Chapter Two
After helping to save the President of the United States, I got to be America’s Sweetheart for a week. Then word got out about my
little Hollywood Boulevard shopping trip to Forever 21 and Victoria’s Secret and my three-day getaway with Atlas. The tabloids
had always claimed I was a minor under the mask. Add to that Atlas’ playboy reputation, and suddenly I was America’s Scandal, at
worst a skank, at best a Cautionary Tale. Mal Shankman used the scandal to blacken Atlas’ reputation and the California quake to
attack all “false idols.” Chicago’s very own racial hate-monger, he got his start going after whites and Jews; after the Big
One, it was our turn.
Astra, Notes From A Life
* * *
Godzilla blood ruined my costume, not that I didn’t have lots of changes back at the Dome. After I dug myself out we spent the
rest of the day getting the injured medical assistance, working to unsnarl traffic—harder than it sounds with all the dead cars—
and otherwise assisting the other CAI capes and the Chicago Police Department in getting the city back to normal.
Navy Pier wasn’t a complete loss. Riptide smothered the fires before Dad showed up as Iron Jack along with The Crew, and he said
the pier itself hadn’t been structurally compromised. Of the three godzilla attacks so far—New York, Tokyo (of course) and now
us—ours had done by far the least damage. Being number three, we’d learned from the mistakes of others, so nobody had died
although there were a lot of injuries, mostly from trampling.
Thankfully the rest of the weekend remained routine, but Monday morning I arrived at the Dome and barely had time to change before
Shelly sent me right back out. “That cute Detective Fisher just called,” she whispered in my earbug. “He wants you at First
Chicago on a robbery.”
The First Bank of Chicago is a grand marble temple to money just off Michigan Avenue. Detective Fisher greeted me when I landed on
the steps, ushering me inside past the news crew already on the scene. I didn’t think he was that cute: narrow face, long jaw,
thick eyebrows, and the kind of mouth that made any smile look sarcastic. A cigarette hung from his lips at every opportunity.
Sometimes I thought he’d been created by Central Casting to be the perfect gumshoe detective.
“Morning, Astra,” he said, looking down at me from his six foot four height as he ground out his smoke. “So how long are you
going to wear black?” Everyone was taller than me, but Fisher loomed.
“Black is the new black. Those things will kill you.”
“Not me they won’t. I’m going to live forever, sweetheart.”
I liked Fisher. He didn’t care about the media-scandal swirling around me, and he didn’t tiptoe around. After Atlas’ death I
hadn’t felt right wearing his blue-and-white colors. Black was dramatic and, like my sewn-in wonderbra and the wig that
lengthened and darkened my short platinum bob, it helped me look older. I needed all the help I could get, since without wardrobe
tricks I looked like an underdeveloped teenage pixie, but in hindsight it hadn’t been a good color-choice; the scandal-sellers
took it as a sign of mourning for my “lost lover.” If only.
But all Fisher cared about was the job.
“So what have we got this morning?” I asked, looking around. First Chicago’s public space was huge, with a high vaulted
ceiling, a row of teller’s cages behind ornate brasswork lining the west wall, and a corral of bank officer’s desks separated
from the main floor by an oak rail; everything about the bank screamed we’ve been here forever and can be trusted with your
money.
“Somebody robbed the vault just before opening time,” Fisher said. “At first it looked like an inside job. Trusted bank
employee hacks the alarm system, steps into the vault, blows the door on a deposit box with a perfectly shaped charge, grabs the
contents, and walks out through the lobby doors to disappear into the morning rush.”
“And we’re both here, why?”
Fisher was the senior detective the CPD Detective Division assigned to superhuman crimes, and, with Atlas gone, I’d become the
Sentinel whom Blackstone sent most often to superhuman crime scenes. Not that I took an active role in police investigations; it
was all about showing the flag, and hopefully it helped combat the bad press I’d gotten since the scandal broke and I made the
mistake of coming out publically against the Domestic Security Act.
“I’ll show you.” He walked me past the other officers and patrolmen taking statements, to where he’d left a computer pad on
one of the big oak desks. With a couple of taps he brought up a video file.
“Watch this.”
Time-stamped this morning, it showed the vault with a good view of the narrow steel table where bank patrons could set their
trays. A young male employee entered the vault and unhurriedly, almost casually, stuck a silver disk onto a mid-sized box. A
flash, and he swung the door aside to remove the tray. Setting it on the table, he removed its contents, a thick document case
which he flipped open. Satisfied with what he found, he closed the case, tucked it under his arm, set something small on the
table, and turned to leave.
Fisher froze the image. “What do you see?”
I looked closer, and whistled.
“He’s a she.” His hair had been ear length when he entered. It was past shoulder length in the framed shot.
“You got it,” he said. “Other employees identify the man who went in as Ralph Moffat. They have no idea who walked out.”
“Just walked?”
“Walked. She timed it perfectly; every guard was out of sight when she walked out of the bank. The hallway footage shows she drew
a gun, but she never broke stride, never even pointed it at anybody. Even the vault guards were down the hall changing their
shift, and since the alarm didn’t go off...”
“Have you found the real Mr. Moffat?”
He nodded approvingly. “Patrolmen found him at his place about ten minutes ago. Drugged.”
“You’re certain he didn’t go home and drug himself?”
“No, but we’re testing him and his apartment has a good security system. The team is requesting the files now, but my gut tells
me they’ll find Mr. Moffat has an airtight alibi. Want to guess what else we’ll find?”
I gave it some thought, grateful that Detective Fisher took me seriously—or was at least polite enough to fake it. I think my not
re-experiencing my lunch at the crime scene where we’d been introduced had something to do with that. I’d kept myself from
saying anything stupid then, too, and he seemed to have decided I had a good mind.
“His date from last night?” I looked at the image on the monitor. “Probably her, but I don’t think it’ll help.”
He smiled crookedly. “Why not?”
“You said her exit was smooth. So I’d guess she intended to show us her other face, probably because it isn’t her real one
either.”
“Very good,” he said. “You’re wasted at the Dome.”
“The police department doesn’t need any bulletproof cheerleaders. Why did she show us what’s in the case?
“Sorry?”
Now I flushed. Had I asked my first stupid question?
“It sounds like she planned all this down to the second?” I offered. “And it looks like she knew what she came for. So why
waste time opening the case with the clock ticking? If it had been empty the plan wouldn’t have changed, right?”
Fisher opened his mouth, then closed it. Leaning over, he replayed the video file, freezing it on the image of the open case.
“Jesus. Sorry, kid. She even posed the tray so the camera got a perfect shot.”
“She didn’t touch the pages inside, either,” I said. “If she was seriously checking she’d have at least flipped through them,
don’t you think?” I pantomimed a quick thumb-flip. “What was in there, anyway?”
He ran a hand through his already mussed hair. “We don’t know yet. The deposit box belongs to a Mr. Tony Ross, and we’re still
trying to get hold of him. Phelps!”
The younger detective looked up from his own conversation.
“Boss?”
“Get Jenny to enhance the vault file, will you? I need to know what’s in the case. And don’t call me boss.”
“On it, boss.” Phelps frowned at me and turned away, pulling his cell phone. Like so many now, he wasn’t a fan.
“Anything else I missed?” Fisher asked.
“No,” I said, ignoring Phelps. “What did she leave on the table?”
“Now that is interesting.” He brought up another file. It was a picture of a business card. No name or other contact
information; just a red symbol on white card stock. The head of some animal? It looked...
“Is that a fox?”
He shrugged. “Could be, don’t know. Jenny’s looking for a match in the database. I’ll tell her your guess; might help. Are you
ready to go in?”
I nodded. The official excuse for my presence, instead of a more experienced Sentinel, was my super-duper senses. My breakthrough
last September had given me the full Atlas-type power package: the power to fly, bench-press buses, survive hits from military
ordinance, and hugely expanded and sharpened senses. My visual range had expanded into the telescopic and came darn close to
microscopic.
Detective Cramer waited for us in the hall outside the vault with their forensic team, and he handed me a stack of markers as I
slipped a pair of foot covers over my boots. He was friendlier than Phelps. While the two of them stood in the doorway I lifted a
couple of inches and drifted into the vault.
“Semtex,” I said, and Fisher nodded. The sharp (to me) smell of the shaped charge lingered even in the well-ventilated air of
the vault. Scanning the floor in front of me as I went, I placed a couple of markers. “Hair, short. Street stuff.” I circled the
room, placing more markers over pieces of explosive and lock. The card was still on the table, and I leaned in. I wasn’t good
enough to see fingerprints unaided, but... I sniffed.
I looked up. “Chanel Number Five.” Fisher made another note while I did a final circuit. I’m sure I didn’t find any trace the
team would have missed, but they didn’t seem to resent it and the job was good public relations—the public liked to see
superheroes at superhuman crime scenes. Atlas had done this for years, and when Blackstone gave me the job Fisher and his people
took me through a see-and-sniff crash course of crime scene trace. My education was nowhere near complete (one more thing for me
to study), but I was getting pretty confident.
I stepped out and the team went in, moving just as carefully. Five minutes later I was on my way. I nodded politely to the waiting
press as I took off, ignored the questions they fired at me (most having nothing to do with the robbery), and wondered if I would
ever hear the details on this one. As it turned out, I’d wish I hadn’t.