CHAPTER 24
IRIDIUM
Ever since the Squadron took down the Code Red villainesses more than a decade ago and disbanded the Ominous Eight by force, there’s been no superclub for extrahumans who scorn the law. Do they prefer to work independently? Or are they organized into clandestine cells, run by an elite few? Or something else entirely?
Lynda Kidder, “Flight of the Blackbird,” New Chicago Tribune, July 2, 2112
Iridium was pushing it. Visiting her father twice in three days would set off Warden Post’s obsessive-compulsive sense of security, but she had to.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Lester demanded. “I told you I’d be in touch when my man delivers.”
“About that,” said Iridium. “I don’t want some shadow figure dealing with us. Who is he? How do you know you can trust him?”
“His name is Ivanoff. And he’s a prisoner of Corp, the same as I am,” said Lester. “Don’t question me again, Callie. Have I ever led you wrong?”
Iridium bit her lip. “No.”
“You saw what Corp did to our family firsthand. Drove my friends over the edge, threw me in prison, destroyed your mother’s career when she wouldn’t abandon us. Are you wavering?”
“No!” Iridium snapped. “I know what they did, Dad. I saw what the Academy does firsthand. I just …” She stopped, fighting the urge to summon a strobe, expel her nervous energy.
Lester softened, extended one hand as far as he could in his shackles toward her. “What’s wrong, girl?”
“I got hit with a vigilante.” Iridium sighed. “The Undergoths have a new backer. Wreck City is going to shit and Corp is just going to keep coming. I’m not having a good week, Dad.”
“Nor will you, until Corp is put in its place,” Lester said. He didn’t believe in pity, or, in many cases, sympathy. Iridium wondered at her fellow students who’d had the family existence, with birthdays and school pictures. They all seemed so insulated, so removed from what the world really was.
Which was why they were heroes, and she was here.
“Gangs will always be gangs, Iridium.” Using her designation made Iridium snap her head up. Lester gave her a rueful smile. “Justicers will always be too eager. But you can change Corp hunting you. I suggest you focus on that.”
“I asked him to meet me,” Iridium said. “The vigilante.”
“I forbid it,” Lester said instantly. “Corp will be hunting him and it will expose us to too much risk.”
Iridium nodded. “You know best, Dad.”
“I don’t like this, Iri,” Boxer said, fidgeting with his watch chain.
“There isn’t much you do like lately, Boxer,” Iridium said. “Will you knock that off? You’re making me nervous.”
“Gee,” he said, looking over the edge of the hoverpad. “We’re perched on an aerial lander illegally, waiting for a guy who shoots electricity out of his hands—and is on the side of justice—to question his motives. And if I know you, you’ll still insult at least one of his ancestors. Can’t see why you’re nervous, Iri. Not at all.”
“Button it.” The hoverpad swayed gently in the wake of a passing bus and Iridium deliberately looked up, at the pollution layer, and not down at the street five hundred feet below. Her father would kill her. But there was something about Taser, something that suggested it would be a bad idea not to get him on her side … after all, they shared no love of Corp. Backup could be useful, when Lester’s mystery man Ivanoff delivered.
“He’s late,” Boxer said finally, snapping his watch shut in a huff and tucking it into his lime-green vest.
“Yeah, he seems to make that a habit.”
“You’re talking about my dashing good looks, right?”
Iridium turned and saw Taser dismount a small black hover, sans license tag and flight markings. He swiveled his head toward Boxer. “You didn’t tell me we were going to have a chaperon, darlin’.”
“Somebody has to make sure you don’t get fresh,” said Boxer, patting his plas pistol.
Taser’s eye goggles irised and refocused. “I know you.”
“I don’t think so,” Boxer said, tilting up his fedora with his finger.
“You’re the third Taft brother.” Taser cocked his head. “How about that. Heard you were dead.”
Boxer’s jaw went tight. “Fanboy, are you?”
Taser snorted. “Not hardly. Nice to see you’ve found something to keep your hands busy.” He looked toward Iridium with his blank glass gaze. “Does she? Keep your hands busy?”
Iridium snapped her fingers in Taser’s face and a prism flashed, shorting his goggles. They sparked and clamped shut. “Can we focus, please?”
Boxer snorted. “Good luck with this sewer rat’s ass, Iridium. I’ll be at home.” He tapped his wristlet and signaled a taxi, which floated to a stop at the pad. Boxer got in without another word.
After it had whirred away on its lift fans, Taser grinned. “You gonna pay me for these goggles?”
Iridium feigned shock. “You mean to tell me you’re not a rich playboy during the day? I’m so disillusioned.”
Taser shocked the goggles and they opened again. Iridium saw a hint of light eyes beneath. “Why’d you really bring me up here? Because I gotta be honest—a woman who banters is not one of my turn-ons.”
“How about a woman who throws your ass off a hover-pad?”
Taser shook his head. “We did this dance, remember? It’ll just end in tears, Iri.”
Iridium pressed her lips into a line. “Only my friends call me that.”
“Then tell me what you brought me up here for so we can move down that road.”
The lights of downtown blinked softly at Iridium as she turned away from Taser. “I’m going to cut ties with the gangs in Wreck City soon. I want you to stop messing around with the Undergoths and make an alliance with me.”
Taser laughed. “You and me against the world? Romantic, Iridium. Never expected that out of you.”
“No,” said Iridium. “You and me against Corp.”
Taser canted his head. “But I’m a fanboy, remember?”
“If you were really a wannabe, you would have turned me in to Corp the first time we tussled. You would have tipped the active duty squad to the Undergoths.” She turned to him. “You would have had a pair of stun-cuffs on you so you could haul me to the prison gates and get a pat on the head from Corp.”
Taser shrugged. “Got me there. All that, and I did tell you that I wasn’t a Corp lover.”
“Yeah, but I just assumed you were a liar,” said Iridium.
“Sort of a dim view of the world.”
Iridium smiled thinly. “It’s a dark world we live in, Taser. Do we have an accord?” She stuck out her hand, trusting him not to simply shock her, tag her, and take her to the hero squad.
Taser gripped her hand, firm and warm. “Against Corp? We do for now.”