Dreams of the Golden Age (Golden Age 2)

“This is so awkward,” Teddy muttered, tapping a hand against the passenger side door. “I mean, look at us, we don’t look anything like superheroes in this thing.”

“You insult my car one more time, you can walk,” Sam groused back.

“Anna, the Olympiad didn’t have any flyers, how did they get around? Didn’t they have some kind of, like, helicopter or supersonic jet or something? What’d they do with them?”

Gave a whole new meaning to asking Mom and Dad to borrow the car, didn’t it? Except they wouldn’t let her drive anything. “I don’t really know—they had some armored cars and a jump jet, I think, but I don’t know what happened to them. They’re probably stored somewhere. I mean, the command room still works. Dad opened it up so we could use the computers to find Mom.”

“Really? Holy cow.”

“That reminds me—here.” She gave them the extra headsets Suzanne had retrieved from the cupboard. “We’ll be able to stay in touch. Bethy’s coordinating from the Olympiad mainframe.”

“Cool,” Teddy murmured, without sufficient gravity or respect for the situation, Anna thought.

“The pipsqueak can do that?” Sam said.

“Yeah. She’s the smart one.”

They didn’t argue with that.

Eventually, after interminable minutes, they reached a police cordon surrounding Horizon Tower. A block in every direction appeared to be shut down with barriers and patrol cars, roof lights flashing. Yellow police tape fluttered, reporters pressed close with cameras and shouted questions, and even a few superhero groupies mingled among the usual onlookers and passersby. A man in a ratty coat held a beat-up sign reading CAPTAIN OLYMPUS: OUR ALIEN SAVIOR WILL RETURN. Anna got a little queasy reading that.

“Great,” Sam muttered. “How do we talk them into letting us through?”

Any sane cop would look at them—three teens in a car wearing masks and homemade superhero costumes—and laugh, not let them past a serious cordon.

“My dad and Captain Paulson are just around the corner, we can call them over—”

The nearest officer came over and tapped on the window as Sam slowed. Dutifully, Sam rolled it down.

“You guys the Trinity? The captain said you’d be showing up. Park there, meet Captain Paulson at the front of the building. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” Anna replied.

Sam complied, and Ms. Baker slid their car to the curb behind the sedan. The boys all piled out and ran up the block. Anna hung back to walk with Teia and her mother. The cops just waved them all on through. Dr. Mentis must have talked them into making this easy. Anna started to get excited in spite of herself. This—the crowds, the orders delivered through a scratching bullhorn, the rabid sense of anticipation—must have been what it was like in the old days.

“This is the most fucked-up field trip I’ve ever chaperoned,” Ms. Baker said, shaking her head.

“Mom!” Teia exclaimed.

Her mother rolled her eyes. “Oh, hon, calm down.”

Anna sidled close to Teia and said, “Your mom seems to be taking this very calmly.”

“Yeah, that’s because it turns out my mom was Typhoon. Should have known, right?”

“What? Holy shit!”

“Tell me about it.”

Anna took a surreptitious glance at Analise Baker. Aka Typhoon? She tried to picture it—plenty of photos of the superhuman existed: an athletic black woman with hair in cornrows tucked back by a sleek blue-green mask that matched her liquidlike skin suit. She’d been one of the premier supers in her day, but she’d vanished from public view when a warrant was issued for her arrest on suspicion of murder, after one of her tidal waves drowned a cop. The debate about whether that drowning was accidental or intentional still raged. The Ms. Baker Anna was walking next to now was … old. As old as her own mother, and kind of soft, with short halolike hair tied back with a red headband. And she didn’t have any powers, not that anyone knew about. Did she? Typhoon could telekinetically control water and summon rain—storms, in fact, much like Lew did. And Teia’s manipulation of ice was just another form of controlling water, wasn’t it? Teia was right, they should have guessed.

“Why didn’t you ever go public?” Anna asked, blushing at the rudeness of it.

“Because that was a long time ago and it all happened to another person.”

“Well … thank you. For coming out now, to help get Mom back.”

Analise shook her head and seemed sad, full of regret. “I won’t be able to help. I’m here to look out for my kids.”