Dreams Of The Golden Age Part 24

The second part of any kidnapping was the waiting. The kidnappers made demands, everybody had to wait while the demands were delivered, then wait for a respectable amount of time to pa.s.s while negotiations continued. Celia, meantime, waited for rescue, which could happen quickly if the kidnappers weren't that clever. Or she could be here awhile.

The chair was a standard padded task chair, comfortable for what it was, with plenty of lumbar support. But no headrest, nothing to lean on if she tipped her head back. She wanted to lie back and maybe take a nap. Kidnappers always hated it when she was able to sleep during her own kidnapping.

She dozed off anyway, but it wasn't comfortable, and she jerked awake when she started to slump forward and tugged against her bindings. Her nose had started running, and she awkwardly wiped it on her shoulder. No dignity. That was fine, she didn't need dignity to get out of this.

A phone rang. Celia instinctively looked around at her own pockets, but they'd taken her purse and her phone. The noise came from Majors. He retrieved the device from his pocket. Even halfway across the s.p.a.ce, Celia heard a panicked voice on the line. Majors's expression darkened.

"Fine," he said, when the explanation had stopped. "Just get back here. We'll deal with it." He put the phone away and looked over her shoulder, taking in his remaining henchmen. He told them, "There's a problem."

Celia smiled.

TWENTY.

ARTHUR stayed in communication with Captain Paulson as the police attempted to locate the car and identify Celia West's captors. They succeeded at neither. The car dropped off surveillance after a couple of blocks, ducking through blind alleys and into the south part of town that didn't have so many cameras. The features of the two people weren't clear enough-they wore large sungla.s.ses and turned the collars of their coats up-and the facial recognition software, even the advanced version on the Olympiad computer, couldn't identify them.

Suzanne arrived within the hour to find Arthur at the computer, Bethy slouching in a chair at the conference table, and Anna pacing.

Anna had been pacing the whole time, thinking. Focusing. Trying to drill through whatever the bad guys had done to block her ability. That was Arthur's hypothesis, that they had a way to block his telepathy, and the same block affected Anna's power. But she had to be able to do something, and she knew she could find Celia if she could just figure out how. She was giving herself a headache.

"Grandma!" Bethy called and ran to the woman, who caught her up in a hug. Suzanne glared at Arthur over Bethy's shoulder.

"I had to include them. It was Anna-" He sighed. "Anna, would you care to explain?"

"Not really," she said. But now everyone was looking at her, and she didn't have a choice. "I find people. I know where people are."

"That's your power?" her grandmother asked, looking thoughtful. "We'd been wondering. That's ... all right." Anna realized just how closely her family had been watching, waiting for her to reveal ... something. If she'd been anything like Captain Olympus, they probably wouldn't have had to wait so long. She'd never have been able to keep it secret.

She probably shouldn't have kept it secret for so long. "It's not very impressive," she said, frowning.

"Don't sell yourself short. You knew instantly that something had happened to Celia," Arthur said, not turning from the computer displays.

"But if they've got somebody who can block mental powers, then I can't do anything, none of us can do anything-"

"We can always do something," Suzanne said. Anna suddenly felt better. They were the Olympiad.

"I'm afraid we're at a bit of a loss here," Arthur said. "Paulson will do what he can, but this came out of the blue, and we're not expecting any ransom demands-"

"No, it didn't," Anna said. "It didn't come out of the blue. Mom was leaving the courthouse after the hearing about the lawsuit. What if ... she thinks the lawsuit happened because someone wants to stop West Corp from getting the city planning contract. She must have gotten the lawsuit thrown out, and what if those people are working for whoever wants to stop her?" The empty office building. Superior Construction's fake lawyers. If this had anything to do with the lawsuit, the trail would start there. She blushed.

"Yes, Anna?" Arthur prompted gently. "What is it?"

She was thinking out loud but afraid to speak too quickly lest the pieces that were falling into place got jostled. "I think I know where we can go to figure out who took her." She explained about Horizon Tower, about tracking down information for the lawsuit, about the empty law office. Her father politely didn't ask her how she knew so much about all this.

"It's as good a place to start as any," Arthur said with a renewed sense of purpose. He picked up the phone again and talked to Paulson, pa.s.sing along the information and closing with, "Wait for me, I want to be there when you go in ... Well, I don't exactly know what good I can do, and I won't know unless I'm there, will I?"

He hung up the phone and started to flee the room before turning back. "Wait here. I'll call as soon as we learn anything."

"But Dad-" Anna called after him, but he was already gone. The real superheroes were on the job. Fine, okay. She returned to pacing.

Suzanne sat with Bethy at the conference table and took her youngest granddaughter's hand. "It'll be all right, I promise you. We've always gotten Celia back in situations like this."

"How many times was Mom kidnapped?" Bethy asked, shocked.

"I ... you know, I lost track." Her brow furrowed, revealing bemus.e.m.e.nt.

Anna's sense of panic was growing. The old Olympiad had always gotten Celia back, but the old Olympiad wasn't around anymore. Just the elegant older woman who hadn't, as far as Anna knew, used her power for anything but making creme brulee in twenty years, and the telepath, and she knew very well how effective mental powers weren't in a straight-up fight, especially if someone was blocking them.

She had to do something, so she got out her phone and pressed b.u.t.tons. "It's not working, why isn't it working?"

"The room's s.h.i.+elded, outside signals can't get in," Suzanne said.

Anna marched to the door, following her father.

"Anna, who are you calling?" Suzanne asked.

"Everybody."

In the hallway, she sat on the carpet because her legs were shaking. "Come on, come on..."

Teddy answered on the first ring. "Anna, oh my G.o.d, I'm so sorry, I didn't think you were ever going to talk to me again-"

"Teddy, shut up, I need your help. I need everybody's help."

"What's wrong?"

"Somebody's kidnapped my mom and they have some way of blocking mental powers because I can't find her, my dad can't find her. But I think we know where to start looking."

He paused for a long time. "And you really think we can help? I mean, this is serious."

"Exactly," she said, exasperated. "You wanted to stop s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around, so this is it. If we can't rescue my mother, what good are we?"

"I'm just saying ... maybe some of the other supers..."

"Fine. You don't want to help, I'll call Teia and Sam-"

"No, of course I want to help. We'll get her back, Anna. You call Teia and Lew, I'll call Sam. We'll meet you at West Plaza, okay?"

"Yeah. Okay. Teddy-thank you."

Suzanne stood by the entrance to the command room, watching Anna, her expression thoughtful. Anna prepared her usual defensive glare.

"Don't tell me that I shouldn't go out, that I'm too young, that I can't handle it-"

"I'm not going to do that. Wait just a minute, though."

Back in the command room, Suzanne went to one of the metallic cabinets along the side wall and opened a drawer. She didn't have to dig around long before drawing out a set of thumb-sized devices and wires-earbud and microphone sets.

"Take this," she said, hooking one of the devices around Anna's ear, settling the bud in place. "It'll keep you in contact with the command computer. We never had to use them much because of Arthur. I hope they still work. Bethy, here, you take one, too. We'll need you to monitor the computer scanner and keep us all in the loop. All right?"

"You want me to help?" Bethy stared at them both. Anna wanted to hug her.

"I won't have to teach you how to use the computer," Suzanne said. "You're your mother's daughter, you know very well it isn't all about the powers."

"Bethy, you're the smart one," Anna said. "Everybody knows it."

She had a look on her face like she didn't believe them.

"Oh, Celia used to look just like that when she was your age." Suzanne chuckled.

Bethy quickly hooked the speaker over her ear and turned to the console.

Back in the hallway, Anna's phone beeped a missed call at her. She hit Reply. "Teia?"

"Teddy just texted and said someone grabbed your mom."

"Yeah, I really need your help, can you come?"

She gave a short growl. "We'll try. We usually sneak out after Mom's asleep, but she's up now and practically sitting in front of the door. But we'll figure out how to get past her."

Anna had a radical proposition. "Maybe if you just told her what's happening-"

"And tell her everything else? I don't know that I'm ready for that."

"What is it?" Suzanne said.

Anna realized she was going to have to tell her grandmother everything. "Okay-Teia and Lew, they're ... they've got powers, too. We ... we've all been practicing together, and we have to figure out how to convince their mom to let them go-"

"Anna, let me talk to Teia," Suzanne said, holding her hand out for the phone.

Confused and caught too off guard to argue, Anna said, "Teia, my grandma wants to talk to you." And she handed the phone over.

"Teia? This is Suzanne, is your mother there? May I talk to her? Just tell her Suzanne wants to talk to her." A few moments ticked by, then she said, "h.e.l.lo, a.n.a.lise. Yes, this is Suzanne West. How are you? Not great, I'm afraid ... Celia's missing. That's right. Can you help?"

Anna would have given anything for five minutes of superhearing, to be able to follow both sides of this conversation.

"Frankly, I don't much care about that," Suzanne said, hand on hip. "But will you please let Teia and Lew come over? Anna very much wants their help on this ... Yes, Anna, too, they're all in on it together ... I know, but what did you expect? Yes, Arthur and I will be there looking out for them. So will Mark Paulson ... That's fine, just get over as soon as you can. Thank you."

She clicked off and handed the phone back to Anna.

"What was that about?" Anna said, baffled. Ms. Baker knew about them? About everything? But how ...

"You kids think you're the only ones keeping secrets. Let's go downstairs and meet your friends."

"What secret is Ms. Baker keeping?"

"Not mine to tell. Bethy, are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah," the younger girl said. "I've tapped into a couple of video feeds around Horizon Tower. I think I can tell you what's going on, at least on the street. I'm trying to see if I can hack into any cameras on the inside."

"Good girl. We'll be back soon. Anna, I a.s.sume you have a suit or costume of some kind? Grab it before we leave."

"Okay."

"Grandma, Anna-be careful." Bethy's voice was stark, and Anna pursed her lips.

"Yeah. We will."

On the elevator ride down, Suzanne snapped her fingers a few times. When she did, sparks flashed above her hand, and on the last snap a torchlike flame burst to life and burned for a moment before fading away.

"I'm really out of practice," she admitted. "I may not be much help if this gets rough."

"I'm really glad you're here," Anna said. "Thanks."

"Family tradition. Your grandfather would be loving this."

"Loving that Mom got kidnapped?"

"Maybe not that part. But he always loved showing her kidnappers exactly how he felt about it." Her smile was almost gleeful.

Anna fielded a couple more calls by the time they reached the lobby. Sam was driving Teddy over, and Teia and Lew were on the way-with their mother. Teia wouldn't say how she felt about that. Probably because Ms. Baker was driving the car. Anna didn't have a chance to ask or find out about their side of that conversation. Time enough to discuss that later.

Outside, the day was overcast, and on the sidewalk and wide off-street drive that marked the front of West Plaza, the late afternoon rush-hour crowds were walking past like everything was normal, which seemed terribly wrong to Anna. That hole where her mother should have been still gaped. People in suits left the building, moving down the sidewalk, picking up cars from valet parking. Taxis sped by. She tapped her foot and looked at her grandmother, wondering how she could be so relaxed.

She was about to say something when she spotted an odd pair striding around the corner and crossing West Plaza's front drive, right toward them. A man and a woman, they were athletic, muscular like sprinters, and their sleek black skin suits showed off their powerful figures. The woman had black hair clipped up off her neck and sharp, glaring features. The man was thuggish, intense.

"Grandma..." Anna murmured, touching Suzanne's arm.

The pair looked, walked, acted like superheroes, but Anna didn't recognize them. They didn't wear masks. Anna and her grandmother seemed to be their targets.

The man kept his gaze on Suzanne while the woman focused on Anna.

"Anna West-Mentis?" she said.

"Who the h.e.l.l are you?" Anna replied. Then Anna recognized her, mostly from her hair and the shape of her face-the woman from the video who'd s.n.a.t.c.hed her mother.

"G.o.d, she's just like her mother," the man muttered.

"I need you to come with me," the woman said, reaching for Anna as if she would just go along with her.

"Excuse me, can I help you with something?" Suzanne said in a falsely pleasant voice, pulling Anna back, stepping deftly in front of her.

The woman glowered at Suzanne. "Please get out of the way."