Shades of Gray - By Jackie Kessler & Caitlin Kittredge Page 0,36
from plunging seventy feet to the ground.
“You ain’t what?” Iridium said pleasantly.
“You can’t …” Bombshell panted, clawing at her hand. “You can’t …”
“I can,” Iridium said, and pitched her voice down. Her Lester voice. Her villain voice. “And I will.”
“Martin Moore!” The name echoed off the right-field wall of the park. “Martin Moore paid me! Let me up, you fucking crazy bitch! I just did what he paid me to do!”
“Iri,” Jet said, and there was pleading in her voice now.
Iridium held steady, her arm screaming but her face still as she let Bombshell twist in the wind. Literally.
“Iri,” Jet said again. “Don’t kill her.”
Iridium let another second tick by, then she hauled Bombshell back over the railing. “If I ever see your tacky little poser ass in my orbit again, I’ll end your criminal career and very probably your life.”
Bombshell just sobbed and shook, slumped against the last row of seats. Iridium jerked her thumb. “Get lost.”
Jet watched Bombshell run, then looked back at Iridium. “I suppose you think that’s funny.”
“Not really. She weighed a ton.”
Jet rolled her eyes. “You let a criminal go.”
“You want to go catch her? Be my guest.”
Jet sighed, closed her eyes. “Another time.” She sounded so tired.
Iridium massaged her shoulder. “Who’s Martin Moore?”
For a split second, Jet’s shoulders hunched and her cheeks flushed with what Iridium had to describe as shame. “He’s a person of interest. Thank you for the help,” she said brusquely.
Iridium could see the words grating out of her, shredding Jet’s pride. “Hell. What else am I good for except trading on my terrifying reputation?”
Jet bit her lip for a moment, then said, “Indeed.” She paused, then added, “Wrong Wrigley Field.”
Iridium blinked. “Sorry?”
Jet’s smile flickered, quick as clouds over sun. “The secret clubhouse. It’s in the original, not the domed version. Come on, I’ll take you there.”
It wasn’t much of a clubhouse—more like the dorm room of a computer-science student who was also a hermit. Iridium wrinkled her nose at the stale air.
“I’m back,” Jet called out. A plump woman Iridium vaguely recognized from a few years ahead of her at the Academy stuck her head out from behind a Dietrich Systems command console that had to have been lifted directly from the Academy. It was enormous, the hum of its processors overtaking the room.
“And with company, I see.”
Iridium threw a salute at the woman. “Weather Girl, right?”
“Meteorite.” The name came out colder than sleet on the back of Iridium’s neck.
“Right. Sorry.” She needed their help—she’d have to call them whatever silly names they’d come up with.
A door slid open and Frostbite stepped out with a heaping plate of nachos and a Coke. He dropped both when he saw her.
“Callie!”
He bounded over and wrapped his lanky arms around her, and Callie hugged him back. She didn’t have to pretend to get along with Frostbite, at least. “It’s good to see you,” she whispered. She’d stayed in touch with Derek after she’d escaped custody at the Academy, but they couldn’t meet often for obvious reasons.
“You too, Miss Firefly,” he whispered back. Derek was the only one besides her father who could call her that without getting a fist through the teeth or a strobe in the eyes.
Dad’s decision is why you’re here. Get to the point.
“Listen, Jet. Frostbite. Uh, Meteorite. I was hoping to talk to you …”
Her words were cut off by an obnoxious pinging from the console. Everyone snapped their attention to the computer.
She asked, “What’s wrong?”
“It’s a distress call,” Meteorite said. “I’m putting it on speakers.”
Frostbite grabbed a headset and slid into place next to Meteorite. “Triangulating location,” he said, his fingers flying.
Iridium tilted her head toward Jet. “This happen a lot?”
“More and more every day,” Jet said grimly.
“Firebug, Ops,” a strained voice shouted through a haze of static.
“Ops, Firebug,” Meteorite returned. “Go ahead.”
“He’s got her!” Firebug’s voice held real terror. “Doctor Hypnotic’s got Steele!”
Frostbite’s fingers stopped moving. “Oh, she did not just say that.”
“Hypnotic?” Jet ran over to the console. “The Doctor Hypnotic? He escaped?”
Iridium spread her hands. “Blackbird has a revolving door these days, even in the supermax wing. Wouldn’t you escape if you were Hypnotic?”
Jet slapped a switch on the comm. “Jet, Firebug. Say again.”
“Doctor Hypnotic has Steele!” The echoes against the mike made Iridium’s head throb.
“She’s in Looptown,” said Frostbite. “An abandoned apartment building. Fixing now …” His screen shrieked an error at him. “Shit! The building has tilithium walls. It’s messing with the imaging. I can’t get a fix on Steele.”