Crawling From the Wreckage Read online

  My heart turns to ice. “Daddy, I’m so sorry,” I say to my feet.

  “Yeah, well, sorry isn’t going to cut it,” Tonia says.

  “I am not talking to you,” I snap, a surge of anger temporarily smothering my shame and remorse. “You made your point, now back off and let me talk to my father. Alone.”

  Tonia looks past me to Dad. “Please,” he says. Tonia withdraws, and here I am, standing in the kitchen with a father who I unknowingly, unthinkingly destroyed, silence pressing down on us.

  “Daddy,” I say.

  “I just need to know one thing,” he says. “Are you done? Are you finally done with this insanity?”

  “No,” I say without pausing to think about my answer. “I’m not done with any of it — not with the Squad, not with the Vanguard, none of it.” His face hardens. “Daddy, I’m sorry, but this is my life now. It’s messed up and it’s weird and yes, it’s dangerous, but I can’t walk away from it.”

  “Can’t? Or won’t?”

  “Either. Both.”

  “Even knowing how much it hurts me? And your mother?”

  “You mean my mother who’s being a lot more accepting of this than you are?”

  “Oh, she is, is she? Did she happen to mention what a train wreck she was after you ran off to play spacegirl? Did you ever stop for one second to think about how your decision would affect her, or me, or —”

  “No, Daddy, I didn’t,” I shoot back. “I didn’t think about it at all. I screwed up. That’s on me, I accept that, but all I can do is say I’m sorry.”

  “No, what you can do is put a stop to this stupid, reckless life you insist on —”

  I cut Dad off there. “No, you know what? I’m not having this debate with you again. If you can’t accept my life, as scary as it is, then I guess I’m going to have to learn to live with that too.”

  I turn on my heel and march toward the front door. Kelly remains oblivious to my presence.

  “Carrie, stop,” Dad says, chasing me all the way out to the driveway. He reaches for me. I pull away. He looks at me pleadingly, his anger gone.

  My anger’s gone, too. What I feel now is akin to mourning.

  “Daddy, if we haven’t figured this out by now, we never will,” I say — my grand exit line.

  An instant later, I’m hundreds of feet off the ground. I barely hear Dad call out my name.

  ***

  Mom is right where I left her: on the couch, drinking wine. “How’d it go with your father?” she asks, somewhat rhetorically. She can tell how it went; it’s all over my face.

  I join her on the couch. I sit there for a minute, staring off into space, and then say, “I want to ask you something, but I want you to answer me honestly.”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean I want one hundred percent, pure, undiluted, brutal honesty.”

  “I think I can handle that.”

  Deep breath, Carrie.

  “I’m not done with the Vanguard,” I begin. “I won’t be taking off unannounced again, but I will be going back out there — mostly to learn more about my powers and maybe help train new cadets, but some day the Vanguard might need me again, and if they call, I have to go.”

  “All right.”

  “And in the meantime, I plan to go back to the Squad.”

  “I expected as much.”

  “Are you okay with that?”

  “Honestly?”

  “Honestly.”

  Three long sips of wine later, Mom says, “I’m trying to be.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. I wasn’t for a long time — Sara will verify that — but the more I’ve learned about what you kids have done as the Hero Squad, the more I talk to people like Gwendolyn and Edison, the more I understand why you do what you do. I wouldn’t say I’m entirely comfortable with your choices, but I understand them.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “Just for trying to understand me, thank you.”

  “Brian still hasn’t come to terms with it, has he?”

  “No. And he doesn’t want to.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie.” Mom chuckles. “I know Briggs women have the reputation for being stubborn as mules, but the Hauser side isn’t that much better.”

  “I don’t know what to do, Mom. There’s this Grand Canyon-sized rift between us and I don’t know how to fix it. Dad won’t be happy until I quit but I can’t do that. I can’t.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, hon. Your father has to come around in his own way, in his own time.”

  My throat shrivels up so badly I can’t speak above a hoarse whisper. “What if he never comes around?”

  “He will,” Mom says with ironclad conviction. “You’re his little girl. He’ll come around.”

  I give Mom a weak smile. “I’m holding you to that.”

  Mom raises her glass in toast. “Let it never be said I passed on an opportunity to be an I-told-you-so.”

  ***

  Mom and I spend the evening catching up, but neither of us offers up anything too meaty — and, truth be told, she does most of the talking, and ninety percent of what she says is work related. She’s become quite the accomplished low-level corporate executive, and she absolutely loves working with Edison (a claim few people can make). Every once in a while, she tries to tease out of me a story about my time with the Vanguard, but that’s a lost cause, at least for the present. Everything is too raw, too fresh, like a wound that has yet to start scabbing over. Thankfully, she doesn’t push.

  Around ten, Mom goes to bed. I grab my laptop from my room and head back downstairs. My body is still on Kyros Prime time, with its ridiculous thirty-hour days, which means my sleep patterns will be a royal mess for a while, so I might as well take advantage of it and start catching up on the world.

  I turn on the TV for some background noise and, to begin my reacclimatization, read up on what’s become known as “the Great Unmasking,” the movement that began when Edison Bose very unexpectedly revealed his secret identity as Concorde at a Bose Industries holiday party. In the weeks that followed that catalytic event, a majority of the nation’s super-heroes dropped their secret identities, and for the most part, it’s been no big deal. If anything, it’s further normalized the existence of superhumans in society and enhanced the public’s trust in them.

  Now, that isn’t to say there hasn’t been some fallout, but it’s hit in some unexpected places. Several professional athletes have been banned from their sports after admitting to having super-powers that gave them an unfair edge, while the federal government is scrambling to establish screening protocols to identify psionics who work in government offices — particularly those who might have access to anyone carrying sensitive secrets around in their brains, which is sparking some heated debates over the Constitutionality of cataloging American citizens for any reason.

  This is all part of the latest developing chapter in the history of superhumans in the US. In the course of researching the Great Unmasking, I find a Time magazine article charting the superhuman community’s highs and lows over the past half-century or so, and I spend a good chunk of the night soaking it in. It’s fascinating stuff.

  So-called “mystery men” had been around for the better part of the Twentieth Century, but it wasn’t until the mid-Sixties when people with preternatural abilities began popping up on a regular basis. They were met with a mix of fascination and deep suspicion, and that’s how it was until the late Seventies, when the US and the then-Soviet Union entered into a different kind of arms race and did their best to entice known superhumans into military or government service.

  (Curiously, there’s no mention whatsoever of operations like Project Moreau, the black ops government project that created genetically engineered superhumans like Missy and Buzzkill Joy.)

  As the Cold War wound down, the Age of Super-Heroes kicked into high gear and costumed crimefighters became more commonplace. There was a token amount of fretting and harrumphing from politicians, who were
understandably wary of private citizens taking the law into their own hands, but all but the most ardent critics became supporters following what the media whimsically dubbed “the San Andreas Rumble.” Long story short, a super-villain named (I kid you not) Disaster Man tried to set off a doomsday device at the San Andreas Fault with the intent of triggering a catastrophic earthquake. He never got to test the theory thanks to the timely intervention of the Californians, one of the nation’s first formal super-teams. They saved hundreds of thousands of lives, turned super-heroes into a national phenomenon (the “Super-Boom” of the Nineties), and inspired politicians to enact Good Samaritan laws that allowed super-heroes to act as independent law-enforcement agents.

  Of course, there have been missteps along the way, and the public’s trust in super-heroes has waxed and waned following various triumphs and tragedies, but the Great Unmasking has boosted public confidence levels in the nation’s super-hero community to historic highs (according to an April Gallup poll).

  At least something good came out of my epic stupidity.

  I’m in the kitchen making a cup of tea when Sara returns home from her show. Wednesday, who I haven’t seen all night, trots along at her heels.

  “Hey, you,” I say. “How’d the show go?”

  “Another flawless performance,” Sara boasts. “How’s your night gone? Did you go visit your dad?”

  “I did.”

  “Uh-oh. What happened?” Sara asks. I tell her. “Oh, Carrie, I’m so sorry.”

  I shrug. “It’s out of my hands. Only thing to do now is put my daddy issues on the back burner and move on to the next challenge.”

  “One problem at a time,” Sara says, invoking Bart’s mantra.

  “Yep. Pretty much.”

  Sara stays up with me for a little while and regales me with stories from her shows. She practically performs every anecdote, changing voices and gesturing expansively. Every word, every motion has such life and energy.

  “What’re you grinning at?” she says.

  “You. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this happy.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy. Why wouldn’t I be? I have an amazing girlfriend who loves me, I have a great family, I have friends all over the place...”

  The mixed blessing of our psychic connection is that we can see past each other’s surface selves, whether we want to or not. I can feel the nagging fear lurking beneath her smile.

  “But?” I say, and she knows better than to respond evasively.

  “Sometimes I get scared I’ll lose everything,” she says. “Sometimes I feel like the universe is giving me all this joy just so it’ll hurt that much more when it’s all taken away. I tell myself I’m worrying over nothing...” She perks up slightly. “I can’t decide if that’s thantophobia or more like cherophobia.”

  “Ooh, listen to you, with your fancy words,” I tease. “Someone’s been hanging around Bart a lot.”

  “I have, actually. I pick his brain whenever I get a chance. Figure it’ll help me hit the ground running in my intro to psychology class.”

  “Intro to psychology, huh? You thinking about following in Bart’s professional footsteps?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Doesn’t hurt to at least feel it out a little, you know? See if it has some lasting appeal?”

  “Sounds like a good plan. Unless you’re going to constantly analyze me, then I’m against it.”

  “But fraulein,” Sara says, affecting a convincing German accent, “I sink you are a ferry interesting case, vurzy uf furzer study, yah?”

  For the first time in a long time, too long, I laugh a full-throated, from-the-gut laugh. God, it feels good.

  “Hey,” I say. “You’re not going to lose anything.”

  “No?”

  “No. Not Meg, not Mom, not your friends, and definitely not me.”

  Sara gives me a funny smile. “Check you out, getting right back to doing what you do best.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Helping other people.”

  “Is there a clinical term for that, future Doctor Danvers?”

  “There is. It’s a serious but unfortunately too-rare condition known as being a good person. I’m afraid it’s incurable.”

  “There are worse things.”

  “Like being too tired to function. Come on, let’s go to bed.”

  “No, you go on. My body hasn’t adjusted back to Earth time yet. I’m going to stay up, see if I can recalibrate the ol’ body clock.”

  “All right. See you in the morning.” Sara pauses at the base of the stairs. “I’m glad you’re back, Carrie.”

  “So am I.”

  All things considered, I am happy I’m back home. Even with my relationship with Dad in the toilet. Even with my clothes feeling like they’re scouring my skin off. Even with food tasting like cardboard and the air smelling funny and even the gravity feeling wrong.

  No, really. I’m happy I’m home.

  FIVE

  I don’t sleep. At all.

  The combination of the universe’s worst case of jet lag and a metric ton of pent-up stress keeps me wide awake all night long, with only the drone of the TV to keep me company. I cycle through channels at random, jumping from the twenty-four-hour news networks to home shopping channels to reruns of sitcoms that were old when my parents were kids. I don’t pause to watch anything, nor am I actually interested in any of it; I just need some background noise while I do my research. By sunrise, I’m feeling quite well-informed, if a little worried. The Great Unmasking had a generally positive effect on my little corner of the world, but another major event that involves me? Not so much.

  For the most part, humanity has always grasped the concept of extraterrestrial life in the abstract and been open to the possibility of inhabited worlds elsewhere in the universe. While there are a few notable, documented cases of a human encountering intelligent alien life here on Earth (my fateful meeting with Lt. Yx being among them), mankind as a whole didn’t seriously accept extraterrestrials as undeniable fact — not until last December, when a big honking spaceship parked itself off the Kingsport shoreline and removed all doubt. It sent shockwaves across the globe, and everyone is still processing it.

  Naturally, the scientific community went bonkers (mostly in a good way). Edison, Dr. Quentin, and Tisha “TranzSister” Greene have been at the forefront of that robust discussion, sharing their experiences aboard the Nightwind and with the Vanguard with the astronomy, biology, and theoretical physics communities, among others. That isn’t to say it’s been all fun and games for Team Science, however. Our first major encounter with alien life was not a pleasant one, so understandably, it’s put the entire world on edge; people are terrified this was a first strike and at any moment, things could go all-out War of the Worlds. Edison, in his capacity as leader of one of the nation’s premier super-teams, has been called before Congressional subcommittees six times to testify on the Kingsport Landing (man, the media loves its punchy nicknames, doesn’t it?). Each time, he’s insisted in the strongest possible terms that the Landing was a unique incident and that the Kyros Alliance has absolutely no interest in attacking, invading, conquering, or otherwise molesting planet Earth. He’s right, of course, but he has no idea how close Earth came to a less than cordial follow-up visit from the Vanguard. That would have gotten real ugly real fast, and no one would have walked away a winner.

  What was it I said to General Gretch? If you’re dumb enough to screw with my people, you’re going to know you’ve been in a fight. We might go down, but if we do, I guarantee we’ll take as many of you with us as we can.

  Based on what I’ve read, I totally called that one. Every major industrialized nation is frantically working together to draft accords dictating their unified military response in the event of an alien invasion.

  Look at that. A small step toward world peace, and all it took was a common, if imaginary, enemy.

  When I finally look up from my laptop, the six
o’clock news is coming on. Above me, an alarm clock screeches. I follow the muffled thump of footsteps as they plod down the hall. Sara’s awake, which means Mom will be up soon too. I peel myself out of the couch, leaving a vaguely Carrie-shaped dent behind in the cushion, and head to the kitchen to make some coffee.

  Wednesday watches me, his bright blue kitty eyes intense, as my first attempt goes south, big time. I’ve grown so used to making dammas I get the grounds-to-water ratio all wrong, so the coffee comes out as murky hot water. I try again, but I still can’t say whether I got it right. I need a second opinion.

  And here she comes now, and my, doesn’t she look professional this morning? Sara’s wearing a gray pencil skirt, a pinstripe vest over a white button-up shirt, her hair is in a loose up-do, and she’s finished off the ensemble with —

  “Glasses?” I say. “Since when do you wear glasses?”

  “Hm? Oh, right,” Sara says. “I got these a few months ago. I finally admitted I was a touch farsighted and needed glasses for reading.”

  “Ah. Well, they look very nice. Really brings the whole sexy receptionist look together.”

  She smiles, greatly pleased with my compliment. “Fitting, considering that’s my job.”

  She learned to drive, learned to fly the Pelican, established herself as a rising star of the local stage, and she has a job? What, did someone give her a time turner for her birthday?

  “Where do you work?”

  “The Protectorate’s Main Street office.”

  “What? Where’d Catherine go?”

  Back to school, according to Sara. Apparently, Catherine has always wanted to be a graphic designer, but she never felt like she could take time away from the Protectorate to make it happen. Sara happened to mention she was looking for a job, and that prompted Edison to hire her to cover for Catherine while she took some summer classes.

  “She’s going to keep taking classes part-time, so I’ll fill in for her a couple days a week,” Sara says.

  “Cool,” I say, though the mention of gainful employment makes me wonder about my job status with Crenshaw and Associates. One more thing to add to my already stupidly long to-do list. “When is my meeting with Edison? Noon?”