Good news, friends! I just finished the redraft of my second novel, and sent it off to my editor. Which means I have no use but to keep working on this let's read!
Oh dear.
Smile for the mugshot! We combed my hair so that the shaved strip with its row of bloody stitches is obvious to the casual viewer. That, plus the snarling line of laser burns on my face, makes it pretty clear I’ve been in a fight. Cecilia says it never hurts to remind people I put my life on the line for them. It’s not enough to keep me out of prison; we’ve got to keep my reputation intact as well or I could lose my contract.
Man, alternate universe Kiwi Farms must be
jumpin' right now. I bet Janet Tozer posts under her own name and then gets put under pedo-restrictions by the police.
Actually, that reminds me, do you think alternate universe Sabaton does songs about famous superhero battles? Bet they're not writing any about D4.
We haven’t even spoken about what this might do to my still-pending federal license. I’m beginning to think it will be years before I’m allowed to fight for Northern Union.
You mean the the "super-team" that's apparently usually just the Legion when they play away games? I swear to God, this is those
Temps stories without the comedy.
After I get fingerprinted, some officers lead me to an interview room. One of them handcuffs me to the table, and I look up at him with what I hope is withering skepticism. “Really?”
He blushes. “It’s policy.”
“Uh-huh.”
Man of Steel did this scene better.
The cop scuttles out of the room, and then it’s just me with four gray walls and the linoleum. Cecilia was with me when I got arrested, but they split us up for the booking part, and now we’ve got to wait for them to decide to let my lawyer talk to me. All that noise you hear about having a right to an attorney? It doesn’t mean having an attorney at whatever time is most convenient for you.
So I sit, and I stew, and I try to hold still so I don’t aggravate my injuries. They’re healing well. Already my hairline fractures have begun to fuse. In a few hours I get more healing done than most people do in a few days. My healing factor isn’t much compared with some capes, like Deathwish or Infinity, but it’s plucky, and it’s mine, and it gets the job done.
At this point, I'm shocked one of the heroes she just mentioned wasn't called "Bandicoot" or something.
A vicious thought occurs to me. If Garrison really did give Red Steel eye lasers he didn’t have before, he might have boosted his regeneration powers in the bargain. I might have to face him again before this is over.
Sure hope he hasn't murdered everyone on that boat.
I open up the phone program on my suit and tap out an email to Red Steel’s public address.
Hi!
This is Danny. We kicked each other’s asses earlier today. No hard feelings, I hope, but if I see you fighting for Garrison again, I will put you down for good. It’s not worth your life. Walk away.
Hugs and Kisses,
Dreadnought ^_^
A few minutes later, my suit buzzes with an incoming message. It’s from Red Steel and my heart flips over. Already? I was kind of hoping that after the ass-whooping I handed out, he’d still be asleep.
Why the fuck does he have access to his email? Surely he'd be in some kind of secure medical unit? Did--did nobody arrest him? Does he have diplomatic immunity? Is this like catch-and-release fishing? Or was Danny right, Red Steel regenerated, pulled a Demeter on the fishing boat, and swam off to safety?
So of course I have to write back.
Okey dokey! When this is over can we get a selfie together?
-D
I do not believe you will survive the next seventy-two hours.
-RS
Okay, but what if I do?
-D
Cool beans. How are you feeling, by the way?
-D
Perhaps you should threaten me, and we shall see how I am feeling.
-RS
Don't indulge him, Red, you're too good for this.
I know from that last scuffle on the beach that he can sense his surroundings even when blind with cataracts. Maybe it lets him send emails as well, or he’s dictating them to someone. Or maybe he’s already back in action and simply wishes to sit the rest of this out. I decide that I need more practice at the better part of valor and close my email program.
Man, imagine being a superhero who debuted in the 40s and having the power to send email with your mind. What would you even think that was for?
“So?” I ask her. Little flickers of trepidation swirl around my ribs. I know I’m innocent, but being handcuffed in a police station for a few hours has a way of bringing home all sorts of unpleasant possibilities.
Like them finding the blog you ran with David.
Something’s rotten,” says Cecilia as she opens the first folder. Her voice is clipped. “They found his body a little under six hours ago. The coroner says he died early this morning.”
The trepidation explodes into full on anxiety. “That…doesn’t sound right. I mean, that sounds a little fast, doesn’t it?” I say this, but of course I know the answer, I’m just scared to say it out loud. The government can’t even decide whether or not to wipe its ass in six hours.
She nods. “No kidding. To go from body to warrant in less than a day is impossible. Someone has their thumb on the scale. I’ve got little birdies and they tell me pressure is coming from way up high.”
Amerimutts, is that true? I mean, I can see the cops being pretty fast if they have reason to think the most powerful superhero in the world has gone nuts and started slaughtering his personal enemies.
I lean forward anxiously. “But we can beat this, right?”
“I think we need to look beyond the legal case. It’s no coincidence this is happening now. This looks like a backup plan to me. Garrison wanted to recruit you, but since that’s fallen through he wants you off the field and tied up in court.
Garrison is banking a lot on Danny respecting the rule of law. Also, as many of us have pointed out several other times, this kind of wheeling-and-dealing feels pretty pointless when you can literally create an army of supervillains whenever you want.
We need to focus on getting you out of custody as quickly as possible so you’re free to counter whatever he’s following this up with.”
Everyone in this book vacillates between having no respect for the law and being raging, statist pussies. One minute we're breaking into a woman's home and threatening to murder them if our cell-phone signal ever fails again, or stealing a state's worth of electricity to power our death-ray, the next we're allowing ourselves to be railroaded in the courts while a villain monopolize superpowers forever.
Cecilia starts flipping through folders and arranging papers on the table. “In the longer term, their case doesn’t look too solid. At the very least, we can account for your whereabouts with GPS data for most of the past week, including the time you were supposedly—” Cecilia’s voice halts. Her fingers go white around her pen. After a moment, she continues, voice steady. “Supposedly murdering Vincent.”
“Cecilia, are you okay?”
Her lips twist into a sour smile. “Superhero law is a very small community. He wasn’t…we weren’t friends. But he was one of us.”
Why would it be small? Super-shit seems to be a pretty common occurrence.
The prosecutor is a man I know by face, but not name. I’ve testified in cases he was working on before, but usually I was on his side as his star witness.
Genuine question, would there be an issue then with him prosecuting Danny?
The judge enters from his chamber. Judge Wickles is an older man, hair like slicked-back steel and wrinkles that stand up like oak bark.
Wrinkles that... stand up? The fuck does that mean? Do his wrinkles
protrude from his face?
“Danielle Tozer, you stand accused of murder in the second degree,” says Judge Wickles. “The District Attorney’s office alleges that you did seek out your parents’ lawyer, Vincent Trauth, that you found him at his home at approximately five in the morning earlier today, that you had an argument with him, and that in the heat of the moment, you broke his neck and killed him.
Well, I'm convinced, book him, boys!
As a licensed superhero, you are automatically required to be tried as an adult, and so the penalty for this crime is ten to eighteen years in prison. Do you understand the charges laid against you as I have described them?”
That seems a bit low? Again, is that a sentence you would expect for that in America? I'm not even going to touch the "tried as an adult thing."
All that brief, buoyed confidence I was feeling has melted, puddled in my boots. “I do, Your Honor.”
“Very well. You may enter a plea of guilty, not guilty, or no contest. How do you plead?”
With a heroic demonstration of self-restraint, I avoid pointing out that if I were going to murder someone, it would be stupid to leave their body lying around to incriminate me when I could very easily dispose of it by burning it up in the atmosphere. Instead, I settle for “Not guilty, Your Honor.”
...Danny's given Earth a ring thicker than Saturn's, doesn't it?
“Very well. I see you have retained counsel, so we will move on to the matter of setting bail. You may sit,” says Judge Wickles. “Does the prosecution have anything to enter into consideration for this decision?”
Hawser rises from his seat. “Your Honor, the prosecution moves that the defendant be held without bail until her trial. The unfortunate truth is that, other than by keeping the defendant in a special containment cell, the New Port Police cannot ensure the public’s safety. They simply don’t have the capability to confront her, to say nothing of the obvious flight risk of a suspect who can actually fly.” With a glance at me that’s one part nerves and two parts excitement, ADA Hawser sits back down. I guess he thinks this is going to be good for his career. Dick.
I bet if Daniels wrote to
To Kill a Mockingbird, Mr. Gilmer would've been the one who tries to kill Scout at the end.
“I see.” Judge Wickles shifts his gaze to Cecilia. “And you, counselor?”
Cecilia rises and smoothes her skirt. “Your Honor, the defense moves that the defendant be released immediately upon her own recognizance pending trial. Aside from her sterling record of heroism and self-sacrifice, she is flatly innocent and wasn’t even in the city at the time the murder occurred.”
Judge Wickles takes the bait and asks, “Where was she?”
“She was being held prisoner by a supervillain who had contrived a way to temporarily nullify her powers.”
Hawser jackknifes out of his chair. “Objection! Your Honor, this is a conversation for the trial.”
“She was rescued earlier today by Doctor Impossible and a freelancer from California called Kinetiq,” says Cecilia, like Hawser hadn’t even spoken. She gestures at the railroad track of staples running through my scalp. “As you can see, my client was wounded in the ensuing gunfight. How could she sustain a bullet wound if she’d had her powers?”
Wait, this all happened on the
same day? Fuck, Daniels is bad at creating a sense of time. Why the fuck would you have everything take place on the same day, anyway? What, we didn't even let Danny nap after her week long torture-fest? Also, ordinary bullets already
sting Danny. It's not hard to believe a hypertech round being able to hurt him. Hell, how are they supposed to know that's even a bullet-wound and not... I don't know, a manticore scratch or something?
Judge Wickles looks at me curiously. “Who was holding her captive?”
Cecilia takes a deep breath and accuses the eighth richest man in the world of kidnapping and attempted murder: “Richard Garrison.”
Her words are almost immediately drowned in a swell of noise as dozens of reporters take that in and begin the slow, deliberate process of losing their goddamn minds with how juicy this story is going to be. The judge has to bang his gavel and shout for order for a solid minute or so. “Do you have evidence to support this claim?”
“We have GPS logs of her suit, and both Kinteq and Doctor Impossible are willing to testify.”
I feel like two out of three of those things are hackable.
Judge Wickles purses his lips and nods. “We won’t be considering exculpatory claims at this time. I do, however, find the prosecution’s argument that the defendant is dangerously uncontrollable to be implausible—at the very least, she has submitted to an arrest that, by your own admission Mr. Hawser, the police have no power to physically compel. I see no reason to deny her bail.”
“She is a danger to the city and everyone in it,” says Hawser, gesturing at me. “This is not the first time her temper has gotten out of control, and in fact, she has a history of threatening people she has disagreements with. If her temper has gotten the best of her in the past, it can in the future as well.”
“You have evidence of this?” asks the judge.
Hoo boy, does he.
A projector throws a large image on a blank spot of wall, big enough the whole room can watch. The image is grainy, but clear enough to see.
The inside of a condo. The camera is somewhere up high, on top of a bookcase, maybe, hidden among the leaves of a potted plant. Graywytch is sitting down to breakfast. The door explodes inward on a cloud of splinters. There’s no sound, but there doesn’t need to be. I stalk in, every line in my body heaving with rage. White-faced, clenched fists. Shouting at her.
The image cuts to another camera. I’m tearing the stone off the wall, crumpling it in my hands. My face is twisted, sour with hate. And Graywytch is scared. Now that I’m watching it through the distance of a screen, it’s obvious she’s terrified. Her smug voice, her sneering smile, it was all bluster. Her body is pulled in tight and high, she’s cleared her line of retreat. Her eyes are darting around. One last shot of me kicking out her window and leaving. After I’m gone, Graywytch sits down heavily and puts her head in her hands.
The video finishes playing. I’m cold.
You're cold?
Cecilia sags in her chair. After a moment, she turns to me, trembling with barely suppressed fury, and forces her words through clenched teeth, “Don’t you think I might have wanted to know about this?”
I bunch my fists in my lap. “This doesn’t have anything to do with anything. She had that coming.” She’s got to believe me. Graywytch was acting, making it look worse than it is. And anyhow, it turns out I was right about her—she had already been working with the bad guys for months by the time this happened.
Daniels is trying to do one of two things here. The better possibility is that he's confronting Danny with the monstrosity of his actions, which would at least be something. The other is that he's stealthily trying to tell his readers that "TERFs" will cry crocodile-tears to try and trick people into thinking they have feelings, so best hold off on publicly threatening to kill, rape, or eat them until the last holdouts have been dealt with.
Cecilia thrusts a trembling finger back behind us, at the packed audience section. “Look. Look at them, Danny.”
I turn.
The entire room is staring at me in undisguised horror. As I watch, two get up from the front row and start making their way to the back of the room, throwing harried looks over their shoulder. Everywhere my gaze lands, people flinch and shy away. A reporter from Channel 2 who I did my first interview with, who I’ve always liked, is wet-eyed with fear at being within arm’s reach of me.
Every good thought I ever had about myself shrivels up and dies. I think I’m going to vomit.
They’re not just upset with me, they’re terrified. Of me. Of what they think I’ve done.
Also, what you were recorded on camera doing.
