CHAPTER 50
IRIDIUM
No matter where you go, the Academy will always be your home.
Academy Assistant Superintendent Neil Moore, to the new graduates during the Academy’s graduation ceremony
Iridium fidgeted inside her canvas jumpsuit. Her psychiatrist suit was bad; this was unbearable. The blue jumper with the Chicago Power, Light, & Antigravity patches on the shoulders was dense and smelled like day-old roast-beef sandwiches, which, she guessed, its real owner consumed with some regularity.
Taser, wearing sunglasses and a bandanna over the lower half of his face, opened the junction box with his stolen tools and examined the wires. “F*ck. You know what any of these are?”
Iridium examined the diagram. “I’m more of a chemistry girl, but I’d say if you hit that set of circuits there,” she said, pointing, “it’ll take out the backup city power. They won’t have a shot of fixing it in time.”
“Good enough.” With a touch of his hand, he fried the entire junction box.
Iridium frowned at him. “Was that completely necessary?”
“Never hurts to be sure.”
“Come on.” Passersby were starting to cough on the acrid smoke rising from the box; she and Taser had to get moving. Now.
After they stripped out of the jumpsuits and stuffed them into a trash ’bot, Iridium breathed a little easier. Granted, not much easier. They wore white coveralls now: Corp uniforms with its imposing black concentric Cs on the breast pocket.
“See you on the other side,” said Taser.
She nodded grimly.
They left the alley at opposite ends and Iridium waited for an Academy shuttle to come by. It stopped for her, keying onto the frequency of her badge. Taser would take the next one. She moved to the back, picked a seat, and tried to blend with the rest of the lapdogs.
Next to her, a woman said “Hi!” in a tone so perky it could shatter glass. Clipped to her pink blouse was an ID badge with a cursive R in the upper left corner.
A Runner. Just great.
“Hello,” said Iridium, striving for nonchalance. Her black hair was tucked under a cap, and she’d worn her doctor’s glasses and purple contacts for insurance, but she couldn’t be sure the Runner wasn’t a fangirl.
“You’re new!”
“Uh-huh,” said Iridium as the shuttle whirred along, entering the private tunnel that led to the service entrance of the Academy. The plans flickered in Iridium’s mind. She was moving, like a clot in an artery, making her way to the heart of the system.
“What division are you? I’m a Runner!” The Runner lowered her voice. “I work for Hornblower He’s dreamy!”
“You’re smoking junk.”
The Runner blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I said he sure is a hunk.”
“Isn’t he, though?”
“Sure. This is my stop.”
“Well … bye!” the Runner chirped, levity recovered.
Iridium restrained herself from running off the shuttle. Just another working drone, she reminded herself as she walked with a group of other Academy workers. Just another day at the superoffice.
Just before the biodetector gate, a guard stopped her. “ID, miss.”
Iridium flashed it at him, and he blipped her with a scanner. “First day?”
“Yes,” said Iridium, smiling brightly. “I wasn’t supposed to start until next week, but apparently there’s a problem with the cooling system. They’re calling all the Maintenance workers in.”
The guard frowned. “Temperature feels fine to me.”
Iridium kept smiling, taking her badge back. “Wait for it.”
She walked past the guard, through the biodetector that would scan her for metal, disease, disguise, contagion … and then she was joining a line of other jumpsuited workers, shuffling along at that don’t-really-care pace so many people adopted when they worked too many hours for too little money.
Iridium looked at the arched white walls, familiar as if she’d last been inside the Academy an hour ago.
She allowed herself a tiny grin. “I’m back,” she whispered.
Half an hour later, Iridium approached the double blast doors that housed the Academy’s generator complex. She’d run a few training exercises here, as a student, with Jet and Derek and Chen, back in Third Year. Enclosed spaces, embedded opponents. Jet hadn’t been a fan; too many variables, especially with the inflatable “civilians” acting as shields.
One time, Iridium’s solution had been to toss a smoke grenade into the generator room and wait for the Containment “enemies” to come stumbling out. Frostbite had frozen them, and the op was over. Celestina had failed her for not following Squadron protocol. “You could have given those citizens lifelong respiratory problems!” she’d chided. Once again, a reminder that heroes were supposed to play by the rules.
The thought made Iridium smile.
“Maintenance?” said the guard at the door. “You’re not scheduled.”
“Nope,” she said, silently counting down. The cameras were on a thirty-second sweep. She heard a lift swish down the corridor, and Taser appeared, back in his costume, his face once again hidden by his goggled mask. Smiling at the guard, she said, “But trust me, this is where I’m supposed to be.”
“Huh?” The guard cocked his head. “What do you—”
The camera cycled away, and Iridium jabbed him in the throat. He collapsed without a sound, mouth working like a hooked fish’s.
Taser put his hand against the blast doors. “You’re sure the tilithium coats all of the walls in there?”
“That’s what the plans say,” Iridium said tersely. “Hurry up. We’re got twelve seconds.”
Taser exhaled, and a stream of electric currents writhed free of his hand, crackling over the door. The lights flickered once, twice—and as Iridium counted six, five, four … they went out.
No red emergency lights came on. No alarm Klaxons sounded. The backup power from the city grid wasn’t coming to the Academy’s rescue.
Far off, above her, Iridium heard screaming as students and heroes and Runners were plunged into dark. She couldn’t help it: She grinned. Looking over to where she was just able to make out the shine of Taser’s goggles, she said, “Nice work, Ace.”
“Light us up.”
Iridium created a bobbing strobe to guide them to the lift. Taser tapped the call pad, and the box slid open. Once they were both inside, he electrified the control panel to override security protocol, then the door slid back. Iridium looked up, imagining the thunk of the security doors slamming shut as they automatically detected the power outage.
Taser followed her gaze. “Gonna be a lot of trapped, pissed-off grunts up there.”
“Not as pissed off as the heroes will be when they find themselves without a way out of the Rat Network,” said Iridium. “Ops still has power, and they’re going to know something is up. So move this tin can.”
“I love a woman who gives me orders,” Taser said with a grin, then he zapped the lift control. “Going up.”