Dreams of the Golden Age (Golden Age 2)

Her sixth sense followed Teddy’s progress as he reached the third floor, where he stopped for a long time. Minutes dragged.

She wanted nothing more than to run over there and find out what was happening. She’d call, but they’d turned their phones to silent as a precaution. At least they figured that much out. They weren’t entirely stupid, or so she kept telling herself.

More minutes passed, and Teddy hadn’t moved. He might have had a good escape plan—turn invisible and phase out was pretty darned good—but even the best escape plan could go wrong. What they hadn’t worked out was a signal for when she should call for help if something really did go wrong. How would she ever know? It would be terrible if on their first outing as a superhero team they had to call for help. Wouldn’t Teia love that? Oh, but if this worked, Teia wouldn’t be able to say a thing.

She started pacing until her knees felt wobbly, then she crouched and hugged herself. And waited.

If things went really wrong, she’d probably hear gunshots. So she started listening for the sound of gunshots from the squat building.

After what seemed like half the night, Teddy started moving again. The light of his presence moved back down the stairs. Quickly. She went to the corner across the street from the building to wait for him.

A dark figure phasing through the door, he emerged from solid metal. It was always disconcerting seeing him do that. You blinked a few times and looked again, sure that there’d been a gap in the wall that you didn’t see, or that the door that was there had opened without you noticing. But no, he ran through solid matter without stopping. He arrived at her corner, and they ducked into a doorway, out of sight.

“Well?” she asked.

“Got it, let’s go,” Teddy said, bodiless. He pressed his hand to her back, urging her on.

The buses had stopped running, but they’d planned for that and she’d brought along cash. They shoved their masks into their bags and had to walk eight blocks to find any cabs. Even then, it took three tries to flag one down, this late and with them dressed like cut-rate ninjas.

The driver studied them in his rearview mirror. “Don’t you kids have school tomorrow? It’s a little late.”

“Just go to Seventy-second and Pine,” Teddy muttered.

On the drive, he showed her the pictures he’d shot. They were good. They’d nail the guy.

They stopped a few blocks from Teddy’s house. That would have been stupid, going straight home. After dropping him off, Anna had the cab take her to a hotel a couple of blocks from West Plaza. She had to hope that was good enough to throw people off. Her calculations were good and she’d collected enough of her allowance to pay the driver. Twenty minutes later, she was at West Plaza taking the secret elevator up.

Finally, she could breathe. She hadn’t realized she’d spent all night feeling like she was strangling until she got home, and the air seemed clearer.

But they’d done it. They’d really, really done it. They’d show everyone. And Dad wasn’t even waiting up for her. Victory.

* * *

Nothing in any of the superhero biographies or memoirs talked about how you were supposed to get any sleep, fighting crime at night and pretending that everything was normal during the day. This was even worse than the nights they all went out to practice. She hadn’t burned herself out on adrenaline those nights. She hadn’t spent those nights with her heart beating in her throat.

Getting out of bed and getting ready for school the next morning was a complete nightmare. Especially since the work from the night before wasn’t over.

Her parents were distracted when she asked them if Tom could take her to school early today. She had a test to study for, she lied and didn’t care if her father knew. But he didn’t even blink. Bethy howled over having to leave early, but Mom and Dad didn’t seem bothered by the change in routine. They told Bethy she’d just have to study in the library an extra few minutes before school started. Bethy stared bullets at Anna. If anyone was going to guess what was going on and blow the whole thing open, it would be Bethy.

She wondered if Bethy had learned to read minds and had sense enough not to tell anyone. That gave Anna a chill, which she had no choice but to ignore.

At school, she waited for the town car to pull out of sight. Then she ran. There was an Internet café a few blocks away. A lot of the kids

went there for caffeine jolts before school, so Anna wasn’t out of place. This was part of the plan, and she had work to do.

Anna had already taken the photos from Teddy’s camera and stripped identifying information off them, except for the location marker. The pictures were great—he had gotten one with Scarzen standing right behind a pile of money and weapons, and another showing a pile of bagged white powder. They ought to work. She mailed them to the “tips” address on the police department’s website, using an anonymous and she hoped untraceable web address with no identifying info.

They’d done this as anonymously as they could. Now all they could do was wait to see if their tip did any good. Unlike fighting fires, they didn’t get the instant gratification of knowing they’d helped someone or seeing news of their exploits in the paper. It was frustrating. But they had to be patient. They just had to.

* * *

It happened faster than they thought it would. The very next morning, Teddy called her cell phone, breathless and nearly incomprehensible. She wasn’t even out of bed yet.

“Anna! Anna, have you seen the news? You have to look at the news, I sent you the link, check your messages, right now!”

“Teddy, it’s five in the morning.” She was still catching up on sleep from the night of their raid. Didn’t Teddy sleep at all?

“Anna. Check your messages.” He was suddenly very serious.