The routine of getting home was well practiced. She took the late bus, got off to walk the last couple of blocks. Before reaching home, though, she stopped, her gaze gone suddenly fuzzy. A presence intruded on her awareness. Someone familiar but not family. She hadn’t been looking for him, he wasn’t a part of her everyday awareness, so she noticed only when he got close. Right before he sailed out of the sky, almost on top of her, and fell to a three-point landing a few yards away. She didn’t flinch.
“Eliot,” she said. He was wearing his mask and costume tonight. “Were you following me?” She flushed, all her embarrassment at their last encounter rushing back.
“I spotted you at the park, sure.” Didn’t seem at all apologetic. She’d been so focused on Teia and the others, and looking for bad guys, she hadn’t thought to look for him. All he had to do was track the bus from the air. If he’d followed her all the way home, that would have been a disaster.
“Why not show yourself there? Why follow me?”
“Don’t get so worked up there, kid.”
He was making fun of her. She marched off, determined to be angry.
“Hey, Rose—wait a minute. I’m sorry. I wanted to talk to you. Just you, not your friend.”
In spite of herself, she felt a bit of a flutter at that. Maybe he wasn’t making fun of her. No, either way, she was being stupid. But she stopped and waited for him to catch up. “Okay.”
“We can talk on the way to wherever you’re going—um, where are you going?” He looked around to the skyscrapers and office developments of the downtown business district. Not someplace she’d be expected to stroll around in the middle of the night. The glowing blue logo at the top of West Plaza glared like a beacon, the crescent shape like a half-lidded eye surveying her, judging her.
She pointed in a random direction opposite West Plaza. Some bars and all-night food stands lined the street a few blocks away; that ought to distract him. They walked.
Eliot said, “You know Commerce City better than I do, since I’m not from here—”
“Where are you from?”
He hesitated, not wanting to give up information any more than she did, and she was about to tell him it didn’t matter, but he said, “Delta. Ever been there?”
“No. Is it cool?”
“About the same—big city, with all the big city stuff. Commerce City is always better if you like superhumans.”
“Or worse if you don’t.”
He smiled. “Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, I’ve been going out. Like you guys, not really doing anything but just looking around. And I’ve been hearing rumors. Commerce City hasn’t had a real supervillain since the Destructor. Is that right?”
Anna said, “It depends on what counts as a supervillain. There was Steelyard, the carjacker. He didn’t have powers, he was just the ringleader of all the grand larceny in town for a couple of years, and the Block Busters took care of him. Techhunter shows up every now and then, but nobody knows if he really has powers. I don’t know if he’s a real supervillain; he’s pretty small scale, robberies and pranks and stuff. He’s never tried to take over the city or anything, and no one’s been able to find him to go after him.” Every few years saw a new master criminal looking to take over the title of Commerce City’s grand archvillain, but none of them had risen to the level of fame and terror the Destructor generated. Her own family’s history with the Destructor was the stuff of legend. When Anna read the old news stories, they felt like fairy tales. She did the research on the old heroes at the school library, so no one in her family would see the books or look up her browser history.
Most commentators claimed that for whatever reason, the city’s golden age of superpowered heroes and villains had long since passed. Everything after that would necessarily blaze less brightly. All the city had now were petty criminals and clueless kids playing dress-up.
“So if I told you I was hearing rumors about a new supervillain on the rise, you’d be surprised.”
“A little, maybe. I mean, anyone can call themselves a supervillain but they’d need to prove it.”
“This one’s subtle, apparently. Works behind the scenes, gets others to do the real dirty work. Has a long-term strategy. Taking-over-the-city stuff, but doing it without anyone noticing.”
“Subtle, huh? Like what, bribing politicians, buying up property?” Because that was how she’d do it. Maybe run for office. It wouldn’t even be illegal.
“Yeah, along with powers like mind control.”
She gave him a look, her brow furrowed. “Really?”
“The thing about mind control, you wouldn’t even know it was happening, would you?”
She couldn’t tell him that she was very familiar with how mind control worked. “You think there’s a villain mind-controlling the whole city to do his bidding?” The thing was, it wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility. The implications were frightening, so she wasn’t willing to latch on to the idea just yet.
They were approaching a noisy part of downtown, and she guided Eliot down another block. They were both still dressed up and would attract too much attention.
“People—the people I’m hearing the rumors from—are calling him the Executive.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Is that supposed to be scary?”