Seven Wonders (15 page)

  Blackbird idly tapped the spacebar of the regular keyboard, hoping to wake up the main display. It remained resolutely off, but another of the smaller displays − a mere fifty inches diagonal − on the left of the main screen lit up with a white flicker. It showed the desktop of the Cowl's private operating system, some exotic build of UNIX that he'd compiled to suit his purposes, and which Blackbird had helped code.

  A folder was open. The Cowl had left himself logged in before he'd vanished on his night errand of terror.

  Not recognizing any of the files listed, Blackbird clicked the window shut, and out of sheer boredom rather than curiosity opened the hard drive icon and scrolled through the file list. Maybe he had some movies, or music at least. Or porn. He was only human, after all. And Catholics lived off guilt, didn't they?

  Nothing. Folders with codenames, filled with RTF files on people and places, PNG files of blueprints or designs. Dull, dull, dull.

  And then she found a folder labeled CIT 2014, and she paused, hand on the mouse, finger poised over the scroll wheel. CIT. The Clarke Institute of Technology. That was where she worked – where her parents had worked. She'd been there three years. Six years ago her parents had disappeared. In 2014.

  Blackbird hesitated. There were also folders called CIT 2003 and CIT 2002 and CIT 2008 and CIT 2016. It probably stood for something else. It was nothing, there was no connection.

  She double-clicked. RTF files, PNG files. Audio files. Two, labeled Sarah and Patrick. The names of her parents. She moved the mouse pointer over the Sarah file, counted to five in her head, trying to reduce her heart rate, then double-clicked again.

  The file opened. It was an hour-ten long, with the triangular indicator stopped around the halfway mark. Blackbird clicked the play button, and the Cowl's Lair was filled with a scream, a woman's horrific cry, so loud Blackbird practically leapt out of the chair. Then the screaming stopped and the recording played on with a hiss. Something moved, shuffled, then another voice.

  "When I ask a question, Doctor Ravenholt, I expect an answer," said the Cowl.

The door wasn't anything special, white with chrome handle and the kind of standard lock you'd see on a high school chemistry room and a frosted, wire-reinforced window. If the Cowl had expected hermetically sealed rooms,
Star Trek
doors that swished and whistled, and giant keypads for giant key codes, Blackbird thought he must have been sorely disappointed.

  She took the key card from her belt, but he reached out and held her wrist just as she moved to unlock the door. She turned towards him, the beak of her mask almost touching his nose. He shook his head.

  "I've changed my mind about that. There's nothing to suggest you were here. All this," he gestured to the bodies under his feet, "was me."

  Blackbird pulled back her hand, and the Cowl reached for the door handle. He grabbed the chrome lever and pulled downwards, pushing the door open as though it were unlocked. With no effort at all, the wood around the handle and lock exploded in splinters, the door swinging open with the locking bolt still attached to the doorframe, the mechanism orphaned from the body of the door itself. He stepped past Blackbird and into the laboratory. Blackbird watched his back for a moment, unsure whether his demonstration was the last remnant of his superpowers or just due to his natural strength.

  The laboratory was as ordinary as the door. White cupboards with glass doors lined most of the walls, interrupted at intervals by a couple of emergency water showers, two large industrial sinks and two fume hoods. It was obviously a chemical lab rather than an electronic one, which made the clutter that covered the bench running down the center of the long, rectangular room all the more obvious. The tools of an electronics engineer were everywhere − soldering irons, volt meters, bulky oscilloscopes, and miles and miles of cable. Plastic crates ranging from beer cooler size down to matchboxes were spread over the available floor space and much of the bench tops, filled with neatly sorted and filed componentry and construction material. Someone had clearly moved in quickly, requisitioning a spare laboratory for a purpose other than what it had been designed for.

  All of this was unimportant. The Cowl kicked tubs of resistors and transistors out of his way as he approached the center bench. With both arms he swept the detritus from the work surface clear so he could get a good look at the device G-clamped into position.

  It was long and narrow, a cylinder that widened to a cone at one end. It looked like a slightly larger-than-life model of an anti-tank rocket, although instead of camouflage green the object was shiny piano black. It had to be, as the reflective quality of the surface was essential to its function.

  Blackbird spread her hands. "One black light converter. Help yourself."

  The Cowl reached out to touch it, paused, then brought his hand back. Without turning to Blackbird, standing behind him, he asked: "The whole thing? It's bigger than I expected."

  Blackbird nodded, moving forward so they stood next to each other at the bench. "Yes. The design was modified as it was built. Most of the cylinder is a modified housing for the conductor rods."

  "Presumably the converter coil itself is in here?" The Cowl patted the top of the wide cone section, much like a car enthusiast admiring an old classic.

  Blackbird flicked a panel open on the side of the cone. The access was only big enough for a single hand to pass through, but the end of the conductor rod array, converging in a glassy, squat trapezoid like the tube from an ancient TV, was clearly visible. Sitting on the flat endsurface of the tube was a black metal box, studded with input ports and held in place by aluminum struts.

  "The convertor coil?"

  Blackbird nodded. "Coil and prism, yes."

  "That's what we need." The Cowl reached into the panel, felt around for a moment, then yanked. The entire bench rocked in protest, and the G-clamps loosened, but after a second pull the black box came cleanly from its cradle. He held the box up in front of Blackbird.

  "Pay day."

  "Is that really all you need?"

  The Cowl looked at the main body of the converter machine. "That's it, sweetie." He frowned. "Looks like you'll have to put in some late nights to get it fixed. Some more late nights, I mean."

  Blackbird's mask clicked sharply, the sound of a quick intake of breath for a laugh, but amplified and spookified through the bird mask's synthesizer.

  "I don't think I'm coming back here again."

  It was the Cowl's turn to laugh. He laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. "You got that right. Shall we?"

  His companion nodded, and the Cowl turned on his heel and strode confidently out of the laboratory. Blackbird lingered a moment, surveying the wrecked machine and the components scattered on the floor, some cracked and split from the Cowl's blood-spattered boots. She remembered the damage she'd seen in the lab her parents shared, the morning after they'd vanished. The police had let her in under the yellow tape across the door, and had warned her about the blood, although she hadn't listened.

  Blackbird stopped and tried to remember the last thing her parents had said to her, but she couldn't, and she wondered whether this should have bothered her or not. After a few seconds she discarded the thought and gritted her teeth.

  
Focus, focus.

  Before she left, Blackbird ducked around the central bench to a smaller worktop, mostly hidden from view thanks to a large movable magnifying screen that hung on a dolly arm over it. Nudging the screen aside, she glanced over the small device currently under construction, a cat's cradle of fine wire and circuitry. Beside it, one of the component bins, this one the size of a shoebox. She rifled through the contents for a couple of seconds until she found what she was looking for, a blue circuit board with a large cuboidal CPU embedded at the center.

  "Forgotten something?" The Cowl stood in the doorway. Blackbird stopped mid-stride, then straightened up and calmed herself. There was nothing to be afraid of.

  "Spare processor. Anything happens to the converter coil, I can fix it, but the processor burns out we're back to square one." She held up the circuit boldly. It looked innocuous enough, but it was no part of the black light convertor. She just hoped he didn't realize. Blackbird was grateful her mask covered her entire face, so the Cowl couldn't see her trembling lip or the cold sweat running down her face.

  After a thousand years the Cowl smiled, his cheeks creasing and pushing his half-mask up slightly. "Good thinking, Batman."

  Blackbird smiled beneath the mask. Her synthesized voice snapped on. It hid her fear well.

  "Lead the way, Boy Wonder."

She watched him when he returned. He walked across the bridge towards the computer, the Lair apparently empty. The swivel chair was askew at the desk, and two screens were on. She watched him from a doorway swathed in shadows, her catsuit blending her into the dark completely.

  The Cowl glanced across the control desk like he always did, eyes taking in key readings and indicators out of habit. But she had left nothing amiss.

  He jerked his head back, throwing the infamous hood back, and with one hand he swiftly unhooked his mask and skull cap from the back and shucked it off, dumping the sweaty piece to the control desk. With the other hand he tabbed one of the active computer displays through open applications and folders. From the doorway, Blackbird could see the music directory flip into view, the only folder she had left open.

  She stepped from the dark.

  "Good hunting?"

  The Cowl flicked a switch on the desk with a theatrical flourish, like she wouldn't notice his surprise at her approach. Nobody could get past the Cowl, but, of course, that was a key design point of her costume: complete stealth. Nobody could get past the Cowl but her.

  He flicked another switch, adding to the illusion, then turned to reply. Blackbird stepped into a sharp triangle of light cast from halogen hidden high above. She almost made to rub her face, to get rid of the puffiness she could feel from an hour of tears, but stopped herself, realizing her face was still in shadow. He couldn't see the redness of her skin or the state of her hair.

  He flipped a glossy black oblong from a compartment on his belt. He held it up, and rubbed a thumb across the surface. Responding to the gesture, the device's small screen flicked into life, displaying a set of diagrams. Blackbird couldn't see what they were, exactly, but she guessed they were part of the machine her partner was gathering the parts for.

  "Oh yes, my dear, good hunting indeed. No resistance, easy job. I can start feeding the design algorithms into the computer in the morning, and we can work on the next part."

  Blackbird padded over to the Cowl. As soon as she was near enough, he swung his arms around her neck and drew her in. She resisted, just for a second, then relaxed and returned the gesture. They hugged.

  "Boring night for you, huh?" His breath was hot on her neck, and he was damp with sweat. Whatever he'd been doing, he'd had a good workout, even with his powers. "I'm sorry, I've been neglecting you. Us. We're a team, we're partners. I should have taken you tonight, I'm sorry. But I need you for the next one for sure. You OK?"

  Blackbird hesitated again. Over his shoulder, her face was impassive, emotionless, her eyes dry and sore, her mind emotionally spent. But he couldn't know. Not yet. There was planning to do.

  "Yeah, of course. I've just had myself for company the past six hours." Her fingers found the edge of his suit around his neck, and then the silver chain. She tugged it out from under his costume and squeezed the crucifix in her hand. "So, tell me about the job."

  The Cowl had killed her parents after they refused to cooperate. Blackbird allowed herself a little smile.

  Revenge would be sweet.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

To run like the wind, went the proverb. A phrase never used because, well, it was the worst cliché around.

  Tony laughed at the thought but found himself gasping almost instantly as the breath was snatched from his lungs. His heart raced, not from exertion, but from the sheer thrill of it. It really wasn't hard − if you could run this fast, then your brain was also capable of navigating around the obstacles registered even fleetingly by your optic nerves. People, animals, trees, park benches, skyscrapers. The rocks on the hillside south of the city. He hadn't meant to cut straight down from his dad's lodge, but he couldn't help himself. It had been the most direct route back to the city, and he was still buzzing a little after reducing a pile of dry logs stacked against the house to neatly split firewood. He knew his dad wasn't going to go anywhere near the lodge until the winter, and by that time he wouldn't remember whether he'd cut the logs himself or not.

  Tony slowed enough to suck in a proper, full breath, his chest tight. That was interesting. Was it an insurmountable problem? Back when the railroad first opened America to high-speed travel, people thought you wouldn't be able to breathe at thirty miles per hour, and be dead at sixty. Perhaps they had the right idea, born out of fear and superstition rather than science, but they were off by a factor of ten. Tony could only guess his speed, of course. Maybe Jeannie had some gadget he could carry, some kind of pedometer or speedometer that would give him an actual reading. As part of her training regimen, as she had called it, it would make sense to actually collect some kind of data.

  He slowed, then stopped. The wide sidewalk stretched ahead of him, curving along the back of East Bay and the famous golden sands. He jogged a little, momentarily just one of many, carefully checking around him as discreetly as possible before coming to a stop at a bench. Nothing. Nobody had seen him virtually pop into existence out of thin air. He sat and watched bathers on the beach, and joggers on the walkway. Everything was OK. Situation normal.