Dreams of the Golden Age Read online

  What did she mean? “How’d you guys get started? How did you know you were doing the right thing? How did you not screw up and get yourselves hurt?”

  Anna felt her cheeks burning; she wasn’t fooling anyone, was she? She kept her expression still—mild curiosity, that was all she’d reveal.

  But Suzanne didn’t seem at all suspicious. She just shrugged and rattled on. “Oh, I don’t know. Going out, using our powers—it always just seemed like the right thing to do. Warren and I met in high school and started then. Robbie came along, then your dad about ten years after that. We were always stronger together than apart. We didn’t really think about getting hurt—you know about Warren, we didn’t much worry about him getting hurt. Nothing hurt him.”

  Until the end. Suzanne didn’t say that.

  “We started small—street crime, accidents, the usual thing you always read about in the news. The whole thing got really big when we didn’t have a choice. When the Destructor showed up, somebody had to do something. There we were.”

  The Destructor had been the archnemesis of the Olympiad, had been involved in countless battles with her grandparents and father, and was the only person known to be immune to Dr. Mentis’s telepathy. He’d kidnapped her mother when she was a teenager, and she’d subsequently teamed up with him as a henchman during a particularly outrageous bout of teenage rebellion. Anna had never worked up the courage to ask Celia about it, what she’d been thinking at the time, how she’d gone from victim to villain, however briefly.

  Maybe that was the problem. They didn’t have a Destructor to face off against. Not that most people would consider that a problem … But if they had a target to focus their energies on, maybe they’d stop bickering about whether or not they should publicize themselves in the Commerce Eye.

  Anna asked, before she realized the words were out of her mouth, “Why’d you quit?” She hadn’t meant to get that personal. The biographies and reports always said the same thing, that Suzanne had been broken-hearted by the death of her beloved husband. Who wouldn’t retire after that? But Anna had never heard Suzanne answer the question.

  She didn’t speak right away. She might have been concentrating on the spoon she was wielding, the bowl, the dough taking shape inside it. Or it might have been a bad question. Anna began to regret asking it.

  “Warren and I were a team,” she said finally, sadly. “With him gone, I didn’t see the point in going on.” Using a teaspoon, she scooped a piece of the dough and handed it to Anna. “How is that?”

  Anna could hardly taste the dough, but she ate it and smiled. “It’s great.”

  Suzanne returned her focus to the cookies. “There’ve been enough books and articles written about the Olympiad, you could probably find out everything you wanted to know from them.”

  Anna said, “It’s not the same as hearing it from you. It’s family history. Besides, you don’t give interviews. Why not?”

  “Because it’s just like you said. It’s family history and none of their business.” She set down her spatula and put a flour-dusted hand on her hip. “Any reason you want to know all this?”

  Shaking her head in what she hoped was an innocent manner, Anna said, “Just curious.” There she went, blushing again. “Hey, what’s for dinner?”

  “I’ve got some shrimp for stir-fry. I’ll get started just as soon as your parents get back, whenever that is. They didn’t tell me, and I don’t have any idea where they’ve gone off to.”

  “Mom’s on her way back from a meeting at City Hall, and Dad’s in his office.”

  “He’ll probably come up when she gets back, then. He can always tell the minute she’s back in the building. Did Celia call you to let you know?”

  “Yeah,” Anna said, flailing a moment. Time to change the subject again, without looking like she was changing the subject. “You know how she is, always has to check up on us.”

  “She just worries.”

  “Or she’s a pathological control freak.” That came out a little stronger than she meant, and she tried to smile it away.

  “That, too,” Suzanne said sunnily. “Just remember it’s because she loves you.”

  Anna wondered sometimes. More often, she felt like a cog in Celia’s plans that had fallen out of place and didn’t particularly want to fit back in.

  * * *

  After dinner, she fled to her room, making excuses about needing to study. Instead, she turned out all the lights, sat on the floor below the window that looked out over the city’s west side, and closed her eyes.

  Bethy was in her room, actually studying instead of just using it as an excuse to be antisocial like Anna did. Her grandmother and father were in the kitchen, cleaning up. Her mother was in the living room, lying on the sofa, resting. Anna pushed her awareness outward.

  Uncle Robbie’s condo was a couple of blocks away, and he was at home. Teia and Lew, also at home along with their mother. Sam was at his family’s apartment. Everyone safe at home, as she expected. There was Teddy, at his family’s east end brownstone. She lingered at the spark that was his presence in her awareness; she could tell where he was but not what he was doing. He was stationary, which meant he could be doing anything from sleeping to watching TV to reading to showering. Not for the first time, she felt a deep envy for her father’s telepathy. He never had any questions about anyone, did he? She thought it would be worth finding out things you didn’t want to know, to learn the things you did. She thought about giving Teddy a call, or sending a text, or something, then decided against it. She’d see him at school tomorrow.

  Their presences glared in her mind because she’d searched for them so often. They were always simply there, the moment she looked for them. Spotlights shining up from her mental map of the city, each with its own hue and shape, depending on whom it belonged to.

  It was a comfort, knowing where everyone was, knowing they were safe, and that they would be there for her the minute she called. She didn’t know how other people got along without such reassurance. That was what cell phones were for, she supposed. But she never lost her charge.

  She could find her family and closest friends without thinking of it; to find others—acquaintances, people on the fringes of her life rather than in the center—she had to work at it. If she needed to, she could find police Captain Mark Paulson, another good friend of her mother’s. Her teachers, people who worked at West Plaza whom she saw nearly every day but didn’t know well. She’d been able to track down some of the city’s superpowered vigilantes—the Block Busters, Earth Mother, Breezeway—when she needed to. Mostly to avoid them, when she and the others were out practicing.

  But she had one specific person she wanted to find tonight. Since she’d met him only the one time, she didn’t know if she could. But she wanted to try.

  She held a picture of the green-suited super in her mind. His costume, his voice, the slope of his chin. The way he perched on the fountain, the way he moved. Where she’d seen him last, where he might have gone next after making that epic leap.

  She didn’t have any trouble ignoring most of the lights and presences she encountered on her search. If she wasn’t looking for them, they faded to the background. It was like searching for friends in a crowd: you knew what defining traits to look for, if they were tall or short or redheaded or always wore a certain leather jacket. You scanned the crowd, and those details snagged your attention. Same thing.

  A spark flared in her mind. East, on the university campus. A young man, fit and agile, with a sharp gaze and calm demeanor. It was him. She’d found him.

  The secret Olympiad elevator hadn’t been shut down or closed off after her talk with her father. Which meant he didn’t know about it. Or he didn’t care if she used it, which meant letting her have access to it was part of her parents’ plans, and they were watching her anyway, despite how hard she worked to avoid the building’s surveillance. She was an interesting rat in their maze. Which meant she shouldn’t use it anymore if she didn’t wa
nt them tracking her. But what choice did she have?

  She could go crazy thinking of it.

  Once outside, she made her way two blocks over to the main east-west bus line, the one that stopped right on the university campus, where she disembarked and walked on. Her target, the mysterious superhuman, drew her forward. Now that she’d focused on him, his presence grew brighter. She could follow the map in her mind right to his location. He was stationary, she thought. In a room—not the dorms but in one of the buildings near the auditorium. Maybe he was a student. As she closed in on him, her heart pounded. She felt strong, all-knowing. Times like this, her power thrilled her. She could do anything.

  Here she was, doing something exciting and powerful. If only the others could see her.

  He was close. The knowledge of his location was just there, like knowing where the corner store was, or the placement of the sofa in your own living room. The paved bike path she followed curved around a grassy lawn, past a big square cinder-block building. Even this late at night, a few students were out, keeping to the well-lit paths, walking back to the dorms from the library or coffee shops. The assumption in the family was that Anna would be a student here in a couple of years. Anna couldn’t picture it. She knew her way around because she’d grown up in the city, but the university still felt like another world.

  When she passed the cinder-block building, the spark brightened—there, he was inside there. It was the university gym. A student at the front desk asked to see her ID. Startled, she patted her pockets, shook her jacket, and muttered, “Shit, I forgot it. Look, my friend Eliot’s here, I just need to talk to him a second and I’ll come right back out.”

  “Eliot Majors?”

  “Yeah,” Anna said, bemused.

  “Okay, go on in, he’s in the weight room,” the guy said and went back to slouching over his textbook.

  Late at night, the glaring fluorescent lights seemed incongruous. They made the place seem too bright, when her body felt more like going to bed. But around her, university students seemed to be at peak energy. She rounded a corner, walked past a gym where a group was playing volleyball, and followed signs to a weight room at the end of the hall.

  The room was small, with whitewashed walls and hardwood floors. A variety of machines and benches sat in the middle, racks of round weights were lined up along the walls, and posters demonstrated correct positions and safety rules. Only one person was here, a young man sitting on a bench and doing curls with what looked like an awful lot of weights. It was him. Recognition flashed in his eyes when he looked at her. If not for him noticing her, she might have doubted herself—all she’d ever seen of him was his mouth and chin under his mask.

  He wore a T-shirt, sweatpants, and sneakers. Without the mask, he had an angular face with broad cheekbones and a short, dark buzz cut. When he didn’t say anything, kept curling with his mouth shut and jaw set, she thought he was going to ignore her, pretending they hadn’t met.

  But he paused and set the weights on the floor. “How’d you find me?”

  “I told you last night, that’s what I do,” she said. “Wasn’t sure I’d be able to, since we only met that once. But I wanted to try.”

  He was definitely college age, she thought, now that she could study him without the mask and costume. Older than she was. Too cool to go to prom with her, at any rate. Not that she wanted to go to prom with him …

  “Okay, you found me, you know who I am, now what?”

  “I don’t know who you are. Not really. You’re just a guy with a superpower. I was curious.” Really, she didn’t know what she’d expected. That he’d at least want to talk. That he’d be curious about her and the others. That he’d see what they all had in common. That he’d see it the way she did.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sure you mean well, but I’m not going to get all open and sharing just because you managed to find me. I don’t want to be part of your team.”

  She couldn’t blame him for that, given how the team was shaping up, or rather how it wasn’t. “That wasn’t what I was going to ask.”

  “You just wanted to see if you could find me.”

  She looked away, fully aware that he was basically right, and that she hadn’t thought at all about what she was going to say if she actually found him. She should have just peeked around the corner, confirmed it was him, and left. She scuffed her feet. “So. Working out. That’s a good idea.”

  “You might try it, if you’re going to be fighting crime and all.” He smirked at her, and she felt even more dumb.

  And still, she didn’t turn around and walk out. “I also wanted to tell you … to ask … you know, if you ever need … I don’t know. Help or something.” She blushed, because the thought sounded stupid once she said it out loud.

  He didn’t need her help, and they both knew it. His tone was amused when he said, “I’ll let you know. You should probably get on home.” He retrieved the weights and started the curls again.

  “Yeah, right,” she muttered, turning and walking out. The guy at the front desk waved at her when she left.

  The cool air outside soothed her mortified and blushing cheeks. Walking fast helped, too. She felt like an idiot. He probably thought she was an idiot. She wondered why she even cared.

  Because he was powerful. Because they could use his help. And he was cute. Maybe not hot, but definitely cute.

  She huffed, disgusted with herself. If she could at all help it, she was going to avoid him from here out. And since she had his full name now, and his presence firmly lodged in her mind, she’d always know where he was and she could avoid him easily.

  SEVEN

  CELIA hadn’t been able to sleep, again. She dragged herself to her desk in the morning and wanted nothing more than to lay her head on the surface and sleep some more. Her head was throbbing and that crick in her neck hadn’t gone away. Four aspirin hadn’t done the trick.

  Arthur came into her office, hefting a rolled-up newspaper. “You’ll want to see this.”

  It couldn’t be good. She took a deep breath and braced herself. “What do I want to see?”

  He straightened the paper and set it in front of her. It seemed to hit the desk with a thunk that rattled her head; she had to squint to read. It was the Commerce Eye, harkening back to its histrionic roots with a headline blazing in inch-high letters: “Commerce City’s Newest Crime-Fighting Team Makes Its Mark!”

  Celia should not have been surprised when, like some powerful exothermic reaction, the subjects of her experiment spun out of control on their own trajectories. It was the natural order of things. A better person—someone who knew what they were doing—would be pleased that the kids seemed to be not just learning to use their powers, but forming the kind of team that had made her own parents so effective. Instead, she felt nascent ulcers blooming in her gut.

  The whole thing happened by chance. Analise had had her twins a year after Anna was born, then Bethy came along, so naturally they scheduled playdates. At one time Celia would have stabbed herself over the idea of doing something so predictably maternal as playdates. But it was a great excuse to dump the kids on the playground while she and Analise sat on a park bench and caught up over coffee. It was also a great excuse to watch Teia and Lew without seeming like she was scrutinizing them for the odd case of superstrength or telekinesis. Analise had superpowers, after all. Never mind that she hadn’t used them in twenty years, she still had them, theoretically. If her children had powers at all, they’d likely manifest them at puberty rather than have them from birth. Of the nearly two dozen supers Commerce City had produced, only six had manifested powers at birth. Her father had been one of those.

  Arthur and Mark Paulson were the only other people who knew about the list in her safe. According to that list, a whole cluster of Leyden descendants had been born around the same time. Celia’s kids, Analise’s kids, the Stowe grandchildren, Donaldson’s grandson, a couple of others from the Masters line—cousins of Barry Quinn, aka Plasma, who had
been institutionalized for schizophrenia, so Celia kept an especially close eye on them. Before this generation, supers had been scattered, appearing alone or in pairs. But this was different. It seemed like the most efficient plan in the world to secretly grant them all scholarships to Elmwood, to get them all in one place where she could better watch them. With a good education in a safe, stable environment, they would be better able to manage their powers if they had them, yes? That was what she told herself. It certainly couldn’t hurt, and maybe some good would come of it.

  But once they were all together, she couldn’t stop tweaking: subtle suggestions to the school guidance counselor, anonymous hacks into the computer database, and she’d gotten the kids of the same grades into the same homerooms, the same gym periods, the same intramural sports programs, the same lunch hours. Nothing overt, simply increasing the odds that they would spend time together. Find each other.

  And it had worked.

  Her parents had met at Elmwood Academy. They’d discovered each other, shared their abilities, learned how to use them. Taught each other. For good or ill, the Olympiad had been born at Elmwood. Maybe, for good or ill, it would happen again. Celia wanted to see, and she’d turned the school into her petri dish without anyone knowing.

  Arthur would stop her, she kept thinking. If she ever went too far, Arthur would tell her. He hadn’t yet, so she kept watching, and waiting.

  Finally, here it was, and she could stop waiting.

  The Eye’s story even had a picture, a major coup for a newspaper covering new vigilantes, who usually kept to the shadows and loathed publicity. Not these guys. In the photo, three of them stood in the middle of a downtown street, hands on hips and chins lifted proudly. They were in shadows—the picture had been taken without a flash, which made them seem like ghosts—masked and shrouded in costumes so their identities weren’t apparent. But they were definitely posing, and they were obviously a team, all in black shirts and jeans and jaunty masks made with bandanas with cut-out eyeholes. The first formal superhero team in twenty years was what it looked like.