After the Golden Age

The flames didn’t hurt Olympus, but they stopped him. He looked at Suzanne. At last, his shoulders sagged and his arms hung loose. Spark let the flames burn out, dropping a few last embers as they died.

Spark—Suzanne—started to run to Celia’s side. “Celia—”

“Don’t touch me!” the girl screamed, scooting away. “Get away from me!” The shout broke down to uncontrollable sobbing.

“God, what are we going to do with her?” Warren muttered.

Mentis put his hands in the pockets of his coat. “Warren, if you want my professional opinion, Celia is not evil. She isn’t even bad, really. She’s only trying to find her own way in the world, and is doing it by getting as far away from you as she possibly can. Let her alone for a time. There’s nothing else you can do, at least not anymore.”

“When, Arthur? When could I have stopped this?”

Mentis’s lips thinned. Flatly, he said, “Ten years ago, when she worshipped the ground you walked on and you didn’t have the time of day for her. Sorry.”

In the end, Celia let Mentis and Robbie approach her. They got her out of the building and took her home, leaving Suzanne and Warren to clean up after the Destructor’s gang. She’d run away from home two months before to join the Destructor. After, she obtained legal emancipation and struck out on her own.

The next time her father spoke to her was when she graduated from college.

* * *

It seemed like a long time ago, now. If she threw Bronson a bone, maybe he’d leave her be. Let her do her job. Forget about the whole thing.

“He’s charismatic, but you already know that. He draws people to him, uses them. He’s selfish, morally blind. It’s like people aren’t real to him. They’re just tools, or obstacles. You’ll have to remember that when he talks about other people he’s not really talking about people. And you have to understand that he doesn’t want to conquer, take over the city, or the world, or any of those things. He’s the Destructor for a reason. He just wants to destroy. He wants to see the world burned to ash.”

“Why?”

“I couldn’t say. It was a long time ago and I didn’t really pay attention.”

Some people theorized that he was an alien criminal who took human form and came to Earth to wreak havoc. She could believe it. There’d been so little about him that was human.

“Why did you join him?”

The file called it Stockholm Syndrome, when a kidnapping victim began to sympathize with her abductor. That was true enough, as far as it went. That was the reason that kept her out of jail. But everyone who knew the truth of the matter, knew the whole truth. No reason Bronson shouldn’t as well.

“I did it to piss off my parents,” she said.

“Most kids just take up smoking.”

“Yeah, well. Smoking’ll kill you.”

They had just locked the evidence cabinet and left the conference room when one of Bronson’s aides rushed down the hallway from the lobby. “Mr. Bronson! He’s here—it’s him. He wants to see you, he wouldn’t wait—”

“Who? Who’s here?”

“Captain Olympus!”

Celia’s stomach froze, and she glanced around, looking for a place to hide. Too late, he came through the far door, dressed in his uniform, a black-and-gold skin suit that showed every inch of his supertoned muscles. A crowd of office workers trailed after him, pressing forward to catch a glimpse, grinning with wonder, eyes wide with awe. So, this was all going to happen with an audience. Great.

Square-jawed, frowning magnificently, Olympus pushed past the aide and stared down DA Bronson. “Is it true? You’ve filed charges against him?”

Bronson donned a vacant, smiling mask—his politician expression. “Captain Olympus! Thanks so much for coming! What can I do for you?”

Celia kept to the back, hoping Bronson would hide her.

“If the rumors are true, and you’ve pressed charges without consulting the Olympiad—”

“We had the warrants, we had to act quickly—”

“I’m not sure you understand the gravity of this. He wouldn’t let himself get caught with evidence you could use. He always destroys his plans, his devices, his associates never talk … Celia?” Olympus squinted, peering around Bronson. “Celia, what are you doing here?”

Bronson stepped aside, looking back and forth between them.

Captain Olympus, leader of the crime-fighting Olympiad, beloved protector of the city—Warren West, her father—put his hands on his hips and waited for her answer.

“I’m working with the DA’s office as a consultant in forensic accounting.”

“A what?”

She closed her eyes and sighed. He still didn’t want to admit it. The daughter of the greatest crime fighter Commerce City had ever known had become an accountant, and Warren West still hadn’t reconciled himself to the shame of it.

Bronson stepped forward. My hero, Celia thought. “Captain, we have the evidence this time. We seized the records of his clandestine financial empire. Tax evasion, fraud—all of it is good in court. He’s in custody without bail at the maximum security wing of the Elroy Asylum. He isn’t breaking out this time.”