Chapter One
“We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until . . . we have stopped saying ‘It got lost,’ and say ‘I lost it.’”
-Sydney J. Harris
December, 2003
Chicago, Illinois
Lucky Seven Headquarters
“Happy birthday, dear Sally, happy birthday to you!” sang the group assembled in the Lucky Seven’s conference room. Salena Thompson hunched her shoulders at the cacophony and squirmed in her seat. She wished something—anything—would happen to cut short the embarrassing spectacle of seven adults fawning over her. Maybe aliens could decide today was the day to invade Chicago, or the Moon could slip out of its orbit, or zombies would choose today to begin crawling from the frozen ground in search of brains. Any opportunity for her to bolt from the room and do what she’d been trained to do instead of suffering the attention and adulation of the others.
“Go on, dear, blow out the candles and make a wish.” Tremor’s fashion-model looks and height made Sally feel like a clumsy adolescent next to her. Only a shade over five feet tall, Sally had developed a perpetual kink in her neck from always having to look up at the statuesque men and women who populated the parahuman community.
Sally leaned forward and held her long blonde braids back from the eighteen yellow candles on the cake. The frosting was the same scarlet as her superhero costume. It would probably turn her tongue the same color, what with all the food coloring. She knew Bullet had slaved away in the kitchen for hours, wrestling with recipes and mixing ingredients in his giant, ungainly hands. More than once, the entire Lucky Seven headquarters had rung when he punched a counter top in frustration. Juliet had taken Sally aside before the party and made her promise to love the cake no matter what. And to Bullet’s credit, it was a very pretty cake, with yellow swirls decorating the frosting that reminded Sally of her braids or the golden trim of her costume.
All things considered, she’d much rather have been on duty in costume, helping to patrol the city or telling school kids not to use drugs or even filling out paperwork. Instead, she took a deep breath and tried not to grimace as Juliet snapped a picture from across the table. A moment later, she extinguished the candles to thunderous applause. She looked around the room at her friends, the privately-funded team of superheroes which had adopted her for the past six months.
“Hey, get the gift.” Stratocaster snapped his fingers as if he’d just remembered. His vibrant purple mohawk stood proud and spiked. His guitar, the conduit for his magical power, hung at his back. He’d dressed in his nicest t-shirt for the occasion, one printed with a tuxedo shirt and bow tie, and his Doc Martens had been polished.
“Oh, yeah . . . we almost forgot!” Spark made a show of searching his pockets and rubbing his beard thoughtfully. “Who has it? I don’t.” Unlike the others on the team, Spark had no innate parahuman abilities of his own. Instead he used his acrobatic skills and electrical gadgetry to hold his own. And it didn’t hurt that he ranked pretty high on Forbes 400 list either, thanks to his electrical engineering and business acumen.
Bullet stepped forward. He was as large and imposing in his civvies as in his black-and-red costume. His craggy, scarred face split into a wide grin as he held out an envelope to Sally. “Happy birthday,” he said in his cracking, rumbling voice. A piece of rebar had pierced his throat once, and even though he had healed from the injury within minutes, it had left his voice a ruin. “I hope you like the cake.”
“I’m sure it’s delicious. I can’t wait to taste it.” Sally took the envelope and glanced around at the others. Statues might as well have surrounded her for all the expressions displayed by the Lucky Seven. Even Carousel, the artificial being who delighted in expressing human emotions, made her face an impassive wall.
“Go on,” said Juliet. “Open it.” She was the only one of the Lucky Seven who didn’t use a superhero name. She had wanted to call herself Jedi because of her psionic powers, but Lucasfilm wouldn’t permit it, so she just worked without any special name. Her dreadlocks were held back by a tie-dyed scarf with a batik pattern on it and her teeth sparkled like mints in the chocolatey glow of her face.
Sally slid a finger underneath the envelope flap and withdrew two folded pieces of paper.
“Read them out loud.” Trix shook his ‘80s rock-star hair. Like Stratocaster, he would have been far more comfortable in a ripped t-shirt and jeans with a studded belt, but he’d found a dark blue turtleneck and some chinos somewhere in the very bottom of his wardrobe.
“To Juice, Field Commander and Administrator of Just Cause,” read Sally. “We, the undersigned, are pleased to recommend Salena Thompson, also known as Mustang Sally, for an internship with Just—” She stopped as she felt her throat tighten up. She tried again. “Internship with Ju—”
Her vision had grown far too blurry with tears to read more.
“There’s more,” said Spark. “Since we’d gone to all the trouble of writing this referral for you, we thought we might save you some time and effort and sent in the application on your behalf. The other page is—”
“Shush, let her read it herself.” Juliet placed her hand on Spark’s shoulder.
Sally flipped over to the other sheet of paper. She saw the official Just Cause stationery and the brief letter written on it. Certain words jumped out at her: interview . . . Just Cause Headquarters . . . Intern.
“Th-thank you.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “It’s the b-best gift ever.”
All her life, Sally had wanted to be a superhero in Just Cause, like her mother and grandmother had been. Now she would have that chance.
Tremor brushed her crimson curls away from her face and smiled at her with the fashion-model looks that had graced a hundred different magazine covers. “Sally . . .” The crimson emergency lights in the corners of the conference room illuminated and a sudden klaxon wailed from the speaker system throughout Lucky Seven Headquarters. Echoes chased up and down the halls of the building.
The heroes looked at each other in disbelief.
“It’s five days before Christmas. What the hell could possibly need our attention?” said Stratocaster. “Don’t supervillains have last-minute shopping to do?”
“Maybe one of them is working a five-finger discount,” said Trix.
Spark touched a button on the intercom that connected him to the team’s dedicated monitoring center, modeled after the much larger and more comprehensive one used by Just Cause. “Spark here. What’s going on?”
“I’ve got the police commissioner holding for you, Boss,” reported a voice from the center.
“Patch him through.”
“Spark, we’ve got a giant robot thing breaking up the Science and Technology Expo at McCormick Place. I have officers down and possible civilian casualties!”
“Understood, Commissioner. We’re on our way.” Spark turned to Sally and the rest of the Lucky Seven. “Let’s move, people.”
They hurried to the locker rooms to change. Sally, with her super-speed, was in and back out again in costume well before any of the others. She tapped her yellow boots on the floor with a rapid-fire patter, impatient for the rest of the Lucky Seven to finish.
The rest of the team rejoined her within minutes. They’d transformed themselves from civilian attire to their colorful costumes.
“Trix, can you fly today?” Spark checked the clips which held his electro-whip.
“Not sure, man. Let me give it a try.” Sally and the rest of the Lucky Seven members tensed as Trix rose into the air. His random powers came and went with alarming frequency. Sometimes he could fly, other times he couldn’t. More than once he’d tried to use an ability only to get something unexpected, like an explosive fireball or a tornado from a clear blue sky. He gave them a thumbs-up.
Spark nodded. “Good. Sally, Carousel, you’re with me. Bullet, you’re on point. Trix, Tremor, flank us. Strat—”
A whine of mystical feedback echoed through the co
nference room as Stratocaster turned the knobs on his guitar up to the proverbial eleven.
“Bring Juliet along and we’ll meet you there.”
Juliet rolled her eyes and dug her fingers into her ears. Stratocaster fingered the fretboard and with a long-practiced move, leaped into the air, swung his pick hand around in a windmill circle, and slashed the pick across the strings. He landed with his legs spread apart, pointed the neck of the guitar toward the ceiling, and stuck his other hand in the air in a pose straight out of a rock video. A wallop of solid sound smashed through the conference room. Bright energy sparks flowed from the guitar strings in every color of the spectrum. They coalesced into a violet glow that enveloped him and Juliet and they disappeared to leave only a reverberating echo of the power chord in their wake.
Sally’s ears rang like church bells tolled in her head. She winced and hoped the damage wasn’t permanent.
“Move out, Lucky Seven,” said Spark.
Sally thrilled to those words. In the six months since she’d joined up with the Seven, this was only the second time they’d been called out on an emergency. The first time was to assist with rescue and recovery efforts after Hurricane Isabel smashed into the East Coast.
She’d spent years training for this, her first potential parahuman combat. Three years of her life had been spent under the tutelage of the Academy combat instructor. Before that, her mother and grandmother had coached her on the unique methods a speedster could use against opponents like disarming their weapons before they could be used, wrapping them in yards of tape or rope in mere seconds, and pummeling them with fists like machine gun bullets.
Spark’s motorcycle screamed out of the garage, weaving in and out of holiday traffic. Sally and Carousel kept pace with him, one clad in scarlet and the other in naught but nearly-frictionless metallic skin. A younger Sally might have charged ahead—she was fast enough to cover the distance to McCormick in less than a minute—but years of training had tempered some of her natural impetuousness. She would stay with her team and follow the orders of her commander.
Her mother had warned her about going solo in a combat mission. It’s easy to run ahead of everyone else, she’d said, to think that just because you’re faster, you’re better. Use your speed and accelerated perceptions to think before you act. You have the time. Use it wisely.
Sally reminded herself of the basic combat tenets taught at the Hero Academy, all of which boiled down to: protect the innocent, support your teammates, and come home alive.
Good advice, she thought. She intended to follow it to the letter.