"After the Golden Age" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vaughn Carrie)

FIVE

CELIA had to deal with trouble before she even reached the courtroom. She’d expected reporters, cops, fans, and groupies. The CAPTAIN OLYMPUS: OUR ALIEN SAVIOR sign was back. But she also had to face Breezeway, who had stationed himself outside the courthouse to keep watch. Some people seemed to think the Destructor would summon zeppelins from the sky to rescue him.

Lithe and brash, Breezeway was Celia’s age. He had a showy silver uniform, complete with mask. Sinking on a breath of air, he landed on the steps in front of her. And the crowd went wild. Cameras flashed around him.

“Hiya, cutie,” he said to Celia.

Be polite, Celia reminded herself. The press had all their cameras rolling and snapping out here. She had to reflect well on the firm.

“Hi.” Be curt without snubbing. That was the trick.

“Always the cold shoulder with you,” he continued, like this was some kind of show. “What’s a guy have to do to get you to smile? Save your life or something? ’Cause I could do that—”

“And I’m sure I’d be grateful, but I wouldn’t be smiling.”

“Aw, come on, Celia. I think you do have a superpower—you’re immune to charm.”

“Breezeway … you almost dropped me off a roof.”

“Hey, that was years ago. It was joke. I wasn’t really—”

She went around him and climbed the steps. Laughing, Breezeway launched himself skyward.

The judge barred cameras from the proceedings, under much protest from the media. It seemed like every reporter in town was here to cover the trial. Add to that the massive prosecution team, dozens of witnesses, and an army of law enforcement officers, there was barely room to move in the gallery. No one seemed concerned with the fire code today.

To the side of the bench, standing with the bailiff’s crew, was the Olympiad, in all their four-color glory, though in recent years they had dispensed with masks. The Captain stood tall, his arms crossed, frowning, ready to deal with whatever trick the Destructor had planned for the morning. To his right, Spark, hands on hips, thick hair rippling in the light, surveyed the courtroom. To his left, the Bullet, short and compact, bronze skin, salt-and-pepper hair, leaned on the wall with practiced nonchalance. That was a ruse, of course.

Dr. Mentis was the only one of them who didn’t wear a skin-suit uniform. Until all their identities were revealed, no one even knew he was a member of the Olympiad. He was their ace in the hole. As always, he wore a suit and coat, seemingly old-fashioned, an eccentric academic out of place in the real world. One looked at him and never knew what to expect. He was easy to underestimate.

The courtroom was restless. Every moment Sito didn’t appear left more time for people to imagine what was going wrong, how he was escaping, what disaster was about to befall. Nothing went as planned where the Destructor was concerned. The proceedings were already a half hour late starting. And this was just a preliminary hearing, for him to enter his plea. What would the actual trial be like?

A door at the side of the courtroom opened. Half the people in the room stood, craning their necks for a view into the holding area, wanting to be the first to see the great villain.

He appeared small, old. Anyone would walk right by him on the street, or maybe smile to themselves at the memories he evoked of their own aged grandfathers, who taught them how to fish or brought candy at Christmas. He was harmless, they would think.

Celia stayed in her seat, staring at her hands. She didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to see him. In the second row, she was too close to the front. She should have sat farther back.

A squad of police officers escorted him. It seemed absurd, a dozen men in full riot gear surrounding a bent, pale figure, who shuffled because of the manacles chained to his hands and feet. Yet, the cops were tense, wary, and all held Tasers ready.

They hurried him past the Olympiad, who stood like stone guardians. Simon Sito appeared not to notice them.

His defense team—and they were his, bought and paid for—wearing tailored suits, looking intent and sinister, shepherded him to their table. He seemed hunched, trembling almost. Only wisps of his hair were left.

Then a gap opened in his protective circle. As if drawn by some vague instinct, he turned, looked through that gap, saw her, and stared.

She let her gaze be caught by him.

He smiled, and in any other situation the expression might have seemed kind. Celia saw only malice.

“Celia, how good to see you again. You’re looking well.”

The voice crawled into her gut and inspired nausea. She shouldn’t have come, she shouldn’t have—

Captain Olympus started to move forward, but Spark held him back with a hand on his arm.

Celia didn’t move, didn’t speak. Calm. Stay as cold and unremarkable as ice.

Then he was gone, his circle of handlers closing in around him. Sito gazed ahead and didn’t look back at her again.

The bailiff stepped forward. “All rise for the Honorable Judge Berkley.”

Celia had to unlace her fingers. She hadn’t realized she’d been squeezing her hands tightly together.

The judge, a middle-aged woman with graying hair and stylish wire-frame glasses, sat at the bench.

The rest of Sito’s courtroom appearance was blessedly dull. He didn’t speak again, not even to his lawyers, who entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, as expected.

The judge announced when jury selection would begin, set trial dates, demanded that everyone behave themselves in the meantime. Then, the cops led Sito away, back to whatever hole they were keeping him in.

The room seemed to refill with air as soon as he was gone, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Celia felt like she’d been holding her breath the entire hour Sito was in the courtroom.

As soon as the judge disappeared to her chambers, reporters accosted Celia, pressing close and trapping her against the row of seats. Faces and digital recorders formed a bristling wall in front of her.

They seemed to speak with one voice. “Ms. West! Ms. West! Why did the Destructor talk to you? What did he say? Ms. West, do you have any idea why the Destructor singled you out?”

Calm. If she could face down the Destructor, she could face down them.

“He’s just trying to get a rise out of people,” she said. “No other comment.”

“Ms. West!”

She was shocked and grateful—shocked that she was grateful—when the Olympiad swept her up and escorted her away from the journalistic horde. Mentis appeared on one side of her, Spark on the other, and the Captain and the Bullet broke through the crowd and herded them back.

Everyone stepped aside when Captain Olympus appeared.

“Conference room. This way,” Bronson said, nodding over his shoulder.

By then, the reporters were shouting at all of them, but they’d all had experience ignoring the press. They left the courtroom without a backward glance.

—Better?—

“Yeah, thanks,” Celia said, and her mother glanced at her, questioning. Chuckling to herself, Celia had to shake her head.

Once safe in the privacy of Bronson’s conference room, which was windowless and annoyingly devoid of chairs, the Captain began pacing the length of the longest wall.

“He had no business talking to you,” he muttered. He glanced at Celia and frowned. “Mentis, why’d he do it? What did he mean by it?”

“Haven’t a clue. I’ve never been able to read him. That hasn’t changed,” the telepath said.

“You must have made quite an impression on him. At some point,” Bronson said to her.

She had to take a calming breath before speaking. “It’s the same old story. He’s using me to get to them.”

“We know,” Spark said.

“I am definitely not putting you on the stand. Not after that.”

Good, Celia thought. She was a bit panicked that Bronson had ever considered calling her to testify.

Bronson thanked the heroes for being there, for giving their stamp of approval to the proceedings. Maybe now the media would stop asking why the Olympiad didn’t take justice into its own hands. The heroes were servants of the city. Not its judge and jury.

The meeting broke up after that. She was happy enough to leave Bronson’s posthearing war council. The hallway had finally cleared out, and she could navigate it in peace. Almost.

“Ms. West. Celia. I mean … Hi.” Detective Mark Paulson came from the back of the courtroom to intercept her. He had the best aw-shucks grin she’d seen in weeks.

She tried to look encouraging. “Detective, hello. What can I do for you?”

“Well, see, as a matter of fact … I’ve got a couple of tickets to the symphony fund-raiser on Friday. I know this isn’t a good time, but I don’t know when I’m going to see you again—”

“You could call.”

“I don’t have your number.”

“You’re a detective and you couldn’t dig up my phone number?” He was starting to blush. She felt like she was wearing an awfully silly smile in response. “Or you could ask for it.”

“So,” he said. “How about it?”

“My number?”

He sighed. “Yeah. And the symphony.”

“I think I’d like that. It’s formal, right?”

“Right.”

“So I should get a dress?”

“Right.” He smiled with what looked like relief. “Can I pick you up at six?”

“Sounds great.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

He tugged at the edges of his coat as he sauntered out of the room.

Wow. A real grown-up date. That was almost easy. Even the idea of looking for an evening gown before Friday didn’t seem so scary.

“What was that all about?” said a sly voice near her shoulder.

Celia turned to her mother. “I’m going on a date.”

“With Detective Paulson?” That was her father, standing by Spark and scowling.

“Yeah, with Detective Paulson,” Celia said.

All four of them were there now. Mom beamed. Robbie, her surrogate uncle, looked like he wanted to ruffle her hair and crack a joke. Arthur seemed thoughtful, like he always did. Then there was the Captain, who appeared annoyed. He’d worn the same sour, frowning expression before every date she’d ever gone on.

Time to get out of here. “I’ll see you guys later.”

Feeling intensely smug, she strolled out of the courthouse, swinging her attach#233; case.

She’d been kidnapped the first time when she was sixteen.

She got the call at home, at the West Plaza penthouse. Back then, no one knew that the top floor served as the headquarters of the Olympiad.

Celia knew, but if she told anyone, who would believe her?

She was doing math homework at the kitchen table when the phone rang. Sighing with frustration—she was actually starting to understand trigonometry and was annoyed at being interrupted—she answered, expecting that it was her mother asking her to start fixing supper, or a friend inviting her to a movie or party that she wouldn’t be allowed to go to.

“Hello?”

“Celia! Thank God! I need your help, come to City Park right now—”

“Dad?” She pressed the phone closer to her ear, as if that would make his voice come through clearer. He’d never sounded like this, harried and desperate. It was enough to make her panic. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t explain. I need your help, please hurry!”

What could she possibly do to help? But there must be something, or he wouldn’t have called. He must be in trouble, him and Mom both. Maybe this was her chance. He was trusting her. She wouldn’t let him down.

“Yes, yes, I’ll hurry. City Park?”

“By the fountain.”

“Okay, Dad. I’m on my way.” She hung up the phone before hearing his response.

It was only four blocks away. She could reach it by bike in a few minutes. She hoped that was fast enough; he must have known she wouldn’t have another way to travel. Maybe he’d called her as a last resort. That would mean that all of the Olympiad was in trouble.

Security let her keep her bike behind the desk in the lobby. The guard on duty, an older guy named Damon, called a friendly greeting to her as she hauled it toward the doors, but she didn’t have time to respond. Her heart was racing. God, this was just like some kind of secret mission. Was this what her parents felt every time the Olympiad’s alarm rang?

She still couldn’t think what her father was doing calling her with a mission. He’d call the city dog catchers before he called her. Nevertheless, he’d called, and he’d said he needed her. That was enough.

On her way to the park, she ran two red lights and didn’t look back at the noise of screeching tires as cars barely missed hitting her. It didn’t really occur to her that her chance at completing a mission for the Olympiad would be utterly destroyed if she were creamed by a garbage truck. She just had to get to the park before it was too late.

Racing from the sidewalk to the park’s main bike path, she swerved to avoid a jogger, cut across the grass, and swooped down to the cobblestone pad circling the park’s central fountain.

No one was there.

Water arced and danced away from a trio of art-deco lily-shaped spouts, splashing into the marble pool below. A couple of pigeons strutted around, searching for invisible bread crumbs. Celia stopped, got off her bike, and let it fall to the ground.

“Dad?” She looked around. Not so much as a jogger or dog walker was in sight.

She heard a hiss and felt a sting in her shoulder. Wincing in pain, she grabbed for it, thinking to find a hell of a monster mosquito. Instead, she pulled out a dart.

She stared at it a moment, a silver pellet with an inch-long needle—terrifyingly long—lying in her hand. A wave of dizziness crashed against her skull, only because she realized what had happened.

The tranquilizer took effect a second later, and she dropped to her knees.

Her limbs went numb, her nerves died, her muscles escaped her control, and she fell. Her eyes remained open, and her mind raced in a futile panic. Lying on her back, staring up, she saw the old man approach. Two black-suited guards flanked him. He wore charcoal gray. He had a fringe of thin white hair and smiled a grandfather’s smile down at her.

He held up a mini tape recorder and pressed the button. “Celia! Thank God! I need your help—”

Her father’s voice, synthesized.

With gentle fingers he pressed her eyelids closed, and his men carried her away.

At some point she gratefully fell into unconsciousness. Didn’t dream. Regretted waking up, which she knew she was doing when she heard a voice.

“You have your mother’s hair, don’t you?”

She opened her eyes and jerked back at the sight of the old man bending over her. Or tried to jerk back. She’d regained control of her muscles, but she was in a dentist’s-type chair, nylon straps securing her arms and legs in place. Even her head was restrained. She felt tired, weak, but nothing hurt. Except her knotted stomach.

“And your father’s eyes,” he said. “Lovely.”

The room was dark. She squinted, trying to see. A row of computer banks stood along one wall. They gave off a blue-white glow and a faint hum of cooling fans.

“What else do you have of theirs? Spark’s fire, the Captain’s strength? A bit of telekinesis perhaps. The ability to fly, or to see through solid walls. No? Nothing? How disappointing.”

She glared at him, her face contorting in a grimace. It wasn’t any of his business.

But he knew that her parents were the Olympiad.

Had she said anything, done anything to reveal their identity? No, of course not. He’d taken her because he already knew who they were. But when she disappeared the police would think it was a simple kidnapping of the daughter of a wealthy businessman for ransom. They’d be expecting a ransom note. She wondered if they would get one.

She didn’t think so. This didn’t seem right. A “simple” kidnapping involved warehouses and car trunks, not tranquilizer darts and computer labs. What this room reminded her of most was the Olympiad’s command center, gleaming and sinister.

The man reached out, and she drew away as much as she was able, wincing. “Oh, shh, shh there,” he said, like he might calm an animal. He ran his finger along her chin. He had a look in his eyes, intense and clinical, like a child who took pleasure in breaking his toys to see what made them work. He would gladly use people, but he didn’t need any of them.

She managed to whisper, “What are you going to do with me?”

“Well. I’m going to send you back to your parents. After I’ve made a few adjustments to your pretty little mind. A childish sort of revenge, I admit. Enjoyable nonetheless.”

“Who are you?” she said, though in her gut she already knew.

“Can’t you guess? I’m the Destructor.”

Screaming at this point would be so undignified. She swallowed back any noise into her too-tight throat.

She prayed. Dr. Mentis, I’m here, please look for me, please help me. The telepath had only been with the Olympiad a year, but she liked him. He didn’t brush her off just because she didn’t have any powers. He didn’t treat her like a kid. Surely he would hear her.

The Destructor leaned on the chair, an arm on either side of her waist, and stared down at her with a look of such vicious longing she wanted to vomit. Tears welled in her eyes, which she squeezed shut. She had to be brave. She’d be brave, and she’d get out of this.

“It would be so easy to break you. Such a young, innocent thing—a blank slate. I could write anything on you.” He let his body lean close to her, brought his face to her shirt and inhaled deeply through his nose, smelling her. She could feel his breath through her shirt, on her breasts, then on her throat.

“No. Please, no.” Her tears streamed steadily now. She knew what this was, knew she didn’t want it to happen. Not like this.

If only she were strong. If only she had her mother’s power, her father’s strength. Such a disappointment, as he’d said.

He straightened his arms, pushing away from her, and she gasped a sigh of relief. “Hush, my dear. I’m not so gauche as that.”

Moving to the head of the chair, he reached for an equipment stand. In moments, he was pasting electrodes to her scalp, burying them in her red hair, pressing them to her skin.

She’d almost prefer the other. At least she knew what was happening, then. She bit her lips closed and refused to cry anymore.

He’d secured over a dozen of the electrodes, then pulled a device mounted on a jointed arm to the side of the chair. Made of steel and glass, it looked like a gun, a long nose with narrow rings of wires and disks protruding from a complicated mechanism. The Destructor studied it, making adjustments, then aimed the point of it at her forehead.

He went to the computer banks. “I call this process Psychostasis. A freezing of the mind. You won’t feel anything, I promise. You’ll start to forget, and you won’t even notice that you’re forgetting. You’ll go on without a care in the world. And when you’ve forgotten enough, then we’ll stop. It only becomes really dangerous if your heart forgets to beat. But I won’t let that happen.” He smiled at her over his shoulder.

No, no, no—her thoughts narrowed to that simple, desperate pleading. If she thought hard enough, maybe she could make it happen. Maybe she could give herself powers through sheer will.

No, she couldn’t, because then she’d have had powers a long time ago.

“Doctor! Something’s happening outside!” A man wearing a black suit ran into the room.

The Destructor paused, frowned. “I don’t want to be disturbed.”

“But I think it’s the Olympiad!”

She couldn’t see the villain’s expression, but his voice turned cold and determined. “Never mind. I only need a few moments.”

He turned back to his computer. A vibration passed along her skin, like the hum of a voice close to her ear.

“No,” she whispered, crying. Only a minute, she only had to hold on for one more minute. Don’t forget, never forget.

A fireball roiled through the doorway, tossing aside the Destructor’s goon, who rolled to the protective cover of a computer console.

The Destructor frowned and stepped back.

“Mentis! She’s in here!” Her mother’s voice, ringing clear.

A wall of flame erupted, a shield between Spark and Celia, and the Destructor and his computers. In the next moment, Dr. Mentis was beside her, holding her face, looking into her eyes.

“Celia, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” she said, because she couldn’t nod.

More than hear him, she could feel him prodding in the corners of her mind, like an extra voice, a thought that wasn’t hers, a dream that she didn’t know the origin of. An odd smell of sage filled her nose. She couldn’t stop it or respond—she didn’t have that power. But she didn’t struggle. Whatever the Destructor had done to her, Mentis would find it and fix it.

He must have been satisfied with what he found in her mind, because he grabbed the wires, all of them together, and tore them away. Her hair and skin ripped; she braced and didn’t cry out. Calmly and methodically, he pulled loose all the straps, then put her arms over his shoulders.

“Hold on,” he said. “Close your eyes.”

He lifted her out of the chair. She clung to him, pressing her face to his shoulder as he carried her away. Her thoughts filled with panic and gratitude, and Mentis didn’t let go until she was safely inside the Olympiad’s hovership.

Safe. She was safe now.

The Destructor escaped, like he always did. He always planned a back door for himself. Despite his disappearance, he wasn’t finished inflicting damage this time. The headlines in the newspapers the next day said it all: “The Olympiad, Unmasked! Commerce City Socialites Warren and Suzanne West Don’t Deny It! They Are Captain Olympus and Spark!” The anonymous tips the paper had received included completely verifiable photographs. Their secret identities were ruined.

And their daughter was fair game.