Shades of Gray - By Jackie Kessler & Caitlin Kittredge Page 0,33

for you and the citizens of the Americas more times than I can count. And all you do is criticize and complain.”

The woman’s face purpled with righteous fury. “We don’t want you! Go back to the labs you came from, you filthy Shadow freak!”

filthy filthy

“I take it back,” Jet said, talking over the Shadow voices. “You don’t just complain. You stir up the good citizens of New Chicago and get them to spew your hatred. At least my colleagues and I are trying to help everyone, human and extrahuman alike. How are you and Everyman helping? How many times have you saved the world?”

The cameras whirred. Peripherally, Jet saw a teenage girl tentatively approach, then get shoved out of the way by a furious Everyman whose face was so flushed Jet thought he might have a heart attack.

In her smart yellow unisuit, the woman spluttered, “You … you … How dare you!”

“I dare a lot,” Jet said. “Comes with the costume. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to try to help save your headquarters.”

She turned her back on the woman in yellow and allowed herself a small smile. If she were thinking clearly, she probably would have been horrified by how she’d just dressed down a citizen—even an Everyman—and on camera, no less.

But damn it all if it hadn’t felt good.

The crowd had started up again with a rousing chorus of “Freak,” but the insult slid off Jet. After all, it was just a word.

She approached a group of firefighters, shouted out to them, asking if she could be of assistance. One of the men—a captain, based on the bugles on his helmet—snarled at her to get back. When she tried to argue, he spat, “No, you can’t freaking help. Let me do my job.”

Jet glanced at the scattered police officers by the temporary barricades. A couple of them were glaring, their hatred searing her. The onlookers nearest them were screaming obscenities at her, about her, calling her filthy names. And the woman in yellow, the Everyman regional chairwoman, smiled nastily at Jet’s dismissal.

“See that?” the woman said. “You’re not wanted.”

wants wants little Shadow wants to squeeze you crush you

Shut up, Jet thought, which made the voices giggle all the harder.

Gleeful, the woman added, “Go save the world somewhere else.”

save her hold her make her scream

Over the whispering voices in her head, Jet heard a girl’s voice call out: “Jet, wait!”

The teenage girl who’d tried to approach earlier ran up to Jet. She shoved something tiny into Jet’s hand and whispered, “Oh cipio.” Then she punched Jet in the mouth.

“Yeah, freak!” she shouted. “Go save the world somewhere else!”

The crowd roared its approval.

Jet clenched her fist around the object and ignored how her jaw throbbed. She frowned at the girl, whose desperate eyes belied her violent pose, then Jet turned to the Everyman regional chairwoman. “You may want to invest in some air filters,” Jet said curtly. “Your headquarters will reek from the smoke. And other odors.” She summoned a floater and took off before the woman could reply. Once in the air, she saw that the object the girl had slipped her was a key. She blinked, then tucked the key into one of her belt pouches. She was too angry, and too exhausted, to think about keys and whispered phrases.

It occurred to Jet, as she soared around the blaze, that she hadn’t asked the fireman how many people had been injured or killed, or if anyone was still inside the building. Jet was horrified.

The voices giggled again.

She pulled up her goggles and rubbed her eyes. Light, she was tired. Obviously, she wasn’t thinking straight. Allowing her Shadowmask to fade, Jet decided to go back to headquarters, curl up on a cot for a few hours. She needed some sleep. She …

… saw something gleaming on a rooftop below her.

Frowning, she pushed her optiframes back over her eyes and squinted, which kicked in the automatic zoom on her lenses. There on the rooftop not even five blocks from the fire was a naked woman.

Huh. You don’t see that every day in New Chicago.

A closer zoom revealed that the woman wasn’t nude, but rather her skinsuit was flesh-toned, leaving almost nothing to the imagination. White hair wrapped in metallic hair toys stood out in short spikes on her head. A white belt caressed her hips. She was staring in the direction of the fire, absently tossing something the size of an apple up and down … and doing something