Atomic Rebooted

20. Hypothetical

MIRA

It was important to support local businesses—so of course we'd been given some cash and the chance to pay people like the local hot dog vendor for some food. After all, we were just waiting for the crime to happen..

So Ryder purchased hot dogs for the whole team and we went to the top of one of the banking building skyscrapers to eat them.

It was peaceful, up on one of the taller buildings in the area, looking down at the city people and cars on their way. The monorail was back in action and zipping around the city, as if it could somehow make up the time lost.

This felt like the most natural position for us, to be sitting high above the city and watching over them.

"We should do this more often," I said, mostly just to break the silence. "Better view from here."

"I do prefer this to the streets," Aleister agreed between hot dog bites. "It's quiet here."

"If only we could see Verity." Sage craned her neck out—but the people below were too small to really be identified.

Ryder said nothing, but he wasn't eating, either.

I'd noticed how he kept dumping some of his portions back at the base in the trash, how quiet he was. Some days, he hardly spoke a word to us, beyond the usual protocols.

"Do you think she's still out there?" I asked.

"Unfortunately." There was a dark look in his eyes. "The fact that we haven't heard from her yet, however. . . It's not good."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I tilted my heard, trying to decipher his expression. But the mask wasn't exactly helping with that. He just sat there, stoic and stony-faced.

"Dr. Banning thinks it's very likely she's joined up with Heretic." Ryder spoke so softly, Aleister and Sage had to lean closer in order to hear him.

I understood the discretion, though. One never knew who might be listening. It wouldn't be good for our parent company if it got out that one of our own had run away, and to join with villains, no less!

I still frowned, though. "Just because of that search?"

"And on rewatching the footage—Heretic got to her." Ryder looked down at his hot dog. "It's the only thing that makes sense. Why else would she run away?"

I shook my head. "You're wrong."

He met my eyes. "Mira."

"No, I refuse to believe it, she was raised a hero, just like the rest of us." I looked out to the city, our city that we'd been entrusted with and trained to protect. "She's our friend, our sister, Ryder. She wouldn't. She couldn't— that would mean that any of us. . .."

I stopped. That was a frightening thought. That if the girl who trained endlessly, who cared so much about her people, if she could join the villains after one conversation—what hope did the rest of us have?

Maybe that's why all the independent heroes become the villains.

It was one thing to be told all your life about the evil that existed in the world. It was another to finally come face to face with it.

But there was something still incomprehensible about it.

Why would Verity want to help Heretic destroy the city? Why would she leave what she'd trained her whole life for?

Why did no one care that she might be in trouble?

"You're wrong about her," I declared, standing up. "And she'll come back to us, with an explanation for all of this. And you and Dr. Banning will have been wrong about her."

Ryder smiled sadly. "I wish you were right, Mira. But I'm not holding out hope."

He looked down at his hot dog again, and offered it to me. "We need our speedster ready to go—and I don't think I have the stomach for this. Mind finishing it off?"

My stomach lurched at the change in the subject, casual as anything.

But I accepted it all the same. After all, I did have to be pragmatic. My powers would take a lot of energy, and I needed to pay that energy back.

And besides, what was there to do, but change the subject so casually?

We were soldiers for New Kingsbury, the warriors of a new generation.

We were supposed to be the city's guardians, an infallible generation in the wake of tragedies and traitors in the fallout of the war against Dark Titan.

But maybe we weren't so fallible after all.

That was what the other Sentinels whispered about us, when they passed us by in the Atomic Energy compound or in the streets of New Kingsbury.

That we were weak, we were cowards.

That we would just fall into the open, waiting arms of the dark side.

That we were just time bombs, waiting to go off.

That we were supervillains, just waiting to happen.

After all, everyone knew we were failures. They laughed at us and smirked condescendingly whenever they saw us before.

What better motive, then, to go rogue? To reject everything?

There was still one other possibility that nobody seemed to be considering.

"What if she's in trouble?" I asked softly. "We don't know why she left, but what if, whatever the reason, she's hurt somewhere, or being held captive, or—"

My stomach lurched again.

Verity could have been dead in an alley somewhere, and we could never know.

And we could have all continued believing our worst fears about her.

I forced the rest of the hot dog down as I considered our city in the light of noon.

Atomic Energy had worked so hard, sponsoring local contractors and architects and tech specialists to remake the city as something bigger, better, and more beautiful than before.

After all, if we had to relocate, why shouldn't we have done so in a better place?

This city was supposed to be a better future, that shining city on a hill, as all of the old Puritan speeches go.

But looking upon it, with all of the ordinary people going through their motions, I realized nothing had really changed.

Sure, I wasn't alive to see what things were like in Old Kingsbury in 1979.

But this wasn't some utopian future where everything was perfect. We still had crime,had problems—some problems that could only come from the nuclear accident, from the rise of superheroes and supervillains.

The Sentinels were supposed to be like the city, a better class of superhero.

But we really weren't all that different, I realized.

We were still vulnerable, physically and mentally, to the machinations of villains.

I pictured that fight with Heretic in my brain. What could I have said, to keep her from poisoning Verity? From putting doubt into her mind?

And what could I do now, to stop her and to get my friend back?

And would Verity even come back, if we ever found her?

Ryder and the others stood back up.

"Well, that's enough of a break for now." He gave off a cheerful smile, as if nothing had happened. "We need to keep patrolling the streets and keep an eye out for crimes. After all, we have a duty to fulfill."

I lingered, ironically was the last to leave that rooftop. I couldn't help bu look out at my city one last time and make a promise.

I'll find and save you, Verity, no matter what.