Black and White (41 page)

J
et’s feet hurt from pacing so long.

She stared at the closed door, wishing for the zillionth time that Sensor Girl was with her so she could hear what was being said inside.

Iridium had been in the conference room for three hours. The Containment officers had dragged her in, still in her torn unikilt, her hands trapped inside stun-cuffs, her eyes glazed. All of the Academy superiors had already jammed inside the room, from the twelve proctors to the head instructors to the Superintendent himself. And then the suits from Corp had arrived, their faces stark, their spines rigid.

And Jet waited.

At least Iri hadn’t been hurt, she thought yet again. And there were no media. Small favors.

Two Runners had tried to get Jet to leave, to go to class, to eat something, to rest in her room. She’d ignored them until one dared lay a hand on her shoulder. Then she’d allowed a creeper out to play. The Runner had paled and done as his title suggested.

Iri was going to be okay. She had to be okay.

Jet wrapped her arms around herself, shivered. Light, all of the blood. Jet had been sure it was Iridium’s, when she and Night and the Superintendent had found her at the police station … until Jet had seen the man’s body. Iri had killed him.

Heroes don’t kill.

But this was Iri …

Her head throbbed when she tried to make sense of it, so she stopped thinking about it.

A short eternity later, the door opened. Iridium was marched out, still in her cuffs. Jet tried to catch her eye, tried to stop the Containment unit, but they bulldozed past her like she was insignificant.

A shadow.

Out came the suits, looking stern and self-important. Then the Superintendent and the other Academy officials. Last one out was Night.

“Sir,” Jet said to him as the others filed past. “What did they decide?”

Night’s jaw clenched. “Therapy.”

Jet’s breath caught in her throat. “No,” she whispered. “No, they can’t. They can’t do that to her.” She saw Dawnlighter, the Stepford Superhero; saw Frostbite with his impotent rage. “Not Iri.”

“Yes,” he snapped, and for a blistering moment, his fury rolled over Jet and evaporated her horror. “Damn it!” He slammed his fist against the wall; overhead, the lights died.

Jet bit back a cry as her optiframes irised to allow for night vision. Nothing to panic over. She had her goggles. She had her earpiece. She was safe from the Shadow.

“Sir,” she said, touching his arm, “can’t you appeal? Intervene?”

He pulled his arm from her grasp. “Don’t you think I tried that? They wouldn’t hear of it. Bad press, they said. All this work, all this time, wasted, because they’re worried about the media. The media!” He bellowed the word and slammed his fist against the wall again.

“But Therapy will kill her,” Jet whispered.

“No, it’ll leave her
alive,”
he snarled, as if he were as offended by the notion of a scooped-out version of Iri as Jet was. “She couldn’t follow procedure this
one
time, play the wooden soldier when it mattered most. Damn her! That stupid bitch!”

“That bitch is my
friend,”
Jet snarled, forgetting to be awed by his power or cowed by his ire. “And I won’t stand here and listen to you insult her.”

Night froze, his shadowed face a twisted mask of rage. And then, incongruously, he started to laugh. “And what can
you
do about it, Joan? What makes you think that
you
can defy the will of the Academy and Corp?”

“I won’t let them destroy her,” she vowed. With that, Jet spun on her heel and marched out the door, rushing to catch up to the cold men in their proper suits.

When she reached them, they almost refused to listen to her. But she was Jet, the darling of the Academy and, more important, of the press. So they listened to her words.

And to her wild suggestion.

And after a short deliberation, they agreed to her request.

A
fter a day and a night of being handcuffed to the wall of her cell, Iridium watched the door roll back to reveal two Containment officers. “Clean her up,” the man told the woman. “Get the blood off. There are cameras out there.”

“Who cares about some rabid?” the woman muttered, scrubbing at Iridium’s face and neck with a sanitary cloth.

“That Shadow bitch called the press in,” said the Containment officer. “Can you believe that shit?”

Iridium blinked. Jet was holding a press conference?

She didn’t know why she was surprised … of course Jet would be selling herself. Branding. The new Hero of New Chicago, protector of average rapists against big bad rabids.

The Containment officer threw a pair of prison blues at Iridium’s feet. “When you’re released from the cuffs, you’ll
change. Then you’ll be prepped for transport to your cell at Blackbird.”

“Jail?” Iridium said, stunned. She composed herself in the next second, so they wouldn’t know how shocked she was that she wasn’t just going upstairs to have holes poked in her brain for the rest of her natural life.

“Better than you deserve,” said the male officer The door swished shut. A moment later, Iridium’s cuffs released. She dropped her arms, her muscles crying.

After she’d put on the rough cotton inmate’s uniform, the door opened again.

“Hey!” Iridium yelled. “I’m not dressed!”

Instead of the Containment team, Jet stood in the opening.

Iridium curled her lip back. “You.”

“I don’t have much time,” Jet said. “I had your guards paged away to deal with the crowd outside, but they’ll be back.”

“Come down here to gloat over a job well done?” Iridium said, zipping the jumpsuit over her bra.

“Callie …” Jet pressed her hands over her face. “Why’d it have to be this way? Why couldn’t you have done the right thing?”

“See, Jet,” Iridium said, crossing her arms, “I
did
do the right thing. I know it, because all the time I’ve been in this cell, I haven’t felt one thin drop of regret for Paul Collins.”

“You just proved everyone right,” Jet said. “You proved you’re like your father.”

“Mutual,” said Iridium. “You proved everyone right too.”

Jet blinked behind her goggles. “Excuse me?”

“You proved that you’re a lapdog who parrots the party line no matter what. Who sells out her friends for TV ratings and who will never, ever be able to grow a backbone and think for herself.” Iridium stepped closer to Jet, feeling her power grow hot inside her. “And that’s why I’m not sorry about this. At all.”

“You’re wrong …” Jet started, but Iridium made her move.

She strobed Jet in the face, the other girl’s goggles flying clean off her head from the force of the blast. Jet crumpled, groaning, red outlines on her cheeks and forehead where the goggles had been.

“I’m not like my father,” Iridium whispered. “I’m better than him. You’ll never catch me, Joannie.”

“You … can’t … do this,” Jet groaned.

“Oh, I think I can. I think a pack of innocent reporters standing around will dissuade the Squadron from any hasty action,” Iridium said as the alarms began to whoop.

“Iri,” Jet called after her, but Iridium ignored her.

She stepped out of her cell.

This was the moment. If Jet was quick, tough, and smart like they’d tried to teach her, all she had to do was send a creeper. Iridium was exhausted and surrounded by hostile extrahumans. Jet had her chance.

The darkness never came.

Iridium turned back, once. “That’s what I thought. Be seeing you, Jet.”

Iridium shut the door on her former friend and walked toward the light.

O
n the Academy rooftop, Jet stared into the distance as the sun began its ascent. She’d been there all night, watching the stars attempt to twinkle through the haze of pollution that shrouded New Chicago. But no matter how brightly the pinpricks of light shone, they didn’t make a dent in the darkness.

At night, shadows reigned supreme.

But the dawn was coming, and with it a new day … and with that would come the repercussions for Jet’s actions. It had been her suggestion—her demand—that Iridium be sent to Blackbird instead of Therapy. It had been her weakness that had allowed Iridium to slip away from the Academy, and from justice.

For all Corp knew, Jet had arranged to have Iri escape from the moment she’d slain Paul Collins.

Snarling, Jet let fly a blast of Shadow. It curved into the nighttime sky and obliterated the few stars that had gamely tried to overcome the darkness. A flicker of white, quickly swallowed by black.

Damn her! How could she have done this to Jet? How could she have thumbed her nose at them all and just disappeared? Heroes don’t do that!

But Iridium had proven she was no hero. She was rabid, like her father before her.

Jet sank to the floor, slowly, clenched her fists, and slammed them against her thighs as she knelt before the rising sun as if offering a penance to the Light, or to Jehovah, or any deity that actually cared.

How could Callie have killed that man? Jet couldn’t understand; the very concept of a hero killing anyone was utterly alien. Yes, in battle there were casualties on both sides, but those were justifiable. In battle, in the war against evil and injustice, people got hurt, and sometimes, accidents happened.

But Iridium had killed him in cold blood. She could have stopped herself.
Should have
stopped herself.

From the darkness of her mind, Jet heard laughter. She frowned, adjusted the white-noise frequency in her earpiece.

How do you even think with that thing in your ear?
Iri’s voice was smooth and taunting, like white chocolate.

Callie, how could you murder that man?

Iri laughed.
I haven’t felt one thin drop of regret for Paul Collins.

Jet knew. And it broke her heart.

I’m not sorry about this
, Iridium whispered.
At all.

Jet shrieked her rage and her sorrow to the sky, and in her mind, the voices giggled. Eventually, her voice gave out
and she broke off, panting, hearing her cry echo and fade away.

“I thought I’d find you here.”

Her back stiffened, and she pointedly refused to turn around to face Night. She heard him approach, then halt just behind her, to her left.

“You should be sleeping. Tomorrow’s a big day. First the tribunal for you, and then, assuming they don’t expel you, you’re off to graduation.” Night snorted. “Little worry about expulsion, though. Not while you’re the apple of Corp’s eye and slated to be the Hero of New Chicago.”

She said nothing as she rose to her feet. She wouldn’t look at him.

Silence stretched between them as the sun rained its brilliance on the city.

“Nevertheless,” Night finally said, “you’re still ass deep in alligators. Both Corp and the Academy are desperate for a scapegoat, just in case their media damage control fails. I’m here to officially read you the riot act.”

She lifted her chin. “I’m fully aware that if Iridium’s escape ever makes the news, my career will be over. Sir.”

“If she’s anything like her father,” Night said dryly, “escaping from lockup will be the least of her crimes. I give her three months before she starts to act outside of the law.”

At that, she turned to face her mentor. “She wouldn’t,” Jet insisted.

“Believe me, I know the Bradford family all too well.” Beneath his cowl, Night’s eyes gleamed, perhaps with amusement. “Luster was already doing the things he was noted for as Arclight, even when he was still in the Squadron. Small things. Starting with disregarding procedure. Going off half-cocked. Bad-mouthing the Academy, the Squadron, even Corp. Sound like anyone you know?”

Jet flinched.

“She’s as arrogant as her father ever was,” Night said, walking to stand next to Jet. He, too, stared at the lightening
sky. “Thinks she’s above everyone and everything around her. Can’t be bothered with following the rules when they’re inconvenient.”

“She’s always had a problem with that,” Jet murmured.

“Too smart for her own good,” Night said, nodding at her. “Just like her father. They get bored. They act out. Iridium will follow in her father’s footsteps. You can count on it.”

Jet said quietly, “And me, sir? Will I follow in my father’s footsteps?”

After a pause, Night said, “Blackout was a fine hero.” He turned to look at the New Chicago skyline, and when he next spoke, his voice was distant, dreamlike. “One of the best. He did things with Shadow that were groundbreaking. He had no fear, and he was ready to sacrifice himself to help others.”

Jet rubbed her arms, thinking about her father and how he’d looked when he’d given her mother one final squeeze. “Until the Shadow started speaking to him.”

“All powers have a weakness, Joan,” Night said. “Ours just happens to be more … noticeable.”

She frowned as she considered his words. It had never occurred to her that other extrahumans had their own shadows to overcome. “What about Lighters? What’s their weakness?”

“Pride.”

Jet thought about that, then slowly nodded.

“You’re in trouble, Jet. Make no mistake about that.” Night’s voice was full of reproach, and Jet bit her lip, hung her head low. He said, “You let your feelings get in the way of following procedure.”

“I know, sir. But it was Iri.”

“Iridium. No nicknames, Joan. No vestiges of friendship. That’s all dead and gone now, like the man she slaughtered.”

“He was a rapist,” Jet said, lifting her head to see the
sun reaching higher. “She said he was hurting a woman, had hurt lots of women.”

“And that gave her the right to play Jehovah?” Night snorted. “Pride, Jet. Arrogance. All Light powers stink of it. She’s no different. And now, thanks to her, you may lose everything we’ve worked for.”