Hero Stalker

Part Thirty-Nine

I looked at the carpet. The trail of scorch marks under my feet told me someone had activated a jetpack. "Do we have any radar over the city?" I asked over the radio.

"We do," Femme said. The engine of her jet roared in the background. "Unfortunately, it has trouble distinguishing a flying supervillain from Peregrine. Do you believe this was a Harpy attack?"

"Similar MO."

"Look for clues. Do not leave the crime scene until I arrive. Do not talk to the press. Wait."

"Wait? There's a dead guy across the street." A guy I'd been talking to fifteen minutes ago, who'd been flirting with his date and laughing with his friends . . .

"Wait. That's an order. We'll never run out of villains."

The door to the conference room burst open. Dan ran in, gun in hand, his eyes blazing. I'd forgotten about the locker on his truck.

"You!" he shouted, raising the gun at me. His un-tucked tuxedo jacket and the badge around his neck flapped in the wind. "How'd you get here so fast? What did you see? What did you do?"

I realized he was staring at my blades and retracted them, raising my hands in the air. Dan met my eyes, and I couldn't find a hint of recognition there. I knew I should say something—secret identity or no, this was dangerous—but then six other cops burst into the room and the chance was gone.

They swarmed all through the room with their guns out, checking every nook and cranny for the shooter. I tried telling them that a man in a robot suit wouldn't hide in a coat closet, but they checked anyway. Two of them took photos of the table and gun while others ran out to check the rest of the floor. Dan leant back against the wall, panting. He didn't take his eyes off me.

"Did you see anyone, Shadowcat, ah, ma'am?" one of the cops asked me. His badge read Emergency Response, not Psi-Crime Division, so he couldn't have had much experience dealing with Centurions. "Anyone suspicious?"

"You mean, like the shooter? No, I'm sorry. I think he flew away."

"Flew. Of course." He didn't look happy jotting that down.

Static burst in my ear. "I'm having Cypher scan the radar. Peregrine's bringing the psi-meter to scan the scene," Femme said. "The jet is on the roof. Meet me in the stairwell."

"See you there," I said, and turned for the door.

"Where are you going?" Dan yelled as I headed for the door. "You just said he flew away. You have to go after him!"

"You want me to go after him?" I could hear my mother whispering be polite in my ear, but I deserved an apology, and at least one of the white people in my life was going to treat me with respect. "A second ago, you were pointing your gun at me!"

He flinched and stepped back. "My . . . my apologies, ma'am. I just saw a friend of mine get shot from that room, and I wasn't thinking—"

"Think next time. You could shoot an innocent person." I held out my hands. "I'm wearing a Centurion uniform. That makes me one of the good guys." Or at least, one of the guys who was better than Harpy.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. You're right. It's no excuse for sloppy police work." He paused, watching me, waiting. I was glad he wasn't too prideful to apologize in front of his co-workers. But did he really mean what he was saying, or did he just want me to go after Harpy?

This could wait for now. Harpy could be searching out another target as we spoke. "I need to talk to my captain," I said, and dashed for the stairs.

Even the stairwell of RandolphTower looked like an interior designer had gone over it, with reflective black wall tiles and glowing cast-iron sconces. The light turned Femme's lipstick a warm crimson as she reapplied it, using the tiles as a mirror.

"You're here." She popped the lipstick back into her utility belt, between a set of knock-out needles and a smoke grenade. "Let's go." Briskly, she began walking down the steps. I followed her at normal speed. My cape and her long dark curls billowed out behind us.

"The streets are crawling with reporters," Femme explained as we went. "We need to get our story straight. Cypher told me rumors that Harpy was behind the shooting are spreading across Twitter."

"I'm sure Harpy did this," I said. "He left a note saying 'You Care When It Happens Here'. Same red paint as when he killed those poor homeless people."

"I'd sooner take on a dozen mad scientists than one of these revolutionary types. Bastards have a way of getting under your skin." She sighed. "They go into poor neighborhoods. Start pointing out how unfair the world is. Promise people things would be better if they ran the world. By the time their henchmen realize how crazy their boss is, they're in too deep to get out. Men like Harpy want to show us that, no matter how bad they are, society is worse. Just keep reminding yourself that he's a psychopath, please."

I didn't need reminders. I'd seen him face-to-face. "What do you need me to do?"

"Keep calm for the cameras. The last thing we need is a public panic."

Cameras? I gulped. But people had a right to know a madman was on the loose. "Maybe I should just go chase him. I don't think I'll be much help with the press. And all I'd do would be telling people to lock their doors and keep their eyes open for a man in a robot suit."

"Wrong. First of all, you're staying here because you can't track a jetpack by foot. Cypher will feed the radar results to Peregrine. She'll take the pursuit after she's acquired the psi-meter results. Slasher's out checking his informants. And second, we're not telling people Harpy did this. We need to convince them they're safe."

Even inside RandolphTower, I could still hear the sirens on the street. An ever-increasing hum of voices grew as we approached the first floor. "Are you asking me to go out there and lie?"

"Ever heard of the supervillain Halftime? In 1979?"

Of course I had. "He had the power to control time. Robbed six different banks before Fire Falcon trapped him in a sensory-deprivation chamber. Sentenced to twenty years in prison." Come to think of it, I couldn't remember him ever being released.

"Fire Falcon's biggest achievement, aside from being the first Centurion to die from AIDS and teaching Bayton it wasn't just a gay disease." Femme snorted. "Halftime terrified everyone. Especially after he aged a bank teller thirty years during a robbery. The manhunt shut down the city for a month. It took six years and Dark Justice for crime to fall and tourism to pick back up. Thousands of people lost their jobs. We lost millions in tax revenue and the city closed five homeless shelters to cope with the deficit. We have a duty to protect this city, Shadowcat. That includes protecting it from itself."