How to Save the World (19 page)

“It's either that or whine,” I said. “I can do that, too, if you like.”

Kiki bit her bottom lip and shook her head. This time when I felt a spurt of amusement, I was able to pick it apart from my own aggravation. It didn't feel intrusive, but it still rang distinctly of Kiki. How long had that been going on? It could have been weeks. Possibly months.

“How did you figure out that I'm . . .”

“ ‘Psychically attuned' is my hypothesis.” Kiki gestured for me to sit up, so I did. She checked my pulse, keeping her eyes on her watch as she timed it. “And something's been off, just a funny feeling. And then you started answering my thoughts instead of my words.”

I thought back to our last ­couple of encounters. Guy, Kiki, and Angélica had given me such baffled looks. In retrospect, that made a lot more sense.

“Why telepathy?” I asked. “The powers I've developed are kind of arbitrary. Why this one?”

“They're not actually that arbitrary.” Kiki wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm.

“Really? Because it feels pretty random to me.”

“Your first developed power, outside of the regular effects of the Mobium, was Angélica's phasing ability.” Kiki ticked this off on a finger. “At the time, you were being put through a heavy fighting regimen against a superior fighter. No doubt the Mobium adapted in order to level the playing field. It also gave you the advantage of being quicker.”

“Being able to get away quicker,” I said, mostly kidding.

But Kiki pointed at me like I'd stumbled on something important. “Precisely. And your next developed power, 'porting, effectively removes you from danger and places you in a position of safety. As it integrates into the Mobium, you've 'ported longer and longer distances.”

“Until I wind up on my couch, yeah.”

“A safe space. Your abilities have been uniquely tailored to—­”

“Allow me to run away?” I asked.

Kiki nodded.

“Well, that's heroic.” When the blood pressure readings popped up, I took the cuff off and held it out to her. “I feel like it's kind of working at cross-­purposes, too. I've been fighting more since I got the Mobium. But my powers are developing more for the opposite.”

“You're a contrary soul, Gail.”

Well, she wasn't wrong.

Kiki pressed her palm against a panel on the wall and some kind of diagnostic equipment, as blindingly white as the rest of the place, emerged with a small whirring noise. She gestured for me to rest my chin on a little bar at the front of the scanner. Feeling like I'd stumbled into an optometrist appointment, I did so. At least there weren't those ugly giant glasses attached to the front.

“So how does psychic ability fit in?” I asked.

“It's probably pretty simple. You keep losing cell phones. How else are you going to get in touch?” Kiki touched a button on the side of the scanner, which circled my head a ­couple of times. It made an unpleasant vibrating noise echo through the shells of my ears and down into my jaw. I wrinkled my nose. “I'll have to look at the tests to make sure, but when I said you were psychically attuned, I meant probably just to me. Think of it as a psychic tether.”

I looked sideways around the scanner at her without lifting my chin from the bar. She hadn't said anything about holding still, but I didn't want to push it. “Are you saying that the Mobium has enabled you to be my psychic emergency contact?”

“That's one way to put it. Sit back, I need to put this away.”

“So you think it's just you and me, right? I can't go up to Angélica and read her mind?”

“Probably not. She's got a pretty strong mental shield.”

“Damn.”

“Why do you say that?” Kiki pulled out the same wand she'd used to check if Guy had a concussion a few days before.

“I'm positive she's got a stash of those dark chocolate coffee beans, but I have no idea where she's keeping them. And she's got some mystery boyfriend she's hiding. Which is fine, but I'm nosy and—­” A tendril of shock shot through my brain, followed by a bunch of emotions I didn't expect. I broke off with a choking noise and whipped around to face Kiki, who had gone amazingly still and who was definitely not meeting my eye.

“Or not a boyfriend,” I said. She shut down whatever emotions she'd projected at me, but not soon enough. No wonder Angélica had always been so secretive whenever she'd sneaked off to meet up with this mysterious lover of hers. “Um. How long has that been going on?”

“It started after Cooper.”

Cooper had been the almost indestructible spy inside of Davenport that had wanted to kill me and
had
killed Angélica, however temporary that turned out to be. Kiki had brought Angélica back to life using the Mobium, and I'd thought things were weird between them. Guess I was really wrong about that.

But things about it made me wonder. Angélica had been so adamant about getting Dr. Mobius back in one piece. Given how much he mattered to Kiki, it was only logical. But why had they tried to hide it at all? Angélica always came home from her nights out smelling of the gym showers rather than whoever she'd stayed with.

“It's new,” Kiki said when I asked that, aloud. “She would have told you eventually. If you hadn't, you know, decided to mind-­link up with me because you keep breaking cell phones and beat her to it.”

Well, when she put it that way. “Oh,” I said. “Okay. Cool. Am I allowed to give her shit for this later? She really had me fooled. I had so many theories. I mean, this is better, don't get me wrong.”

“You do whatever you need to do.” She cleared her throat and I didn't need to be psychic—­god, that would take some getting used to—­to sense discomfort rolling off of her. “Let's get back to the testing.”

“Sure,” I said.

The tests proved endlessly fascinating to Kiki, but they didn't tell me much. Our minds were tuned to each other, which apparently meant we were on the same psychic wavelength. Strong emotions could be felt by the other in close proximity, as we'd discovered by accident, and Kiki theorized that they could also be transmitted greater distances, along with mental messages. Standing face-­to-­face, we could talk either vocally or mentally.

I much preferred the former. The latter creeped me out.

Kiki ran through a series of cognitive tests because I told her about my memory problems, and the results made her frown. “There's no way to be sure, but I'm not seeing any tumors or lesions on your scans. It's possibly it could be a sign of something as simple as stress or it might be a side effect of the burgeoning psychic ability. Do you have anywhere to be right now? I'd like to run more tests.”

“No, but . . .”

“I'll order some food,” she said, and stepped over to the room's intercom system.

“It's like you read my mind,” I said, because I really couldn't help myself.

Kiki's look told me I only got to make that joke once, and I'd just used my only opportunity.

An hour later, Kiki had reams more data and I had a headache and a ­couple of sandwiches left. She'd physically tested every inch of me and she had tried every psychic trick she knew. I could block her from my thoughts, we'd discovered, and vice versa. She could put a picture in my mind, though it was blurry and indistinct. I hadn't been able to return the favor.

When the door slid open, I looked up, hoping that it was somebody coming to rescue me from being mentally and physically probed.

When I saw Angélica standing in the doorway, the smart-­ass side of me took over. “Your girlfriend's here,” I told Kiki, who was still bent over the monitor.

Angélica stopped, her gaze cutting between Kiki and me warily.

“Believe it or not, I didn't tell her,” Kiki said to her. “Not . . . intentionally.”

“I can't believe you didn't tell me. Say, are you guys going to be the Rocha-­Davenports or the Davenport-­Rochas? I need to know what to put on the monogrammed hand towels I'm getting you,” I said, holding out one of the sandwiches to Angélica.

Unsurprisingly, she took it, but she gave me a stern look. “I will deal with you later,” she said. “Ki, there's trouble.”

Kiki whirled on the stool. Her aura in my brain, which we'd started working to develop, turned yellow with alarm. “Who is it this time?”

“Who's what this time?” I asked.

Angélica ignored me. “They got War Hammer.”

“Wait,” I said, on my feet before I even thought about it. “Who got Guy?”

Kiki and Angélica exchanged a look that I couldn't read, even being on the same frequency as Kiki. Angélica turned to me. “Not Guy. Sam. He came back when Davenport reached out to him.”

“They could reach him the whole time?” I asked, offended. Guy had been so upset when his brother had vanished into the ether without a word. But Davenport had known where he was all along?

“That's not important,” Angélica said. “What's important is that he's missing.”

I caught a tendril of thought from Kiki's brain, likely before she could stop it, and turned to look at her. “He's not the only one, is he? Something's going on.”

The look the two shared was more than enough confirmation.

 

CHAPTER 19

M
issing superheroes.

It just
figured
.

Guy's reaction to finding out his brother had returned and had subsequently vanished was to head straight for the closet, unbuttoning his shirt. He stopped halfway there with a puzzled, lost look on his face.

“What did Eddie say?” Guy said, looking at me as I sat on the edge of the bed, kicking idly at a pile of his shirts on the floor. He might be an amazing chef, but a neat freak he would never be. “There's a briefing, right?”

“I didn't go. Angélica did, though.” I filled him in on what I knew. Davenport didn't have much, except that their biggest names on the roster were disappearing one by one. All signs pointed to the Demobilizer being involved, and nobody had seen Brook. She certainly hadn't been sighted with Tamara Diesel, whose goons had happily been running around fighting every hero they possibly could. It was a free-­for-­all worse than the time Atlanta had hosted the Olympics and the heroes and villains had treated the international competition as their own good vs. evil party.

When I was done telling him everything I knew, Guy dropped his head back, clearly trying to rein in his temper. “This has been happening for a while, hasn't it?”

“Yup.” Our friends had all worked together to keep us in the dark. Guy didn't need the stress, according to Kiki. Angélica had thought keeping me off of Eddie's radar was for the best. This way he didn't send me in to single-­handedly face off against the biggest villains on Tamara Diesel's roster.

“You're not ready for it,” she'd told me bluntly. “The fact that you survived two encounters with that woman is enough of a miracle. Let's not push our luck.”

I'd argued that I could help. Kiki had argued back that since Tamara by now knew my powers had come from the same man who had created the Demobilizer, it was better that I stay underground. The situation was too hot, especially for anybody as close to it as I was.

At least I wasn't alone in being annoyed by them. Now, twenty minutes later, Guy paced the room, something that was usually my shtick. “Sam's back,” he said.

“Yes.”

“And now they can't find him,” he said, going on like I hadn't spoken.

“Yes,” I said again.

Guy pushed his hands through his hair. “He's vanished before. It might not even be related to this. Hell, maybe he came back, decided it was too much, and left again.”

“It could be.”

“It might not even be Tamara Diesel. Maybe Brook found him and that Bookman trigger isn't as gone as she claimed. Maybe
she
has him.”

I shook my head. “It feels too convenient for that. Tamara Diesel's crew is going after the heavy hitters. If anybody has Sam, it's her.”

Guy didn't speak for a moment. “Kiki needs to convince Mobius to make that antidote. I need to rescue them.”

He didn't sound happy about it.

“They have other ­people that can rescue them,” I said.

“But he's my brother. I should be out there helping find him.”

I bit my lip. “Are you feeling guilty over the fact that you still don't want your powers back?”

His miserable nod confirmed it. Since I didn't really have words for that, I reached out and grabbed his hand, linking my fingers through his. He sat down next to me, heavily.

“It's okay, you know,” I said. “You sacrificed your personal life for years.”

And his relationship with his brother, and he'd lost a sister. He'd given so much to the mask and, seeing him free of it, seeing how carefree he suddenly felt, was like a quiet pang in my chest.

“You shouldn't be too mad at them, you know,” Guy said out of nowhere. I gave him a questioning look. “Angélica and Kiki. Not for trying to keep us out of everything that's going on. I understand why. It's the law of proximity.”

“The what?”

“The closer you are to superheroes, the more likely you are to get screwed over.”

Like Jeremy, I realized. Before he'd sacrificed himself to help take out Cooper, everybody surrounding him had superpowers. And now he was in a coma deep underground with static sparking between his fingers. The same held true for me. Four years being kidnapped by every villain in Chicago had dropped me square in the middle of Mobius and Rita Detmer's plan to save Kiki and had landed me with Mobium, which was hopelessly entangled in the latest crises facing the superpowered world. And Guy, just by being close to me, had been in prime position to lose his powers.

Law of proximity indeed.

“It's a little late for them to be keeping us out of the loop,” I said. “We're already here, we're already screwed. You know?”

“Yeah, I know.” Guy pinched the bridge of his nose.

We heard nothing new that night, but Guy didn't sleep well, no doubt worried about his brother. In the morning, he cooked breakfast and went to meet up with Angélica for training. Part of the acclimation period to adjust to his new powers and test his newfound lack of strength, I imagined. After he left, I debated grabbing a snack. For once, I was all caught up on my favorite soap opera, so I didn't need to check in on Chance's torrid affair with the evil Lucinda. Shrugging, I picked up my new phone—­Guy had replaced the destroyed one, insisting that he didn't mind the cost and I shouldn't, either—­and tucked it in my pocket before heading into the main part of Davenport Complex. The one nice thing about staying in New York instead of Chicago was that I had unfettered access to visit Jeremy.

His face was completely slack, with absolutely no change, when I stepped in. But his visitor caught me off guard.

“Gail,” Kiki said, looking up from where she was reading Jeremy's chart. She gave me a small, sad smile.

“Hey, Ki. I didn't know you two were friends.”

“It's a nice place to think. Nobody bothers me here. Mostly I read my thesis to him and update him on scientific subjects I imagine would actually put him to sleep if he was awake.” Kiki's smile gained a little more humor. “They do actually put Angélica to sleep.”

“I'm not surprised,” I said, poking Jeremy and receiving a small shock for my trouble. “He's pretty nerdy. If it's true that he can hear us, he probably enjoys it on some level. At least you're making him smarter. He could use it.”

By reflex, I glanced at his face. For a while, I'd tried insulting Jeremy, thinking if I found just the right combination, he'd awake in a spluttering ire and insult me back. It hadn't happened yet.

Kiki started to push herself up from her chair, but I waved at her. “You don't have to leave, not on my account.”

I could actually feel a little of her indecisiveness as she mulled it over, which was strange. She finally nodded and settled back in. “Do you visit him much?” she asked.

“When my best buddy Marsh the security guard decides not to be an asshole and lets me come over. Sometimes I bring one of his handheld games,” I said. “But the problem is that I'm getting too good at them, and I don't want to beat all of his levels. Just some of them. He needs something to live for.”

“Braggart,” Kiki said, her tone teasing. She ran her fingers through her ponytail, twisting them through her hair. “I wish I could do more for him.”

“Do you think the Demobilizer would help him?” I asked. With every day that passed, it was obvious that we probably weren't getting back the Demobilizer Brook had taken. And Mobius would only make it to remove superheroes from the fold. I doubted very much he'd care about a coma patient, not unless it saved his granddaughter somehow.

From the way Kiki shook her head, tightly, she'd come to the same conclusion. “He's a brilliant man, but not a good one.”

“Shame,” I said. “Too bad we can't convince Mobius you're in mortal peril or something. He's helpful then.”

My phone buzzed with a new text message from Raze, the twelfth that day. She really was not enjoying her convalescence, not when there were things outside to shoot and promised battles to be had. I fired back a text telling her to behave.

When I looked up, Kiki was frowning at Jeremy's face.

“Something on your mind?” I asked.

She jerked like she'd forgotten I was there. I raised my eyebrows at her. “No,” she said. “No, I'm good. Just remembered something in the lab. If you'll excuse me?”

“See ya,” I said, and Kiki hurried off, leaving me with Jeremy.

Immediately, I propped my feet on the bed. I'd get scolded if a nurse caught me, but I didn't care. I flicked through the magazine I'd brought until I found an article that would make Jeremy grind his teeth were he awake. “Time to wake up, buddy,” I said. “Or you're going to hear all about what this article on perfecting smoky eye has to say. And trust me, it's a doozy. I think they paid the writer by the word.”

I glanced at his face. No reaction.

“You brought this on yourself,” I said, and began to read aloud.

I stayed for a ­couple of hours, though I didn't read the whole time. Instead, I talked, filling him in on everything. I was pretty sure I was fired since I hadn't been to work in a week, and that meant either job hunting or going back under Davenport's umbrella. It might not be all bad. Jessie Davenport seemed to like me enough to protect me from Eddie, and that was a handy friendship to have. Once they stopped locking us inside, Guy could go to culinary school like he'd dreamed, and Jeremy could wake up and meet Raze. She really could use more enemies.

The only movement from Jeremy during all these musings was from the little blue crackles between his fingers and occasionally around his ears. “Good talk,” I said, patting his hand and grimacing at the zap. “I'll be by again soon. I hear blue eye shadow's making a comeback. I bet I can find an article with lots of purple prose. So you might want to wake up before then, Jer.”

It was stupid to hope, but I glanced at his face one last time and left.

In the corridor, I heard Naomi call my name. I turned and watched her trot up, wanting to shake my head. Due to the house arrest, she was stuck in the Davenport Industries uniform, and it was weird to see her out of her hipster gear and in a pressed polo shirt. At least I'd had a few outfits in Guy's New York place and didn't have to suffer the same fate.

“Any other missing heroes I should know about?” I asked when she reached me.

She had the grace to look ashamed. “It wasn't my idea to keep you two in the dark. But still, my bad. And no, nobody else is missing.”

That much was a relief.

“Sort of,” Naomi corrected herself. “Have you seen Kiki? We were supposed to meet up to review some more of Mobius's notes and she's not answering my texts.”

“She was visiting Jeremy a while ago, but she took off. Have you asked Angélica? She might know, on account of them being . . .” I crossed two fingers.

Naomi laughed. “Finally caught on, have you?”

That reaction made me somewhat grateful that at least Guy hadn't known about the relationship, either. Perhaps Naomi was the only one that knew. Her observation skills could be their own superpower, really.

“I'll text Angélica,” Naomi said, shaking her head at my sour look. “Thanks, Gail.”

“No problem,” I said, and we headed our separate ways.

I made it to the end of the corridor when the walls and the floor tilted sharply to the left. Static rushed into my ears and filled my head. I hit the floor in an uncoordinated pile.

“Gail!” Naomi's footsteps sounded like thunder. Her voice rang like bells.

“Gail—­” It wasn't Naomi talking. This voice was blurry and distorted and all of my thoughts were too far from each other to connect. “Gail—­you get one chance—­”

“Gail!” Naomi again. My world shuddered and everything in my head sloshed in response.

“—­don't waste it—­”

“Somebody help! She's having a seizure!”

“—­make sure he gives you the antidote—­”

“Help!”

“—­and for god's sake, save me—­”

The words began to blur. Feminine, I thought. Familiar. I opened my eyes, but all I could see was white. Images began to pour in my head, so fast and so overwhelming that the white blinked out, leaving me with nothing but darkness.

Mercifully, unconsciousness followed not too far after that.

I
opened my eyes to find Dr. Mobius's ugly mug pushing into my face, and for one horrific second, I was back in that basement in the Chicago suburbs, being tormented by a mad scientist. A blink and I realized several things: I wasn't wearing a thin hospital gown, my arms and legs weren't shackled, I was in Medical, and there were several ­people in the room with varying degrees of worry shading their faces.

“Ugh, get away from me,” I said.

He scooted backward in his wheelchair with a sniff. “As you can see,” he said to everybody else in the room, “she is fine. Her seizures were not a result of my serum.”

Guy immediately rushed forward and hugged me. “Are you okay?” he asked.

I rubbed my eyes, though my head didn't actually hurt. “What happened? Why am I here?”

“You fainted and had a seizure.” Naomi gave me a flat look, but I could see relief underneath. Her heart was pounding. “How about you don't do that again, ever? You scared the ever-­loving shit out of me, Girl. What
was
that?”

“I'm not sure.” Seizures were new. Teleporting meant migraines, phasing drained my energy, psychic manifestations messed with my memory. What nightmare would this bring? “I'm hungry.”

A crap-­cake landed in my lap, courtesy of Angélica. I made a face at it.

“Do you remember anything about what happened? Did a light flash or something?” Guy remained kneeling in front of the cot so that we were eye level for once.