would survive it without imploding. She just had to wait for it all to be over. The minutes dragged.

Finally, he hiked back to the car, and she perked up, donning her gritty persona. The glaring one.

He opened the back door and leaned on it, opposite hand on his hip, just studying her. He seemed tired.

"What exactly is it you kids think you're doing? Besides messing up entire blocks of already broken-down neighborhoods?"

On reflection, that was a really good question. "Save the world" seemed a bit grandiose. "Petty compet.i.tion between rivals" was probably closer to the mark, but also not quite right.

She leaned back to catch his gaze and said, "Are you working with Celia West to track us down?"

Paulson hesitated, appearing to think for a long time, looking out at the street, then the sky, then her. "We're keeping an eye on you, to keep you from getting hurt. That's all."

The shame and dread from the arrest faded, shoved aside by anger and a vague embarra.s.sment. Here was confirmation. All this time, they thought they were being clever, sneaking around, successfully hiding their ident.i.ties, and if not doing good, at least doing something. But Mom knew everything and was letting them do it. Indulging them.

She slumped back against the seat, not caring about her squished hands, and let out a deflated breath.

Paulson added, "I'm playing along, but I'm not happy about it. You all should be safe at home, not running around pretending like you're some kind of junior Olympiad. And I've told that to Celia."

"Then why do you go along with her?"

He said, "Just in case I'm wrong and she's right."

Gently, he took her arm and helped her back out of the car. Unlocked the cuffs and let her hands fall to her sides.

"You're not arresting me?"

"No. Not this time. But you kids-you people need to be more careful, okay? Just ... be careful."

When she met his gaze this time, he seemed worried. Maybe even scared. A whole other story lay behind the one she thought she was in, Anna realized. Her father would know. Her father so desperately wanted her to talk to him. Maybe she should. If she told him her secret, maybe he would explain everything, like opening a book. Reading secrets in someone's mind must not have been anything like hearing someone say the words.

Captain Paulson left her standing on the sidewalk, got back in the car, drove off. Just like that.

By then, the patrol cars had packed up their suspects and driven off, leaving her alone in the dark, looking around, waiting for something else to happen, but nothing did. They'd put up a portable plastic barricade and strung yellow police tape around the wreck of the SUV. The sound of water trickled along the gutters as the ice slick melted.

She jogged up a few blocks until she reached the main block where the late bus still ran, where she pulled off her mask and acted like a normal person until she got home. She kept thinking Teddy would circle back around to try to find her. But no, their trajectories carried them in straight lines, away. She could have called Teddy, she supposed, but she didn't feel like waiting for him.

An hour or so after the whole thing went down, Teddy texted her: "UOK?"

She texted back "FU" and switched her phone off.

She was done with this whole vigilante c.r.a.p.

On the ride to school the next morning, Bethy stared at Anna the whole time. Studying her, until Anna finally rounded on her. "What?"

"You look like one of the kids in the antidrug commercials."

Was it the shadows under her eyes? The gauntness because she hadn't been eating well? Or the surly glare?

When Anna didn't say anything, Bethy went on. "Is that what it is? You don't have superpowers, you're doing drugs?"

Anna managed to keep from snarling in reply. "I am not doing drugs."

"Then it's superpowers."

Anna didn't say anything, and Bethy narrowed her gaze, as if all she had to do was stare at Anna long enough and the truth would emerge.

"What am I thinking?" Bethy asked.

"What? I don't know. Probably that I'm a jerk and a terrible human being."

She frowned as if disappointed. "No, that's not it. I was thinking of the Pythagorean theorem. Just checking to see if you've got Dad's telepathy."

"I didn't get Dad's telepathy."

"Well, yeah, I can see that now. But what did you get?"

Again, Anna couldn't think of what to say. She was slightly in awe and slightly scared of her little sister. Bethy's lips turned up in a victorious smile.

"There's nothing," Anna said preemptively. "Absolutely nothing."

"Yeah, right." Bethy turned away, disgusted.

Tom was driving, and Anna caught him glancing at them in the rearview mirror. She wanted to yell at him, too, to mind his own business and stop looking like he felt sorry for her. But staying angry was taking too much energy as it was.

Teddy texted a dozen more times and tried calling; she ignored him. She didn't want to see Teddy, or even Teia, though Teia would be interested to hear about her conversation with Paulson. The cops really were babysitting them.

Her power meant that even though she could tell Teddy was ranging the halls looking for her, she could stay out of his way. Teia and the others were parked at their usual spot on the front stairs, and Anna decided to share her discovery.

"You were right," Anna said. "The cops are keeping an eye on us."

Teia didn't look at all surprised. "How? How did they know where to find us?"

"My mother knows everything. My dad probably told her. I don't know exactly how, but she's a crazy control freak and she couldn't let this alone."

"Then why? I mean, why not just arrest us? And how did they know where to find us? You don't think your mom told my mom, did she?"

Anna's frustration got the better of her. "I'm sure she did. It's obvious, it's like training wheels, they think we're too young and stupid to do this on our own, and they're probably right. We're not real superheroes, we never were, this is all just some kids' game in the park."

Teia was a wall, no reaction except a twist of her lips. Anna wasn't even sure the other girl heard her.

"Does that mean you're quitting?" Teia asked finally. Like this was a game, like there could even be a winner.

"There's nothing to quit!" Anna said. "I never did anything!"

She wanted Teia to admit she was right, but Teia would never do that. She just glared, another person feeling sorry for Anna.

Then Teddy was coming out the front door, and Anna stomped around the corner and to a side entrance so she wouldn't have to look at him. So much for prom. So much for everything.