How to Save the World (7 page)

“I can?” I asked, and Jessie gave me a look. “Oh. I can. Yeah, I can do that. Sure.”

Jessie disappeared into the room that I assumed contained Kiki, Vicki, and the Medical staff before I could thank her for taking care of me. Once she was gone, I grabbed Guy's hand and slid down the wall, tugging him with me so that we sat across from Angélica.

I swallowed. “Is Vicki . . . ?”

“She doesn't seem to be in danger of dying,” Angélica said, snapping her gum. She'd apparently recognized the trepidation on my face. “But something's wrong. Kiki and her team have no idea what, though.”

I held tighter to Guy's hand. He shifted to place an arm across my shoulders.

“What happened out there?” he asked. “Kiki was able to give us a few details, but she was a little busy.”

I filled them in about the supervillain attack as best I could. “But where did they come from?” I asked. The passel of supervillains that had shown up was completely random. I hadn't even known Toadicus and Scorch knew each other, and yet they'd arrived together. “Were they there with the kidnapper? Are they the ones that have Mobius?”

“No idea,” Guy said. “But we'll find him, whoever has him.”

“And Vicki will be okay,” Angélica said.

I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Vicki has to be okay. If she's not, she'll do nothing but whine at me, and I refuse to believe I've done anything so horrible in this life as to deserve that.” Angélica's fingers were twisting together, and I imagined she wanted to be back at the Power House, destroying a speed bag or five. “So for all our sakes, she's got to be okay.”

“She's going to be okay.” Guy nodded at her calmly.

I shifted because his chest plate was poking my shoulder. I missed his Blaze uniform at moments like these. It was a lot more formfitting than the War Hammer armor, which had been bulked up to keep the public from finding out that the bearer was a bit slimmer these days. Blaze's uniform had been soft and familiar. I rested the back of my head against his shoulder. “I screwed up,” I said.

“What?”

I stared up at the tiles in the ceiling. “I let the kidnapper get away and I let Scorch get away, and now probably everybody knows something's up with Plain Jane.”

“Scorch is a Class B supervillain who can fly, and you're . . . well, you're an assistant editor,” Guy said, keeping his voice gentle. “You didn't screw up. Holding your own is more than enough. Nobody's going to hold that against you.”

“I have the Mobium. I could have at least stopped one of them. And Vicki was only there because she was watching my back—­”

“Stop,” Angélica said, glowering at me.

I closed my mouth, but didn't stop the sigh in time.

Angélica's glare only deepened. “The last thing Vicki needs right now is a pity party,” she said.

“Angélica, be nice,” Guy said.

“No, she's right.” I pushed myself to my feet. “I'm being stupid.” Even if I'd failed, I knew better: Vicki was my mentor and she saw me as a responsibility and she'd make that choice over and over again. Angélica had made a similar choice once that had led to her death—­which thankfully didn't take—­and I hated that just as much. But that was part and parcel of the heroing lifestyle, and I had to accept that. “I'm not good company right now. I think I'll go see Jeremy.”

“Want me to go with you?” Guy said.

I shook my head. In his current state, Jeremy wasn't exactly a sparkling conversationalist, and I needed some alone time. With the way news traveled in the Davenport Complex, his room would probably be the only quiet spot I could find. “Text me if anything changes?”

“Will do.”

I took a deep breath and let go of my boyfriend's hand, walking off. It had been too long since I'd been by to see my ex-­boyfriend. No time like the present.

 

CHAPTER 7

I
left Medical and headed deep into the Davenport Complex, past my old apartment, into the New Powers sector, wincing when something exploded with a muffled thud on the other side of the wall in Pyro. I cut left to avoid Underwater and walked through Electrical, wondering as I always did which bright idiot had put those two next to each other. Tempting fate much? But as long as I avoided Psychic, I was happy. I'd never had any good experiences with psychic powers. Kiki, at least, didn't hold it against me if I flinched away from her when she touched my arm without warning.

I pressed my palm to the panel that stood at chest height outside of Room 307, took a deep breath, and stepped inside. Giving Davenport the finger a ­couple months before meant I had severely limited access, but Guy had gotten me cleared for at least this much. Inside, it was quiet, the temperature slightly cooler than the hallway. Resting temperature, Kiki had called it the first time she'd brought me to visit Jeremy. The lights were supposed to be dim and soothing, and my eyes adjusted without trouble, but it always made my skin itch. It felt unnatural. Or maybe it was just a reminder that we were deep underground, something I really didn't care to think about.

Jeremy lay on a bed in the middle of the room, eyes closed. He looked exactly the same as he had the last time I'd visited. Just as I knew he would. Nothing ever changed.

As ever, the sight of his face put a falter in my step. After a ­couple of weeks in the hospital, when it was obvious he wasn't in a hurry to wake up from his coma, they'd transferred Jeremy to the Davenport Complex. The cot he lay on was custom-­made for its grounding properties, though it looked like any other hospital bed. Jeremy's face remained slack, his skin pale in the low light. A ­couple months' growth of beard prickled at his chin. For a man who prided himself on physical upkeep—­daily trips to the gym, hours spent grooming in front of a mirror, a better skin-­care regimen than my own—­that was the most heartbreaking part of it all, seeing him waste away like this. The doctors had no idea when or if he would wake up. They'd assured us that his brain activity seemed normal, but there might be other factors they couldn't understand unless he woke up.

Given that even now I could see tiny little currents of static discharge flicking between his thumbs and forefingers, shockingly bright blue against the dimness, it wasn't hard to guess what those other factors might be.

Jeremy was a cautionary tale. For all I'd struggled with what the Mobium had done to me, Jeremy had been through worse. He'd electrocuted himself to stop Lemuel Cooper, Kiki's sinister boyfriend, from killing her (and the rest of us). And worst of all, Jeremy's heroic act of self-­sacrifice had been to stop me from taking his place. It could very easily have been me on the cot and him sitting in the chair I lowered myself into now. It had been such a stupid, boneheaded thing for him to do and it regularly made me want to cry whenever I looked at his empty face.

“You won't believe the day I've had,” I told him. Kiki had said that it was possible he could hear whatever we were saying, though I had my doubts. He didn't look peaceful in his coma. He looked like he simply wasn't there. But I gamely charged on. “It hasn't been as bad as Vicki's day, but it's not great. But before I get into it: what is it with bad guys and Union Station? With all the damn construction around there, it's like villains just live to make our lives miserable.”

No response, but I hadn't expected one. I touched his hand and the zap from his powers traveled harmlessly up my arm. It was like touching a doorknob while wearing wool socks on carpet. Even though I'd known it was coming, I called him an unflattering name and settled back. Words came tumbling out: I told him about the fight, about Vicki, about waking up and my heart-­to-­heart with Jessie. He'd probably get a kick out of hearing about her little stunt with my hood during our sparring match earlier, but the only answer when I described it in great detail was the slow and steady beeping of the heart monitor.

“You need to come back,” I said, the noise breaking through the false cheer and bringing with it a wearying layer of sadness. “You might have been an asshole a lot of the time, but you're still my friend. And Vicki's friend. And she could use all the friends she can get right now.”

After that, I fell silent, sick to my stomach. Just what had happened to Vicki? What had that blue gas done to her? Was it permanent? Could they fix it?

My phone buzzed with a text from Guy:
they're letting us in to see her.

See you in five
, I texted back.

I touched Jeremy's hand again, ignoring the shock. “As usual, you're missing all the good stuff,” I said, though I didn't know if that was true or not. “Wake up soon.”

And I left to go see Vicki.

V
icki sat on the cot, her uniform stripped to the waist to reveal an obnoxiously orange sports bra underneath. Her mask lay on the pillow. I tried my hardest not to stare at the purple diodes on her temples and chest or the panicked look on her face. Sweat covered her forehead and torso, beading on her upper lip. For somebody that instantly became the center of attention every time she entered a room, she seemed pale and diminished.

Kiki gestured me over to where Angélica and Guy had already clustered. She leaned in, dropping her voice low. “We don't know much yet,” she said. I frowned, wondering why I sensed worry when her voice was devoid of all emotion. It must have been from her heartbeat or something. “All I can say is that it's really not good.”

“
What
is not good?” Angélica asked, folding her arms over her chest.

Vicki's head snapped up. So much for talking quietly. “My fire's gone,” she said in a ragged voice.

She held up her palm. I'd seen her gleefully lance fire over fifty feet, but now the barest flicker of flame, smaller than even the offering of a lighter, formed in the air in front of her palm. “It's just gone,” she said, dropping her hand back to the cot. “I can't fly, either.”

“It's like nothing I've ever seen.” Kiki pushed her fingertips into her forehead. “Her powers have completely vanished, like she's—­”

“Normal,” Vicki said, and the way she said the word, it might as well have been an obscenity. She drew her feet up onto the edge of the cot, hugging her knees to her chest. There weren't tear tracks on her face, but I could see her eyes shining. I'd never felt quite this hopeless, not without there being railroad tracks and chains involved. I had no idea what I could possibly say to her, and judging from the silence, nobody else knew, either.

“We're still running tests.” Kiki stepped over to the computer and typed in a few commands. I understood the charts that popped up but only because I'd seen them displaying my own stats. “This is what Vicki's levels are supposed to be at. Here are her new levels.” She hit a button and the numbers shifted drastically. “These readings are Class D.”

Class D. No superpowers.

It felt like a metal band wrapped itself around my chest and squeezed tight, choking off the air. Vicki, Plain Jane, the most powerful superhero I knew, had lost all of her powers. A simple hit of that weird blue gas and she was . . . she was just another human. I didn't hear Guy or Angélica breathing, either, as we stared at the screen. The air felt hot and stifling as the horrible reality crashed over us.

“It's temporary, right?” I said, and my voice sounded off to my own ears. I didn't even really like my own powers some days, but all of them gone, just like that . . . “They'll come back. Her powers will come back.”

“I have every confidence they will,” Kiki said.

I gave her a funny look. “No, you don't,” I said before I could stop myself. I didn't know how I knew that, but the thought had pushed its way into my brain.

Kiki tilted her head at me, opening her mouth, but a sound filled the room that made all of us freeze: a sniffle. Vicki dropped her forehead to her knees, and the dam broke. Angélica gave Kiki and me a
cut it out
look and strode across the room, dropping next to Vicki on the cot and hugging her. Vicki's sobs stayed almost painfully quiet, but I could see her chest and shoulders shaking as Angélica held on.

I stepped over toward them, but Kiki put a hand on my arm. “Just a moment,” she said. “At the station, you said you smelled apricots, too?”

“I wasn't close, but yeah, I did.” I shook my head as an entire new type of fear coiled in my gut. Vicki had taken a full dose right to the face, and she was losing her powers. Would the gas work on me, just more slowly? I looked over at Vicki, my stomach sinking. My powers were really new, especially compared to hers, but I already couldn't imagine life without them. I swallowed past the horrible constricting lump in my throat. “Guess this means you're going to poke me with something sharp.”

“It hurts me more than it hurts you,” Kiki said.

I managed a humorless smile. “That's a lie.”

“Yes.”

“Gail could be losing her powers, too?” Guy asked, reaching for my shoulder.

“She doesn't seem to be exhibiting any of the same symptoms,” Kiki said. “But I do need to check. It'll just take a minute.”

Guy looked torn between following us and remaining with Vicki, so I gestured for him to stay put and followed Kiki to the other side of the room. We went through the very familiar exam and I tried to pick apart how I felt, if anything seemed unusual. I was a little sluggish, but that could be a result of having just been knocked unconscious. Across the room, Vicki continued to cry.

“Why do you think it's permanent?” I asked Kiki in an undertone.

“I don't.” Kiki typed in my blood pressure and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Maybe. Either way, if it is permanent, I'm scared of the implications.”

“What implications?”

“Let's worry about you first.”

She finished the exam by taking two vials of blood from my arm, and I waved her off before she could put a bandage on my arm. It would heal in less than a ­couple minutes. “Are you going to test everybody?” I asked.

“I don't think anybody else was close enough, and I don't want to cause unnecessary panic.” Kiki swallowed and I looked down at the crease of her elbow, where a little gauze pad had been taped. She met my eye, evenly. “We don't know how widely the gas spreads or how quickly it disperses. Better safe than sorry.”

“Okay.” My mouth felt like cotton had been stuffed inside, soaking up the moisture. “Where's Brook?”

“They're keeping her in a cell nearby. She's not talking to anybody.”

“Can I see her? Maybe she'll talk to me.”

Kiki shrugged in a
have at it
way. “Guess that's another prison roommate thing, huh?”

Not particularly, but if they all wanted to think that Brook and I had this deep bond because of the horrific experiences we'd shared at Detmer, maybe it was better to let that misconception spread. If the heroes knew what kind of luxury they were handing over to villains by sending them to Detmer, the entire world order might collapse. Kiki finished putting the last of my data into the computer. Looking at her, I was struck with an intense feeling. Fear. Not entirely for Vicki, either. After all, Davenport had disregarded the kidnapper's requests, letting him get away with four million, and he still had Mobius. He had the money. Was there any reason to keep Mobius alive?

I might have hated the man, but I wasn't a heartless jerk.

“Hey,” I said. “We'll get Mobius back. Somehow. I've never known the ­people in this room to fail.”

Kiki gave me a puzzled look. “Thanks, Gail.” She unclipped her own badge and pushed it over. “This'll get you in to talk to Brook.”

“I'll be back in a few minutes,” I told Angélica and Guy, who sat flanking the still-­crying Vicki. Tears as a rule didn't make me uncomfortable—­I'd seen enough supervillains break down into them over the years—­but helplessness threatened to overwhelm me. “I'm going to go get some answers.”

Guy gave me a tiny smile. “Good luck.”

I stepped out into the corridor and closed the door on the sound of Vicki's sob.

U
p close, Brook didn't look or smell that great. They hadn't let her change out of her Chelsea gear, which was dirty and scuffed. The downsides of wearing white armor into battle, really. She glanced over when I came into the room, eyes flicking up and down once, and returned her gaze to an obviously enthralling invisible spot on the wall across from her. Her mask remained clutched in her fists.

I leaned against the wall by the door, but I didn't relax. “You look like hell.”

“You know what I missed these past few months? Your insightful commentary. Of course I look like hell. They won't even let me have a shower and I haven't slept in three days.”

It wasn't hard to guess the source of her exhaustion. I'd had a hard time sleeping when I'd left Detmer myself.

“I miss the beds there, too,” I said.

Unexpectedly, she sighed. “It's like sleeping on a damn cloud.”

“I dream about the thread count on those sheets,” I said. “Some days I'm tempted to become a supervillain just to go back.”

“You'd be terrible at it. For somebody so small, you're just brimming with really stupid feelings.”

I looked at the cloth twisting in her hands and felt a stab of pity. Brook had agreed to help us find Mobius, and unlike the last time she'd faced Guy or his brother, she hadn't lunged straight for his throat. She'd hurt my friends—­repeatedly—­but she'd also spent years in a cage while scientists experimented on her. It was hard not to feel
some
kind of empathy, even though I really didn't want to.