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.
Her father fell over.
He was burned. The invincible Captain Olympus had lost most of the hair on the back of his head. The scalp underneath was blistered. Most of his uniform had melted away. Strands of it melded into blackened skin.
Around her, the whole room was black, scorched. The platform, which had sunk halfway to the floor, had disappeared. The struts that had held it swung, flames trailing up their length. The device itself had fallen to the floor, and was now melted to an unrecognizable lump. The computers and equipment were smashed and burning, weak yellow flames licking and spitting from crumpled plastic and steel. The walls were scorched, the floor was black with soot—except for a circle around her, a body-size shape where she had been sheltered by her father. The fire had only reached her extremities: the bottom half of her jeans were blackened and torn, the skin underneath red and tender; her arms had also burned to a cooked lobster shade; her hair had singed. She was hurt, but she was alive, and she could move.
Her father wasn’t moving.
“Dad,” she whispered.
Wincing, he shifted, a flinch moving through his arm. His face was intact, the whole front of his body looked unhurt. But how deep inside him did the damage reach? She started to roll him over, but he cried out. She couldn’t touch him without hurting him.
“Daddy, what do I do? I don’t know what to do.”
He opened his eyes, reached for her, found her hand by touch. Squeezed it hard, but not as hard as he was capable of. Not Captain Olympus hard. Could he see? Was he even seeing at her?
He whispered, “You’re safe—”
He died with his eyes open, looking at her.
She pulled his limp body onto her lap, cradled him as if it would help, as if it would comfort him somehow. As if it would comfort her. But it didn’t, because the skin on his shoulders came off in her hands.
Captain Olympus hadn’t died saving Commerce City, as he’d always vowed to do, as everyone thought he might. He’d died saving her. Just her.
Twenty-three years ago:
“Suzanne, that’s not normal, is it? A two-year-old shouldn’t be able to lift that much weight.”
The weight in question was an oversize pillow from the sofa. The lifting was nominal at best. Celia had managed to stand the thing upright and was valiantly maneuvering it so she could leverage it over her head, for some arcane toddler purpose. She’d get it off the ground an inch before the weight overbalanced and the whole thing slid out of her hands. Determinedly, she bent over and tried again.
Suzanne stood in the doorway to the kitchen, drying a plate. “Actually, I think that’s pretty normal.”
“Look at that,” Warren said. “Persistence.
“Yes, it is.”
“Celia!” Celia looked at her father and grinned at the wide-eyed hopeful expression he wore. “Come here, Celia. Come on!” She ran to where he sat a few feet away—jerky, toddler running steps—and jumped at him. Laughing, he caught her. “You’re going to be a runner, aren’t you? Fastest girl in Commerce City.”
“Warren, her powers might not manifest until she’s a teenager, like it did with me. Ten more years at least.”
He was tickling Celia now, and she was squealing happily. “I know, I just can’t
She rolled her eyes. “So help me God if you throw her off the roof to see if she can fly, I’ll
“I wouldn’t do that.”
She smirked at him like she had her doubts.
Celia squirmed and laughed, oblivious.
She was still on the floor, holding her father half sprawled on her lap, pietà-like, when the others arrived. She heard footsteps echo, then more footsteps—too many. She looked up, through squinting eyes. The rest of the Olympiad was there. Robbie, Arthur, her mother.
She ought to say something. They’d expect her to say something. She opened her mouth, intending to apologize. She choked on a sob instead. Tears fell.
“Oh, Celia.” That was Arthur, because of course he took one look at her, took one glimpse inside of her, and saw it all.
Robbie touched Suzanne’s arm, but she moved away from him, stepping toward her husband and daughter. Maybe she’d been expecting this moment for a long time. Maybe she’d never believed it would happen. Celia didn’t know, and she’d never ask.
Suzanne knelt by Warren’s body, touched his chest, looked on him with such tenderness that Celia held her breath. This will kill her mother. She’d watch her mother die in front of her as well.
Suzanne looked at her and smiled. She cupped Celia’s cheek in her hand, leaned forward, and kissed the top
