Chapter Twenty Nine
It’s amazing what you can do with a half-mask, a wig, and a padded bra. But that only works for pictures; if you’re serious
about keeping your civilian identity secret then don’t ever let the same people meet you in costume, and if you do then don’t
open your mouth. The most unbelievable thing about Superman was Clark Kent and his glasses.
Astra, Notes From a Life.
* * *
I was trying not to kick a hole in the roof with my boot when Dispatch called.
“A-One do you copy?”
So not Shelly. I’d always suspected she re-mixed her own Dispatch calls so they sounded by-the-book.
“A-One copies.”
“Bad crowd situation at The Fortress. ETA?” Beside me, Jacky listened to her own earbug, and the sedan bounced as Tom pulled us
into a 7-11’s corner parking lot in the shadow of an old tenement block.
“ETA, two minutes.” I jammed my mask down, lined up the eye-holes, and yanked my gloves on, feeling something tear. A look
confirmed that Jacky was still fighting with her leather suit. At least she’d got her skull-deco half mask on and her hood up.
“Go,” she said, and Tom popped the trunk while I hesitated, torn. Even if she couldn’t mist or use her Jedi mind-tricks with
the sun up, she was still wicked-quick and could body slam an Olympic weightlifter. And she could still do Dark and Dangerous like
nobody’s business. If I had to face down a mob…
“Make that ETA four minutes, A-One and A-Two,” I corrected, pulling her out of the car. She squawked and then shut up as we both
buckled and zipped her in. When she was completely Artemis, New Tom handed us our arrest kits and I grabbed her hands and
launched, lifting us up over the old tenements.
“The CPD is mobilizing a crowd-control unit,” Lei Zi cut in, filling us in as we flew. “It looks like Mr. Shankman decided to
give a speech to his faithful outside the club this morning; apparently the place is ‘a temple to false idols.’”
I wasn’t getting it. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”
She chuckled darkly. “Maybe not, but there’s a gang of construction workers from the renovation site across the street mixing
into it, and they’re not happy with what the good Mr. Shankman is saying. Add friends of last night’s victims—some of them
arrived this morning to put up a flower-shrine outside the club.”
“Okay, bad now.” Mom’s training left me over-socialized and sometimes I regretted my general lack of swearing vocabulary.
“Sure dropping us into the middle is a good idea?” Artemis asked, not sounding terribly concerned.
“It’s a terrible idea,” Lei Zi returned. “And we’re not. I want the two of you on top of the Newberry Plaza Tower in case it
all goes pear-shaped. If the police can handle it, fine. If not, you two and Rush are going to make things peaceful. The North
Side Guardians are standing by as backup, but they don’t have a great power-mix for this, either. Rush is dropping Seven off by
the crowd, plainclothes, to see if he can add his luck to the situation. I’m coming with The Harlequin and Riptide.”
That sounded better. I took us west to approach from the other side instead of overflying Rush Street, and came in above the
Chicago News helicopter to hide in its blind spot. Artemis let go when her feet touched the graveled roof, and we stepped to the
east edge to look down on the scene. Marino Park, the wedge of brick-topped ground where Rush Street angled into State Street, was
greening beautifully in the spring sunshine, and the young leaves of its carefully tended trees hid a large chunk of the crowd
below.
The Fortress sat on the corner of Rush and Bellevue, and with its granite-faced walls and narrow windows, it had always looked
like a, well, a fortress to me. Now it was a fortress under siege. The narrow sidewalks didn’t give the protestors much room, so
they’d spilled across the one-way street and into the small “park.” A pair of police officers stood directing the northbound
traffic east onto Bellevue. From the signs waved, it looked like the protestors from the Dome had decided to relocate here for the
day. Maybe they thought it was safer.
“What’s going on?” Artemis asked. At our height, she couldn’t identify anyone and my telescopic vision was stretched.
“Shankman’s standing in front of the club doors. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but he’s got volume.”
Police worked the edges of the crowd, erecting yellow barriers to check the spread, but we could see more people arriving from all
points and the police weren’t keeping them all out. News of the incident had to be spreading by text and by tweet, not to mention
live TV coverage. When protestors meet counter-protestors, is the result mutual annihilation?
“Astra? Artemis?” Dispatch brought me a new voice. “Captain Verres, here. I’m the situation commander for this morning’s
show. My station is on State Street, just south of Bellevue.” We looked down and spotted the big antennae-covered police van.
Around it, helmeted police were unloading with riot shields.
“We see you, captain,” I said.
“Good. I don’t want to see you, unless it gets really bad. Red flags. Bulls. Understand?”
“Understood.”
“Good. Glad you’re here.” A chime told me he was gone, and that worked for me; Atlas had held firm against our being used for
public order operations against normals, and the final Go No-Go would be Lei Zi’s anyway.
“He sounds on top of it,” Artemis said. “Do you see the workers Lei Zi mentioned?”
“Um, yeah. South edge of the crowd, making noise. It looks like the mourners are stuck up against the side of the club, but they
’re not trying to go anywhere.” The small knot of people carrying flowers and frames had formed up tight and were shouting back
at the crowd. It looked like some of the late arrivals were trying to force their way through the crush to join them… “Oh no
they’re not.”
“What’s going on?”
“The Bees are here. And Dane.”
* * *
Scenario One: send Rush in to “disappear” each of them from the middle of the crowd. Like they’d go willingly. Scenario Two…
My thoughts stuttered around the impossibility of doing any kind of quiet extraction, while a big part of me hysterically demanded
to know what the hell they were doing there.
“Are they really?” Artemis asked, sounding mildly interested.
I desperately wanted Shelly. She could have easily gotten them on the phone and passed them to me through our neural link,
bypassing Dispatch. Seven. If he was close enough…
Artemis handed me a cell.
“What?”
“Burner phone. Never know when you need to talk outside the system.”
Don’t ask. I dialed Megan’s number. Pick up pick up pick up.
“Megan here,” she came in clear against the crowd noise. Artemis leaned over to listen.
“Hi Meg, I can see you,” I said carefully.
“TV or live?”
“Live.”
“Cool. We were down in the Loop when Julie got the tweet. Shankman’s an ass.”
“And you’re all here to tell him? Go away.”
“Can’t. Annabeth wants to tear him a new one first.”
“Annabeth?”
“I know, right? Righteous indignation’s a new one.”
The background pitch got louder, angrier. I heard yelling, but they’d moved under the trees.
“Meg?”
“Ooh. Looks like we’re not going to make it that far.”
“What’s happening?”
“People shouldn’t be stereotypes. Big guy, bigger mouth, bad hygiene. He’s telling Annabeth off and Julie’s yelling at him.”
“Meg, get them out of there.”
“Too late—one of them pushed Annabeth. Oops, she tripped.”
I closed my eyes.
“Aaand Dane just decked him. Talk later, gotta kick some ass.” And she hung up.
Artemis began checking her e-lasers, loosening her shoulder and hip holsters. “How will they do?”
I handed the cell back, strangely calm. “Megan and Julie took Master Li’s class with me, and Meg usually packs a collapsible
baton. I saw her use it, once.”
That once was when some drunk varsity boys tried to pick a fight with Dane after a game, and Meg decided she didn’t like the
numbers. She whipped the thing out (six inches retracted, nearly a foot and a half extended) in a swing that locked it open with a
wicked k-chunk sound, and asked Dane if she could have the extras. That ended the party.
A knot of motion caught my eye. “And it looks like they’ve got help. A bunch of the construction guys just headed under the
trees.” Over by The Fortress’ doors, heads turned towards the park as Shankman lost the attention of his audience.
“Astra, Artemis, Rush, stand by,” Lei Zi said. “We’re almost there. If Captain Verres gives the go then Artemis and Rush will
tag, Astra will tie. Work the south edge; the Guardians will work the north.”
“South edge, understood, I said. “Dispatch, Captain Verres please?”
“Stand by,” he responded. “I’m sending in a squad to try and isolate the fight. This doesn’t have to spread.”
Then someone fired the rocket. The fire-trail bloomed, from the trees right into one of the club’s narrow windows, and the
explosion threw chunks of the wall into the crowd ahead of the fireball.
“Sweet mother of— Go!” Verres yelled.
“All Sentinels, cancel containment, assume public-safety priorities!” Lei Zi seconded.
Artemis leaped off the edge and I caught her hands as we fell, free-fall most of the way down to pull into a gee-ripping arc under
the trees. I dropped her into the middle of the fight and kept going, landing on the sidewalk at the edge of the dust-choked blast
zone. Where a guy with a sign took a swing at me.
“Are you completely insane?”
I took the broken sign away and zip-cuffed him, then did the same for the idiot covered in cement dust who emptied his pistol into
my back. From the suit and tie, I guessed the guy fancied himself one of Shankman’s bodyguards. The Next Great Statesman himself
ran for it, surrounded by more suits. With no more threats of violence, I turned to examine the stunned and fallen demonstrators
in time to see Rush drop Quin off in a blur of speed.
“Astra, we have the street, take the interior,” Lei Zi instructed.
“Interior, on it!” I launched myself for the hole in the wall, and the second rocket caught me. It helpfully blew me through the
hole, throwing me through the tables to slide across the dance floor.
“Astra! Status!” Lei Zi called through the ringing in my head.
“Just— Hit but mobile.” I sat up to prove it and sucked in a breath, eyes tearing. Not the ribs again.
A moment ticked by, then “Rush has found the launchers, two laser-guided throwaways. They put a guy on top of the Marino Park
coffee kiosk with them. Stand down till you’re able.”
“Thanks,” I said, then looked up. Marcus tossed a table aside to loom over me, offering a hand up I gladly accepted.
“You okay?” the bouncer asked. “Rough entrance.”
I nodded. “I’m good. Is anybody hurt?”
“Nah. Hardly anybody’s here before ten, and I sent everyone else out the back way when Shankman and his boys started their
scene. Figured I could take them myself if they got through the door.” He looked around at the shattered and scattered tables. A
few were burning, and flames crept up the outside wall’s interior paneling.
“I don’t think we’re opening for lunch. Let me get the extinguisher before the fire-system goes off.”
“Don’t mind me.” He got busy while I hugged my ribs and tried to think. My head rang, the world wobbled, spent rocket and
explosive burned my nose, and I was beginning to see a sad trend. Enter a house, get blown out the window. Visit a dealership, get
blown out into the parking lot. Drop in on a riot, get blown into the club. Did the Hollywood Knights have weeks like this?
When the wobbliness faded, I exited through the club’s front door. The “park” was chaos, but, amazingly, there were no
fatalities. Probably nobody would ever know the credit belonged to Seven. He’d left his GQ look behind and I’d flown right by
him without noticing. Collar open and shirtsleeves up, he’d worked his way through the mob so that when the rockets went in he’d
been standing right next to the tight group of mourners by the wall. Later he told me he’d been focusing hard on nobody getting
killed, and apparently his luck listened to him.
Paramedics stepped carefully among sitting and prone protestors. Captain Verres’ riot-trained officers moved through the crowd in
threes and fours, efficiently cuffing and directing. They didn’t have a lot of fighting to put down; the explosions had changed
most demonstrator’s priorities and, going with the flow, they’d thrown flash-bangs to encourage confusion and flight (I’d heard
them from inside). Now they swept through a mostly pacified crowd. The air reeked of burned magnesium-ammonium perchlorate, and I
stepped around rows of zip-cuffed detainees, searching.
I couldn’t see them. Focus. Be Astra.
“Dispatch.” I queried. “Status nominal. Location of Lei Zi?”
“Lei Zi location police command center, A-One. Standing order: do not engage. Assist at discretion.”
“Thank you. Artemis’ location?”
“A-Two location 300 feet to your southwest.”
I didn’t run.