After the Golden Age

grow up a little, start to understand a little more of the world, and they realize their parents are just people. It destroys them, just a little bit. But it’s part of becoming an adult. Everyone goes through it. You, on the other hand—your parents really are heroes, at least to everyone else. It’s a bit remarkable, really. You never went through that disappointment of finding out your parents are just people.”

Except they were just people—she saw the side of them that no one else did, the bickering over supper and cooking pasta at the stove. She was the only one who understood that they were just people—that was where her frustration lay.

Arthur smiled his impenetrable smile.

Celia answered it with a wry grin of her own. “Are you psychoanalyzing me again?”

“Would I do such a thing?” He turned on his heel and left the room.

Mom arrived to check on her. Dad wasn’t there. He’d already left. Celia didn’t ask why. Mom would say “work,” and then Celia would have to ask what kind of work—West Corp work or the other work—and she didn’t really want to know. Suzanne offered her a ride home and Celia accepted because her mother had driven herself— her own car, not the limo, which was awfully conspicuous. She didn’t want anyone noticing her right now.

Mark was waiting in the corridor that led to the courthouse’s back door. He was leaning on the wall, arms crossed, shoulders hunched sullenly.

Something’s happened, Celia thought.

Straightening, he moved to the middle of the corridor, blocking their path, and stared at her.

“Hi, Mark.”

He didn’t say anything. Just glared hard at her, like he could peel back skin and see what was underneath, or become a telepath through sheer willpower. Yeah, something had happened, all right. And it was all centered on her.

“What’s wrong?” she said, unable to keep a neutral tone. Her muscles had clenched defensively.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice was tight, like he was holding back anger, keeping his temper in check. Like she was.

Suzanne remained a step behind Celia, watching.

“Tell you what?” she said, with willful ignorance.

“What you said in there. About you and the Destructor.” Like he could barely say the words.

She stared at him. “What exactly was I supposed to say?”

“You should have told me.”

“Why? I don’t tell anyone. Before now I could count on my hands the number of people who knew about it. It was a long time ago.” Mark was just standing there, seething. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “You’re angry,” Celia said, trying to prompt a response.

“Of course I am! This is like finding out you’re … you’re—” Evidently, he couldn’t think what it was like. “I mean, you’re with the Destructor—”

“Was,” Celia pointed out. “Was with him. Briefly.”

“That isn’t some petty shoplifting rap on a juvenile record. I—” He glanced at Suzanne and closed his mouth. “I’ll call you later.”

He shouldered past them, keeping space between himself and Celia as he did.

“Mark!” She called after him, mostly as a matter of form, even though she knew he wasn’t going to turn around. He had principles and he liked to stand by them.

She sighed tiredly.

Her mother put a hand on her shoulder. “He’ll come around,” she said. “He’s had a shock, that’s all. He’ll understand after he’s cooled off.”

“Are you sure you want him to come to dinner?”

Smiling wryly, Suzanne hooked her arm around Celia’s and guided her out to the car.

* * *

The Commerce Eye came out with a special evening edition: “Daughter of the Olympiad Turned Against Her Family!” it read in huge, decadent lettering. In a flash, in a sentence, the last eight years disappeared. Nothing good she’d done in her adult life mattered. How depressing.

After her mother dropped her off at her apartment, it started raining. Sheets of rain beat against the kitchen window. Across the street, the sky was throwing a lovely pink and orange sunset against the windows. But outside her windows, and only her windows, rain.

She opened the window in the living room, popped the screen out of the frame, and leaned out.

“Do you want to come in and talk, or are you just going to keep flinging water at me?” she shouted at the roof.

A moment later, a figure rappelled down the wall. In seconds, Typhoon reached the window and slipped inside. Celia closed the window behind her.

She was in costume, dripping water on the carpet. The rain kept on outside, an echo of the dour mood Typhoon projected with her frown. She pulled off the mask, and it was Analise, glaring at her as if Celia had just kicked her dog.

“Is it true?”

Celia rolled her eyes. “If I were going to lie under oath, do you think it would be about that? Yes, it’s true.”

Analise’s face puckered, and the bottom dropped from Celia’s stomach. My God—she’s going to cry.

Sure enough, her voice cracked. “How—how could you?”

Why could no one understand this? Couldn’t anyone see the despair she’d felt at the time? The utter hopelessness, the utter failure she’d been at making anything of herself. That was it exactly, in a way Celia had never looked at before—she’d been trying to see just how bad it could really get, when she joined the Destructor.

When she didn’t say anything, Analise continued. “How could you do it? Look at who your parents are: Captain Olympus and Spark! You had that legacy, a birthright that some of us would kill for, and you spat on it!”

“I didn’t have a legacy,” Celia said quietly. “Put yourself in my shoes, Analise. Your parents are the greatest superhumans Commerce City has ever known, but you … you can’t even ride a bicycle straight. You can’t win a swim meet. You can’t fly, or read minds, or tell the future, or pyrokinetically manipulate pasta sauce. And your parents can’t hide their disappointment. Tell me: What do you do then?”

Analise stared back at her, and Celia could tell she didn’t understand, because her expression didn’t change. Didn’t soften. She didn’t look away, or let the tears fall. Instead, her mouth hardened. She’d looked at the poolside kidnappers that way.

“That’s no excuse. Not for siding with the Destructor.”

“Maybe if I’d been able to create tidal waves and make rain fall, it would have been different. I don’t know why I didn’t inherit any of my parents’ powers. I don’t know why I turned out so … so—” Dull. Boring. Badly. “I was a stupid teenager. Please tell me you’re not going to judge me based on that.”

Crossing her arms, a wound-up bundle of nerves, Analise started pacing. Celia wondered if she should get her a towel, so she’d stop soaking the carpet.

Analise said, “What else can I do? I’m seeing you in a whole new light. You have that, that evil in you—”

“Oh please—”

“And you threw it in your parents’ faces!”

“Can we leave them out of it?”

“You don’t understand what they mean to the rest of us. Look, I’m sorry you don’t have any powers. I can’t explain it. Hell, I don’t know why I can do what I can do. I have normal parents, and when I discovered my … my talent, I thought it was the end of the world. I thought I’d get locked away like some lunatic, or turn into a psycho vigilante like Barry Quinn. But there was something else—I wanted to make it something good. Your parents showed me how to do that. They let me think of this, not as something that happened to me, but as something I could use. As a gift. Without them, I don’t know where I’d be.”

“Well, you see where I am with them.”