Tempest

Five



Manhattan Island Penitentiary

Our first stop after lunch was Ellis Island. A military fort, an immigration station, and then a museum, Ellis Island now housed the prison’s main observation tower. It had been built on the site of the old Main Building just after the War, and five stories of concrete and steel served as the activity hub for everything that happened in Manhattan and at the dozens of other checkpoints around the island’s secured perimeter.

The distance from the Jersey shore to the island was relatively small, but only official copters were allowed to land on Ellis. Simon signed us in with a pair of snarly guards armed with high-powered rifles who barely gave me or Aaron-as-Scott a second glance when they handed us visitor badges, then he led us over to the warming copter.

“Wouldn’t it be faster if you flew us over?” Aaron whispered, barely audible above the whir of the copter blades.

“Maybe,” I said, “but something tells me Lieutenant Itchy Trigger Finger would love an excuse to shoot us down.”

“Good point.”

We climbed into the copter like good little prison visitors and let it fly us over the bay to Ellis Island. A puddle-jump in a copter was a lot less stress-inducing than our four-hour flight in a jet, and then we were walking briskly down a stone path toward the observation tower’s entrance. Simon flashed his own badge in front of a white panel. Something buzzed, and he pulled the glass door open and indicated that we should go inside.

The tower lobby was empty of everything except two elevators and a door marked Emergency Stairs—no furniture, no man at a desk to tell us where to go. Everything seemed automated and impersonal, with no signs that a significant historical building had once stood here before a big old Meta battle leveled the entire thing. Just one more landmark on a long list of them destroyed during the Meta War.

Simon flashed his badge in front of another silver panel between the elevators. The doors on the right slid open with a chime. The interior of the elevator was as boring as the lobby, all buffed chrome. Aaron fidgeted the entire ride up, apparently more nervous than I had thought, and with good reason. The federal government was not, to our knowledge, aware of the existence of Recombinants, and by bringing one into the prison, we were trying to get a big one over on a lot of powerful people.

Not that I cared about our minor subterfuge; I just didn’t want it to backfire on us.

The elevator stopped on the top floor, and we walked out into a circular room the size of the entire tower. Directly ahead of us was a wall of computer monitors, occasionally spaced by a window that gave us a nice view of New Jersey. Clusters of desks stood around other monitors, and the constant hum of machinery and voices gave the room a lively atmosphere that was cut by the somber nature of the workers’ navy federal corrections uniforms.

A handful of those workers paused in their tasks long enough to give us a variety of looks—some hateful, some curious—but Simon didn’t seem to notice. He led us to the other side of the elevator banks, where a long swath of windows presented a perfect view of the Manhattan shoreline—and the one-hundred-foot-tall electrified fence running along its entire perimeter. Ruined skyscrapers still dotted the skyline, only a few still standing taller than twenty stories, evidence of the battles waged here two decades ago. Almost eighty ex-Banes and their kids lived over there, scraping out a crappy existence in the bones of a once-glamorous and industrious city.

And somewhere on that island was my mother’s murderer, my father.

My insides twisted up at the thought. He was so close now. It wouldn’t take much effort to just fly over the wall and search for the bastard, to finally look him in the eyes and . . . well, something.

“Tempest?” Simon’s voice startled me back into my present situation. I’d stopped midstep to stare at the prison and was getting curious looks from him and Aaron.

“Sorry,” I said, and angled my head at the windows. “It’s been awhile.”

“I understand. Come on.” He took us to a workstation near the windows, separated from the other desks and workers by a very conspicuous distance.

“They afraid they’re going to catch Meta?” I asked.

Simon shrugged. “I may have credentials, but they still look at me as a prisoner and a criminal. No matter what good I do in the future, I’ll still die an ex-Bane and a villain.”

“Do you truly believe that?” Aaron asked in his affected accent.

“Your tablets have the same information that I do,” Simon replied, ignoring the question, “and as you know, it’s incomplete. Have you read the files on the prisoners that we haven’t managed to locate?”

“Yes,” I replied, while Aaron nodded. “Do you have an idea of where to start searching?”

“I do.” He turned on his computer and brought up a satellite map of the island. Touched a section near the southernmost section of Central Park, which expanded it to full screen. “Believe it or not, the majority of us lived near Columbus Circle and still do. Central Park holds a lot of awful memories for you kids, but it’s also the closest we could get to freedom, especially for our own children. And it was one of the only parts of the city that still has a fresh water supply.” He pointed at a building near Central Park South, along Fifty-Ninth Street. “Right here is where they’ve settled. It was an apartment building once upon a time. We call it the Warren.”

“The Warren?” Aaron asked.

“Like a rabbit warren.”

“Who came up with that?”

Simon opened and closed his mouth once, then frowned. “I honestly could not tell you now.”

“Okay, good, the Warren,” I said, “but what about the people we’re looking for?”

“Rumor is they still show up occasionally to barter for supplies and food,” Simon replied, “so they must be within the general area. But they probably stay nomadic in order to remain undetected.”

“That still gives us hundreds of city blocks to get lost in.”

“This is where your ability to fly comes in handy.”

“Naturally.” I get to be the airborne human target.

Simon changed the satellite image to a digital map. Dozens of red dots appeared over sections of the city, everywhere from the Upper West Side to Turtle Bay and Midtown. “These are known sightings of missing prisoners. I can’t guarantee they never travel farther north than Central Park, but the Harlem fire destroyed almost everything above 115th Street, so there isn’t much there.”

Good point.

“And not long after the War ended, the authorities cut off water to everything north of Sixty-First and south of Fifty-Sixth.”

That much had been in our tablet research, and it made sense that our targets would hang around a source of clean water.

“And we’ll have some tracking assistance from one of the Warren residents.”

“Really?” I’d have been less surprised if he told me we were getting help from the president himself. “Who?”

“Her name is Mai Lynn Chang. She’s a cat shifter, so her nose will come in very handy.”

“Like Mar—Onyx?” Aaron asked. He caught himself before using the wrong name—code names in public were still standard operating procedure—and before I could say the same thing. Onyx was also a shifter, but he was limited to three shapes: panther, raven, and black house cat.

“Similar,” Simon replied. “Mai Lynn can take the shape of any feline she’s seen with her own eyes. After she discovered her ability as a teen, she spent a lot of time traveling and visiting zoos. She has quite a number of large cats in her repertoire.”

Two things about the way Simon spoke of Mai Lynn did not go over my head. First, her last name was Chang, traditionally a Chinese name. Second, his voice changed when he talked about her. Softer, more familiar, like they were friends—maybe more. Simon’s exes weren’t any of my business (or of any interest to me beyond their impact on our job here), but I was crazy curious about this one.

“Why did Mai Lynn volunteer to help us?” I asked. “What’s she get in return?”

Simon frowned. “Why do you believe I had to trade something for her assistance?”

Because she’s a Bane. Self-preservation kept that one in my head, and I did not look Simon in the eye. He was smart enough to know I was thinking it without using his powers on me. “So why else? Is she that bored over on Columbus Circle?”

“Hardly. The people living there are content to stay. They’ve survived here on next to nothing for the last fifteen years, but when our powers returned, they were able to build something that can last. Even though Teresa is working toward pardons, most of them want to remain here. They’ve created a community, and they want Manhattan. They’d just prefer to have it without the fence and guards and tracking collars. But the government won’t even consider it until everyone is accounted for and interviewed, which is why we’re going out there. Mai Lynn’s assistance is a show of goodwill from the Warren residents. They want to help make this happen.”

I waited for him to add something along the lines of “Oh, and she’s Caleb’s mother,” but he didn’t. Simon looked between me and Aaron, probably waiting for one of us to comment on his responses to my questions. I just wasn’t ready to let him off the hook. “No one else living in the Warren has powers that would be more useful to us?” I knew for a fact that there were, because I’d read the bios.

Simon didn’t take the bait. “Of course there are, Tempest, but this was a voluntary assignment. Mai Lynn volunteered.”

“And she gets nothing except the satisfaction of helping her community.”

“Anything Mai Lynn gets beyond what I’ve said are between her and Warden Hudson.”

Ding! Ladies and gentlemen, we have an under-the-table deal in our midst.

Mai Lynn was definitely getting something extra for helping us, and it was too personal for Simon to just come out and say it. My best guess? Caleb. Eight months ago, Simon had agreed to help us in exchange for being able to take Caleb out of Manhattan and bring him to Los Angeles. I already knew he’d do anything to protect his son.

I guessed we were going to find out if Momma Cat felt the same way about her kitten.

“Fair enough,” I said. “So what’s the plan?”

“A copter will take us over and drop us off in the Park, around West Sixtieth,” Simon replied. “Today we’ll go over to the Warren. You’ll meet Mai Lynn and a few other people. Take a look around and get your bearings in the city. Tomorrow we’ll start the hunt.”

Tomorrow I start looking for you, Jinx, you murdering bastard.

• • •

The second copter ride left me unexpectedly dizzy, and it had nothing to do with the pilot’s flying skills. Being hundreds of feet in the air, hovering high above the familiar expanse of Central Park, is what made me want to bend over and tuck my head between my knees. Fortunately for my flying companions, lunch stayed down and I stayed conscious.

My last memories of Central Park were the stuff of nightmares: smoke and fire, cold and rain, the bitter taste of fear in my mouth, the scorched and withered landscape. Friends dying around me. Metal statues melting. Buildings falling to the ground. I remembered exhaustion, being cold all the way to my bones, and the searing agony of being shot by a madman.

And then the confusion of losing our powers. Even the Banes who’d stormed Belvedere Castle in an effort to slaughter us didn’t know what had happened or what to do next. We had no powers to fight with. The Banes eventually left us alone, scared away by the gun we took off a dead man and that then-fifteen-year-old Gage wielded like the leader he became that day. He didn’t realize until later that the gun didn’t have any more bullets in it.

Sixteen kids landed in Central Park via copter; five us were still alive.

Simon and Aaron climbed out first. I paused in the doorway, heart suddenly jackhammering in my chest, the whir of the copter blades stirring the warm summer air and the thick leaves of nearby trees. The Park looked like it had in pictures taken decades ago, when it was alive and thriving. Grass and trees and flowers had taken over earth I remembered being brown and dead. The sun shined down—no cold rain.

I stepped out of the copter and into a strange world that had thrived on the graves of lost lives. With a question in his eyes, “Scott” grabbed my elbow and tugged me away from the copter so it could take off again. The pilot left us alone near a low stone wall. Beyond the cracked pavement of Eighth Avenue were decrepit and crumbling buildings that had once cost a fortune to rent. On our side of the wall was that small slice of freedom Simon had spoken of.

“Are you all right?” Simon asked.

My ready supply of sarcasm abandoned me, and I replied honestly for a change. “I’m not sure. It’s a little overwhelming to be back here and see it so . . . nice.”

Simon gave me what I decided was a fatherly smile. “Nothing grew the first spring, but by the next year the grass started coming back. We found seeds in different stores, but it was several summers before the ground could grow anything other than weeds. Now there’s a large community garden about a block east of here. I’ll show you later.”

A garden. A garden?!

“Don’t look so surprised,” Simon said. “We scavenged everything we could across the island to supplement that garbage the federal government dropped on us. Meat and dairy have always been an issue, but thanks to that garden, no one is starving any longer.” An acerbic no thanks to them dangled on the end of that sentence, punctuated by the look in his eyes. The look of a man with a serious grudge, who still held a small hope of getting even.

Simon had been imprisoned here with the other Banes. I’d always known that, but I had somehow never put it together with the reality of my own experience in Central Park. He’d been here during that final battle, when we were running for our lives. Maybe he wasn’t part of the group that had attacked Belvedere Castle, and I don’t remember seeing him that day, but he was here. He fought our parents and mentors in those last, brutal battles. And he spent the next fifteen years paying for those crimes. He never spoke about the War or the years following, and I never asked.

Maybe I didn’t want to know—didn’t want to connect helpful Simon Hewitt with the Bane called Psystorm who’d been our enemy. And every single person I’d meet today in the Warren had been in the exact same place.

Coming here had been a huge f*cking mistake.

“Tempest?” Simon waved a hand in front of my face, concerned.

I snapped my head back, unsure how long I’d been staring at him—or what my face must have looked like. “Sorry, what?”

“I asked if you were ready to go? They’ll have heard the copter and be expecting us.”

“Yeah. Right, okay.”

He gave me another curious look, then led the way across the grass, south toward Fifty-Ninth Street. Aaron and I fell into step behind him. The last battle had been my first and only visit to Central Park, and we’d been dumped a few blocks north of here, so my only knowledge of this part of the city came from maps and reports. The few standing trees thinned out, replaced by various patches of planted flowers. Some were surrounded by rings of carefully placed rocks; others seemed to have been randomly dropped.

We exited the Park at what had been Columbus Circle, and a large hole in the ground marked what had once been a subway entrance. They’d built a fence around it out of rubble from nearby buildings, probably to keep stray kids from wandering into the pit. To our left and down about half the block, a small cluster of people stood on the sidewalk outside an apartment building—the only one on the street I could see that had received any sort of care in the last decade. The exterior looked like white concrete, and every single window was intact (not something its neighboring buildings could boast). During New York’s heyday it wasn’t the prettiest place on the block, but now it was the only thriving spot in a dead metropolis.

We’d found the Warren.

I forced myself to keep a steady gait as I followed Simon and Aaron across the empty, quiet expanse of Fifty-Ninth. Counted one woman and four men by the street-level entrance, watching us with a variety of expressions: alarm, curiosity, maybe a little bit of dread. They all wore the black tracking collar I’d seen once before, when Simon first came to help us in Los Angeles. I recognized faces from my research and easily placed names and powers on each of them—not to mention lists of past crimes against the Rangers and the general public.

Mai Lynn Chang stood at the front of the quintet, a slender woman with slashes of white in otherwise black hair. Hands folded in front of her, she gave Simon a polite nod, then fixed her eyes on me. Eyes that sparkled gold around a narrow catlike slit in the pupil.

“Mai Lynn Chang, Warren representative,” she said. Her voice had a soft purr that was bizarrely soothing.

“Ethan Swift,” I said. She offered her hand and I shook it, impressed by her firm grip.

“Scott Torres,” Aaron said in his borrowed accent and shook, as well. “Encantado.”

“Welcome to the Warren,” she said. “Shall I assume you already know everyone standing behind me?” On our nods, she continued, “Excellent. We won’t waste time with too many introductions, then. There is quite a lot for you to see today.”

She seemed pleasant enough, but I still felt like a prize cow being sized up by hungry butchers—none of the looks coming from the men in her company were terribly friendly. I’d never met any of her companions, not that I could recall, and it struck me that Mai Lynn was probably smart enough to keep our little delegation away from anyone who’d been at Belvedere Castle that final day. No sense in tossing gasoline on an already-roaring fire.

Not unexpectedly, the tour began in the apartment building. The lobby had the look of an interior town square, with benches and chairs placed in small clusters on the left. Patio tables and chairs were scattered around on the right. Someone had even painted the ceiling blue. The walls had various murals of outdoor scenes from around the world—beaches with palm trees, leafy jungles, snowcapped mountains.

“This is our common area,” Mai Lynn explained. “This building has been our meeting place for over a decade, long before the Warren. We wanted a place to come and socialize that had a spacious feeling, as well as protection in winter. It can seem somewhat claustrophobic when snow makes it difficult to go outside, but we’re not alone.”

Made sense. I had no idea where the city of New York had once stored its snowplows, and searching for them had probably never been very high on their priority list. Still, the way she spoke of the Warren caught my attention, and I realize our accumulated research had a big damned hole in it.

“You say you met here for over a decade, long before the Warren?” I asked.

She nodded.

“How long has the Warren been around? How long has everyone been living together here?”

“Since our powers returned in January.”

I blinked. “Really?”

“Yes. Before that, we lived in more than a dozen small groups scattered around these few square blocks. There was always talk of creating a larger community, but some spoke very loudly against it.” Her expression darkened. “And then the government began drugging us, and for many, the topic simply disappeared in a haze of lethargy and nausea.”

Almost three years ago, unknown to the residents of Manhattan or the general public, Warden Hudson allowed a depressant to be added to the city’s ingoing water supply. Simon told us he hadn’t drunk it, nor had Caleb, but a lot of folks did. And they got pretty sick. Its use was discontinued the same week we defeated Specter—thanks to Teresa and Agent McNally.

“Once the haze lifted,” Mai Lynn continued, “we began to understand what was happening. Our powers had returned, but the majority no longer wished for the notoriety we’d earned during the War. We simply wanted to be left alone, and Simon’s efforts outside the island have made that seem less like an unobtainable pipe dream.”

I had nothing to say that didn’t sound trite, so I stayed quiet.

“Shall we continue?” she asked, and led us past two elevators to a doorless stairwell.

“Electricity is rationed, so we make use of the stairs,” she said as we went up. Her voice echoed in the cement block stairwell. “We only use the elevators when absolutely necessary, but we’ve also kept ourselves to the first four floors.”

At some point we’d lost Mai Lynn’s four shadows, which didn’t bother me at all. Their silent presence had creeped me the hell out. She showed us the second floor, which had seen some pretty impressive construction work. Walls were knocked out to combine apartments, creating a large kitchen and dining room. The setup reminded me of the cafeteria back at the old Rangers HQ.

Here we got our first eyeful of residents at work. Half a dozen people were in the kitchens working on the evening meal, which—according to Mai Lynn—was always a group effort. Everyone took turns preparing and serving meals, and all food was shared. No one hoarded. No one stole. The effectiveness of their system was astounding. Of course, I could imagine the wrinkles they’d ironed out back in the earliest days of creating such a smooth operation—especially with so many strong personalities in the mix.

Mai Lynn showed us the third floor, too. I was surprised that every single door stood open, and said so.

“Trust is tantamount to this community working,” Mai Lynn said. “We have a shared past, yes, but that doesn’t mean we were allies. We had to put aside many differences in order to survive, and this is one of the reasons you’re here.”

“How’s that?” I asked.

“The loners you seek chose not to become part of our community, and for their own reasons. We don’t hunt them and we don’t turn them away when they need supplies, but they know that they aren’t welcome inside the Warren. Not unless they agree to live by our rules.”

“Sensible,” Aaron said.

Mai Lynn nodded. “We think so as well.”

“How exactly has the return of your powers affected the community?” I asked.

“For one thing, it’s immensely improved our ability to garden. And for another, these are no longer active.” She tapped her finger against the black collar circling her throat. “You have no idea the relief of knowing that your every move is no longer being monitored by a man in a black suit who’d rather see you dead than properly fed.”

Icy fingers dragged down my spine and the phantom odor of a musty basement seized in my throat. Too many nights spent in that freezing basement for perceived slights—incidents far beyond the control of a traumatized teenager. I could fully empathize with the anxiety and dread of living under an indifferent caretaker, positive the smallest slip-up would bring the hammer down.

“Tempest?” Aaron asked. “¿Estás bien?”

The strong breeze fluttering the tips of my hair—not a natural occurrence in an enclosed upstairs hallway—clued me in, and I got my minor power surge under control. My emotions, too, which had suddenly skirted the edge of uncomfortable and gotten too close to full-on flashback. I spent a lot of time not thinking about the four and a half years I spent fostered with the Bacons, and I had no intention of thinking about them now. Especially not here, of all f*cking places.

“Sorry, fine,” I said. “I just got lost in thought for a minute.”

“That must have been some thought,” Mai Lynn said. She gave me a curious, searching look, and I returned it without blinking, even though her cat eyes were a little scary. She looked away first. “Shall we head outside?”

The chill of long-buried memories didn’t fade, even after we stepped back into the summer heat. I wanted a minute to myself so I could get my racing thoughts together, but asking for a time-out wasn’t happening. One, it made me look weak in front of Mai Lynn and her friends. Two, where exactly would I go? I could fly anywhere in Manhattan to be alone, but everything about this damned city reminded me of the past. Reminded me of events and people I really, really wanted to forget.

An archway boasting of new construction led us into Central Park, and newly created paths met up with older paths. The distant sounds of laughter bounced off the buildings behind us, creating the oddest sense of displacement. Laughter didn’t belong in a place like this, and certainly not the laughter of children.

The first thing we encountered was a playground.

I am not shitting you.

The playground looked like anything you’d see in a nice, clean, safe, suburban neighborhood—or a rich person’s backyard. The wood fort-slide combo was under siege by three young children waving plastic swords, while a fourth sat by herself on one end of a seesaw. The swing set boasted three regular swings and a tire swing, which was being used by a man who seemed to be the adult on babysitting duty.

All of those kids had been born here, without the benefit of a proper hospital. No doctors. No checkups. Just the attention and love of their parents.

Intellectually, I knew the Banes had had children while imprisoned. I’d seen their photos on my tablet, even knew their names and the names of their parents. But seeing them playing Seize the Castle with fake swords and big smiles drove the point home with a sledgehammer. Simon and Caleb stopped being anomalies.

This was their reality.

The little girl on the seesaw noticed our quartet. She ran toward us, waving, sunlight glinting off her celery-green hair. “Hi, Mr. Hewitt,” she said in the high-pitched voice young kids are known for. She couldn’t have been older than eight.

“Hello, Muriel,” Simon said.

“You brought friends!” Her wide eyes took in me, then “Scott.” She leaned forward, put her hand to her mouth, and stage-whispered, “Are you Metas, too?”

“Yes, we are,” I said.

She squealed so loudly I expected my ears to start bleeding—and if it turned out her power wasn’t related to the pitch of her voice, I’d buy the kid a pony. She clapped her hands together and bounced on the balls of her feet. “Can you do anything fun?” she asked me.

I glanced at Mai Lynn for help, but she just smiled and cocked her head like she wanted to know the answer, too. I squatted down so I was eye level with Muriel. “I can control the wind. I use it to help me fly.”

“Super fun!”

Her antics had attracted the attention of the other three kids. The man on the tire stopped swinging and was watching us with a sour look on his face. Familiarity slammed into my chest, and I stared back, wishing he was closer. He was older, probably in his fifties, with the beefy build of someone who’d once lifted weights for a living—or thrown cars from one side of the street to another.

Muriel tapped my hand and recaptured my attention. “Want to know my power?”

“Okay,” I said, and prepared to cover my ears with my hands.

She closed her eyes. Her entire body began to sparkle, then shimmer. The shimmer turned into a fine shine, like polished chrome, and then she disappeared. Sort of. At different angles, I could still see the faint outline of her little body, but she’d bent the light in such a way as to create an effective camouflage.

I bet her parents loved that power.

“That’s a super fun power, too,” I said.

She squealed again and the camouflage dropped. She angled her head past me, probably about to ask “Scott” about his powers.

Mai Lynn anticipated this. “That’s enough for now, Muriel,” she said. “But thank you for coming over and saying hello.”

Muriel gave us an exaggerated curtsy, despite wearing slacks, and then raced over to the fort to tell her friends. I stood up, still curious about the man on the swing. He was walking toward us, shoulders back, head high, like he was about to tell a couple of unruly teens to get the hell off his lawn. And less than ten feet from us, I recognized him.

He’d killed one of my friends.