Refraction Read online

  “There isn’t a single person running this city who hasn’t brokered a dirty deal or turned a blind eye while someone else did. And you’ve glad-handed every one of them.”

  Crush’s hands were clenched in his lap. “How do you even know any of this is true?”

  Max spread his hands, because—seriously? “I grew up with a supervillain’s lab in my basement. I didn’t have daycare, I had a robot nanny. We know how to hack bank records.”

  “But that’s illegal,” Crush muttered a little dumbly.

  Max glared at him.

  “Look,” Crush rallied, “whatever these guys do or don’t do—I’m here to protect the people.”

  “No, I’m here to protect the people!” Max snapped. “You can save a few babies from traffic accidents, and that’s cool, but when I tried to take down Governor Michaels last year, you dumped me in the harbor, secured his illegally imported assets for him, and gave his PR team all the video clips they needed to piggyback on your reputation for his reelection campaign. You know what he’s done since then? Bankrolled some cocaine trafficking, overlooked some safety violations in pharmaceutical drug trials, and cut funding for school lunches. Your city thanks you,” he mocked.

  Crush scrubbed his hands over his face. “I… I have to go.”

  Max bit his tongue on every other example of corruption Crush had personally facilitated and watched as the superhero slowly climbed to his feet and squeezed through Max’s window.

  Crush didn’t look back.

  TEN HOURS later, Max’s mom burst through his door and dragged him off his bed. She had him out in the hallway before he fumbled enough to get his feet under him.

  “Mom! What are you doing?” he demanded, scrambling to keep up with her. He reached up to scrub the sleep from his eyes and accidentally poked himself in the nostril.

  “Decay set off the emergency alarms on the device,” she told him, her face grim. “The good news is I can use the frequency to triangulate his location.” Their shop robots buzzed awake as she entered the access codes and the door hissed open.

  “What’s the bad news?”

  “Suit up and check your weapons,” Catalyst commanded as she swept Max into the workshop. He stumbled over to the storage cabinets as she strode to the control console.

  “How is this bad, then?” he repeated, stripping quickly and taking a moment to be grateful his mom was too engrossed in hacking satellites to turn around and catch him half-dressed. “Now we know where he is, and Decay has to give the device back to us. I’m pretty sure there’s a subset in the League guidelines about cooperation.”

  “And which member of the League do you think is going to enforce those guidelines for us?” Catalyst left the computer running and strode to the armory, yanking down several duffle bags and filling them with weapons. “None of them have the manpower or motivation to oppose him this directly.”

  Max zipped up the back of his backup suit, contorting to reach the clasp at the top. “Okay, so we get it back ourselves. It’s not like we don’t know where his lair is.”

  His mom zipped the bags and strode back to the computer console. She hissed at the screen in frustration and began typing furiously. “He’s not at his lair. The bad news is he’s going to use the device. Get your hood on and fill up the helibot for me. Five minutes to takeoff.”

  “Seriously, Mom? Calm down. It’s not like he’ll actually figure out the extremely complex and illogical detonation process you designed,” Max grumbled. “We’ve got plenty of time.”

  “Unless he finds the internal anterior emergency activation switch,” his mom said between clenched teeth.

  Max froze, his hood halfway over his head. “Emergency activation?” he demanded. “You mean this entire time I could have just flicked a switch?”

  He’d attempted that initiation sequence twenty freaking times. And there was a quick switch.

  “If your goal was to destroy our entire civilization, then yes,” she snapped, “you could have flicked a switch. Is that what you want to do?”

  “I… no?” Max said, flummoxed. “What?”

  “If we set off that device,” Catalyst said, still typing, “who would be left to lead when we ousted the current tyrannical regime? What would be left to take over? Where would you go to college?”

  “Um… nowhere?” Max tried.

  She turned on him, her mouth pursed in undisguised disapproval. “Have you never thought about this at all, Max?”

  “I just did what you told me to,” Max stammered, cringing under her glare.

  “The purpose of the device is to threaten, not to destroy. It’s to get the world’s attention and hold it long enough to make a difference. Our society has been conditioned to believe being tracked and controlled and powerless is normal. We offer more than that,” his mom said. “We offer revolution.”

  Max swallowed.

  “Now put your hood on,” she told him. “I’ve got a lock on Decay and a fresh batch of C-4 in the helibot.”

  MAX WAS hoping they wouldn’t actually need the C-4, but he wouldn’t put money on Decay doing anything the easy way.

  “The device is in motion,” Catalyst reported from the helibot computer terminal. “Moving southwest from Batdorf.”

  “Where it crosses the river?” Max maneuvered them around a traffic helicopter, ignoring its startled passengers as he whipped past them. “But none of Decay’s hideouts are up there.”

  “It must be his ‘associate,’” his mom agreed, her voice dark even over their slightly staticky headsets.

  “What’s he driving? Can we get satellite images?”

  Catalyst hummed a negative distractedly. “I’m working on traffic cams. Signal just merged onto I-96,” she added after a moment.

  “Straight toward downtown,” Max muttered. “Is he going there because he wants an audience or because he needs victims?”

  “Shit. Watch your language,” his mom snapped.

  “I didn’t—!” Max protested.

  “I’ve got a photo,” she said.

  Max flipped the helibot on autopilot and tumbled from the cockpit into the back. His mom zoomed in on the license plate and pulled up an ID scan on the federal database.

  “The van’s registered to Sheffield Pharmaceuticals,” she said. “It’s got to be Wayne Sheffield—Decay’s associate.”

  Max swallowed. “Sheffield’s R&D budget went up $50 million this year,” he said, thinking back to his conspiracy wall. He was apparently missing a green string on Wayne.

  “Maybe to design a cure,” his mom added, “or a vaccination.”

  Oh boy. “He wants to use the device to release a virus, doesn’t he?” Max asked, pressing his palms to his eyes. “Could he even do that?”

  Catalyst’s voice was grim. “It wouldn’t take much to change the flux compression generator into an explosive. The blast would spread an airborne pathogen for miles.”

  Seriously, that guy was such a prick.

  “He’ll be going to City Center Station,” Catalyst said.

  Max jumped back into the cockpit and strapped himself in.

  “I’ll get us there first.”

  MAX LANDED the helibot on top of City Center, quietly grateful for the self-absorption of most rush hour pedestrians—none of them even bothered to look up at the noise.

  “The device is six blocks north,” his mom said as they clambered out of the bot. “In this traffic that’ll probably give us ten minutes.”

  “Do we know if Decay is in the van?” Max asked.

  Catalyst shrugged unhappily. “Facial recognition hasn’t picked him up on any of the security cameras around here. We’ll have to assume he’s personally protecting his asset.”

  “Our asset,” Max muttered, surveying the square below them. It wasn’t packed to capacity yet, but even with the sun just up, there were plenty of people on their way to work.

  What was Decay going to do? The device wasn’t small—it was probably five feet tall and a few feet wi
de in each direction, depending on which way it was turned. There were more levers than probably ever needed to be in that square footage, and they fit together like the worst version of a Rubik’s cube ever invented. Pull one out of sequence or interval, and it would either unhook every lever, dropping them into a useless pile at the base, or it would jam the entire machine. (The design was an accomplishment Max was oddly proud of. It wouldn’t win him any blue ribbons, but, you know—sometimes that wasn’t the point.)

  If Max were going to set off a bomb that would infect as many thousands of people as possible with a potentially deadly virus, he’d do it on the main platform of that station where all the tracks lay next to each other, with open air access across all of them. How did Decay think he was going to be able to sneak a Dalek-sized lever machine onto the busiest train platform in the city at rush hour?

  “We know what the van looks like,” his mom said, clearly following the same line of thought. “Whatever he’s planning, we need to cut him off before he gets access to an entry.”

  “We could call in a fire code. Get the place evacuated and surrounded by emergency vehicles.”

  “He’ll get here before emergency services,” she said, “or he’ll choose a different station. Even if we reroute everyone, they’ll still get on the trains somewhere.”

  “Roadblock’s a bust, too,” Max muttered. “What if we were able to capture Sheffield and use him as a hostage?”

  “That won’t work, either,” a familiar voice said behind them.

  Max spun, his heart in his throat.

  Crush and Mr. Magnificent stood in front of the helibot, the morning sunlight gleaming off their perfectly oiled hair. It was more majestic than a golden wheat field in an autumn sunset—perfectly disgusting.

  “How did you know where we were?” Max demanded.

  Crush shrugged. “I planted a tracker on you when I came to your house.”

  Max narrowed his eyes. That was oddly sneaky for a superhero.

  Crush seemed to read it on his face and shrugged again. “You must be rubbing off on me, I guess.”

  Max glanced at his mom quickly, but she ignored the comment, nearly vibrating with tension next to him.

  “If you intend to stop us, you’ll fail,” she threatened. It was a bluff, Max knew—they could barely hold off Mr. Magnificent and Crush on their own, let alone with Decay added to the mix. If his mom had a contingency plan in place to actually stop three superhumans, Max knew it wasn’t going to end well for anyone involved.

  “We’re not here to stop you,” Crush said. “We’re here to get the device back.”

  “I’ll die before I leave the device in your hands,” Catalyst told them.

  Max sucked in a breath. This was escalating fast.

  “Not back in our hands.” Crush clenched his fists. “Back in yours.”

  Mr. Magnificent cleared his throat. “My son brought some facts to my attention. I had them verified.”

  Catalyst shifted on her feet, agitated. “You can’t expect me to believe you.”

  “Mom, they’re serious,” Max said, locking eyes with Crush. He knew Crush’s expressions, his tells, his personality—and none of them were saying “liar.” He might be sneaky enough for trackers but definitely not for cons.

  “Crush is convinced,” Mr. Magnificent said, glancing at Crush, “and I trust my son’s judgment.”

  Catalyst stared at them, silent. Slowly, Max reached out and wrapped his fingers around his mom’s.

  A moment later she squeezed his hand and took a deep breath.

  “You won’t stay the public’s golden boys if you help us,” she warned.

  Mr. Magnificent looked tired when he said, “Superheroes do what they know is right, even if the public doesn’t understand it.”

  Max snorted. “So do supervillains.”

  His mom coughed. Mr. Magnificent looked constipated. Crush grinned like he knew he wasn’t supposed to.

  “Well, we’ve got five minutes left to develop and execute a brilliant plan to save the entire city,” Max said. “And so far Mom and I have come up with nothing. Other than paying for every person to take a cab far away from here, I don’t see how we’re going to pull this off.”

  Crush grinned at him. “The thing is, you might be a supervillain, but we’re used to fighting supervillains. And we have an idea.”

  “THEIR PLAN is ‘just go out and talk to him for a while, it’ll be fine, I promise’? Mom, that’s a terrible plan,” Max whispered urgently. “We have to come up with something, we can’t die before I ever even take over my own municipality, we’ve worked too hard to—”

  A woman screamed. Panic erupted around her like a wave, people running and tripping over steps, dropping their briefcases and bags. It was too late, then. No choice but to stand and take what was coming.

  Decay emerged from the mob, the crowd parting around him like a school of scared fish. His cape waved dramatically behind him in the morning breeze, which was extremely annoying to Max, considering that Decay probably hadn’t even checked the weather forecast or arranged for a wind machine. It sucked when things worked out perfectly for people who hadn’t earned it.

  “Catalyst, Dynaman,” Decay greeted them self-importantly. “I should have expected you. How did you find us?”

  “Doctor Decay, please,” she scoffed. “I fabricated the parts for that machine in my own basement. I soldered every microchip and wire with my own two hands. Surely you didn’t expect it to turn on without calling home.”

  The courtyard emptied, leaving just the three of them in front of the station. Where had Decay left the device, and who was with it? Max clenched his jaw and steeled himself to stick with Crush’s plan.

  “Yes,” Decay mused, “that was an interesting design feature. Tell me, Catalyst, why would you build a thirty-minute warm up period on a doomsday device? Before the eighteen-minute firing sequence?”

  “The end of civilization as we know it should never be a rash decision,” Catalyst said, “which you would understand if you truly knew what it meant to be a member of the Injustice League.”

  Decay smiled condescendingly. “You are such a peach, Catalyst, really. But… an outdated peach—going a bit soft around the edges. A bit less appetizing. The people need something new. Something fresher! With new ideas and a new ideology. A stronger, more forward-thinking type of peach.”

  “Like you?” Max asked, sighing. This was a pitfall for all supervillains: self-idolization. You had to be a true believer to be a supervillain (or a superhero), but you couldn’t be a true believer in yourself. There was too much feedback with all that passion directed inward, and it just created a chain reaction of crazy. This was Supervillainy 101: don’t be an ideal, have an ideal.

  “Like me,” Decay agreed. “See, you’re smart, Dynaman. I think you’ve got a lot of potential. Come join the victor before I destroy your entire family in my quest for world domination.”

  “I would never work with you,” Max spat. “Real supervillains have integrity and self-respect. They don’t go to work for slimy, backstabbing corporations. Did Sheffield offer you a share of the profits, Decay? Are you working for money?”

  Beside him, Catalyst gasped quietly. Only common criminals worked for cash. A supervillain had loftier aspirations. (If riches and wealth came incidentally in the course of achieving those aspirations, well… that was just a perk of a job well done.)

  “How dare you?” Decay seethed. “What are you but a child? What understanding have you about the true reach of my power? Sheffield and his cure are a side note of my own symphony. I’ve turned your simple device into a true catalyst, ha-ha, of change. When the city is brought to its knees, crazed with panic and fear, dragged low by sickness—”

  Max wasn’t going to stand for this. “You’ve made your last mistake, Decay. If you think for one second—”

  “—and uncertain future, its infrastructure tied up in its own helplessness, the people will be—”

  “
—the League isn’t going to stop you. You’re in for a big surprise, because the people have to choose their—”

  “—desperate for leadership! A strong icon to guide them and lift them up, to pull them through these dark days. A—”

  “—next tyrannical leader of their own free will, not under threat of terror and death—”

  “—benevolent God, to place a balm on their tired souls.”

  “—and I’ll never let you take that away!”

  Something shifted behind Decay, a blurred movement in the corner of Max’s eye. He kept his gaze on Decay. Catalyst reached out and placed her hand on Max’s shoulder, squeezing his neck slightly. If they were all about to become infected with an epidemic disease, at least he’d have made his mom proud for a moment. A cold comfort, but undoubtedly better than Decay had ever managed.

  Decay spread his hands in front of him with a grin. “There’s nothing you can do, Dynaman. My plan is already in motion. My minions have surrounded the station, and the device is moving into place. There’s nothing you can do to stop m—oof!”

  Crush tackled Decay to the ground, tumbling them both heroically across the square. Decay stumbled to his feet, but before he could run, Crush caught him with an uppercut that knocked him backward over a railing in a really impressive arc. It would have been almost comical except for the fact that the device could blow any second and infect the entire metropolitan population with a deadly virus.

  Mr. Magnificent jogged out of the station into the sunlight. He crossed the courtyard quickly and came to a stop in front of Catalyst and Max, sparing a glance at Crush, who was tying Decay’s arms behind his back with his own (synthetically reinforced, if it was up to League code) cape.

  “I’ve got police on cleanup,” he announced. “The goons in and around the station are all hog-tied, and I managed to jam the device with five minutes to spare. That’s a good safety you built in there, son, pulling any lever out of order making the whole thing jam up. Ha-ha!” He punched Max on the shoulder companionably.

  “Ha-ha,” Max repeated. “Thanks.” Crush’s dad was a bit too much of a true, through-and-through superhero for Max to really feel comfortable around him. Also… that other thing. Where he seduced his son to a life of villainy. Awkward.