When the soldier came back to take his position next to the line, his face was pale, his features slightly pinched.
“What’s going on?”
He glanced at me, then back at the older man who was clearly his superior officer, and finally shrugged. “It looks like our neighbor to the south got wind that our Capes would be occupied today. His forces are attacking across the border. The Thunderbirds and Red Flight are already in the field, but they’ve put out a call for reinforcements.”
“What about them?” I nodded to another handful of Capes now speeding off in the opposite direction.
“That wildfire up north just jumped the fire break. North Star needs help with evacuations.” He scowled, unconsciously stroking the butt of his assault rifle. “Of all the days for everything to go wrong.”
“Are we in danger?” That was the man who was here to see his son. He looked one or two revelations away from total panic.
“No, sir, we’re going to be just fine.” The soldier flashed a reassuring smile down the line. “In addition to the Hole’s own guards, you have the finest of the 184th Regiment’s First Battalion protecting you folks. We’ve also still got plenty of Cape firepower here, on loan from the Emerald Legion and Stormwatch.”
That got my attention. The Emerald Legion wasn’t in the same league as North Star or the Defenders, but they were still a big name. Stormwatch was a smaller operation, but it was my favorite Cape team in the entire Free States, for one reason and one reason only.
I scanned the skies above for almost a minute before I saw her.
Tempest.
Almost every straight man in the Free States—and at least half the gay women—had a crush on Aspen, but Tempest had been my favorite from the moment I hit puberty. And there she was, as long-limbed and beautiful as she’d been in that very first vid, simply clad in the sleeveless top and leggings she’d chosen for her costume. She was too far up for me to see the golden ribbons tied into her dark hair, but I knew they were there, could picture them streaming out behind her as she brought down lightning on her enemies.
Even if Winter lived to be a thousand and turned out to be a Full-Five in disguise, she’d never be half the Weather Witch that Tempest was.
I shook my head. My first time in Tempest’s presence, the only time I’d ever be, and I was there to break the law she’d fought for more than a decade to uphold. In a better world, maybe we’d have ended up as teammates. In a perfect world, there wouldn’t have been a need for teams at all, or Capes, or even soldiers.
But I didn’t break the world. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to survive it.
I took one last look at the Cape soaring high above us, then followed the line of people into the Hole.
•—•—•
We filed past another large scanner, then between sets of armed and armored checkpoints whose bristling gun mounts covered both the exterior door and the elevator at the far side of the room. Sandwiched between those checkpoints were the surface-level dampeners, enormous machines that dwarfed even those at the Academy gates. I wasn’t sure if the size discrepancy suggested an increase in power output or if the Hole simply used an older model, but Mom’s ghost faded before we’d gotten within twenty feet of the machines.
The line snaked back and forth, ending at another set of checkpoints and the massive titanium-alloy elevator door. Standing by that door was a thin, older man in a uniform of all-black. He wore the same insignia—a circle of red around a smaller black circle—that I’d seen on the other Hole guards.
As we came to a stop, his voice rang out, sharp and quick like the crack of a whip. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Hole. I am William Maroney, the warden of this facility. Before we get to the reason you are all here today, there are some ground rules we need to go over.” He paced in front of the line, arms clasped behind his back, looking for all the world like a character from a vid. “You will obey myself and my guards at all times. Each of you will be permitted only the time allotted to meet with your inmate. When that time is up, you will promptly leave the meeting room to return groundside for future instructions.”
“You will not touch the prisoners,” he continued. “Nor will you give them anything, no matter how innocuous that item may be. Any attempt to do so will result in the confiscation of that item and the removal of the inmate in question.”
He scanned the crowd, eyes hard as nails. “Failure to follow these rules will, at best, result in your immediate ejection from these premises. At worst, you could face federal charges of your own. My guards and I are here for your protection, but our primary duty is to see that our prisoners remain incarcerated. I strongly suggest that you do not test our commitment to that duty. Are there any questions?”
Amazingly, there were none, although the tired-eyed woman from my shuttle car had a coughing fit that still managed to delay the proceedings.
“Very well,” said Warden Maroney. “With that out of the way, let me explain how this is going to work. You will be rotated down in groups of twenty to a room we’ve converted for visitations. Each of you will be assigned a table in that room, and you will sit at your table with your hands in plain sight for the duration of your visit. Once your group is in place, we will bring your relations up from the cell blocks, and you will be given thirty minutes to converse with them. If you
