Soon I Will Be Invincible Read Online Free PDF Page A

people—everyone does. They started the Champions in the early eighties, just as the old Super Squadron started to retire, people like Go-Man and Regina. They were younger and sexier than their predecessors, the seemingly immortal heroes of the postwar boom, with their statesmanlike demeanors and bright costumes like the flags of strange countries. That generation had been compromised by the alien-war intrigues of the seventies, and these people became their newer, slicker replacements. If the Super Squadron were the golden age, they were the silver.
    Some of them don’t even wear masks anymore. They don’t have secret identities as working-class chumps; they date movie stars and attend celebrity charity events. Even their powers are cooler—fast, fluid, nonlinear. Monumental blocks of muscle have gone out of fashion, and these new powers seem to emerge as pure style. The team roster changed every few years, but these were the core, the ones who had been there for the big breakup nine years ago.
    I take a few stills out of the camera in my left eye in case I never get this close again, catching details you miss in the magazines, the precise way the light glints off of Lily’s skin. If Damsel looks almost ordinary, Lily never could—the daylight miracle of her skin is always there. I can’t believe they asked her here. No one is talking to her. Even Blackwolf keeps a wary eye on her.
    “I don’t want a high-profile event. I’m not talking about getting the team back together, okay? I thought it would be smart for a few of us to just look into things. Informally.”
    Blackwolf shifts in his chair. “This is CoreFire we’re talking about. The big guy can take care of himself.”
    I watch him unobtrusively, aware of those preternatural reflexes. His hands as he holds the printout in front of him are strong but graceful. I can see scars and calluses. Hands of a pianist turned prizefighter.
    “We’ve got some new faces here, so let’s make some introductions. I’m Damsel.” The famous face is carefully neutral behind the mask.
    They all know one another, but we go around the room anyway. I can’t help but feel it’s a courtesy to me.
    “Feral.” It comes out as a breathy cough.
    “Blackwolf.” He nods, looking just like his
GQ
cover. In costume, his black bodysuit shows up that perfect musculature. Almost forty, he looks twenty-five. Genetically perfect.
    “Rainbow Triumph.” Rainbow Triumph’s is a bright chirpy cartoon of a voice.
    “Mister Mystic.” Mystic’s is baritone perfection, crisp and resonant. I wonder if he used to be a professional actor.
    “Elphin.” A child’s whisper but somehow ageless; the voice that once lured naïve young knights to their doom.
    “Lily.” The glass woman. Her name brings an unmistakable tension into the room. She worked the other side of things for a long, long time. She’s stronger than almost anyone here, and some of them know that firsthand. Now she’s come through the looking glass, into the hero world. I wonder how she got here.
    When it gets to me, Damsel says a few polite words about my work on the sniper killings. No mention of the NSA. I stand awkwardly to say my code name, conscious of my height.
    “Fatale.” There’s a digital buzz at the back of my voice that the techs never managed to erase. When I sit back down, one armored elbow clacks noisily against the marble tabletop. I don’t wear a mask, but I fight the urge to hide my new face behind the silver hair they gave me. Most of it’s nylon.
             
    They found me in Boston, living on the last of the reward money from that sniper thing, plus a kill fee from the NSA when they voided my contract. Becoming a superhero doesn’t happen all at once, and by that point I was working the bottom end. Spending nights lurking in Allston, or Roxbury, or Somerville, senses open to the police bands and 911 lines, sprinting to be there before the authorities. Supposedly, I grew up around there,