Wearing the Cape 4: Small Town Heroes (12 page)

I tried to control my breathing, almost floated out of my chair. “How big is it? How do you get
out
?”

“All
you’ve
got to do is fly high enough, you’ll pop right out of the bubble and be hanging over Cuba. Of course you might have a problem with the anti-air defense system locking onto you with Stinger missiles. If you need to fly out, hugging the ground and getting over the hills to the west takes you away from the bay. Walking or driving out is okay. We stick to the entry-point at the Garage for obvious reasons. All you’ve got to do is step across the boundary—it’s not really sealed from the
inside
.”

“That…that’s good to know.”

He frowned and leaned forward.

“Are you okay? It takes a lot of people that way, when they first realize they’re ‘somewhere else’. The point is, Littleton’s an easy place to leave, but not an easy place to get to. You could know right where it is, but unless you’re translated through the Garage it might as well be on Mars.”

I made an effort to pull myself together.
Like you haven’t seen lots weirder things than a town that isn’t there
. “I can see where that would be attractive to Witness Protection, hiding out in another
reality
.”

“Complete signals blackout, too. People, and the stuff we brought in with us, are the only things that can ‘fall back’ into the world. Nothing on the electromagnetic spectrum crosses over either way except through the Garage’s translator system.”

“So, everybody here is a researcher or a protected witness?”

“More or less. Plus political refugees, Witness Protection guests, Institute staff, teachers for the school, the kinds of service and civic people every town needs to run smooth. And us.”

“And us. Me?” I reached up and touched the deputy’s badge.

“And you. Somebody thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of you while you’re here. And you might like something to do. You can get cats out of trees.”

I found myself grinning. “Yeah, I can do that.”

Sheriff Deitz, Paul, showed me “my” desk and issued me a special deputy phone. He also told me I could
text
out or send files, the exchange linked to the naval base and from there to the world through a repeater system, but to phone home I’d have to go back to the Garage, the secure building Veritas and I came in through.

Angel hadn’t gotten back yet, but he didn’t expect anything else tonight. Which was good; Littleton might be its own little world, but it was a world synced with Eastern Standard Time so they were an hour ahead of me and the whole day was starting to hit me hard anyway. He followed me out the door and watched as I climbed back in the truck, giving Veritas a nod as my handler shifted into reverse and backed us out.

“So are you square?” he asked as we drove down the street and around a corner.

“Gun in the nightstand. Got it.”

“Good girl. And here we are.”

I looked around; we’d barely come two blocks, and he pulled us up in front of a yard with low hedges fronting a gabled house of an architectural style at least a century old (with Dad’s restoration hobby, I would know). The big tree in the front yard looked just as old as the architecture, which told me they’d either built around whatever the extrareality pocket’s Verne-Type had created or they’d brought in a pretty powerful florakinetic or a versatile sorceress to “age” the town’s trees.

And obviously I was done for the day if my mind was wandering away thinking about the age of local trees.

“Holybrook Rest,” Veritas waved at the house; all that the place needed was snow to look like a holiday Hallmark card. “Best bed-and-breakfast in town. The two of them will take care of you.”

I climbed out and got my bag. He didn’t.

“The two of them? Aren’t you—”

“Miles to go before I sleep, and it won’t be here. See you around town.” He shifted to first and drove away with a wave, leaving me once again to watch him go. I was beginning to think the man
liked
being mysterious. Or maybe he just liked doing it to me.

I hooked my go-bag over my shoulder. The walk up to the door had been planted with spring flowers, and the curlicue letters on the glass spelling out Holybrook Rest shouted taste and class. A bell over my head tinkled cheerfully when I pushed through the door into the cozy lobby.

“Welcome, Ms. Corrigan!” my host greeted me, and I stopped short before recovering. He didn’t fit the postcard picture. Dark skinned, bearded, accent something Middle-Eastern—Iranian?—with diction that screamed “fancy English school,” he instantly made me think of the evil vizier from Disney’s
Aladdin
.

Which just
had
to be wrong; after all, Littleton was the safest place not on Earth, right? I still almost checked his shoulder for a smirking parrot.

“May I take your bag?”

“No— I’m sorry, I’m not being rude. It weighs more than two hundred pounds.”

“I see. Well then, come right this way.” He led me up the stairs, asking in friendly fashion how my flight had been. “Of course the Institute let us know you were coming,” he supplied before I asked. The room he showed me was small but warmly welcoming, with a west-facing window that captured the evening sunlight. It had its own bathroom with a claw footed tub and everything was spotless and shiny, nothing worn. “Will this be acceptable?”

He sounded perfectly ready to order in carpenters and interior decorators if it wasn’t, and I nodded automatically. His smile deepened.

“Very good then, I will leave you to your rest. Breakfast is served in the dining room at seven, and if you desire breakfast earlier or later cereal and fruit are always available. Good night.”

He handed me the key and closed the door behind him with perfect silence, and I stared at it for a moment. Although the room was still warm and comfortable, part of the easy peace that had wrapped itself around me went with him and now I just felt tired.

A small table by the door held an old-fashioned house phone, and I picked up the card beside it. Under a boldly printed phone number it read
Holybrook Rest, Ibrahim Darvish, proprietor
.

I put the card down and unpacked.

The wardrobe didn’t exactly have a place to hang my armor and maul, so I lined them up beside the bed where they looked ridiculously out of place with the patterned wallpaper and wainscoting. The rest went into the wardrobe and dresser: one spare field uniform, one set of casual civvies, one carefully packed “formal” costume (because you never knew), basic field gear, toiletries, several changes of underwear, and…glasses? Opening the little case, I discovered that someone—probably Nix—had slipped me a pair of Ozma’s Anonymity Specs. I sat on the bed and just looked at them.

Why? For the first time since flying out of the Dome, I remembered her other gift and pulled off my glove.

The snug lace ring—moonmoth silk?—still hugged my finger. My glove hadn’t smooshed it at all, and the tiny bow glowed almost impossibly white in the last beams of sunlight. Touching it brought a ghost of the petal kiss back to my cheek. She’d said not to take it off until I had to. She’d told me
twice
.

And now the specs. Like I’d need to be anonymous
here
.

Outside, the weird streetlamps were coming on as dusk settled on the town. What was going
on
? And really, what was I doing here?

“According to the Littleton Almanac, today will be sunny with light breezes and occasional clouds, with a light rain after midnight when no-one is out to look at the stars. Tomorrow will give us a light rain at ten in the morning, but you real rain-lovers will have to wait two weeks from Saturday for the first big storm of the season. It will feature thunder and a great lightning show around six in the evening.”

Littleton Radio weather report.

I stretched deliciously, opened my eyes, and the little girl sitting at the foot of my bed smiled shyly.

“Good morning!” she chirped. Long dark hair, warm brown skin, deep black eyes, arms folded around a much-loved teddy bear, she waited to see what I would do next.

“Save me from the cuteness.” I covered my eyes, peeked between two fingers. “Nope. Still here.”

She laughed, bouncing. “Silly! It’s time for breakfast!”

“And you’re my adorable little alarm clock?”

”Yes!” She nodded the way only little kids can, like their necks are made of rubber. I looked at the clock on the nightstand. Fifteen minutes till breakfast.

I kicked my feet up and down under the covers, bouncing her and making her giggle. “Then go tell your dad I’ll be down to eat. Shoo. Go brighten his morning.”

She scrambled off the bed and out the door, and I skinned out of my sleep shirt and shorts, wrapped a waterproof bandage from my field kit around Ozma’s lace ring to protect it, and showered fast. Then I spent a long moment looking at my costume. If I wasn’t
officially
functioning as Astra, girl-superhero, it just felt too weird to walk around in uniform. Fortunately I did have civies, even if only white shorts and a blue athletic shirt, matching sneakers. I pulled everything on in a moment, clipped the deputy’s badge to a belt-loop, tidied up and went downstairs.

“Astra,” General Rajabhushan greeted me at the breakfast table. Doctor Hall sat across from him, both in their soldier and scholar uniforms. My little alarm clock wasn’t there, which was too bad—I’d been looking forward to a side of giggles with my eggs. Was she the number two of the
two
who would take care of me?

A cozy-wrapped coffee pot flanked by cream and sugar sat in the center of the table, and the general courteously poured for me. It wasn’t
quite
up to Jacky’s standards but definitely four-star hotel quality, and before I’d done more than properly appreciate it our host appeared with a menu card to bid me good morning and ask what I would like to try—which was anything and everything.

Breakfast talk covered the weather (and like in the musical
Camelot
, in Littleton it never rained till after sundown), the spring blossoms (beautiful and once again on schedule), and the breakfast (fantastic). I told everyone about my alarm clock, which won indulgent chuckles around the table. The general showed me pictures of his children while Dr. Hall focused on his food. Breakfast done, the general asked if I was joining them at the Institute. I shook my head.

“I am sorry, but no. I need to phone home, first.”

“Of course.” He nodded. “I am sure you have other duties here as well. Come when you can.”

Stepping outside, I looked back at the B&B. Above the trees the sky looked like a Maxfield Parish painting, stacked landscapes of white cotton clouds against a pale blue heaven. Only the weird white streetlamps broke the illusion of perfect mundane, normalcy. Part of me wanted to go back inside, find a comfortable window-seat, and settle in with a good book or maybe with the princess of the house.

Instead I lifted off.

Late in the night it had become obvious to me that the DSA had planned for my indefinite stay; I was here until the town burned or they caught Kitsune or otherwise managed to neutralize the threat. It only made sense, but while I couldn’t regret my impulsive decision to help I’d been telling the general the truth—I desperately needed to phone home.

Yeah, way to be grown up.

A quick call to Sheriff Deitz expanded what he told me yesterday; the Garage kept a phone service for anyone who wanted more than relayed texting or emailing and my phone had an app that I could use to reserve a booth. I accessed the app and learned that weekday mornings were low-traffic –I’d find a booth waiting for me.

After nearly two years of being careful, flying in public out of costume felt
weird
but got me there faster than a car.

Exiting Littleton meant just crossing the boundary but it made sense that the Garage was the only
official
entry and exit point, so leaving meant flying back up the road I came in on, over the hill, and past the gate.
 
On the other side, to the left of where Veritas and I had appeared, I found the lane marked by white chalk. Its open end faced the town, and I dropped to the lane at the gate and started walking.

Thirty feet down the road, past the point we’d come in, the world blinked and I was standing in another bay of the Garage in a yellow and black painted square. I turned around to stare at the wall behind me. In yellow on white it said
Warning:
Exit the square immediately
.

“Ma’am? If you could move along please?” The orange-suited Navy sailor beside the square waved me on. “We know there’s nobody coming behind you, but anybody standing in that space makes us nervous.”

I scooted out of the square. “Is it dangerous? If you exit the pocket into space that’s occupied?”

“It can be, ma’am. Not fatal, but if something comes in on top of you then you get displaced pretty hard. You’re here to use the phone? Right through those doors.”

I thanked him and went. Another sailor—Warrant Officer Clark according to her insignia and patch—waited at the door and I guessed the US Marshals only dealt with incoming security. She greeted me with a “Right this way,” and led me down a wide windowless hall. Despite the air conditioning, the humidity and the seacoast smell they couldn’t completely scrub out told me I was definitely back in Cuba.

“Security already has your biometric information, ma’am.” She stopped in front of a heavy door and palmed the lock. “You’ll be able to use any booth phone and computer. All calls are monitored. Anything you choose to upload will be scanned, as will anything you download. You can take cleared files back with you on the provided flash drives.”

“Is this really the only way to call out?”

“For texting and email we have the repeater service between the pocket and the world. Scanned for content of course, but you barely notice the lag even if you know about it. Here you go, ma’am.”

The room she’d led me into was one long bay with another door at the other end. Booths ran along each wall, twenty to a side. Sliding doors gave privacy to anyone in a booth, with a light over the frame telling you which were occupied. Only six were in use now.

Clark palmed the terminal in the closest empty booth and closed the door on me with a polite “Use the door at the far end when you’re finished.” I listened to the sound of her retreating footsteps, barely more audible than the murmurs of the other callers. Without my super-duper hearing I wouldn’t have heard them at all.

Okay then
.

The Dome dispatcher who answered recognized my voice and code and forwarded me instantly. One ring…

“Hope! Where
are
you?”

“Brigadoon.”

“What? Oh. Oh that’s bad.” Shell’s mom hadn’t been into all things Broadway and Hollywood Musical like my mom was, but she’d probably looked it up on Wikipedia and read the whole entry between her “What?” and her “Oh.”

“Sorry.” It really was a bad joke, but I couldn’t keep the giggle in as the knot of anxiety in my gut loosened. “I’m staying a few streets over from the water tower. You’re here, too. It’s all classified.”

“Shut the front door!”

But she didn’t sound
shocked
. “Shell…”

“Okay, I knew about her government job and that she was ‘out of range’. She made me swear not to pry and we worked up five unbreakable texting codes to make sure the DSA wasn’t just using the job as bait to lock her up somewhere and empty her head or examine her side of our neural link—we were
careful
.”

“So you’re linked now?” And here I’d been worried that Shelly wasn’t joining us through Shell in our cyber-neural link because the two of them had issues. Instead she was good to go, just blocked by her
secretly living
in another universe
.

No, I wasn’t upset about being left in the dark at all.

Shell didn’t give me time to brood. “Like psychic twins whenever she’s not ‘covered’—I just hadn’t known she was where
we
were looking for, what are the odds? So what’s going on out there? I haven’t been able to reach you since the plane—which, considering you’re with Shelly is, well, duh.”

“It looks like I’m here until the fire starts or we stop the threat. Tell everybody I’m sorry? I’m sure Blackstone already knows, but… What’s
happening
? Should I be here? I wish—” I wished Jacky was here. Or Blackstone. Nobody else was as good at the twisty kind of thinking that the situation screamed for—although it looked like
Shelly
might be learning it.

“Everything’s happening.” I could hear the laugh in her voice. “And nothing you could do about it even if you were here.”

“Powerteam?”

“Uhuh. Legal Eagle got a court order against them and they’ve taken down the edited preview video, but it’s still all over the net. Pirated. You know.”

Unfortunately I did.
 
Hardcore cape-watchers everywhere would have copied the files. They would enjoy eternal life in personal computers and on international servers beyond the reach of any court orders.

“So we’ve gone ahead and cut our own little home movie from the Dispatch footage.” Her voice cranked up to gleeful. “The download demand almost crashed our server.”

“Oh. Oh boy.” I covered my eyes, not sure whether to laugh or cry.

“Yup. Can’t say that it makes you look, you know, on
top
of things, but it definitely shows who started it!”

“That’s…” That was alright, actually. I could live with looking stupid if it helped get the team off the hook. “Right. So okay, maybe it’s best I’m not there.”

“
De
finitely. And the whole assault thing with Litner? The sleaze got some great shots of us looking shocked and pissed off, and yeah the tabloids are running with it. But!” she kept going over my groan, “Between the Bee’s testimony and the valet attendant that saw it all, you’re solid. And do you think he’s going to go after
Annabeth
for assault? Yeah, right.”

Right indeed. All she’d have to do was sit in the witness stand and cry and any jury would spontaneously award her a million dollars. And probably rush out of the jury box to lynch Litner—there wouldn’t be anything left for Dane to finish. And was it wrong that just thinking about that made me feel better?

“And what about the Bees? How are they?”
How is Julie?

“Yeah… Julie’s…” I knew that tone.

“What did you say to her?”

“Hey, I went and saw her like you asked! Okay, I
might
have told her how pissed you were that they’d kept you out of the loop. Hope?”

Banging my head against the side of the booth didn’t help at all.

“Really? What part of that is ‘Tell her everything’s alright?’ Okay— That’s…that’ll do. I’ll text later. I’ve got to go, okay?”

“Okay. Give me my best. Love you.”

“Always. Take care of everybody.”

We hung up and I sat for a moment to catch my breath, proud that I’d managed to keep from asking how Brian was doing with Kindrake. It really was all good news. Really. And the Navy would be able to get the dent out of the booth wall. Five breaths later I dialed again. One ring, two…

“Yes?”

“Hello, Mom?”

“Ma’am? If you could come with me?”

Stepping out of the booth, I hadn’t expected to find Warrant Officer Clark waiting for me.

“Is there a problem?” My talk with Mom had been…fun. Like always, she had been bravely supportive of what I was doing, and like always I was left feeling wrung out, an awful, awful person for risking myself and making my parents worry. I couldn’t handle any more problems right now.

“No ma’am, but the station CO would like to talk to you.”

She took me through the far door, but instead of following the green line labeled “Littleton” she led me through guarded doors down a side hall and up a secure elevator. An armored receptionist waved us through an armored door, into what had to be the Garage’s security center. The far wall was floor-to-ceiling glass, looking over the bay Veritas and I had departed from yesterday. Three stations of screens monitored the Garage and its traffic. Clark brought me to two white-uniformed naval officers standing behind an elevated desk by the windows, and saluted.

“Sir. Hope Corrigan, sir.”

“Thank you, Warrant,” the officer wearing commander’s bars returned the salute. “Dismissed.”

She spun around and marched off, leaving her CO to look me over. He did, and the way his mouth tightened screamed that he didn’t like what he saw. “Ms. Corrigan. Thank you for coming upstairs.” He offered me his hand and we shook. “Commander Steven Rosack, station CO. I guard the door.”