Not Your Backup, page 16
Christine twitches. “If someone falls, I could try to catch them, but—”
“How much time do you have before you’re tapped out?”
“Five minutes,” Christine says, counting the number of people trapped. “And falling at that speed, I don’t think— I don’t know, I have to be able to see what I’m moving to concentrate, and if everyone falls, I can’t—”
Emma touches her arm. “It’s okay; hopefully it won’t come to that. Bells is almost to the track. He’s got this—”
Emma looks at the base of the roller coaster, but she doesn’t see Bells climbing it. He’s in the crowd of people behind held back by the Authorities.
“Great,” Christine mutters. “What are we going to do?”
“We need to cause a distraction,” Emma says. “Get the Authorities away.”
“Please do not exit the ride until we can get it working again,” an official shouts into a megaphone.
The crowd gasps and points, shoving closer.
“No!”
A little boy has climbed out of his seat; Emma can barely see the toddler, scrambling for a platform a few feet away, climbing along the rickety metal railing, and trying to reach for an emergency panel.
The crowd stills, and then seems to erupt in panic.
“Watch out!”
“No!”
“Now, Bells!” Emma whispers through the small headset radios. She’s glad she brought them.
Bells catches her eye and nods as he slips through the crowd and past the distracted Authorities.
Something speeds across the sky, heading right for the track.
“Oh, could that be Shockwave? He can fly!”
“No, it’s clearly a mecha-suit!”
Emma follows the pointed fingers and sees the plume of smoke trailing from a mecha-suit flying toward the roller coaster. Mecha-suits, typically used by the military or for construction, all have similar clunky designs sprawled with advertisements. Two known meta-humans wear mecha-suits, Swift Emblem and Master Mischief, and Emma knows immediately this is neither of them, or anyone else from the League, for that matter.
This particular mecha-suit has strange, colored patterns, too small to make out. A mecha-suit is prime advertisement real estate, and a corporation would make its ads splashy and large.
Christine stops and blinks. “Do those metal pieces look like they were once a…”
“Washing machine,” Emma says, recognizing the brand. The entire mecha-suit is built from different pieces of tech. Wait a minute, she’s seen this before, half-built in a cavern—
“It’s Abby!” Emma exclaims.
The boy loses his grip on the track and screams, falling toward the ground below—
Abby sweeps by, plucking him out of the air as the crowd cheers. She descends, setting the boy down on the ground just as a treacherous creak sounds from above.
Farha steps forward with her microphone. “Amazing! A child who might have plummeted to death from the malfunctioning roller coaster has just been saved by— What’s your name, hero?”
Abby doesn’t say anything, just gives the camera a jaunty salute before flying back to the top of the track.
“Emma, I need your help.” Bells’ panicked voice crackles in her earpiece. “I can’t see once I…” he trails off; the trepidation is apparent in his voice.
“I got you,” Emma says. “There’s a hold just above you. Shift and stretch your left arm two feet.”
The crowd is so intent on the mysterious hero in the mecha-suit now flying back and forth from the top of the track carrying one person down at a time that they don’t notice another figure slowly climbing up the track. Emma guides Bells until he finally reaches the top.
He’s not quite fast enough.
The track suddenly rumbles back to life as the power surges on. Lights crackle as the car plummets forward to the drop going ten times faster than it should.
Bells grabs the track and disappears.
“Please work; please work,” Emma mutters to herself.
Abby grabs the end of the cars just as they start to screech and pulls forward.
“And we see our new mysterious hero grabbing the end of the Scream’N’Dream cars and attempting to prevent the passengers from plummeting to doom! Our brave hero just moments before had been ferrying people safety— three passengers have been rescued, and the lives of twelve still hang in the hands of our unknown rescuer, who is losing their grip—”
The crowd gasps as the car screeches forward and Abby falls backward, but there’s no plummeting. Instead, the car slowly glides down the precariously steep slope and down the track to the roller coaster starting platform, where it’s greeted by park officials.
“Oh wow, good job, Bells,” Christine says, impressed.
Emma’s whole body slumps forward as some of her tension disappears. She hopes Bells will be in a safe spot when he lets go of the shift, which might be soon. Emma turns her binoculars on Abby at the top of the track, who is looking around as if she’s putting the pieces together.
Bells appears, lying prone on the track, and then he’s falling.
Abby catches him and then flies off; her rocket boosters pulse before they disappear from sight in the city skyline.
The crowd disperses; some of them trail off in that direction, where they hope to get a glimpse of the new hero. Farha is surrounded, speaking nonstop into her microphone; her eyes glitter.
“I’m Farha Rao, reporting live from Roaring City Adventures, and that was your first look at a brand-new hero who prevented what would have been a tragic disaster here in the park. Apparently New Bright City’s own Starscream was spotted golfing at the East Hopestar Resort and declined questions from my colleague at BNN. Now that brings up the question: Why wasn’t the hero tasked with protection of this city here today? Why didn’t he leave as soon as he heard about the accident and the people in danger?”
Farha tilts her head and cocks her eyebrow at the murmuring crowd around her. “It’s curious that the Heroes’ League of Heroes has not yet stepped in to comment on the nature of this new hero and where they hail from. Is the League falling behind in their social media or is this a sign of something else?”
Farha eyes the camera and grins, as if she’s putting together a piece of the puzzle. “Most similar in style and power type to our mysterious new hero is Master Mischief from the Nevada region! Master Mischief was a technopath who often wore a mecha-suit when he was orchestrating elaborate pranks. Master Mischief has not been seen since 2123—”
A man in an Authority uniform pushes past Emma, followed by another, and another.
“Hey! Excuse you!” Emma scowls up at them.
One of the Authorities snatches Farha’s cameradrone and smashes it to the ground. “You’re done here.”
“Hey!” Farha glares at them as they surround her. “You can’t— I have a BNN license.”
Oh, no. They’re closing in on her, and this can’t be good at all.
“Christine, can you change the colors of fabric or just move it—”
“Color, form, texture, anything.”
“Make me look like Chameleon!”
Christine snaps her fingers, and Emma’s dress transforms into a super-sleek, rainbow-hued supersuit. The fabric stretches up and over her head like a mask; it’s not a perfect copy, but she just needs the color.
“Hey, losers!” Emma taunts.
The Authorities whip around, staring at her.
Emma doesn’t wait for them to process what’s happening, she just bolts in the opposite direction. She can hear them shout as they follow her when she weaves around people in the park.
Christine huffs, running right behind her. “You know you’re almost out of time, right? I’m almost—”
“It’s been more than enough.” Emma exhales as her outfit returns to normal.
The Authorities run past them, shouting earnestly.
“Chameleon is worth twenty-thousand credits!”
“No way, that reward is mine!”
Christine watches them go. “Well, that was pretty brilliant,” she says.
“Thanks.” Emma glances toward the crowd at the roller coaster, but Farha is gone. Emma sighs. She’s glad Farha got away, but they missed their chance to talk to her.
“Hey,” Christine says, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Things didn’t go according to plan, but—”
Emma shakes free of the gesture and looks up at Christine.
Christine pushes her hat up on her head and gives her a reassuring smile.
“Okay.” Emma pushes her feelings and frustrations away. She doesn’t want to talk about the plan that spiraled out of control and Bells narrowly escaping injury. She’s just glad Abby was here to help.
Emma squints at the sky. Now, which direction did Abby go? She and Bells must be hiding somewhere or meeting Jess—
“Hey! Miss me?”
Emma whirls around, and there’s Jess, grinning at her. She’s adopted the makeup and aesthetic of the punk movement; her hair has been chopped into asymmetrical lengths, her bright brown eyes peek out from behind orange geometric patterns painted on her face, and she’s even wearing a long trench coat with the designs and logos of popular alternative bands. Behind her, three MonRobots cheep. Emma recognizes Chả, Jess’s LR-DR model, and the other two KR-D4Rs from Abby’s house.
“Jess!” Emma shrieks. She throws herself at her friend, and Jess laughs and picks her up and spins her in a delighted circle. “I’m so glad to see you! I was so worried, did you…” she trails off, careful of where they are in the crowded park. Emma itches to know everything, but this probably isn’t the best place to talk.
“Good to see you,” Christine says. “Uh—”
Abby’s two MonRobots spin around her in circles, beeping. Chả is scanning her face and trilling in a deeper tone.
“Aw, did you get an upgrade?” Emma can’t help reaching down to pat Chả on its little round dome, and it cheeps at her. Emma laughs, looks up at her friends, and then notices that they’re drawing a few curious looks. “We should go,” she mutters, before people ask about the strange MonRobots or anything else.
“Good plan.” Jess turning around and strides forward. “Come on, I set up a meeting point with Abby. Brendan is with the van—”
“Please tell me he didn’t drive,” Emma says.
Jess snorts. “He’s gotten a lot better; Abby and I couldn’t do all the driving.”
They talk in sparse details, not giving too much away for fear of being overheard, but Emma gleans the basics: Jess, Abby, and Brendan escaped with what tech they could salvage, including Abby’s mecha-suit, and made their way to New Bright City. The rest of the Villain’s Guild is scattered. Emma wants to know more about where they went and what they’re doing, but that’ll have to wait.
Emma and Christine follow Jess and her billowing coat as she leads them through the extensive park and then down another skybridge, and then they get in a clanking lift that descends to ground level. The light completely disappears as they continue below ground level, and the noise of people and cars and monorails fades away.
Christine scoots closer to Emma and Jess; her eyes are wide. “We’re meeting them in the Underbright?”
“The what?” Emma blinks, trying to take in Christine’s reaction.
Jess shrugs. “I thought it was just abandoned pre-Collective transportation tunnels and stuff. Didn’t they have a bunch of primitive underground trains?”
“Yeah, but—” Christine’s voice drops to a whisper. “The place is overrun with criminals and giant mutated rats!”
Jess grins. “Well, I haven’t seen any rodents of unusual size yet, so I think we’ll be okay.”
The tunnels are lit with flickering lights, set there by whom, Emma doesn’t know. Occasionally she hears footsteps and faint conversations or sees flashes of light from side tunnels, but they fade away immediately.
“So does the Collective know about the Underbright?” Emma asks curiously. It seems like an endless labyrinth of tunnels, lined with pipes and tracks and wires and signs that no longer make any sense. It’s different from any of the clean, well-kept Resistance bases built from the ancient bunkers. Those had been prepared to shelter people during the Disasters; this place may have once had a purpose, but now it’s nothing but dripping water and echoes.
Christine shrugs. “I mean, the Hopestar region pretends anything below ground doesn’t exist, and for good reason. The Authorities would never come down here; they couldn’t possibly drag everyone to Corrections.” She glances around as they approach a five-way junction. “And they’d get lost.”
Jess turns back to throw a smile at them without breaking stride. “That’s not a problem if you have Compass with you!”
“Compass?” Emma can barely see Jess in the dim light of the tunnel, but the confident expression on her face, that’s new. “You’re using the name!” She smiles, remembering those meetings they had in Jess’ basement. Emma had been so enthusiastic about the Sidekick Squad, creating agendas and plans and banging that gavel.
“I am,” Jess says, blushing slightly. She’s backlit against the soft lights in the tunnel, and the geometric patterns on her face give her a commanding aura.
She looks at her friend; Jess seems taller, somehow, or maybe Emma got shorter. It seems like years when it’s only been weeks, but there’s a different air to her, a hardened one that speaks of a similar path that Emma and Bells had out there in the desolate wilds, traversing from city to city through the Unmaintained lands.
“Good,” Emma says, nearly bursting with pride for Jess, who was always timid, always careful, always too nice, too afraid to take up space. “Being a hero looks good on you.”
Ch. 12…
Now that they’re out of immediate danger, Emma’s hypervigilance fades as they walk. They’re safe and secure; despite Christine’s claims of giant rats, the tunnels are mostly deserted. Any other people down here are taking care to avoid them.
“My mom and dad are a few days behind; they’ve been helping Genevieve set up safe houses for those who didn’t want to take an active part of the Resistance,” Jess says.
“I’m so glad no one was hurt,” Emma says. “Did you figure out who was behind the attack?”
Jess shakes her head. “We were all so careful with the location of the base. No one outside the Villain’s Guild knew where it was.”
Christine frowns. “So it was someone from the inside.”
“I don’t— but—” Jess falters and looks at Emma. “No, someone must have been followed somehow, and the location was compromised.”
“What about Claudia?” Emma asks. “She knew where it was.”
Jess doesn’t say anything, just bites her lip. “Come on, we’re almost there.”
“Oh, you can tell how close you are now?” Christine asks eagerly. “That’s so cool!”
Emma wonders if Jess knows anything more, if she’s thinking the same thing Emma is now: that Claudia didn’t have a change of heart after all.
She studies Jess and the animated way she’s talking about her powers with Christine, the way she’s talking about her time at the Villain’s Guild and how amazing it was to work on her powers with other meta-humans. It suits her, Emma thinks. Jess might say otherwise, but Emma can see how other people look up to her.
“There it is!” Jess says proudly as they turn the corner.
Sitting in the dark tunnel is the most derelict van Emma has ever seen. It’s dented and scratched and, like Abby’s mecha-suit, looks as if it’s been made out of parts. “I bet you’ve been turning heads,” Emma says.
Jess shrugs. “We were planning on ditching it soon or reupping the camfoil when we get to your hideout.”
The van door slides open to reveal Bells waving a slice of pizza at them. “What took you so long? We had time to get pizza and get here way before you!”
Emma laughs and gets inside the van with Jess and Christine following behind her.
Abby’s still wearing the mecha-suit but has removed the helmet. She gives them all a half-hearted wave. Up close Emma can see the true scattered nature of her suit. The chest plate is made from a washing machine, the gauntlets from the old computers at the Villain’s Guild, and the shin guards and hip plates are from what might have been a stove.
Emma tries to hug her and laughs when she meets mostly metal. She breathes in the smell of ozone and burnt fuel and looks more closely at Abby. It might be the light, but she looks thin and drawn; her cheeks are hollowed out in a sickly way. Emma pats the arm of the mecha-suit, and it echoes. “I’m so glad you’re here,” Emma says softly. She doesn’t know what else to say. “That was amazing, what you did at the park. When did you finish this?”
“The first prototype was finished in the Rockies,” Abby yawns. “I’m still, I’m still perfecting it…” she trails off, blinking slowly.
“It’s okay, get some rest.” Jess fluffs a pillow behind Abby. She flips open the pizza box and frowns as she hands Christine a slice. “Bells, how much did you eat? We only got one pizza.”
“There are two boxes though!”
“That bottom one’s from last week!”
“Oh! I thought there was enough!” Bells says, frowning. “Em, you can have this one. I only took one bite.”
“Sure,” Emma laughs as Bells hands her the slice of pizza, dripping through a greasy napkin. It’s hot and cheesy; she’d forgotten she hadn’t eaten all day.
Emma munches happily as she takes in the cluttered, homey mess. The back of the van is an eclectic mix: jumbled tech and wires, open duffel bags with clothes spilling out of them, bins filled with protein packs and water, a jumbled set of sleeping bags and pillows right next to a charging dock. Emma can see Abby’s AHHS volleyball sweatshirt, a bunch of colorful hair ties strung up on the dashboard, toothbrushes sticking out of the door pocket.
