“No, I’m okay. Thanks.” I took another sip of the rapidly warming liquid. Tasted like typical weak-ass American beer. Thank goodness. Right now I needed to stay sharp, stay frosty. Something wasn’t right, but I didn’t know what. I felt like I was in one of those optical-illusion rooms where everything was just that much too short or too long.
“Dykovski’s been chatting up the online boards searching for more fools to follow him.” Kit looked at Harris who nodded his agreement. “Some idiots out there figure he’ll do right by them. Only a few, but it only takes a couple to ruin it for everyone, right?”
I checked the alcohol content, unsure if I’d really gotten weak-ass American beer after all.
“What? Online?” I stuttered through the words, hoping Hunter was screaming for Jessie and his mad computer skills to help us understand this.
“Lamarr wasn’t the exception to the rule. He’s not the only bad egg out there,” Harris interjected, seeing my confusion. He handed another bottle to Kit. “Let me lay this out for you. You got to go back to the beginning, when this all went haywire. After Atlanta, after New York City, after that first day. Supers without Guardians, Guardians without supers and all sorts of confusion.” His voice cracked.
Harris paused and cleared his throat before continuing. “You’re hanging off a building trying to call people to Toronto to form a new team, and there’s a lot of fear all over the links, a lot of asking questions and no one offering any answers. No one’s calling the shots, and for a lot of us that was plain old scary. We got so indoctrinated in asking what to do, when to piss and when to crap, and now we’re on our own. What do we do?” He shook his head. “We were told it’d never change, it’d never be any other way. Suddenly it is another way, a whole new way. A scary way.” He caught my eye for a second before turning away. “I ran to Canada, looking for sanctuary. Found you, found the others.”
Kit continued. “A few supers found each other after the fights, tried to hook up with others without using the link. Didn’t trust it, why should they? Agency’s always listening.” He took a sip of beer. “So they go find one of those cyber cafés, go to a library and get online, find a chat room, start poking around, asking questions only supers could answer. Start meeting with each other to see what the truth is, who’s alive and who’s dead and what’s going on. Kinda like a support group.”
I pressed my lips together, holding back a scream of frustration. “Would have been nice to have someone tell me about this. Especially when I’m screaming for help with my ass swinging in the wind.”
“No one trusted anything or anyone then, Jo—not at first glance,” Harris dove in, playing peacemaker. “Heck, even Peter sent a cat into your apartment to see if you were legit before coming in from the cold. Can’t blame a lot of them for holding back, not wanting to get involved with the real thing, the real fighting when we’d all been used to playing at it. And it was natural for us or them or whoever, wanting to get in touch with old friends to try and make a new life away from being a super.” He put his hand over the top of his bottle and made a popping sound. “I know there’s not a lot of us left, but it’s sort of like family. Even the relatives you don’t want to invite to Sunday dinner, you still like to talk to about stuff. The good old days, even if they sucked supremely.”
“Okay.” I imagined Jessie frantically banging on his keyboard, trying to find said chat rooms. I couldn’t blame him for missing it in his many sweeps for information on supers—if child molesters and their ilk could ply their disgusting trade online, it wasn’t impossible for supers to stay underground in a digital world.
Kit smacked his lips. “Started off as nothing more than idle chat, you know—who’s still alive, who’s where and
“Dykovski’s been chatting up the online boards searching for more fools to follow him.” Kit looked at Harris who nodded his agreement. “Some idiots out there figure he’ll do right by them. Only a few, but it only takes a couple to ruin it for everyone, right?”
I checked the alcohol content, unsure if I’d really gotten weak-ass American beer after all.
“What? Online?” I stuttered through the words, hoping Hunter was screaming for Jessie and his mad computer skills to help us understand this.
“Lamarr wasn’t the exception to the rule. He’s not the only bad egg out there,” Harris interjected, seeing my confusion. He handed another bottle to Kit. “Let me lay this out for you. You got to go back to the beginning, when this all went haywire. After Atlanta, after New York City, after that first day. Supers without Guardians, Guardians without supers and all sorts of confusion.” His voice cracked.
Harris paused and cleared his throat before continuing. “You’re hanging off a building trying to call people to Toronto to form a new team, and there’s a lot of fear all over the links, a lot of asking questions and no one offering any answers. No one’s calling the shots, and for a lot of us that was plain old scary. We got so indoctrinated in asking what to do, when to piss and when to crap, and now we’re on our own. What do we do?” He shook his head. “We were told it’d never change, it’d never be any other way. Suddenly it is another way, a whole new way. A scary way.” He caught my eye for a second before turning away. “I ran to Canada, looking for sanctuary. Found you, found the others.”
Kit continued. “A few supers found each other after the fights, tried to hook up with others without using the link. Didn’t trust it, why should they? Agency’s always listening.” He took a sip of beer. “So they go find one of those cyber cafés, go to a library and get online, find a chat room, start poking around, asking questions only supers could answer. Start meeting with each other to see what the truth is, who’s alive and who’s dead and what’s going on. Kinda like a support group.”
I pressed my lips together, holding back a scream of frustration. “Would have been nice to have someone tell me about this. Especially when I’m screaming for help with my ass swinging in the wind.”
“No one trusted anything or anyone then, Jo—not at first glance,” Harris dove in, playing peacemaker. “Heck, even Peter sent a cat into your apartment to see if you were legit before coming in from the cold. Can’t blame a lot of them for holding back, not wanting to get involved with the real thing, the real fighting when we’d all been used to playing at it. And it was natural for us or them or whoever, wanting to get in touch with old friends to try and make a new life away from being a super.” He put his hand over the top of his bottle and made a popping sound. “I know there’s not a lot of us left, but it’s sort of like family. Even the relatives you don’t want to invite to Sunday dinner, you still like to talk to about stuff. The good old days, even if they sucked supremely.”
“Okay.” I imagined Jessie frantically banging on his keyboard, trying to find said chat rooms. I couldn’t blame him for missing it in his many sweeps for information on supers—if child molesters and their ilk could ply their disgusting trade online, it wasn’t impossible for supers to stay underground in a digital world.
Kit smacked his lips. “Started off as nothing more than idle chat, you know—who’s still alive, who’s where and
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