Shades of Gray - By Jackie Kessler & Caitlin Kittredge Page 0,66
She didn’t feel its cold touch as it seeped beneath her skin—she was too busy taking stock of the situation streetside. The creatures, cheated of their prey, were attacking one another. Maybe they’d catch a break and they’d all beat themselves senseless …
“You’re the cavalry?” Iri barked out a laugh. “And here I thought they’d be sending the entire Mod Squad.”
“We did,” Jet murmured, silently counting the monsters far below. Thirteen. Light, thirteen of those … things. “The others are on their way.”
“Great. Get Firebug to charbroil them,” Iri said, shaking out her hands and wincing.
“Can’t do that,” Jet said, tapping her comlink. “They’re civilians.”
“Those are civvies?” Behind his black mask, Taser’s mouth pulled into a surprised O. “Remind me never to egg their houses on Halloween …”
Jet tuned him out. “Jet, Ops.”
Meteorite’s voice in her ear: “Oh good, you’re not dead.”
“Iridium, Taser, and I are clear for the moment, but we have to restrain the mutants without harming them.”
“And you’ll do that how?”
“Working on it,” Jet said tersely. “ETA of the others?”
A pause, during which Iri and Taser exchanged heated words—and unless Jet was wrong, threw each other a few meaningful looks. If Jet had been less stressed, it would have bothered her more. Then Meteorite said, “Hornblower due to arrive in three minutes. Steele and Firebug are a little farther behind. And—”
“Wa-hoo!” Iri shouted. “Now the cavalry’s showing!”
Jet looked up to see Frostbite approaching fast on an expanding bridge of ice. But this wasn’t the man who’d been hollowed out in Therapy as a boy, then shoved behind a desk in Ops for years. This Frostbite, with his clean Ops gray unisuit and thick-soled boots and a wicked grin on his lined face, was a teenager again, his spiky blue hair gusting in the wind as he landed roofside.
This Frostbite was a hero.
“Look at you,” Iri said, rushing over to him and greeting him with a hug. “Getting all superhero on us.”
“Derek,” Jet said carefully, “are you sure you want to be here?” He’d been out of the field … well, since forever. The last mission he’d run had been during a Third Year exercise under strict Academy supervision.
But that didn’t mean he’d never been tested. Light knew, he’d been tested. And blooded. And he’d survived … at least, until the Therapists had taken him.
Frostbite disentangled himself from Iri’s embrace, shooting Jet a glare that should have made her hair catch fire. “From what I heard, you told Meteorite to pull everyone out, Joan. I’m part of everyone.” The look in his eye dared Jet to argue with him.
A smile flitted across her lips. “Welcome back, Frostbite.”
“Yeah, we’ll get cozy over a latte later. What’s the situation?”
“A rough dozen sewer mutants tried to eat me and Taser,” Iri said, pointing to the street below. “Now they’re bashing each other’s brains in.”
“Fabulous,” said Taser. “Problem solved. Who’s buying?”
“They’re not sewer mutants,” Jet said, casting Iridium a long look.
Iri blinked at her. “What? I’ve seen it on Mysterious Chicago.”
“They’re normals,” Jet stressed, looking at the others one by one.
“Those are the least normal normals I’ve ever seen,” Frostbite said, staring down at the street. “Moore’s sludge at work?”
“I’m positive,” Jet said.
“What sludge?” Iridium looked from Frostbite to Jet. “Who’s Moore? And don’t give me that ‘person of interest’ cowcrap, Jet,” she added when Jet opened her mouth.
“Hey, those quote-unquote normals almost crushed me,” Taser said. “I’m definitely a person of interest.”
Jet walked over to the edge of the roof and looked down. In the street, the monsters danced with fists and fury. At least the citizens here had abided by curfew. Small favors, Jet told herself again. “You remember when we met in the Rat Network?” Jet said, not looking back at Taser or Iri.
“You mean when you broke my nose?” Iri said sweetly.
“When I’d gone up against one of them.” Jet’s throat tightened, and she swallowed thickly, remembering the overwhelming stench of her own sweat and fear, her rising panic of the Dark and of the thing that had loomed over her, wearing a string of pearls and a look of pure madness. “That creature had been the reporter, Lynda Kidder. She’d been injected with a serum created by a man named Martin Moore.”
She remembered the sound of Lynda Kidder howling in rage as a blanket of Shadow covered her. Squeezed her.
Killed her.
“He’s working with Everyman, or a fringe group connected with Everyman. So was C—” Jet’s words ended on a choked gasp as a knife sliced through her