Dreams of the Golden Age Read Online Free Page A

imagine that, working for the same person forever. Getting old doing the same job. She didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life, but it wasn’t that. She didn’t want to run West Corp, either. Her mother had taken over right where her father, the previous president of West Corp— and the famous Captain Olympus—left off. Like they were some kind of clones or something. Anna was afraid to ask if everyone expected her to do the same. She’d rather they give it all to Bethy.
    Throwing her an annoyed pout, Bethy gathered up her books and papers as the car pulled away from the curb.
    “You flunk your quiz?” Anna asked.
    “No. A minus. Mom was right, how did she know?”
    “You love math, it’s your favorite, you’ll never flunk a math quiz.”
    “But I was worried.”
    She could tell Bethy that everything would be perfect for the rest of her life and she’d still worry. “You’re weird, you know that?”
    Bethy should have said, “No, you are,” after that, but she didn’t. Instead, she hugged her book bag to her chest and watched her sister, staring hard until Anna squirmed.
    “What?” Anna said. The plea hung through a long pause.
    “If you got powers, would you tell me?” Bethy asked.
    She could answer with a straight face because she’d been dealing with the question her whole life. Her grandparents, her father—all superhuman, and sometimes superhumans passed on their powers.
    The trick was not to respond any differently from all the other times. People were always watching her; she just had to act normal, always.
    “Yes, I would.” Except she wouldn’t, because she hadn’t, because if Bethy knew, their father would be twice as likely to find out, so Bethy couldn’t know about any of it. Anna had to keep it all to herself.
    “Really?”
    “Why are you asking me this?”
    “Because if I got powers, I’d tell you.”
    “Do you have powers? Are you getting powers?”
    “No. But I was just thinking about what I would do if I did.”
    “Having powers isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, you know.”
    “Be nice to figure that out for myself.”
    “Mom’s right. You worry too much.”
    “Runs in the family,” Bethy said.
    Because they had a lot to worry about, in the end.

 
    THREE
    T HE large conference room at City Hall was filled with the worst sort of business sharks, lobbyists, developers, profiteers, and robber barons. Gathered here in the name of progressive urban development, of course. But they all had blood in their gazes and were licking their chops, figuratively.
    And Celia was here among them. What did that say about her?
    City government had been trying for twenty years to institute major urban redevelopment. The idea fell out of favor when a previous mayor who advocated revitalization turned supervillain on them, so Commerce City was long overdue for such a plan. Finally, though, the wheels were moving—in part thanks to Celia West’s advocacy.
    The city had asked for comprehensive bids to be submitted to a planning committee. This committee would decide the tone and direction of Commerce City for the next generation. Of course, Celia had gotten West Corp involved. Along with every other construction and development company in the city wanting a piece of the pie.
    A variety of consortiums and contractors had just delivered their spiels to the mayor, members of the city council, and the planning committee, which included police, fire, and safety officers. Police Captain Mark Paulson was among them. She’d asked him to join the committee specifically. Wasn’t normally his sort of thing—bureaucratic stuffiness took him off the street, where he could do real good, he was always saying. But they needed to take the long view. The work they did now would have repercussions for decades, including in the area of law enforcement. And she wanted at least one ally in the room.
    The second-to-last presentation was wrapping up. Two men in suits—she thought of them as