Ultraviolet (11 page)

“No. I called it, I called
you
, Ultraviolet.”

“Ultraviolet?” I nodded to myself. “I can live with that.”

“Good, because we just got our first dozen hits and there’s a girl on the north side who says Ultraviolet can crash on her couch tonight. And… I just verified her, she’s real. What do you say?”

I hesitated. This was all moving really fast. And this girl on the north side was a complete stranger, and might not be real at all. She could be a Cygnus sock puppet. But Felix seemed to think she was real, and he seemed to know what he was doing, so…

Do I play it safe, or do I take a leap of faith?

“Tell her I’ll be there at nine tonight,” I said. “Let me know the address when you get it.”

I spent the rest of the day riding around the city on my big black bike with my clothes hidden under my armor and my lower face partly masked by a holo-helmet. I streaked down crowded streets past busy markets, trying to get as many eyeballs as possible before disappearing again. I wanted people to see me, to know that I was really real. And I was also looking for any other easy targets, obvious drug dealers or Cygnus drones, but I didn’t spot any. I did spot a lot of cops, though.

I didn’t stay in character for too long in any one area. After a few minutes I would zip into an alley, shut down my holograms, and just walk for a few blocks in my regular clothes. I figured if everyone was looking for a biker chick in black with a bright violet glow, they wouldn’t be looking at me.

And they weren’t.

I checked my messages obsessively every few minutes. Still nothing from Cygnus. I considered calling them directly, but maybe that’s what they wanted. Maybe they needed me to call them so they could track my phone. Who knows how their tech worked…

I also checked the Ultraviolet page over and over, looking through the comments, searching for anything about Dominic or Mercedes, but all I found were a few notes that people knew who they were and hoped they were all right. And every time I saw the clock, I tried to guess how many hours Dom had been away from his meds, and how much he was hurting.

As it got closer to nine that night, I broke out my bike one last time and bolted up the expressway to the north side and found the address that Felix sent me for my first fan-host. Her name was Amanda, and the house I pulled up in front of was not some old row house, it was a much newer stand-alone home with a car in the driveway.

I walked around back, per Amanda’s instructions, and knocked on the kitchen door. My eyes were darting all around, ready to call for my armor and bike, ready to flee from a Cygnus ambush. But instead of a SWAT attack, the door opened and a wide-eyed kid of about fourteen stuck her head out. “Oh my God, it’s really you!”

I froze for a second. I hadn’t expected someone younger than me. But then, I guess she wasn’t that much younger. “Hi. Are you Amanda?”

“Yeah, come in, come in.”

I followed her into the kitchen, which was full of shiny orange appliances and pots hanging from a ceiling rack and bright white tiles on the floor.

“My parents are out tonight at a dinner thing,” the girl said. “I told them my friend Felicia was coming over. So if they ask, your name is Felicia, okay?”

“Okay.” I looked at the refrigerator. It was huge.

“We’ll hang out in the basement. My parents never come down there, so it’s all mine. Okay?”

“Okay.”

She followed my gaze over to the fridge. “Are you hungry?”

I nodded. “A little bit.”

Chapter 8
Trade Show

I spent the whole night at Amanda’s waiting for something to go wrong, but it never did. We ate real chicken, along with a lot of fresh veggies, weird noodles, funny sauces, and Technicolor ice cream. And then we sat in her basement watching movies on her full-wall screen.

Of course she asked about the holo-suit, and Cygnus, and lots of other personal things. I showed her a few holograms, and let her take a few pictures of us together on the bike (in her basement), and I told her just enough about Cygnus to keep her happy without saying anything too dangerous.

And she was thrilled. She was chatty and bubbly and excited. Her dad worked for Susquehanna and she seemed to think it was cool that I was fighting the companies, even though she didn’t seem to have any particular issue with the companies herself. All in all it was not what I was expecting.

But I got supper, and I got a bed.

Felix was right. People wanted to help.

The next morning, Amanda went to talk to her mom in the front living room while I let myself out the back kitchen door, and then I was through the back yard and out onto the next street over, hopping on my bike, and taking off like it was the most normal thing in the world. I was still tense, still on the lookout, but being vigilant was starting to feel normal too.

I guess that’s a good thing. It’s probably keeping me safe.

I called Felix when I hit the expressway.

“How did it go?” he asked.

“It went oddly well,” I said. “She was nice. Not what I expected, but it’s all fine. Any news on my friends yet?”

“Sorry, nothing yet.”

I sighed into my helmet. “Okay, then I guess we just need to put on another show and try to get them to come out, right?”

“Maybe.”

I heard the doubt in his voice. “What are you thinking?”

“Nothing. I just… I just don’t want you to take too many chances. What you’re doing is risky. Dangerous.”

“I know.” I smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”

“You do that. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“Neither do I.” I bit my lip. All this running around the city was getting old, fast. Hours of riding and walking, hours of looking over my shoulder. Hours and hours, all alone. “Listen, you want to come out and help me on this next one?”

“Yeah, sure. What’d you have in mind?”

“Nothing complicated. Your job will be really simple.”

“What’s that?”

“I need you to tell people to look up.”

“Look up?”

An hour later I was in position, and frankly terrified. It had seemed like such a simple idea. No big attack on Cygnus, no big fight, no one getting hurt. Just a stunt. People like stunts. They’re surprising and quick. Easy, right?

The only trick is that you have to actually do the stunt.

There were a couple of security drones that I knew about, well, everyone knew about them. They were right out in clear view, hovering over the center of the harbor, supposedly to monitor boats but everyone assumed they were there to monitor people. I hadn’t considered going after them yesterday because they were way out over the water. But now, the water was a very good thing.

Because now I was standing on the top of the old Transamerica Tower, looking down across Light Street at the dark waters of the harbor. It hadn’t been tricky to get up there. A holographic knife is pretty good at cutting most door locks, so all it took was two elevator rides and a few stairs, and I broke out onto the roof of a forty-story office building.

It wasn’t as cold as I was expecting, but it was windy. Really windy. Scary windy. Every other moment there was a gust that would knock me stumbling to the side, so I crouched down and knelt by the wall at the edge, peeking out at the city below. Nice sunny day. Plenty of people and bicycles. A couple of water taxis.

And the drones. Three of them, hovering over the water in a straight line stretching into the distance.

I peeked over the wall and looked down. I wasn’t seriously scared of heights, but standing there, totally exposed to the wind, had me scared enough. And of course, I hadn’t practiced this. I just thought, how hard can it be?

I need to stop thinking that.

My phone rang. Felix.

“Hey, I’m standing near the
Constellation
,” he said.

“Are there a lot of people around you?”

“A couple dozen right here, watching this guy play guitar. And more up and down the water. There’s probably more people down by the aquarium. Should I move down there?”

“No, you’re good. Just get ready. Just watch and be ready to start shouting. I don’t want anyone to miss this. I’ll just be a minute.”

“Okay.” He paused. “Good luck, Carmen. Be careful.”

“Oh, I will.”

I put the phone away and took a deep breath. Then I backed away from the wall to the middle of the roof and said, “Lux, wingsuit.”

The holographic wings flashed into reality, glowing darkly in the midday sun. There were two big wings sweeping back from my shoulders and then a few more little ones on my boots. I had gotten the specs online from some people in Switzerland who looked very legit, who claimed to use this wingsuit to fly through the Alps all the time. I had watched a few of their helmet-cam clips and they looked extremely cool. But looking down at myself, I felt extremely ridiculous.

“Lux, helmet one.”

The military helmet made me feel a little more secure, but also more trapped and confined.

“Lux, sword one.”

A machete, nice and simple, and not too big. This was going to be crazy enough as it was.

The gusts of wind battered at my wings, shoving me back and around, until I collided with the wall again. Looking down that sheet of glass, forty stories tall, almost convinced me to quit. Instead, I climbed up onto the ledge, and took a deep breath.

“Okay, now, just take your time and…”

And I got blown off the roof by a blast of wind from behind.

I tumbled head over heels as fast as a whip, and instantly lost all sense of direction or balance. Everything was a blur of concrete and glass, and I couldn’t think except to demand that the universe go back in time ten seconds and give me another chance.

And then the wings suddenly dug into the air and I stopped spinning. I blinked and realized I was flying very straight… straight down. A cold burst of panic in my brain mad me arch my back and I managed to get the wings to level out.

And then I started breathing again. I was flying.

I was flying almost level to the ground about twenty-five stories above Pratt Street, soaring along in a straight line with a row of tall glassy buildings on my left and the open harbor on my right.

All of the terror and confusion of the last few moments was completely forgotten as I tried to remember what I was supposed to do next.

I blinked. I was passing the Trade tower on my right.

Turn!

By twisting my back and legs, I coaxed the wingsuit into a gentle arcing turn to my right, sweeping around the tower and heading toward the water. I streaked over the glass roof of the aquarium and then there was nothing under me but dark, foamy waves criss-crossed with the bubbling wakes of the water taxis.

I turned right again, twisting and fighting the wind until I was pointed almost back toward the Transamerica Tower, but now I was only ten stories above the harbor and inching lower with every passing second.

I saw the first drone in front of me, a little to the left. I twisted toward it and raised my sword. I barely felt the impact as the machine was sliced in half and plummeted into the water.

I hit the second drone even more easily.

But by the time I was zooming in toward the third drone, I had lost another five stories of altitude and it looked like I was going to pass under the hovering SkyEye. There wasn’t time to make a new hologram, and I definitely didn’t have the momentum to turn upwards and climb, so I did the only thing I could think of in that last second.

I rolled.

The tip of my black wing flipped up high and smashed through the drone, sending it whirling drunkenly down into the harbor. I almost laughed at the sight of it tumbling through the air. But I was flying sideways, and I was out of time, and I had no idea how to land this thing.

Which I knew, going into this stunt. But still, at that moment, I was terrified.

“Lux, clear, armor one!”

The sword and wingsuit vanished, replaced by the tactical body armor and helmet, and I hit the water. I tried to curl into a ball, but the impact with the waves felt like hitting concrete and I flipped and rolled over the water like a skipping stone, spinning my head like a top. The world once again became a blur, and I couldn’t remember where I was or what I was supposed to do.

Then it was cold.

It was hard to move.

And then I felt myself being pulled, dragged, lifted. Slowly, my brain got its act together and I realized there were hands on my arms, hauling me through the water, up and out of the water. The sun glared into my eyes and I winced. The breeze blew through my soaked clothes and I shivered.

I heard voices. I heard cheering.

There were more hands on me now and I sat up slowly with the hands supporting my back and head. I looked around and saw that I was sitting on the dock next to the
Constellation
, with a dozen strangers all clustered around me.

They looked angry.

No, they looked worried.

They were grabbing at my helmet.

“I’m okay.” I coughed and waved them away. “I’m okay.”

There were so many voices all around me, all blending together, but I did hear one word repeated again and again.

Ultraviolet.

They’re calling me Ultraviolet.

I stood up and they finally stopped trying to take off the helmet. They stepped back. Felix pushed his way through them, saying, “Are you all right? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” I nodded at him and knocked my knuckles on the side of my helmet. “No missing pieces, I promise.”

The crowd laughed and cheered, and I smiled. It’s hard not to smile when you’re surrounded by cheering fans.

It was hard to hear over all the voices, but Felix leaned in close and said, “I think you need to get going. Cops.” He pointed down the walkway where two men in uniform were pedaling furiously in our direction.

“Yeah, that’s my cue to go.” I started jogged up the dock toward the walkway. “Excuse me, make a hole, let me through please!”

The crowd did make room, but not enough and not very fast. I kept bumping into shoulders, and people kept reaching out to shake my hand or touch my arm, to touch the holographic armor. It was a little scary, having so many hands reaching out toward me, touching me. But the fear passed, and it started to feel… I don’t know… comforting.