After the Golden Age (Golden Age 1)

“It would be so easy to break you. Such a young, innocent thing—a blank slate. I could write anything on you.” He let his body lean close to her, brought his face to her shirt and inhaled deeply through his nose, smelling her. She could feel his breath through her shirt, on her breasts, then on her throat.

“No. Please, no.” Her tears streamed steadily now. She knew what this was, knew she didn’t want it to happen. Not like this.

If only she were strong. If only she had her mother’s power, her father’s strength. Such a disappointment, as he’d said.

He straightened his arms, pushing away from her, and she gasped a sigh of relief. “Hush, my dear. I’m not so gauche as that.”

Moving to the head of the chair, he reached for an equipment stand. In moments, he was pasting electrodes to her scalp, burying them in her red hair, pressing them to her skin.

She’d almost prefer the other. At least she knew what was happening, then. She bit her lips closed and refused to cry anymore.

He’d secured over a dozen of the electrodes, then pulled a device mounted on a jointed arm to the side of the chair. Made of steel and glass, it looked like a gun, a long nose with narrow rings of wires and disks protruding from a complicated mechanism. The Destructor studied it, making adjustments, then aimed the point of it at her forehead.

He went to the computer banks. “I call this process Psychostasis. A freezing of the mind. You won’t feel anything, I promise. You’ll start to forget, and you won’t even notice that you’re forgetting. You’ll go on without a care in the world. And when you’ve forgotten enough, then we’ll stop. It only becomes really dangerous if your heart forgets to beat. But I won’t let that happen.” He smiled at her over his shoulder.

No, no, no—her thoughts narrowed to that simple, desperate pleading. If she thought hard enough, maybe she could make it happen. Maybe she could give herself powers through sheer will.

No, she couldn’t, because then she’d have had powers a long time ago.

“Doctor! Something’s happening outside!” A man wearing a black suit ran into the room.

The Destructor paused, frowned. “I don’t want to be disturbed.”

“But I think it’s the Olympiad!”

She couldn’t see the villain’s expression, but his voice turned cold and determined. “Never mind. I only need a few moments.”

He turned back to his computer. A vibration passed along her skin, like the hum of a voice close to her ear.

“No,” she whispered, crying. Only a minute, she only had to hold on for one more minute. Don’t forget, never forget.

A fireball roiled through the doorway, tossing aside the Destructor’s goon, who rolled to the protective cover of a computer console.

The Destructor frowned and stepped back.

“Mentis! She’s in here!” Her mother’s voice, ringing clear.

A wall of flame erupted, a shield between Spark and Celia, and the Destructor and his computers. In the next moment, Dr. Mentis was beside her, holding her face, looking into her eyes.

“Celia, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” she said, because she couldn’t nod.

More than hear him, she could feel him prodding in the corners of her mind, like an extra voice, a thought that wasn’t hers, a dream that she didn’t know the origin of. An odd smell of sage filled her nose. She couldn’t stop it or respond—she didn’t have that power. But she didn’t struggle. Whatever the Destructor had done to her, Mentis would find it and fix it.

He must have been satisfied with what he found in her mind, because he grabbed the wires, all of them together, and tore them away. Her hair and skin ripped; she braced and didn’t cry out. Calmly and methodically, he pulled loose all the straps, then put her arms over his shoulders.

“Hold on,” he said. “Close your eyes.”

He lifted her out of the chair. She clung to him, pressing her face to his shoulder as he carried her away. Her thoughts filled with panic and gratitude, and Mentis didn’t let go until she was safely inside the Olympiad’s hovership.

Safe. She was safe now.

The Destructor escaped, like he always did. He always planned a back door for himself. Despite his disappearance, he wasn’t finished inflicting damage this time. The headlines in the newspapers the next day said it all: “The Olympiad, Unmasked! Commerce City Socialites Warren and Suzanne West Don’t Deny It! They Are Captain Olympus and Spark!” The anonymous tips the paper had received included completely verifiable photographs. Their secret identities were ruined.

And their daughter was fair game.

SIX