After the Golden Age

“The city will need a steady hand at the helm after a disaster of this magnitude. I’ll have to make sure it has one, won’t I?” He raised his hand and signaled to the rest of his technicians and henchmen. They gathered and followed Paulson as he marched out of the room, to the corridor that led to the loading dock. Presumably the building had a basement. Presumably it would protect them from the blast.

No one even looked at her as they left.

She threw herself sideways, tipping herself and the chair over. Kicking the chair away, she extricated her arms from around the back. Partially free. With a bit of contorting, she tucked her legs up and pulled her arms under them, so her hands were now bound in front. She ripped the duct tape off her mouth and took several deep, heaving breaths. She could breathe again. She’d thought she was going to faint.

Lying on her back, she stared up at the roof, at Paulson’s doomsday device. The thing glowed white-hot, searing her eyes as the rest of the room’s lights flickered. No cord to unplug, no way to shut down the power. No way to get up there and break it. No way to throw herself on that grenade. She couldn’t fly, she couldn’t send a lightning bolt to destroy it.

Maybe she could audit it to death.

Then again maybe, just maybe, she could limit the danger. Contain it. Save something. Hope Mark put the pieces together and brought his father to justice. What a mess. And how terrible that she had time to think about it. To consider. To decide.

Her life had brought her to this moment. She had practiced for it. She didn’t hesitate.

Hands still bound, tucked to her chest, she ran to the knife switch that controlled the platform. With her luck, the power to it would be fried, sucked into the radiation emitter. Maybe it was on a different circuit.

How much time did she have? Minutes, seconds—

Holding her breath, forgetting to inhale, she reached the wall, crashing into it because she hadn’t thought to slow down—it would take too long, slowing down. She grabbed the switch with both hands, got under it, shoved it up.

Another spark flashed, a hiss like the circuit was failing—then gears creaked. The platform mechanism groaned to life. Slowly, the device sank below the roof, and the steel roof panel slid closed. The device, now enclosed inside the metal and concrete warehouse, glowed like a sun.

Next, she went to the computers. She’d fight it; right to the last moment when she didn’t have any time left, she’d try to stop it. Because if the radiation could penetrate walls, she hadn’t saved anything. At random, she toggled switches, hit keys, pulled cords.

The emitter’s noise changed, the whine rising in pitch. The light faded to orange—the color of something overheating, not the color of deadly energy. A shower of sparks flew, raining down on her like burning snow.

She laughed. She didn’t know if what she’d done would help anything. But she’d done something. Maybe it had helped. She’d tried, and that had to count for something. So she laughed, because the weight of something she couldn’t quite identify lifted from her. Elation made her lighter than air.

This was what her parents felt every time they saved the city, every time they battled evil and won. It was a high, addictive, they couldn’t stop. Something like that thrill she got when she found a lost piece of data, but so much more. Infinitely greater. As big as the world. Superhuman.

“Celia!”

Captain Olympus stood in the doorway that led to the loading dock. His fists were clenched, arms bent in his fighting pose.

“Dad!”

He ran to her. He wasn’t fast, not like the Bullet. He seemed to take forever to cross the distance. She wanted to meet him halfway, but her legs had turned to butter. She was melting in place. The room was getting hotter.

Then, he was right in front of her. He ripped the tape off her hands, gripped her shoulders, so full of intensity she could barely look at him.

“We have to get out of here, the thing’s going to blow up, Paulson said it’s radiation, going to kill everyone. I tried to stop it—”

“Shh, Celia, it’s okay, you did okay.”

The ambient noise shaking the room—electrical, mechanical, vibrational, pervasive—increased in pitch again, sliding upward in anticipation.

There wasn’t time to do anything.

“Get down!” Her father pulled her to the floor, hunched over her, gripped her in a rib-crushing embrace. She curled up like a little child, fetal, as small as she could make herself, huddled in the shelter of his body.

A boom rocked the building, the steel girders, sheet metal, and concrete. The pulse lasted only a second, but the vibrations continued. The trembling of the floor traveled to the marrow of her bones. The sound, like an electric shock, but larger, slower, lingered in her ears. Her whole body shook.

The air smelled of ozone. Of burning.

A weight pressed down on her, like something had fallen on her. She was hurt, all her skin tingling—part of what was burning. Pushing up, she struggled to get out from under what trapped her.