Today was to be Sebastian’s first mission as a homeland Volunteer. There’d been threats made on the parade VIPs, threats the Council of Victors deemed serious and legitimate. The Council would never cancel the event, but it had requested the War Department loan out its super-soldiers to help with security. Be a show of force, if nothing else. Pete hadn’t been able to suppress his joy at finally—fucking finally—being utilized.
Sebastian had prayed the night before, really prayed rather than talking to a vague entity in his head, bowing his head and clasping his hands at the foot of his bed and everything. His prayer had been simple, half-ironic, but half-earnest, too, and he figured God understood why.
“Please give me the strength to do what You intend of me. Gracias and Amen.”
Sebastian still didn’t understand why he’d been gifted his power, why he’d been chosen, and why he’d survived when so many others hadn’t. Maybe it was the ancestor gassed in the trenches a century back. Maybe not. He’d developed a rough idea that helping General Collins get elected might allow him to gain access to some answers, full answers, as long as he proved himself worthy to her and her people. Thinking about it all again was making his leg twitch, though, so he took out his one-hitter.
“Curbing the edge,” he told Britt and Flowers, who laughed and called him a crazy hostage, again.
They found Pete striding through the milling crowd, a head-length taller than anyone else, exchanging handshakes and hellos. He was wearing his dress blues, rows of ribbons stacked on his chest like fruit salad, his combat infantry badge shining under the dreary sun. He’d gotten a haircut, trimmed his sideburns, and even shaved; he looked like he did in government commercials, the mask of the great Justice slipped over hard-partying Pete Swenson. People bunched around him in clumps, taking photos and video with their phones. Only the silver-haired veterans in blazers kept their distance. Even on their own day, Victors couldn’t compete with young celebrity.
“Such a dork,” Britt said. The Swenson siblings weren’t fighting at the moment, as far as anyone else could tell. “Pretending to be shy.”
“That’s nothing,” Flowers said. “If I’d gotten dolled up today, I’d have a crowd three times that. Citizens don’t want bashful. They want style! They want flair. Come on, Pete, kiss some babies, flex for the people!” Flowers shook his head and whistled through his teeth. “Man gets to be a superhero and doesn’t even do it right.”
Sebastian did admire Flowers’s ability to live free. He took a deep breath and let the weed steady his being. Be good and do good, he thought. That’s it.
With the help of some Council security guards, Pete eventually made it to their table. He didn’t bother with a greeting. “No Jean-Jacques, then,” he said. Disappointment filled his voice. “Thought he’d be here.”
It seemed out of character for Dash not to show when it mattered, but Sebastian didn’t pry. It’s not like he minded. He knew how poorly the Haitian man thought of him.
Pete turned his attention to Flowers, frowning. “Jeans and sneakers.” Sebastian wore similar but he had the excuse of needing lightweight clothes to turn invisible. “We’re on a job.”
Flowers shrugged. “You said business casual, brother.” Britt laughed, which only deepened her brother’s scowl.
In oblique language, Pete briefed the day’s mission. They were augmentee security: Flowers and Britt held front-row seats on the steps of the library, where the parade’s dignitaries would gather and the general would deliver the keynote.
“You see a bright blue light flash onstage, or you see something wrong, anything, you grab the nearest VIPs and ’port out of there,” Pete said. “Grab and go.”
Sebastian had been tasked a rover. “Do what you do best,” Pete said. “Go hidden, check out the reaches of the crowd. Go up to rooftops and the upper floors of surrounding buildings. See anything off, anything odd, find security.”
Sebastian said he understood. He didn’t know how long he could stay unseen, but he was ready to push through the headaches to find out. He felt through his pocket to make sure the one-hitter was still there.
“Anyone specific we looking for?” Flowers asked. “Or just mystery bad guys?”
“Be alert for anything. There’s a rumor the Mayday leader’s gonna show. Jonah Gray. So careful attention to any vet with troubles. You know the look—camo jacket, old boots, maven-addict stare.”
“Scraggly. Beaten up by the world.”
Pete nodded. He went on to explain that he’d be onstage with the general, bodying her wherever she stepped. “Hence the monkey outfit.”
“Will play great on TV, too.” Britt tried to ice her words with a smile, but even Flowers winced. “Oh, come on. Like you don’t know. You’re a big deal to people, Peter. They’ll see you up there and take it as open support. Won’t the War Department be upset? Something about keeping the military away from politics?”
“Screw them,” Flowers said. “They been playing politics with us since the day we joined up.”
A thin wind blew through the park, and the four young people clung to the moment before going their separate ways.
“Thanks for being brave,” Britt finally said. “Really. I love all of you for it.”
Pete winked his coral eye through the daylight. He patted Sebastian’s shoulder, then lightly tapped at Flowers’s cheek. He put his arm around his sister and squeezed her close. Sebastian thought the big, famous leader of men was going to say something about the Volunteers, or the Rangers, or maybe something about America. Instead he said something much better.
“We’re pretty fucking awesome, aren’t we?”
* * *
The invisible man moved through the city like haze, watching, searching. He eased himself into his power; three minutes on, six minutes off, then doubling that ratio. Then he cleared eight minutes, taking off thirty for good measure. He still had two hours until the general’s speech; he saw no need to burn out before it.
Thousands had begun to line the avenue sidewalks. Bankers and clerks and tourists and digital communications associates, all gathering for their warfighters, for their Victors. Sebastian pushed out and probed deeper, to the edges.
He found strange people and strange groups along those edges. A small number of gray-haired black men had assembled under the Flatiron Building, wearing mesh caps and long-sleeve navy shirts bearing the words LITTLE HAITI VICTORS. He walked up to one of the men, sixty or so, short and ropy, with deep folds like trenches along his face. Through the man’s mirrored sunglasses, Sebastian saw absolutely nothing. He coughed. The man looked up, bushy eyebrows turning to question marks.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
Sebastian walked away, smiling to himself, leaving the man to ask if anyone else had heard what he had.
Sebastian blinked into visibility, he blinked out of visibility. He ambled north and then west, taking a break with his one-hitter and a bottled water. He paused across the crossed pistols gate arching over Broadway, built in remembrance of those who fell seizing Beirut. It remained under reconstruction. The Mayday Front had blown apart one of the pistol’s barrels, and scaffolding enveloped that side of the monument like wood lace. Up the block, a woman with wavy honey hair and shiny north-star skin talked to a man in a charcoal-gray blazer on a raised platform. They were facing a knob of television cameras. Sebastian stopped to listen, recognizing Jamie Gellhorn first, then her guest.