Dreams of the Golden Age (Golden Age 2)

They were all so much older.

The kids came out a moment later, and Robbie gushed over them. He was their Uncle Robbie, and even Anna smiled for him. They trekked to the dining room adjoining the kitchen, and the evening rolled along nicely after that. The kids set the table. Everyone asked Suzanne if she needed help, but the cook shooed them away.

Sitting at the table next to Arthur, across from her children, Celia regarded the pleasant chaos of her life, which suddenly seemed fragile.

The food arrived, stir-fried pork with an amazing array of vegetables and perfectly seasoned noodles, and everyone oohed and ahhed, then debated the merits of chopsticks, the skills required to use them, and commenced eating.

Conversation started innocuously enough with the perennial topic of school, and Bethy went off for five minutes about math and thinking about trying out for the school play and the stupidity of book reports because it was all just opinion anyway, and she finally took another bite of food, which slowed her down. Anna stared at her plate, industriously paying attention to her bites and not much else. She didn’t even roll her eyes at Bethy’s monologue, like usual. Teia and Lew were back in school, she reported. They didn’t know why they’d been taken out in the first place. Their mother was having a midlife crisis or something, was Teia’s opinion.

Everyone else reported on the state of their lives. Celia made what she hoped was an unassuming comment about too many meetings, hoping to avoid an interrogation. She did, and talk moved on.

Then Robbie said, “How about the news lately? That new super team? Looks like we might finally have that second Olympiad we’ve been waiting for.”

Suzanne lamented, “Oh, yes, that photo. They all look so young. We were never that young, were we?”

Robbie snorted. “Everybody looks young to me these days.”

They’re Anna’s age, Celia thought, clamping her jaw shut so she wouldn’t speak. They’re Anna’s friends. Children. What would he say if it were Anna under one of those masks? She glanced at her elder daughter, who was staring at her plate, but her fork was still.

Celia’s father, Warren West, the legendary Captain Olympus, had wanted more than anything for Celia to follow in his footsteps and become a superpowered hero. He hadn’t gotten that. What would he think of his granddaughter following in his footsteps? Celia couldn’t even guess. She was so young.

Arthur, eternally serene, said, “The real test will be if they stick around, or if they quit after a year when they realize how tough the job is.”

“They do seem to be more enamored of the publicity than is really good for them, don’t they?” Suzanne said.

“I don’t know,” Robbie said, spearing noodles with a fork. “There’s something about these guys. I think they may be in it for the long haul. They have some real hard-core powers. They aren’t going to sit on the sidelines. And you know that anonymous tip that took down Scarzen? I think that might have been them, too.”

Celia realized the awful, ironic truth: In his retirement, since he was no longer able to live the vigilante lifestyle himself, Robbie had become a superhero groupie.

She said, as gently as she could manage, “What you really want is to sit them down and dispense advice, isn’t it?”

“If I thought they’d actually listen to an old man like me. But no, the books are out there, let them read up on me if they want advice. It’s all on paper.”

“You think they can do it?” Anna asked, after her long and pointed silence. “I mean, do you really think they can be like the Olympiad?”

“I really think they’re crazy,” Robbie said. “But then again, we were crazy.” He chuckled like it was a good thing. “I’m looking forward to seeing what they do, that’s for sure.”

“It’ll certainly be interesting,” Suzanne added.

“Can we talk about something else?” Anna said. “This … it’s just sensationalism.”

“Sometimes I think that’s the point,” Robbie replied.

“Anna’s mad because she wishes she had superpowers,” Bethy observed.

“No, you’re the one who wants powers,” Anna shot back, more a reflexive argument than one that made sense.

“Girls,” Celia said in a warning tone that was rapidly losing its effectiveness. Soon, they’d stop listening to her entirely, and wouldn’t that be a fun day?

“It’s not even about the powers, isn’t that what you’re always saying?” Anna looked straight at Celia, a challenge or a warning. “It’s about doing good whether or not you have powers. Right?”

“Exactly,” Celia said, but without confidence, worried where this was going to go next.

Robbie shrugged. “It’s still the superpowers that make Commerce City what it is. It’s part of your family heritage.”

“See?” Bethy proclaimed.

Celia glared at Robbie, with a curl to her lip. “I don’t know. Not having them is a pretty big part of their heritage, too.”