Shades of Gray - By Jackie Kessler & Caitlin Kittredge Page 0,6

hair falling into his eyes. He looked like the type who should be sitting in front of a VR rig somewhere, playing an elf or an errant knight.

“Holy crap!” he exclaimed. “I mean, it’s really you! Iridium!” He grabbed another handful of digichips and shoved them into a duffel bag from the New Chicago Hobby Emporium. “I’m Blockbuster,” he said, puffing out his chest. “I have superstrength.”

“Be still my heart.” Iridium pointed at the bag. “Set it down and get on home to your mummy, child. I don’t have time for you.”

“But we’re doing it!” Blockbuster cried. “We’re taking the city apart, just like you wanted.”

Iridium looked back out the doorway, at the skyline. It was painted with flame, like a crown marching across the horizon. “Who said this was what I wanted?”

“But …” Blockbuster’s face crumpled. “But I don’t have anybody! I’m a felon now. I can’t go back to the way things were … Corp is still out there and they’ll throw my ass in jail!”

Iridium sighed. “Look, kid, I don’t have answers for every sad superbrat in this town. I suggest you go home and move on.”

Blockbuster flushed, his jowly little face quivering. “I don’t have a home!” he bellowed, grabbing more of the E’s. “I’m an orphan, just like you!”

“Take it easy,” Iridium warned. “You’re not in the bush league anymore. Wreck City is mine. I can’t have you tearing around like a chubby little tornado.”

Blockbuster let out a snarl. It would have been comical, except he reached out and pushed her. Iridium felt herself lift and go back, crashing through the front counter and skidding to a stop in the lobby.

“Fine,” she told the ceiling. “I tried.”

Blockbuster leapt the broken counter, drawing back a pudgy fist as he landed on top of her. Iridium strobed him, hard, in the face. Blockbuster repeated her flight, in the opposite direction.

“You know what your problem is?” Iridium stood up and dusted herself off. “You kids today have no sense of history.” She picked up the duffel bag and emptied it back into the safe, pocketing a few thousand E’s for her trouble.

On the floor, Blockbuster let out a groan. He flopped a little, but a strobe in the face was a lot like a baseball bat. It made you reconsider turning to crime—or getting up again.

“Hey, you chose to play the villain,” Iridium told him. “If you want to roll in the big leagues, this isn’t anything. Wait until you meet a real hero.”

“I thought you understood,” Blockbuster whined. “I thought you were like me.”

Iridium kicked the door aside and looked back at his hunched, miserable figure. “I’m not a villain, and I’m not a hero. You want to worship somebody, go to church.” She shoved the packet of E’s into her belt and pointed at Blockbuster. “Come to Wreck City again, and you’ll be wearing my name across your forehead. As a third-degree burn.”

As she left, Iridium threw a salute to Damien and his horned pals skulking in the shadows. Alone, she walked on toward her warehouse. As she approached, she let out a sigh. Iridium, once Public Enemy Number 1, now reduced to a superpower hall monitor for the scum of New Chicago.

Yeah. The reality definitely sucked.

CHAPTER 3

JET

Certain powers, like Earth, have taken to the conditioning better than others. Some powers, notably Light, have proven unpredictable.

—From the journal of Martin Moore, entry #74

Hey, Were,” Jet said, nonchalant, her fists by her sides. She’d never worked with White Hot, but Jet and the shapeshifter went way back. What was more, Jet knew him—how he reacted, how he fought, what pushed him over the edge from man to animal. If he thought Jet was going to fight, he’d attack first. And if he thought Jet was acting weak, he’d attack first.

The trick, then, was to hold her ground with confidence, and never mind how exhausted she was from playing hero for two days without a break. Duty first, she thought sourly. Always. The Corp edict still held true, even if Corp itself had proven to be worse than any enemy the Squadron had ever faced.

“Babe,” Were said, his voice a thick growl—damn, he was already halfway gone—“I didn’t see you there.”

She smiled. “What, under all the rubble? Imagine that.”

“Jet,” Meteorite hissed in her ear. “Were’s stats are off the board. He’s got less impulse control at the moment than a sugared-up two-year-old.”

Without moving her lips, Jet whispered: “No kidding.”

“Why are you wasting time talking to her?” That was