Sovereign Read online

  I close the catalog. “Last year one of my best friends was possessed by her supervillain mother and forced to murder half the Legion. Now the survivors all hate each other and the fallout from this just got plopped in my lap. So, if you’re done, kindly piss off for now.”

  Kinetiq sits back, seems suddenly unsure what to do with their hands, and settles for folding them. “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I think for a moment. “I can have my publicist set up an interview with Autostraddle or something.”

  “Oooh, your publicist. Ooh-la-la.”

  I snort, and throw a catalog at them. They bat it away, laughing.

  I met Kinetiq in combat. They’re a stringer operating out of California’s Bay Area, a freelance superhero without a steady municipal contract like the one I have with New Port. They were only thirteen when their parents drove them to run away from home. Six years later, they flit from job to job as needed, and barely make enough to cover their bystander insurance premiums. We met when I went down to California to help put down a rampage by Mr. Armageddon, a three-hundred-foot-tall nuclear psychopath who breathes fire. The fight covered a twisting loop of destruction about two hundred miles long and lasted for thirty-nine hours. It was an interesting day.

  When it was over, the press mobbed me as usual and acted like Kinetiq hadn’t even been there, even though they’d been fighting Mr. Armageddon for longer than I had. I was too tired to realize what was happening, just started answering questions the way I always do, and in the process made it look like I agreed that it was all my fight. Kinetiq has been trying to get trans capes to go mainstream for years, and to make nonbinary trans people in the cape community visible to the outside world. I basically stomped on that effort by accident.

  Being genderqueer is hard. Being Iranian-American is hard. Being a superhero without a steady paying gig is also hard. Kinetiq had been swimming upstream for years to be all of those at the same time, and the credit for what should have been their big breakthrough, their first headlining victory, ended up getting handed to me by default. Why? Because I’m a pretty white girl with an easy-to-understand narrative.

  Given how hard I accidentally screwed them, they’re remarkably friendly.

  “I really am sorry,” I say. “I don’t think I can get another TV interview so soon after the last one, but I mean it, I’ll do something about this.”

  “Good, good,” says Kinetiq, bending down to pick the catalog back up off the floor. “So what have—”

  A speaker in the ceiling crackles to life. “The first assembly for business is starting in the Kirby Room in five minutes. Once again, the first assembly for business is starting in the Kirby Room in five minutes.”

  “Oh, damn!” I say. I’d totally lost track of time. “I’ve got something I need to do there. Wanna come?”

  “Sure,” says Kinetiq. I arrange the catalogs in a neat stack for someone else before taking to the air. Kinetiq is right behind me, and we zip across the show floor to the main hotel area.

  “What’s up with the business meeting?” says Kinetiq, pulling up next to me in the air. Their hands are pointed backwards, palms splayed open and light bursting forth from their fingers. “Those things are so boring!”

  We pass out of the show floor and take a hard left through the hallways. The ceilings around here are all extra high to accommodate people who can fly. “If this goes the way I want it to, I might be able to get you a municipal contract.”

  That sure gets their attention. They look over sharply and then say, “Maybe I don’t want your handout.”

  “It’s not a handout. I’m going to need you more than you’ll need me.”

  “Oh come on, D, we both know that’s true already.”

  “Smart-ass.”

  We get to the Kirby Room, a large conference room with a raised stage at the front. Capes are still trickling in, but the place is mostly packed. We touch down outside the main door, and Cecilia looks up from her phone when we approach.

  “I was just about to call you,” she said. “They’re almost starting.”

  “Sorry. Uh, Cecilia, this is Kinetiq. Kinetiq, this is my lawyer, Cecilia.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” says Cecilia. Kinetiq nods hello but keeps their mouth shut. Cecilia turns to me. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Good,” says Cecilia, all business. “Graywytch is in there. Be on point.”

  “What? She’s the on-call this week, she’s not supposed to leave New Port!”

  “Well, she did. I’ll be sure to mention it next time we can screw her at a hearing, but right now I think she’s going to try and steal our thunder. Be ready for it.”

  “Right. Sure thing.” My guts knot up. Graywytch is the last member standing of the Legion Pacifica, the only one not killed or wounded or forced to quit in shame. Since most of the Legion was destroyed, she’s been living alone in their tower, not helping me protect New Port at all. I only see her at the monthly City Council meetings where I make my reports about everything I do for the city. She justifies her continued paycheck by making all sorts of freighted allusions to supernatural threats that she has protected us from. I know a few magic users, and none of them have seen any evidence of her actually doing anything, but tell that to her friends on the Council. They think the sun rises because she tells it to.

  “Remember what we talked about.”

  “She won’t get to me.”

  “I know.” Cecilia puts her hand on my shoulder. “Remember who you are and what it means.”

  I nod. Sometimes when it’s hard to be Danielle, I try to become Dreadnought instead. Dreadnought doesn’t get ruffled. Dreadnought isn’t petty. Dreadnought is bigger than me, and stronger. This doesn’t always work, but it’s always worth a try. I take a deep breath and step into the conference room.

  It’s packed. Business meetings are the real heart of this convention. Capes from all over the world can swap information, have face-to-face discussions, air grievances, and make offers. By tradition there are no chairs, and everyone stands for the entire meeting. I think it’s to keep us from feeling like dorks at a trade show.

  The crowd in here is one of the strangest ever assembled. There’s a woman whose head is a purple flaming skull. There’s a man made of ice, his body moving in creaking jerks. A minotaur is having a quiet argument with a glob of protoplasm holding itself in the rough shape of a person. And then, of course, there are the costumes: capes and masks, bodygloves and trench coats, and other, more exotic garments. A woman with fiber-optic hair turns when someone calls her name and accidentally pokes the man next to her in the eye with the pommel of the katana strapped to her back. There’s a man who appears to be made entirely out of muscle, and he’s wearing a vest that seems to be exclusively made of pouches, a look I thought had gone out of style all the way back in the ’90s.

  The moderators sit behind a table facing the crowd. Thunderbolt, the Californian heavyweight, is one judge. Maybe I can get him to sign a print of that team photo of Northern Union’s last mission, the one where he debuted his new pressure suit for missions in outer space. The other judge is the Patriot, who fronts Empire City’s Algonquin Guard. In deference to being indoors, he has taken off his enchanted steel helmet—supposedly a genuine World War II paratrooper helmet that is possessed by the spirit of Liberty Herself—and placed it in front of him. As international as these things are, Americans tend to dominate in administrative positions, which is a joyous source of ongoing drama that never fails to provide the superhero community with enormous headaches.

  We’re stuck at the back of the crowd, so Kinetiq and I take to the air again, just a few feet up so we can get a good view.

  “This is the first open business meeting for the Twenty-Fourth World Conference,” says Thunderbolt. His costume is dark blue, with raised filigree designs curling around and over his chest. “First, let’s take a moment to review old business…”

  Someone with neon fe
athers for hair steps up to the podium facing the moderators on the dais and begins a long, droning report on the state of superhero affairs in the past two years. Three geological eras and a short ice age later, he finally shuts up and the floor is thrown open to discussion.

  It’s a catchall session, full of announcements, comments, unrelated trivia. Those of us who signed up to speak line up on one side of the room and inch forward a cape at a time as everyone gets a chance to say their piece.

  “The floor recognizes Graywytch,” says the Patriot. Somebody in the back of the room loudly boos, and her lawyer elbows her in the side.

  Graywytch steps up on stage. She’s basically all the worst parts of ’90s goth thrown in a blender. Billowing black robes, a raven sitting on her shoulder, pale face, and dark eyes. And, oh yeah, she’s a trans-hating bigot who outed me as a superhero to my parents, which caused them to kick me out of the house with nothing but my cape and a cell phone. At one point she wanted to strip me of my powers and give them to someone she decided was more deserving—someone who wasn’t transgender.

  When Utopia killed or wounded most of the Legion, Graywytch took it as an opportunity to try to remake the Legion in her own image. Doc is still technically a reserve member and managed to halt that plan through some bylaw shenanigans that gave her a veto on any new members, but Graywytch hasn’t stopped trying to convince the City Council to revoke my contract every chance she gets. She’s basically the worst person I know who isn’t a supervillain. (And to be honest, I’d rather hang out with Utopia, who, I remind you, is a genocidal psychopath.)

  “Thank you, Patriot,” says Graywytch. “As you know, the Legion Pacifica remains inoperable due to a lack of members to establish a quorum. Without a quorum, no decisions can be made, and thus the Legion and its assets have been placed into receivership. Due to concerns about the qualities of some of the prospective recruits—” Here, she looks directly at me over the heads of the crowd. I flip her off. “I have exercised my member’s veto to prevent any new members from joining. However, given the ongoing threats to New Port and the Pacific Northwest of the United States in general, I find that I must bow to inevitability and lift my veto. I will be accepting applications for new members starting at the end of the month. Thank you.”

  Without another word, she turns and walks away from the podium. With a dagger pulled from her robes, she cuts a hole in the air, and through it I can see Victory Park in New Port. Graywytch steps through the portal and it seals behind her with a shimmer like a heat mirage. The crowd erupts in chatter, instant speculation on what the new Legion lineup will be. A seat in the Legion is a career-maker. Almost any unaffiliated whitecape would want the job.

  My heart clenches with anxiety. I turn to Cecilia. “She can’t do that, right? Doc’s put a block in.” Doc is a reserve member, along with Magma. She told me that this kind of thing wouldn’t be possible. If Graywytch has her way, she’ll stock the Legion with flunkies who are just as bad as she is.

  “My understanding is that no, she can’t. But she may think she’ll get away with it, or more likely, she’s got a lawyer of her own who thinks he can win if it goes to arbitration.” Cecilia’s lips are pressed thin.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going ahead with the plan. Make your announcement, but be sure to let people know that Doctor Impossible is still pressing her veto against new members as well. We’ve got contracts in hand; Graywytch can only offer a messy fight. I think most capes will find that what we’re offering is the better deal.”

  Somewhat reassured, I nod and turn back to watch the next speaker. Cecilia puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes it. Razor has just finished inviting people to her sparring retreat in South Korea next month when a man in a long, red coat steps up to the speaker podium. He’s bald, with deep lines around his mouth. Finally. Just this last guy out of the way, and then I’ll get my turn. A little flutter of nerves dances around in my chest. This announcement I have to make is going to knock people’s socks off.

  “The floor recognizes Professor Gothic,” says the Patriot.

  “Thank you,” says Gothic in a German-inflected baritone. “I have completed the latest round of the metahuman population survey, and the results are…concerning. The metahuman population growth continues to accelerate, but this is not news. What is news is that the growth curve has recently left a linear curve and has become, to early appearances at least, exponential.” There’s a ripple of murmuring through the crowd. Gothic waits for it to subside before proceeding.

  “Should this growth continue its current pattern, as much as 7% of the human population could have superpowers by the end of the decade. By the middle of this century, that number could be as high as 41%.” The murmuring is open discussion now, voices calling out in denial or excitement. Arguments are cracking open all over the room. Gothic raises his voice to be heard above the noise.

  “Unless this trend reverses itself, I project that the entire human species will have superpowers by the year 2100 at the latest.”

  Chapter Four

  Conversation explodes across the room. Thunderbolt whacks down the rising pandemonium with his gavel, again and again, calling for order. At last, he batters the noise down low enough to ask Professor Gothic to continue. “What’s causing this?”

  Professor Gothic flicks his tongue over his lips, looks down at his note cards. “I don’t know. We still have not identified the common cause of superpowers.”

  “There is no common cause,” says Thunderbolt. “Everybody knows that.”

  Gothic inclines his head. “That is what we have believed since the explosion in the metahuman population began in the twentieth century, to be sure. And, taken individually, everyone’s path to power seems unique. A lab accident here, an ancient curse there. However, given the preponderance of evidence before us, there is now very little doubt that somehow these incidents are all linked. The fact that magic and hypertech have become more potent and more common as the years go on would seem to lend support to this hypothesis as well. Simple statistics rules out coincidence. But why is this happening now? Why not a hundred years ago? Or a hundred years hence? There can be no doubt left: the common cause is real, and it is getting stronger.”

  Someone in the crowd shouts out a question. “You said if this trend reverses itself; do you know if that will happen?”

  “Order! Order!” Thunderbolt cracks his gavel again. “Recognized speakers only!”

  Professor Gothic turns to address the crowd. “With the common cause yet to be identified, we have no way of knowing if or when this trend will reverse itself. It is imperative that we make a concerted effort to identify and understand this cause. Until we can determine what is behind this and if it will ever stop, we should prepare to deal with ever-increasing numbers of metahumans. In the long term, we may have to consider a world without superheroes.”

  “What? Why?” someone shouts.

  “Think about it: if everyone has superpowers, then what use would police and fire departments have for us?”

  That’s about the last anyone is able to make out over the sheer noise of a room full of superheroes losing their goddamn minds. I don’t really notice the details, because the bottom has dropped out of my stomach, and I’m trying to keep myself from screaming.

  It’s all coming back to me in terrifying detail. The world seems far away, and I am back in that private Hell. The roaring of the flames, the smoke hot and sharp in my chest. The factory was coming down all around us. Utopia amidst the wreckage, calling me by name.

  The Nemesis is coming, she had said. Nobody is safe, she said.

  She was telling the truth. About one thing, at least, she was telling the truth. The Nemesis is coming. First, there will be more of us, but then worse things will follow. The scars on my chest and my stomach are perfectly circular. I have two in front, and two in back. The wounds had gone all the way through. The scars begin to itch. Nothing good can come from the Nemesis. Nothing
. I’m not worried about the end of superheroes; I’m worried about the end of everything.

  Professor Gothic looks at the chaos he unleashed with his lips pressed tight. I grab him by the arm, a little harder than I mean to, and pull him to face me.

  “It’s the Nemesis, isn’t it?” I say, leaning in close to be heard.

  “What did you say?” says Gothic, startled.

  “That’s what Utopia called it. Thirty million tons of exotic matter passing through the solar system and causing quantum observer effects—”

  “Not here!” Gothic hisses at me.

  “You have to tell them!” I shout.

  “Nein. We must not speak of this here.” Gothic tries to peel my fingers off his arm. They’re like steel bands around his bicep.

  “Nobody believed me when I told them what Utopia said. You have to tell them, you have to tell them what’s happening!”

  His face grows dark. “Dreadnought, if you value your life, you will not speak of such things in public. Not yet.” He seems to consider for a moment. “You have enemies you won’t recognize until they strike. We all do. More than that, I cannot say for now. Let go of me.”

  “Come to New Port,” I say, letting go of his arm. “I can protect you.”

  He smiles, but there is something grim and forlorn in his eyes. “I somewhat doubt it. Even this was a risk, but the seed needed planting.”

  “What’s going on?” I ask. I’d almost started to hope it had been just another one of Utopia’s lies, a ghost story to frighten me away from beating her.

  Gothic scans the crowd for a moment. “I will conclude my work in Germany and come find you. There are things we must discuss in a more secure setting. I will call you in a week, ja?”

  “Fine.” I give him my private number. “Stay safe.”

  “Be discreet, Dreadnought. Be safe.” He turns and begins pushing his way through the crowd towards the exit.

  The business meeting has basically fallen apart now. Thunderbolt has left his seat and is nowhere to be seen. The Patriot is still up there, just kind of looking around; he doesn’t seem in any real hurry to call us back to order. I push through the crowd toward where I thought I saw Cecilia.