“So you think,” said Christian. “What’s the problem?”
“People are scared and we don’t know what to tell them.”
“Tell them to stay calm. It’s still safe inside the Mount. The walls are solid. The fences are solid. The guards are there. We’re all here.”
“So there’s nothing going on? No need to worry?”
Behind his goggles Gorgon shut his eyes and counted to three. When he opened them, a few people were standing nearby, casually eavesdropping while they looked at a years-old display of photos on the plinth. “These little meetings would go so much faster if you didn’t beat around the bush.”
Richard nodded. “Sorry. It’s just …” He twisted the ring again. “Two of the wall guards say they saw St. George and Stealth leave last night.”
“Leave?”
“Leave the Mount,” Christian said. Her voice had found its cold edge again. “Katie O’Hare was on wall duty and she said she saw them leaving over the physical plant.”
Gorgon tilted his head.
“They didn’t check out. They left between two guard posts. So no one would see them. And no one’s seen St. George today.” She gestured up to the sky with her chin.
“Yeah,” said the hero. “I figured people would notice eventually.”
Richard’s eyes went wide. “So they did leave? They left the Mount?”
“They had a job to do. It’s not that big a deal. He leaves the Mount all the time. Usually at least twice a week on some kind of mission.”
“But she doesn’t,” said Christian. “Why did she leave?”
“Because they had a job to do.”
“That needed both of them?”
“It’s just a mission. They should be back late tonight. Maybe tomorrow morning.”
Christian tilted her head. “Will they?”
He counted to three again and told himself not to open the goggles. When he looked again, four more people had stopped to listen. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s a simple question,” she said. “Will they be back?”
“Of course they will.”
“You know what I think?”
“I’m breathless to know.”
“I think they left us. I don’t think they’re coming back.”
Gorgon laughed. “Where the fuck do you get this stuff?”
“I think they discovered the exes were getting smarter and realized we were doomed here. And they decided to take off and find somewhere better.”
Gorgon opened his mouth, stopped, and then tried again. “Honestly, I don’t even know what to say to that.”
“How about the truth?”
“I told you the truth. They’re off on a mission. They’ll be back tonight or tomorrow.”
“A mission about the smart exes?”
“Sort of.”
“Sort of?” She shook her head. “You know, it was bad enough before when you were all just vigilantes. Now we’re all completely dependant on your kind.”
“My kind?”
Richard’s eyes bugged. “Christian, that’s—”
“Invulnerable, strong, fast—-the world’s still pretty safe for all of you.”
Gorgon’s fingernails bit into his palms. “Plenty of my friends are dead, too.”
“We need you to survive, but you don’t need us. Why wouldn’t you all just leave when things get bad?”
He leaned in close. “Because we’re all better people than you.”
Someone let out a quick cough of laughter.
Christian glared at him.
He stepped back and turned to Richard. The older man had tried to sink into the crowd. “Richard, you may want to take Mrs. Nguyen away before I put her in a coma for two or three weeks.”
“I can walk myself,” she spat. The crowd recoiled as she marched through them.
The older man twisted his ring. “I’m sorry. We just wanted answers. I didn’t expect her to just pounce on you like that.”
The hero looked at him. “Oh, come on. How long have you known her?”
“You know what she’s like. It’s like a game to her. She just says thing to piss people off.”
“Yeah,” said Gorgon. He sighed and watched the crowd. Most of them were following Christian as she spewed angry rants. “The things everyone’s thinking.”
“No, no,” insisted Richard. “You know how much we—”
“I know how everyone here feels,” said the hero. He tapped his goggles. “People think because of these I don’t see things. Stealth doesn’t, hiding in her little batcave. St. George doesn’t, flying up in the air. But I see it all, every day. They’re glad I’m here, but don’t try to tell me people love me.”
* * * *
They slid across the roof. St. George pushed ever-so-slightly against gravity and skimmed across the bleached-white tar paper. He walked on his fingertips, his toes dipping down to drag every few yards. Another severed head sat there, bobbing up and down as it worked its jaws. He gave it a slap with the back of his hand and it rolled a few feet away.
It took Stealth a minute to catch up to him. She moved silently on her palms like a black spider. As she reached him she shifted her shoulders and let her cloak slide back to the roof. The camera hummed as she photographed the structures from the new vantage point.
A murmur of discontent echoed up and they looked to the street.
Two Seventeens were dragging an older man with tanned skin and silver hair across the intersection from the ivy-covered brick building. He’d been stripped to the waist, his flabby torso was bruised, and one of his eyes was swollen shut. A few civilians followed them, and a crowd began to gather. One of the followers, an older woman, wailed and sobbed. She grabbed at one of the Seventeens, a man with a skinheadlike buzzcut. He shook her off and shouted at her in Spanish.
“What are they saying?”
“The woman is begging for mercy,” Stealth translated. “The man said it is too late, he has been sentenced. Now she is saying if they let him go they will both leave.”
From the rooftop they could see Buzzcut’s grin as they dragged the man away behind the pen of exes. A moment later he reappeared, and both heroes realized what they’d missed on the far side of the pen the night before.
Buzzcut dragged the older man to the top of the stairs. They stood on the small platform above the cage and the Seventeen yelled to the crowd. There were three or four hundred people in the street and still more drifting from the buildings.
“You know how this goes,” repeated Stealth. “Sentence has been passed. If the boss wants, he will still be spared.”
St. George took a breath and shifted on the gritty roof.
The old man shouted something and Buzzcut clubbed his head.
“He is a monster,” echoed Stealth.
The Seventeen turned the old man toward the cage. The exes were clawing at the air. Their clicking teeth were like a speed typist gone mad.
St. George went to stand up and Stealth slammed her hand onto his arm. It would’ve broken bones in a normal person. “No,” she snapped.
“They’re going to—”
“You cannot save him.”
“I have to try.” He shrugged off her grip, rolled to his feet, and saw Buzzcut push the old man.
She was a blur, spinning, sweeping his legs, knocking him back down. His head cracked into the rooftop and she was on top of him, straddling him, her forearm pressed into his throat.
He heard the screams and the gasp of the crowd.
“He is too far,” she hissed. “He is already dead and you will reveal us for nothing!”
He grabbed her arms. She weighed nothing and he knew he could throw her clear across the roof and there was nothing she could do to stop him.
“The old man will still be dead and you will fail the Mount. Everyone there is depending on you.”
The screams broke into a wet cough. All they could hear was the murmur of the crowd and the wailing of the man’s wife. Beneath it were clicks and the sound of tearing meat. Someone, Buzzcut, was laughing.
“Get off me,” St. George said.
She slid to the side. “We had no choice.”
“I know.” He stared up at the sky. “Just …don’t talk to me for a while.”