Shades of Gray - By Jackie Kessler & Caitlin Kittredge Page 0,3
Grid, pre-Flood district; citizens watch in horror, and the police use their riot shields to keep the flying debris from pummeling them.]
[RANDI in a V.O.] For the past two days, it’s been chaos in the streets and in the air, as Squadron members have unofficially declared war on standard human authority.
[CUT SHOT of COLOSSAL MAN, smashing the Old Millennium Park Field House with a giant booted foot.]
COLOSSAL MAN: You think we’re still your prisoners? You think we’re still your dogs? You can’t command us anymore! We don’t hear you anymore!
[RANDI’s V.O. continues as additional footage of SCREAMER and THE ANGLE rampage through Old Downtown.]
RANDI: We still don’t know what has caused these heroes to turn against the very society they have sworn to protect, or why they have come to blows with the men and women in the police force who have risked their very lives to maintain order. But it’s clear that the president—
“Turn it off.”
“Garth …”
“I said turn it off.”
**BLINK**
“Happy now?”
“No. Jaysus. I’m not happy. I …”
“Garth?”
“We have to call the Network.”
“… Excuse me?”
“We have to. Everything’s falling apart. The Squadron’s gone insane, the police can’t handle it, now the troops are coming in …”
“Let Corp fix it. They always do.”
“So why haven’t they? No, something’s wrong. It’s all banjaxed. We have to help—”
“Have you gone totally daft? We can’t help! You know what’ll happen if we do.”
“But what choice do we have?”
“Let Corp clean up its own mess.”
“Julie …”
“Garth, I love you. But I swear to Jehovah above, if you pick up the phone and tell Terry to get the Network in place, you’re doing it on your own.”
“… Julie …”
**BLINK**
[American Public Television special emergency broadcast, already in progress]
RANDI: … what this means for society at large, or us here in New Chicago, remains to be seen.
“Come on, Julie. Turn it off.”
“You can damn well turn it off yourself, Garth McFarlane. While you’re at it, you think long and hard before you do something that can’t be undone.”
A moment later, the door to the bedroom slams.
Garth McFarlane gets up and walks over to the plasiscreen and turns it off. In the dim living room, his eyes glow softly, almost thoughtfully.
Looking at Julie’s unfinished drink sitting on the coffee table, Garth thinks, long and hard.
When he opens the bedroom door some time later, Julie turns to face him. The lights are off, but he sees her perfectly well—her halo of fuzzy blond hair, the shimmer of tears in her hazel eyes.
And he tells her what he’s going to do.
CHAPTER 1
JET
The biggest question my brother has about the extrahumans is whether they are heroes because they are told they are heroes or because they believe they are heroes. My only question is how to control them before they realize they don’t have to be heroes at all.
—From the journal of Martin Moore, entry #103
Jet was positive there was nothing in the Squadron Policies and Procedures Manual that covered how to take down rabid members of the Squadron itself. Even so, she’d looked. Twice.
In the past, she supposed as she fended off a blow from Slider, there might have been a subsection that covered such a topic. But once Corp-Co started brainwashing its elite extrahuman fighting force to be the good guys, there’d been no need for the manual to cover what to do when superheroes went insane. So Jet had to wing it.
Light, she hated improvising. But at least she’d caught a break in that Slider had lost it here in Grid 13, which was mostly deserted this early in the morning. Jet had been able to manipulate Slider into an alley. If the speedster had gone rabid in the downtown district of New Chicago, the casualty rate and property damage would have been horrific. And with Jet’s luck, the mainstream media would have been televising the fight like some pay-per-view event. Ever since nearly all of the Squadron had effectively declared war against society two days ago, it seemed like the vids had been capturing every move she made, just in time for the evening news.
The world had gone mad, and the media was having an orgasm.
Slider spun around, her roundhouse kick in perfect form. But even at double speed, she’d telegraphed her move. Jet ducked beneath the woman’s leather boot as it zoomed by.
“Come on, Slider,” Jet said, letting two Shadow creepers fly. “You don’t want to fight me.”
The red-clad woman screeched as the black bands wrapped around her legs, pinning them together. “Want? Want? I want