Steampunk Time: Cape High Book Seven (Cape High Series 7) (6 page)

His heart jerks in his chest, slamming against his ribs.  His hands go clammy.  Pathetic, a part of him whispers, but he can't help it.  He had mocked love in front of his children, mocked the people so obsessed with it.  But here he is, still in love with a woman that as good as died thirty six years ago.  He turns slowly, looking at the woman confronting him.  She's as beautiful and awe-inspiring as he remembered.

"Who are you and why do you have my husband's face?" Tatiana demands, her fists coming up.

One of the reasons he had loved her, he remembers abruptly, is that in a fist fight without using his special abilities she would probably beat him fifty percent of the time.

That... ah... might not be a good thing at the moment, he admits silently.

***

Night comes.  I expect Grandpa to take us to our own time, I'm hoping for it, really, but all he does as he gets back is pull out a few tents and sleeping bags.  I feel like crying as they pop into form and he starts a fire.  "But--but I really need a shower," I say as he gets out cans of beans and a pot.

He looks at me for a moment before pulling out his cell phone.  It scans me with a green light and he looks at the screen for a moment.  "You can go to the Hall tomorrow and get a shower," he says.  "Tonight you're not going anywhere."

"I want a shower, too," Jason says.  He twitches as the phone is pointed at him and the green light scans his body.  "What's that thing doing, anyway?" he asks.

"I'm checking your power readouts," Grandpa says, looking at his phone.  "You can go to the Hall with her--but not until tomorrow. 
Now who wants dinner?"

"Are beans all you brought?" I ask, feeling as if bugs are crawling over my skin.

"There's a bag of hotdogs and buns in the ice chest," he says.  "Sharpen a stick and cook your own hotdog."

"Cool," Jason says, heading for the ice chest in question.  "So uh... is there something wrong with me?" he asks with his back still to us.  "You know, cuz of the readout and... the blacking out thing."

"You blacked out?" I ask.

"It's not funny--"

"I did, too," I say before he can try and punch me again.  "All of a sudden the tire swing was floating and I... blacked out," I say, shrugging my shoulders and looking at the pot of beans now hanging over the fire.

"Yeah, it's that," Grandpa says.  "Both of you are coming into your powers a bit less gradually than we'd like.
It's expected, I'll probably be dealing with the same problems when Sunny's kids get older.  For now, though, we've got a nice, empty bit of land to keep norms from being hurt.  I want you to see something before we wrap this up and go home."

"Did my parents go through this?" I ask curiously as Jason brings back the bag of hotdogs.  I start searching for a stick.

"Your mother had a few issues," Grandpa says, “mostly when she got emotional.  She blew up a lot of things, sure, but she was surrounded by capes for the most part, and it was a lot smaller group than we have at your school now.  Your dad, well, he was one of the rare kids that have powers at birth."

"So were you," I say.

"How did you know that?" he asks curiously.

"I've met you--er, two year old you.  You picked me up like I weighed nothing."

"You're not wrong," he says slowly, pulling out a knife to sharpen a stick and hand it to me.  "But you're not exactly right, either.  I didn't start flying until I was fifteen, and my technopathy came in spurts until puberty.  Your mom blew up things for half a year or so, I blew things up for thirteen.  Thankfully during this time there's not nearly as much high tech stuff as there is in the future."

I take one of the hotdogs from the pack and stick it on the stick, holding it over the fire.

"You're too close," Jason says.  "You need to pull it away more, otherwise it'll burn."

"It's my hotdog," I tell him.  "I can burn it if I want to."

"There's a relation between you two," Grandpa says.  "Jack got his super powers from Grandma Summer, you know.  That makes you two... a bit like cousins, I'd say.  Considering that, maybe you two will be able to eventually see eye to eye.  Or at least try."

I look at Jason.  I really didn't need to know that fact.  From the look on his face, he thinks the exact same thing.

***

"So you're going to sneak into the Hall, find Mastermental, bring him out here to convince me that you're not actually kidnapping a kid--" Taurus Sr. says, frowning as he tries to sort it out.

"No, you're going in and demanding to talk to Mastermental," the Nico from 2014 says.  They're sitting in a diner about half a block away from the Central Hall, eating dinner.  He takes another bite of his cheeseburger before going on.  "You can't lie to him, so don't bother, just tell him that you have a guy that says he needs to talk to him.  Tell him you don't trust me--think I might be a super villain, even, but you're not sure enough to try and take me out.  He'll be curious, especially if he reads your mind."

"You're crazy, white boy," Taurus Sr. says bluntly.

"Probably, but this is the perfect excuse to talk to Mastermental, isn't it?"

Taurus Sr. hesitates.  "You probably think I'm a sell-out, don't you?  Wanting to be part of an establishment."

"They save people.  You've got powers, you want to use them to do what they do, right?  Your son--" Nico curses himself.

"My wh
at?" Taurus Sr. asks.  "Who do you think I am, exactly?"

"Just another cape," Nico says, trying to blow it off as he finishes his burger.  "Look, we need to move."

"I ain't got a son, you know," Taurus Sr. says.  "You got me confused with someone else--"

"No, I don't," Nico says as he tosses a tip on the table, then curses as he realizes it's a new bill.  Before he can grab it, though, Taurus Sr. does, picking it up and staring at it.  He looks from the bill to Nico, then back down again.

"My son," he says after a moment.  "What's he like?"

Nico hesitates
before letting out a sigh.  "I'll tell you--after you go talk to Mastermental for me."  Taurus Sr. digs out his wallet and tosses a few bills on the table, pocketing the one Nico had put down.

"What are you waiting for?" he asks, heading for the door.  "Let's go to the Hall."  Nico follows, not bothering to look around.  He's finally on the right track--except he let too much slip.  Hopefully that doesn't change the future.

Then again one lost five is nothing compared to if his father gets his way.

They head silently down the street and he slips into a
n alleyway to wait as Taurus Sr. strolls in.

He's not a praying man, he tends to leave that sort of thing to Ken and his family, but right now he looks up at the sky.  "Please let this not be too late," he mutters, the image of his little sister firmly in the forefront of his mind.

***

"I do not take kindly to clones!" Tatiana bellows before slamming her shoulder into Superior's gut and sending them both
crashing through the building behind him.  He can't help but remember that scene with the illusion of her.  Tatia is far more aggressive over this matter than he ever would be, he admits silently as they hit ground level.

He shoves her off before returning the favor, slamming into her and taking them both into the air.  This fight can't go on much longer, he thinks.  He doesn't want to hurt her, though, and he can't use his distortion abilities, because they'd bring up too many questions.  So...

Faking his death looks to be the best way out.

***

Nico scowls as he lurks in the shadow, watching people going in and out of the Hall--the Hall that looks a lot different from the one in 2014.  It seems like forever since Taurus Sr. went in, but he knows it's only been a few minutes.  He should be grateful that the man hasn't been tossed out yet, he tries to tell himself.  Unfortunately, he doesn't believe it.

The door opens and he stops breathing as the black man steps out slowly.  "You're sure?  Not until tomorrow?" Taurus Sr. asks.  "Fine, but if he winds up killing people, it's not my fault, understand?"  He steps out of the building, looking around.  "Didn't work," he says as Nico steps slightly out of the shadow
, "Mastermental's out for the day and Superior's still overseas."

"I wouldn't want Superior even if he was here," Nico mutters, feeling a headache coming on.  He goes perfectly still as he hears a crash in the distance.

"What was that?" Taurus Sr. asks, looking around.

"I've got nothing better to do--let's go find out," Nico says, starting to run towards the sound.

"Son?"

The sound of his father's voice makes Nico inwardly curse and dig out his earbud from his pocket.  It had been easy enough to set the earbuds to run off of their own power, since bringing them this far in the past would cause them to short out--he'd just figured that Superior wouldn't bother to use his.  "What?" Nico demands.

"I didn't say nothin," Taurus Sr. says, looking back at him.  Nico waves a hand and touches his ear, indicating he's talking.  "Insane," Taurus Sr. mutters.

"I need a little diversion, and I don't have time to rig one up for myself," Superior says.  "I need you to create a massive explosion the next time I hit the ground."

"What are you doing?" Nico demands.

"Fighting your mother.  Now
give me a bit of help faking my death."

***

It's way past my bedtime when I jerk awake.  Something's changed, I realize as the earth below my too thin blow up mattress shakes wildly.  I get to my feet and almost get knocked down again as I hit the roof of my tent.  I'd forgotten I was in a ten, stupid of me.  I crawl out the entrance and look around.  The ground is cracked.  My tent is a good two feet lower than it had been when I went to bed.  Even as I stand it shakes and sinks another foot deeper.

"Well, then," I hear Grandpa say
, "looks like we've begun."

I turn, looking at him, then look in the direction he's staring
. Jason is floating in the air, his arms held out.  Beneath his feet are massive spikes of crude metal and rock shooting out of the ground.

"Grandpa--" I start out, only to fall as the earth shakes violently again.

"Your uncle did something similar," he tells me, still just standing there.  "But he didn't have metal, he had earth and plants--it was a lot less violent."

"Would you quit talking and SAVE HIM?" I demand, trying to get back to my feet.  "I need my beauty sleep!"

He takes to the air, scooping me off of the ground and floating out of reach of the spikes.  "It'll calm down when he gets comfortable," he says in a calm tone.  "This isn't the first time he's used his powers in his sleep--Jack was getting tired of having to redo Jason's wing every morning.  He shouldn’t have.  The kid needs to see what he’s capable of, even if it’s by accident."

"Won't it hurt him?" I ask, watching in awe as the boy starts to glow faintly.  "Did Cold Steel have this sort of thing happen?"

"No, but Jack's not a true born elementalist, either," Grandpa say as the world shakes again and a large rock spike comes up then curls around Jason.  "Jason is.  He's more than Jack realized he was, even."

Jason stops floating, falling into the curl of rock as if it were a bed, and snoring.  The earth stops rebelling.  "Should we get him out of that?" I ask.

"He looks pretty comfortable to me," Grandpa says, landing on the ground.  "Let him stay that way, it’s what I wanted him to see."

"I don't know if I like him," I say, scowling up at the snoring male.

"Don't know?" he repeats with amusement.  "That's better than what you used to say about the kids at your old school."

"Because I KNEW I didn't like them," I say, yawning and heading for my tent.  I look at it for a moment before picking it up and carrying it over to a flat spot.  "Grandpa, what are you doing for the Hall?" I ask.

"Right now?  I'm building the Cape Cells," he says.

"But weren't you stuck there for fifteen years?" I ask.  "Why would you help them with it?"

"Because they're needed, and they don't have them.  Go to sleep, kiddo.  Your training starts tomorrow."

"Don't forget my shower!" I say.

"I won't."

"Night," I add, crawling back into my tent.  I know I should be freaking out, or something, who knows what would have happened if my tent had fallen down a cliff or something?  But overall I just feel tired and a little irritated.  Tomorrow I am SO going to give Jason a hard time about messing up my night.  I need my beauty sleep!

I'm a princess, after all.

***

"What WAS that?" Taurus Sr. demands as he stares at the two males in front of him.  The explosion had been amazing, but that was nothing compared to the broken robot that had been left in the middle of it when the smoke cleared.  It had looked exactly like the man walking next to Nico--except the flesh was gone and the gears had been exposed.  "How did you put that together in twenty minutes?"