Dreams of the Golden Age Read online

  She probably shouldn’t have kept it secret for so long. “It’s not very impressive,” she said, frowning.

  “Don’t sell yourself short. You knew instantly that something had happened to Celia,” Arthur said, not turning from the computer displays.

  “But if they’ve got somebody who can block mental powers, then I can’t do anything, none of us can do anything—”

  “We can always do something,” Suzanne said. Anna suddenly felt better. They were the Olympiad.

  “I’m afraid we’re at a bit of a loss here,” Arthur said. “Paulson will do what he can, but this came out of the blue, and we’re not expecting any ransom demands—”

  “No, it didn’t,” Anna said. “It didn’t come out of the blue. Mom was leaving the courthouse after the hearing about the lawsuit. What if … she thinks the lawsuit happened because someone wants to stop West Corp from getting the city planning contract. She must have gotten the lawsuit thrown out, and what if those people are working for whoever wants to stop her?” The empty office building. Superior Construction’s fake lawyers. If this had anything to do with the lawsuit, the trail would start there. She blushed.

  “Yes, Anna?” Arthur prompted gently. “What is it?”

  She was thinking out loud but afraid to speak too quickly lest the pieces that were falling into place got jostled. “I think I know where we can go to figure out who took her.” She explained about Horizon Tower, about tracking down information for the lawsuit, about the empty law office. Her father politely didn’t ask her how she knew so much about all this.

  “It’s as good a place to start as any,” Arthur said with a renewed sense of purpose. He picked up the phone again and talked to Paulson, passing along the information and closing with, “Wait for me, I want to be there when you go in … Well, I don’t exactly know what good I can do, and I won’t know unless I’m there, will I?”

  He hung up the phone and started to flee the room before turning back. “Wait here. I’ll call as soon as we learn anything.”

  “But Dad—” Anna called after him, but he was already gone. The real superheroes were on the job. Fine, okay. She returned to pacing.

  Suzanne sat with Bethy at the conference table and took her youngest granddaughter’s hand. “It’ll be all right, I promise you. We’ve always gotten Celia back in situations like this.”

  “How many times was Mom kidnapped?” Bethy asked, shocked.

  “I … you know, I lost track.” Her brow furrowed, revealing bemusement.

  Anna’s sense of panic was growing. The old Olympiad had always gotten Celia back, but the old Olympiad wasn’t around anymore. Just the elegant older woman who hadn’t, as far as Anna knew, used her power for anything but making crème brûlée in twenty years, and the telepath, and she knew very well how effective mental powers weren’t in a straight-up fight, especially if someone was blocking them.

  She had to do something, so she got out her phone and pressed buttons. “It’s not working, why isn’t it working?”

  “The room’s shielded, outside signals can’t get in,” Suzanne said.

  Anna marched to the door, following her father.

  “Anna, who are you calling?” Suzanne asked.

  “Everybody.”

  In the hallway, she sat on the carpet because her legs were shaking. “Come on, come on…”

  Teddy answered on the first ring. “Anna, oh my God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t think you were ever going to talk to me again—”

  “Teddy, shut up, I need your help. I need everybody’s help.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Somebody’s kidnapped my mom and they have some way of blocking mental powers because I can’t find her, my dad can’t find her. But I think we know where to start looking.”

  He paused for a long time. “And you really think we can help? I mean, this is serious.”

  “Exactly,” she said, exasperated. “You wanted to stop screwing around, so this is it. If we can’t rescue my mother, what good are we?”

  “I’m just saying … maybe some of the other supers…”

  “Fine. You don’t want to help, I’ll call Teia and Sam—”

  “No, of course I want to help. We’ll get her back, Anna. You call Teia and Lew, I’ll call Sam. We’ll meet you at West Plaza, okay?”

  “Yeah. Okay. Teddy—thank you.”

  Suzanne stood by the entrance to the command room, watching Anna, her expression thoughtful. Anna prepared her usual defensive glare.

  “Don’t tell me that I shouldn’t go out, that I’m too young, that I can’t handle it—”

  “I’m not going to do that. Wait just a minute, though.”

  Back in the command room, Suzanne went to one of the metallic cabinets along the side wall and opened a drawer. She didn’t have to dig around long before drawing out a set of thumb-sized devices and wires—earbud and microphone sets.

  “Take this,” she said, hooking one of the devices around Anna’s ear, settling the bud in place. “It’ll keep you in contact with the command computer. We never had to use them much because of Arthur. I hope they still work. Bethy, here, you take one, too. We’ll need you to monitor the computer scanner and keep us all in the loop. All right?”

  “You want me to help?” Bethy stared at them both. Anna wanted to hug her.

  “I won’t have to teach you how to use the computer,” Suzanne said. “You’re your mother’s daughter, you know very well it isn’t all about the powers.”

  “Bethy, you’re the smart one,” Anna said. “Everybody knows it.”

  She had a look on her face like she didn’t believe them.

  “Oh, Celia used to look just like that when she was your age.” Suzanne chuckled.

  Bethy quickly hooked the speaker over her ear and turned to the console.

  Back in the hallway, Anna’s phone beeped a missed call at her. She hit Reply. “Teia?”

  “Teddy just texted and said someone grabbed your mom.”

  “Yeah, I really need your help, can you come?”

  She gave a short growl. “We’ll try. We usually sneak out after Mom’s asleep, but she’s up now and practically sitting in front of the door. But we’ll figure out how to get past her.”

  Anna had a radical proposition. “Maybe if you just told her what’s happening—”

  “And tell her everything else? I don’t know that I’m ready for that.”

  “What is it?” Suzanne said.

  Anna realized she was going to have to tell her grandmother everything. “Okay—Teia and Lew, they’re … they’ve got powers, too. We … we’ve all been practicing together, and we have to figure out how to convince their mom to let them go—”

  “Anna, let me talk to Teia,” Suzanne said, holding her hand out for the phone.

  Confused and caught too off guard to argue, Anna said, “Teia, my grandma wants to talk to you.” And she handed the phone over.

  “Teia? This is Suzanne, is your mother there? May I talk to her? Just tell her Suzanne wants to talk to her.” A few moments ticked by, then she said, “Hello, Analise. Yes, this is Suzanne West. How are you? Not great, I’m afraid … Celia’s missing. That’s right. Can you help?”

  Anna would have given anything for five minutes of superhearing, to be able to follow both sides of this conversation.

  “Frankly, I don’t much care about that,” Suzanne said, hand on hip. “But will you please let Teia and Lew come over? Anna very much wants their help on this … Yes, Anna, too, they’re all in on it together … I know, but what did you expect? Yes, Arthur and I will be there looking out for them. So will Mark Paulson … That’s fine, just get over as soon as you can. Thank you.”

  She clicked off and handed the phone back to Anna.

  “What was that about?” Anna said, baffled. Ms. Baker knew about them? About everything? But how …

  “You kids think you’re the only ones keeping secrets. Let’s go downstairs and meet your friends.”

&nb
sp; “What secret is Ms. Baker keeping?”

  “Not mine to tell. Bethy, are you going to be okay?”

  “Yeah,” the younger girl said. “I’ve tapped into a couple of video feeds around Horizon Tower. I think I can tell you what’s going on, at least on the street. I’m trying to see if I can hack into any cameras on the inside.”

  “Good girl. We’ll be back soon. Anna, I assume you have a suit or costume of some kind? Grab it before we leave.”

  “Okay.”

  “Grandma, Anna—be careful.” Bethy’s voice was stark, and Anna pursed her lips.

  “Yeah. We will.”

  On the elevator ride down, Suzanne snapped her fingers a few times. When she did, sparks flashed above her hand, and on the last snap a torchlike flame burst to life and burned for a moment before fading away.

  “I’m really out of practice,” she admitted. “I may not be much help if this gets rough.”

  “I’m really glad you’re here,” Anna said. “Thanks.”

  “Family tradition. Your grandfather would be loving this.”

  “Loving that Mom got kidnapped?”

  “Maybe not that part. But he always loved showing her kidnappers exactly how he felt about it.” Her smile was almost gleeful.

  Anna fielded a couple more calls by the time they reached the lobby. Sam was driving Teddy over, and Teia and Lew were on the way—with their mother. Teia wouldn’t say how she felt about that. Probably because Ms. Baker was driving the car. Anna didn’t have a chance to ask or find out about their side of that conversation. Time enough to discuss that later.

  Outside, the day was overcast, and on the sidewalk and wide off-street drive that marked the front of West Plaza, the late afternoon rush-hour crowds were walking past like everything was normal, which seemed terribly wrong to Anna. That hole where her mother should have been still gaped. People in suits left the building, moving down the sidewalk, picking up cars from valet parking. Taxis sped by. She tapped her foot and looked at her grandmother, wondering how she could be so relaxed.

  She was about to say something when she spotted an odd pair striding around the corner and crossing West Plaza’s front drive, right toward them. A man and a woman, they were athletic, muscular like sprinters, and their sleek black skin suits showed off their powerful figures. The woman had black hair clipped up off her neck and sharp, glaring features. The man was thuggish, intense.

  “Grandma…” Anna murmured, touching Suzanne’s arm.

  The pair looked, walked, acted like superheroes, but Anna didn’t recognize them. They didn’t wear masks. Anna and her grandmother seemed to be their targets.

  The man kept his gaze on Suzanne while the woman focused on Anna.

  “Anna West-Mentis?” she said.

  “Who the hell are you?” Anna replied. Then Anna recognized her, mostly from her hair and the shape of her face—the woman from the video who’d snatched her mother.

  “God, she’s just like her mother,” the man muttered.

  “I need you to come with me,” the woman said, reaching for Anna as if she would just go along with her.

  “Excuse me, can I help you with something?” Suzanne said in a falsely pleasant voice, pulling Anna back, stepping deftly in front of her.

  The woman glowered at Suzanne. “Please get out of the way.”

  “Do you know who I am?” Suzanne shot back.

  “She said to get out of the way,” the man growled, grabbing Suzanne by the arm and yanking.

  So no, they didn’t know who Suzanne was.

  She grabbed him back, clutching the arm he’d wrapped around her to immobilize her—then she glowed. Her form seemed to waver as heat radiated off her skin. The cuffs of her blouse started to smolder. Her captor was sweating, his face reddening and his teeth gritting in pain. Suzanne—Spark—must have been boiling him. Finally, he cried out, and Spark wrenched away from him.

  In the meantime, the woman grabbed Anna, who slammed a heel on the woman’s instep. Turned out to be harder in practice than in theory—Anna’s foot mostly slid off the woman’s armored boot. But the woman hissed, and her grip loosened. Anna dropped her weight and yanked herself away.

  Teia, Teddy, and the others were close, their cars nearing West Plaza’s block. She and Grandma had to hold out only a few more seconds.

  “Anna, get over here,” Spark commanded, gesturing for Anna to get behind her. The fire starter wasn’t wearing her flameproof skin suit, and the sleeves of her blouse smoked and flared as the fibers caught fire from the heat. She stood braced, one arm outstretched, prepared for battle.

  Her opponent in black opened her mouth and let loose with … it wasn’t a scream, it wasn’t even sound, but Anna could feel a powerful burst of energy rippling through the air in a focused beam, directly toward them. Some kind of hypersonic projection. Her ears rattled with it. She clapped her hands over her head and doubled over.

  Around them, people screamed and car windows shattered. Suzanne hunched over Anna to protect her.

  The man, the sonic woman’s partner, picked Suzanne up and threw her. Lifted her clear off the ground, swung her, and let go, so that she sailed across the tiled plaza, hit the ground, rolled, and lay still.

  Anna screamed. The man came for her next. “We said, we need you to come with us.” He reached for her.

  She was preparing to run when bolts of energy sizzled across the drive, slamming into concrete before finding their mark. They hit the thug and bowled him over. One streaked a burned scorch mark across his cheek. Before the sonic blast woman could open her mouth again, Sam’s next round knocked her over. The two black-suited villains seemed drunk for a moment, studying their limbs and brushing themselves off as they stood back up, taking defensive positions against the new assailants.

  Sam’s car had swung into the driveway, jumped halfway up the curb, and both front stood doors open. The engine was still running. Sam hadn’t even gotten all the way out but stood reaching over the door, ready to blast another round. He was in full costume—jacket, mask, and all—and would have looked great if he wasn’t standing next to his beater sedan. But really, he did look great, like he meant business. He flexed his hands and sent another round of glowing laser blasts, which caused his targets to dodge and scatter.

  Anna couldn’t see Teddy, but she didn’t expect to.

  The two unknown supers bent their heads together in conversation, took a brief look at Sam, then fled.

  As soon as they turned their backs, Anna raced to her grandmother. Tom was with her, arm around her shoulder, helping her sit up. She was holding her head, and her roan hair was tangled around her shoulders.

  “Grandma!” Anna stumbled to the ground next to her.

  “God, I haven’t taken a hit like that in a long time.”

  “Are you okay?” Anna said, her voice tinny with panic. She was afraid to touch Suzanne; the sleeves of her blouse were hanging in scorched tatters.

  “Ma’am, I’ll call an ambulance—”

  “No, I’m sure that’s not necessary—” But when she tried to stand, she hissed, her face contorting in pain, her body gone rigid. “Oh, dear.”

  Tom was already talking on his cell phone.

  “Grandma?”

  “Anna, it’s going to be okay,” Suzanne said, squeezing her arm. “The rest of you need to get to Horizon Tower to save your mother. We don’t know how many superhumans they have or what all they can do—warn Bethy, warn Arthur. Tom will take care of me, you all get going.” Her gaze darted up, and Anna realized they were surrounded, not just by Sam and a now-visible Teddy but also by Teia, Lew, and their mother, who must have just arrived.

  —Dad? Dad, are you there?—

  —I would prefer you staying at West Plaza, out of harm’s way.—

  —No, everyone’s here. They have really powerful supers. We can help.—

  —I know you can, sweetheart. I’ll see you soon.—

  “Dad already knows everything,” Anna said.

 
; “Of course he does.” Suzanne smiled, but the wince didn’t go away.

  Sirens sounded in the distance—an arriving ambulance. “They’ll be here soon, Grandma.”

  “I know. You all get going.” Absently, she patted Anna’s hand.

  Teia pulled at Anna’s shirt. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Anna gave in to an urge to throw herself at Teia, wrapping her in a fierce hug. She didn’t even question if Teia would hug back.

  “You made it!”

  “You need help, of course I did,” Teia said into her shoulder before pulling away. “Now, do you know where we’re going?”

  She told them, and they piled into the two cars—the Baker family in one, Anna, Teddy, and Sam in the other—just as the ambulance circled into the drive. They’d take care of Grandma, and Anna let that worry go.

  “Hey, Anna,” a voice said through the bud in her ear.

  “Bethy! Did you get all that?”

  “I’m watching through the security cameras. Is Grandma really okay?”

  “I don’t know, she really fell hard.”

  “I’m also watching those freaky superhumans—they went around the back of the building. They had some kind of heli-car parked there, they’ve already taken off.”

  “Back to Horizon Tower?”

  “Let me check … um … yeah. Dad’s there with the cops.”

  “He’s not too happy, is he?”

  “Whatever,” she said in her snippy Bethy voice. Anna had to smile.

  “I’ll check in soon.”

  They got stuck in traffic still ten minutes out from the Tower. The enemy superhumans had a head start and plenty of time to prepare. This was going to suck.

  “This is so awkward,” Teddy muttered, tapping a hand against the passenger side door. “I mean, look at us, we don’t look anything like superheroes in this thing.”

  “You insult my car one more time, you can walk,” Sam groused back.

  “Anna, the Olympiad didn’t have any flyers, how did they get around? Didn’t they have some kind of, like, helicopter or supersonic jet or something? What’d they do with them?”

  Gave a whole new meaning to asking Mom and Dad to borrow the car, didn’t it? Except they wouldn’t let her drive anything. “I don’t really know—they had some armored cars and a jump jet, I think, but I don’t know what happened to them. They’re probably stored somewhere. I mean, the command room still works. Dad opened it up so we could use the computers to find Mom.”