Dreams of the Golden Age (Golden Age 2)

“All right,” she said calmly. “Which one of you is blocking Dr. Mentis?”

They all, except Majors, glanced at the man who’d initially kidnapped her, dark haired and thin faced, lithe and intense in his business suit. So they had a mentalist. Problematic, not impossible. She caught the flicker of uncertainty in their eyes. Not quite fear, but close. Majors had probably told them this would be easy. The mentalist unfolded his arms, frowned.

“Are your powers active or passive?” she continued, regarding the mentalist, poking. “Can you actively influence other people’s minds, or just block another mentalist’s powers?”

“Enough,” Majors said, as Celia expected he would. She could guess the answer on her own—they’d had to physically take her off the street and drug her. This guy couldn’t do anything but block. Still, it meant Arthur wouldn’t be able to find her. Not right away. Anna wouldn’t be able to find her, either, and that meant Anna probably knew she’d been taken. She would tell Arthur. Help was on the way, and Majors and his team wouldn’t know that.

This was all going to be okay.

Majors came to stand before her, just a bit too close, so she had to crane her neck back to see him, so she could feel the body heat coming off him. “We need to talk.”

She said, “I have an office, and it’s a lot more comfortable than this. I’d have been happy to schedule you in.”

“Oh no, not like that. This is bigger than that.”

“It always is,” she muttered.

“You can’t be allowed to continue on your current path,” he said. Matter-of-fact, condescending. The kind of tone that indicated he wasn’t used to being argued with. His henchmen arrayed behind him supported his claims.

“What path?”

“West Corp. You’re going to sell West Corp to me. You won’t be able to use it as your base of power anymore. I’ll break up the company, sell off its subsidiaries, and no one can ever use its power and influence again.”

This both confused her, and not. What did West Corp have to do with any of this? They’d grabbed her to use as bait in some other scheme, she was being held hostage for some kind of leverage. That was how it always worked.

On the other hand, West Corp was everything, wasn’t it? And she was West Corp. Something else was going on here, some subtlety that Majors was assuming, that she wasn’t picking up on.

“I’m the third generation of my family to run this company, and you think I’m just going to sell it? Are you crazy?”

“And after you sell the company to me, you’ll leave Commerce City forever. I don’t care where you go, but you can’t stay.”

She stared. The former suggestion seemed laughable. This one landed in her gut with a punch. Her shock faded to a cold resolve. “I don’t think so.”

“I’m not giving you a choice, Ms. West. You’re too dangerous, and you’ve manipulated this city’s affairs for your own ends for too long. It’s time you step aside.”

A burst of laughter escaped, and she clamped her jaw shut to quell it before continuing. “I’m dangerous? What have I done?”

“I’d heard rumors, but I wasn’t sure, so I came to Commerce City to watch. We all did. And now we’ve seen how you work. Commerce City’s judiciary is in your pocket. I don’t know why I thought I could have used the courts to expose you. You control City Hall, the police, the newspapers—and no one’s the wiser because you put on this respectable public face. No one can see it, not even the superheroes, because you’ve used your reputation, your identity as the daughter of the Olympiad to reassure people that you’re not a threat, oh no, you only have their best interests in mind. It’s for the public good!”

This astonished her more than anything; she’d hated her parents’ superhero identities when she was growing up. She’d hated being the daughter of the Olympiad. It had gotten her into too many situations just like this. She hated being judged by their standards, which she could never hope to reach, plain and powerless as she was. Identify with them? She’d fled. The picture he painted of her—ambitious, manipulative, amoral—was so weird. She could only look up at him, confused.

He was on the verge of frothing, angry like he’d been personally insulted. “But we know what’s really going on. Who you really are.”

“And who am I?” she said softly, as if afraid to shatter some precious object.

“You’re the Executive.”

A code name. A secret identity. A superhero name, and with it a power. It was strange, twisted, and marvelous. She wondered what her father would think. He would smile, she decided.

“I see,” she said. “I’m the archvillain. And you’re here to save the city from me, like the heroes of old. That makes you the good guys, is that what you’re saying?” She pointedly looked at the straps binding her arms to the chair.

“I had to convince you how serious I am. In all good conscience I can’t let you leave h

ere unless you agree to abandon your activities. If you don’t, I’ll deliver you to Elroy Asylum. I’ll tell them you’ve snapped, and I can make sure they believe me.”

She’d fallen down some kind of rabbit hole into an alternate universe. She was being subjected to some mad scientist’s strange mental experiments in nightmare manipulation. It was the only explanation. She could only respond with wonder, and calm, because what good would panic do? Telling him he was insane seemed too obvious a reaction. Too close to the standard hostage playbook. No matter that Arthur couldn’t hear her, she thought at him anyway. —Arthur, I really need help right now. Help.—

“How do you expect to convince me, Mr. Majors? Or do you have some other fancy nickname I should be calling you? Commander Arrogant? Ego Man?”