Scorched

9

Traffic clogged the on-ramp to the bridge's lower deck, horns honking in the warm night air. We passed a couple of black police LAVs, en route to the carnage but as caught in traffic as everyone else. Luckily for us, we wanted the upper level. The one where we were heading in the opposite direction to everyone else.

When you're doing this? There's no point in driving like you give a shit.

Glimmer gunned the motor, and scooted over the median strip and up the wrong side of the interstate. Drivers swerved, cursed, flipped us the bird. Moonlight rippled through wispy fog as he weaved the bike in and out, headlights flashing at us. Heh. It was fun. The swaying was exhilarating and calming at the same time.

I held on, Glimmer's back warm against my cheek. He felt strange but familiar, like a friend long lost, a blurred memory of someone I once knew. Maybe he just reminded me of Chance, with his crazy hair and wild-thing smile, but there was a fair slice of Adonis in him, too, the determination that hardened his stubbled jaw, the tension in his lean muscles. A serious young thing. Weight of the world, and all that. What had happened to him, I wondered, to make him so intense?

We crossed above the waterfront and out over the wide dark expanse of the Bay. Salty seaside breeze dragged my hair back from my masked face, fingered beneath my clothes. I huddled tighter in his coat. I didn't know much about bikes, but this one was gleaming chrome and ruby-red, well cared for, but not polished within an inch of its life like he had nothing better to do. We'd emerged from his underground ramp onto some dark backstreet, a couple of blocks from the docks, warehouses and freight company offices and yards crammed with shipping containers stacked four high. The engine's sweet note rattled in my ears, and red taillights flashed in the mirrors as we canted to the side to get around a truck.

Ahead, I could hear screams, amid the crunch and crash of abused metal and glass. Now the lines of traffic were crooked, cars bunched together like they'd stopped in a hurry. A few had collided, their fenders dented and headlights smashed, and glass fragments littered the road amid swearing drivers.

Wreckage littered the bridge across all five lanes. One car lay upturned with wheels spinning, another had slammed into the suspension cables and nearly sliced in two. A minivan lay on its side, and its dazed occupants clambered out through jagged glass to crawl away.

And in the middle of it all, Arachne leapt and wailed like a triumphant banshee. She wore shiny black leggings and heavy boots, beneath a tight black scoop-necked top that covered her skinny arms to the wrist. Her waist-length black hair flapped. She flung out her arm, snapping her rigid palm outwards, and her augment uncoiled itself: a glassy rope, like the silken line a spider makes, only thicker and much, much stronger.

It speared from the center of her palm, ten, twenty, thirty feet, and split, into three grippy glass claws that slapped across a shiny black car's roof and lodged there, sharp points stabbing through the steel.

People screamed, and scattered. Arachne just laughed, a horrid shrieking sound like a thousand cicadas in agony, and pulled.

The rope retracted, back to where it had come from, almost too fast for me to watch. Her claws unhooked, and the car sailed through the air and hit the suspension cables. Crash! The thick steel bars thrummed, a deep-throated harp. The car's windows shattered, the screeching buckle of steel. Arachne's glassy hookvine broke, and fell to the road, where it splintered into a thousand tiny fragments. She hopped like a dervish in delight, and flung out another, heaving a second car high into the air and dashing it to mangled scraps on the road.

My heart clogged my throat. That one was empty. The next might not be.

Glimmer skidded the bike to a halt, and we jumped off. Already, the bridge began to shake. My pulse raced. Too much more of this, and there'd be serious damage as the wires stretched and bent. Not to mention injuries, broken cars, the traffic snarl from hell…

Glimmer cocked his pistol and wiped sweat back into his hair with his forearm. His midnight eyes glittered inside his mask, no longer warm but sharp black icicles, deadly. "Can you lift a car?"

"Sure." I cracked my neck, left and right. Hell, I hoped so. My power hadn't exactly been cooperative over the last forty-eight hours. Still, a car shouldn't be a problem. Putting it down quietly might be another matter, but Glimmer didn't need to know that.

"Then stop her breaking anything else." And he ducked for cover and ran. Leaving me no time to argue or say no.

Gallant little skunk, wasn't he? I swore, and got on with it.

Arachne saw us, and hooted laughter. "Pretty things in masks," she gloated. Augmented fire ignited in her eyes. Her scarlet-painted lips curled, a sharp bloody smile soaked in hatred. "Come get it."

Glimmer leveled his pistol at her, two-handed. "First, last and only chance, lady. Give yourself up."

"Go fuck yourself." She rolled her skinny wrists, and flashed out twin glassy vines. They crawled across the ground like psycho snakes, searching for prey.

Glimmer didn't say anything. He just fired. I like a man who keeps his promises.

Quick as a jumping spider, Arachne leapt, impossibly high. The bullet sang harmlessly between the steel cables. Her vines split, their evil claws glistening like wet glass, and crunched onto the roof of an orange-striped white bus. People still clambered about inside, the ones who hadn't worked up the guts to run. Now, escape was impossible. They screamed, slapping their palms on the windows, wild and ripe with terror.

Arachne landed in a whippy-legged crouch, hair streaming aloft. She let loose a triumphant wail that shivered my bones, and pulled.

I sprinted, heart thumping, and flung out a wall of power on one outstretched fist. Hot wind seared my face. The bus slammed into my invisible wall and stuck there, shuddering on its side in mid-air, her hooked vines still attached to the roof.

Inside, the people tumbled and squeaked like trapped rats. A window broke, and a girl fell out, dropping twenty feet to the road. She lay there moaning, and Glimmer ran for her and dragged her from the bus's looming shadow.

Arachne cursed, spitting little drops of poison that caught the air like a cloud of angry gnats, and dived for me. The backs of my hands blistered. I braced myself, legs apart, and held on. Arachne yanked her vines harder, gritting her teeth. Still I held on. The bus shuddered and groaned, metal twisting under the opposing forces. Sweat poured down my temples, soaking my mask. My head ached, bright and stinging like sunburn. I couldn't see. The stink of hot metal choked my nose, and I could feel my back stretching under the stress, muscles popping fibers and bones twisting.

But damn, it felt good to let my power loose.

I flexed my fist, and the bus's steel shell twisted, just a few inches. The metal creaked in protest. My blood burned, urging me to more, harder, darker. A bad person would crush Arachne with this bus. Hurl it on top of her and grind her to bloody pulp, and damn the consequences…

Glimmer ran forward. Now he was between Arachne and the bus. Damn it. I gritted my teeth, and held on.

Arachne spat poison at him, and whipped her wrists downwards. Her vines snapped off, only a few inches from her palm. The long ends dangled from the bus, slapping lifelessly onto the ground. Quick as a striking snake, she speared them out anew, five wicked barbs on each, like twisting hands clawing for Glimmer's face.

I wasn't sure whether what happened next was real.

Glimmer ducked, so swift he blurred. The snaking spikes shot past him, writhing, searching blindly for prey. She howled and tried to whirl, to re-attack from a different angle. But Glimmer kept running at her. He grabbed her hair and yanked, forcing her to look at him, and snapped his fingers an inch from her eyes. "Watch me," he commanded.

Her flame-bright eyes shuttered black.

She froze, her body motionless except for her flapping hair. The fierce glassy vines halted, rigid, snapped frozen in mid-air.

I stared, warm and chilled at the same time. That was some hypno-mojo.

"Lose the spikes." Glimmer's voice was calm, cold, resonating, even above my bus passengers' screams. He didn't drop his dark gaze. Didn't blink. Didn't let her go.

Arachne obeyed, staring blankly into his eyes. The glassy spikes sucked back into her palms, a slicing sound like sword blades. No blood. No ripped flesh. Just something she was born with. Did it hurt, I wondered, when she let them out?

"Cross your arms," Glimmer ordered softly. "Palms on your chest. Then don't move."

She did as he told her. Like a black leather mummy, those dangerous palms pressed flat to her own shoulders. If she spiked now, she'd run herself through. Clever.

I licked dry lips, sympathy itching. I was a freak, sure. But my freakdom was invisible compared to hers. If I had glassy spikes growing inside my hands, what would my life have been like? Would it be so easy for me to choose good over evil?

I flexed my aching fist, and slowly lowered the bus to the ground.

Crunch! The dust settled, and people started climbing out. One guy was already filming us on his smartphone. A few windows were broken, but all in all, I'd done well. Probably a good thing I hadn't squashed Arachne. But like always, it niggled me like a phantom itch that being a good guy meant leaving the sick mofos alive.

I popped my stiff spine, twisting left and right. Ahh. Inside my head, my power coiled and relaxed, and a pleasant afterglow ache flooded my muscles from head to toe. I stretched, lazy and content despite my raging headache. My thighs tingled. Someone pass me a cigarette. Was it wrong that my augment felt better than sex?

Was it like this for other augmented? I'd never asked. It wasn't the kind of thing I liked discussing, especially not with Dad or Adonis, and I sure as hell wasn't about to ask Glimmer. Maybe I was just doing the sex thing wrong.

Whatever. I didn't have time to ponder my choice of pleasures now. At last, the distant howl of frustrated police sirens from the east inched closer. We didn't have much time. Even with FortuneCorp's full powers at my back—we helped the police, they helped us, it had been that way ever since the PD realized all those years ago that Blackstrike and Illuminatus were in Sapphire City to stay—I'd only ever had an uneasy relationship with cops. Now I was a loner. A vigilante. An outlaw. Cops were bad news.

Seemed Glimmer knew it too. He jerked his chin at me, never taking his eyes from Arachne's. "Duct tape, please. On the back of the bike."

I scrambled over broken iron and glass to the bike. Sure enough, in the little saddlebag was a fat black roll of tape. I tossed it to him. He caught it, and ripped the end free with his teeth. I stepped up to help, and in half a minute, Arachne looked even more like a mummy, wrapped from collarbone to solar plexus in tape, her hands bound immovably to her chest. Another couple of twists bound her ankles tight.

Still she stared straight ahead, into Glimmer's masked eyes. Her red lips had dried. She didn't lick them. Didn't move. Didn't even blink.

"Nice," I commented, tossing the empty roll away. "Remind me never to let you tie me up." Or hypnotize me, I added silently. Like I'd be able to do anything about it if he did, judging from the way Arachne stared like a dead thing into his eyes.

Glimmer plastered the last scrap of tape over her lips. Gently, sufficient to silence her but not hard enough to tear the skin. "Should stop her spitting. Any poison get you?"

"A little. Nothing I can't scratch off."

"You did good with the bus."

"Thanks." Behind us, motorbike engines rattled to a halt, and tires screeched. "Time to go," I said.

"Yeah." He passed his hand in front of her face. "Arachne?"

"Mmph." Her voice clogged through the tape.

He clicked his fingers. "Wake up."

Her eyes snapped golden. Scarlet shame bled in, stained black with poisoned fury. Glimmer grinned, and we ran.

Two motorcycle cops ran for us, guns drawn. They still wore their helmets, visors down. "Freeze!" one yelled, muffled.

Yeah, okay. Let me wait here while you arrest me. Idiot.

Arachne struggled and cursed, vile and skin-crawling even through the tape on her lips. Glimmer jumped on his bike and kicked the engine. I vaulted on behind him, and he gunned it, the back end sliding out.

The cops shot and missed. Bullets zinged. I held on tight, ducking my head against his back. Glimmer rode for the piled-up cars, and instinctively I squeezed my eyes shut. The engine revved, brutal. Suddenly we were airborne, weightless for a few glorious, ear-splitting seconds. And then we hit the road, and bounced, my bones jarring.

The engine grunted in protest. I whooped, exhilarated. He skidded the bike into a turn, scattering broken metal fragments, and we howled away.

10

By the time we reached Glimmer's hideout, dawn's gleaming fingers crept along the horizon. No streetlamps lit the back alley where he eased the bike down the ramp. Somewhere in the dark, the iron grille clattered aside, and we rolled in. Once the grille slammed shut, orange security lights popped on, revealing a deserted underground parking lot, and he stopped the bike in its alcove and shut off the engine.

I climbed off, stiff and weary, my nerves still jangling. I hadn't forgotten how easily he swept Arachne under his power. Sure, I was dangerous, too, but at least everyone could see what I was doing. Glimmer's augment was insidious, invisible, unknowable.

My stomach turned over, watery. Mindbenders gave me the creeps. What had I let myself in for?

An electric combo-locked steel door like a safe led to his lair. Inside, his screens still flickered, information and images flowing, collating, like the thing had a brain of its own. Cool, but spooky, too. Glimmer tossed his gun onto the desk-shaped mess and headed for the fridge. "Want a beer?"

"Huh?"

He paused, the door half open. "Beer. You know. A drink?"

"Uh. Sure." I dragged off my sweaty mask, uneasy. I was thirsty. That wasn't the problem. I'd already taken too much from him. Taking meant debt, and I wasn't sure owing a dark and mysterious mindfucker who wouldn't take off his mask was a particularly stellar idea.

He tossed me a bottle, and I caught it. At the sight of the amber fluid, my mouth stung. I sure could use one. Screw it. I wrenched off the top and chugged. Mmm. Cold, bitter, bubbly. All that a beer should be.

Except free.

He cleared a space on his dusty sofa, pushing aside a pile of green circuit boards and memory chips. "Have a seat. Make yourself at home. Mi casa, and all that."

I sat, fidgeting. Did he think I was going to stay here, in his place? Fact was, I hadn't thought about what I'd do next. Could I sleep here, with him around?

Did I have anywhere else to go?

I took another bitter swig. Damn him. Damn them all. Razorfire, Equity, Mengele, Arachne, those cops on the bridge, whoever it was at FortuneCorp who'd dumped me in this mess. Once, I had a life. Now, I had nothing.

Except my revenge, and this flashing time bomb of an ally.

Watch me, he'd said. And Arachne stared into his eyes, and her will dissolved.

Glimmer slouched in his desk chair, stretching his long legs, and leaned over to clink bottles with me. "Cheers. Here's to another Gallery shitball in custody." He swallowed half his beer in a long chug, cold drips running down his strong forearm. He had a long, lean throat, olive skin dappled with soft dark stubble…

Uh-huh. Staring. Not cool.

I coughed, and dropped my gaze. He still hadn't taken off his mask. Didn't seem inclined to, at least not in front of me. Heh. Maybe I should creep up on him while he slept and take a peek, like lovesick Psyche, who couldn't resist shining a lamp on her mystery boy toy.

Yeah. Because that ended well. Boy toy turned out to be Cupid, and Psyche lost him forever. Secret identities, see. They never work out for the best.

"Ah. That goes down fine." Glimmer wiped his mouth with the hand holding the beer. "You up for breakfast? I do a mean omelet—"

"Could I stop you?"

He paused, beer halfway to his mouth. "What?"

"If you pulled your look-into-my-eyes trick on me." I took a hot breath. "Would I even know about it?"

He studied me, silent, his midnight eyes warm and inscrutable. "Probably not," he admitted at last.

"Could I stop you?"

"Maybe. I don't know. I never know until I try."

"That's not an answer." My mouth crisped. I swallowed more beer. It didn't help.

"It's the only answer I can give you. You're a force-bender. That power comes from your mind. You might have some resistance—"

"Don't bullshit me!" I slammed my bottle down and jumped up, pacing.

"You want me to do it to you? So you know how it feels?"

"Why the fuck would I want that?"

"Hell, I don't know." For the first time, tension stretched his whiskey voice to a harsh edge. "I'm trying here. I've been by myself a long time. I don't know what else to give you."

"But—"

"Think!" He spun his chair and pointed at the desk, where his pistol lay. "You could shoot me right now. Hell, I imagine you could cave the roof in and crush me to pulp any time you wanted. So why don't you?"

Because I'm not a bad person. I cleared my throat. "I hardly think that's—"

"There's nothing in it for you, that's why." He ruffled his hair, weary or frustrated. "I told you. We can help each other. I couldn't have trapped Arachne without you. If you weren't there, I'd probably be dead right now, so tell me why the hell I'd want to hypnotize you!"

To make me stay. My mouth opened, the words alive on my tongue.

I swallowed them.

I've been by myself a long time. His words echoed, bitter. I'd seen the look on his face when he spoke them. I'd worn it myself, through long hours abandoned in Mengele-inflicted agony, and as I looked at him, my heart swelled hot and uncomfortable.

I knew how it felt, to be so utterly alone it hurt. He needed a friend. And—God help me—so did I.

I stalked up to the console, and poked the touchscreen until it exploded with virtual 3D images. I flicked through the pile, keeping some, discarding the ones I didn't want. Finally, I flipped the whole thing though ninety degrees so he could see, and pointed at the first one, a handsome blond guy in a designer suit. "Who's this?"

Glimmer didn't blink, or argue. "Narcissus. A mindbender, like me."

"My brother, Adonis Fortune. He's a PR consultant at my father's company."

His eyes slitted inside his mask. But he didn't laugh, or claim I was lying. Just went along with me.

I flipped to the next image: the trolley car, same as Glimmer showed me before.

"Illuminatus and Phantasm?"

"My uncle, Michael Fortune, and his son Jeremiah. You don't have one of Ebenezer, but they don't let Eb out much. Augments run in my family, okay? We're called Fortune Corporation."

"As in, the Fortune Corporation? Defense and security contracts? That big flashy skyscraper in the financial district?"

"Our cover story is security and weapons technology, yeah, but our mission is to fight the Gallery and keep the city safe." I flicked up the picture of my father, wreathed in shadow and flame, and another one, showing a dark-haired woman in dusty leathers, a black mask covering her eyes, dragging boulders from a pile of rubble.

"Blackstrike," I confirmed. "Thomas Fortune, my father. Late chairman of FortuneCorp. And me. Verity Fortune, also called the Seeker. Last October, Razorfire murdered Blackstrike, and imprisoned me in a lunatic asylum, where his minions tortured me until I escaped three days ago."

Glimmer rubbed his chin. "Uh-huh," he said blankly, like it was all he could come up with to say.

"I don't remember exactly what happened, but I know those assholes who were chasing me when you found me were Razorfire's people. Someone in my family set them back on me, when I thought I was safe." I swallowed on bitter grit, and flicked to the next image, a woman wearing reflective silver armor, a slender knight brandishing a fistful of light. "This is—"

"Nemesis," Glimmer cut in swiftly, as if suddenly I wasn't talking fast enough for him. "Some kind of photonic power… This is extraordinary!" His dark eyes danced. "These are the links I've been searching for. God, I'm so slow. To think this was all there, right before my eyes the whole time…"

"Nemesis is Equity Fortune, assistant district attorney," I interrupted. "My sister. She took over FortuneCorp when Dad died."

"The Equity Fortune who's running for mayor?"

"The very same." My throat stung, and I sucked in a steadying breath. "I think… maybe she's the one who betrayed me. I wanted to avenge Dad's death, but she didn't want me stirring up trouble during her campaign. She's initiated a policy of non-violence against Gallery villains."

Glimmer nodded. "Okay. That explains a lot. Gallery activity has been escalating. But doesn't that mean that…?" He looked askance, haunted. He didn't want to say it.

Hell, I didn't want to say it either. "Somehow, Razorfire's gotten to her." My tongue stung sour. I wanted to spit, wash my mouth out, make those words untrue again.

But I didn't know how. I didn't know what else to think. Damn her. It had to be her. No one else had a motive that I knew about… or did they? I recalled Uncle Mike, smiling at me in the fifty-sixth floor lobby. He'd always liked me, or so I thought…

"I'm sorry," said Glimmer softly, and damn it if he didn't look like he meant it.

"Yeah, well, I'm sorry, too." Stupid tears swelled my eyelids. God, I wanted to let them fall. Wanted to let Glimmer be sorry for me, comfort me, stroke my hair and tell me everything would be okay.

Fuck.

I coughed, and blinked fiercely, dragging my mind back to problems I could solve. "It doesn't matter, okay? You said you had a problem with Razorfire? Well, so do I. We can help each other."

Glimmer scrunched his hair, considering. "And that would involve…?"

"Your information, my experience. Let's put them together. Work as a team. If Equity is Razorfire's latest trick, we can't let her take charge. FortuneCorp won't fight the Gallery? Fine. You and I can do it alone. We'll hunt the evil bastard down like the shitworm he is!"

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