Fourteen
Crisis Point
Teresa forgot to mention that “secured permission” came with a couple of caveats, the largest being that Warden Hudson was accompanying us. I swallowed back a comment about being babysat, because I wanted to get out there and poke around a lot more than I wanted to irritate the warden. The other limit was the number of people who could go, so only Teresa, Simon, Aaron (with Scott’s mask back on), Marco, Derek Thatcher, and I boarded the copter for the short flight north.
The copter did a flyover before landing, giving us a bird’s-eye view of the blackened structure below. The building was gone, burned and blown to pieces, along with both pavilions. Only the stone patio and the two sets of steps remained, most of them blackened with soot.
Heavy odors of burned wood and oil surrounded us as our group walked up the eastern steps, past the spot where Andrew had lain bleeding on the ground. Warden Hudson led the way, and two armed guards brought up the rear.
I stuck close to Teresa and Marco, alert for their reactions to being back here after so many years. The last thing they needed to do was lose their shit in front of Hudson.
Bits of the copter’s frame poked out from the remains of the castle, a burned skeleton of the beast that had tried to kill us. Hudson told us the body of the pilot had been removed, but knowing someone had burned to death in there kept me far away.
“Walk me through it,” Hudson said.
I went first, describing where we’d each been standing and the events up until getting blown into the pond. Thatcher and Aaron added a few details, creating a vivid picture that the warden absorbed in silence. He looked where we pointed, nodded a few times, but offered nothing. We’d told him all of this before.
Maybe he needs it drawn in pictures, too?
“You say it was already halfway to the park before you got the alarm on your walkie?” Hudson asked after we’d stood in silence for a good thirty seconds.
“Yeah, about halfway,” I said. “I’m guessing, of course, based on the skyline, but I’ve studied maps of Manhattan. I know the distances pretty well.”
“And it was over the Park when it was shot down?”
“Practically on top of us already. The copter was on a straight path the whole time, right for this spot.”
“You’re sure of that? No deviation from their course?”
“The pilot flew like he was half drunk, but there was no actual deviation that I could tell.”
Aaron and Thatcher offered their similar impressions. Hudson’s questions confirmed my own suspicions that this hadn’t been an accident. We were targets the entire time. But how did the pilot know we’d be at the castle?
“Warden Hudson?” Teresa asked. “What’s the normal response time for determining if a bogey is hostile and then acting?”
Hudson gave her a thoughtful look, then replied, “That’s privileged information, Trance. However, the copter received multiple warnings before it entered restricted airspace, and twice again before it crossed the prison walls. I have those audio recordings.”
“And the order to shoot came from you?”
“It did.”
“May I ask what the time was between your order and the shot being fired?”
His lips pressed into a thin line—we weren’t going to like this. “Twenty-five seconds. Too much time.”
“Someone let the copter get closer,” I said, disbelief setting into my guts like ice. “They hesitated on that shot long enough for the copter to”—air quotes—“ ‘accidentally’ crash down on our location. Right?”
“I cannot comment on that at this time.” Something in Hudson’s expression, though, said yes. He had the same suspicions. A member of his staff had allowed the crash, maybe even participated in its planning. All the secrecy so far made a lot more sense.
Thatcher let out a string of impressively colorful language. “Three of my friends are dead because of you,” he snarled. He spun around to face me and, despite being a good six feet apart, I braced for a physical blow. “My best friend’s son is fighting for his life because I was stupid enough to trust you and come here.”
I bristled at the venom-laced accusations, and only someone’s hand on my shoulder kept me still. “How could I have known—?”
“They were monitoring your walkie! They knew exactly where we’d be.”
“So get pissed at him.” I stabbed a finger in Hudson’s general direction. “I didn’t cause this. I’m here to help you.”
“You can shove your help up your ass, kid.”
“Shut. Up.” Hudson’s shout turned one order into two separate but equal demands.
I turned away, shaking mad, and not surprised to see Aaron was the one who’d held me back. He was as deadly furious as I was. We’d been here. We’d seen the damage and the deaths. Hell, I’d almost died trying to stop the crash. On one level, I understood Thatcher’s anger, but he was throwing it at the wrong person. I wasn’t the one who’d betrayed us. That honor belonged to someone on Hudson’s staff.
Hudson’s phone rang, and he excused himself to answer it. Simon had wandered closer to the copter wreckage, probably trying to glean whatever emotional ghosts were left over. Marco shifted into panther form and started sniffing around. Teresa followed Thatcher to another corner of the patio. I couldn’t hear their conversation, but she had a knack for talking people down and getting them to see reason.
“You know this wasn’t your fault, right?” Aaron said quietly.
“Of course I know.” Normally, I’d be agreeing with Thatcher and heaping guilt upon myself for my part in allowing the crash to happen in the first place. Not today. A bunch of terrified zealots were responsible, not me. Not anyone else here. And I would not play the what-if game. “Thatcher’s just angry.”
“No kidding.”
“And he’s scared. He’s used to being able to disappear into the city.”
“No one wants to feel like a target in a shooting gallery.”
“Exactly.”
“All right, people,” Hudson said, loud enough to get everyone’s attention. His phone was away, and he’d produced a tablet. “We’ve got two new problems.”
We gathered around, and I braced for bad news.
“First, Humankind has issued a formal written statement to the media,” Hudson continued. “They’ve claimed responsibility for yesterday’s crash, calling their pilot a heroic martyr to the cause.”
Marco-the-panther growled low and deep. I wholeheartedly agreed.
“Second, they’ve done something brand new.” Hudson turned the tablet around. It displayed a video, taken from what looked like a copter hovering above a fire. Only it wasn’t just a fire—burning letters spelled out the words Metas Die. Creepy demand (warning?) aside, I studied the landscape around the letters, recognizing a grid of city streets. Scale-wise, the letters were enormous, each one almost the size of entire city block.
“Where is that?” Simon asked.
“Downtown Chicago,” Hudson replied.
Humankind was making a statement in the second-largest city to be abandoned after the Meta War. A few steadfast people lived in the suburbs and surrounding areas, but the heart of Chicago was a ghost town. A ghost town now on fire.
Metas Die.
“The FBI has agents and emergency personnel on the ground, preparing to put out the fires,” Hudson said. “But these news clips will spread over the internet in minutes.”
“Statement made,” Teresa said.
“They definitely went subtle,” I said with an exaggerated eye-roll. “Was anyone injured?”
“No,” Hudson replied. “No injuries or fatalities were reported in relation to this incident.”
Unlike the last two “incidents.” Humankind’s body count was already at five and would no doubt climb in the near future. We needed to find these nut jobs and put them out of business.
“Do you think the authorities in Chicago will allow us access to the scene?” Teresa asked Hudson.
“I doubt it,” Hudson said. “You folks don’t have any official jurisdiction, well, anywhere in the country. The FBI is treating this as an act of vandalism.”
“Vandalism is spray-painting a message on the side of a public building. They set fire to eight city blocks.”
“I’m sorry, Trance, but unless your friend in ATF pulls some strings for you, I think your team is sitting this one out.”
She balled her hands into fists and pressed her lips together, battling to keep a lid on her frustration. “Then may I borrow your phone and contact my people in Los Angeles? I need to make sure they’re following up on this.”
I waited for him to deny the request. Hudson surprised me by handing over the phone with a gentle “Certainly.”
I just did not understand that man.
Teresa switched the phone to speaker and dialed, while Marco and I gathered around. Aaron hung back within earshot, and I almost waved him closer. Moving away was his choice, though; he still didn’t feel like part of our group. Even Simon had walked away with Hudson and Thatcher.
The line rang twice. “Hill House,” Gage said.
“It’s me,” Teresa replied. “You’ve seen the news?”
“Yes, and I’ve been in touch with McNally. She’ll try to get us copied on any Meta-related forensics, but that’s the best she can do. The feds are keeping a tight lid on Chicago.”
“That’s what we’ve heard on our end, too.”
“And you’ll be thrilled to know someone egged our mailbox.”
Egged our— “Are you serious?” I asked.
“Yeah.” Gage made a half-snort, half-chuckle. “It was a juvenile prank, but the point was made. People around town are getting spooked. I hate to say it, but things are only going to get worse before they get better.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Teresa said. “The two cities damaged the most in the Meta War were New York City and Chicago, and both have been Humankind targets.”
“And Los Angeles was number three.”
“Bingo.”
Marco’s furry head bumped my hand. He blinked up at me, as worried as any two-hundred-pound panther could look. As worried as he’d let himself look, safe behind an inability to speak and further express himself. I scratched gently between his ears—something I had never actually done before—and he seemed to appreciate the touch.
“I know, pal,” I said softly. “Me too.” I was scared, too, more than I’d admit to anyone here.
“What?” Gage asked.
“Nothing,” I replied. “Has the mayor made any noise about postponing the HQ demolition, considering the potential danger?”
“No, but something tells me she’ll keep on schedule just to try to prove something.”
“I’m tempted to ask all of you to leave town,” Teresa said. Unlike a lot of leaders, she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind or admit when she was uncertain. She valued input, and this was her way of asking us to talk her out of doing something that would send a horrible message.
“You know we wouldn’t, even if you tried to order us,” Gage said.
“I have a feeling if they’re planning anything, it’ll happen on Monday. For the free press at the HQ alone.”
“What about the police presence? Doing anything on Monday around HQ is pretty damn risky, especially now that Humankind has announced itself to the public.”
“They could use the demolition as a decoy,” I said. “You know Mayor Ainsworth will have half the city’s police force in Century City on Monday. That leaves a lot of places unprotected.”
“Right now we’re just guessing,” Teresa said. “If they follow pattern, Los Angeles is the next target. Exactly what they’ll do is anyone’s guess.”
“We’ll stay alert, I promise,” Gage said. “You guys do the same.”
“Always.”
They hung up without a good-bye—it would seem like a jinx at this point—and somehow those two managed to say “I love you” without ever uttering the words.
“What’s our next step, boss?” I asked.
Teresa looked over her shoulder at the charred reminder of the people who’d died yesterday, then said, “We do everything in our power to make sure this never happens again.”
• • •
Our actual next step was returning to the Warren for lunch.
Simon went back to the mainland with Hudson so he could “view” the pilot’s remains. I did not envy him that particular job. Simon wouldn’t have to actually touch the dead body to do his emotion sensing, but he’d have to get close.
Watching Teresa West walk into the Warren dining room was like witnessing a celebrity sighting—heads turned, mouths dropped, eyelids widened. She brought an energy into the room that was more than just the fact that she was (probably) the most powerful person in attendance. They knew her pedigree as the daughter of one of the most revered Ranger heroes of their generation. They knew how hard she’d fought against Specter when our powers returned, and that she’d dealt with receiving new and untested abilities. And they knew that, despite everything she had personally lost, she was on their side. She wanted to see them free and the prison walls torn down.
Teresa smiled as she gazed around the room, exuding the same quiet confidence she used to win over reporters and police officers. The spell lasted only a few seconds before everyone returned to their lunches, but her point was made. The woman who’d fought for them on the outside was now here, walking among them. Straddling the line that needed to be destroyed so we could stand as a united people.
For the first time in my adult life, I felt truly proud to be a Meta. And to be her friend.
Thatcher migrated to the far corner of the dining hall, where Jinx and the rest of their former band had gathered, together but separate. They would be most difficult to convince. Thatcher seemed somewhat open-minded, though. He’d be the one to convince Jinx to play nice.
Lunch was a subdued affair, especially after previous meals when I was regaled with story requests from Muriel. She ate several tables away with her parents, and never once looked in our direction. It hurt to see her so quiet, her natural exuberance tempered by the violence all around her and her spirit shaken.
The table conversation bounced from topic to topic as different folks came over to chat with Teresa. Some asked questions about the investigation (“We really don’t know anything yet.”), others to comment on her stand for their freedom (“You do your father proud.”). I saw the flinch beneath her smile whenever her father was mentioned; you’d have to know her to notice it.
Even if Teresa secured pardons for the residents of Manhattan, was this really the best place to settle? Yes, it was very defensible, and logically there was plenty of room. No one else would want to live here—which led to a good reason why this was a terrible place to settle. Would they ever be able to escape the ghosts of their violent past if they built their new life on top of a graveyard?
Hundreds of civilians had died during fights in the five boroughs before the mandatory evacuations went into effect. Dozens of Rangers and Banes had died here over the years, without counting the death toll that final day. Maybe the bodies were gone, but their ghosts lingered in the empty skyscrapers and abandoned subway tunnels.
Could they ever see this place as anything other than a prison? Could I?
I needed space to think, so I excused myself from the dining room and went back outside. Even though the playground was still within the guard perimeter, no one was there, which made it an ideal location for some alone time. Despite residual soreness from yesterday’s dunk in the pond, I climbed to the top of the iron jungle gym and settled on the bars. The elevation gave me a nice view of the treetops and, beyond those, the rising skeleton of Manhattan.
Thousands of abandoned buildings covered the island. They could be torn down, their materials repurposed. Meta powers would make the work fairly simple, and the designs of new accommodations shouldn’t be very hard to—What am I doing?
I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. I was actually sitting there planning a way to make this place hospitable in the long-run, and for what? For whom? When the hell had I changed my mind so completely about everything? This trip hadn’t turned out anything like I expected.
Exhibit A: Aaron Scott.
Until our New York excursion, the majority of our interactions had involved polite grunts and the occasional snarly comment over whose turn it was to load the dishwasher after a group meal. He was always King, the Changeling, the guy who “killed” four people and took over their lives and personalities. I looked at him and still saw the blank, faceless, hairless creature from that day at HQ when his sister blasted me through a window. He wasn’t real.
Somehow, in four days, he’d become a whole, real person I actually got along with and liked talking to. He was Aaron. He liked sweet stuff and wielded sarcasm just as deftly as I did, and he cared. Not about me (well, maybe), but he cared about others. Various parts of his personality salad had seasoned him with a hell of a lot of compassion I’d never have guessed was there.
“Ethan, I’m gay.”
We hadn’t had a chance to talk again since he dropped that bombshell, and it wasn’t exactly a topic I could bring up hours later in casual conversation without sounding completely stupid. “Remember when you told me you were gay, and I didn’t say anything? Well, I should have said, ‘Hey, me too,’ only I didn’t because I spend so much time ignoring that part of myself, and I’ve only ever told two people in my adult life and it never occurred to me to make you number three.”
Yeah, completely stupid. Even if it was true.
A shape bobbed through the trees, coming toward the playground from the direction of the Warren. My breath caught. Had I managed to conjure up Aaron for an inevitable, awkward conversation?
Sunlight glinted off a head of red hair, and my breath came out in an annoyed whistle. Jinx. I held tighter to the metal bars. He stopped at the edge of the play area and looked around. Spotted me at the top of the jungle gym. He came closer, walking with a stiff posture that said he meant business, while his speed suggested a casual stroll. Almost like he didn’t want to spook me.
Good call. I trusted him as far as I could throw him (without my powers).
Jinx leaned against the swing-set post and then didn’t seem to know what to do with his arms. He tried crossing them, then put his hands in his pants pockets. Finally he just let them hang by his sides. The awkwardness was revelatory—he was nervous.
“Is there any news on Andrew’s condition?” he asked once he’d quit fidgeting.
“Not that I’ve heard,” I replied. “Not since this morning. Warden Hudson might be able to get you an update.”
“The warden isn’t likely to do me any favors.” He stared at me, intent. Begging me not to make him ask.
For some reason I had mercy. “I can request an update.”
“Thank you. I’d appreciate that.”
He could have just as easily asked Teresa for a nonexistent update, which made me wonder if he had something else to say. Or admit to. The more I studied him, just a middle-aged man standing in a patch of sunlight, the more I saw the resemblance. More than just our hair and eye color, I saw myself in his jaw and eyebrows and in his physical build. Couldn’t he see it, too?
“Before I do you a favor, though,” I said, which got his full attention, “I want you to answer a question for me.”
He hesitated before nodding yes.
I went straight for the throat. “Why did you betray the Ranger Corps?”
Jinx didn’t seem surprised by my question, just sad. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Use small words and complete sentences.”
He paced from the swing set to the slide and then back again before resuming his previous position. “Back then, the Rangers were losing focus. They were becoming government pawns and media darlings, instead of what we were meant to be.”
“Criminals?”
“Humble.”
I stared. “Humble? What does that mean?”
“It means that as Metas, we possess incredible powers. And those powers come with an invisible deed of responsibility. The Rangers made us tools. The government paraded us around in our uniforms, made us spokespersons for various agencies, little more than propaganda, and when they were done with us, they put us back in our box to play with later. Rangers couldn’t rescue a cat from a tree without a MetaHuman Control Group agent’s say-so.”
His words weren’t small, but he did use complete sentences—I still didn’t understand. Nothing he said made sense when put against my own memories. Granted, I was thirteen when the Rangers officially ceased to exist, but surely I’d remember some of what Jinx was talking about.
Or did I? I recalled a few times when my mother went out with her Corps Unit to do what she called “the old song and dance.” Nothing criminal or disaster-related was ever reported around these calls, but I hadn’t questioned her job. Hadn’t questioned anything the adult Rangers were called to do.
“You’re thinking now,” Jinx said. “That’s good. You know I’m not lying or exaggerating.”
“I don’t know that, no. I was a kid, still two years out from joining a Unit. And my mother didn’t talk about work when she was home.”
“Patricia.” He said her name with such tenderness that I wanted to kick him in the balls. “She was beautiful. Had an incredible laugh. You look like her a bit.”
“Really? Because I think I kind of look like my father.”
Jinx swallowed hard. He studied the dirt for a moment, before lifting his head and looking me in the eye. “I regret leaving Patty. But she didn’t agree with my views on the Rangers, and I no longer agreed with hers. I didn’t set out to become a bad guy, Ethan, but I also couldn’t stay with the Rangers. And in that world, if you weren’t a voluntary Ranger, then you were an automatic Bane.”
“But that’s . . .” What? I couldn’t even finish my own sentence.
“That’s not what you were told?”
“No.”
“Big surprise. There’s a saying, Ethan. History is written by those who win.”
Apropos. Kind of. “I’d say we both lost the Meta War.”
“You’re right. All Metas lost. But the government won.”
The government who, according to Jinx, had treated the Rangers like personal dancing monkeys, and had declared any Meta who didn’t join the Rangers to be a bad guy. The government who, I knew for a fact, had lied to our faces about what had actually started the Meta War twenty years ago, who’d taken away our powers for fifteen years, and who’d had a fail-safe plan to murder all the prisoners in Manhattan.
A government who was probably secretly thrilled by the appearance of Humankind.
“My leaving the Rangers was never about betraying others,” Jinx said. “It was about not betraying myself and what I believed in. My deepest regret is leaving Patty, but she wouldn’t come with me when I asked.”
My hand jerked, and I almost lost my balance on the jungle gym bars. Mom and I never sat down and had a long talk about my father, or about why he’d left. She’d certainly never told me that he asked her to go with him. Not that she had any reason to tell me. She had believed in the Rangers and she died for that belief—just like hundreds of others.
“I’m surprised,” I said.
“By what?”
“I’d have thought your deepest regret was turning her water powers against her and causing her a long, painful death drowning in her own bodily fluids.”
He flinched. “A very different person did that. Jinx killed Fathom that day. He was an angry man trying to survive a battle. But I am sorry that I took her from you. You were too young to lose both of your parents.”
“Funny. Before she died, Mom told me that my father was alive and well.”
Jinx’s eyes widened briefly, then his entire face shuttered. He almost looked angry. “Why are you here, Ethan? What do you want?”
People kept asking me that question, and every day my answer changed. I wanted to look Jinx in the eye, and I’d done that. I had entertained ideas of killing him to satisfy a decades-old need for revenge, but I knew now I would never do that. I had not come here looking to bond with him, or to discover that the things I’d once believed about him weren’t entirely true. That maybe he wasn’t the evil villain I wanted him to be, the neat and simple murderer.
Nothing about this was neat and simple.
One thing I’d come looking for and received in spades—“Answers,” I said.
“And have you gotten your answers?”
“A lot of them. Trouble is, most answers just create a lot more questions.”
“That they do, son.”
Our eyes met and held for a moment. This might be as close as either of us would get to saying it, admitting to it, and that was okay. I didn’t need a father. And I had the answers I needed on this particular topic. He wasn’t Jinx now, any more than Simon was still Psystorm. Those identities had been left behind at Belvedere Castle when we all lost our powers.
“I should go,” I said. Instead of climbing, I gathered up enough wind to carry me down to the ground near Jin—McTaggert. “When I ask Warden Hudson for an update on Andrew, I’ll see about securing you permission to visit him.”
McTaggert jerked, startled. “You will?”
“Yes, I will. I’ll probably need to put my own ass on the line and take responsibility for you, so don’t f*ck it up.”
His mouth worked, trying to form words. I’d apparently baffled him with my offer. “Why would you do that?”
“Because no son should ever feel abandoned by his father,” I said, and then walked away.