House of Dolls 3
Author: Harmon Cooper
Date: 2019-03-20 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Harem
Description: Hate your job. Get a superpower. Betray your country. Roman Martin’s life doesn’t get any easier once he makes his way back from the Eastern Province. The shadow user named Hazrat is gunning for him, and Margo, the mysterious woman who has the same superpower as Roman, will go to any lengths to end his life prematurely. He still hasn't been approved to be an exemplar, and once he confesses to his teacher what he has been up to over the last week, including destroying an Eastern Province military facility, the odds of Roman ever being a superhero are slim to none. But there are other options av
Publisher: Boycott Books, LLC

House
of

Dolls III

By Harmon Cooper

Copyright © 2019 by Harmon Cooper

Copyright © 2019 Boycott Books

Edited by Allison Erin Wright

Audiobook by Tantor Media, Narrated by Neil Hellegers

www.harmoncooper.com
writer.harmoncooper@gmail.com

Twitter: @_HarmonCooper

All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Recap

Prologue: New Companions

Chapter One: Back in the Swing of Things

Chapter Two: Questions for a Telepath

Chapter Three: Why is Everyone Going Crazy?

Chapter Four: Future House Call

Chapter Five: The Best Day and the Worst Day

Chapter Six: No Head Room

Chapter Eight: Paris

Chapter Nine: The Shock of a Lifetime

Chapter Ten: Stopping By

Chapter Eleven: Fair Warning

Chapter Twelve: Confession Compression

Chapter Thirteen: Needles and Clone Wars

Chapter Fourteen: Creating a Monster

Chapter Fifteen: Getting Hitched

Chapter Sixteen: A Safe and Quiet House

Chapter Seventeen: Becoming

Chapter Eighteen: Demo

Chapter Nineteen: Mutual Informants

Chapter Twenty: A Light at the End of the Turmoil

Chapter Twenty-One: Against the Grain

Chapter Twenty-Two: Guardian Angels

Chapter Twenty-Three: Hot for Teacher

Chapter Twenty-Four: Dinner with Coma

Chapter Twenty-Five: Forces at Play

Chapter Twenty-Six: You’ve Got A Friend in Me

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Healing Long Shot

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Tension Buildup and Release

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Orange

Chapter Thirty: Strange Request

Chapter Thirty-One: Checking on a Friend

Chapter Thirty-Two: Fighting in the Park

Chapter Thirty-Three: Temporary

Chapter Thirty-Four: The Nightmare to Come

Chapter Thirty-Five: Reunion

Chapter Thirty-Six: Stone Serpent

Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Woman in the Emerald-Green Mask

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Burial Ultimatum

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Manifest Destiny

Chapter Forty: Blink and You Die

Chapter Forty-One: Now or Never

Chapter Forty-Two: The End of the Road

Epilogue: Old Friends

Back of the Book Content

Recap

This is the third book in the bestselling House of Dolls series, so if you’ve missed the first, you can find the link here:

Book One: https://geni.us/HouseofDolls

Book Two: https://geni.us/HouseofDolls2

Continue for a recap of the second book.

(Contains spoilers!)

The world is known as Centralia, which is also the name of its largest country. Centralia is a heavily populated country, the center of all civilization, with buildings and development as far as the eye can see.

To the west is the aptly named Western Province, a once-popular but currently battle-torn country where proxy wars are fought. To the east is the Eastern Province, which is the poorest country in the world and the producer of the best technologies.

To the north is the Northern Alliance, a country located in the hottest region of the world and whose people are isolationists. To the south is the Southern Alliance, the coldest country in the world, rich in history but very exclusive and backwards in many of their views.

Exemplars and non-exemplars make up the world of Centralia. Exemplars are people with known superpowers that have been classified, and each country has its own classification system. Non-exemplars have a propensity for superpowers, but they are half-powered at best. Non-exemplars are treated differently in some of the countries, most notably the Southern Alliance.

In the second book of the series, Roman Martin continues to hone his ability to animate inanimate objects. He doesn’t get the new doll he is hoping to get, and instead gets a tiny replica in its place. Roman animates this tiny doll and names her Casper, who he plans to keep around until Emelia, the sex-doll shop’s employee and empath, delivers this larger doll.

While this is taking place, his wife’s dead body is kidnapped from the morgue by a rogue Western Province exemplar named Margo, who also has the ability to animate inanimate objects.

Margo animates Roman’s wife’s body, and she also animates Ian Turlock, the man with protrusions jutting out of his body that Roman killed in his fight with Paris. She also breaks Hazrat, the Southern Alliance shadow user Roman was (partially) responsible for sending to jail, out of prison.

Kevin Blackbook is causing trouble in his own right, killing his wife and her lover and later killing Paris. As it turns out, Margo is Paris’s handler and also her lover, which puts Kevin on Margo’s radar.

Still on his path to revenge, Kevin attacks the immigration office he worked at with Roman. Roman just happens to be there at the time, and he ends up hurting Turquoise, one of the cat girls. However, Kevin and Roman still don’t meet at this time, nor does either know anything about their separate lives.

After obtaining knowledge that there is another healer being held in a Centralian jail, Kevin forms a team to bust the healer out, with the hopes of healing the cat girl Roman injured. Joining him are Scarlett the teleporter, James Tew the telepath, Ray the strongman, and Zelda, a power replicator.

They are attacked by Margo and her crew during the prison break, resulting in the deaths of Ray and Zelda. Kevin gets away with the healer, but not without realizing he is out of his league.

Still working with Nadine on the healer situation and now wanting to help Lisa Painstake, the Soul Speed exemplar whose spectral form was stripped from her body, Roman heads to the Eastern Province with Nadine to investigate why his country is searching for healers in the Brattle Region.

In the East, Roman, Nadine, and his dolls go searching for a healer while Lisa’s issue is handled. They find the boy named Eli, a healer who has accidently killed his entire village. While Eli can heal, he also retains all the damage he has healed and releases it in one go.

As they travel back to the city, Nadine has Roman stay back and goes to get Lisa alone. Nadine is taken by her own government for disobeying a direct order. She was supposed to bring Roman to her government for analysis but instead has tried to stop her people from examining him. Realizing something is wrong, Roman comes to the city with Eli and his three dolls and rescues Nadine and Lisa from a military base.

His trade-off? To secure Lisa’s release, he has to let the East examine his power and the manner by which the Centralians gave it to him. Their group heads back to Centralia via train, and while they’re on the train, Roman gets a mental message from Harper inviting him over for dinner, not knowing that Hazrat, the shadow user who was broken out of prison by Margo, is planning to ambush him.

Prologue: New Companions

So many corpses.

Margo had seen so many corpses, bodies stacked on bodies, the vampiric infection renewing itself nightly as the plague spread through the Western Province, exemplars and non-exemplars alike all turning to rabid beasts, monsters, killers.

The Western Plague.

Those wretched memories were still with her, stitched into her psyche. Gasping faces every time Margo closed her eyes, preventing her from sleeping.

And now Margo had surrounded herself with corpses: Celia, Ian, the woman named Zelda who had been part of Kevin’s assault team. Zelda had been an absorber when she was alive, a useful skill to have around. And while Zelda wouldn’t be as strong in her zombie form, she still possessed her exemplar power, as Ian still possessed his power to turn his bones into sharp spikes.

Gruesome but useful, all of them useful—including Celia, who sat next to Margo with her head in her lap, Margo’s hand on the dead woman’s skull running her fingers through her hair.

Margo and her team had been blindsided at the prison by the man made of light. Whoever he was, he was a god-class exemplar, and Margo knew better than to go back for revenge.

There were some battles not worth fighting.

She had learned this in the West with the infection all around her, people she knew and cared about, turning. Nothing she could do at that point but slay and get away.

Better to move on, especially when there were other obstacles in her way.

Even though there were other factors involved, Margo had convinced herself all this was because of one person. Even Kevin Blackbook’s transformation could be linked back to the man named Roman Martin.

Now was a time to focus, to prepare for the inevitable.

It would be a day or so now, but Margo would confront Roman, with Celia at her side, and offer a rather quick end to Roman’s life.

Once he was dead, she would add him to her collection.

“Hazrat, lower the light some,” she told the dangerous shadow user from the Southern Alliance.

He sat across from her, brooding as well. The man made of light had handed Hazrat his ass, and it was only through Margo’s power to transform the landscape that they had escaped.

Both of them were licking their wounds, albeit for different reasons.

“Let’s get some rest,” she said, running her fingers through Celia’s hair again. “It has been a long day.”

Chapter One: Back in the Swing of Things

Roman Martin had assumed the pressure would be lifted off his shoulders when he got home. He was sadly mistaken, the ghost of Celia ever present as he unlocked his front door. Her presence was heavy in the air even though she hadn’t been in the space for a long time.

Suddenly, Roman’s trip to the East didn’t mean the same thing. He was right back where he’d started. The same home with the same empty feeling that seemed to permeate the space.

His eyes narrowed in on the coffin in the center of his living room, as Coma and Celia immediately moved over to it to undo the binding.

“So I really get to be bigger now, huh?” Casper asked. As usual, the tiny doll was in Roman’s shirt pocket. He had just activated her, having been afraid she would comment on people on the trolley ride over.

“That’s the plan.” Roman lifted his hand to his chest, giving her a perch.

The tiny woman with a cat-ear headband climbed out, holding on to his finger as he lowered his hand to the table and allowed her to step off.

“But I kind of like being small…”

“Like I said, there will be two versions of you, which will give us some options if we ever need them.”

“Glad I can be of service,” Casper said with a hint of sarcasm to her voice.

Masked Coma got the front of the coffin open and moved it to the side, revealing an absolutely gorgeous life-sized doll that was the spitting image of Casper. The doll had Casper’s dirty-blond hair and her angular face, a hint of mischievousness behind her eyes.

She was in a similar outfit as Casper had come in, a black jumpsuit and a headband with matching cat ears.

“She’s gorgeous,” said Celia, lifting a hand to her mouth. “It’s wonderful, Roman.”

“I’m fucking beautiful!” Casper said.

“Yes, you really are,” Celia said. She stepped to Roman’s side, just close enough to him that he could sense her presence.

“So let’s do this,” Roman said, rubbing his hands together.

He took one glance at his power dial to make sure he had enough juice. He was hardly at halfway with the red, and while the green bar was up, Roman had plenty of wiggle room.

Once he was ready, Roman mentally imagined himself stripping the life from Casper and pushing it into the new doll.

The new doll’s eyes blinked, the woman baring her teeth as she looked down at her hands, curling her fingers.

“Casper?” Celia asked.

“I’m down here,” said Casper, still on the coffee table, startling Roman.

He was sure he’d stripped the life from her…

“Where am I?” the new doll asked as Celia came forward.

“Hi, I’m Celia, and you’re at Roman’s…”

The new doll leapt for Celia, hands wrapping around her throat as she brought Celia to the ground. She punched Celia in the face twice just as Coma ran to meet her, tackling the new doll.

Coma flipped her over and brought the new doll’s hands behind her back, pressing her knee down.

“Let me go!”

“Aren’t you going to do something?” Casper cried at Roman, who was too shocked by what had just happened to act.

It had been a long night; he hadn’t been able to sleep on the train as well as he would have liked, and to see the doll lunge for Celia like that, and hit her…

Roman nearly crushed the doll with his power, but stopped at the last moment, watching her struggle under Coma’s hold.

“I will fucking kill you!” the new doll screeched.

And it was at this point that Roman took her life away, his power dial instantly going back to a more comfortable setting.

“Are you okay?” he asked, moving to Celia.

Roman lightly touched her face, making sure there were no indentions. Everything seemed fine, but she was dazed, trembling. Roman brought her over to the couch, where he set her down.

As this was taking place, Coma flipped the new doll over, the doll’s arms still behind her back as Coma kept her knee on her, just in case she came back to life.

“Well, if no one is going to say it, I will. That was fucked.” Casper hopped down from the table, performing a superhero landing before moving over to the doll. She proceeded to look closer at the doll’s face, poking her plastic eyes, sticking her head in the doll’s mouth.

“What are you doing?” Roman asked.

“I’m doing what you should be doing,” said Casper. “Something’s wrong with this doll; one of us needs to check it out.”

“And what would that do? I’m not a doll expert.”

Casper looked from Coma to Celia. “Could have fooled me.”

“Look, I’m way too exhausted to be dealing with this right now,” Roman said, his heart settling in his chest.

“Do you want me to prepare a bath?” Celia asked.

“I’m fine,” he told her. “You’re the one who should relax.”

“No, you want a bath. Let me help.” Even as Roman protested, Celia moved to the bedroom, letting him know she’d call him when it was ready.

He had to smile at her for a moment as she walked past, still in the flowing green clothing she’d worn in the Eastern Province. She was the same type of stubborn he had secretly loved about his wife.

“I don’t quite understand what happened here,” Roman finally said.

“Do you want me to put her back in the box?” Coma asked, her eyes red as ever.

Roman nodded. “That works for me. Maybe we can try to animate her later, or maybe…”

“She’s a killer,” Casper reminded him. “Whatever part of you you’ve put into that doll, it’s your killer instinct side, the side you should probably bury in a coffin akin to the one you should put her twisted ass in. So I say no, hell no, you shouldn’t reactivate her.”

“I don’t choose which part of myself I put into the doll,” he told her.

“I will not point out the pun…” Casper said with a chuckle. “I will not point out the pun…”

“What I’m trying to say here is I haven’t really been conscious about what parts of me I’m putting into them. I simply extend life to the object, and it takes a part of me. Like you, my comedic side.”

“I’m way funnier than you.”

“A side I grew out of in my teens. Other than that, the object does what it wants to do. Watch.” Roman cast his hand at the coffee table, and the legs began to buck as if it were a miniature pony.

“As fun of a ride as that would be, I think I’ll stay over here,” Casper said, looking at Coma to see if her joke would elicit a response.

When it didn’t, Casper threw her hands up in the air.

“Bath is almost ready,” Celia called out from the bedroom just a few minutes later, after Roman had laid the coffin in the corner of the room and placed the limp doll inside, closing its lid.

He could deal with that later; then again, maybe it was better just to have the two and a half dolls he currently had.

Why complicate things any further?

Taking his shirt off, Roman stepped into his bedroom, and a calm, lavender scent wafted from the bathroom to his nostrils.

A bath would be nice. And besides, he had training to get to.

“Well, someone looks tired,” said Ava Montague as Roman entered the gym.

Roman had Coma with him; he’d left Celia and Casper at home. As usual, he wore the athletic clothing they provided for him in the locker room, as did Coma, who looked out of place in her blue shirt, shorts and silky black mask.

“I just got home a few hours ago,” he told his teacher.

Even with the high-performance energy bar he’d purchased from the convenient store, Roman was still feeling a little tired.

“A mini vacation to the East, huh?” Ava pulled her red hair into a ponytail, her breasts swaying as she did so. “Why do I think there’s more to the story?”

“There isn’t,” Roman lied. “I was just in Eastern Centralia, like I told you.”

“I see,” Ava said, raising a skeptical eyebrow in his direction. “Anyway, we have an interesting test for you today, and I believe your opponent needs no further introduction.”

A teleporter appeared with William Bottorf, the exemplar who could replicate himself. He looked the same as when Roman had last seen him—blond hair, tan, two heavy black batons latched to his belt.

“What are my parameters?” Roman asked, looking around the room, ready to animate whatever he needed to make this quick.

He was getting used to the materials the gym had been constructed of—concrete, steel, wood, plastic—and this time he figured he would meld Coma’s arms with some of the metal, forming two large blades for her to slice through clones.

“Your parameters?” Ava asked, smiling at him. “This isn’t going to be a fighting test. Well, not really. Close your eyes for a moment. You too, Coma.”

Roman did as he was instructed, and a sound met his ears that reminded him of hands rubbing together.

Once he was instructed to do so, Roman opened his eyes to find a line of William Bottorfs, at least fifty of them, all standing with their arms over their chests.

“Your next scenario is simple,” Ava said, stepping to the left of the clones. “You are part of a risk management team, but you are told there is a traitor on another team that you will be working with. You’re meeting this other team for the first time. You will need to go down the line, greeting each of them and shaking their hands.”

“That’s it? How would this ever happen in real life?” Roman asked.

All of the William Bottorfs laughed at the same time, which was startling, and also kind of loud.

“I told you before that I have to make up scenarios for you because of your unique power,” Ava said, slightly annoyed. “Do you know how hard that is? Sitting around in my free time, sipping wine, thinking up ways to challenge you?”

“Sounds more like fun to me,” said one of the clones, or perhaps the real William.

“This is one of the scenarios we use in actual exemplar team training,” she said, ignoring the clone’s remark, “but I tried to modify it to fit something you could theoretically encounter. The point is to see how quick you are on your feet.”

“And can I use Coma?” Roman asked.

“No, I want you to do this on your own. And there’s only one rule,” she said as Coma moved to the sideline.

“What’s that?”

“You can’t just kill everyone,” she said.

“What makes you think I would do that?” Roman asked.

“I’ve seen this exercise played out with a replicator before; it can be quite frustrating.”

All the William Bottorfs smiled at the same time.

“Okay,” Roman said as he approached the first clone. As stupid as it felt, Roman stuck his hand out and shook hands with the man.

The handshake felt normal, so he moved to the next William, who also had a normal handshake, and the next, and the next.

Once Roman got to the thirtieth William Bottorf, he started to feel a hint of frustration at how long this task would likely take, especially as new William Bottorfs continued to appear at the end of line, or at least it felt that way.

And this was when the eleventh struck, lunging at Roman with a fake knife. He managed to “stab” Roman, and Ava clapped her hands together to let them know the exercise was finished.

“Alright, start again.”

“So it could be any of them?” Roman asked as he made his way back to the first William.

“That’s right, it could be any one of them.”

“Got it.”

Roman extended his hand to the first clone, who shook Roman’s hand, a smile on the man’s chiseled face. Roman kept his eyes on this William as he moved to the next one, and continued to try to keep his eyes on the previous two or three Williams as he moved down the line.

This time, it was the eighth William Bottorf who came for him, fake stabbing Roman in the gut before he could react.

The attack had no pattern, and its lack of rhythm and predictability only made Roman appreciate his teacher even more. Roman knew then that getting frustrated would only draw this out.

Not only did he have to be prepared for any William to act, he also had to manage the tension he experienced as he moved his way down the line.

Somewhere in the twenties, two Williams attacked him at once. Roman, taken off guard, was able to defend against one, which left him open to the other, and the fake knife stabbed into his side body.

“Remember, there are no healers,” Ava said, tapping on her temple.

Roman stopped dead in his tracks.

Everything from the last few days came to him at once. Eli, Nadine, Lisa Painstake, the deal he had made with the Eastern Province, the fact that they may be able to replicate his powers…

“Is everything all right?” Ava asked as one of the Williams helped Roman to his feet.

“What do you mean by there are no healers?”

He wanted to see how much she knew about the situation, with the caveat being she probably wouldn’t be telling him about it if she did.

“They’ve simply vanished; it’s common knowledge,” she said, nodding toward the end of the line of Williams. “Please, let’s go again. I’m hoping this doesn’t take all day.”

As Roman walked back to the first William, he fired off a mental message to Ava.

Dinner later?

As he was stabbed by the second William Bottorf this time, a response appeared in his head.

How did you know? Let’s go somewhere nice this time, and you’re buying a bottle of wine.

Only if we can talk about healers. Roman made his way back to the end of the line of clones. And I have something important I have to do in a few hours.

Let’s just start with a bottle of wine. Also, focus on the clones, not messaging me.

Roman never quite won the challenge against William Bottorf and his clones, but he did eventually come up with a solution that impressed Ava.

He had been at it for close to an hour when he’d simply focused on all of the clones, his hand stretching out before him.

“And what are you doing now?” Ava asked, a look of concern coming across her eyes.

“I think I got it,” Roman said, his eyes closed. “I’ve latched on to the blood vessels in their brains, and I can swell them to kill everyone if I want to. Well, I don’t know if the clones have brains or not, but you get the picture.”

It wasn’t quite what Roman was trying to go for, but he figured it would work, aside from the clone anatomy question.

“Impressive,” Ava said, “but you may end up killing all of them.”

“Not if I focus my control,” said Roman.

One glance at his power dial and he saw that the green bar was higher than it normally was, but he still had plenty of power left. She was right, it would be hard to maintain control over so many objects at once, these objects being brains. But it was something he could definitely work with, even if it was rather extreme.

Roman immediately let the sensation go and his power dial flashed, indicating that everything had returned to normal.

William’s clones all compressed together, forming one man.

“That’s a technique I personally wouldn’t want to risk,” William told Ava. “Even if he is bluffing.”

“I can assure you I wasn’t bluffing,” said Roman. “It would have been messy, but it’s something I’m pretty sure I’m able to do.”

“It seems then that we need to get more rats so you can test this theory out,” Ava said.

“I’d rather not kill innocent animals today…”

Ava shrugged. “My only issue is that doing this would truly be a scorched-earth tactic, and you’d have to have incredible control to make sure you didn’t give an innocent person an aneurysm.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“Better to be tested and continue to test your power than to be careful,” she reminded him. “Anyway, you’re definitely on your way to becoming an exemplar, and if you keep thinking outside the box like that…” Ava cleared her throat. “Well, let’s not speculate.”

It was a bit cocky to think he should be approved so quickly, but after what had happened in Eastern Province, Roman couldn’t imagine going back to a normal life.

Really.

And the fact that this normal life would be starting up again, once he was back to his nine to five, only made him feel worse.

“What’s next?” he asked, momentarily forgetting he had to go back to work.

“Thanks, William,” Ava said as a teleporter appeared, taking William with her. “And to answer your question, Roman, we’re going to work on your speed of animation.”

For the next forty-five minutes, Ava barked out orders for Roman, telling him what she wanted him to animate.

From a wall to a coin in her pocket to one of the kettlebells at the other end of the gym, Ava continued to keep Roman on his toes.

She gave him complex commands, too, like give the kettlebell feet and make it flip into a hole he formed on the floor, which then shot the kettlebell out the other end of the hole, where it bounced off a wall, only to be caught by a hand extending down from the ceiling.

Crazy shit like that.

By the end of their session, Roman was feeling a little manic, his heart beating a bit faster than it normally did.

Ava told him to get changed and as Roman walked to the locker room, he arranged teleportation for Coma to go back to his apartment, planning to grab her later before rendezvousing with Nadine.

After a quick shower, Roman met with Ava, who wore a dark-blue dress with a small jewel resting between her breasts, attached to a glittery silver necklace.

“I like your dress,” Roman said as they stepped out.

“I’m glad it meets your standards.”

“We should just go on the date in our gym clothes.”

Ava snorted. “To this restaurant? They wouldn’t seat you if you did.”

A short female teleporter appeared, tattoos crawling up her neck barely hidden by her long hair. She wore the customary Centralian teleportation outfit, and paid little attention to them as she whisked Ava and Roman away into a spinning vortex, the three of them reappearing in front of a bar with outside seating near a busy outdoor shopping area.

Ava greeted the host and told him she had a reservation. After confirming their reservation, the well-dressed man led them to the back of the outdoor seating area, where they found a bottle of wine already waiting for them.

“You really had this planned out, didn’t you?” Roman asked, offering her an appreciative smile. “Thanks for taking care of it.”

“Well, you certainly weren’t going to do it, right? Not with your big adventure to the East.”

Roman wanted to tell Ava everything that was happening.

He knew she wouldn’t be happy about it, but he hated having to lie to her, especially because he considered her an ally. She had covered for him back when the cat girl had attacked the immigration office.

Ava had his back.

And he knew she was batting for him, even with the fact she was taking longer than he would have liked to approve his new power.

He nearly confessed over the course of their meal, the wine flowing, his tongue loosening. Roman wanted to tell her about Eli, about rescuing Nadine and taking on the Eastern Province military by himself.

By himself.

He hadn’t really considered just how astounding that was, and it only gave strength to the argument that Roman’s power was out of this world, possibly a Type I once he was trained properly.

While Ava told him a little about her family, and her sister who sat on the lottery counsel, Roman wondered if she would be proud of him, aside from the fact that he had used his powers illegally. She was, after all, his teacher, and while his actions in the East had been driven mostly by loyalty to Nadine, he knew Ava’s training had played a part as well.

That was the thing about training. The more a person had, the more it operated in the background, allowing them to pivot and adjust for any solution.

Even if he had told her, there would have definitely been pieces he left out, like the part about the East taking blood samples from him. This worried Roman. He knew the Eastern Province government to be desperate and despotic, clear in the way they sometimes treated their people, and if they were able to crack his power…

What’s done is done, he thought, filling Ava’s wineglass again.

She was on her third glass, Roman still on his first.

“You know, we’re not supposed to be doing this,” she said at one point, catching his attention. Roman had been listening to her, and he enjoyed her company, but there was so much going on in his secret life that it made it hard to focus on stories about her family, or when she’d been on an exemplar team.

“Sometimes it feels good to break the rules,” Roman said, realizing after he said this how stupid it sounded.

“Maybe you’re right. Sometimes breaking the rules does feel nice. You always kind of struck me as a guy who went out of his way to at least bend the rules.”

“I’m more of a bender than a breaker. No, probably more of a breaker than a bender,” he admitted with a shrug. “But it’s not something I’m proud of.”

Eventually, the check came, and Roman went for it, Ava insisting that this one was on her and he could pay for their next meal. Roman paid anyway—it was money he’d counterfeited, so no harm to his pocket book.

Ava asked him if he wanted to go to a bar closer to her place, but Roman told her he couldn’t, that he had another appointment that night. She started to pout but stopped almost immediately, remembering the power dynamics between them, that she was his teacher.

“Another time then,” she told him, the fire calming behind her eyes.

They stepped out to the streets, Ava a bit closer to him than normal.

“Do you at least want to go for a walk through the shopping area?” she asked.

“Sure, I’ll walk you to the end,” he offered, “but then I have to go.”

As they walked and Ava continued to talk, Roman sent a mental message to Nadine, letting her know he was still on to meet at the agreed-upon location and he was ready to uncover the truth about his wife’s kidnapping, however harrowing it may be.

Roman was ready for answers.

Chapter Two: Questions for a Telepath

The scar on Nadine’s side paled in comparison to how close she’d come to death back at her own country’s military base in the Brattle region.

She could still see the female interrogator now, her time almost up, Nadine Under, a traitor to her country. She would be executed, and with her execution would likely come the death of her family, regardless of the promises her government had made to spare them.

But then Roman Martin came, and he came in force, disrupting the interrogation and eviscerating the facility.

Eli was with him, and somehow, likely due to a dormant telepathic power that resided deep inside the young healer, the three were able to negotiate a way out and carve a direct path to safety, even if that safety meant they would be living in a foreign country, all three exploited in varying ways.

And the pressure was on even though she’d rested most of the day as Oscar dealt with Eli, Nadine actually trusting him, which she knew was a double-edged sword.

Centralia had done something to an entire class of people. The shining city on a gilded hill that pretty much ran the world had taken hope from the exemplars and non-exemplars alike, one healer at a time.

Yet it was the safest place for Nadine, safer than her own goddamn country.

And the irony of this lingered in the air around her as a waitress returned with a basket of buttered bread and a glass of cucumber water for Nadine.

What was the end game here? How would she ever be able to right any of this? Was that even important at this point? Shouldn’t she be more interested in saving herself by now?

Roman was the first to appear at the Eastern Province–themed restaurant, his white hair a bit disheveled, his cheeks slightly flushed, eyes orange as ever.

Nadine couldn’t help but smile at him; Roman was a troubled soul, but he was loyal, and a big part of her liked being close to him, nestled in his arms, regardless of either of their pasts, where they came from, or the potential tragedy that lay ahead.

“Where would you prefer I sit?” Roman asked, his scent meeting her nostrils. He smelled clean, masculine, like he’d been outside for just a bit.

“Next to me is fine,” she said.

A different waitress came by this time, offering Roman cucumber water, which he gladly took. He chugged it down and asked for another glass.

“Thirsty?”

“Trying to wash a little wine out of my system,” he told Nadine. “I went out with my teacher, and she likes to drink wine. She’s quite, um, fiery.”

“Is she?” Nadine asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Literally. She’s a Type II Class C who can go full flame in a matter of seconds, and she can do some pretty crazy things with her power. I believe she’s held back with me a little; it wouldn’t surprise me if she were able to do something like simply increase the heat in the room without turning to flames, and I’m pretty sure she can take all the oxygen and just hasn’t shown me this power yet. But yes, she’s dangerous, and she likes to go out with me after we train.”

“Is it common for Centralians to date their teachers?” Nadine asked, reaching for a piece of bread.

Roman shrugged. “Definitely not dating, and I don’t think it’s common. But she’s the one that will approve my exemplarness, so I would rather stay on her good side. How’s Eli?”

“He’s with Oscar now, and once we get some of the paperwork from you, we can at least have some documents available for him. Right now, it’s best he lays low.”

“Yes, it really is.”

“You’re going to work tomorrow, right?”

“Unfortunately,” Roman finally said. “But I don’t know how much longer I can take. I have this power, and now I’ve had some experience in using it. I’m not doing anyone a service by sitting at the immigration office dealing with all that bullshit.”

Nadine knew exactly what he was saying.

The time she had spent there had opened her eyes to some of the bureaucratic drama that went on in these Centralian government offices, from division rivalries to middle managers trying to undermine one another.

It was mind-boggling to her how a government so successful could operate so poorly.

A flash at the back of the room let them know that the final person needed for their little meeting had arrived. Abby, the hazel-eyed psychometrist, wore a trench coat. She had short brown hair, which was parted at the side. A bolo tie with a rare stone on it hung from her neck, and she was in a pair of high-waisted pants.

“Nadine, Roman,” said Abby as she sat across from them. The waitress came over and Abby ordered a cucumber-infused tonic that sounded expensive. “Okay, where were we? Yes, greetings, greetings to both of you.”

She smiled at them, her eyes focusing on Roman in a way that made Nadine feel a bit uncomfortable. A quick glance to Roman and Nadine caught him staring right back, unfazed by the telepath.

“You really are good at that,” said Abby, with a little sigh. “But I’m just playing with you. If I really want to turn up the heat, I would be able to.”

“Are we going to have a telepathic dick-measuring contest, or are you going to tell us what you’ve learned?” Roman asked.

“A telepathic dick-measuring contest?” Abby swallowed hard, the color in her face draining. “How did you know?”

“It was the bolo tie. Kidding, I had my suspicions, so I went for it. Anyway, now that I know what you are and you know what I am, and you know more about me than I would like, do we need to continue to skirt around the edges here, or can we get down to business?”

Nadine cleared her throat, hoping to cut through some of the tension that had just spread across her table. “Let’s not get carried away,” she said.

“Well, to cut right to the chase, as you requested, I’m ready to present the data I discovered about the person who took your wife’s dead body.”

“Please, any information you have,” Roman said, his body shifting forward.

“What I’m going to tell you is strange, and possibly a little unsettling,” Abby said. “I checked the room, and I also checked the coffin, and your wife wasn’t removed from the coffin in the same way that you would imagine she was removed, like thrown over someone’s shoulder and carried out—you know, something like that.”

“What do you mean?” Roman asked.

Abbey cleared her throat. “Your wife got out of the coffin on her own.”

“Celia’s alive?”

“No,” Abby said, her eyes glowing ever so slightly. “Something gave life to her.”

“What do you mean?” Nadine asked for Roman, whose jaw had dropped, the man unable to say anything.

“I know it sounds strange, so I checked the rest of the room, and I found that there had been a teleporter, that the teleporter had one other person with them, and it was this person who gave your wife life.”

“But I thought you said she was dead…” Roman said, the grip on his glass tightening, the glass starting to balloon upward until he noticed it and stopped animating the object.

“She was dead. I could sense this, even when she got out of the coffin, which means that…”

“Someone like me?” Roman asked, looking to Nadine. “Someone who can animate inanimate objects?”

“I don’t understand,” Nadine told him.

“I…” Roman took a deep breath in. “One part of my power that I haven’t really explored yet is the ability to animate the dead.”

“You can animate the dead?” Abby asked, looking at Roman now with a hint of disgust. It only took her a second to plug the memory out of his brain, evident in the way she nodded, exhaling deeply.

“Please, leave my brain alone,” Roman warned her. “And to answer your question, which I will do verbally rather than mentally, it’s something that I have experimented with just once or twice. My trainer wanted to see if I could take over the mind of a lab rat. I was only able to do it after I killed it. Same with a grasshopper.”

“Interesting. It would make sense. Something dead is technically an inanimate object,” said Abby. “But why would someone animate your wife’s body?”

“I don’t know,” Roman said, looking down at his hands. “Could you tell anything else about this person? Male or female?”

“She wasn’t in there for very long, and didn’t touch anything, so the only thing I was able to go off was the place where she was standing, and as you can tell by the pronoun I’m using, it was a ‘she,’ not that I could really distinguish her from the teleporter, because both of them were women. So that kind of makes it easy. All that to say: the person who did this to your wife is a woman.”

“Nadine, do you know anything about this?”

“Why would I know something about this?” Nadine asked Roman, almost offended.

“No, not that way. I mean are you familiar with an exemplar who has the same power as I do?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean this person doesn’t exist. I can ask Oscar; he’s been around a little bit longer—actually a lot longer—so maybe he knows something. But I haven’t been briefed on anything.”

“She’s telling the truth,” Abby said.

“Of course I’m telling the truth. I don’t lie to Roman,” said Nadine, instantly canceling out all her thoughts just in case Abby tried to look deeper.

Nadine had tried to shoot as straight with Roman as she possibly could, but she was a spy, so there were details she didn’t let him in on. Still, it was mostly true; she hadn’t technically lied to him yet. And she was being honest about never hearing of someone who could animate inanimate objects.

That was a new revelation.

“It seems that whoever this person is, they are trying to get to you. Now, I’m no psychologist, but I am a telepath, and I can tell you there is often competition between exemplars who share similar abilities,” Abby explained. “Usually, these are friendly competitions, but there have been cases in the past where an exemplar has murdered another exemplar so they could be the only one with their unique ability. I’m not saying this is what’s happening here, but it is an angle you should think about.”

The waitress came with another glass of cucumber water for Roman, and the infused tonic for Abby.

“Fuck,” Roman said as he threw back his glass, drinking all the water in a single, long gulp. “This was the last thing I needed.”

For some reason this caused Abby to laugh, which also caused Nadine to laugh.

“What?” Roman asked, a confused look on his face.

“It really is a terrible situation,” Nadine admitted. “How do you keep getting into these types of situations?”

“Now there is a question I would like a telepath to answer,” Roman said.

“You’re going to need more than a telepath to answer that,” came Abby’s response.

Chapter Three: Why is Everyone Going Crazy?

Roman awoke earlier the next morning than he normally did. His slumber began with the same dream—the twilight meadow, falling, reaching out for Celia, shadows all around him swarming everything they touched…

After meeting with Abby and Nadine, he’d fallen asleep on his couch, Celia the doll curled in his right arm and Coma sitting on the ground in front of him, his hand crossing over her body.

Casper was asleep near his head, actually sharing the same pillow with him. Roman was careful not to disturb her too much, well aware that waking Casper up could prove troublesome.

Celia on the other hand didn’t seem to mind, the beautiful red-haired doll blinking her purple eyes open and moving in closer to Roman, kissing him.

She moved away, allowing him to sit up, and Coma immediately stood as well. Her mask was off for once, her dark hair in its trademark pigtails.

“Morning,” Roman told her.

“Same to you.”

“Do you need help getting ready?” Celia asked.

Roman declined as he made his way to the restroom. Stopping in front of the mirror, he ran his hand through his white hair, staring at himself. After a long inhale, he turned the water on and washed his face for a moment, feeling the water turn from cold to warm as he continued waking up.

A mental message came in from Harper the waitress: Tonight’s the night. My roomie and I are so excited to cook for you.

He responded almost immediately: I’m definitely looking forward to it, and let me know if there’s anything I need to bring.

Just yourself, Harper replied.

“Just myself,” Roman whispered as he went to his closet, using his power to move coat hangers. Roman eventually chose a black suit and a dark-gray shirt to go underneath it.

Celia had made him a cup of tea by the time he made his way back into the living room. She also warmed up a croissant, which Roman readily ate. He was up earlier than normal, which meant he didn’t have to arrange for a teleporter this time; he could take the trolley.

And Roman was just about to step out the door when Casper called to him.

“You’re not going back to work without me!”

“I figured you would want to stay here…” he lied.

“With these two?” Casper laughed. “Please, take me seriously for once.”

The tiny doll looked down from the pillow to the couch, and from there on to the hardwood floor. She jumped down and ran toward Roman. Rather than protest, he dropped to his knees and placed his palm out, allowing her to climb into his hand before depositing her in the front pocket of his jacket.

“I might—no, I will be deactivating you throughout the day,” he told her. “The day is already going to be shitty enough.”

“It’s that can-do attitude that makes you such a great employee,” she said as he moved to the door. “Besides, it was either me or my killer clone. And I’m probably easier to deal with.”

“Probably,” Roman said as he stepped into the hallway, just about to close his door when he saw Celia appear on the other side.

“You didn’t even say goodbye to her,” Casper scolded him.

“My apologies.” Roman bent forward and kissed Celia on the forehead, his eyes dropping to Coma, who stood near the couch with a nervous look on her face.

“What is it?” Roman asked her.

“Just be safe out there,” Coma said, “and send a teleporter if you need us.”

“You act like someone’s trying to kill me,” Roman told his combat doll with a halfhearted chuckle.

He hadn’t forgotten that his dead wife’s corpse had been kidnapped—that someone really was trying to play games with him. But Roman was trying not to focus on that for the time being.

He needed to take care of something else first.

Roman’s cubicle was the same as he’d left it, somewhat sparse, dust in the corner, nothing really on his desk aside from paperclips, which he planned to use for a paperclip war later. There were also some files that some of the other immigration advisors had put on his desk, a big stack Roman wasn’t interested in tackling.

“So this is where the magic happens,” Casper said, peeking out of his pocket.

“I’m deanimating you now,” Roman told her.

“Noooo…” she said as the life left her little body.

He carefully brought Casper’s knees to her chest and then tucked her back in his pocket, stuffing her down, his finger touching her fake cat ears.

“Roman,” Selena said, charging into his cubicle and startling him.

“Morning,” Roman told his terrible manager, not looking up from his paperwork. This was his go-to defense—look busy.

“I heard about your wife,” the woman said, breathing heavy as she adjusted her belt. “And you had a week off to mourn, which should suffice. I hope you are ready to get started again. I have asked our administrative assistant to fully book your schedule today, starting in about thirty minutes. So catch up on what you need to catch up on, because you’re going to be busy today, tomorrow, and pretty much the rest of the time you’re in this bay.”

“Is that right?” Roman asked her, doing everything in his power not to react to the angry woman. There were a number of things he could do if he were going for petty revenge, from tightening her belt to loosening her shirt, making a ripple on the ground when she stepped away, or locking her in her office permanently.

But Roman wasn’t going to go there; he had other plans.

“Is there a problem with what I told you, Mr. Martin? Is it something you would like to go to HR about?” she asked with a huff.

“I see you learned a lot on your personal development retreat,” Roman said coolly.

“I…” Her eyes narrowed on him.

Roman placed his feet on his desk and leaned back in his chair. “Want to talk about it?”

“This isn’t over,” she finally said, stomping her feet as she walked away.

Before Roman could pat himself on the back for being an asshole to his asshole boss, Phil Pott, the young frat boy advisor who had already taken a senior role, knocked on the wall of Roman’s cubicle.

“Mind if I come in?” Phil asked, and once Roman had given the go-ahead, he stepped in and sat down in front of him.

“Nice to see you,” said Roman, his feet still on his desk.

“You know what happened, right?” Phil asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t tell the place looks a little different? You did notice an uptick in security when you came in?”

Roman shook his head. “I was distracted. Well, I noticed Coco, but I always notice her because she stands by the door. What happened?” Roman asked, interested to see just how much the office knew about his fight with the cat girl down in HR.

What Phil said next completely took Roman off guard.

“It was Kevin,” Phil said.

“Come again?”

“Kevin Blackbook, our Kevin. He showed up with two cat girls, a few people died, the cat girls’ nails were poisonous or something. We were all rounded up in the middle. And then he asked about you…”

“Did you just say Kevin attacked the office?” Roman asked, his mind spinning for a moment as he tried to put the pieces together. “Kevin is dead. I don’t know what you’re talking about, Phil.”

“He’s not dead, I fucking swear it. He asked about you, and we told him the last time we saw you, you were going to HR, but we meant the previous week you were going to HR. Also, I’m sorry about your wife. I probably should have said that first.”

“It’s fine, I’m dealing with it. Tell me more about Kevin. I am still trying to process that…” Roman said, barely able to put words to how he was feeling.

Did Kevin know that he had taken his power? Did Kevin have something to do with the disappearance of Celia’s body? How was Kevin even alive? Why was he asking about Roman?

“Like I said, Kevin showed up here with this teleporter and the two cat girls. One went downstairs to get you, even though we tried to tell him you weren’t here, that you had the week off. But she went anyway, and then…”

“And then what?” Roman asked, remembering his meeting with Dante in HR, the cat girl appearing, Roman driving her through the ceiling and then through another ceiling, using the concrete to make a mask over his face as he burst onto the main floor and escaped by jumping out the window.

“What happened?” Roman asked.

“Everyone just disappeared,” said Phil, an empty look in his eyes. “That’s how it happened. Everyone just disappeared.”

“You didn’t see anyone? No one tried to stop the cat girls?”

“No, they all just disappeared,” Phil said, still a blank expression on his face. “Anyway, that’s what happened. I thought you knew. I thought someone would have contacted you about it.”

“Well, HR did send me a message about something, but I ignored it,” Roman admitted. “They sent me a couple messages actually; maybe I just paid attention to the wrong one.”

“It was scary, man. I’m glad you weren’t here, but maybe if you had been, you could have talked Kevin down. He always listened to you, weirdly enough.”

“Did he?” Roman asked.

“Yeah, I mean, he seemed to like you. Or at least you gave him the feeling that you liked him, and he liked you because of it.”

“But he was looking for me…”

“Yeah, but he was looking for everyone. In fact, I think he was actually here for Selena, or some people from upper management.”

“Is that why she’s so frazzled today?” Roman asked.

“Probably, and it looks like you’re already pushing her buttons, which she probably doesn’t need. I think they’re going to give her some time off in the future, but the manager in the Fast Travels department took an extended vacation after what happened last week, so Selena has to cover this week.”

“And you are sure it was Kevin? That just sounds… impossible.”

“Of course it was Kevin; how could I not recognize Kevin? He was wearing an exemplar uniform, acting like a real tough guy. You should have seen his uniform…” Phil said, a grin forming on his face. “He looked fucking ridiculous. It was like this black and turquoise bodysuit, tight in all the wrong places. Try not to visualize it too much. But anyway, a real exemplar uniform. What the hell is this world coming to? Why is everyone going crazy?”

Chapter Four: Future House Call

“It’s impossible,” Kevin told Turquoise. The old woman healer had taken care of the cat girl in a matter of minutes, Turquoise’s wounds disappearing and the color returning to her face. But she still needed rest, something to do with how the woman healed, the Type IV Class H making all of her recipients sleepy, herself included.

It was morning now, a day after their pretty much botched attack on the prison in southern Centralia.

Even with the two casualties, the absorber named Scarlett and the strongman named Ray, they’d still saved one of the only lives that mattered to Kevin—Turquoise was now alive and well.

He was in bed with Turquoise and Obsidian, the group in a new hideout that Scarlett, their teleporter, had arranged using the old woman’s healing power as payment. It was a basement home, not an ideal place if they were attacked, but the small group wasn’t too worried about that at the moment.

Scarlett and James Tew, the telepath, were gone, James having someone in his family healed. They would be back soon, and then they could begin discussing what would happen next, if they would stay together or try to separate.

After all, not only was Centralian law enforcement looking for them, the woman who had attacked them at the prison was likely trying to find them as well.

Kevin had no idea who the hooded bitch was or what she wanted, but whoever she was, Kevin would have personally classified her as a Type V, the most dangerous classification for an exemplar.

And yes, his natural urge to classify her with Centralia’s backward-ass classification system still annoyed Kevin, considering that a Type I was supposed to be the most dangerous and a Type V was often reserved for someone with a godlike ability, which made them even more dangerous.

It made absolutely no sense.

But there was nothing Kevin could do about that at the moment. And if anyone had a godlike ability, it was the woman who seemed to be able to modify all types of matter.

Yet even with all that on his mind, he still couldn’t quite comprehend what Turquoise had just told him.

“You are the one that told me to go down there,” Turquoise reminded him.

“I didn’t expect there to be an exemplar in HR,” said Kevin, his tone apologetic. “But it’s impossible. Roman is not an exemplar. I sat next to him for years. Trust me. He’s just a normal guy.”

“I asked the man if his name was Roman, and he nodded and attacked me. That’s the last thing I remember.”

“And he had white hair?”

“Yes.”

“Orange eyes?”

“Yes,” Turquoise said.

“No way. He’s a non-exemplar like me,” Kevin said, whispering the last two words.

Obsidian still didn’t know about Kevin’s ring, nor did Scarlett. James Tew knew, but the telepath hadn’t mentioned it, and of course Turquoise knew. Kevin planned to keep it this way in an effort to maintain control.

“Did you see the man who blasted me through the ceiling?” Turquoise asked. “Did you actually happen to see him?”

“No. As soon as you came through the floor, Scarlett teleported over to me and took me to safety, which, by the way, was what you told her to do. If I had stuck around longer, I would have been able to see him to…” Kevin swallowed hard. “To stop him.”

“You couldn’t have stopped him,” Turquoise said with true sincerity. “I’ve never seen a power like that. It was like he could just change the molecular structure of anything.”

“No, that can’t be the same Roman Martin I know. It was someone else. The Roman I know is a normal guy.”

“But he wasn’t on your floor, right?” she asked. “And you asked where he was, and they told you in HR. It has to be him.”

“Roman wasn’t always the nicest guy to me, but he was generally pleasant. He wasn’t the type to randomly attack someone, and he doesn’t have a superpower. I can’t emphasize that point enough.”

“He’s the one who did this to me,” she said, whipping away from him.

“Wait,” Kevin said as he reached out to her.

Obsidian woke, the cute cat girl with black ears yawning, licking her lips, looking at the two of them and curling up into a ball, her tail lightly settling.

She was topless, in a pair of panties and still wearing socks, the blanket on the floor because it had been hot last night.

By this point, Kevin was out of the bed going to Turquoise, his hand reaching out for hers and pulling her back to him.

“Careful,” she told him, her eyes flaring up and claws coming out.

“I’m not trying to…” Kevin took a quick breath in. “Okay, I believe you. If you say it’s Roman, I believe you. But I just don’t see how it’s possible. Just put yourself in my shoes; imagine you had been working with this person for a long time, and then you found out that they attacked someone you cared for. Not only that, they attacked this person using a superpower I’ve only seen used by one other person…”

“The lady at the prison?” Turquoise asked.

“Yes, the one I told you about. That’s the only exemplar I’ve ever seen who could use this type of power.”

“Maybe they’re related,” Turquoise said, turning away from him but letting him put his arms around her, and eventually letting him lift her into his arms. Kevin wasn’t a strongman, but Turquoise was incredibly petite, and it gave him some pleasure to know he could lift her so easily.

With his arm around her now, his other hand under her legs, and her tail lightly flitting against his hand, Kevin was truly happy.

Just looking at her made him happier.

And in that moment, tears came to his eyes. He was so glad she hadn’t died. If anyone else had died, it would have been terrible, but nothing would have stung like Turquoise’s death. Not Obsidian, not his estranged brother, no one.

“I’m just so glad you’re back,” Kevin told her.

“I can tell,” she said softly.

“And I don’t know what we should do when we get there, but I do know where Roman lives. So maybe we could pay him a visit.”

“We need to be ready if we do,” she said, her ears twitching. “I know you don’t believe me fully, but he almost killed me. If we show up there unannounced, he could kill all three of us.”

“Well, we have a teleporter,” Kevin reminded her, “and we have a telepath. But I don’t know how we’ll convince them to take a little side mission with us.”

“Then again, if you do know him well and he does secretly have this power, maybe he could be of use to us,” Turquoise said as Kevin carried her into the bathroom.

He set her down and she hopped up on the sink, where she perched as he took a piss.

“You don’t have to watch, you know,” he told her.

“It’s not like I haven’t seen it before,” she said with a smile.

“And I don’t know about trying to recruit Roman, even if he has a power…” Kevin sighed as he felt his piss coming to an end, just a trickle now. “Like I said, he can be kind of an ass, definitely not a team player. But if he really does have this power, it would give us an advantage against the hooded woman. Because she’s coming for us. I fucking know it.”

Kevin finished pissing and shook his cock for a moment.

“We can cross that bridge when we get there,” Turquoise said, “but first we need to pay Roman a visit. And at that point, we either kill him or he joins us. Either way, we need to act fast.”

Chapter Five: The Best Day and the Worst Day

The letter pretty much wrote itself.

In fact, it actually wrote itself, Roman not bothering to lift his pen. There was no point in faking it any longer, no point in trying to be something he wasn’t, even if it threw him under the trolley with Ava. He would figure something out, some angle, and he had enough savings to last him until she approved of his exemplar status.

And if he ran out of savings, well, he could just counterfeit money.

So the letter wrote itself: I, Roman Martin, hereby resign from my position as an immigration advisor, effective immediately.

“I bet you’re feeling pretty fucking special, aren’t you?” Casper asked.

He had animated her a few moments back, needing something to distract him from the news he’d learned from Phil Pott.

Kevin Blackbook is alive, and he attacked the office.

Roman shook his head, not quite believing it, not quite ready to come to grips with what this meant.

If Kevin was alive, perhaps there was a chance he would find out Roman had taken his power.

It wasn’t like he could do anything to Roman; it had been relatively easy to take out the cat girl, as Roman’s power was far superior to someone who relied on close range attacks. But it did complicate things in a way, and…

No, there was no way Kevin would have done something to Celia’s dead body. Roman knew enough about his former co-worker to know that.

He may have been a weirdo loser fuck, but he wasn’t a necromaniac, and he certainly didn’t have sway over someone who could animate the dead.

“It does feel good,” Roman finally told Casper. “Do you know how long I’ve been wanting to do this?”

“It’s not like your job is that hard,” said Casper. “From what I can tell, you sit here in this desk, people come talk to you, and you either give them good news or unwelcome news.”

“I find it hard to understand how you’ve gathered all of what I do in the thirty minutes or so we’ve been here.”

“There are way worse jobs out there. One million worse jobs I can think of,” said Casper. “And I don’t even know all the types of jobs your world has.”

“It’s just hard for me to explain.”

“It can’t be that hard,” Casper said.

“No, what I’m trying to say is it’s hard for me to explain my feelings when it comes to this job. It’s not that I don’t have respect for the job, nor am I stupid enough to think it’s actually a bad job or anything, especially compared to some of the jobs non-exemplars have. It’s just that it no longer applies to me. I don’t need this job. I’m simply staying here until I get approved. So why don’t I just sit at home until I get approved, or train, or do other things, maybe with Nadine?”

“I don’t know how Celia will feel about you cozying up to Nadine.”

Roman frowned, and Casper laughed at the look on his face.

“That’s not what I meant at all.”

“My humor comes from you. You remember that, right?”

“Unfortunately,” Roman said. “And it has made me question my comedic tastes.”

“It’s not like you wouldn’t give it to her, right?” asked Casper. “Nadine is pretty hot. Tall, thin, that dirty-blond hair of hers, that determined look on her face like she’s out to save the world yet she knows she’s a fucking spy and she feels guilty about it.”

“That’s enough for you,” Roman said, just about to take away her power when Casper talked him out of it.

“Come on, just let me kid! Besides, I want to hear you quit. I promise to be quiet. This will be so juicy. Please don’t deanimate me!”

“You need to be quiet, because if you’re not quiet, then…” Roman bit his lip. “I don’t know exactly what I would do if you weren’t quiet, but it would definitely cause trouble for me. And to answer your question, there are plenty of things I could do with Nadine that don’t involve hooking up. We’re still trying to get to the bottom of what’s happened to our world’s healers, remember? Everyone could use a little healing.”

Casper clasped her hands together and placed them under her chin, looking up at Roman with a dreamy, sarcastic look on her face. “Aren’t you just a little hero,” she finally said.

“Keep quiet,” Roman said.

“You know you love me.”

“Debatable.”

Roman stood, folded his letter, and smoothed his hands over the front of his jacket.

Roman thought about going to Selena, but if these were the last ten minutes or so that he would be at work, he definitely didn’t want to spend those ten minutes with her.

With each step, Roman felt as if his shackles were coming free and he was exiting the prison, walking past other cells while the prisoners in their cubicles looked out at him. He nodded to a few of them; he ignored the ones he thought were cunts.

They would say shit about him after he left, about how he had cracked because of his wife’s death, whatever. Fuck them. Anything to keep the office gossip going, especially now that it had been a few days since the attack and they needed something else to talk about.

They could only relive the same scenario so many times, no matter how close it brought a few of them.

If Roman had known those things, he would have felt for those people.

He wasn’t cold, he wasn’t heartless, and he realized the selfishness in what he was doing, leaving them to the wolves if they ever returned. But maybe that wasn’t the way for him to look at it; maybe he would make it onto a risk management team and he would be called in to help a similar office next time something like an office attack happened.

Roman was closing this chapter of his life and not looking back, scratching from his memory the hours upon hours, days upon days, weeks upon weeks, years upon years that he had spent sitting in that cubicle or one like it, a cell that he’d chosen for himself, one he could freely leave yet had chosen through monetary desires to remain in.

Those that saw him walk past would later say he looked like a ghost as he was leaving, the white-haired man with orange eyes, the constantly brooding immigration advisor who had something wrong with his wife that no one really knew any details about, the guy who showed up late. who was friendly at times yet often cold.

What ever happened to that guy?

Who cared?

The walk down to HR was a blur.

Handing his resignation letter to Dante was also a blur, the bald man looking up at him with curiosity and a bit of fear when he saw Roman’s chiseled visage.

“Are you sure about this?” Dante called after him. “We have counseling services…”

But Roman had already raised his hand to cut him off. “I hope you find happiness,” Roman told him over his shoulder.

“I hope you do too,” Dante finally said.

And with that, it was done. Roman headed straight to the exit, Casper mumbling something about how serious he was acting and Roman ignoring her. It was weird being free, especially knowing that he’d held the key to his own cage all along.

When he stepped outside, the air felt fresher, but it also seemed suspicious of him, like maybe he shouldn’t be there.

And he didn’t feel like going home, not yet—not that he had any problem with seeing Celia or Coma. He felt like just walking. He didn’t know where he would stop, but he would start at the entrance to the immigration office.

He walked for over two hours heading southwest and eventually reached Central Park, where he decided to rest for a while.

Roman sat on the grass and then laid back, his hands behind his head as he looked up at the sky, gray clouds overhead. A normal day in Centralia. Casper was quiet for the most part.

The nap that came next was a powerful one, a nap that kept him asleep in the park for a good two and a half hours, Roman’s thoughts lost in the twilight meadow.

He kept dreaming of the real Celia again, the same damn dream on replay, falling, reaching out, finding his wife at the last moment but never being able to actually save her.

And it was in that moment, a few minutes after he’d woken up that Roman recalled how Celia had ended up in a coma in the first place, which was the same reason Roman was required to go to Heroes Anonymous meetings.

It had been her idea.

Celia was a spontaneous soul; she loved going to public events, festivals, carnivals, farmers markets, that sort of thing.

And it was at one of these events that Roman’s life had been changed forever.

It was a chilly night, Roman and Celia walking through the crowd at a local festival, Roman holding a warm bag of caramel popcorn as the two of them headed toward a stage where a band was just starting up.

There were Ferris wheels around, carnival games, fun houses, all ways people could waste money in search of cheap thrills.

Of course, these were all non-exemplars.

Exemplars usually had their own carnivals because of their powers, and no one ever said anything about how the two groups of people were separate but equal. It just worked that way.

At the time, Roman was sick of dealing with exemplars, both at work and in the years before when he’d participated in Centralian fight clubs.

Roman was powerful among non-exemplars, fast, his dormant power seeming to give him an enhanced agility. But around most exemplars he was still lacking, not that he hadn’t won a few bouts.

Of course there were class Es, and Type IIIs and IVs who weren’t dangerous, but those weren’t the ones that got people’s attention. As with any world, it was sheer power that drew eyeballs and praise.

So Roman didn’t care that their carnivals and festivals were usually separate. The middle-of-the-road administrator was just happy to be with Celia after a long day of work, at an annual event she had gone to since she was a child.

Initially, Roman wanted to watch the band, but Celia said she wanted to ride the Ferris wheel, something he wasn’t too keen on.

“You know that’s not really my thing,” he started to tell her.

“It’ll be fine, I used to always go when I was a girl. You would have liked me then,” she said.

“More or less than I like you now?” he asked her, moving in for a kiss.

“I don’t know; I had more energy then.”

“You definitely have enough energy for me,” he told his wife, and their lips pressed together.

Celia laughed at his cheesy line and led him toward the Ferris wheel, the great structure easily seven stories tall and covered in blinking lights, with a small line waiting to board.

Roman and Celia made it on the next intake. They walked past the turnstile, a man clicking a device with each person that entered, and from there they took the stairs to one of the cabs.

Celia got in first, then Roman after setting their popcorn down on a bench.

Once they were securely in their seats, the wheel moved up a little, letting the next pair get in. It worked this way until the wheel had already made a full rotation. Once everyone was secure, the Ferris wheel started up, slowly at first, then faster.

Too fast.

Roman was squeezing Celia’s hand hard now, grinning at his wife, hoping the Ferris wheel would come to a stop soon. His sense of gravity was off every time they went around, the wind changing directions, the blinking lights getting to him, making everything flash in a strange way.

The Ferris wheel started going even faster.

Then it slowed, and Roman figured that the ride was over, that they would disembark soon, that he could give the Ferris wheel operator a dirty look as he walked by.

The structure started trembling, going back and forth, a spark causing a fire on a few of the spindles.

“What do we do?” Celia asked, looking to Roman with fear in her eyes. They were still about twenty feet from the ground, but at least they weren’t completely at the top.

He stood, glancing around as the operator screamed for everyone to stay put, to sit back down and wait for exemplars to come.

“Let’s just wait,” Roman said, his voice no longer his own, his voice that of a man who had no idea what to do, who just needed to be given an order rather than think for himself.

They heard a loud creaking noise as one of the cabs split overhead, a child falling out, the young girl’s hand catching a beam just in time.

Rather than stay put as she had been instructed, Celia reached her hands out for the child, telling the young girl that she would catch her, that she wouldn’t let her fall.

“I’ll save you!” she shouted, and everything shifted into slow motion.

The young girl let go of the beam. Celia just managed to grab the young girl, the force sending her over the edge of the cab as Roman tried to maneuver to Celia to stop them both from plummeting to their death.

The next sound he heard was Celia and the young girl hitting the ground below. His wife had fallen a good twenty feet as the plumes of the fire picked up and exemplars appeared on the scene.

And that was how unfair the Centralian legal system was when it came to non-exemplars.

There had been a full investigation, and even though it had been Celia who had reached out for the girl, the blame had been placed squarely on Roman’s shoulders, investigators arguing that he had tried to save the girl, and in doing so he had knocked his wife out of the cab of the Ferris wheel, the girl dying and Celia never coming out of her coma.

Fast-forward to present day Central Park, Roman lying with his back on the grass, Casper asleep in his pocket, Roman just waking up from a dream of Celia falling.

The cyclical nightmare continued.

And even now, there was nothing he could do about it.

Chapter Six: No Head Room

“I am not a superpowered individual. I am not an exemplar. I have never had a superpower. I am not a hero, nor will I ever be a hero. I am not a superhero. I am half-powered. I will always be half-powered. I am a non-exemplar. There is nothing about me that is extraordinary. I am not a hero. I am not a superhero. I am half-powered. I will always be half-powered. I am a non-exemplar.”

Roman said the familiar words, ready for the Heroes Anonymous meeting to be over with.

The crowd was larger today than it had been the last time he’d attended a meeting, but he didn’t see any familiar faces, no Paris and no Sam, the weird non-exemplar who claimed to have a heightened sense of smell.

Roman had actually sent a message to Paris yesterday but had yet to receive a response, and he wondered briefly why she was ignoring him.

Maybe she was dead.

Roman didn’t really know, and it wouldn’t bother him if the Western spy had somehow ended up in someone else’s crosshairs. She had tried to kill him, and even if they had a shaky alliance, he wouldn’t put it past her to double-cross him.

Roman’s stomach grumbled, and he wished he had eaten something back at Central Park.

His nap had gone on for too long, and part of him wished he had the ability to speed up time rather than wait for yet another meeting he didn’t actually need to attend.

The thing was, Roman could have stopped attending a year ago, but it was Bill who made the recommendations to the Centralian authorities of who had attended enough courses and who was making satisfactory progress.

And Bill still hadn’t made this recommendation.

So here he was, still going to meetings that didn’t apply to him, especially with the fact that he was now an exemplar.

Boredom already setting in, Roman focused on the corner of the room, noticing how the light didn’t quite reach it, how a shadow held its territory. He stared at that shadow long and hard, waiting for it to do something, anything.

“Roman,” Bill said in a tone that indicated it was the second time he was saying Roman’s name.

“Sorry. Yes?”

“I think it’s time you discuss what happened,” Bill said from the front of the room. “It has been a while, and I believe everyone in the crowd here is new.”

“You got it,” Roman said as he exhaled audibly, trying not to sound like he was hating his life in that moment.

He made his way up to the podium and placed both hands on it, looking out at the people in attendance. Men and women all sat before him, none of the non-exemplars eagerly awaiting what he had to say. Roman hoped to finish it up quickly.

He began the mantra, a thought at the back of his mind appearing out of nowhere, telling him he should animate the podium just to show how little power he had. He ignored the thought, launching into the story about his wife, how he had tried to save her and the girl.

The same lie he’d been telling since coming to these meetings.

“Celia was like no one any of you have ever met. I can say that without knowing you, or knowing the people you’ve associated with. She was completely unique, beautiful, beyond an exemplar…”

“Roman…” Bill said under his breath.

“But she was a non-exemplar, like me. And the point I’m trying to make here, Bill, is that if she ever had been classified, she would have been classified as a Type V. Her godlike power was her personality and how much she cared for others, the way she could instantly make an impact on your life. She wasn’t a face in the crowd like all of you,” Roman told them with disdain. “She was different. And I can’t seem to remember any of her flaws, which leads me to believe that maybe she didn’t have any.” Roman felt tears starting to form at the corners of his eyes. “She’s the reason I’m here, the reason I continue attending these meetings.”

He was quiet for a moment, waiting for someone in the back of the room to finish coughing.

What had happened at the festival was fresh on his mind. His only role in the end was to take the blame, to deal with the fallout, to watch his wife waste away in a coma, to secretly wish he had been the one who had tried to save the young girl, that he had been the one who had taken the fall.

“So like I said before, that’s why I’m here. I tried to save someone, and in the process I ended up accidentally sending my wife to her death. If I had been…” Roman gulped. “If I had been smarter, I would have let nature take its course. Exemplars would have come, and the little girl would have died, but it wouldn’t have been on me, and shit, she died anyway in the end. My wife would still be alive, and I wouldn’t be standing here in front you telling the same sob story over and over again.”

Roman started to shove the podium to the side and stopped.

“That is all.”

Without looking at anyone, Roman walked to the back of the room and let himself out. He passed the motivational quotes in the hallway, ignoring the fact that Bill was calling for him to come back.

Once he was outside, Roman unclenched his fists, the railing nearby rattling as a wave of emotion moved over him, his power radiating off his body.

After a deep exhale and a little bit of pacing, Roman finally called the teleporter.

He needed something to cheer him up. He needed to see Harper.

Roman knocked on Harper’s door, a bouquet of flowers in his hand. He had chosen violet daffodils, the bouquet bursting with so much color that Roman knew an exemplar—probably a Type IV Class E—had something to do with it.

They smelled absolutely wonderful, and the lady walking past him in the hallway smiled faintly as the scent hit her nose. Roman himself also took a few big whiffs of the daffodils, happy to have found such a beautiful bunch.

He was just about to knock again when Harper opened the door, tears in her eyes as her lips parted to say the word, “Run.”

A shadowy spike tore through Harper’s chest, spritzing blood onto Roman’s face as it moved past, Roman barely able to get out of the way in time before his shoulder was clipped. The shadow easily cut through his jacket, the shirt underneath, and his muscle, grazing against the bone.

Roman blasted backwards, his own self-defense instinct kicking in, and he used the floor as a launching pad. The wall behind him caught him, shifting Roman to the side as more shadowy blades tore out of the apartment.

He heard the angry scream of a man whose voice he didn’t recognize as his brain scrambled to make sense of all this, barely able to fathom that Harper was lying face first in the hallway now, a halo of blood forming around her body.

A door down the hallway opened and a man peeked out, frozen in place for a moment as more shadow tendrils tore out of the apartment, piercing the man in the neck, then lifting and slamming him into the ceiling.

Roman opened a hole in the floor and quickly slipped through to the floor below.

He paused there, breathing heavily for a moment as he tried to think of what he should do next. Anyone brave enough to open their door saw Roman with metal tightening around his arms, forming spikes that jutted out from his knuckles.

They saw the look in his orange eyes, an odd mixture of fear and utter hatred as Roman made a split-second decision not to run, to go back up there and kill whoever did this to Harper.

His mind hadn’t connected the dots at the moment. It hadn’t even begun to figure out who had attacked him, only that he had indeed been attacked.

It was too busy calculating everything, Roman’s eyes jumped to his power dial and mentally took everything away from Celia and Coma, who were feasibly alive and well back at his apartment.

Another door opened, and a man in a sleeveless shirt stepped out holding a frying pan, wondering what the hell was going on. As Roman passed him, he took the metal from the frying pan, which liquefied in the air and tightened around Roman’s clawed fists.

A shadow user…

A shadow user…

The name of the man came to him in an instant. Hazrat, the exemplar who had tried to attack him in his cubicle what felt like so many years ago but was literally only two weeks back.

But why?

It doesn’t matter now, Roman thought as he made his way back up the stairs, stopping when he saw the shadows creep around the edges of the doorway that led to Harper’s floor, daring him to come forward.

It dawned on him in that moment that he would not be able to fight back against the shadows. Roman didn’t have a type of power that would be able to bend something like a light or darkness; his only form of attack, then, would come from ambush.

Turning on his heels, Roman trotted back downstairs to the floor beneath Harper’s, shaking his hands out, the metal falling to the ground. He looked up at the ceiling and waited in that moment for it to liquefy. The ceiling turned into liquid and lifted him up as if he were wrapped into a cocoon.

Roman needed a way to breathe, so as he wrapped himself, he formed a straw out of the wood that bent downward to the floor beneath him, providing him a mouthpiece.

Now suspended in the air, Roman merged with the ceiling, moving between the floors and stopping when he heard feet above him. A woman’s cry met his ears, her body falling, the thunk vibrating inside his head for a moment.

He was only going to have one shot at this—this much Roman knew.

He waited in the space he had formed between the floors, and the piping, wood, metal, plastic, everything moved sideways to accommodate him—none of it bulging outward, though.

That would give him away.

Hazrat stood directly above him now.

Roman knew he could drive a spike up through the floor, cutting through the man.

This was most certainly an option, but Hazrat may be wearing some type of protective apparatus, or perhaps he was using the shadows to form armor.

No, Roman would have to wait.

Focusing on all the sounds around him, Roman listened as the Hazrat took a few more steps directly over him. He was now at the area just above Roman’s knees, where he paused a moment and took another step forward, now directly above Roman’s feet.

Once the man took another step, Roman started to push the floor material away, revealing his face, and a small amount of light created coronas on his pane of vision as he locked his eyes on the back his attacker’s skull.

It was definitely Hazrat; Roman didn’t need to see any more of the red, Southern Alliance tattoos to know this fact.

And without any more hesitation, he did exactly as he had practiced—or better, threatened—to do against William Bottorf’s clones.

Focusing on Hazrat’s skull, Roman took hold of the blood vessels in the man’s head, his brain, the bone, anything he could grab hold of mentally.

A hole exploded out of the back of Hazrat’s skull, painting the walls all around him crimson. The man instantly dropped to his knees, his shadows spiking out in every direction, piercing the floor and obliterating the ceiling above.

Chapter Seven: A Long Story

Roman gasped for air, and a wheezing sound met his ears.

He was lying in the hallway below Harper’s apartment, his hands on his chest, his eyes barely open. He tried to sit up and failed, a piercing feeling preventing him from moving certain parts of his body.

And he wanted to just lie there for the time being, letting his nerves calm, rest.

But he knew better than to give up now.

Roman brought his hands away from his chest and looked at his fingers, noticing the fresh blood from where the shadows had pierced his flesh. He coughed and felt a pain surge in his sternum, his ribs screaming out, then more wheezing.

“Casper…” he whispered, giving a small amount of life to the tiny doll.

“What the hell? Roman!” she cried out as soon as she saw the blood on his chest, his arms, his saturated clothing. The little doll stood on top of him now, looking around frantically, noticing that more people were coming out of their apartments and trying to leave.

“You have to listen to me,” she told him, “you have to lift yourself up, order a teleporter, go back to the apartment and get the others.”

“Apartment…” Roman whispered.

“I don’t know enough about your world to know what happens if they find out about you, but you mentioned it before, and someone will be coming to check on this,” Casper said. “Roman!”

“I have an idea…” Roman focused on the wall near his legs.

The thick drywall and some of the lumber peeled down, leaving the support beams exposed as they formed stents for Roman’s legs, which slowly lifted his body. After one mental message to an unlicensed teleporter’s union, Roman took a few steps—or rather, he instructed his creation to move him forward, Casper now on his shoulder next to his face, her hand touching his cheek.

“You have to stay awake until we get there. Coma can help, we can go to Nadine’s. Eli…”

“Eli…” Roman said just as a teleporter appeared, a man dressed in all black, his form slightly blurred.

A thought came to Roman that he could have tried to stand his own body up by taking hold of his own muscles and bone, but this would be a delicate task to undertake, and he didn’t know if it would kill him or not.

Better to just stick with what worked.

A flash of pixelated color and Roman reappeared in his living room, Casper and Coma lying lifeless on the floor, the teleporter not saying a goddamn word about how fucked everything was.

The teleporter in black didn’t say goodbye either, just vanished in the same weird, pixelated way he had appeared.

“Coma…” And with that, the masked doll came alive, Roman falling forward and barely catching himself with his own makeshift legs.

When he glanced down at his power dial, he saw he was pushing his limit.

There wasn’t time to explain, and Coma didn’t ask for an explanation as she moved to him, bringing Roman’s arm around her and letting him lean his weight against her.

“We have to get out of here,” Coma said, reading his mind.

“No shit!” Casper shouted from Roman’s pocket.

“Yeah… whoever attacked me could be coming here. It was just one person… but I have the feeling… more…”

Roman started wheezing again, coughing up more blood. He tried to bring his hand to his chest but could no longer lift it. Whatever was stuck in his throat simply fell back down into his body, and Roman could barely breathe as it did so.

Spit, blood, whatever it was, Roman knew it wouldn’t be much longer now if he didn’t get medical attention.

“We need to take Celia, too,” he whispered.

“I have to support you,” Coma said.

“We can just leave her here,” Casper started to say.

“No,” Roman told her firmly. “I’ve got it.”

He changed the structure of the material that was keeping him up right. It was stiffer now; he looked like he was wearing cardboard armor, but it was keeping him erect, even if the front of the material had started to darken, Roman’s blood staining it.

He ordered another teleporter, just as Coma returned with Celia flung over her shoulder.

“You have to tell Nadine too,” Casper reminded him, jumping up and down on his shoulder. “Tell Nadine you’re coming!”

Another unlicensed teleporter arrived, this one a woman with muscular arms and a nose piercing that connected to her earlobe.

If she thought anything of the man standing in his bloody cardboard armor, a beautiful woman in a mask wearing a Loli dress with another woman flung over her shoulder, or the pint-sized lady on the man’s shoulder jumping up and down telling him to message someone named Nadine, she didn’t say anything.

The teleporter simply twisted her wrist, reality spinning into a vortex around them, their forms taking shape in the street in front of Nadine’s safehouse.

Nadine was already running out the door by this point, well-dressed Oscar close behind her, an annoyed look on his face likely because they would have to move safehouses after this.

“What the hell happened?” Nadine asked, and when Roman didn’t respond she turned the question to Coma.

“He just showed up like this. We need to get him inside!”

“We need Eli!” Casper shouted, jumping up and down again as the teleporter disappeared.

“Get them in now,” Oscar hissed, ushering everyone in his direction. “Everyone, inside.”

As soon as Roman was inside he fell on the floor, the material he’d used to keep his body erect turning him over and moving away, eventually forming an odd pile of construction mess.

Still wheezing, Roman started looking around the room. Everything was going black, his heart fluttering, stars appearing above him, the twilight meadow, the shadows around him…

The sensation of falling.

He felt a horrendous strain in his chest as something shifted, his organs moving, growing in size, filling with… life.

Roman gasped, his eyes coming open.

Eli knelt over him, the young boy with blond hair healing Roman with a terrified look on his face.

“I hope you’re okay, Mister,” he said, choking back a sob.

“I think…” Roman gasped again, finally able to clear his breath, the oxygen reaching every part of his previously pierced lungs.

It was the best breath he had ever taken.

It was life incarnate, as if the breath were made out of stardust, a rejuvenating breath that calmed his beating heart and allowed him to get his thoughts together, to see clearly again.

He saw Coma standing with Celia thrown over her shoulder; Nadine reaching out to him, the look of utter fear on her face; Casper on the table jumping up and down in celebration; Oscar the handler looking out the window, confirming that no one had seen what had transpired.

“I’m better,” Roman said, looking down now at his bloodstained clothing, remembering in that instant everything that had happened.

“Who attacked you?” Nadine asked, reaching him, her hands coming to his cheeks.

“It’s… it’s a long story.”

And it was a story Roman gladly told them in the minutes that followed, Celia now alive and sitting with Eli, who still seemed a bit distraught to see Roman covered in blood.

Roman’s explanation of Hazrat eventually piqued Lisa Painstake’s interest. The woman with the Soul Speed power was also staying at the safehouse, and she’d been upstairs asleep when Roman had first appeared on the street outside.

Of course, with as much commotion as Roman had caused, she was definitely awake by the time he was brought back from the brink of death, and once he mentioned the shadow user, Lisa’s eye twitched.

“That’s the same one that was broken out of prison,” she said, interrupting him. “The shadow guy.”

“What do you mean?” Roman asked. If he had heard the story before, he didn’t quite remember it.

“When they separated my Soul Speed form from my real body, it was at Prison South,” Lisa explained. “Remember, I was pretty much stuck in a cell, and I wasn’t able to pass through anything because of the cuffs they’d put on me. But there was a breakout; a woman in a hood rescued a shadow user. She was also with a big red man, a creepy-looking guy. I was able to get out of the prison because of the wall they brought down.”

“Come again?” Roman asked, remembering the last big red man he’d known.

Lisa nodded. “I met her in the courtyard, as she was escaping with the shadow user and the red man. She wanted to take me with her and she tried, but once she broke my cuffs off, she couldn’t contain me.”

“Let’s come back to that first part. Did you say a big red man?” Roman asked.

“Yes. He had, like, these spikes jutting out of his body.”

“Ian Turlock?”

Nadine looked from Roman to Oscar. “That was the name of the guy who went around with Paris, the guy who took me from my apartment.”

“But I killed him,” Roman said, his brow furrowed.

“If he’s the same guy, he’s still alive,” said Lisa.

“And do you remember what this woman did, this woman with the hood. What kind of power did she have?”

“Come to think of it…” Lisa raised an eyebrow at him. “She kind of had your power.”

“My power?” Roman shook his head. “How could you tell?”

“She seemed to be able to do anything she wanted with inanimate objects, including the cuffs that were preventing me from turning transparent.”

“And she was with Ian Turlock…” Roman pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment, reeling from Lisa’s revelation. “There’s something you all should know about my power, something I haven’t really utilized in front of you.”

“What’s that?” Oscar asked, suddenly interested.

“I haven’t really experimented with it, but I have the power to animate inanimate objects, as you all know. A dead person or animal is an inanimate object.”

“And you’ve tested this?” Oscar asked.

“A little, yes. And Ian was definitely dead. I used his own protrusions to pierce his vital organs. Then I buried him under concrete. The only type of person who would be able to get him out of there would be someone who could remove the concrete and reanimate him.”

“So whoever’s after you definitely has the same power as you,” said Nadine. “And they apparently have your wife as well.”

Roman started pacing. “I don’t think I can return home for a while.”

“No, you most definitely cannot,” said Nadine. “Oscar, do we have a place we can give him?”

“You know, we aren’t running a hotel service here…” Oscar started to say. The well-dressed man, currently in a three-piece yellow suit, smoothed his hands over the front of his jacket. “But yes, I’m sure we can conjure up something.”

“The Eastern Province must have some task that would directly benefit from having my power around,” said Roman.

“Perhaps,” said Oscar. “But until we can get you housing, you will have to stay here, and there are no rooms left.”

“I can sleep on the floor. The dolls don’t require bedding,” he said, realizing how awkward this sounded. Casper didn’t comment on his statement, but Roman did feel her kick him with the back of her heel.

“You can sleep in my room,” said Nadine. “There are two beds in there.”

“I don’t want to impose…” Roman started to say.

“Nonsense. You aren’t imposing, and whoever’s after you may be an enemy to us as well. We just don’t know yet.”

“Also, I quit my job today,” Roman said, almost as an afterthought.

Nadine smiled. “It’s about goddamn time. Did you get paperwork for Eli?”

“Shit,” Roman said, “I knew I had forgotten something. If you can get me any type of forged document, or an expired Centralian passport or something, I’m sure I’ll be able to do something.”

“I’ve already begun the process,” Oscar said, “as a backup plan.”

“Thank you,” Roman told Nadine’s handler. “I won’t be so careless next time.”

“Let’s hope not.”

Chapter Eight: Paris

Margo appeared at the end of Harper’s street, Ian Turlock, Celia, and the power amplifier named Zelda with her.

Three corpses, and someone who was arguably dead inside.

“It seems there has been a disturbance,” she said, pulling the hood over her white hair and providing more shadows for her face, the skin tatted black beneath her nostrils. She approached casually, instructing the others to stay back as she met a Centralian police officer standing behind the police barrier.

“What happened?” she asked.

“You need to move along, ma’am,” he said.

The man’s hands came to his throat, his eyes starting to bulge out.

“One more chance,” Margo said. “If you call for backup, I will kill them too, and then I will take your body with me and discover who you are, and it is at that point that I will locate your immediate family members. After I’ve killed them, I will animate their corpses and have them rape each other. So, I will ask you again, what happened?”

“An attack…” the man said, struggling to breathe. “On the fourth and fifth floor of that building. Several people injured, one exemplar dead. He recently escaped from Prison South. I don’t know where they took his body, though.”

“His body would be helpful…”

“Do you trust me enough to let me send a mental message?” he asked, the street lamp near him flickering. “My buddy was with the group that removed the body.”

“Sure, but first I will take your identification.”

The man’s wallet lifted out of his pocket and fell to the ground, his ID coming out and slipping across the pavement to Margo.

“Evan,” she said, “Evan Mod. Good to know.”

Margo tucked the identification one of her pockets.

“You may now send your message.”

The man did as he said he would do, and the answer came a few moments later.

He told Margo where Hazrat was being held, and she thanked him, reminding him that if he mentioned what happened here, she would come for his family and he would not be able to hide them from her.

With that, Margo bid him farewell and walked back over to Celia, Ian and Zelda.

“It looks like we’re going to have to pay a direct visit to your husband,” she told Celia.

“Good, I look forward to it,” Celia said in her stilted way.

“As do I. Hazrat was supposed to bring him back alive, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t work. I wanted him to think he was getting revenge for his wife, so I guess this is my fault. And you are right, Ian—or was it you who said it, Zelda?” Margo looked between the two of them. “I suppose it doesn’t matter; I haven’t given either of you the ability to speak. Just Celia. Because I like her voice. It’s pretty.”

Margo reached her hand out and Celia took it, the dangerous exemplar from the Western Province ignoring how cold Celia’s hand was as she continued to speak.

“I had a feeling it would play out this way. And you’re right, I could have probably killed Hazrat and just taken his body that way, but I had already tricked him into working for me. So there was really no point.” Margo shrugged. “We can deal with him later, though. Let’s go to Roman’s.”

A teleporter appeared, the same one who usually worked for Margo and didn’t ask any questions. Energy rippling all around her, she teleported the four to Roman’s front door and flashed away almost immediately.

“Knock, knock, knock,” Margo said as she brought her hand up. Roman’s door handle melted away and the door swung open, allowing her to step inside.

“Ian, be careful, I don’t need you knocking things over,” she said as he barely fit into the space.

Once everyone was inside, she shut the door behind them, returning the handle to its original state. “Roman, I’m home,” Margo called out.

“I don’t think he’s here,” Celia said.

“You don’t think,” Margo reminded her.

“You are so clever, Margo,” said zombie Celia as she moved around the place, no indication whatsoever that she had any memories of living here.

Celia was dainty and girly, with light hair, and even if she was simply an animated corpse, the way she moved was different than the way Ian moved, or Zelda, for that matter. There was something unique about it, something Margo liked.

“It appears he left in a hurry.” Margo bent down and touched the floor, pressing her finger into just a little bit of blood. She brought it to her tongue and tasted it. “Well, he’s not a vampire; I know what their blood tastes like,” she said, and then she noticed something in the corner.

“It looks like he has something,” Celia said as she moved over to the object.

“Open,” Margo told the coffin, the wood shifting aside and revealing the sex doll Roman had purchased, activated, and then deactivated after she’d gone mad. The sex doll wore a cat-ear headband. She had long, dirty-blond hair that was at odds with the tight, black leathery outfit practically painted on her body.

“Ooo, a new toy.”

Zelda fell to the ground, dead to the world as Margo stroked her fingers to the air, dramatically casting life into Roman’s abandoned sex doll. Her eyes opened, a darkness spreading across them.

“Hello,” Margo said, “I’m glad you could join us.”

“I’m glad I could join you too,” said the doll, and she took a step forward, extending her hand to Margo.

“It feels so real,” Margo said as she shook the doll’s hand. “Do you have a name?”

“No.”

“Would you like me to give you one?”

“Please.”

“Well, your hair isn’t right, but there is something about you I like,” Margo told the doll, “something about you that reminds me of someone who was very close to me. Let’s call you Paris.”

Chapter Nine: The Shock of a Lifetime

“Just lie next to me and let me touch your hand,” Lisa Painstake instructed Roman. “And if no one is there now, we can periodically check your home just to see if there has been any activity.”

“And you’re sure no one can see you?”

Lisa glanced to Nadine. “I used to think no one could see or hear me, until I ran into the man made of light back at the prison. But he’s the only one who has ever seen me, so I’m going to operate under the assumption that we’ll be invisible.”

“Sounds reassuring…”

“We’ll be fine,” Nadine said.

Roman was lying on the floor now, on a rug.

His dolls sat on a bench against the wall, Casper on Coma’s lap, each of them lifeless. Nadine was already lying down on his other side, a space between them for Lisa. The woman with the power of Soul Speed was still sitting up, making sure the cloth she had wrapped around her wrists was tight.

“I really appreciate you doing this,” Roman said as she tied their wrists together.

Lisa smiled. “If it weren’t for you two, well, I really don’t know what would have happened with my life.”

“I’m just glad you are willing and able to use your power,” said Nadine. “I know it’s soon.”

They looked up to see Oscar peek his head into the room, telling them he’d be looking after Eli if they needed anything.

“The boy eats a lot,” Oscar grumbled. “Kind of reminds me of my little brother. He always ate more than he should have, always wanting some of our rations. We gladly gave it to him. He was later killed by…” Oscar looked to the distance, as if he were trying to stare across to the other side of a mist-covered valley. “Another story, for another day. Good luck, and if you see anything out of the ordinary, get out of there. We don’t need a repeat of what happened last time.”

“We will be extra cautious,” Nadine told him as he left the room.

“Here goes nothing,” Lisa said, tightening her grip on their hands.

Roman felt something moving in his body, a sensation he later equated to shedding one’s skin. Soon, he was floating in the air above his body, Lisa’s light-filled form next to him.

“You will be connected to your body through this cord,” Lisa said, plucking at the light-filled cord jutting out of her stomach.

“This is surreal.” Roman looked at his hand, and from there to the umbilical cord of light. He saw his body lying on the floor next to Lisa, with Nadine on the other side.

“It is,” Nadine said. “We will still be able to see each other, but as it stands, even if Oscar walked into the room, it would appear as if the three of us are just lying there, holding hands with our wrists tied together.”

“It’s unsettling,” Roman finally told Nadine.

“I really do think it’s one of my favorite powers.”

“I can see why. It would be incredibly useful for a spy.”

“There’s one power I still wish I had, though,” Nadine said. “It was my ring. It canceled out all powers.”

“A power negator?”

“I called it my Zero Ring. I thought they were going to give me something like it back East, but…” Nadine nodded her head. “Well, I’m just glad they let me come back to my assignment. It is a wonder they kept me alive.”

“It’s very strange to hear you say that about your own government,” said Lisa as she stepped to the door. “But I get it, all the governments of our world operate in unusual ways—some good, some bad. What can we do? We can’t choose where we are born. We have no power to decide what type of world we want to be born in.”

“Amen to that,” Roman said as he turned away from his body, looking down as the umbilical cord of light swiveled so that it was now jutting out of his lower back, just above his tailbone.

“Are you ready?” Lisa asked.

“Yeah, I guess I am. I was actually going to ask about that. How do we fast travel?”

Reality came at Roman like a barrage of concentrated energy blasts. Suddenly he was standing in front of his apartment as if they’d been there all along. He saw the bodega he frequented, the one where he first learned he had won the Hero Lottery.

He almost told them, but kept his mouth shut as a stocky man walked in their direction, passing right through Nadine.

“That is very unsettling,” Roman finally said.

“You don’t know the half of it,” said Nadine as the man continued on his way. “Let’s just get up to your apartment.”

They entered the building and Lisa asked him which floor he was on. Once Roman told her, their forms began to rise, moving up through the hallways until they were in front of Roman’s door.

“Hold on a moment…” Roman said, looking down at the door handle. There was something different about it—it was shinier than normal, almost like it was brand new.

“What is it?” Nadine asked.

“I didn’t have the door handle replaced,” Roman said.

“Does it look like someone replaced it?” Nadine asked.

“Definitely.”

“Maybe someone’s in there,” said Lisa, her eyes filling with apprehension. “But we’re not making the same mistake we made in the prison. As soon as I see or hear anything out of the ordinary, I am sending us back to our bodies. Got it?”

Nadine nodded. “That works for me.”

“Same. We ready?” Roman asked, shaking out his hands.

Nadine and Lisa nodded.

With Roman in the lead, the three pressed into the doorway, passing through the body of a man.

Roman stopped as soon as they were clear of a large man. He turned to see Ian Turlock standing directly before him, the man’s red skin on full display, small protrusions jutting from his shoulders, his eyes completely black.

“Holy shit,” Roman whispered.

“It’s him,” said Nadine, her natural response being to take a step back.

Another woman stood at the other side of the living room, a woman with her head shaved and a dead look in her eyes.

A groan coming from the bedroom caught their attention.

“We have to be careful,” Nadine said, reaching out for his hand. Roman let her take it, the three of them strangely tangible with one another.

“I should go in first,” said Lisa.

“No, this is my home,” Roman whispered. “Whatever is on the other side of that door is something I’ll have to deal with eventually. Besides, like you said, no one can see us.”

After another look around his place, Roman reached the closed door, hearing more groaning on the other side.

He pressed through the door and gasped at the next thing he saw.

The hooded woman was on his bed, her knees up, legs spread, pants off and panties missing as Roman’s new doll ate her out. And as shocking as this image was, it was what Roman saw next that truly drove the dagger in.

Celia was on the bed too, nude, touching her breasts as she made eye contact with the woman. She eventually bent forward and dropped one of her nipples into the woman’s mouth.

Roman started to scream.

He jumped for the bed, his body going through the doll, through the hooded woman and into the apartment below.

Once he was on his feet again, he brought his fists to his back, tugging at the cord made of energy as he floated into the air, trying to move up again as he had so easily done with Lisa near him.

Lisa and Nadine lowered down, Nadine’s hands over her mouth and Lisa blinking rapidly, trying to process what she had just seen.

“We’re going,” the young exemplar finally managed to say.

“Go!” Nadine shouted to her.

As if Lisa had struck a string on an invisible harp, Roman heard a loud note, lights beginning to flash all around him as he gasped for air, now back in his own body.

He pulled his arm away from Lisa, tearing off the cloth that attached their wrists.

“I’m ordering a teleporter,” he said, panic rising in his chest as he got to his feet.

“No, no,” Nadine told him, moving toward him as he got to his feet. She brought her hands to his cheeks and held them there for a moment. “No, not like this, not now.”

“What the hell was that?” Lisa asked.

“That’s my fucking wife in there!” Roman shouted. “Her dead fucking body! Get out of my way!” he said, trying to storm past Nadine.

Nadine brought her hand back and slapped Roman. “Stop,” she told him as the walls began to rattle, the floorboards creaking, the door opening as Oscar ran into the room.

“Get out of my way,” Roman said, darkness swelling all around him. “I’m going there now.”

“She was there with his wife,” Nadine quickly explained, again getting in front of Roman and pushing him back. “Stay back. You are not in the right mindset to go there. We don’t have enough manpower. She will kill you and turn you into a fucking corpse.”

“No…” Roman started to sob, sitting down on the edge of the nearest bed. “No…”

“I don’t always condone drinking, but considering what you’ve been through, this may take the edge off,” Oscar said once Roman had calmed down some.

Lisa had left the room, leaving Nadine with Roman, who still sat on the corner of the bed, his dolls lifeless on the bench across from him. His elbows were on his knees, his hands covering his forehead, white hair jutting out all around his fingers.

“I’ll just leave this here,” said Oscar, who went for a stone bottle on the dresser. He turned over two glasses next to the bottle, grunting as he left and indicating to Nadine that she needed to get this man under control.

“It’s not a bad idea,” Nadine said as she went to the bottle, pouring a glass for Roman. “This is very potent stuff from the East, made out of various roots and tonics, aged in oak barrels for several decades before they’re ready.”

“Why would someone do this to me?” Roman asked as he eyed the glass of liquid. Eventually, he took it from Nadine, brought it to his lips and threw it back, wincing as the licorice-tasting alcohol seared down his throat. “More.”

Nadine took his glass back to the dresser, filled it, and filled her glass as well. “Try not to drink it too quickly, though. Enjoy it, let it calm your mind.”

“What would you do?” Roman asked, suddenly looking up at her with his orange eyes.

“What would I do?”

Nadine handed him the glass, and this time Roman simply held it in his hand, his eyes still locked on her. “What would you do if your husband died, someone stole the body, and then you came home one night to see your dead husband’s corpse alive, in bed with the person that stole his body?”

“I…”

“I’m not finished. This was after you were attacked by someone you barely knew, the same person killing in cold blood someone close to you.”

“You mean the woman you were visiting?” Nadine asked, the look on her face telling Roman that she was still trying to put together the story he had told her earlier.

“She was a nice woman; her name was Harper. I was starting to get to know her better. Nice woman. She was cooking dinner for me. Her roommate was supposed to be there, too. I didn’t even see her roommate. She’s probably dead. So that’s how my night started, and then…” Roman threw back the drink and handed the glass to Nadine again.

“I can only imagine,” Nadine said as she too finished her glass, wincing as the alcohol burned down her gullet.

“I should go there…” Roman said, starting to stand.

“No, you do not have the power to deal with that right now,” Nadine told him. “Roman, listen to me.” Nadine handed him another full glass of liquor. “You and I, we have a situation going on here between us. Not like that—I mean we seem to work together well. Don’t you agree?”

“Yeah,” he finally admitted.

“And I plan to help you, because I’m disgusted by what this person has done, by what I’ve seen.”

“That was my new doll with her,” Roman said as he took a sip of the alcohol. “She was there too. We tried to activate her, but it wasn’t worth it; there was something off. I don’t know what I was planning to do with her, but I figured I would deal with it another day.”

“You mean the woman that was…”

“Yeah, the woman that was between her legs, eating her out. That was my doll.”

“Fuck. This scenario gets more twisted every time I learn more about it,” Nadine said, taking a sip of her alcohol.

Roman guffawed, the alcohol clearly having an effect on him. “Tell me about it!”

“You really do live a pretty twisted life, especially since you got that superpower of yours.”

Roman’s eyes went wide; Nadine reached out to him, assuming he was going to be sick.

“I’m fine,” he told her, but she kept her hand there for a moment, moving closer to him, her arm eventually going around his shoulder. “What is it now?” she asked.

“There’s even more to my day that I didn’t tell you about.”

“What else could possibly have gone wrong with your day today?” Nadine asked, removing her arm and taking a sip of her drink. She laid her hand on his shoulder, and Roman didn’t stop her from getting closer.

He needed the comfort in that moment, and he was already suppressing the urge to bring her into his arms and just hug her, be close to her—someone alive.

Someone alive…

Roman took another drink. “Do you remember Kevin Blackbook?”

“The dead guy?” Nadine asked. “He jumped off the roof, right? And then an exemplar saved him, and he was later killed in the hospital. You know, I was meaning to look into that, because it did sound a little strange how he died…”

“Kevin is alive.”

“Come again?”

“Right before we went to the East, the attack at the office. Remember me telling you about that? I pretty much showed up right after, kind of spooked.”

“I remember.”

“It was Kevin who did it.”

“You’re serious?” Nadine finished her glass and went for another, returning to Roman side, even closer to him than before.

“I’m not kidding. Before I quit this morning, I talked to one of the guys in the office. Everyone is saying it was Kevin who attacked the office. They said he had some cat girls with him, including the one I killed. At least I think I killed her. I really don’t know.”

“Let me get this straight. Kevin Blackbook, fat nerdy Kevin, is attacking Centralian government offices?”

“That’s what they said, and this power I have was supposed to be his, so part of me wondered initially if it was Kevin who had come after Celia. But that would be impossible.”

“Do you think Kevin is trying to get you?”

“Do you remember a lanky rich kid named Phil at the office?”

“I remember,” said Nadine. “I really try not to forget people; they sort of ingrained that in me back in the East. You never know when someone’s going to come back to haunt you, or become an important part of your narrative.”

“Well, Phil said that Kevin asked where I was, which was why he sent the cat girl down to HR to get me. I think there was some confusion. Kevin asked for me, and Phil told him that the last time he saw me, I was down in HR, which was true, because that was where I went before to fill out my bereavement paperwork. Anyway, Kevin was trying to get me and Selena, who wasn’t there.”

“Did she give you any shit today?” Nadine asked as she brought the cup to her lips. She took a sip, savoring the burn this time.

“Yeah, but I really don’t care now. I’ll never see her again in my life, if I’m lucky,” Roman said with disdain.

“She really got under your skin, didn’t she?”

“Yes, for a very long time, and I got my own taste of revenge when my complaint forced her to go to a diversity and inclusion retreat or something. But if I had stuck around, she would have made my life a living hell.”

“Likely.”

Silence stretched between the two of them for a moment, Roman staring down into his glass and taking another sip. “Anyway, maybe Kevin’s trying to come after me as well. I really don’t know.”

“Well, between Kevin and the woman who can animate the dead, it’s pretty clear where your priorities lie.”

“That’s true…”

Roman relaxed some, his shoulders dropping even further.

Soon he was lying on the bed, his feet still on the ground, holding his drink with both hands as he stared up at the ceiling. It wasn’t long before Nadine was lying next to him, also staring up at the ceiling.

“I don’t know what to do about the lady, but I probably should have been nicer to Kevin,” Roman said. “I mean, we were cordial, sure. But on the rooftop, I was too busy trying to flirt with you. Stupid, I know, but you were the newest female member of the office, and I was…”

“You were just being you?”

“No, not exactly. Celia’s coma kind of sparked something in me, and I just wanted to be next to someone, and for some reason, that ‘someone’ turned into far too many one-night someones. It was a way for me to gloss over it, a way for me to cope, and it was wrong.”

“You carry a lot of guilt, you know that?” Nadine lifted her hand to his cheek, turning his face toward her. Careful of her drink, she turned to her side, her thumb stroking the side of Roman’s face, rubbing against the bits of white beard stubble beneath his sideburns.

“What are we doing?” Roman asked.

“I think we’re drunk. And I think you’ve had one hell of a terrible day.”

“Can I sleep with you?” Roman asked.

“Come again?”

“No, I mean in your bed. Can I sleep in your bed?”

A soft smile spread across Nadine’s face. “Sure, I would like that.”

Chapter Ten: Stopping By

Kevin, Turquoise and Obsidian appeared in front of Roman’s building, the three joined by Scarlett and James Tew the telepath, who had reluctantly decided to tag along.

Sometimes James could be standoffish, but Kevin didn’t mind his company, especially because the telepath never tried to skim through Kevin’s thoughts.

Kevin had been the type of employee who went to any extra training provided to him by the Centralian government, even if it meant he had to stay after hours. He was reliable in that way, and anyone with training requirements or anyone new always met Kevin at the various sessions.

This meant that he attended every single telepathy prevention session, even the ones they’d stupidly held during days off, Kevin happy as a clam to learn more about preventing telepaths from reading one’s mind or controlling a person.

“Let’s just see if he’s there first, and then play it by ear,” Kevin reminded the group.

“And we’ll actually be paying him a visit?” Turquoise asked. “Because I’m ready.”

Her claws pressed out of her fingers, a solemn expression taking shape on her face and her ears flitting back.

“I don’t know if we should try to attack him or not,” Kevin finally said.

“You are the one that wanted to come here,” James reminded him. The telepath was wearing a gray beanie, his blue eyes shining. “I assumed you had a plan.”

“Yes, I do have a plan, only I haven’t quite solidified it yet. Turquoise says that Roman attacked her back at my previous place of work. Scarlett saw him too.”

“Me too,” said Obsidian. “Well, we saw a man with white hair; his face was covered by a mask of concrete. If that’s Roman, then I saw him.”

“And if he attacked Turquoise, and he’s as powerful as you say he is, why are we visiting him?”

“Good question,” said Kevin as he turned to the entrance, James falling behind him. “The thing is, I worked with Roman for a long time, and I need to know if it’s true; I need to know if he’s secretly had a power this entire time. Now, whether he lives or not, we’ll just have to see how that plays out.”

“He dies,” Turquoise reminded Kevin.

“Let’s just see how it plays out,” Kevin told her for the third or fourth time in the last hour.

It was well past midnight and a fog was settling over the city. The streetlamp on the corner barely provided any light, but the glow from the bodega was bright as Kevin took the steps to the entrance to Roman’s building.

Using a listing on the side wall near the entrance, he located Roman’s home and turned to the stairs.

“How did you know he lived here?” Scarlett asked.

“We went on a retreat together a year or so ago,” Kevin explained. “We had to bunk together, and he told me about the apartment he was trying to move out of. It was after his wife went into a coma and he later ended up staying here, no sense in trying to leave any longer.”

“What happened to his wife?” James asked.

Kevin shrugged. “Beats me. He never did say much about it. Last I heard, she was still in a coma.”

Kevin stopped at the top of the stairs, straightened his uniform, and nodded for Turquoise and Obsidian to go forward, the two cat girls dropping low as they slipped into the hallway. Both of them stopped in front of his door.

Obsidian looked at the door handle for a moment and bent forward, sniffing it, her ears standing to attention.

“What is it?” Kevin asked as he approached. He had never seen the dark-haired cat girl so scared, the color draining from her face as her eyes widened.

“What is it?” Turquoise repeated Kevin’s question, getting ready to break through the door need be.

“It smells like…”

“Who?” Sam whispered as James approached.

“Like the woman back at the prison, the one who attacked us,” she said, shock coming across her face as she exchanged glances with Turquoise and James Tew.

“Her?” Kevin looked at Scarlett, the teleporter placing her hand on both of them just in case they needed to move quickly.

“Kevin,” Obsidian said, her tail starting to hang limp. “We shouldn’t go in there. I’m sensing something. It’s a bad idea,” she whispered.

“I’m not getting any reading whatsoever,” James said, “which is curious.”

“Then…” An idea came to Kevin, one he had called upon time and time again that often had a roundabout way of working out for him. “Then we’ll go to my brother.”

“Right now?” Scarlett asked.

“Better now than never.”

Chapter Eleven: Fair Warning

Nothing much happened between Roman and Nadine, Roman not really looking for anything more at the moment, especially with his lifeless dolls sitting not too far from him, watching him in a way.

It did feel nice to hold someone in his arms, his chin on her head, Roman taking in the morning light yet not quite knowing what the day would bring.

He had lived through many days, some long and some short, many forgettable as soon as they passed. It was strange to think that a day like yesterday contained within it so many different situations, from discovery to turmoil, freedom to despair.

Eventually, he decided to get out of the warmth radiating off Nadine’s body. As soon as he was up, he brought life to the dolls, Casper giving him shit almost immediately. “You think you can just deanimate us whenever you want, don’t you?”

“Not now,” he told the tiny doll.

“Not now? We need to talk about this,” she said, huffing hard enough that a strand of hair blew off her forehead. “I know you are under some stress…”

“I said, not now,” he told Casper with a growl, the tiny doll jumping back and smacking into Coma’s breast.

“What are our plans for today?” Coma asked as she moved Casper to the bench.

She stood, Celia standing as well, both smoothing their hands over their outfits. Roman’s second doll was in the superhero uniform she had originally come in, no mask on her head this time, visually at odds with Coma’s Gothic Loli dress.

“I don’t really know yet,” Roman told her. “I’m supposed to train with Ava later, but I don’t know. I don’t know if I can do anything, to be honest.”

He sat on the bench, Casper crawling up his arm. “You need to get out and get some fresh air,” she said once she was secure in his shirt pocket. “You definitely don’t want to stay in this dingy place, even if there’s a hot spy in here for you to sleep with.”

“Casper…”

“Let’s go out—let’s take them shopping, how’s that?”

“We don’t need to go shopping,” Celia said, sitting next to Roman, bringing her hand in his arm.

“You two always wear the same clothes,” Casper said. “It’s lame.”

“So do you,” Celia reminded her.

“Who is going to custom make something for a girl my size?” Casper asked.

“We have other clothing too,” Coma informed the tiny doll.

“Did someone say something about shopping?” Nadine asked, rising from the bed.

As strange as Roman probably looked with the dolls surrounding him, the smallest one jutting out of his pocket, Nadine didn’t say anything about it as she simply moved over to the dresser, slipping into a loose long-sleeve shirt.

“They want new clothing,” Roman said.

“No, Casper wants us to get new clothing,” Celia reminded him.

“I’ll figure this out in a minute,” Roman said, preparing a mental message for Ava. “Let me see if I can get out of my training first.”

Ava completely matched her superpower, the fiery Type II responding to his message almost immediately, informing Roman in her spunky way that not only was he required to attend training, now she wanted to have lunch with him too.

“Well, she definitely knows.” He stood, pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment. “Shit.”

“You mean your teacher?” Nadine asked. “What does she know?”

“She knows I quit my job. Why else would she invite me to lunch?”

“We did have a lunch break, you know, back at the office.”

“You’re so self-obsessed,” Casper said from his pocket. “It’s not all about you. Maybe she’s just hungry.”

“There was something about her tone…”

Nadine nodded, both of them familiar with a mental message having a tone to it.

“So what you going to tell her, then?” Celia asked, concern moving across her flawless face.

“I’m going to tell her the truth.”

“What part of the truth?” Nadine asked.

“All of it, from the fact that I quit my job to our little trip to the East—all of it. I’m going to tell her everything,” he said, ignoring Casper’s cruel laughter.

“No, no you’re not,” Nadine said. “I can’t have you blowing my cover.”

“I won’t tell her who you are; I’ll just tell her that…”

“You really haven’t thought this through, have you?” Nadine asked. “You’ve done things that are illegal, and Ava practically works for the Centralian government. She could theoretically turn you in, and maybe even have your power stripped from you.”

“If she wanted to have my power stripped from me, she would have done it by now,” said Roman. “Trust me. Ava is on my side, she likes me, and I like her. I don’t think she would betray me in that way.”

“He loves his teacher,” Casper assured Nadine.

“How much do you know about Ava?” Nadine asked, cocking her head to the left as she looked from Casper to Roman. “Aside from the fact that she’s your trainer, what else do you actually know about her?”

“I know her name is Ava Montague, that she is a Type II Class C, and that she has a dog named Bonbon. She’s a fan of wine, and she can do some pretty crazy things with her flame powers.”

“Give me a minute…” Nadine sat on a chair near the dresser, going for her brush. She began combing her dirty-blond hair, her eyes flickering every now and then as she fired off mental messages.

“Okay. Ava Montague, codename: Plume. She is a member of Mister Fist’s exemplar team alongside William Bottorf and a telepath named MindLenz. Her sister is on the Lottery Council, and she has received several awards recognizing her service to the Centralian government and its people. She is single, she lives in southern Centralia in a townhouse on 16th street, and she has done several tours of the Western Province.”

“Did you hear that?” Casper asked. “She’s single…”

Quiet,” Roman told her. “Wait, she’s on an exemplar team?”

“Yes—Plume, that’s her name. Ring a bell to you?”

“No, but those others do, Mister Fist and William Bottorf. I fought Mister Fist once; he’s a strongman with the power to turn into a mist. William is a duplicator whose primary weapon is the baton. Never met the telepath. Ava never said she was on a team….”

“And you still think it’s a good idea to tell an exemplar, who is part of an actual exemplar team that likely works directly with the Centralian government, all the illegal shit you’ve been doing?”

Roman sighed. “The fact that the hooded woman who has my goddamn wife attacked Prison South and was actually able to break someone out of there—the most protected prison in this country—only goes to show how powerful she is. Unless you got a better option, it is at least worth a shot. I’m going to need help, and I need to tell someone with some power what’s going on here. I can trickle information to Ava, giving her just a little bit at a time and seeing how she reacts. I don’t need to just jump in and tell her all the crazy shit I’ve done.”

“Yeah, I would save treason for your next lunch date, or the fact that we killed Centralian soldiers.”

“You guys killed Centralian soldiers? Was I there for that?”

“Maybe?” Roman told Casper.

“Or how about the fact that my government now has a sample of your blood based on the agreement you made to free me,” Nadine said, “and how they may be able to uncover how Centralia is able to grant superpowers. And that’s another thing about this. I am assuming animating inanimate objects isn’t your dormant power.”

“No, it isn’t. I believe my dormant power had to do with strength, possibly agility.”

“Exactly, so the Lottery Council didn’t unlock your dormant power; they actually gave you a brand-new power. And now my government has the ability to find out how they did that, thanks to you,” she said, her voice growing quiet. “Oh, let’s not forget the fact that you fought someone in government offices. I mean, that’s not so controversial compared to some of the other things you’ve done.”

“I did what I had to do,” Roman said, looking to Celia for support. And of course the doll nodded, giving him the support he so desired.

But Nadine wasn’t so kind.

She laughed out loud for a moment as she pulled some of the loose hairs from her brush to deposit them in the trash can. “Roman, you are seriously delusional. I like you, and I think you are a great guy, and I can never repay you for saving my life, but if you think this is going to go over well…”

“What other options do I have?” Roman asked. “It’s not like you are going to be able to put together a team of exemplars to help me destroy this woman.”

“The East does have resources you don’t know about, and I’m not just talking about technology,” Nadine said sharply. “We have exemplars as well, powerful ones.”

“Who are spies in Centralia?”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Not as many as I’d like. Oddly enough, there are less Eastern Province exemplars here than there should be. It’s part of a government policy we have, using our strongest for other…”

“Other what?”

“Other means,” Nadine said firmly. “But my point remains: you’ve already done illegal things Ava may not like to hear about. You aren’t even supposed to be using your powers, so there’s that as well. And money? I’m assuming you’ve been counterfeiting money too, considering you can falsify passport documentation.”

“You know about that?” Roman asked.

“I do now,” Nadine said, not knowing if she should laugh or feel sorry for Roman.

“Look, all of this, every part of it, has been because I do things my way, the way I see fit. And that’s crazy, I know, but I think Ava really could help. We have a connection.”

“You have a connection with a lot of people, and dolls,” Nadine reminded him. “Actually, I don’t know how many people you have connections with. Roman, I’m getting off track here; it’s a bad idea.”

“Just trust me, Nadine. I’ll tell her what’s going on as carefully as possible. I won’t immediately volunteer everything I know, and depending on how she reacts, I’ll tell her more. I’m not going to reveal who you are, and they won’t be able to get it out of me. I will kill her before I go to jail.”

“You mean that?” Nadine asked.

“No,” Roman said, not able to really put force behind what he’d just said. “But I will at least disable her so I can get to a safe place. That’s one thing I can definitely do. If I really want to do damage,” Roman said, thinking of how he had killed Hazrat, “I can do so rather rapidly.”

“It’s your life,” Nadine finally said. “Just give me fair warning.”

Chapter Twelve: Confession Compression

“You know I can tell when you’re hiding something from me, right?” Ava asked, pointing her drink at Roman. They were at a restaurant of her choosing, a low-key place that reminded him of a diner trying to look fancy.

As she’d done before, Ava had ordered for him, telling Roman they had great Northern Alliance salads here. She had also ordered his drink, which was a minty water concoction with a bit of lemon.

Strange, but good.

Coma was seated to his left, Celia to his right, and Casper deactivated in his pocket. Ava hadn’t batted an eye at Roman showing up with his dolls.

“It was a long night,” Coma said for Roman.

“They’re answering for you now?” Ava asked with a laugh. “If there is something you want to discuss, let’s discuss it now. It’s better not to keep secrets from your teacher, especially when your teacher has the strength of the Centralian government’s espionage abilities on her side. Joking, I try not to spy on you too often.”

“That’s, um, reassuring,” Roman said as a waiter brought a tray of fried pieces of bread to the table.

“For example, I know that you quit your job, which is one thing we have to talk about. I’ve explicitly told you not to go and do something like that…”

“I couldn’t take it anymore,” said Roman. “And look, I know there are worse jobs out there in Centralia, and in our world as a whole. I know there are slaves, people who work grueling hours around the clock for little pay or benefits, and I feel for those people. Truly, I do. And they are stronger than me, I will admit that. But me, personally, the Roman Martin who sits in front of you, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I never really liked that job, I never really liked having a job, and I don’t know how much longer I have to live.”

She stifled a laugh. “Are you dying or something?”

Roman tilted his head at her for a moment, wondering how he should respond to this question.

“My point is, I only have so much longer left to be alive, and whether that time span is fifty years or fifty hours, I want to do a favor for my future self.”

“You do know this complicates things,” she said, the smile on her face starting to fade.

“If it complicates things, what I’m about to tell you next should really complicate things.”

“I’m all ears,” she said, going for a piece of bread.

“First of all, I know who you are. I know you are Plume, and I know you are on an exemplar team with Mister Fist, William Bottorf and a telepath named MindLenz. So let’s just put that out there, so we’re on the same page before I tell you more.”

“You’re not supposed to know that type of information,” she said, a fire igniting behind her eyes.

“Well, I do.”

“And how did you find this out?”

“I’m getting to that.”

Rather than beat around the bush, Roman went straight for it, telling his teacher about Paris, and then about Nadine, whom he simply referred to as “an Eastern spy.”

He explained everything as best he could, how Paris had tried to kill him, and how he had fought back.

It was at this point that Ava stopped him. “You do realize the things you’re telling me give me the right to strip you of your power, right?” Ava asked.

“I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that.” Roman bit his lip. The waiter came and placed their salads down, but neither touched them. “I did what I had to do for a reason.”

“When it comes to governments, the average citizen doesn’t decide if a reason is good or bad—they do,” Ava reminded him.

“There’s more to the story, and I’m only telling you because I trust you and I need your help.”

Ava shook her head. “You’ve just gone from telling me all the illegal shit you’ve done to asking for my help?”

“Just let me finish before you pass judgment.”

“Roman, I knew taking you on was going to be a challenge. No, you know what? I’ll tell you whose fault this is. This is my fault. I should have just passed up the opportunity. You’ve told me all this stuff, and now I have to figure out a way to respond. Do you know how fucked this is for me?”

“Just let me finish,” Roman assured her.

He explained how his wife had disappeared, how the Eastern spy had sent someone to help get to the bottom of Celia’s disappearance, and that they had discovered a woman had taken his wife, a woman with the same power as Roman.

And before Ava could interrupt him, he explained what had happened yesterday, going to Harper’s home, being attacked by the criminal named Hazrat, spying on his own home to find that this woman had taken up shop there with his wife’s corpse and his newest doll.

It was a complicated story, and there were a few points where Ava told him to stop and backtrack a bit, to better understand the role certain individuals played.

“And that is why I am telling you all this,” Roman said, ignoring the burning glare Ava was giving him. “Through my sources, I believe that the woman in my home is the same person who attacked Prison South, the one who broke out the shadow user I killed yesterday. That means she’s just as big of a threat to the Centralian government as she is to me. And she’s holed up in my fucking home with my wife’s dead body,” he said, a little too loud.

Luckily, they were sitting far enough away to not be heard by anyone.

“Roman, Roman…” Ava stared down at her salad for a moment. She lifted the fork and began moving things around without eating any of it. “Twice.”

“Twice?”

“The woman you’re talking about has attacked Prison South twice.”

Roman took a sip from his drink. “She attacked again?”

“A couple days back. There was another prison break, this time a group of rogue exemplars breaking out a healer.”

“Centralia has one healer, correct?” Roman asked. “According to my sources, Centralia has one healer. This is the one you are talking about, correct?”

“That’s correct,” Ava finally said after a long, uncomfortable pause. “And this woman with the same power as yours fought this team of rogue exemplars in the courtyard who were there to bust this healer out, all of them inevitably escaping.”

“Do you know anything about the team?”

“From eyewitnesses, we know there was a cat girl, a male telepath, a woman who was a power amplifier, and a fat guy with a nullification ring.”

“A cat girl? Fuck. You know, there’s another person I haven’t told you about,” Roman said, starting to pick at his salad.

He felt tension in that moment, but he knew playing it cool would serve him in the end.

If Ava tried to do anything, or if she was mentally ordering law enforcement to arrest him, he would respond accordingly. He didn’t want to, but now that he had connections in Centralia’s spy-heavy underbelly, he wasn’t as worried as he should be.

“There’s another person in the story?”

“His name is Kevin Blackbook. He’s my former coworker, the one whose power I currently possess.”

“Kevin, the guy in the cubicle next to you, right?” Ava asked.

“Yes. How did you know?”

“You mentioned him once.”

“I did?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then,” Roman said as he tried to use his fork to stab an almond in his salad. “Kevin was the person who attacked me back at the immigration office, the same attack you helped cover up. I only found this out later. Did you know it was him?”

“To be honest with you, I didn’t look too deeply into it,” Ava said with a shrug. “I assumed it was just an angry immigrant exemplar. My main focus was covering up what had transpired, just to be sure HR didn’t know it was you.”

The pieces suddenly came together for Roman. “You said cat girl, right? At the prison.”

“I did.”

“I injured one of the cat girls Kevin had with him. If you’re telling me that a fat guy with a cat girl and some others exemplars broke out a healer from Prison South, that was probably Kevin. Sounds inexplicable, but he is a fat guy with a cat girl. I don’t know how many of those there are.”

“And they were intercepted by this woman, the same woman who has your wife.” Ava shook her head for a moment. “This just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”

“Look, I wasn’t trying to get involved with any of this. It all started with Paris, who has gone missing, according to one of my sources.”

“And Paris was the Western spy, correct?” Ava asked.

“Yes, Paris…” Roman thought for minute. “I believe her last name was Renara. Paris Renara.”

“Let me check on that.”

Ava sat quietly for a moment as she fired off a few mental messages, similar to what Nadine had done earlier.

Roman was still on guard, not sure if she would try to do anything to him or not.

He kept casually glancing around the room, looking for a mist, or one of William’s clones. It would make sense for her to call her team, especially since Ava knew that Roman had come up with more lethal ways to use his power.

“Yes, she’s dead,” Ava finally said. “Paris Renara is dead.”

“What happened to her?” Roman asked, continuing to pick at his salad.

“Her body was found in a warehouse,” said Ava, “strangled to death.”

“So someone killed Paris, okay. Does she have any known associates?”

“To be honest with you, while we do have some information on the spies from other countries, they are spies, and they’re generally good at hiding their true identities. Your Eastern spy friend, if you want to call her that, is probably hiding her identity from you.”

“No, I don’t think she is. We have grown closer than we…”

“Than what?”

“Than maybe we should? Not like that,” Roman assured her. “I’m just saying that I rescued her from an Eastern Province military facility.”

Ava nearly dropped her fork. “Come again?”

“It doesn’t matter now. We are close, that’s all that matters.”

“It matters. What you just said matters. Tell me everything.”

So Roman told her an abridged version of going to the East in search of a healer, then having to rescue Nadine and the healer from an Eastern military facility. He didn’t tell her about what he had bartered, but he pretty much told her everything else.

Ava looked at him long and hard for a moment after he finished. “Fuck, Roman. This is one part of the story that you don’t tell anyone. Understand me? There are going to be questions, and your trip to the East will definitely be part of those questions, but this is the part that you don’t tell anyone about. The healer boy? Which, by the way, we’ll discuss later. Fighting Eastern military officials? Everything is off-limits. In fact, I believe we may need to have that stripped from your mind.”

Roman noticed the memory starting to leave him, becoming fuzzy around the edges, as if it were a dream he’d had a few years back.

“Where’s the telepath?” Roman asked, his hands tensing under the table.

“Around. And I’m not going to ask her to do anything aside from clean up your thoughts a little,” Ava said. “It’s a technique she’s perfected that allows you to keep the memories, but anyone looking into your mind will think you are recalling a dream you had.”

“It’s okay,” Roman told Coma, who had started to stand. On his right, Celia looked completely worried, the sweet doll glancing between Roman and Ava.

“You called a telepath?” Roman asked, even though it was obvious this had happened.

“MindLenz is here and she knows everything. Roman, I’m sorry for this, but we are going to have to rework your thoughts a little bit.”

Roman started to move but suddenly felt frozen, time slowing to a standstill. “Please don’t, Ava,” he told her. “Please…”

“Relax, Roman,” Ava said calmly, “it’s not what you think. I’m granting you your wish; I’m officially registering you as an exemplar. But before I can do so, we need to clean up your thoughts some, like I said.”

“Wait, are you fucking serious? You’re registering me?” Roman asked, his heartbeat slightly heightened.

“You and I still have more training to do. In fact, we will start training after lunch is over. But I want to get you approved because I personally believe the things that you have uncovered not only represent a danger to all of Centralia, but also a solution, and that solution is you. I was wrong about the type of exemplar you could be.”

“Wrong about me?” Roman asked. “What do you mean?”

He glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see the telepath sitting behind him, but he knew she wasn’t. She could be anywhere in the room, or outside, for that matter, depending on how powerful she was.

“Yes, I was wrong about putting you on a risk management team. You are a risk yourself, and you would be ill-suited for a team of people whose job it is to mitigate risk. No, a career as a first responder isn’t right for you, but you will never—and I mean this from the bottom of my heart—you will never be on an exemplar team. You are not a superhero, Roman, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a use to the Centralian government.”

“A use for me?” Roman asked.

“Yes, as a spy. You’ve already infiltrated Eastern and Western spying sources,” she said, her eyes lighting up. “We know that the Northern and Southern Alliance also have a network of spies in Centralia. After I approve your exemplar status, you and I will continue your training, and once you get a security clearance, you will be brought up on some of the issues Centralia faces. I believe you will be a good spy. I believe you will appreciate that this information is better to keep to yourself. You should consider yourself lucky.”

“Lucky?” Roman asked. “I’d say I’m anything but lucky.”

“And you’d be wrong. If I didn’t see your potential, I would have your mind wiped now and your power stripped from you. You would be without a job, without your dolls—no offense, Coma and Celia—and you wouldn’t know why a woman with the ability to animate inanimate objects was holed up in your home.”

“This… is the last thing I was expecting.”

“Listen, Roman, I believe in you, and I want to see you succeed. And even though you’ve gone about this in a terrible way, I believe we can make something good about it. So finish your salad.”

“Yeah, sure…” Roman said, still not sure of how to process all this. “Thanks.”

“I pretty much saved your life and all you can say is thanks?” Ava laughed. “Kidding, you responded about the way I would have responded had I been in the same scenario. Oh, and one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“This woman with the power to animate inanimate objects? Her name is Margo.”

“Margo,” Roman said, subvocalizing the name a few times.

“She was Paris’s handler, and former lover. The woman wasn’t always as crazy as she is now, and we think hunting vampires in the Western Province is what kickstarted her mania. As for how we will respond to Margo, I’m not aware of that yet. We didn’t expect someone like her to actually come to Centralia.”

“How powerful is she exactly?”

“She’s a Type V.”

Roman swallowed hard, knowing that this meant the woman named Margo had godlike powers and it wouldn’t be easy taking her down, not even for an exemplar team.

“We will discuss more about what we should do with her later,” said Ava, “but for now, I think it’s best if we just keep her in your place and monitor her around the clock. She’ll be waiting for you, and we don’t need to bring down the entire city block trying to get her out. I also don’t know how we will kill her yet.”

“But you have an entire country’s worth of exemplar resources at your disposal, right?”

Ava shrugged. “Strange as it sounds, going after the spies of foreign entities can lead to wars. While the Western Province is war-torn, at least along the borders, it is a proxy war right now between the North and the South. We are neutral in it, and by neutral I mean we are supporting both sides. We’re also supporting the Western Province through aid. We will have to be careful about how this goes down. Here’s something you’re going to find out over the next few weeks.”

“What’s that?”

“Optics matter,” Ava said, taking a bite of her salad. “And speaking of which, we need to get to our training soon. I will also arrange the ceremony.”

“A ceremony for what?”

“Everyone who moves from non-exemplar to exemplar gets a ceremony. What? You’re not looking forward to people celebrating the fact that you now have a superpower?” Ava shook her head at him. “Be happy, and congratulations.”

Chapter Thirteen: Needles and Clone Wars

“Is your blindfold secure?” Ava asked.

“Yep, I can’t see anything,” Roman told her honestly.

They were at the training facility, Roman still in disbelief that his confession had gone so well. He thought about sending a message to Nadine, letting her know how it played out, but decided against it, wondering if it would change the way they interacted.

Would she want to be associated with him in the same way once he was a Centralian spy?

If anything, he could make something up, claiming that Ava wasn’t happy but that she’d eventually accepted it, especially after the part about his wife’s body being taken. He could paint Ava as sympathetic to his cause, an ally.

So for now he’d keep Nadine in the dark, just like he was with the blindfold over his eyes.

Roman could smell the hay.

It was almost funny that Ava had gone to the trouble of having it delivered, three bushels, to be exact, all stacked on top of one another, the scent in the air reminding him of the Eastern Province.

Roman had been thinking a lot about the East since arriving back in Centralia, once again becoming familiar with the sights and smells of the city versus the tranquility of the countryside.

There was something about it that soothed him, made him feel at home, even though he didn’t have his condo or the faux sense of security felt in Centralia with its large crowds, the ever-moving and ever-changing city.

Roman took a deep breath in, readying himself for the next task.

Coma stood next to him. Celia was already sitting against the wall, dead as the day she was created. Roman wanted to spend more time with his dolls later, but part of him also wanted to ignore the advice everyone was giving him and go after Margo.

Why this woman wanted to destroy his life, Roman could hardly comprehend, but he wasn’t the type to give in without a fight, not when the stakes were this high—not when she had defaced his wife’s corpse.

He felt his fists tensing as he returned his focus to what Ava had told him to do.

With his eyes closed, he was supposed to mentally move through the haystack, looking for a needle.

At first, he thought it was a little cheesy, but then he started to realize the genius in it: Roman usually needed to see what he was affecting, but what if he already knew what was there? Could he sense it? Could he modify it without being able to see it? What then?

She had told him to stare at the haystack long and hard before putting the blindfold on, and she’d even had him stand in front of it, to the point that he could reach out and touch it if he wanted to.

But he wasn’t supposed to touch it; he was supposed to move through the individual strands of hay searching for a needle, using the hay to feel for the needle.

He grew frustrated at the twenty-minute mark, the darkness of the thick blindfold making him lose his concentration. Eventually he got the gist of it, envisioning himself tunneling through the hay, listening intently as he sent a small vortex past each strand.

It took him another ten minutes or so, but Roman finally found something that felt different than the strands of hay—the needle. Ava applauded him immediately when the needle lifted out of the top bundle on its own, the hay actually pushing it up.

“I really am a good teacher,” she said, “when my students aren’t betraying their country.”

“Sorry about that,” Roman said as he removed his blindfold, not sure of how he was supposed to respond to what she’d said. The light in the gym was too bright all of a sudden, Roman having to keep his eyes shut for a moment as Ava spoke.

“Sorry, I should be more professional. Anyway, good news. Your ceremony has been set for tomorrow morning. Please do not disappoint me in this decision I’ve made,” she said, more softly this time.

“I will do my best,” Roman told her as he moved over to Coma.

“Good. It was actually one of your dolls I wanted to experiment with next—no, how about both of them?”

“Experiment with?”

“I suppose there is a better way for me to say it,” his teacher said, swiveling on her heels, her long red hair bouncing off her back.

She was hot, both in the literal and metaphorical sense, and Ava definitely knew it. She had a way of walking that immediately drew attention to her, and it was a wonder to Roman that he hadn’t recognized her as being on an exemplar team, especially with the way she looked.

A fiery exemplar with a body to kill? She must have gotten some press…

“You might be wondering why there is a pile of discarded metal objects here.” She waved her hand at the floor.

“Yes, I wondered that at least once,” Roman said with a wry grin. “Among other things.”

“From what I’ve seen, you tend to give your dolls boxing gloves as weapons, likely based on your time as a fighter. I know you can do more, such as form large blades, that sort of thing, but I thought it might be interesting if you took this a step further.”

“A step further?” Roman asked.

“Have you thought about crafting weapons yet?”

“I can’t say that I have,” said Roman. “What are you suggesting? That I just make a knife?”

“Actually, that’s not a bad idea, but I was thinking you could make something on the fly for Coma, or maybe Celia if she’s up to trying to stab someone to death. William should be here any moment, so let’s see what you can do in the meantime.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Roman said, just starting to lift his hand toward the metal. “What kind of weapon do you want?” he asked Coma.

The doll was in her gym clothes but still wore her mask, her dark hair in pigtails. “I never really thought about that,” she said with a shrug. “I kind of liked the fist.”

Roman picked up a hunk of metal and started moving his hands, forming a handle with a guard over it. Once he’d done that, he pulled out a large spike from another big piece of metal and set it on the piece he had formed, the metals instantly merging together.

“Interesting,” said Ava. “It’s like a handheld spike or something.”

“Not exactly what I was going for, but it will do,” said Roman.

“And her other hand?” Ava looked around the room, expecting William to appear at any moment.

“What do you think?” Roman asked Coma.

“Well, William is going to have batons, so what if I had a bigger baton?” she asked. “Maybe with a knife on the end.”

“I like her,” Ava said with delight in her eyes.

“So a baton with a knife on the end.” Roman crouched in front of the pile of metal and found some good pieces to work with. A flash in the corner of the room signaled that William Bottorf had arrived, the duplicator yawning and stretching his hands over his head as the teleporter zipped away.

“Need more sleep?” Ava asked him.

“I’m good,” he said as he started replicating, his clones peeling out of his own skin, dressed the same way as William was dressed, with batons hooked to their sides.

The real William, or at least the one Roman thought was the real William, made his way over to Ava and stood next to her for a moment, his hands on his hips. “All right, Coma,” said Ava, “let’s get started.”

Coma immediately spiked one of the clones, moving quickly on her feet, bouncing left and right as he tried to get her with the batons. She responded by taking two out at once, ducking under another baton swipe, hitting the ground at one point and coming back up, fast as ever.

Once the clones realized they couldn’t simply surround her, and that she was able to better utilize her new weapons by being unpredictable, they tried to come at her one at a time.

A clone came with his baton spinning, and Coma lifted her bladed baton at the same time, their weapons meeting, a percussive clack echoing across the room. She brought her spiked hand into his stomach, pushing him to the ground as she slipped away. Her pigtails bounced as she met another clone, this one able to get the upper hand by sweeping her off her feet. He quickly brought his foot down onto her neck and said, “Death strike.”

“Not bad,” Roman said, moving over to Coma to help her up.

He pushed the clone aside, almost daring it to try and do something, but the clone simply stood there while Roman checked Coma, making sure she was okay.

“Let’s try something else,” Roman said as he merged her spike weapon into her hand, the material swirling together and forming an even larger club by infusing it with her arm.

“Don’t worry, I’ll return your arm to normal once we finish,” Roman assured her with a hand on Coma’s shoulder.

“Thanks,” she said with a smile.

“And after, I want to take you and Celia somewhere. Anywhere you want to go. Just be thinking about it.”

“Maybe a cosplay café?” Coma asked. “Celia was talking about one of those the other day.”

“She wants to cosplay?” Roman whispered, aware that Ava and the clones were waiting on him to do something.

“That’s what she says.”

“Well, who am I to disappoint her?” Roman asked. “Cosplay café it is. Good luck.”

He stepped aside, Coma moving back into the fight.

The killer doll took out six or seven clones before one finally bested her, and then she was back on her feet not long after, again holding her own.

“Ever thought about making yourself a weapon like that?” Ava asked Roman, stepping to his left as Coma continued engaging clones. His teacher gestured toward her arm. “You could do something like that, but you’d have to be careful.”

“I haven’t tried reconstructing a hand or fusing anything, especially with all the nerves, blood vessels, bones,” he said.

“You’re right, that would be hard to do.”

“Come on!” one of the Williams said, clearly the real William Bottorf by the way he was getting annoyed with his own clones. “She’s just a doll!”

Ava and Roman exchanged glances, his teacher eventually laughing. “A few more details about tomorrow,” she said under her breath. “We will have the ceremony, and then there will be people you have to meet.”

“And what about Margo?” Roman asked, the cheerfulness in his voice suddenly draining.

“We will have people look into it, but like I said, there are too many civilians there. We may have to lure her away.”

“Just let me know how I can help. I know you have your own way of wanting to go about this, but she…” Roman shook his head. “She’s done something to my wife that I will never be able to forgive. And I want to look her in the eye…”

“No,” said Ava. “She won’t let you live if you try something like that. Roman, you have to listen to me when I say that I don’t think you understand what Margo is capable of. Imagine what you are capable of, and then add years and years of experience fighting fucking vampires to that. We’re going to have to send in an exemplar that matches her power, or a team to take her out quickly. So it’ll take some time, and we have people monitoring the place now, so if she leaves, we will at least know where she has gone. Do you trust me?”

“I do.”

“Then be patient.”

Chapter Fourteen: Creating a Monster

“You aren’t welcome here,” Kevin Blackbook told his fatter brother, who stood before him surrounded by his cat girls and a guy in a beanie that Kevin didn’t recognize, looking like a real asshole with his arms crossed over his chest.

Fat Kevin scoffed. “Is that a way to treat family?”

“Do you want us to do something?” Turquoise asked the large man, her eyes narrowing on his brother.

“Keep your fucking cat girls on a leash, dammit! I have gone above and beyond when it comes to dealing with you, and I’ve lost my goddamn eye in the process,” Kevin said, glaring at one of the cat girls.

He was so angry that he couldn’t recall which one had ripped out his eye, and it didn’t really matter at this point. He also didn’t believe his brother had been able to break the healer out from Prison South.

But he’d read the reports; it was miraculous his brother was still alive.

Kevin knew that if the right exemplar ever started investigating the prison break, it would eventually come back to haunt him; he had let out some of the info and he was, in a way, an accomplice.

And that was without knowing that the hooded woman had also come to him for information.

The situation was going to turn sour sooner rather than later, and this was why Kevin had a wrist guard under his desk, active, waiting for his moment. Kevin was going to kill his fatter brother, and the cat girls may get him before he could fire on them, but he damn sure was going to try anyway.

That was, until his arm came out from under the table on its own accord, moving up until his fist was pressed into the side of his head.

“I believe your brother was trying to kill you,” said the man in the beanie. “And to confirm, it was your brother here who told the hooded woman of our plans. He sold you out.”

“He did what?”

“She visited him, and he told her of our plans.”

“Thanks, James,” Fat Kevin told the man. “Is it true? Was that your intention?”

“It was my intention,” Kevin said, a voice at the back of his mind telling him he had been compromised.

Kevin knew in that moment that the man in the beanie was the telepath; he had gone through enough telepath trainings as part of his job at the State Department to know that there wasn’t much he could do at this point.

He hadn’t been on guard, and once a telepath latched on, that was it.

“It’s a pity,” Fat Kevin told his twin. “And here I thought we would be able to work together on this. How do you suppose we do this?” he asked the cat girls.

“Is there really any other way?” asked Obsidian. “It looks to me like it will be a suicide.”

“It does look like a suicide,” Fat Kevin agreed. “It’s too bad, really. But you all don’t know him as well as I did, and he struggled with some things. He was also having an affair with my wife, which probably led to some guilt, especially after I died and then miraculously came back to life. Yes, a suicide seems like a good way for you to go, brother.”

“Kev…” his brother gasped. “Are you serious here!?”

“Let me finish. We came here because we wanted you to act in some way, through the government, of course. But then we found out that it was you who betrayed me—all of us—leading to the death of two of our dear friends.”

“Please…”

“Stop begging. You purposefully told that woman what we were doing, and she could have killed all of us. She could have killed her,” Fat Kevin said, pointing at Obsidian, anger rising in his voice. “And I can’t have that. You are a threat to me. And in this line of work, I’ve learned there’s only one way to deal with threats.”

“No!” Kevin cried, his eyes going wide with terror as his finger pressed on the wrist guard’s trigger.

“You led her to us,” Fat Kevin reminded him. “And the guilt you feel is a good reason to do what you are about to do. James, let’s finish this up.”

“Are you sure?” James asked, but not with the tone someone would ask another person whether they were certain they wanted to kill their brother. It was merely a question, James just wanting to confirm that Kevin was giving an order here.

“I’m sure,” Fat Kevin said as he turned away, Turquoise’s paw coming into his hand. “Goodbye, brother.”

“Good morning, Paris,” Margo said with a yawn.

She had actually slept soundly in Roman’s bed, which was practically unheard of for her. The deadly woman from the Western Province couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a full night’s rest. It was disorienting, and it took her a moment to understand where she was, to remember how she had ended the previous night.

There were two bodies in the bed with her, both dead in their own way, but it was Paris who had really struck a chord with her.

She was looking at the doll now, her hand on her cheek, their eyes locked for a moment, and Margo was sure she had imbued everything she liked about the real Paris into the doll. Her skin was almost warm to the touch, unlike Celia, who still seemed cold, the disadvantages of being a corpse.

It wasn’t the first time Margo had experimented with corpses.

Once she animated them, there was no real decay she’d yet to notice. There had been a time a few years ago where she had kept a corpse alive for a couple of months, needing to use the Western Province ladyboy for espionage purposes, but her skin had never warmed again. She had noticed that.

And Margo felt no shame that they had grown close during that time, even if she was the one who was controlling the ladyboy’s brain.

A body was a body, an object an object, and while most people in Centralia—and in her own country, for that matter—didn’t quite understand this, or possibly would frown upon the relationships she’d had, they also didn’t have the power to animate anything they wanted.

And what a power it was.

It had first come to Margo when she was five, playing with her dolls. She had grown up poor, and an older boy the neighborhood had run by, reaching for her doll’s arms. Margo had grabbed its legs, the inevitable playing out.

The doll was torn in two.

And while Margo was too young to fully understand that her family wouldn’t be buying her another doll anytime soon, she did get the sense that they had less than most, and that this was the only doll she’d get.

And it was then that her power took shape.

As the boy ran, his hand still holding the top half of the stuffed doll, white stuffing trickling out of its waist, the doll came alive and began climbing up his arm, the boy screaming once the doll made its way to his neck, trying to choke him, trying to bash him with her stuffed head.

The boy was able to get the doll off, tossing it to the street, Margo’s poor doll landing in a puddle of mud.

Five-year-old Margo watched as the doll’s upper half dragged its way out of the filth, moving in her direction while the lower half of its body twitched in her hands.

She dropped the doll’s lower half, and the legs walked over to the top half of the torso, the doll pulling itself up, its body stitching back together.

And she didn’t know at that moment that she had been controlling this. All she could do was scream and run away.

She was too young to fully comprehend what had happened; she only knew that something was different, and from that moment forward, she came to better understand her power.

It was when she was ten years of age she got angry with her family, her power making itself known at the dinner table, the legs flattening and twisting upward, the plates stretching, the silverware lifting and bending.

Her father took her to be classified as an exemplar the very next day, and at first Margo thought they were abandoning her, taking her to an orphanage or something.

She cried the entire way there, objects around her coming alive as they walked—the disheveled sidewalk, the windows on a shop shattering, rocks lifting from the soil and striking her dad.

The last thing she remembered from that day was her dad hitting her so hard she passed out.

It was the only time he would ever strike her, and while she was sour about it during her teenage years, looking back, she realized that it was the only way to stop her at the time, that she was putting everyone around her in danger with her actions.

When she woke up later that day, she found herself in a government facility, scientists going over some of her blood work.

Her father was paid a small sum, and he left, ignoring her cries as he turned away from the room.

Margo was left to the state, the Western Province government knowing almost immediately when they classified her power that it was something worth holding, shaping. She was put in a boarding school with other exemplars, many of whom would go on to die in the intense years of the Western Plague, which nearly destroyed some of the Western Province cities.

Her peers had interesting powers as well, from being able to manipulate the cold to advanced telepathy. The rumors that the powers in the West were stranger than in the other countries were true, and Margo saw some very odd powers during her time in training, grotesque transformations, abilities that defied logic, like the woman who could open up small dimensional holes that she could use to eavesdrop and kill instantly.

But none of the powers had as much potential, at least at a large scale, as Margo’s powers.

Others began to take notice, seeing that she could modify her cell-like room in any way she wanted, that she could craft things, take control of objects in ways that were both comical and beyond deadly.

And that was where she spent her teenage years, away from her family, honing her ability.

And there was a time in the future that she would return to see her family, a time in which she would kill them all and animate their corpses, having one final family meal with them, her father at the head of the table, a dead look in her eyes as he shoveled food into his mouth.

But that would be in her early twenties, years after she had finished training, when the pressure from the vampire hunt had finally made her snap.

Not everyone who suffered from an intense, psychotic episode was able to classify it as such, to accept it for the fact, but Margo was.

She knew when she’d snapped.

And she had stopped being ashamed for what she’d done after, from killing her parents to going on a rampage that was barely stopped by a few of the same peers she had been in boarding school with.

And they could have killed her there, too. Her peers should have killed her there, but the government had spent a lot of money training Margo, and even with her growing mental disorder, she had respect for the Western Province, a bit of pride too, and they still saw potential in her.

So she was rehabilitated and made her way into spying, and when she became too violent at that, she oversaw spies.

Oddly enough, this was the job she was the best at, managing information, keeping track of others, and meeting with them to crosscheck data. Margo was allowed to live her life the way she wanted, without the pressure of building a relationship with someone just to get information from them. She was too impatient for that part of spying; she would rather just torture them and get the information.

But a good handler she was, and what she had started doing now was something that would probably create some blowback from her own government. She had already received a mental message questioning where she was, asking to confirm rumors.

And while she knew this would all come to a head in the future and she would likely have to fight back again, she really couldn’t blame them for being concerned.

“How are you feeling this morning?” Paris the doll asked, interrupting Margo’s train of thought.

“I’m feeling well rested for once,” Margo said.

“I hope I was able to pleasure you enough last night.”

“Trust me, that was more than enough,” Margo said as she brought the woman in and kissed her. “I’m going to kill Roman as soon as he gets back, but I must say, he has figured out an impressive way to use this power.”

“Is that your way of telling me you like me?” Paris the doll asked.

“It is,” Margo said. “I have a feeling that you will become my favorite creation.”

Chapter Fifteen: Getting Hitched

“So, cosplay café?” Roman asked Celia and Coma as they left the diner. There was a cosplay café nearby, a new one that was powered by wind turbines, and Roman knew it wouldn’t take long to get there, just a few blocks.

“It would be so fun,” Celia said, “but I don’t know if you’ll like cosplaying…”

“Whatever makes you happy,” Roman told her. “Coma, too. Coma needs to be happy, too.”

“I’m already happy,” Coma said. “I got to kick a bunch of clones asses today.”

“That you did,” Roman said, adjusting the collar of his jacket.

A cold breeze had whipped up from the south, and Roman wouldn’t be surprised if there were snow flurries at some point in the night. Nothing would stick, though; while it snowed sometimes in Centralia, it usually melted by midday.

“And you don’t mind?” Celia asked.

“No, I need to do something to get all this off my mind,” he said.

“It really has been a strange week,” Celia said as they continued down the street. She was in her superhero get-up, with three dots painted under each eye that she’d applied in the women’s dressing room. As usual, Coma had gone for the Gothic Loli look, this time wearing her mask with black mesh over the eyeholes.

“I keep waiting for someone to ask what I want to do,” Casper said from Roman’s pocket.

“We don’t care what you want to do,” Roman told her.

“There’s no need to be an ass,” she said, and Roman felt a thump against his chest as she kicked him.

“You know, for such a small person, you are really violent.”

“What does size have anything to do with being violent?” Casper asked. “Would you prefer I was like Coma? Your perfect violent doll with her mysterious mask who always agrees with what you want to do?”

“I don’t always agree with him,” Coma said.

“Yes, you do,” Casper snapped back. “When was the last time you told Roman no?”

A couple passed in front of them and glanced over at Roman and the dolls, trying to locate where the little voice was coming from and ultimately failing.

“He just does things I already want to do,” Coma said with a shrug. “Have you forgotten that we share a mind?”

“Oh, please. You two don’t share a mind, he gives you some of his mind. It’s not really a two-way street.”

“Can you deanimate her for a little while?” Coma asked sweetly.

“You know, that’s not a bad idea,” Roman started to say.

“Hey, I will be heard!”

Celia laughed. “I don’t know what part of Roman you are, Casper, but I like it. So sassy, such a rude one. Maybe that’s it. Maybe you are Roman as a kid—a cute, rude boy. Were you like this when you were a kid, Roman?”

“I don’t really know how to answer that question.”

“Yes, you do,” Casper said, this time elbowing him in the chest. “We all know how we were as kids.”

“You were never a kid,” Roman reminded her.

“Just because you gave me life and I haven’t been alive for more than a week doesn’t mean I don’t have a childhood. In this case, my childhood was last week. And Coma’s and Celia’s, the week before. We all have childhoods. It’s just the word we use for the start of one’s life.”

“Then my childhood was kind of strange,” Coma said.

“Gee, you think?” Casper asked with a snort. “What was it like to be his first?”

“It was…” Coma looked at Roman, but of course he couldn’t see her red eyes behind her mask. He merely shrugged, not knowing what kind of answer she was looking for.

“Well?” Casper asked again.

“It wasn’t too different from the way it is now,” Coma finally said. “I was just there in his home. And that was it. And then we got into some things, and then we got Celia.”

“I’m glad you got me,” Celia said. “I like being alive.”

Roman stopped for a moment and looked at her.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing, it’s just interesting to hear you say something like that. Yes, all three of you are alive, and I apologize in advance for the next time I have to take your powers away. Just know that it’s temporary.”

“It’s not so temporary with me,” Casper lamented. “You take my power away all the time. It’s like you’re punishing me or something.”

“That’s because you’re loud and obnoxious, and you are in my pocket. I don’t want people staring.”

“You walk around with two scantily clad women, one who is fawning over you and the other who looks like she could kick your ass and still have enough energy left to give out a couple of rapid-fire hand jobs. You’re already getting the attention you deserve.”

“Rapid-fire hand jobs?” Coma asked.

“And she’s gone,” Roman said, taking Casper’s power away.

“It’s much quieter when she’s not around,” Coma noted as they turned down the street, coming to the cosplay café.

There was a menu outside of various rooms that were available, ranging from exemplar-themed “hero spaces” to larger areas that allowed you to participate in some of the famous battles that had taken place in their world.

“Which one do you want?” Roman asked Celia.

“I don’t know yet; let’s just go inside and see what’s available.”

“We can see what’s available here,” he reminded her, tapping his finger on the menu’s glass surface.

“Okay,” she said, taking a look at the menu. “In that case, Unholy Matrimony. I want that room.”

“Excuse me?” Roman asked.

“Is that a problem?” Celia’s purple eyes went wide.

“No, let’s just…” Roman shrugged. “No, it’s not a problem.”

They entered the establishment to find a greasy man with hairy forearms behind the counter, his nametag telling anyone who gave a shit that his name was Bobby.

He looked disgruntled as ever, mostly grunting and wheezing as he gave them the key to the Unholy Matrimony room after briefly going over the rules of what they could and could not do, saying several times that their location banned consummation.

“No funny business,” he said, licking his whisker-laden lips as he glanced between Celia’s and Coma’s bosoms.

Once they entered the room, Roman went along with it, putting on a tuxedo that zipped up the back like a pair of pajamas, Celia slipping into a white wedding dress one size too large, and Coma going for the best-man look in a zip-up tuxedo.

After they were dressed, they entered the Unholy Matrimony room and walked over to a bored-looking employee, who went over some of the rights traditionally reserved for Centralian weddings.

They were offered wedding cake that looked a day old, sparkling apple juice instead of apple wine, and were encouraged to mental message any of their friends to teleport there and take part in the ceremony.

Roman enjoyed seeing Celia look so happy, and he tried to push memories of his actual wedding away in that moment, real-life Celia coming down the aisle on her father’s arm, the white flower petals lining the aisle, a cloudless sky overhead, their wedding taking place in a meadow in Mystery Hills State Park, a female exemplar playing an instrument she had invented.

It had been a perfect day, a moment Roman would never forget.

And he tried to mirror this excitement as he roleplayed for Celia the doll, her cheeks red as she looked at him with loving eyes, more love than he could remember ever seeing from any woman aside from the real Celia.

And for a second, he questioned whether she was even real or not, and if it mattered.

What if he just always kept her alive? What if he actually married Celia the doll? It would be easy to forge any paperwork necessary with his power…

Roman shook the idea away for a moment, realizing it was a fantasy, that he had bigger issues at the moment. Maybe there was a day in the future when all this would come together and he could do something like that, but for now, it was best to keep these things a fantasy.

His real life had a way of doing that, stripping situations down to their core, revealing the inner truth—the painful, ugly inner truth.

“You may now kiss the bride,” the man said.

Roman brought Celia into his arms and gave her a kiss unlike any he had ever given her before. His hands came around the small of her back and he brought her in even closer, the doll practically going limp in his arms.

Finally he pulled her away, their hands joining.

“Thank you,” Celia whispered as they turned away from the fake priest, eventually shuffling down the aisle to the sound of beautiful matrimony music meant to celebrate a lifetime together, however short.

Chapter Sixteen: A Safe and Quiet House

“Do you really want to watch this too?” Lisa Painstake asked Nadine and Oscar, all three of whom stood in the Unholy Matrimony room, in front of the first row of pews, attached to their real bodies via umbilical cords of light.

“I suppose we have seen enough for today,” said Oscar, the well-dressed handler running his hand along his jawline. They had been watching Roman since his meeting with Ava and were already fully aware of how Centralia wanted to use them.

“So if Roman is a double agent, and you guys know it but you’re not going to tell him, and you will utilize him with this knowledge in mind, does that make you a triple agent? Or is he the triple agent? Or how would that work?” Lisa asked.

The nineteen-year-old exemplar with pink hair had been growing more annoying over the course of the last few hours, likely bored with the tedious nature of certain spy work.

Nadine only wished she had a power like Lisa’s; it would make her job much easier, and she would probably be able to utilize it better as well.

But Lisa did have a point, even if she was trying to be a smart ass—the fact that they now knew Roman would be spying on them in the future allowed them to manipulate Roman in ways not yet realized.

Nadine didn’t like this, but she knew that now wasn’t the time to test the waters; she was already on thin ice with her government.

“Well, at least watching his training was interesting,” said Lisa with a yawn.

Of course, no one could see their astral forms in the room, Roman and Celia now dancing while Coma watched on, a happy smile on the masked doll’s face.

“He’s going to need much more training than that if he ever hopes to beat Margo,” said Oscar. Nadine’s handler had told them both some information about the Western Province killer, the one who had survived the Western Plague, all of what he’d said centering around the fact that she was an incredibly difficult opponent to best.

“Maybe Plume and her team will take Margo out,” Nadine suggested.

“I don’t even think they could do it. Well, they do have a telepath and she’s quite strong, so depending on her range, they may be able to do something through that medium. But as I told you before, Margo’s powers are much more advanced than Roman’s. The objects she animates can retain the consciousness she gives them if her power is stripped away, or if she passes out. Think about that. I don’t know how long she can do that, but we have a source who has seen her utilize this attack. So even if MindLenz were able to do something, the corpses she’s animated wouldn’t be going down with her.”

“What about her face? You never said anything about that,” said Lisa. “All those black tattoos covering her mouth area. What a creepy look.”

“She’s lucky to be alive after a vampire attack like the one she received, and from what I’ve been able to uncover, she had to have most of her jaw reconstructed.”

“Why didn’t she turn?” Lisa asked Oscar.

“The exemplar infection that turns someone into a vampire has to be done through blood. The vampire must first make a connection, then start sucking some of the person’s blood only to put it back into their body with a mixture of their own saliva. This can take a little time, and the vampire that attacked Margo simply tried to bite her face off, not transfer his power. Maybe if he had latched on longer, things would have been different. So it takes time, and then there’s the willingness to actually wait through the process. Or so I’ve been told. To be honest, while all that was going on in the West, I was here, and I never really had to deal with it.”

“And so she got the black tattoos on her face to hide the scars.”

“That’s right.”

“Does anyone else think it strange that she and Roman share the same power and they both have white hair?” Lisa asked.

“Lots of people have white hair,” Nadine said as she watched Roman walk down the aisle with Celia.

“It seems strange to me.”

“There are more important connections to make right now,” Oscar said, “one of them being the man fake-marrying a plastic doll.”

Lisa chuckled. “So even though he has worked with you, you’re just going to use him?”

“I know you haven’t been at this for very long, but what we are doing is subtler than that. We all use each other,” Oscar informed her, Nadine familiar with this lesson. “Roman is currently using us to hide from Margo, you used him to help you get your body back, he used you to see who was in his home. The list goes on and on. But knowledge is power, which I’m sure you have heard before, and knowing that Centralia wants to use him in some way gives us the upper hand.”

“Hold on,” said Nadine, “he is saying something about me. Quiet.”

The three moved just a bit closer to Roman and his dolls.

“…Yeah,” said Roman, answering one of Coma’s questions. “We should probably meet with Nadine after this. And no, I don’t know yet if she’s found a place for us. Hopefully.”

“Or you could just deanimate us and sleep with her again,” said Celia, a hint of jealousy to her voice.

“That was just temporary,” Roman said, “until we have better accommodations. I’ll send Nadine a message now and see what’s going on. Unless you want to get married again?” he asked with that charming smile of his that made Nadine grin. She glanced at Oscar to make sure he hadn’t seen her reaction to Roman’s last line.

Luckily, he hadn’t.

“I think getting married once is enough,” Celia said, also playing along. “Oops, we forgot to invite Casper.”

“No, we did not forget to invite her,” Roman said to Coma’s laughter.

“We’d better go back,” Oscar told Nadine and Lisa, their forms floating just a few feet away from Roman and his dolls, umbilical cords of light taut in the air. “We don’t need him to figure out that we’ve been watching him all day.”

Roman waited outside for the unlicensed teleporter to arrive. He was feeling good, not quite jovial, but happy to have been able to make up for lost time with the dolls.

He stood outside the cosplay café with Celia and Coma, the wind turbine overhead making a clicking noise as if it needed to be repaired. Roman watched it for a moment, wondering if he would be able to use his power to fix whatever was wrong with it.

By the time he realized this would be a terrible idea, the teleporter had appeared, this one a tall woman in a tube top with perky breasts, her belly button showing even though she was wearing a jacket. Roman couldn’t help but smile at her as she stepped forward, hula hoops of multifarious light looping around her arms.

“Thanks,” Roman said as the woman lifted her chin to him, offering him a short but cute smile.

“No problem, mister,” she said, and she let her arms go, her fingers flaring out, the hoops of light moving around Roman and his dolls before their bodies reformed behind the Eastern Province safehouse.

Nadine stood at the back entrance waiting for Roman, dressed in a pencil skirt, her hair in a ponytail that hung over her left shoulder.

“Bye,” Roman started to tell the teleporter, but she was gone.

Flirting with a teleporter was a useless endeavor. Roman had definitely tried before, but since they considered him a non-exemplar, none of them ever bit.

And he couldn’t really blame them, which was why he didn’t try very hard.

There were some non-exemplars, male and female, who were banned from teleportation services for doing things like slapping the teleporter’s ass or grabbing his junk, trying to squeeze a titty, that sort of thing.

There had been a few Roman felt connections with. Teleporters appeared and disappeared from his life so quickly that he was never able to pursue it. And he had thought about it before, what it would actually be like to date a teleporter. It would probably be pretty interesting, and they definitely could go anywhere they wanted to go, but most also worked pretty intense hours.

He’d also read about having sex with a teleporter, but he didn’t know how many of those stories were true. Stories about fucking in the air while falling from great heights, one particular story about an older gentleman having a heart attack while a prostitute teleporter screwed him above the clouds—that teleporter also facing prison times afterward—and a ton of voyeuristic stuff.

It was hard to separate fact from fiction.

“Glad to see you guys made it,” Nadine said. “How did today go?”

“It went better than I thought it would,” Roman said, registering the concern in her eyes. “I’m here, aren’t I? And don’t worry, I didn’t tell them your name or anything, not that they wouldn’t be able to get that out of me.”

“Thank you, although I think it’s safe to say this leaves you in a strange position. Me too, for that matter. But I’m sure we’ll be able to address that in a way that satisfies both parties. Are they still going to put you on a risk management team? How did it go?”

“They’re still debating, but they’re going to approve my exemplar status, which came as quite the shock.” Roman said as Nadine let him in.

“I’ll bet. Also, regarding where you’ll be staying, Oscar arranged to have one of the back rooms cleaned out and a bed put in. They were storing some miscellaneous equipment there and have since moved it to another location, so at least now you’ll have your own bedroom,” she explained as she led him to the kitchen table, ushering for him to sit down, his dolls to his right.

Nadine retrieved a pitcher of cucumber water and brought it to the table, then poured Roman a glass.

“I appreciate it,” he told her, toasting her by lifting his glass in the air as she sat.

“You never answered my risk management question,” Nadine said.

“That’s still up for debate. First, they’ll approve my exemplar status, and I guess we’ll go from there,” he said, without making eye contact with her. “Have there been any updates about my apartment?”

“No. From what we can tell, Margo has been in there since yesterday and shows no signs of leaving. We also noticed that others are watching the place, people from your government.”

“I expected as much,” Roman said after taking a sip of his water. “I didn’t know how long it would take Ava and her people to get on it, but I knew they would do something. So I guess that’s good, right? Two countries spying on a single apartment?”

Nadine laughed. “There is probably more spying than that,” she said. “I’m sure her own country has gotten a whiff of what she’s done and is also watching her. The North and the South too—well, maybe not the North. They don’t normally get involved in these types of things. I’m going to be frank with you, Roman.”

“Please,” he said, sipping from his water.

“I don’t see Margo getting out of this alive, but I do see her leaving a trail of bodies in her wake. She will die in the end. She has committed too many crimes in a foreign country not to eventually get caught up in her own mess. There will be deaths, and it is important for us to keep far enough away that we don’t get caught in the crossfire.”

“I can’t guarantee that I won’t make my move if I see an opening,” Roman said, watching the cucumber slices settle in his glass. “This damn woman is trying to kill me, she’s in my home, and she has disrespected my wife by playing god with her corpse. Margo is a threat to me, to my country, and to anyone she comes in contact with.”

Nadine looked up as Oscar came down the stairs, yawning like he was just about to lie down for bed.

“Roman, glad you could make it. We have prepared a room for you upstairs, all the way back on the right.”

“Nadine was just telling me,” said Roman.

“Good, I encourage you to get some rest then. It’s a good thing, you know, sleep,” he said as he went for his own glass of cucumber water. Nadine instantly rose from the table to take the glass from him and serve her handler. “Please, Nadine, keep your seat. I’m an old man, but I’m not that old.”

“You don’t seem that old to me,” Celia said, a smile forming on her face.

Oscar chuckled. “I can tell why he keeps you around,” he said as he made his way back to the stairs, glass in hand. “I’ll see everyone in the morning. Try not to stay up too late, and keep your voices down if you do. This is a safehouse, but it’s also a quiet house. Don’t forget that.”

Celia came into Roman’s arms, her skin a deep tone of blue from the small amount of moonlight coming through the window. Everything was a shade of blue; even the black edges around the bed had an indigo tone to them.

Roman held her in his arms for a moment, their lips meeting, his eyes open for just a second longer as he saw Coma sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the room, Casper in her lap, both dolls lifeless.

“I’m so glad we can finally be alone,” he told Celia, his attention returning to the doll who had now wrapped her legs around him, her lower half grinding against his waist.

“Me too.” She bit her lip for a moment as she looked at him, and Roman felt overwhelmed by her beauty. The twilight blue cast on her face gave her power over him, like she was orchestrating all of this, like she was pure magic.

And he welcomed it.

There was nothing Roman wanted more than to be with Celia in that moment, part of him remembering the real Celia, seeing the resemblance between the two, how much his deceased wife had shaped who he was—enough that imbuing his consciousness onto a lifeless object had actually given that object her personality.

And in that moment, he didn’t think about how this could end, if completion was even a possibility. He didn’t think about the woman holed up in his home waiting for him to return, the sadistic hunter from the West bringing her insanity into Roman’s life.

He also didn’t think about the fact that there were two known healers in all of Centralia, the one that had been broken out of prison and the other in this very home.

Also barely scratching the surface of his mind was the fact that tomorrow would be his ceremony, that he would be an exemplar from that point forward, and that he should celebrate the fact, even though in becoming an exemplar he was also becoming a pawn of the government, a spy to be.

All Roman thought about was the blueness of the room, ultramarine, the way it seemed to edge along Celia’s flesh as she took her top off, the royal color spreading up her rib cage, circling around her breasts, stopping at her nipples and reversing, moving up to her neck, her face partially hidden, the two of them one.

There was no more grinding of their nether parts, no waiting for her to be wet enough for Roman to slip inside, no strains on the side of his cock.

His movement was natural, their union written in cerulean, slow gyrations of his hips matching Celia’s, her back slightly arched now, Roman naturally bringing his hand to her ass cheek, cupping it, his hand moving down even further, his pinky touching the side of his cock as it moved in and out of her pussy, his middle finger grazing against her asshole.

Celia moaned softly, and Roman squeezed his hand even harder as she picked up her pace. She threw her head back, her red hair bouncing against the top of her shoulders, her throat exposed, her perky nipples cutting an angle to the ceiling.

Roman kissed the spot between her breasts, he sucked on her nipples, he brought her in closer, his ear to her chest listening for her…

No heartbeat.

Roman stopped for a moment, momentarily taken off guard.

“What?” she asked, her voice hardly a whisper. “Why did you stop?”

“You are perfect,” Roman said with a smile, starting again, forgetting who he was in that moment and what it meant to be so attracted to one’s own creations.

None of those things mattered.

Societal norms didn’t matter, what others thought didn’t matter, life itself didn’t matter, proof evident in the beautiful doll who continued to fuck him.

Chapter Seventeen: Becoming

Roman was told to come alone.

Leaving the dolls at Nadine’s safehouse, he teleported to the lottery commission’s side entrance, where he met Ava, who was wearing white robes, her red hair at odds with the light material.

“They make a big thing out of it,” Ava started to say, gesturing at her robes.

“As they should,” said Roman. “It’s a pretty big deal.”

“The day a non-exemplar becomes an exemplar. I guess you’re right, it is a pretty big deal. Something most people don’t get to experience.” Ava shrugged. “Follow me, and just go with it. Like I said, it’s a little strange.”

“What is the history of this anyway?” Roman asked as he entered the building, the two moving past a pair of Centralian soldiers in ivory uniforms. These uniforms were mainly ceremonial; they looked sharp, important, and Roman assumed it was hard to keep them clean.

“It has been going on for quite a while, but the ceremony actually stems from something else, an event that occurred hundreds and hundreds of years ago.”

“Really?”

Ava nodded. “There was a female exemplar who had the ability to grant exemplar powers to others. She would hold a yearly competition for non-exemplars, and the winner would be granted a power. Of course, like our ceremony here, the powers granted were random.”

“What kind of competitions?”

“Mainly art,” she explained as they turned down a dimly lit corridor. “She wasn’t fond of combat, so it wasn’t that type of competition. It was mainly academic exercises and works of art. She believed that there really wasn’t a difference between exemplars and non-exemplars, even if exemplars had heightened abilities. Non-exemplars could create the exact same things as exemplars given talent and resources. Now, of course, they’ve monetized it, the money supposedly going toward public education but generally ending up in…” Ava smiled. “You know, I probably shouldn’t comment on things I hold no power over.”

“Yeah, the government could be listening,” Roman said with a chuckle.

Ava laughed as well. While the Centralian government had its faults, it wasn’t like the governments in some of the other countries. Citizens, including government employees, were generally free to voice their opinions and ideas. It was rare that Centralia spied on one of its own citizens.

“How does the power get transferred?”

“The same way it did before, from an exemplar to a non-exemplar.”

Roman stopped. “Is this exemplar still alive?”

Ava turned to him, a smile taking shape across her face. “No, that would be impossible. You are familiar with the runes they use in the South?”

Roman nodded. He’d heard of these enhancements, and there were many who believed the red Southern Alliance tattoos were related to these ancient markings.

“They use these runes to pass the power to a new holder whenever the previous exemplar is set to retire.”

“And who is this holder currently?” Roman asked.

“My sister,” Ava said, her smile thinning.

“Damn, I didn’t know you were that connected…”

“There’s a lot you don’t know,” Ava said as she led Roman into a circular room with a soaring ceiling, stained glass at the top. The members of the Council stood around the room, each in white robes that matched Ava’s.

One of the women, whom Roman knew as Ava’s sister, gestured for him to come before her.

Roman barely had a second to consider the fact that she had been granted her power in (what sounded like) the same way he’d been given his power, although hers was a focused power, his completely random.

He was told to kneel, pledge allegiance to the Centralian government, and once he did so he was told to stand. It hurt his knee to stand, like he’d been kneeling for a long time. There was a shimmer to everything as well, halos above each of the Council members’ heads.

Ava’s sister stared deeply into Roman’s soul. “By the power vested in me, Roman Martin, you will now be classified as an exemplar.”

One of the men next to Ava’s sister lifted both hands, and a strange light moved down Roman’s body. It was a warm light, and it left him with a fuzzy feeling that soon faded away.

Not sure of what he should say or do next, Roman simply stood there, hands at his sides, like he was getting dressed down at a military academy. Luckily, Ava wrapped her arm in his to lead him away, Roman awkwardly looking over his shoulder as they stepped out of the room.

“That’s it?” he asked.

“We were in there for an hour,” said Ava. “Did you want to stay in there for any longer?”

Roman blinked a few times, as if that would do any good. “Wait, did you say that was an hour?”

Ava nodded. “Oh, I bet that was Gary. He likes to manipulate time when he has to do something that bores him.”

“Did you say time was manipulated in there?” Roman asked as they turned down a hallway with marble floors and portraits lining the walls. “There’s an exemplar who can manipulate time? That’s some god-level shit right there.”

“Yes, he’s able to manipulate it on everyone but himself, apparently. Gary is in his seventies, but acts like he’s in his teens. His power can feel pretty strange if you’re not used to it. Did you sort of feel like you were having an out-of-body experience in there? Like everything was happening and you were witnessing it—anything like that?”

Roman weighed his response for a moment. “I don’t know if that’s how I would describe it; I felt like it just happened very quickly, that’s all. And my knee hurt.”

“That’s because you were kneeling for a good thirty minutes. Anyway, we have a little time before training begins. Shall we grab breakfast?” Ava asked.

“I mean, sure, if that’s what you would like to do. What type of training are we going to do today?”

“It’s less of a training session and more of a demo session. People from the spy agency want to see what you’re capable of, so I figured we would give them a show.” Ava turned in the direction of the locker rooms. “Let me get changed; I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

Chapter Eighteen: Demo

“And you are sure they can’t come?” Roman asked, referring to Coma and Celia.

“No, not for this test,” Ava said. “Not yet, anyway.”

The two stood outside the locker room, back from a quick breakfast at a local diner, Roman already changed into his training clothing. He was a bit nervous, the feeling weighing heavy on him as he followed Ava down the hallway to the gym they always trained in.

Standing at the other side of the space were four people, each dressed in formal wear, two men and two women. Black masks covered their faces, revealing just a small amount of skin around their eyes and mouth.

“One day you may have the pleasure of meeting these people in person,” said Ava as she waved hello to them. “But for now, they are here to watch you in action. We will start with me.”

Ava’s hands and hair flared up, the fire user rising into the air, rings of fire circling around her hands.

“Are you going to attack me?” Roman asked, his hands lifting to the ready.

Ava fired off a ball of blue flames that landed at Roman’s feet. He jumped back, bringing up a barrier to stop the fire from advancing toward him.

Assuming this meant “yes,” he launched into action, again going for his tried-and-true method of using water to protect himself from Ava’s flames.

He already knew where the pipes were, and it only took him a second to jog over there, still blocking some of Ava’s fireballs. Roman cast his hand in the direction of the wall, the surface splitting open and a pipe bursting, water spraying everywhere and immediately forming a layer of armor over his body.

With water sluicing all around him, Roman started to prepare a water attack, but he thought of a different tactic as he watched Ava zipping around in the air.

Rather than try to put her out, he decided to bring her down.

The ceiling drooped as if it were forming a giant teardrop. Then the end of the tear split, and the concrete, metal, and wood merged together and latched on to Ava’s fiery arms, moving down until it had her legs. The fire user struggled to break free, and the augmented material Roman had created turned bright red as she tried to burn her way out.

“Impressive,” one of the masked men said, bringing his hands together in front of his body.

“You can let me go now,” Ava called down to Roman, who immediately let up, even though he knew Ava may attack him in the meantime.

But Roman was lucky, and Ava did no such thing, the fire user simply lowering to the ground, a satisfied smile on her face.

“Next up, some fighting.” A portal opened as soon as the words left Ava’s mouth, and clones spilled out, one of them the original William Bottorf.

The water quickly moved away from his body as Roman brought his fists into a defensive position. The gymnasium floor twisted into tendrils, moving up his body and forming armor that he reinforced with steel he’d taken from the structure, the back end of the gymnasium creaking as Roman removed essential parts.

The steel formed jagged pieces along his arms and spikes along his knuckles.

By the time William’s clones reached him, Roman was a fucking tank.

He launched into the bastards as if he were at another one of the fight clubs he’d frequented when he was younger, before he met Celia.

He didn’t hold back as he punched through some of the clones, their bodies going limp, his armor lifting off his back to fend off the ones who tried to come at him from behind.

Roman could feel his heartbeat in his throat now, and he knew he was using a lot of power, but he kept going, this time animating some of the clones’ weapons, the black batons now like cobras as they slithered up their owners’ arms to their shoulders, choking them out.

The clones were fast, skilled, and Roman was just starting to feel overwhelmed by them when a baton came within inches of cracking him on the side of the head, the attack narrowly stopped by a piece of his shoulder armor that lifted up just in time, taking the brunt of the hit.

“That’s good,” the man in the black mask said, and William’s clones immediately moved away from Roman.

“What else do you want to see?” Roman asked, breathing heavily now.

“Where are his assistants?” the masked man asked Ava.

“You mean his dolls?”

“Yes, we would like to see his dolls in action, if that is a possibility.”

“I can send for transport,” Roman said.

“Please do. Ava mentions that you were able to form nearly anything out of most materials, and that there hasn’t been much you can’t use,” the man said. “She explained that you are also able to animate the dead. But that’s not what we want to see right now. If we choose to accept you into the Centralian intelligence agency, you may be called on to fight at points, but you would mostly be called on to gather information. With that in mind, we would like to see how well you could do this. But please, call your dolls too. They could be part of this, for all we know.”

“Fine, sure,” Roman said, firing off a mental message to Nadine, hoping she was still at the safe house.

It took her a moment, but she eventually arranged transport for Celia and Coma as the four masked CIA members waited. After speaking with Ava for a moment, William Bottorf waved goodbye to Roman; then a portal opened up and William stepped in.

As William was leaving, a flash at the back of the room indicated guests were on the way. A kaleidoscope of sharp objects spiraled and petered out as the body of the two dolls took shape.

Celia and Coma fell to the ground immediately, Roman animating them just in time for them to stand, the unlicensed teleporter giving everyone a weird look but not saying a word as she vanished.

“Find out who she is,” the masked CIA man told the people who had joined him, “and make sure she doesn’t remember any of this.”

“Will do,” said one of the masked females.

“How are you?” Celia said, ignoring everyone as she came toward Roman, seconds away from throwing her arms around him.

“I’m great,” he told her. Roman let her know with a gesture not to get to intimate in this environment. Coma stepped up beside her, wearing a black dress, a mask with pointed ends, and knee-high leggings.

“This is Coma, and Celia,” Roman said, introducing the two of them.

“Good,” said the main Centralian Intelligence Agency representative. Roman didn’t know what his rank was, but he was apparently a leader of some sorts. “We will see what they can do in a moment, but first we want to see how well you are able to gather intelligence.” The masked man waved his hand at the wall, a door taking shape. “Please, step outside.”

Roman moved to the exit point, Celia and Coma following him. Ava eventually joined them, and the wall reformed once they were outside.

“What am I supposed to be doing exactly?” Roman asked, feeling just a little bit cold as a breeze whipped up, the four of them now standing in a small garden outside of the gym. Roman had never seen the space before, mostly because the gym only had windows at the top of the wall, almost like a garden apartment.

“They want you to spy on what they are doing on the other side of this wall. You are to do so without making your presence known,” Ava explained. “Sounds easy enough, right?”

Roman considered this for a moment, remembering how he had merged his body with the floor, giving him the chance to kill Hazrat. He could theoretically spy by merging his body with the outer wall, but if they were looking directly at the wall, they might see him.

With this tactic out of the question, Roman would have to devise another way to complete the task.

An idea came to him, but he knew he’d need to ground himself to make it happen. Sitting with his knees beneath him, Roman looked up at the outside of the roof, then closed his eyes. He had imbued other objects with life before, but he had never tried something quite like this.

Opening his eyes again, Roman started to form a bulge at the corner of the roof.

He could see the corner bubble a little as the half sphere he’d made pressed deeper into the roof. Roman was careful not to give it too much power, moving it as slowly as possible to a natural stopping point.

He visualized transferring his consciousness to the object but was unable to do so, at least not for a very long time.

There was a moment where he felt like he was in the room, and he could see them speaking below, but he was unable to sustain the level of concentration it took to make that happen.

Roman patted the ground and Celia sat, leaning against him, her life leaving her body, Roman’s arm around her shoulder as she transferred more mental power to the bulge he had created in the rooftop.

“Just tell me when they are done,” Roman told Ava, his teacher fascinated with how he had decided to go about accomplishing this task.

It took another few minutes, but eventually Ava told him they were ready to see what he had learned.

Roman focused again on the rooftop, the bulge reappearing, moving over the side and down the outer wall until it stopped directly in front of them, a face forming across its surface.

The face started speaking, its voice raspy and mysterious.

“They are talking about Centralian colors, and what they signify. The female with the mask was telling a story she heard from a relative, about an exemplar who had gone mad by trying to codify colors and their effects on people. Another spoke about how colors could be interpreted as sound, and what this meant for Centralians who want to change the color of their homes.”

The voice continued explaining what it had learned, going into detail about what each person had said. Once it finished, Ava sent a mental message to allow them to reenter the gym.

The door reformed, and Roman reanimated Celia, the beautiful doll happy to be awake again, her hand coming into his for a moment as he stood and helped her up. She remained by his side as they walked through the door, only letting go of his hand once they were inside.

The man in the black mask simply looked at Roman. “And?”

“The overall subject of your conversation was colors…” Roman proceeded to explain to them the various directions in which the conversation had gone, and some of the theories and superstitions that had been discussed.

“And how did you discover this?” one of the females asked.

“I animated a bulge on the rooftop, which melted into the ceiling, and I gave it enough consciousness that it could listen in on your conversation. Once you gave the signal, I brought the bulge down the wall and had it tell me exactly what was said.”

“Fantastic,” the woman said.

“Thank you. I believe you wanted to see the dolls in action?” Roman asked.

“Yes,” said the masked CIA leader. “Ava, is our next exercise ready?”

Roman’s teacher nodded, clearly proud of her pupil. “He should be here any moment.”

As if she had conjured the portal herself, a spark fizzled near Ava, signaling that they would soon be joined by another guest. Soon, Mister Fist’s form took shape, who Roman remembered was a strongman with the power to completely dissolve his body into mist.

“Ready,” Mister Fist said, the lower half of his body filtering out until it was simply a growing expanse of smoke.

“Okay, Coma, you take the lead; Celia, you back her up.”

“Yep,” Coma said, Roman imbuing her with some of his power.

The people watching him didn’t say anything about him doing this, but he could tell by the way they were looking at him that they were interested in this power demonstration.

Roman brought the same steel down that he’d used earlier, forming bladed weapons on Coma’s arms.

For Celia, he brought some of the flooring up, growing the size of her fists, which would allow her to amplify the power of her strikes. She would mostly be playing defense, looking for a way to move in if Coma took a misstep, but she’d be ready if the time came.

Fog was all around them now, and Mister Fist appeared randomly, throwing fists out of nowhere. Coma was quick on her feet, dodging most of his attacks and bringing up walls to try to encase him.

While she was supposed to play offense, she found herself mostly trying to protect Celia, who moved through the mist ducking and swinging randomly, a leg out of nowhere tripping her, the floor rising to catch her.

It played out like this for a moment, Roman growing more and more frustrated with the fact that Mister Fist seem to be toying with the dolls.

He understood why the famous exemplar would do something like this—after all, he had to save face—and no one wanted to be beaten by a noob…

Which got Roman thinking about whether Ava had purposefully capitulated early, just to show the power of her student.

He couldn’t tell for certain, but now wasn’t the time to dig too deep into the earlier demonstration.

Now was the time to try to make a statement.

Eventually Mister Fist took his real form, advancing on Coma, punching at the ground and sending a wave of debris in her direction, which she knocked over with a flick of her wrist. It went on and on like this, Celia getting just about as far away as she could from the main fight, allowing Coma plenty of time to shine.

Coma never went after Mister Fist directly, knowing that the man would turn into mist and reform behind her in an instant, so she mostly played defense, not letting the famous exemplar get a hit in.

She was wiry, and while Mister Fist was big and fast, Coma was agile, coming close to his fists but always getting away just in time. Roman was proud as hell of her once the man in the black mask called for the fight to stop.

“This is all good,” the man told Roman, “and it gives us much to think about. There will be more training ahead if we decide to take you into our ranks, but we are happy with what we have seen here today. Thank you. We will see ourselves out now.”

Chapter Nineteen: Mutual Informants

Roman wasn’t surprised to find Ava waiting for him after he’d changed back into his normal clothing, but he was surprised by her next request. He figured she would want to grab some lunch, possibly start on the bottle of wine early.

But he was mistaken.

“I’ll have to check,” he told her after considering her question. “To be clear, I’m not the person that makes those types of decisions.”

“Well, see what you can do, because I think it’s imperative that this happens.”

Roman knew it was going to be a bit of a reach, but he decided to go for it anyway, especially after everything Ava had done.

The redhead standing before him had completely changed his life. Roman was still not sure how to process the fact that he was now an exemplar.

And true, one part of him wanted to get on with it and go after Margo, hoping that now his official status would prevent them from stripping his power away from him.

But there would be destruction, and while he wasn’t really friendly with his neighbors, Roman didn’t want to put them through that. He didn’t want innocent blood on his hands, not if he could help it.

Roman received a message with the time and place, surprised that his request had actually been approved.

“All right, but we have to wait about thirty minutes,” Roman told his teacher.

“Great, I love a good walk,” Ava said as she turned to the exit. “Come on, girls,” she called to Celia and Coma, who sat on a bench near the exit. Coma was smoothing her hands over her dress, looking for any smudge, Celia adjusted Coma’s mask, carefully examining the other doll.

It was a nice day outside, the cold breeze from earlier gone, the sun warm against Roman’s skin. It was still cold, warranting the black jacket he wore, but it felt nice regardless, and as they walked, Roman stuck his hands deep into his pockets, listening as Ava spoke about some of her past adventures.

While she had told him she was Plume, and part of an exemplar team, she hadn’t said much about some of the missions she’d been part of.

Now she was opening up to him, explaining about a recent occurrence they were dealing with that Roman could hardly believe he was hearing.

“So you really think vampires are back?” Roman asked as they turned onto a nice boulevard. “Isn’t this kind of classified?”

“Who are you going to tell?” she asked. “And I’m pretty sure they are going to accept you in the CIA, where you’ll hear all sorts of crazy stuff anyway. But yes, vampires may be back, not yet confirmed, and it’s a long story. Believe me there.”

“I believe you.”

“But I’ll get more into that later, because you’re right about what you said earlier.”

“Which was?”

“I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear anything.”

Roman looked up, the magnificent buildings making him feel small. It didn’t matter what area of Centralia one was in, there was always a skyline. Some of the shapes and designs reminded Roman of broadswords, and while he lived on the top floor of his own building, it was nothing like some of these places—penthouses seventy-five floors up, gardens on the roof tops, private pools, views your average citizen could only imagine.

And looking at the skyline now, with Ava still talking, Roman was reminded of the East, the difference in its size and proportions, buildings replaced by trees, orange and yellow leaves covering everything, winding cobblestone streets, tribes that had rarely seen the type of civilization Roman experienced on a daily basis.

He missed the calm, the smell, the quiet, but he also liked the bustle of the city, the security, the hub of diversity it created. He wished there were a way to live in both.

Eventually, Roman got a mental message with the meeting location.

“I’ll order a teleporter,” Ava said.

“Not necessary, I already have,” Roman told her, and sure enough, slivers of reality began to fall directly in front of them, each strip falling one at a time as a teleporter pushed through the very fabric of their world.

She was younger than the teleporters Roman normally saw, likely working as a part-timer to help put herself through a teleporter trade school.

But the young girl was cordial enough, actually offering Roman, Ava, and his dolls mints before vanishing. No one took a mint, but it was a nice gesture.

Their shapes took form one sliver at a time. They now stood outside an eight-story apartment complex, and a message came to Roman to confirm that there were no telepaths in the vicinity.

“No, this is just something I want to see for myself,” Ava said. “Trust is a two-way street. I trust you, you trust me. For something as sensitive as this, I wouldn’t involve a telepath. At least not without your explicit knowledge.”

“All right, we can go in,” Roman said as he went for the building’s door, holding it open while the ladies stepped inside. They walked down the hallway and up a circular flight of stairs to the third floor, where they came to a room marked ‘Apartment 3K.’

Roman knocked once, and a woman in a mask quickly came to the door.

He almost said her name, but stopped himself just in time.

“Nice to see you, Roman,” said Nadine, her face covered completely by an emerald-green mask with sunglasses underneath to obscure her eyes.

Her hair was tucked into the back of the mask, creating a small bulge, and as she greeted Ava, Roman looked to see that Eli also wore a similar emerald-green mask, his eyes also obscured by sunglasses, although they were adult sunglasses and they looked large on his face.

“Hi, Coma; hi, Celia,” Eli said as he waved at the two dolls. Celia came to him immediately, placing a friendly hand on his shoulder before offering him a hug.

“And this is the young healer?” Ava asked, not at all curious or concerned about why the two were wearing masks.

“Yes, it is,” Nadine said, cutting right to the chase. “Boy, please come meet Ava. She’s a superhero who goes by the name of Plume.”

“Excuse me?” Ava asked, her eyes flaring up slightly.

“Who do you think is the one that told Roman?” Nadine asked, her voice slightly muffled by the fabric covering her lips.

“I…” Ava took a deep breath in. “I guess I should have suspected as much from a spying operation. I’m glad to see my country is keeping you busy.”

“Centralia keeps most spies busy with all the bullshit you cause worldwide,” Nadine said as Eli approached.

“Hello,” Eli said to Ava, extending his hand toward her.

Ava shook his hand, staring at the young boy for a moment.

“Did you bring Casper?” Roman asked.

“Uh huh.” Eli took Casper out of the front of his jacket, and Roman instantly gave the tiny doll life.

“I hate it,” she said, leaping to attention in Eli’s hand. “You can’t just take life away from me whenever you want and stuff me in someone’s pocket!”

“Casper, I was told I couldn’t bring you.”

“But you brought the other two. I’m just as useful as they are.”

Coma started to laugh.

“I’ll rip that pointy mask off and shove it up your ass!” Casper said, lifting her fist at Coma.

“Please, Casper, we’re trying to have a professional conversation here,” Celia said as she took the tiny doll from Eli.

“What kind of meeting is this? And why the hell are Nadine and Eli wearing masks?”

“Dammit, Roman,” Nadine hissed.

“Casper,” Roman said, immediately taking her life, the doll falling to the ground. Celia swooped down to pick Casper up, cradling the doll in her hands.

“Well, now that we all know each other, you might as well take off your masks. Right, Nadine?” Ava said with a smug smile on her face.

“That’s not my real name,” Nadine told her, “and the boy has completely forged documents now courtesy of your guy over here, so it’s not his real name either, at least on paper.”

“Are you challenging me to figure out who you are?” Ava asked. “Because if you are, that’s a challenge I will readily accept.”

“All of you, please,” Roman said, looking to Ava. “I brought you here because I trust you, and you wanted to see Eli’s power in action. Let’s try not to complicate things any more than they already are.”

Roman turned to the kitchen, where he found a metal pan, then instantly removed the handle and shaped it into a sharp knife.

He rolled up his sleeve and looked down at his arm, hesitating for a moment as he turned his palm around, then dragging the blade up the inside of his arm.

Roman winced as the gash opened up and blood started to flow freely. Eli moved over to him in an instant and began healing the wound, the boy looking up at Roman as he did so.

“Please be careful,” Eli told him.

“Very interesting,” Ava said after she had a moment to examine the freshly healed wound. “Do you mind if I catch your arm on fire?”

“Normally, I wouldn’t say yes, but…” Roman bit his lip.

He knew this was going to hurt like hell, but he also knew Eli would be able to heal him up. The only thing he was worried about was the other part of Eli’s power; Eli could heal as much as he wanted, but at some point he would self-combust, his body healing instantly but the combustion still causing an explosion able to kill people, which was how he had killed all the people in his village.

“You don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” Ava said.

“No, if this proves his power to you, and cutting myself didn’t for some reason, then so be it. Just don’t catch my jacket on fire.”

“I won’t,” Ava said as her hand ignited. Roman’s fiery teacher lightly placed her palm on his wrist, and Roman was only able to take the pain for a few seconds.

He was gasping by the time he whipped his arm away from her, his flesh boiling off his palm, and he felt just about as stupid as anyone could feel as the stink of charred flesh met his nostrils.

With a worried look on his face, Eli immediately set about healing Roman. By the time he was finished, Roman’s palm looked like it had never been on fire in the first place.

Still, he shook it out, not at all enjoying the theatrics that were taking place in this seemingly abandoned apartment.

“I think that’s enough evidence,” Nadine said.

“Maybe you’re right,” said Ava with a grin. “Sorry to burn you.”

“So, that’s Eli,” said Roman.

Even though he couldn’t see Nadine’s eyes, he knew as they exchanged glances that they weren’t telling Ava about Eli’s other power, the telepathy he had exhibited back at the Eastern Province military base.

It was better this way.

“Since you have been so gracious to share this with me, I will share a few things with you,” Ava said, turning to Nadine. “I don’t feel like I am breaking any oaths by sharing some classified information because I know from breaches in our own security systems that you probably already have this information. I will start with a sentence, though, and we can go from there—the healers of this world are disappearing, drying up.”

“I’m well aware of that,” said Nadine.

“And the exemplar team I am part of has been looking into this, among other things. In fact, I feel like we have stretched ourselves thin in a way, because while there are other teams, ours is usually tasked with jobs that can feel nearly impossible at times. But that’s neither here nor there. I’m wondering now how much more you may know about the subject than I do,” Ava said, “considering you were cognizant about it enough to move to the East to try to find one of the last remaining healers…”

Nadine stepped forward, her fists clenched at her sides. “Your government has been illegally crossing into our country to randomly take people and test them for their healing powers. We first discovered this by looking at prison rosters and noticing there were a large number from the East, from a particular region. We investigated this region, Roman and I, and we actually ran into Centralian soldiers looking to move on some of the tribes that lived in the hills surrounding the city of Brattle. I don’t know how your government pinpointed this region, but I do believe they would have found Eli eventually. Someone would have.”

Roman nodded, recalling what it was like to come to Eli’s village and see that everyone had been slain, the young boy hiding in the cellar.

Gruesome.

“But that is beside the point,” said Nadine. “Regardless of how your government behaves globally, which has its pluses and minuses, we still don’t know why they have been trying to extract any healer they can find, nor the reason healers have been disappearing in the first place. We assume that they are taking the healers to preserve them and possibly replicate them.”

“I would say that assumption is correct,” Ava said carefully.

“Your government tends to do things like that, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t eventually call upon the East to help replicate powers. I’m surprised they haven’t done that already, but it may be because of the sensitive nature of controlling all healers. I can imagine a scenario where Centralia figures out how to replicate healing through technology, not only owning most of the wealth in the world but also owning the ability to keep people alive. This is something they wouldn’t want to share with the East.”

“You aren’t wrong there,” said Ava.

“But Centralians don’t seem to be able to replicate the power, which is why they think they will eventually reach out to the East. We’re the only country that could pull it off. The North doesn’t have our type of tech, the West has other shit to deal with, the South has their own system and are generally on the warpath in some way or another. So the question then is—why have the healers started dying? And why were the last few rounded up?”

“From what we understand of the situation, there is a virus that was only affecting healers,” said Ava. “They were rounded up to preserve them, to try to keep them alive. But they all died. And now my government is actively looking for more healers, hoping we will be able to figure out the cure for healers through them.”

Ava hesitated for a moment, glancing around the room as if she were mentally communicating with someone.

“I think we need to go…” Nadine started to say. With her mask on, Roman wasn’t fully able to see Nadine’s expression, but he did notice a shift, and he knew instantly that she had received a message, that something had happened.

“What is it?” Roman asked.

“I…”

“Tell me,” said Roman, sensing what this was about almost immediately.

Nadine took a deep breath in. “Margo is on the move.”

“No, she’s not,” said Ava. “We have people watching the building as well. There has been no activity.”

“What do you know about Margo’s powers?” Nadine asked as she moved to Eli, crouching down to one knee. She told the boy that they were going to go, and to hold her hand for a moment.

“What kind of question is that? Her powers are the same as Roman’s…” Ava’s eyes went wide.

“Exactly,” Nadine said, “and Roman doesn’t necessarily have to use the door, now does he?”

“I’m going after her,” Roman said, settling his nerves.

“I’m coming too,” said Coma.

“Me too,” Celia chimed in. She approached Roman, looping her arm into his and depositing Casper in his breast pocket.

“No,” said Ava. “You should not go after her. She will certainly kill you.”

“Plume is right,” said Nadine. “You need to let an exemplar team go after her.”

Roman shook his head. “No, not after what she’s done to me. There isn’t a chance in hell that I’m going to let her get away.”

“Roman…” Ava started to say.

“No. Where is she, Nadine?”

“She exited through the sewer, likely using a wall to guide her body down to the basement.”

Roman nodded, understanding exactly what she meant.

“From what we can tell, she’s heading east.”

“What could be east?” Roman asked Nadine, thinking aloud for a moment. Harper’s home had been east of his, and that was where Hazrat had died. “Oh shit. She’s going to the morgue.”

“Dammit,” Nadine whispered.

While she hadn’t met Hazrat, Roman had explained in detail how his power worked, Nadine recognizing its potential almost instantly. And for Margo to be able to control someone like Hazrat…

It wasn’t going to be pretty.

“She’s going to get the shadow user I killed,” Roman told Ava. “Once she animates him, she will be nearly indestructible. She can already control almost anything, and he can control shadows. Imagine trying to fight that off.”

“Dammit,” Ava said, pacing now. “I can’t go at this alone, I have to go with my team…”

“But I can go at it alone,” Roman said.

“She’ll kill you,” Ava told him again. “Roman, be reasonable here. However quickly you have adapted to your powers, she has had years and years, decades even, to hone her ability. She took part in the Western Plague. I was there too; that’s the kind of experience you can’t get from simple training. You may be able to put an air bubble in her brain, but by the time you do, she’ll have your flesh separating from your bones, your muscles tearing, whatever gross, fucked-up thing you can imagine.”

“Ava, I appreciate your concern. Yours, too,” he told Nadine, “but this is something I have to do. And I have a plan, a way I can pull it off. So I’m going to need you both to trust me.”

“You are not authorized to do anything,” Ava said.

“This woman has tried to kill me, she has tried to kill people I care about, and she has done things to my wife’s dead body that…” Roman took a deep breath in, pinching the bridge of his nose, aware he was losing his temper. “I have to go. Whether you come with me or go get your team,” he told Ava, “I don’t care. This is now.”

A teleporter appeared, and before Ava or Nadine could stop him, Roman grabbed the hands of his dolls, disappearing in an instant.

The teleporter reappeared on 48th Street, the woman gone in a dazzle of white sparkles.

Once she was gone, Roman took a quick look around, pondering the best way to go about doing this. He saw the morgue at the end of the street and made a split-second decision to give himself a little perspective.

Stepping into an alley, Roman formed steps in the bricks and walked up them, Coma and Celia following him to the rooftop. Roman didn’t know if Margo would take the sewers all the way to the morgue, but he had to trust his instinct that she wouldn’t. She’d been cooped up in his house for some time, and she probably wanted some fresh air.

It did make him wonder how she had figured out she was being watched, but he could deal with that part later. For now he needed to trust his instincts.

“If she sees me, she’ll kill me,” Roman told the two dolls, ignoring messages coming in from both Ava and Nadine. “And if what she has done in the past is any indication of what she will do in the future, she will also turn me into one of her slaves. I don’t know what she’ll do with either of you, but she has animated the other doll we got, so perhaps she would keep you animated, although you would lose your personalities.”

“Then we have to move quickly,” Coma said, looking out over the roof, her pigtails slightly beating in the wind that had picked up.

“You’re right; I’ll have to send you in to do the fighting for me,” Roman said. “As soon as she sees me, it’s all over. Shit. I wish I had a hood or something—something that would make me blend in more.”

“She’s going to see your head full of white hair,” Celia said, an alarmed look on her face.

“I just don’t think I’m powerful enough to attack her without physically seeing her,” Roman said, “regardless of what I’ve done in the past.”

He was referring to the needle in the haystack test.

As much as Roman wanted to trust his powers in the moment, that he would mentally be able to take Margo out by moving into her body with his power and ballooning her blood vessels, he also knew it wouldn’t be this simple.

One glance down at his power dial and he could see that his adrenaline was spiking it; the apprehension he had was already getting to him.

But now wasn’t the time to second-guess what he was about to do.

Looking at Coma, Roman stripped some of the metal away from an exhaust unit on one of the rooftops, the metal coming under Coma’s arms, forming two large blades that she held using a bar crossed over her palms.

For Celia, he brought up some of the concrete from the rooftop, coating her fists, reminding her that Coma was to make the lead attack and that she would follow up, engaging anyone or anything that had come with Margo.

This is it, he thought, the real test of the day.

Roman was expecting the other doll to be there, and all he needed was an opening to be able to take Margo out.

That was it.

If Coma and Celia could distract her long enough for Roman to take her down, this situation would be over.

In a way, he could get his life back, a life he hadn’t even started yet. Here he was an exemplar, a registered exemplar, and he had yet to celebrate—yet to take advantage of his newfound power.

Instead he was on a rooftop, stalking the person who had apparently been stalking him.

He ignored more mental messages from Ava and Nadine, focused on any movement in the streets below, hoping that Margo would show her face, and praying the sick woman felt like taking a mid-afternoon stroll.

He wondered why she had chosen this time, when the morgue would be fully staffed.

The only thing he could think of was that she wanted to make a statement, that her godlike powers had gone to her brain, that she truly thought she was better than everyone around her, exemplar and non-exemplar alike.

Roman planned to prove otherwise.

Roman was going to kill her.

Chapter Twenty: A Light at the End of the Turmoil

Kevin Blackbook was too late. He held his brother’s body in his arms as he pleaded with the old healer to do something, anything.

“Save him,” he seethed, “do your fucking job.”

The woman with stringy hair was dazed and confused, her condition having worsened over the last day, the expression on her face one of dementia and momentary sadness peppered with brief glimpses of cognition.

Kevin set his brother’s body down, feeling the ache in his back from carrying him for so long. His brother was smaller, lighter, but Kevin wasn’t used to carrying people, especially dead people, their weight different than people who were still alive.

Turquoise was next to Kevin, running her fingers along her prayer beads, muttering in some language Kevin didn’t quite understand. Obsidian was there as well, less enthusiastic about what they were trying to do. James Tew and Scarlett had already left, telling Kevin they would join them later, once he sobered up.

Yes, Kevin was drunk.

The fat man had guzzled down two bottles of cheap wine after killing his brother, and had started on another one when the bartender kicked them out, the bartender suspicious of the two cat girls and annoyed with Kevin’s blubbering ass.

That was night, and now it was late morning, Kevin still feeling the effects of the alcohol.

And to be fair, James had telepathically tried to stop Kevin from going back for his dead brother, but Kevin’s alcohol-soaked brain still had an instinct to avoid telepaths, all those trainings Kevin had attended coming to his aid.

So that was how Kevin had come to possess his brother’s corpse, Turquoise not saying anything, Obsidian with an indecipherable look on her face, one that post-drunk Kevin could tell was not as forgiving as the way Turquoise was looking at him.

“Heal him!” Kevin bellowed at the healer, and the woman brought her hand to her mouth. She started coughing, and when she moved her hand away, Kevin saw there was blood covering her palm.

“What’s wrong with her?” Kevin asked, as if Obsidian or Turquoise would know.

“I think…” Obsidian whispered something to Turquoise in another language.

“What did you say?” Kevin asked.

“It’s time for death rituals,” said Turquoise, and as soon as she mentioned this word, the old healer started to shake her head, terror coming into her eyes.

“She can’t die,” he started to say. “I need her to heal…”

Kevin knew he had bitten off more than he could chew when he’d decided to turn heel, to falsely parade around as an exemplar, to kill people indiscriminately—including his own brother, his wife, and the exemplar she’d been banging.

It hit him hard in that moment, but not as hard as seeing his brother’s corpse.

It was too much.

Kevin had gone too far, and that was before he had taken his brother’s life.

He wanted to sob, but he knew now wasn’t the time for that display of emotion. He was the leader of sorts in this operation, and if there was one person to blame for his actions, it was Margo.

Kevin still hadn’t put together why she was in Roman’s place, but if she was there, she had likely killed Roman as well.

“I don’t know how we can keep her alive,” said Turquoise. “We can try to ease her suffering, but she may just die during that process. Even if she’s healing herself.”

“What do you mean by ease her suffering?” Kevin asked.

“I believe we could help some.” Obsidian's claws pressed out of her fingers. “But we will have to be careful and try not to give her too much.”

“Yes,” Kevin said, an idea coming to him of how this could play out. “We can keep her alive temporarily, using your neurotoxins to slow her death. If we need more healing, we may be able to get it out of her if we let her rest a little more, if we don’t put pressure on her.”

The woman gasped as Obsidian came closer.

The black-haired cat girl lifted the woman’s trembling hand and pressed her claws into it, dragging her nail down until she reached the woman’s pointer finger, a bright line of crimson appearing, beading up, and falling toward the woman’s thumb.

Obsidian was just about to bring the woman’s hand to her mouth when Kevin stopped her.

“Just do it with your nails,” Kevin said. “We don’t know what sickness she has, and it would be best not to have that sort of contact. So just your nails.”

He looked over to his brother’s dead body, regretting that he’d brought the body here, a wave of emotion again rising in his chest that he barely managed to choke back down.

“I’ll call Scarlett to get this out of here,” Kevin finally said.

With that, he turned to the other room, Turquoise following him, her hand looping into his.

“I really need to get some rest,” Kevin mumbled to her as soon as they were away from Obsidian and the healer.

“You’ve had a rough night,” Turquoise said.

She closed their bedroom door and took Kevin to the bed, helping him lie down, bringing his hands onto his chest.

“None of this is going to be easy.” The cat girl got on top of him, straddling Kevin now and looking down at him as she spoke. “But I think it will be worthwhile in the end. We will need the healer if we try to go after Margo.”

“There is no try,” Kevin said, placing his hands on her hips.

“I know you intend to kill her, but it’s not going to be that easy, Kevin. We’re going to have to move quickly and strike her when she’s least expecting. Otherwise we all die.”

“Then that’s what we’ll have to do.”

“There are other people in this equation,” Turquoise reminded him as she unzipped the front of her exemplar uniform, her breasts slowly falling out. She pulled her arms out of the sleeves and brought the uniform down to her waist, gyrating her hips ever so slightly over Kevin’s member.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” Kevin finally told her, feeling aroused even though he was tired and drunk. “We do this, we survive this, and I’ll do whatever you want or go wherever you want. Is there any place you want to go? Is there anything you want to do that we haven’t done?”

“Obsidian and I would like to go home, to the Western Province, but we know if we are home that we will never be able to come back here.”

“Then that’s where we’ll go. Once we finish this, we will go to your home. I will live there. I’m done with Centralia anyway. I am a wanted man here, and there are people actively looking for me. So we go home, to your home.”

Turquoise bent over so her lips were now inches away from Kevin’s, her breasts falling onto his chest.

“You’d do that for me?” she asked.

“In a heartbeat,” Kevin assured her. “Let’s see this through, and then let’s disappear forever.”

“I like that,” she said, opening her mouth, and Kevin’s opened as well, their tongues touching and Turquoise lightly biting down on his, releasing a small amount of her neurotoxin.

“I love you,” came the last words out of Kevin’s mouth before he fell into a deep, uninterrupted sleep.

Chapter Twenty-One: Against the Grain

It didn’t take long for Coma to spot Margo.

Roman had correctly predicted that the woman wouldn’t keep to the sewers the entire way, and Margo had come up in an alley using a bubble in the concrete, the doll that was supposed to be Casper at her side.

Roman peeked over the parapet and saw Margo casually stroll toward the morgue, the hood covering her face, people milling about, the sick woman holding hands with Roman’s former doll.

He ducked down again, seconds away from acting when he stopped himself. He didn’t know what kind of range he had, and now wasn’t the time to test it.

He grabbed Coma’s wrist, imbuing her with his power as he said, “You know what to do. Do not hold back; give me the opening I need. This is it, Coma.”

Coma nodded, Celia following her as she made her way to the opposite side of the roof, his combat doll forming a set of stairs in the brick that took her back down to the alley.

Celia looked at Roman once more, and Roman simply gave her a nod, letting her know that this was what he wanted, that there was no other solution.

They had to take Margo out.

The two dolls started to move down the steps, Roman waiting for them to reach the alley before using the same stairs Coma had formed out of the bricks.

He needed a better vantage point.

The rooftop wasn’t going to cut it, and once all this went down, he only had a few seconds to make his mark on Margo.

Either way, one of them was dying in the next five minutes.

Roman got into a crouching position next to a dumpster, waiting with bated breath for his dolls to move into action.

The moment dragged on and on, but eventually, Coma and Celia burst out of the alley, and Coma immediately erected a barrier that shattered like it was made of glass.

Roman’s heart sank, and it took everything in his power to stifle a cry of panic once Celia exploded, melted plastic spraying into the air, her head the only thing not caught up in the explosion.

Coma brought up another barrier just as Margo’s doll circled around it, pipes wrapped around her arms.

Now gasping for air, panic tearing at his insides, Roman could see parts of Celia’s body, her head lying on the pavement, her eyes open, dead.

It took everything in his power not to run to her, but he eventually kept low to the ground, his form still hidden, his focus on Margo.

He needed to see the woman to be able to take her out, but he didn’t dare get any closer to the exit of the alley.

Not now, not when he was this close.

He checked his power dial to see that he was nearing his breaking point, red is dead echoing in his skull.

The fact that Roman was semi-powering Coma seemed to prevent Margo from exploding her in the same way she’d done to Celia. That didn’t stop Margo’s doll from nearly getting the upper hand, Coma doing her damnedest to keep a barrier between Margo and her as she engaged the other doll, dodging her fists, skipping around her kicks.

Roman wished this was a fair fight, as stupid as those two words sounded together.

It could never be fair. If they were both non-exemplars, Roman’s training and size difference would give him the edge. And in an exemplar fight? Margo would win hands down.

No, Roman would stick to the shadows and hope for the best, and if she was smart, which she was, Margo would tear through everything in her path until she found him.

“Where are you?” Margo shouted. “You have to be nearby. Roman, I’m waiting…”

There was chaos on the streets now, people trying to get as far away from the melee as they could. Two men slipped into Roman’s alley, startled to find him crouched there.

Rather than deal with them running back out and bringing Margo’s attention, Roman activated the gravel beneath their feet, pulling both men to the ground and bringing his finger to his lips.

“Quiet,” Roman whispered. “Or I will bury both of you.”

The men, both non-exemplars, nodded, one of them whimpering as Margo continued to taunt Roman.

“Quiet,” Roman said again as he moved past him, still crouching in the shadows.

“Your doll can’t hold on for much longer,” Margo said, even as Coma and the other doll continued to fight. There were no grunts, no moans, no real fatigue—they were both made of a variety of plastic materials, and they didn’t hurt the same way humans did.

Roman started to get a glimpse of Margo, the woman’s different colored eyes focused on the fight. Coma could no longer sustain her barrier, and before Roman could intervene, a mist began to descend upon the battle.

No, he thought, no longer able to see Margo. No! He even tried to throw his power forward, to find her, but it was utterly useless by that point.

An arc of fire moved through the air with dozens and dozens of clones winding through mist, all aimed at Margo’s location.

But Roman knew she would be gone by then, that she would drop into the sewer or move into one of the buildings, Mister Fist and his crew not able to track her at the speed she could move.

And Roman assumed that MindLenz would scan the area, but Margo would know how to deal with a telepath. The woman had likely trained as well if not better than most spies.

No, this was a loss, an utter defeat, and Roman felt it deep in his chest as he stumbled out of the alley, punching at the mist as if that would do anything. He found Coma standing there, her dress torn, marks all over her face and arms.

The smog started to fade away, ballooning up at first and then falling into a pillar, swirling as Mister Fist’s form took shape.

“You were told not to go after her,” the strongman said.

“Fuck you,” Roman told him, tensing up so hard he could feel a migraine coming on.

He could kill Mister Fist right now. It would only take a second, and the man wouldn’t be able to do anything by the time he struck. But Roman knew better. So he instead moved to Celia, what was left of her.

“You are not on a risk management team, nor are you on an exemplar team,” the big man said, taking a step closer to Roman, his scowl evident under his mask.

“I’ll handle this.” Ava landed, the flames instantly disappearing from her arms and legs.

“Celia,” Roman said as he picked up his doll’s head, portions of her hair torn out, burnt black. This part he could fix, but the part he couldn’t fix was all around him, splashes of plastic, a hand here, a foot there, all lying amidst the rubble caused by the walls Coma had lifted out of the pavement.

No, it was a complete loss, aside from her head, which Roman animated almost immediately.

“Roman?” Celia’s head asked, looking around with despair in her eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” he told her, looking down at her face. “I’ll make this better, I promise.”

“Plume, this is unacceptable,” Mister Fist started to say.

“She came after my wife!” Roman screamed at the man, Celia’s head now tucked between his arm and his side body.

“Roman, calm down,” Ava started to say. “Just calm down.”

“I will not calm down!” Roman said, the ground rippling around him. “I could have ended this,” he said loudly, enunciating each word carefully. “Then you show up with a bunch of mist, and clones, and fire…”

“We’re going to have to do something about you,” Mister Fist said through gritted teeth.

“You want to do something about me?” Roman asked him. “Because you’re going to have to do it quickly.” Roman lifted his hands. “I’m serious here—try something.”

Roman knew the telepath was playing with his head now; he could feel her whispering at the back of his mind, but he also knew how to ignore, at least…

It was a few more seconds before Roman lowered his hands, calm all of a sudden, still a little twitchy because of the adrenaline. A telepath couldn’t take the chemical sensation away, but feeling peaceful amidst the chaos, slightly relaxed even though he was holding Celia the doll’s head under his arm, that was definitely something a telepath could do.

“You can’t go after people like this,” Plume said, taking over for Mister Fist. “This is not how we operate.”

“I know you have done something to my mind,” Roman told MindLenz, who stood next to Mister Fist now, her face completely concealed by a mask. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t think, and the four of you ruined my chance to neutralize this threat. Now, I may have acted out of order here, but someone had to do it. She would have reached the morgue by now…”

Roman’s eyes went wide as he turned to the morgue, the ground lifting from beneath him and carrying him forward rapidly. Coma ran up beside the form he had created and hopped on, Roman helping her up with his free hand.

Ava was beside him in a matter of moments, but rather than stop him, she flew toward the morgue as well, flames licking off her heels.

“No,” Roman said as he tore away the morgue’s wall with his powers—the desks, the chairs, the papers, lab material, everything strewn about, shattered, melted.

They were too late. There was a giant crater in the floor, the staff’s bodies mangled and broken.

Hazrat was gone.

“It’s about to get so much worse,” Roman said, looking at Ava, who slowly lowered onto the platform he’d created.

“I know,” she said, Roman still not used to seeing her in her exemplar uniform and matching mask.

By this point Mister Fist had caught up to them, moving in the mist form to travel quickly.

“What happened here?” Mister Fist asked before the realization hit him. “We’re… we’re too late.”

“I would have stopped her,” Roman said, clenching his teeth. “Now she has the body of a shadow user, a Type I named Hazrat Inayat. Don’t you see what’s going to happen here? Not only can she control any objects, but now Margo can control shadows. We are so fucked.”

Chapter Twenty-Two: Guardian Angels

“I don’t know how they are going to be able to handle him,” said Oscar, standing next to Nadine and Lisa as they watched Roman shout and point his finger at Mister Fist.

“I would be angry too,” Lisa offered.

“Same here.” Nadine could feel Roman’s tension even though her body was in a room miles and miles away, attached to her current form through a cord of light. She wished there was something she could do, that she could turn her form visible and go after Margo, a surprise attack from behind to take the woman out once and for all.

Lisa, Nadine and Oscar hadn’t entirely heard the argument between Roman and Mister Fist.

As soon as Margo had slipped into the sewer, they had moved with her, traveling behind her and eventually up through a hole in the morgue, watching as Margo killed indiscriminately. With the flick of her hand, the hooded woman had torn the wall blocking Hazrat’s body away, animating it in an instant.

There weren’t many exemplars who could manipulate light or darkness, and the ones that could generally were given the highest classifications possible. Their power to kill almost instantly and their ability to adapt to almost any environment made them formidable opponents.

In some of the cases Nadine had studied, she’d read about taking down these types of exemplars, strategies that were used and ones that failed. This would only grow more complicated now that Hazrat was in Margo’s control, which likely meant the man wouldn’t fight in any conventional way.

Plus he couldn’t really die.

Sure, they could find a way to explode his body parts, but blasting him away or cutting his arm off wouldn’t really stop him.

Even though it wouldn’t hurt her, Nadine stepped aside as the ground lifted Roman up, the white-haired former non-exemplar just now becoming cognizant of the fact that Margo may have taken Hazrat.

He would be in for a rude awakening when he reached the morgue, and he would probably get even angrier.

Nadine couldn’t blame him.

The umbilical cord made of light now behind her, she moved toward the morgue again along with Oscar and Lisa, the young exemplar commenting on William Bottorf’s clone.

“I wish someone would carry me around like that,” she said, referring to the team’s telepath, MindLenz, whom one of William’s clones carried in his arms as he ran toward the morgue.

“I hope they don’t do something drastic with Roman, considering he’s gone against their best wishes,” Oscar said, ignoring Lisa.

“What do you mean?” Nadine asked.

“There’s a chance that Roman is cast aside. But from what I have seen, they rarely strip an exemplar’s power after one has been granted; you have to really piss them off to make them do that.”

“Rarely?” Nadine asked as they neared the morgue. “The way you say that makes me think this has happened before.”

“It has,” said Oscar. “You’ll want to refer to some of the case files I’ve left in your room if you would like to know more about Centralia’s lottery program. It was one of the reasons we were so interested in examining Roman more closely.”

Nadine stopped. “I thought you were interested in his power…”

Oscar shook his head at the woman. “Nadine, I know you and I haven’t quite gone over what happened in the East as well as we should, and maybe I have reasons for that, but the reason we wanted to examine Roman was because of both his power and the way his power was given to him. What if we could turn everyone in the East into an exemplar? Have you ever thought of that?”

“Not really,” she admitted. “And did our people uncover how Centralia did it?”

Oscar shook his head. “Not yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was something esoteric, like a Northern or Southern Alliance rune or something. Our people tend to dig too deeply into the science side of things, forgetting there are mysteries in this world that have yet to be explained.”

“I feel like I’m not supposed to be part of this conversation,” said Lisa, backing away.

“Nonsense,” said Oscar. “You are in so deeply now that the only way to drag you back out would be through a complete mind sweep. So enjoy the information you are privy to at the moment, because it may not last forever.”

“Is that a threat to wipe my mind?”

“No, my dear child, it is the truth. Sometimes the truth sounds like a threat, but I’m not threatening you. I’m telling you what will happen. As long as you’re cooperating with us, your memories will be intact, and you will be exposed to very private information. Once you decide to go your own way, or back to your country, that information will be taken from you. Is that not what you want?”

“I…” Lisa shrugged, her translucent pigtails bouncing as she did so. “I haven’t really thought about that. But maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s best I don’t know what’s going on here.”

“We will all eventually have our minds wiped,” Oscar said. “My time may be sooner than yours.”

“Are you thinking of retiring?” Nadine asked.

“I’m already semi-retired—thanks to you, I’ve become more active. But yes, there will be a point when I retire and move to a nice, secluded spot of land somewhere outside of Brattle where I will join my family and forget all of this. Every single part of it. Ha. Whether I want to forget it or not.”

Nadine nodded, aware that this would be an awkward reunion.

If Oscar didn’t know what had happened to him over the last thirty years because of a mind wipe, his family definitely wouldn’t know. But there would be a telepath available to catch everyone up to speed, give Oscar a narrative and let him live out the final years of his life.

And part of Nadine didn’t think this was actually a bad thing.

Sure, she didn’t want to have her memories wiped, but how nice would it be to start afresh? A government pension always there for you, to not remember the people you had killed, the incriminating knowledge that had made up such a large part of your life.

To be free.

Who wouldn’t want something like that?

Nadine had rarely thought about retirement, aside from the paperwork she was required to fill out once she made it through basic training.

She still had many years to go before she even reached that milestone, and that was if she managed to stay on best behavior and not betray her own country again.

But it was something she should think about.

Where did she go after this? Staying in Centralia would be ideal for her, but she wanted to see her mother and father again, even if just for a day.

She wondered what the telepath who mind-wiped her would come up with. How would they explain the scar on her side? How would they explain where she’d been all that time?

“Let’s move inside,” Oscar said, taking control of the silence.

Once they were inside the morgue, they heard Mister Fist and the others wrapping up their conversation. The exemplar known as Plume was instructed to take Roman back to her apartment, where he could get hold of himself.

It pained Nadine to see Roman so distraught, Celia’s head tucked under his arm, Coma at his side, her dark-blue dress tattered and torn.

Nadine felt pity for the man.

He was a strange creature, but even with his flaws, he wanted to do good; he wanted to help people, and this was what Nadine felt she was trying to do, which led her to unconsciously believe he was a mirror representation of her. Same, same, but different.

“It’ll take us a little bit of time to find out where Plume lives…” Oscar started to say.

“No, let’s let them be for now,” said Nadine. “I’m sure there are better things we could be doing.”

“There are always better things we could be doing,” Oscar said with a soft chuckle. “Always.”

Chapter Twenty-Three: Hot for Teacher

“I need you to calm down,” Ava told Roman as soon as their forms took shape in her apartment. She had a lovely place, on the top floor of one of Centralia’s taller buildings, windows every direction Roman looked. Ava’s fluffy little dog ran over to them as soon as they appeared.

“Do you mind?” Coma asked as she crouched in front of the animal.

“Sure, play with Bonbon as much as you’d like.” Ava nodded Roman over to the couch. “Please, take a seat.”

His teacher didn’t have a lot of furniture, but the furniture she did have was made of white leather.

“Please.” Ava gestured toward her couch.

Roman sat and exhaled deeply, eventually setting Celia’s head next to his body.

In the time it took Ava to get a glass of water from the kitchen, Roman sent a message to Emelia, the coordinator at the sex-doll shop, telling her they needed to meet. He also activated Casper, who was tucked away in his pocket.

“Holy shit! What did you do to her?” Casper jumped down to his arm, running along his sleeve. She transitioned to the couch and stopped in front of Celia’s head, the tiny doll’s hands coming to her sides.

“Just be glad you weren’t there,” Roman said with a grimace.

“Let me get this straight. Are you just going to carry her head around?” Casper asked him. “Because I’m totally not cool with that.”

“You’re not cool with that?” Roman asked as Coma sat in the other chair, Bonbon now in her lap, licking Coma’s face.

“I don’t know what you’re planning to do with that head, but I can think of at least one thing it would be useful for, and I don’t want to be around when you do it.”

“Enough, Casper,” Roman said as Ava handed him a glass of water.

The tiny doll fell to the side, the life leaving her body. Roman didn’t know why he had activated her in the first place, but he was definitely not in the position to take her shit at the moment.

“Sorry,” Roman said, referring to Casper.

“I can’t keep covering for you,” Ava said, referring to something else. She stood in front of him, her arms crossed over her chest.

“I know you can’t.” Roman took a sip from his water, settling his thoughts. “Look, you’ve done more than anyone could possibly expect, I understand that, but you have to understand that I need to see this through. There is no other option for me. I have to take this woman out. And I really don’t know what happens after that. I am aware of the fact that she’s much stronger than me. But I had her today,” Roman said, gritting his teeth. “All it would have taken was just another thirty seconds or so, and all this would have been handled…”

“Roman, you simply don’t know that.”

“No, I do know that. My power works quickly. It only takes me a second to kill someone. It’s not even that hard, Ava. And I’m not saying this in a threatening way or anything, I’m just saying that I could have ended this. And now…”

“She has Hazrat,” Coma said, scratching behind Bonbon’s ears.

“Yes, she has Hazrat, which will only make her more difficult to take out. And she has…”

“Roman, you can’t do this alone,” Ava said again.

“Then help me, or get out of my way,” he said with finality. “Either way, this is happening. I will die trying to stop her from ever doing this again. My wife, Ava. She animated her corpse. She killed my…”

“Who?” Ava asked.

“Harper, my… Well, I don’t really know what she was to me. My lady friend? Doesn’t matter now. She was nice to me, and I liked her.” Roman took a deep breath in. “There is no rhyme or reason to how Margo kills, no moral code, nothing. She just kills. And she wants to kill me.”

“Then we get you to another part of Centralia, let you lie low for a while and train. We bring in some of our heavy players to take her out. That’s how we do this.”

“But you see why I can’t have that, right?” Roman asked. “What’s the point of me having my power if someone is constantly going to be after me? What’s the point of running?”

“We would be able take care of her.”

“I hate to say this, and I mean no disrespect by it, but I highly doubt that you, or pretty much any exemplar you know will just be able to ‘take care of her.’ She fought during the Western Plague; she has Hazrat, Ian, and some other exemplar working for her.”

“Zelda. That’s the name of the other deceased exemplar,” said Ava. “We were able to get data from the second prison break at Prison South…”

Ava grew silent for a moment.

“Come again?” Roman asked.

“I don’t know how much of this I can tell you.”

“Well, by saying it like that, you’ve already shown me it’s something I need to know.”

Ava took her mask off, folded it, and placed it on a barstool.

“Centralia’s only healer was taken from the Prison South, and based on what we’ve been able to get using a telepath on those who witnessed it, one of the people responsible was a woman named Zelda, the one who is now dead and in Margo’s employ. The other people are a telepath named James Tew, a teleporter named Scarlett, one of the cat girls, the counterpart to the one you took out, this one named Obsidian and…”

“Kevin Blackbook?”

Roman shook his head; there was no way his bumbling former coworker had been able to successfully break into the most protected prison in the country. But Ava’s security clearance would definitely give her access to this kind of information. And why would she make this up? It just seemed impossible.

“Yes,” Ava said, “your former coworker.”

Roman eventually shrugged it off. “I don’t know what part Kevin plays in this, but I know what part I play, and the part I play is taking out Margo. I don’t care if Ian is there, I don’t care if Hazrat is there, and I don’t care if this power amplifier is there either. I am sorry to be like this, to be so…” Roman searched for the word. “Ornery? No, stubborn—yes, that’s the word. I’m sorry to be so goddamn stubborn about this, because I truly respect all that you have done, but I have to see this through, Ava.”

His teacher sat down on the couch next to Roman and placed a hand on his cheek.

“Deactivate Coma,” she said, and with the twitch of his finger, Coma went lifeless, Bonbon barking at her for a moment before giving up and hopping onto the floor.

“Roman, I don’t want you to get wrapped up in all this either. Aside from the political side of this equation, I don’t want harm to come to you. She will kill you.”

“Then help me,” Roman said, moving just a little bit closer to Ava, their faces now only a few inches apart.

“I don’t know…”

“Help me,” Roman said.

“I can’t,” she said as she moved in to kiss him.

Chapter Twenty-Four: Dinner with Coma

It was Ava who eventually stopped them from hooking up.

She was still crouched over Roman, her top unzipped, Roman fixated for a moment by the soft tones of her flesh, her large nipples red from his lips. For a moment he felt the urge to continue, his hands falling on Ava’s hips as she again moved back and forth, also not yet ready to give this up.

But she was right, and even though they both didn’t want this to end, Roman eventually stopped, wondering if their actions over the last several minutes had something to do with adrenaline.

“You’re right,” he whispered to her.

“It’s not that I don’t want to…”

“No, you’re right,” he said. “Right now isn’t the time for this.”

“But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen in the future.”

“I’m okay if it does, and I’m okay if it doesn’t,” Roman said coolly.

While an intense battle may be Ava’s element, the situation they’d just found themselves in was Roman’s, and he already could tell by the way she’d started moving her hips again that he could turn the tide in his favor…

But he didn’t want to now. Even with an erection, he realized that he needed to handle things, prepare for the hunt.

And not let being caught up in this strange moment get the best of him.

Emelia had already mental messaged him to let them know she could meet Roman at the shop in thirty minutes, that she was moving one of her appointments around. He appreciated this, and he wanted to show his appreciation by bringing her something, but he didn’t want to show up with flowers or something else cliché.

Chocolates?

Roman cringed at the dialogue running in his head.

None of that mattered at the moment; even if Emelia was going above and beyond, he could repay the favor later. What mattered now was getting Celia repaired, and possibly upgraded.

“I guess…” Ava zipped up her top slowly, allowing enough time for Roman to take one more glimpse at her breasts before they were concealed from the world.

He shook his head, a part of him wishing they had just finished what they had started here, realizing there would be tension between them until they did.

“I should probably go,” Roman said.

“No, you should stay. I can cook or…”

“Ava.”

“We could order some food, that would be nice. Would you like to go out? I know you were staying in one of Nadine’s safehouses, but you could stay here for the night. I have an extra room if…”

“Ava.”

“Yeah, sorry,” she said, sweeping her hand through her orange hair. “Maybe it’s better that you go.”

“Let me handle what I need to handle first,” Roman told her, “and then I will see if you’re still up.”

“That’s not the kind of relationship we’re going to have,” Ava told him firmly.

“I understand.” She got off his lap and sat next to him, her cheeks as red as he had ever seen them.

Roman knew he needed to be careful with Ava; aside from the fact that he genuinely liked her companionship, she was a fire user, and she could bring the building down if she wanted. A small part of him wondered what it would be like for her to orgasm, if there were flames involved, but he quickly tried to scrub that thought from his mind, focusing on the task at hand.

Repairing Celia.

“I’ll send you a message after I see to the repairs.”

“Do not go after Margo,” Ava reminded him. “We have people watching your home; I’ll know if you do something.”

“So that’s where she returned to?” Roman asked.

Ava nodded. “She probably went there because she knows it’ll get under your skin. You can’t let her get under your skin, Roman. A good part of this battle will be psychological. And I don’t know how we’re going to go after her yet,” Ava said honestly, “but if I can somehow loop you into it, I will. How’s that?”

“Mister Fist isn’t going to like that, is he?”

“He may be the leader of the group, but I have more clout in the government than he does, especially with my sister’s position. Fist is a good soldier, and if he receives an order from a higher up, he will follow it without question. It’s sort of his fatal flaw, if you ask me. But he’s the most famous of all of us; people appreciate that in him.”

“I always wondered why your exemplar team didn’t have a name…”

“Because it doesn’t need a name. There have been multiple exemplars on the team, the pillar being Mister Fist.”

Roman placed Casper in the pocket of his jacket. He waved his hand at Coma and she came to life, her red eyes jumping between Roman and Ava.

“We are going to see about Celia,” Roman informed her.

“Good, I was hoping that was next,” Coma said.

A teleporter appeared, a registered one with stringy arms and white hair on his neck.

Once he confirmed the address, Roman heard a loud clap at the back of his head. Before he could respond, he was standing in front of a diner, Coma to his right.

“Thanks,” Roman told the teleporter as the man zipped away again, Roman not hearing a clapping sound this time.

It was dark out now, the street lit yellow by a pair of lamps. The entrance to the red-light district was across the street, which was where they’d find Emelia.

Realizing that he probably shouldn’t be walking around with the head under his arm, Roman quickly took off his jacket and wrapped Celia’s head in it. He carefully folded Casper and stuffed the doll in his jacket bundle as well.

“Shall we?” Roman asked, looking toward the diner, the bundle now tucked under his arm.

“Sure.” Coma stepped aside, letting a couple pass in front of them.

They lined up behind the couple, and when a seat by the window was available, they took it, Roman ordering a cup of tea and an Eastern Province meat pie.

The diner was busy, the sound of clinking glasses and knives scraping against plates meeting Roman’s ears. The people sitting in front of them were loud; the people behind them a little quieter, the couple to their left having some sort of argument.

“So…” Coma started to say.

“Coma, thank you,” he said, a smile lifting his cheeks.

“Why are you thanking me?” she asked.

“You have been there from the start of all this, and you’ve just been incredible. I really don’t know what to say other than that. I just have so much respect for what you’ve contributed, how you’ve grown, learned.”

“Why are you talking this way?” Coma asked.

“Because I don’t know what happens after this,” Roman admitted. “If Margo kills me, it’s the death of you as well, and that very well may happen. So I just want to say what’s in my heart just in case I don’t have a chance to say it later.”

“We should train more,” Coma said. “I think I could do more damage with your power.”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t see? I was able to do something to Margo’s body.”

“What?” Roman asked, waiting for the waitress to set a cup of tea down. She scampered off and he returned his focus to Coma. “What did you do to her?”

“If only I had been more powerful, I think could have killed her for you.”

“How?” Roman asked.

“I animated her clothing, and started to strangle her with it, just seconds before the mist came.”

“But I didn’t see…”

“You might not have seen it, but she definitely felt it,” said Coma. “I think she would have disappeared anyway. I saw it in her eyes.”

“You saw what?”

“Fear.”

“I didn’t know…”

“I wanted to tell you in private, because I don’t think Mister Fist and his group really understand how much power you can transfer to me. You gave me a lot more than you normally do, and I figured it would be best to keep that a secret between us.”

“Yes, a secret,” Roman said, laying his hand on the table, palm up. Coma dropped her gloved hand into his, keeping it there as they shared their moment.

“I think this is just the start of what we may be able to do. But we need more training, more practice before we really move in for the kill,” said Coma, a flash of hatred painting across her red eyes. “This isn’t going to be easy.”

“But we have to do it,” Roman said, “we have to.”

Chapter Twenty-Five: Forces at Play

Margo lifted up through the floor, a bubble around her body, Hazrat next to her, Paris the doll too. She collapsed to one knee, and Paris helped her over to Roman’s couch.

Celia’s dead body sat on the couch, her hands crossed over her lap, her head down, the woman currently dead. Zelda the power replicator and Ian were near the door, both of them still standing, neither too concerned with what Margo was going through.

Whatever Roman’s doll had done, the effect had lingered, and Margo had torn her top off to let her skin breathe.

She’d still seen the mission through—she’d still retrieved Hazrat—but that was only because this was what Margo had been conditioned to do, to never let the mission fall to the wayside.

Roman’s doll had been going for Margo’s clothing, but she ended up animating some of her skin as well, the skin on her arms, chest, stomach, even Margo’s face tightening just before she’d disappeared.

It had been a very long time, not since she got the scars that lined the bottom side of her face, that Margo had been attacked in a way that scared her.

And she knew exactly why what the doll had done was so frightening. It meant that Roman could…

No, Margo thought, I’m the only person who can use this power in that way.

But proof was there, and the fact that he was able to imbue his doll with his power was something she hadn’t prepared or accounted for.

Margo could do the same, but she much preferred to give other beings life after killing them, letting them use their own power, which seemed to gel better and not overcharge her.

It had been a long time since she’d paid much attention to going overboard with her own power. While troublesome, most exemplars were beatable, especially if Margo just focused on giving each of them a brain aneurysm.

It wouldn’t be her first resort; no, Margo actually looked forward to bit of a challenge, but it would be something she would eventually call upon, especially if they closed in.

But what Roman could do…

Margo finally smiled.

Sitting on Roman’s couch, topless, with Paris next to her and Celia on the other side, Margo felt vulnerable for once. And she liked it.

There was something almost arousing about the fear she was experiencing, something that made her want to touch herself.

She knew this sudden change in emotion came from adrenaline, that men and women had separate ways of handling it afterward, and she didn’t always get horny after a fight, but she sometimes did.

Regardless, now wasn’t the time for those sorts of shenanigans.

Now was the time to reach out to her government.

Well, maybe…

Margo’s hand fell between her legs. She pressed her fingers onto the front of her pants, lightly feeling the lips of her vagina through the fabric.

“You look like you’re having fun,” Paris the doll told her.

“You don’t suffer from adrenaline,” Margo said, breathing a little more heavily than normal.

“How does it feel?”

“Adrenaline?”

“Yes.”

“It feels to me like everything is coming at you at once, yet you’re still able to decipher different parts, almost like a slow-moving puzzle. If that makes any sense.”

“No, it doesn’t make sense to me,” Paris said.

“It’s fine, you don’t need to understand it. I just need you to be a good little warrior for me,” Margo told her, her hand coming around the doll’s neck. She brought Paris in close and kissed her, still touching herself as she did so.

“We’re going to need to clean this place up a little bit,” Margo said when she pulled Paris’s neck away. “My people will probably be visiting.”

“Your people?”

“Yes, even handlers have handlers, and I’ve been a naughty girl,” Margo said with an evil chuckle. “But all that changes soon. To get to Roman, I’m going to have to fight dirty.”

“Don’t you already fight dirty?”

“In that case, I’m going to have to fight nasty.”

James Tew explained to Kevin that Roman’s apartment was being monitored by both the Centralian and Eastern Province governments.

“Shit, won’t be easy to attack her then, will it?” Kevin asked, glad that he’d sent the telepath to scout ahead.

They were at a new location, a spot cherry-picked by Turquoise and Obsidian, who had poisoned the owners and tied them up, putting them in the basement. The healer was there as well, in the other room, the old woman asleep at the moment, Obsidian occasionally checking in on her.

It was the nicest home they had taken shelter in so far, a wonderful place in the Robmon District with an actual gate out front and a backyard garden.

“The only way I can think of moving in would be through a teleporter. If government forces haven’t done it yet, that means that Margo has company.”

“Crap,” Kevin said, lightly punching a fist into his open palm. “This really isn’t how I wanted things to play out.”

“We should leave her alone,” Turquoise said.

Over the course of the day she had grown more and more reluctant to go after Margo, the beautiful cat girl telling Kevin some of the rumors she had heard in the West about the woman and how ruthless she was to her enemies.

“We’ve already talked about this,” Kevin reminded her. “This is it, the last thing we do in Centralia. Then we are out; I promised you this. But we can’t let this woman live. She tried to kill us, remember?”

“You know, normally I would agree with Turquoise,” said James the telepath, “but I was good friends with Zelda, and Ray didn’t deserve to go down like that,” he said, referring to the way Margo’s team had killed the two other exemplars who had helped Kevin and company to assault the prison.

“We have to time it just right, then,” said Scarlett.

Kevin had noticed their teleporter had been in and out all day, but he assumed this was just how teleporters were; he didn’t blame her for moving around so freely with that ability of hers. “Agreed. We should do something before Centralia or the Eastern Province moves in, before our window of opportunity closes.”

“And why Roman’s condo?” Kevin wondered aloud.

Everyone in the room knew that Kevin and Roman were former coworkers. Kevin had felt James try to dip into his mind a few times to see if there could be any ulterior motives, and Kevin had let him, realizing that all James would find were some of the conversations he’d had with Roman and the time they’d stayed in the cabin together.

“I tried to scan the apartment,” James said, “which was dangerous because I had to get closer. I actually went into the building after getting something from the bodega on the bottom floor, and I moved up to see if I could pinpoint something through the ceiling.”

“Impressive,” Kevin said, which was how he genuinely felt about James’s power. There were a variety of telepaths, and James seemed to be one of the more powerful ones. The fact that he could use telepathy as easily as he used telekinesis only made Kevin wonder why he wasn’t on an exemplar team.

But being on an exemplar team wasn’t the path for everyone, and while it was generally possible as an exemplar to work for the Centralian government, not everyone wanted a government job when there was money to be made exploiting the city’s underbelly.

“I didn’t pick up anything in the apartment, not even someone trying to block telepaths,” he said.

“But you think she was there?” Kevin asked him.

“There’s really no telling. If she was there, she should be classified as a telepath as well because there was nothing at all inside—a dead silence, if that makes sense.”

“Maybe she used a teleporter to temporarily go somewhere else.”

“Maybe.” James shrugged. “But I think we should operate on the assumption that she will still be there. The Centralian and Eastern Province forces wouldn’t be in the area if they thought she’d left.”

“How do we do this quickly?” Kevin asked aloud.

“Circling back, maybe we should try a teleporter,” Scarlett suggested. “And by teleporter, I mean me.”

“You’d be willing to do that?” Kevin asked.

“If it’s what I’m called upon to do, and you have a good enough plan, then sure.”

“I still think this is a terrible idea,” Turquoise said. “I know we made an agreement, Kevin, but Margo is…”

“She’s beyond any of our powers,” Obsidian chimed in, the black-haired cat girl crouching on the couch, picking at one of her nails. “And our healer isn’t doing so well.”

“I know she’s something else,” Kevin said, “but that doesn’t mean we won’t be able to stop her.”

“If we teleported there and you activated your power nullification quickly enough,” Scarlett said, “maybe Obsidian or Turquoise could get to Margo before her zombies get to us.”

“Wait, what do you mean?” Kevin asked. “I was under the impression that taking her power away would take away their powers well.”

“You weren’t paying close enough attention during the fight at the prison,” she said. “Margo’s power was temporarily taken away, but the big man with the spikes jutting out of his body was still fighting.”

“You mean her power can linger in another object?” Kevin asked, covering his gasp by placing his hand over his mouth.

“I think we need to operate under that assumption,” said Scarlett. “But that could be a strategy. Teleport there, you activate your power, and you try to get to her before her companions get to us. If you came,” Scarlett told James, “You could help hold them back with telekinesis.”

“Shit,” James said, massaging his forehead for a moment. “It’s a crazy idea, it really is.”

“Is it a crazy idea you’re willing to give a shot?” Kevin asked point-blankly.

“Let me think about it.”

Chapter Twenty-Six: You’ve Got A Friend in Me

If Roman thought Emelia, the gray-haired empath who worked at the sex doll shop, would treat him any differently than her other clients, he was sadly mistaken.

They were in her element now, and he knew this as soon as he entered the place and was instructed by a passing female wearing a tight black dress to take a seat.

The female employee did give him a funny look when she saw that he was holding a jacket under his arm, and that the person with him, Coma, looked strangely like a sex doll. But she didn’t say anything, moving to the back room instead to let Emelia know Roman was here for his appointment.

They had changed the furniture at the sex-doll shop, going for red leather sofas this time that really stood out in the minimal space. As Roman sat there, his elbows on his knees, his hands tangled in his white hair, he stared down at the polished wood floor wondering how it had come to this.

Even with Coma sitting next to him, he felt entirely alone in the room, exhausted, aware of the fact that he needed some sleep.

It had been an exhausting day, both emotionally and somewhat physically, although it had been Coma who had done most of the heavy lifting. He looked over to the masked doll and smiled at her, Coma returning his smile, a sparkle behind her red eyes.

“I can never thank you enough,” he started to tell her.

“Mr. Martin,” Emelia said as she entered the room, interrupting their moment. “I’m so glad you could join us. Can I offer you some tea?”

Emelia was as beautiful as ever in her business attire and emerald-green heels. She wore a blouse with an extra button opened at the front, the flowing fabric tucked into an emerald-green skirt.

Once Roman declined her offer, she sat, crossing one leg over the other and pointing her foot at the ground.

“I see,” she finally said, staring deeply into Roman’s eyes.

“Dammit.” Roman was too late to stop the telepathic tendrils pressing forward into his face, pushing out the back of his skull.

In the end, he decided not to let the fact that she had already mind-scanned him bother him, realizing it was easier than having to explain himself.

“And that’s her head?” Emelia asked, nodding toward Roman’s bundled-up jacket.

“Yes.”

“This certainly isn’t the place to be having this type of conversation,” she told him. “I would have preferred if we’d met and discussed these things over coffee.”

“When do you get off?” Roman asked.

“Not for…” Emelia’s eyes darted left and right. “I suppose I could get off sooner rather than later. My replacement should be here in an hour.”

“Should we go somewhere else then?”

“We can finish part of this discussion here; then you can take me to dinner after. How’s that?”

“Sure,” Roman said, looking at her suspiciously for a moment, making sure she hadn’t implanted this idea. “I’ve just eaten, but it was just a snack, so sure.”

He recalled that when she had shown up to his apartment with a bottle of champagne, there had been a spark between them, and in that moment, he instantly cast the thought aside, realizing that the telepath who paraded around as an empath would be able to decipher what he was thinking.

“So you have a doll head and you need a doll body, am I understanding this correctly?” Emelia asked.

“That’s right,” said Roman. “And I want to see if you can make some adjustments as well.”

“Is her breast size not to your liking?”

“You know what I mean,” Roman told her, tapping on his temple.

“You want me to make her smarter? Because that’s your job. Please spell out what you’re looking for, Roman.”

“Why should I spell it out when you can just read my mind?”

“Because, what we do here has to be official,” she said.

“I want you to put metal in her body.”

“That will make her heavy, Mr. Martin.”

“Not a lot of metal, but I want you to put it along her forearms, here,” he said showing her where he meant on his own arm. “I want the metal to be cut into two-inch slits, and stacked on top of one another like gills…”

“So she can use it as a weapon if she wants, correct?”

“Yes, and of course this would be under her skin, so it wouldn’t be visible at all.”

“That’s going to be a pretty unorthodox order…”

“Just say something like it’s for weight, and that I like to pretend my doll is hitting me and I want to put some weight behind it when I control her arm. Something like that. Sounds fucked up, but most kinks are. Or just use your powers.”

“You realize my powers don’t work long distance, correct?” Emelia asked.

“Aware.”

“And I will have to special order this from our supplier in the Northern Alliance.”

“Please, special order it then.”

“If I’m going to special order that, would you like me to order something similar for your other doll?” Emelia asked, nodding her chin at Coma.

“Hadn’t really thought of that…”

“In the meantime, we can get Celia’s head placed on another doll’s body, one that’s already here in our facility. Actually, let me check out the head first, to see how much work will need to be done before I make that promise. But regarding the custom bodies, what you have just described has to be special ordered, and if I ordered two, it might make it more worthwhile for manufacturer.”

“Coma?” Roman asked as he unwrapped his bundle, carefully handing Emelia Celia’s head.

Rather than leave his jacket lying on the couch with Casper’s lifeless body on it, Roman put the jacket on, placing the tiny doll back in his pocket.

“There are some portions that are melted here,” said Emelia as she turned Celia’s head over in her hands.

“I can smooth those out now,” Roman told her. “What should this look like? Can you have a doll’s head brought in from the back? I should be able to get it into whatever shape you need to reattach it to a body.”

“Yes, but…” Emelia’s eyes lit up. “Congratulations, I didn’t pick that up earlier.”

“Yep, I’m an exemplar now, and I can use my powers whenever I want,” Roman told her.

“In that case, yes, I can have my assistant fetch a head.”

It was only a few moments later that the back door opened and the same woman Roman had seen earlier entered, carrying a doll’s head in a plastic bag.

“Thank you,” Emelia told the woman as she took the head from her.

The empath removed the plastic and showed the head to Roman just as her assistant stepped back out of the room.

The doll’s head was shaped differently than Celia’s, her skin darker, her eyes wider, her hair black. But the neck was the same, and he saw immediately what he needed to do to Celia’s neck to make it match the other.

Placing both hands on the coffee table before him, Roman lifted his hands, reshaping the plastic flesh of Celia’s neck until it perfectly matched the example doll’s head.

“You know, if you decide not to become a spy for Centralia, you could always get into this type of business.”

“Sex dolls?”

“It pays the bills, and it keeps me out of trouble,” Emelia told him. “And your ability to repair them would give you instant leverage with some of the manufacturers, especially for damaged dolls.”

Roman cringed. “I really don’t think that’s for me.”

“Just a suggestion,” Emelia said. “In any event, we will get you a temporary body for Celia while we have one or two bodies manufactured.”

“Two,” Coma said. “It would likely be more useful for me than it would be Celia, but it’s good for her to have one as well.”

“Good, then two it is. Now, about that dinner. I know a good spot not so far from here, but the wait time can be up to an hour. It’s so sweet of you to agree to book a table for us right now while I finish up here.”

“Yeah,” Roman said, not aware that the words Emelia had said had been both verbal and mental at the same time. “I’ll go get in line.”

It was only after Roman made the reservation and took a seat in the waiting area alongside Coma that he realized Emelia had used her power on him. He wasn’t very annoyed by this; after all, he needed something to do to get his mind off what he actually wanted to do, which was immediately go for revenge.

So maybe it was a good thing that a distraction had presented itself, and once he got the custom bodies made, Roman’s two dolls would be more powerful in the future.

He wanted to animate Casper, but he decided to refrain from doing so for the time being, realizing that sitting in the waiting area of a fancy restaurant and speaking to a tiny person in his pocket would probably elicit some curious looks. He already felt underdressed seeing the men and women enter the restaurant in nice suits and elegant gowns, and he felt bad for Coma as well, who wore a ruffled blue dress with a few tears in it from the earlier fight.

She had cleaned up some of the scruff marks in the bathroom, and she had also brought her hair into a single ponytail rather than pigtails, but the two still looked out of place.

Roman had even entertained the idea of going home quickly and changing his clothing, only to remember, yet again, that he didn’t have a home.

Not any longer.

Eventually, Roman was led to a table for four, where he ordered a bottle of chilled champagne. This wasn’t like him either, to start ordering before someone arrived, and he wondered yet again if this had been something Emelia had instructed him to do.

“This place is really nice,” said Coma, who sat to his right, allowing for Emelia to sit in front of Roman once she finally came.

“You’re right about that,” Roman said. “It is not the type of place I normally eat at. Although, Ava might enjoy it here.”

“You keep going on dates like these, and you’ll have to manufacture more money,” Coma said matter-of-factly.

“Yes, that is something I will need to do later. It’s not very hard, though. It just requires some paper and cash for me to copy.”

Until Roman became whatever it was he was going to become next, he would have to live on cash. This would require a little more work on his part, but he was up for the challenge.

“I bet Celia would like this place,” Coma said.

“Yes, she most certainly would,” Roman told her. “That would be a cheap date…”

Coma laughed. “I get it, I get it, we can’t eat.”

“But I can, and I will gladly eat for both of you. Sure, let’s take her on a date sometime.”

“But no Casper,” Coma said. “Not that I dislike her…”

“She may be useful—at some point anyway,” Roman said.

“Yes, if we ever need to crawl into a small hole, Casper will be useful.”

“There are other things she can do, although I can’t really think of any at the moment,” Roman said, grinning at his masked doll.

Emelia came into the restaurant wearing a different outfit than before, a fox-fur scarf wrapped around her neck.

“She’s so fancy,” Coma said as the empath spotted Roman.

“That she is. A little too fancy sometimes, but fancy nonetheless.”

“Great, you ordered chilled wine,” Emelia said, smiling from Roman to Coma as she undid her scarf and gave it to the waiter. “Sorry, I meant to leave this up at the front,” she told him, the man simply nodding as he stepped away.

“Yes, I ordered it,” Roman said, raising an eyebrow at her.

“It was your idea, wasn’t it?” she asked. She had a fresh coat of makeup on, her lips glossy now, her cheeks just a bit redder than they’d been the last time he saw her, which was only about forty-five minutes ago.

“You had time to get changed?” Roman asked.

“I always have a change of clothing in my office,” she said. “You never know when you’ll have to meet a client after agreeing to manufacture dolls for him with metal in their skeletons.”

“Well, you look great,” Roman said.

“Thank you, and I can’t say the same for you, but I do know you can clean up nicely.”

“Yeah, I don’t have a lot of clothing options right now, considering the fact that someone trying to kill me is living in my home.”

“You’d think someone would do something about that,” Emelia said as she started looking through the menu.

“Someone is trying to do something about it,” Roman snapped back.

“Why don’t we just use names?” Coma asked.

Both exemplars turned to Coma and then looked back at each other, and Emelia started to laugh. “Your doll has a point.”

“She usually does,” Roman said, a wry grin stretching across his face.

Emelia closed the menu and placed it on the table. The waiter came by, stopped, nodded, and turned away again.

“Is that how telepaths order?” Roman asked her.

“Yes, when we don’t feel like talking to the waiter.”

“And you ordered what I wanted as well?” Roman asked, glancing down at the menu once more.

“Of course I did. You wanted the Eastern grilled chicken with sweet potatoes and green beans cooked in butter. It looks like someone is becoming more diverse in the foods they like.”

“I guess that comes with travel,” Roman said. A different waiter stepped past and took their menus, replacing them with porcelain plates decorated with fine blue etching. The same waiter uncorked the bottle of chilled wine and filled each of their glasses.

Emelia took her first sip. “But as I was saying, it appears that you are alone in all this, aside from your dolls. Am I right?”

“You know, rather than read my mind, you could just ask me questions…”

“Do you know how much time people waste going over details that are easier to share mentally? Do you really want to hash out what happened today? Wouldn’t you rather me just know, and be able to talk to you about it as if I were already there?”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“And you are aware that if you go about doing this, you could face some serious repercussions. Correct?”

“I’m aware,” Roman said after his first sip of champagne. “But I personally don’t feel like I have a choice. Do you? Or better, would you?”

Emelia shrugged. “I’m fairly certain that I will never be in your situation, but if I were you, I think I would let the appropriate people handle it.”

“Okay, sound advice, but what if you didn’t think the appropriate people could actually handle it? What would you do then?”

“Now there’s a good question,” she said, toasting Roman. “I apologize; we probably should have toasted before we had our first sips, but we can’t turn back time,” She said as their glasses clinked together. “And to answer your question, if I was stubborn enough to do this alone, going against the wishes of my government and the people who have granted me an amazing power, I would at least recruit a team.”

“A team…” Roman thought of all the exemplars he knew and came up empty-handed.

“You don’t know anyone that would help you out?”

“I haven’t really kept close with many exemplars,” Roman said, thinking of every one he had met who had a power. Of course, there was Ava, but she wouldn’t go along with anything that went against the government. He was sure of this. There was also Emelia, but Roman didn’t know how helpful her powers would be against Margo.

“You just assume I wouldn’t help?” Emelia asked. “You know, telepaths can be helpful, especially from a distance. I wouldn’t even have to be actively involved. And who is this other one?” She asked, her purple eyes sparkling. “This… Catherine. Yes, Catherine. A young wind user who you did some immigration paperwork for. I see. Oh Roman, you shouldn’t use her like that.”

“Who said anything about using her?” Roman asked.

“It’s clear she has a bit of a crush on you, even though she assumed you were a non-exemplar, but to ask her to do something like this…”

“I didn’t ask her yet,” Roman said, looking to Coma for support. The masked doll glanced between the two, clearly not aware of just how strange it was for Emelia to be answering Roman’s thoughts before he could fully conceptualize them.

“This could be interesting,” Emelia said, “a telepath, a wind user, and a guy who can animate inanimate objects. You may have to really sweet-talk her to get her to agree to something like this, especially because she has already faced difficulties with her immigration status. But I’m sure a charming, orange-eyed man like you can figure that one out.”

“What other options do I have?” Roman asked.

“You mean besides using people?” Emelia smiled at him. “I’m kidding—well, sort of. You are using people, but at least it is for an interesting cause. I will give you that.”

“I don’t know,” Roman finally said, finishing his glass of champagne. “I just don’t know…”

“No, you do know. If there is one thing I can tell you as a telepath, it is this: people need to accept their thoughts. That doesn’t mean they need to act on them, but they do need to accept them. And when a thought pushes its way past the membrane into a willable action, they need to accept this as well. I would say contact Catherine first, and see if she’s up for something like this. I’ve already agreed to help you in whatever limited capacity you need.”

“Why are you helping me?”

“Sometimes I’m glad that I’m the only telepath in the room,” Emelia said, biting her lip. “But to answer your question: I’m offering to help because I can sense how much this is hurting you. And it’s toxic. It makes me want to crawl up in my skin, if that makes any sense. It follows you around like a ravenous ghost, and I’m afraid it may eat you alive if you don’t do something about it.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Healing Long Shot

“There were other options, but I thought that this would be more up your alley,” Oscar told Nadine. “After all, it’s something you are already familiar with.”

The two were on the bottom floor of the safe house, eating porridge that Oscar had been working on all afternoon. Nadine hadn’t tried this particular style of porridge before, which had to slow cook for hours and hours, but she was definitely enjoying it.

“I just wasn’t expecting this…” Nadine looked down at the tech she had been gifted from the East.

It was still in its box, displayed as if it were a wedding ring, and part of her wanted to put it on and try it out, yet she was trying to maintain her composure, to act a little less excited than she truly was.

And Nadine didn’t know why she was doing this.

She was comfortable enough with Oscar around to somewhat be herself, but ever since coming back from the East and wading through the aftermath of the dilemma that had unfolded there, Nadine knew she needed to keep her cards close to her chest.

“Aren’t you going to try it on?” Oscar asked.

“I will, later,” she said as she took another bite of her porridge. “What else did you want to discuss?”

Nadine had been training at a gym near the safe house when Oscar had called her for a late dinner. She’d known she was going to receive some type of new tech, but she wasn’t expecting Oscar to have something else to discuss with her.

“I’ve made an executive decision,” he started to say.

“You’re retiring?” she asked.

Oscar laughed long and hard. “And give up all this?” He swept his hand at the dingy room. “Who would want to give up such a luxurious life?”

“I thought you had some plans for when you finally went back East,” Nadine said.

“There are always plans. Ask anyone who is about to retire what they want to do, and you’ll get a different answer every day.”

The two were interrupted by Lisa Painstake, who shuffled down the stairs with a bored look on her face.

“I kind of want to go out,” Lisa said.

“We would prefer if you stayed here,” Oscar started to tell her.

“Or I could go with her?” Nadine offered.

“Yes, I suppose that would work, but please, not too far. Oh, listen to me… I really have become like an old man, haven’t I?”

Nadine shrugged, a smirk stretching across her face. “You’re the one talking about retirement, not me.”

“What kind of porridge is this?” The pink-haired exemplar was standing near the stove peering into the pot, a curious look on her face.

“It’s an old family recipe. Just taste it, and if you like it, get yourself a bowl and join us. If you don’t, find something else to eat.”

“So what are you saying?” Nadine asked, returning her focus to the conversation they’d just been having. “What else did you want to discuss?”

“Fetch Eli, will you?” Oscar asked Lisa.

“He was playing with those toys you gave him last I checked.” Lisa tasted the porridge, considered the flavor for a moment, then nodded and filled her bowl. Once she set it on the table, she moved up the stairs rapidly to find Eli.

“It really is strange having young people around,” Oscar said. “Makes me feel even older, but they give me energy, too. Heh. I’m sort of like a vampire in that regard.”

“Vampires, huh?” Nadine asked.

“You read the briefing?” Oscar asked.

“I always do,” said Nadine.

The briefing she had read involved a rumored outbreak of vampirism in Centralia.

Oddly enough, Mister Fist and his crew had a part in unraveling the mystery. From intel Eastern spies had gathered, children were being shipped in from the West and the South using facilities owned by the Knight Corporation, which was one of Centralia’s richest and most powerful corporate entities.

A bad situation all around.

“Smells great,” Eli said as he came down the stairs, Lisa’s hand on his shoulder.

She led him to the table, to the spot where she had planned to sit. Lisa went to the kitchen again, got another bowl of porridge and rejoined everyone at the table, now sitting directly next to Oscar.

“Anyhow, I guess I should cut straight to the chase,” said Oscar. “Eli, it has been a pleasure having you around here, and I hope you can stay for a while longer.”

“It’s not so bad here, but I miss nature,” Eli said. “There’s no nature here. And Lisa took me to a park, but not in my real body.”

“We will go out soon, I promise you,” said Nadine.

“Eli, I know that you did a good thing back in the East, when you helped our friends with the power you haven’t really told anyone about,” Oscar said.

Nadine swallowed hard until Oscar continued, her handler now talking about Eli’s healing power, not the telepathic ability he’d displayed at the Eastern Province military complex.

She hadn’t told him about this.

It was sort of her secret weapon, and knowing that Oscar could be clever, she had also completely wiped it out of the forefront of her mind.

In fact, sitting at the table was the first time she had actually recalled the thought in front of him, and Nadine immediately cast the memory away for something easy to focus on: Roman.

She was a bit worried about him, but she didn’t want Oscar to know this, nor was she interested in getting much closer to him.

Nadine already saw a future in which Roman was a Centralian operative, a future in which they worked together at times but were ultimately enemies. It pained Nadine in a way to think of Roman as a future enemy, especially with all that he had done for her.

Which was why she was already trying to detach herself from him a bit, and had reminded herself several times over the last two days that sleeping with Roman would only complicate things.

Better to keep things simple.

“…and we want to know more about your power, Eli,” Oscar said, Nadine’s attention cutting to him. “So I’ve invited a few friends to run some tests on you starting tomorrow. They’re going to set up a small laboratory in the room Roman was staying in. I promise it’s not going to hurt or anything.”

“Oscar…” Nadine started to say, feeling the urge to kick him under the table.

“Yes, Nadine will be here too. And Lisa, so don’t worry. You see, there aren’t many of your kind left. Nadine told you that, right?”

“Yeah,” Eli said as he spooned more porridge into his mouth.

“And that makes you unique, but we don’t want people with your power to die. We need people with the ability to heal.”

“Oscar…” Nadine said again.

“That’s right,” Oscar said, finally looking to her. “I had made an executive decision based on a number of things, including the fact that from what we can tell, there are only two healers left in our entire world. And we’re looking at one of them. We have to be able to replicate this power.”

“It won’t be so bad,” Lisa told Nadine.

“This conversation doesn’t involve you,” Nadine snapped back.

“I’ll be okay, Nadine,” Eli said, placing his little hand on her arm.

“I just…”

“We will be careful with him,” Oscar assured her. “But it is important that we get a handle on this. If something happens to him or the other healer, that’s it, unless another one is born. And we can’t just make that happen. So we must learn to replicate it. You’ll be helping a lot of people, Eli.”

“But it has never worked before,” Nadine reminded him. “Of all the powers we replicated, we haven’t been able to replicate healing. If we could, we would have done it a long time ago.”

“They have some new techniques they would like to try, the same that they used on Roman. It is hardly invasive, and it may prove fruitful.” Oscar lifted his napkin and wiped his mouth. “It’s worth a shot.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Tension Buildup and Release

“You came back,” Ava told Roman. He stood before her, Coma at his side, Casper deactivated and tucked in the front pocket of his jacket.

Roman could feel the alcohol now; the bottle of wine had hit him as soon as he’d gotten up from his table at the restaurant.

And seeing Ava stand before him with her fiery red hair, her cute house shorts, the tank top she was wearing that bared her midriff…

Roman took a deep breath in and let out an audible exhale.

“Are you okay, there?”

“Yes,” he said softly. “I think so.”

“And you took care of Celia?” Ava asked, genuine concern in her eyes.

“She should be up and running tomorrow, at least temporarily. I’m having new bodies commissioned.”

“New bodies?” Ava asked as she led him into her apartment, Roman taking in a cinnamon scent that seemed to be wafting from her bedroom.

“I want to have them designed with some metal in their bodies, along their arms,” he said, showing her exactly what he meant. “It could be useful for a number of things, from a hedgehog-like attack, if you can imagine that, to forming metal gloves for them at a moment’s notice.”

“Customizing your dolls…” Ava considered this for a moment, licking her lips as she did so. “Well, it seems like a promising idea to me,” she finally said as she led Roman over to the couch.

She had a small fire going in the fireplace, which Roman figured she must have lit with her power. He chuckled at this, not sure why it was funny, concluding that he would have done the same thing if he had the power to command flames.

“So you return to my home drunk?” Ava asked.

“Something like that,” Roman mumbled. “It wasn’t my intention, but the employee at the sex-doll shop insisted, and she’s doing me a favor, so I obliged. Anyway. Let’s talk tomorrow. Do we have training in the morning?”

“You will have training every morning now until your future role in Centralian society is agreed upon. And then you will have training after that. The training will never stop. Part of my training is training you. You hated your nine-to-five, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, now training is your nine-to-five.”

“It sounds like a real job,” Roman said, cringing at the thought. But he was being playful at the moment. Even with all the bullshit he had experienced that day, he was feeling playful for once, like joking around.

Ava smirked at him. “You don’t want to work?”

“I got out of that line of work the other day,” he said, laughing at his own bad joke.

“You know, I have some champagne, if you’re interested…”

“I think I’ve had way too much as it is,” Roman told her.

“Nothing wrong with a little nightcap,” she said as she turned to the kitchen.

Roman looked at Coma and shrugged. The doll sat in the same chair she’d sat in earlier, when Ava and Roman had made out. She nodded at Roman, and for a moment he just stared at her curiously.

“What is it?” he whispered.

“Go for it,” Coma said.

“Go for it?” Roman mouthed.

Coma nodded, her hands coming to the arm rests so she could brace herself to be deactivated.

“Are you sure?” Roman asked, his voice just a little bit louder this time.

“Yes, a nightcap,” Ava called from the kitchen, assuming he was speaking to her.

Coma smiled at Roman, a mischievous look behind her red eyes. She was a part of him that he didn’t let out often enough, at least not lately.

And Coma knew what Roman was planning to get into the following day, and even if she wouldn’t comment on whatever conversation he would inevitably have with Ava, maybe he would feel less pressure if she was knocked out for the time being.

So he deactivated her, his power dial flashing as all his his power returned.

“So the champagne might be a little flat,” Ava said as she handed him his glass. “I kind of opened it a few days ago.”

“Whatever, as long as it tastes good,” Roman said, never one to be a snob when it came to alcohol. He took his first sip of the champagne as Ava sat, and he noticed it was indeed flat.

“How is it?”

“Not bad.”

“But not good, right?”

“It’s not good or bad. It just is.”

“Now that you’re an exemplar, are you going to get a master’s degree in philosophy too?”

Roman laughed. “My powers would make it a little bit easier to cheat…”

“When are you going to learn you can’t just cheat your way through all of this?” she asked, and by her tone, Roman couldn’t tell if she was being serious or not.

They hadn’t known each other for a long time, but Ava had already done so much for him. She really had put her neck on the line to help him, not only with his power but to cover up mistakes, like what had happened at the immigration office…

The thought of Kevin Blackbook came back to Roman in that moment, and he briefly wondered what the chubby bastard was up to. Would Roman never see him again? How had Kevin come to be associated with cat girls? Did he know Roman possessed the power designated for him?

Roman took another sip from the champagne, drowning the thought, his mind returning to Ava and how much she had helped him.

She had pushed for him to have his power, even after his confession…

This thought triggered a conversation he had been part of earlier regarding his future role in Centralian society. Roman knew that if he was approved to work as a spy, he would be actively working against Nadine at times.

And he didn’t want to.

He wanted to work with Nadine, regardless of what countries they were from. He liked being around her, he’d risked his life for her, and she had gone above and beyond to help him as well.

So many pieces, an endless puzzle, Roman’s life tangled to the point that he no longer knew how to unravel it or put it back together. All he could do now was move forward and ignore the debris, and moving forward meant looking back and honoring his wife.

He finished the glass of champagne and set it on the side table.

“You’re supposed to sip it,” Ava said, a curl of her red hair falling into her face. “At least when it’s this flat…”

“I’ll get some more.” Roman tried to push himself off the couch, and he failed miserably.

“You never do stop causing trouble, do you?” Ava finished her glass as well, wincing as the cheap champagne trickled down her gullet. She went to the kitchen and rather than bring his glass this time, she simply brought the champagne bottle over to them.

“You need to pour it yourself,” she told him. “That’s how I’ll know how drunk you are.”

“Definitely tipsy,” Roman said, the urge to burp coming to him, and he pressed his hands onto his stomach to push it back down. He felt something move inside him and he remembered that he needed to be careful, especially in the state of mind he was currently in. He could accidentally animate an internal organ and cause an issue if he wasn’t careful.

“Clearly.”

“You don’t have to let me stay here,” Roman said.

“You already are here, and I’m definitely not letting you leave my place. Not in your condition.”

“A teleporter can get me, take me back to where I’m supposed to be staying…”

“If that’s where you wanted to go, you would have already gone there.” Ava poured herself half a glass of champagne. “Am I right?”

“Why do you help me?” Roman asked, confusion coming over his face.

“Roman…”

“Why?”

“Just have another drink,” Ava told him as she poured more champagne for him.

“I thought I was supposed to pour,” Roman said, his words slurring ever so slightly.

A voice at the back of his head told him to get ahold of himself, to not say anything stupid, to not mention the fact that he had already figured out how he was going to go after Margo, how Emelia had agreed to help them, how he planned to ask Nadine, how Emelia had offered to come meet Catherine with him…

No, he wouldn’t let that happen—he wouldn’t let Emelia simply use her telepathic powers on the young wind-using super.

With his glass of champagne now shaking a bit as he raised it to his lips, Roman tried to remember what Catherine looked like.

Shit, he was going to show up and ask the wind user for help and he didn’t even remember what she looked like.

He’d only met her once…

No, twice.

Once in his office, and once outside the immigration office. He remembered her being normal, kind of mousy, but that was all.

He had sensed that Catherine had an adventurous soul, though, and maybe after he told her his story, she would agree to help out. He could now forge any documents she needed, so he could help her in that regard.

An even exchange?

Maybe.

No.

Absolutely not an even exchange. He had to remind himself of this as the flat champagne met his gullet. What he would be doing for her would not be life or death, and what Catherine would be doing for him was the very definition.

“You have that dark look on your face again,” Ava said, scooting a bit closer to Roman.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” he mumbled.

“I know I shouldn’t like that side of you,” Ava said, looking past him now.

“What side of me?”

“The side I know I won’t be able to tame.”

“Tame, huh? Maybe that’s the fun of it,” Roman said as he drunkenly set his wine glass down.

“Maybe that’s why I help you.” Ava was practically on his lap now, her hand behind his head, fingers moving through his white hair.

“We’re not supposed to do this,” Roman told her.

“I’m the one who’s supposed to say that.”

“Ava…” Roman said.

“It’s probably best that we just get this over with.”

Ava came alive, Roman falling backwards as she lunged for him, kissing him passionately, Roman trying to perform as best he could given the circumstances.

For one, he was off balance. His back now pressed into the armrest of the couch, Ava leaned her weight against him in a way that would have been uncomfortable had Roman not been drunk.

His hands were moving up the sides of her body, cupping her breasts, his thumbs pressing into her hip bones, his glass of champagne now a puddle on the floor.

“Take off your shirt,” she told him in between kisses, biting his lip, a warmness about her that he had never experienced in another woman.

Her skin was on fire, almost hot to the touch, the heat moving over the bottom half of his face as they made out.

“Maybe we…”

“Shut up,” she said as she ripped his shirt open, Roman going from bumbling idiot to drunkenly in control of the situation as he flipped around, pinning Ava on the couch now, his shirt torn open, his hands pressing the wall as he looked down at her.

“Fuck me,” she whispered, her nostrils flaring open, a fire igniting behind her eyes yet staying contained within her pupils.

“I plan to.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Orange

“I see you are taking care of yourself,” the man said, sarcasm heavy in his comment as he looked around Roman’s living room counting four corpses and an animated doll.

The well-dressed man with black hair had worked with Margo before; he knew what she was capable of, and he knew how to recognize one of her creations. There weren’t many exemplars that the Western Province could send to deal with Margo, which was why he’d been chosen to be her handler of sorts.

“Everything is fine,” Margo said, not making eye contact with him.

Like many in the Western Province, the man was named after a color. Orange had been there during the Western Plague, his power helpful in clearing contained areas, the deaths of hundreds of vampires under his belt.

It didn’t pain him as much as it bothered him to see Margo this way. She’d always had a screw loose, and while many considered her to be the most powerful exemplar from the West, Orange knew that her psychosis would be her downfall.

And it was weird to see it playing out so soon. He figured Margo would have another year or two, maybe more, before her power finally went to her head.

Orange couldn’t help but smirk remembering what she’d looked like a decade ago, beautiful and fierce, fond of wearing white clothing that matched her hair and different-colored earrings to match her eyes.

My, how far she had fallen.

Current-day Margo was a mess, rail thin, dressed in all black, scars and black ink completely coating her face from the nose down, her hair dirty and stringy.

Life had really done a number on her.

But Orange didn’t feel bad for Margo and how she had clearly been affected by PTSD. There were others he had worked with, and most had made it through. Against impossible odds, really, considering what many had seen.

Orange himself had made it through, transitioning from a predator to someone who could serve in any capacity. He had climbed the ranks and made something of himself despite the horrors he’d been privy to. And even after all he had seen, from corruption to poor choices, he was still loyal to his country, to the Western Province, which meant he was loyal to its overall mission: to shift some of the power away from Centralia, one brick at a time.

“Thank you for standing there and quietly judging me,” Margo said. The sex doll next to her—which Margo had already told Orange was named Paris—bent forward and whispered something into Margo’s ear.

“Thank you,” Orange told Margo, “because I was really hoping to avoid confrontation in this meeting.”

“There’s not a lot I can do if you take all the oxygen out of the room,” Margo reminded him, her white teeth now visible as she smiled.

“I’m aware that your creations can hold power for a limited amount of time after you’ve given it to them,” he reminded her. “We worked together for a while. You know what I’m capable of, and I know what you’re capable of. I am sad to do what I have been instructed to come here and do.”

“It’s just a ranking,” Margo told him.

“It is a ranking that you have spent your career building.”

“It has been partially stripped before,” she reminded him.

“It has, but that was years ago, and up until the last few weeks, you were sticking to the mission. But now this, now all of this.” Orange waved his hands at the two corpses that stood at the door, gesturing toward a female corpse in the kitchen cooking something while another corpse, a man from the South, deanimated at the moment, sat in a chair with his head bent forward.

“It’s not as gruesome as it seems.”

Orange started to laugh. “You have a sick sense of humor, you know that?”

“You are the one that’s laughing,” Margo reminded him.

“So, as you know, your rankings are all being stripped from this point forward. This means you will have to come back to…”

“I have a better idea,” Margo said.

“A better idea?” Orange asked as Paris again leaned forward and whispered into Margo’s ear. He stared at the two curiously for a moment, almost wishing he had brought a telepath with him but knowing it would be little use against Margo, and definitely worthless against a plastic doll.

“One of the teams after me is Mister Fist and his crew, and I am suggesting we make a trade-off here.”

“A trade-off?”

Margo nodded. “Not all exemplar teams are created equally, and Mister Fist’s team is one of the most famous in Centralia, one of the more popular as well. If I were to kill them all for you, for the Western Province, it would be a hit in public morale. I would also be taking a powerful team off the streets—a team, if you recall, that has thwarted our operations several times before.”

“And what’s in it for you?”

“Nothing. That’s not what I’m trying to trade here. All I’m asking is for you to bring me an amplifier. I won’t be able to do it without a power amplifier. I am already strained animating the bodies I have here in this room. At full capacity, I would have a shadow user, a strongman, a doll I can put power into, and an absorber, all of whom would be fighting for me at their maximum power levels.”

“So the trade-off would be I don’t take you now, and instead, you rid us of Mister Fist’s exemplar team. But I would have to provide a power amplifier, correct? Is there anything else that would be part of this trade-off? And what would happen after you theoretically took out their team?”

“I would return to the West and face any additional charges the government would like to bring against me. Although, I may prove useful in other capacities, possibly along the border, where Centralia continues to encroach as a proxy war between the North and the Southern Alliance takes place.”

“Why do I feel like you have a hidden motive in what you are requesting?”

“No hidden motive. I promise.” Orange laughed. “Margo, I’m not that stupid…”

“I don’t think you’re stupid at all, but I know that you are considering my offer because if you weren’t, you would’ve already disposed of me by now.”

“That’s not why I came here…” he said, but Orange had never been great at lying.

And it was somewhat true, he hadn’t come here with the goal to kill Margo, but he had come with the realization that there was a likelihood this would happen, and that he would have to choke her out quickly, dealing with whatever she threw at him until she died.

Because the things Margo animated tended to linger, Orange really had no idea how long they’d be alive after their host was gone. He was prepared for additional combat, two sleek wrist guards tucked under the sleeves of his jacket and a backup team standing with the teleporter now, ready to come at his signal.

“I will just pretend like you’re not lying to me,” Margo said after Paris the doll whispered in her ear again.

This was starting to annoy Orange a bit, but it was also par for the course. He knew coming here to expect the unexpected, so to see an animated sex doll sitting on the couch wearing lingerie and whispering in Margo’s ear wasn’t exactly outside his range of expectations.

But it was strange, and he didn’t like the fact that the doll was probably plotting his death somehow.

Still, if Margo had wanted to make a move by now, she would have, the dangerous exemplar not one to waste words.

“You know I don’t make those decisions,” Orange finally said.

“But you can run them up the chain of command, can’t you?”

“I’m already in the process of doing that,” he told her.

Orange paced for a moment as he started firing off mental messages.

As he moved back and forth in front of Margo, he felt sorry for the man who owned this apartment.

He had read up enough on the situation to know that the owner was a man named Roman Martin, and that he had almost been an asset but that this had fallen through after he had won a superpower and eventually knocked the real Paris off.

Speaking of which…

“You are going to get sidetracked, aren’t you?” Orange asked suddenly. “What about the person who killed the real Paris?”

“I am the real Paris,” Paris the doll said.

“You heard her,” said Margo, nodding at the doll.

“That’s not funny,” Orange said. “Paris was one of our own, and while she may not have been through some of the things you and I experienced, she represented a new generation and she was talented in her own right. I think she would’ve gone on to do some amazing things for our cause.”

“My statement stands,” Margo said. “I no longer care for the man who killed Paris because now I have Paris with me.”

She leaned her head to the right, locking lips with Paris the doll, the two of them kissing passionately for a moment while Orange watched on.

“Margo, how I wish you weren’t crazy,” he mumbled to himself as he started pacing again, waiting for a response from his superiors.

“Would you like me to make you something to drink?” The zombie woman in the kitchen asked.

Orange knew who she was as well, and it was one of the more gruesome details of this little situation. This was Celia Martin, Roman’s deceased wife, who appeared to be boiling water at the moment.

From the sounds she’d been making earlier, the woman was also cutting something.

“I…”

“Don’t be shy,” Margo told him. “A dead woman can make tea as well as a woman that is alive, trust me. I wouldn’t have asked her to man the kitchen if that weren’t the case. Although I haven’t been eating so well lately.”

“That’s why we’re having Celia cook for you,” Paris reminded Margo. “You need to start eating better, sleeping more too.”

“Yes, I felt like I haven’t slept in ages.”

Orange rubbed his hand over his face for a moment, hoping to forget all this one day, possibly even sooner if he put in for a telepathic mind wipe. This was something he had done before, mostly to forget some of the more grotesque memories he had of the Western Plague.

Sometimes it was good to keep one’s memories of past traumas. Most of the time, it was not.

“I’m fine,” he told Celia after she again asked him if he wanted tea.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Orange assured her.

The messages started to come in, the chain of command also needing to check with their chain of command, and since these telepathic messages were encrypted to prevent Centralian intelligent forces from getting them, they took even longer to be relayed.

Orange was growing uncomfortable.

He was severely outnumbered, even if he had a teleporter with backup exemplars on standby, even if he could kill Margo faster than she could kill him.

That was something that took some time to master. Not only could he control oxygen levels, Orange had spent years honing his power so he could actually control a person’s lungs, and he already had his grip on Margo’s lungs, the woman likely aware of this fact.

Margo was fast as well, able to do things like collapse veins or disturb bones or muscles, and there very well could be a draw between the two, both of them dying in the process.

One scenario that had already played out in Orange’s head was him exploding her lungs at the same time she did something to one of his vital organs, perhaps blocking blood flow to his heart or reducing the size of his skull and crushing his brain.

But in the end, this wasn’t how it would play out; a mental message came in and finally gave him the okay.

“Your request has been approved,” Orange told Margo. “Take out Mister Fist and his team, and once you’ve done so, you will be returning to the West. Your ranking is still stripped, and we have a team ready to eliminate any future threats you may cause. Your target is no longer Roman Martin. Your target is Mister Fist. Are we clear?”

“Clear as the night is long,” Margo told him. “I will not let my country down.”

“Good,” Orange said, turning away from her. “Try to get some rest, and we’ll be in touch.”

“Bye,” Celia called from the kitchen as his teleporter arrived, whisking him away.

Chapter Thirty: Strange Request

Roman’s eyes fluttered open. It was morning and he was in Ava’s bed, the fire user’s body next to him warm to the touch.

He stayed lying on his back for a moment, a haze of images coming over him. He could barely remember if they’d had sex or not, but he was pretty sure it happened.

Removing the cover, Roman glanced down at his member for a moment, wishing it could relay to him what had taken place.

A smile formed across his face. Was he seriously thinking about animating his cock?

Roman tried not to mess around too much with modifying any part of his body, knowing full well he didn’t have that type of control. Maybe in a couple years he would be able to do something like increase the flow of blood to his penis, but not now. As for now, a solution like that was off the table.

Besides, he had a pretty good feeling he had performed well enough last night.

More images were coming to him now, Ava leaning over him, her red hair in his face, his teacher on top, her hips gyrating before she reversed it, Roman watching her ass move up and down as she looked at him over her shoulder, licking her lips and moaning.

“Fuck…” he whispered, suddenly feeling aroused again.

There had been a lot of tension between the two, and what an outlet for it to inevitably find.

He remembered standing at one point, both of them moving to the wall, the fire user bent forward and spreading her cheeks, Roman on his knees licking every part of her, entering her again, fucking the pain away.

She had told him to finish on her tits, but he hadn’t been able to pull out in time, he remembered that much. It had been a clumsy, passionate session, but that was usually how drunken sex went. And she hadn’t seemed too disappointed as she moved to the bathroom to clean up, returning to Roman and making out with him again as he fingered her.

What a night.

What a fucking night.

Roman thought for a moment about spooning up next to Ava, seeing if they could rekindle what they had started last night.

And he almost did.

Looking down at her nude body that wasn’t covered by the blanket, he saw the curve of her lower back and knew he would fit perfectly between her legs, that it would only take them a moment to start back up again.

But in the end, Roman simply got out of the bed, doing his best not to disturb her.

He walked into her bathroom to find scorch marks on the countertop, wondering what that was about. He saw the toilet hadn’t been flushed, so he flushed it after relieving himself. Roman took one look in the mirror, combing his white hair out of his face and noticing a little white stubble on his chin, his orange eyes bloodshot.

Sort of regretting what he was about to do, he fired off a mental message to Catherine, the wind user he needed to be part of this plan. As he quietly dressed, still feeling the effects of the alcohol, the message came in from Catherine telling him she was free.

What about breakfast? Roman thought back to her. I know several good places.

Sure. I mean, I wasn’t planning to do anything today anyway.

He finished buttoning up his shirt before sending another message. Where are you?

I am near the Robmon District, Catherine thought back to him.

Let’s go to the Star Diner on 33rd and 17th. It’s usually a little less crowded than the other ones. I think their chef is better too. I should be there shortly.

Great, I’ll get ready and see you there in about an hour.

Roman brought Coma to life, the masked doll standing almost immediately. She didn’t yawn, stretch her arms, or do anything to indicate she had been out for an extended period of time.

“I’m going to drop you and Casper off at the safehouse,” he told her. “I have to go meet the wind user, Catherine, the one I was telling you and Emelia about. If everything goes well, she will help us tonight.”

“Good.” Coma’s red eyes darted over to the couch, where she saw a loose bra.

“Things got interesting last night,” Roman said as he put on his jacket. “I’ll just keep it at that.”

“It looks like it,” Coma said. “Did you enjoy yourself?”

“From what I can remember, yes.”

Coma shrugged. “I wish I could try alcohol. It would be nice to just do something and not have to remember it if you didn’t want to.”

“That’s not what alcohol is for,” Roman told her as he ordered a teleporter.

“It sure seems like it.”

Roman chuckled. “Maybe you’re right,” he told her as the teleporter appeared, a frail woman with the sides of her head shaved and the rest of her hair in a long, highlighted ponytail.

A swirl of energy took shape at the back of the woman’s neck, the energy forming a pair of enormous hands that reached out to Roman and latched on to his body.

Soon they were standing in the room Nadine had prepared for Roman. A small place, but cozy enough, with fresh sheets on the bed and a set of folded towels on the nightstand.

“Just dropping her off here,” he told the teleporter as he handed Casper’s limp body to Coma.

“Got it,” the teleporter said, not wanting to go any deeper into whatever weird shit was happening here.

“I’ll be back shortly,” Roman told Coma, and for once he moved over to her and brought her into his arms, hugging her. “Thanks for understanding.”

“I’ll take care of Casper,” she said.

“She shouldn’t be very hard to take care of in her current state.”

With that, Roman and the teleporter vanished, reappearing in front of Star Diner. It was a rainy day, so Roman immediately went for the shelter of an awning, using his power to stretch the edge of the awning out just a little bit further to prevent the rain from getting on him.

The teleporter saw him do this and paused, looking at Roman curiously for a moment, not giving two shits about the rain.

Roman shrugged, and she disappeared in the same bizarre way she’d first appeared.

Rather than wait outside, he headed into the diner, realizing he was a bit early. He needed some time to sober up, which was why he took the first booth available, one by the window, and immediately ordered a pot of tea.

The tea came and Roman started drinking it up, hoping he would be able to cut some of the fuzz away. His mouth tasted like shit, and he was starting to regret that he hadn’t cleaned up a little bit back at the safehouse. Realizing his error, he moved to the bathroom and checked himself out in the mirror again, running some water on his face and sort of fixing his hair.

It would have to do, and he hoped his disheveled charm would be something Catherine liked.

He returned to his booth to find a fresh pot of tea waiting for him. The pot sat on an embroidered swath of fabric in the center of the table, a cup already poured for him. Even though it was hot, Roman gulped it down, ready for its effects to kick into gear.

The tea he had chosen was one with both caffeine and detoxification properties. He poured another cup, noticing the fuzz starting to go away. He drank this one too, feeling a hundred times better than he’d felt just moments ago.

This was one advantage of Class Es.

The intelligence-based exemplars were able to come up with dozens of superfoods, potent energy drinks, and other enhanced foods that made healthy living relatively simple. Even the junk foods of Centralia were packed full of vitamins, natural sugars, fiber, and other things that kept Centralians living well past their primes.

Roman considered for a moment having a teleporter bring him a hangover-curing energy drink, but with his third cup of tea, he was truly feeling rejuvenated enough to forgo this option. And it was at about this time he saw a woman with white hair outside, a red braid dipping behind her right ear.

She had created a cocoon of wind preventing any of the rain from touching her. It was subtle, but it looked almost like she was walking with a force field around her. The Northern Alliance exemplar named Catherine wore a brown dress, a brown bow in her hair, knee-high socks, and shiny leather loafers with brass buckles.

She couldn’t see Roman as she approached, which gave him just a little bit longer to prepare, to get his mind in the right place and his story straight. He wasn’t going to lie to her, but he needed to be careful how he worded things, considering he was asking her to do something illegal.

Then again, she didn’t know he was an exemplar yet, so maybe that would give him a little leverage once she saw what he was capable of.

Only time would tell.

Catherine entered the diner and Roman turned to the door, offering her a slight wave. She sat in front of him and, as she did so, the waitress slid by and pressed a menu onto the table.

“Anything you recommend?” she asked, a goofy smile taking shape on her face. “Also, hi—I should probably say hi.”

“Hi,” Roman said.

“So, it’s been awhile…” she said.

“It has,” came Roman’s response. “But we’ll catch up later; let’s order first. And as for what I recommend, their breakfast specials are pretty nice, good size, well made. I usually go with the ‘Economical,’ but you may want something else.”

“An Economical sounds good,” she said. “And oatmeal as well. I would like some oatmeal.”

“Great,” Roman said, nodding the waitress over. She approached quickly, a little sass to her walk. She took their order, not really making eye contact with him as she scribbled it down on her little pad.

“So…” Catherine started to say.

“I guess I should just come right out with it,” Roman told her.

“I’m listening…” A flicker of concern spread across her face, which she quickly covered up with another goofy grin.

“No, it’s nothing bad. Well, that depends on your definition of bad. We’ll just say it’s not great. Definitely not great. But first off, let’s start with what I can do for you.”

“What you can do for me?” Catherine asked.

“I know that we temporarily solved your immigration issue, but it could come back to haunt you, especially if you try to extend your stay in Centralia,” he said, taking his immigration advisor voice. “To extend your stay, you’ll need to file a DS-3650, and they will definitely be looking into your past issue when you do. If that fails, you may be able to extend by filing another DS-3650 while your first DS-3650 is processing, so two processing at the same time, which keeps you legal if the first one is rejected. It also gives you time to apply for the Centralia visa lottery. A long shot, but worth it. Of course, I can also forge all Centralian papers so you don’t have to do any of that, making it seem as if you were born here. Is this something you’re interested in doing?”

“I don’t really want to go back,” Catherine said. “The Northern Alliance can be…”

“Different?” Roman asked when she couldn’t come up with an adjective.

“Difficult.”

“Never been, but I did just get back from a trip to the Eastern Province. It was definitely eye opening.”

“You went to the East?” she asked, clearly impressed. “What were you doing there?”

Roman lowered his voice. “So, there’s a lot that you don’t know about me. And it would take me quite some time to explain all the details. But, for what it’s worth, I’m not who you think I am. So let’s start with that. I am actually an exemplar.”

“An exemplar?” she asked, giving him a curious look. “Are you being serious right now?”

“Do you need evidence?”

She nodded.

“Okay,” Roman said as he cast his hand over the silverware, the fork pressing off the table, splitting at the middle and reforming into the shape of the letter X. The spoon stood upright, the round portion sliding down and forming a belly as two legs sprouted from the bottom. He walked both the utensils over to Catherine and had them bow at her.

“What’s your power exactly? Are you some type of metal manipulator?”

“I can pretty much manipulate anything, aside from wind,” he told her.

To illustrate his point, he formed a hole in the top of the teapot, the tea lifting out of it in a spinning cylinder. Then he settled the water back down and removed the hole he created, everything back to normal.

“Anything?”

“My power allows me to animate inanimate objects. But I guess this is just a way to say that I can manipulate any type of matter. And I mean anything. Elements, I’m not as good at, but ones like water, ice, those things are relatively easy for me to utilize. Soil would be another one.”

“Fire?”

“To some degree, but it’s not something I’ve played around with as much as I’d like,” he told Catherine. “So to continue our earlier discussion about why I went East, I headed there because I wanted to see about a situation facing our world.”

“What kind of situation?”

For a moment, Roman thought he would lie to her.

Maybe he would tell her that Margo had killed all the world’s healers, and he was tasked with killing her. But in the end, he stuck to the truth, knowing that he was already out of bounds in what he would ask her to do.

He knew he was betraying Ava in that moment, and he wondered how she would react to this. Aside from that part of this, there would be severe repercussions if he didn’t make Margo’s death smooth and quick; Roman hated this fact, but he wasn’t going to let Margo do any more damage to the people he cared about.

He was doing this for Celia, the real Celia, but in a way it was also about Celia the doll. As he gave Catherine the overview of what had happened to him thus far, Roman tried to keep his voice steady and calm, even though recapping everything only made him angrier.

“Okay, so your wife is dead, and this lady named Margo, who has the same power as you, animated her corpse?” Catherine asked after he’d finished.

“Sorry. It sounds crazy, and it is crazy.”

“And now she is holed up in your home along with several other powerful exemplars, waiting for you to eventually return.”

“Yes, so she can kill me.”

“And then she would likely animate your body and make you her slave, too—am I understanding this correctly?”

The waitress returned with Catherine’s oatmeal and set it on the table. Brown sugar was sprinkled on top, and it came with a side of blueberries and glazed pecans.

“In a nutshell, yes.”

“Well, that’s some story, Roman,” Catherine finally said.

“Good, so now you’re up-to-date.”

“And you want my help in taking her out, am I understanding that part correctly?”

“Well, I was going to explain a little more before I asked…”

“Sometimes it’s better just to say what’s on your mind.” Catherine reached her hand across the table and placed it on Roman’s.

“Yeah, maybe that is a better idea.”

Of course, Roman had left out a lot of details, like how he had been explicitly told not to go after Margo, and he hadn’t mentioned Ava and Mister Fist’s team at all. He also hadn’t said anything about Nadine, Lisa Painstake, Eli, or his dolls.

“And what you are offering me in return?” she asked.

“What do you want?” Roman asked, his eyes moving from Catherine down to her fingers as they drummed against his hand.

“Money would be nice, but there are other things you could help me with.”

“Money I can get, and as for those other things, like I said, if it involves forging documents, I’m pretty damn good at that as well. Do you have any money?” Roman asked.

“Yes, a little…”

“Give me the smallest denomination you have, and the largest.” Roman told her.

Catherine got out the money he requested, and Roman looked down at it for a moment, memorizing all the details on the higher denomination. He already knew what it looked like, Centralian currency known for its beautiful pictures of famous landmarks. It didn’t take very long for the smaller denomination to match the higher.

“I have to do the backside too.” Roman flipped the bills over and did the same replication trick.

“Okay, I’ve seen some pretty impressive powers, but that is fucking awesome,” Catherine said.

“So that’s what I can offer you. I only need a few hours of your time, tonight. This is mostly about me doing what I need to do here.”

“We should probably have you change some more notes before I help you,” Catherine told him.

“Works for me. I can change as much as you’d like. I can also get your paperwork in order.”

Roman and Catherine’s Economicals came, each consisting of a slice of toast, two eggs sunny-side up, and grilled ham.

“I’m in,” Catherine said. “We can go back to my place after and take care of some of the paper.”

“I just want you to be safe in all this,” Roman told her suddenly, regretting that he’d said those words in the first place. “It’s going to be dangerous.”

“I’m fine with danger,” Catherine told him.

“And you don’t have to do it…”

She shrugged. “I’ve already agreed to do it, Roman, and I will help you make this go as smoothly as I can. Who else is on our team? There is a team, right?”

“Sort of. Basically, we have a telepath, who doubles as an empath. She should be contacting me soon about my doll.”

Catherine stopped cutting her egg for a moment and looked up at Roman. “Your doll?”

“One of the things I’ve learned to do is animate, um, life-sized dolls to fight for me. I’m guessing that sounds a little strange, but they can be quite powerful, and it frees me up to do other things while they’re fighting.” He looked at his power dial. “This is how I judge how much power I’m using, to make sure I don’t use too much.”

“I’ve seen a power dial before,” she told him, “but dolls? Are you talking about sex dolls?”

“It was an idea I got from this guy at…” Roman swallowed hard. “I got the idea from this guy named Sam, who mentioned something about it at a meeting I go to. I thought—why not train them to fight with me? As it turns out, when I animate them, they take on parts of my personality. And one happens to be a pretty good fighter.”

“I see,” Catherine said.

“I’m guessing all this comes off as a little weird, right?”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

Chapter Thirty-One: Checking on a Friend

“Don’t worry about them,” Oscar told Nadine.

There were two Eastern techs setting up a room with the ultimate goal of performing tests on Eli. The young blond-haired boy stood behind Nadine, watching the techs move up and down the stairs bringing more gear that a teleporter had dropped off.

“I just don’t want…” An incoming message caused Nadine to pause. “I see that Roman has come and gone, dropping Coma off.”

“And we’re able to track where he’s going next?” Oscar asked, knowing the answer to her question almost immediately. Roman’s safehouse was outfitted with advanced technology that tracked where someone teleported to and from.

“He is at a diner,” Nadine said as the information came to her over a mental message.

“Good, then wake Lisa; you two can go visit him while I keep an eye on Eli.”

Nadine hesitated for a moment.

“Nadine, I know the last week or so has been a lot for you, but you need to get it together,” Oscar said under his breath. “You are too deep now not to realize your role in all this. Tracking Roman and seeing what he is up to will help us better understand how to respond. Once he teleports away from the diner, we won’t know where has gone. So now is the time to check on him. Do not worry about Eli.”

Oscar placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“I’ll be okay,” Eli told Nadine.

“See?”

“Okay, we will see what Roman’s up to.”

“Tell him I said hi,” Eli called to Nadine.

“Sure,” she said as she took the stairs to find Lisa, who was asleep in her bedroom at the back of the hallway, a blanket over her head.

“Lisa…”

For a brief moment, Nadine thought Lisa had skipped out on them. But then the covers moved, Lisa emerging from a deep sleep, and Nadine was happy to see she had not.

Why hadn’t she left?

That was one thing Nadine couldn’t quite figure out.

It came to her then that someone might have done something to the young exemplar’s brain back in the East, possibly a telepath. It wasn’t unheard of for a telepath to rewire someone’s brain, to make them obedient, to make them think something they wouldn’t have otherwise thought.

“We need to check on Roman,” Nadine told her. “He’s out and about without any protection, and Oscar wants us to keep an eye on him.”

“Do you know where he is?”

Nadine gave her the diner’s location as Lisa yawned. “Fine, but I’m not leaving my bed,” she said.

“Am I supposed to lie on the floor?” Nadine asked.

“That, or you can try to squeeze in this little bed with me. But I’m not budging. I should be sleeping now, so at least let me lie in my bed. Plus, it is warm.”

“I’ll make do.” Nadine lay on the floor next to the bed as Lisa’s arm dropped down, their hands connecting.

It wasn’t long before they were standing outside of their bodies, Nadine a little annoyed at how unhelpful Lisa had been.

Time flashed by them as they moved to the location, umbilical cords of light connected to their backs as they shot forward. They arrived at the diner just as a woman with white hair and a red braid met Roman.

“Who’s she?” Lisa asked.

“Roman seems to know a lot of women,” was Nadine’s only comment.

It was weird being in the diner yet completely invisible, people passing through Nadine’s body, nothing completely solid. There was a lot of chatter, so eventually, she bent over next to the table listening to Roman and the woman speak.

“Seeing all this food is making me hungry,” Lisa said.

“Quiet.”

Lisa more or less obeyed Nadine as Roman started up, detailing his story thus far but keeping key details out. Nadine listened even more carefully, trying to see where he was going with this, understanding completely once Roman got to his request.

“He’s actually going to go after Margo,” Nadine said.

“Will you help?” Lisa asked. “Roman went after you, and he hardly knows you. Of course he’s going to go after the person that is fucking with his wife’s corpse. She’s in his house, too. So I don’t think this should come as any surprise.”

“I’m not as surprised by that as I am that he’s actually going through with it. I understand that Roman can be as loyal as he is aloof to the people he cares about, but he just got classified as an exemplar. Doing something like this could…” Nadine shook her head. “They may strip him of his power, put him in jail.”

“Can they just take his power?”

“I don’t know; they gave it to him,” said Nadine. “We’re still working that out on our end, in terms of how Centralia is giving people powers. But my guess is, if they can give it, they can strip it, and at the very least, they can imprison him in a place he can’t get out of.”

“But he can animate anything—how would you imprison him?” Lisa asked.

“I…” Nadine thought in terms of her own government, what they would do if she had Roman’s power and she disobeyed a direct order. It wouldn’t be like what had happened to Nadine in the East; they would try to take her out as quickly as possible. There would be no prison.

“Well?”

“They have objects that can nullify powers. Or they could simply kill him,” Nadine finally said. “I have to contact Roman…”

“But then he’ll know you’re spying on him,” Lisa reminded her.

“I could start the conversation casually, you know, trying to see what he’s up to.”

“Yeah…” Lisa said, light shining all around her. “Let me play that out really quickly. ‘Hey, what are you doing tonight? Oh, I see, you are going to avenge your dead wife. Can I try and talk you out of it? No. Okay. Well, at least I tried.’ My point is, I don’t think this would play out very well.”

“I would have a little more tact than that,” Nadine said.

“Well, you’re going to have to report this to Oscar, and he’s probably more interested in seeing how things play out than in getting involved.”

“We don’t have to report it to him…”

“It’s your call,” Lisa finally said with a shrug. “If he asks me, I’ll just tell him I was doing what you told me to and I assumed Oscar approved of it. So my ass is not on the line here.”

“Thanks for your support,” Nadine said sarcastically.

“What can I say? It’s what I’m here for, to be useful. Where is he going next? Did they say anything about that?”

“I was a little too busy talking to you…” Nadine said under her breath. “But it doesn’t matter. We have the information we need for now: Roman is planning something as soon as tonight. We already have people watching his home, so we should be able to get there pretty quickly if something starts to happen. It would probably be smarter to stake out near there as well, just in case things escalate.”

Chapter Thirty-Two: Fighting in the Park

Training seemed to drag on and on, Ava running Roman through a number of drills, wanting him to hone his ability to focus on a minute object while also working on elemental forces again.

This meant Ava versus Roman, the fire user coming at him harder than she had ever come at him before—and Roman realizing she was even more powerful than he had originally anticipated.

He’d known she could control fire, grow the size of flames and even affect the air in a contained area, but he hadn’t known she could make fire beings that seemed almost sentient as they chased him around the gym, trails of scorched ground in their wake.

By the time they finished this part of the training, Roman was drenched, both from his own sweat and the water he had borrowed from a pipe. Aware that he could be pretty messy when he used his powers full on, Roman fixed the pipe, merging it back into the wall and smoothing the concrete over it.

He had Coma with him, and he was set to meet Emelia the empath after he finished training. Fresh from visiting Catherine’s modest apartment and counterfeiting money for her, Roman was feeling good, ready for whatever was to come.

And even though they had been at it for two hours now, Ava hadn’t mentioned a single thing about what had happened between them last night. Of course, she did offer him a flirtatious smile at one point, while flames licked off her face and hair, but that was about it.

“Are we done?” Roman asked, using his power to wick some of the water away from his exercise clothing.

“Do you have a hot date tonight or something?” Ava asked. She stood before him now, her flowing red hair framing her face, her hands in front of her body, Roman immediately recalling what she looked like naked.

Beautiful…

“Nothing like that, I’m just picking up Celia,” he told her, keeping to his surface thoughts just in case a telepath was present. “I probably should get some rest. I’m feeling a little hungover still.”

“We could have dinner somewhere? I know a great place that serves Northern Alliance dishes.”

“Maybe not tonight…”

“Well, let me know. Anyway,” Ava said, clearing her throat, “we have seen you animate very small things. And you seem to be able to do quite a bit of damage with objects that are roughly your size. But before we go today, I wanted to try something a little different, something a bit larger.”

“Larger?”

“My teleporter should be here soon, and then we will move to a federal park on the edge of the city. Ever heard of Mystery Hills State Park?”

Roman gulped. That was the same park where he’d married Celia. “Should I change clothing?” he asked after a long pause.

“Yes, go ahead and change, especially if you’re going somewhere after.”

“I’ll make it fast,” Roman said as he turned to the dressing room. Coma caught up with him once he exited the gymnasium.

“What do you think she’ll have us do?” the doll asked, Roman not hearing her the first time as he thought about his wedding. When she asked him again, Roman turned to her.

“It could be anything, really. Either way, it will be nice to get some fresh air. It’s a nice park, too. Just think of it like the Eastern Province. There will be trees, fresh air, nature.”

“We should have stayed in the East for longer,” said Coma as she turned to the woman’s dressing room.

“Did you like the countryside?”

“I don’t know if I really have much of an opinion on it,” Coma admitted. “But it was better than being in your apartment. So yes, I guess I do have an opinion on it.”

“Well, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about ever staying in that place again.”

Roman hadn’t given much thought to what would happen to his place after he got Margo out of there, but he was pretty sure he’d never be able to live in it again. That was if he survived, and if he didn’t face repercussions for using his powers to kill someone.

But Roman didn’t dwell on any of this as he toweled off in the men’s dressing room.

There was always the threat that a telepath would be nearby, and aside from that, Roman had already decided how he was going to proceed. He had recruited Catherine, Emelia was on board, and that was probably it.

He had already envisioned how it would work out, the swiftest way to kill the wretched woman. If they moved quickly enough, he could kill Margo before she could destroy anything or take another person’s life.

So this was what he told himself as he wiped some of the sweat away. If he could make it a clean enough kill, he would likely face less repercussions.

No time for questioning, no need for an unnecessary fight that he would inevitably lose. Roman would explode the blood vessels in her brain and that would be that. If he couldn’t do that he would move to her heart, and if that didn’t work, he would pull her skeleton out of her body.

He just needed a distraction…

Roman met Coma in the hallway, the dark-haired doll back in her mask, her hair and pigtails, a sexy Gothic Loli dress as usual and a pair of knee-high stockings that cascaded into shiny black shoes.

“You look great,” he told her.

“Thanks,” Coma said as they turned back to the gym. They found Ava standing there conversing with a male teleporter, this one muscular with a big scar across the bridge of his nose.

“Ready?” Ava asked.

“Definitely,” Roman told her.

The teleporter spread his hands wide and then brought them together in front of his body, his fingers touching. The man formed a spherical vortex between his palms. Once it solidified, he tossed it up, Roman naturally looking up at it.

It happened that quickly.

The four of them took shape in the park as soon as the sphere landed, Roman thoroughly impressed by the teleporter’s power. He watched the guy again, the teleporter forming another sphere between his hands, tossing it up and suddenly vanishing.

“These teleporters never cease to amaze me,” Ava said.

“Seriously.”

It was clear there had been rain in the park earlier, the sweet smell of wet soil meeting Roman’s nose and tufts of grass glistening in the sun that had appeared in the sky. He didn’t know what part of the park they were in, but he had a notion that the meadow he’d married Celia in was to the west.

“Follow me,” Ava said, and in the way that she reached for Roman, he could tell she wanted him to take her hand.

He did so, his thoughts confirmed as Ava started speaking.

“Whatever happened between us, happened,” she said as she led him onto a gravelly path. “But we have to keep work separate from pleasure, which is why I didn’t say anything back at the gym. You should always be careful what you say or think at a place like that.”

“The walls have ears, huh?”

“Not always, but sometimes.” Ava laughed. “This isn’t the East, you know. We aren’t actively spying on our citizens here. Just sometimes.”

Roman looked over her shoulder to see Coma, his combat doll, happy to be outside. She swung her arms as she walked, paying more attention to the overarching trees than to the path that lay ahead.

If she thought anything about Ava holding Roman’s hand, she didn’t say it.

“Also, I have an update for you,” said Ava as they continued along the path. “I guess it’s not much of an update, but it is something: the Centralian intelligence agency is reviewing your case. I believe they will reach a decision soon. If they aren’t willing to take you into their ranks, then we will find something else for you, possibly a risk management team again.”

“You don’t think they’ll take me?”

“I have no idea what they will do. You’re older than the exemplars they normally recruit. You know how it is—the younger the better—but they have taken older recruits before. It’s just harder to shape an older person’s mind, especially with what they may have been through. And you have been through a lot,” Ava said, turning her head to him.

“Has anyone made any decision about Margo?” Roman asked.

“If they have, they haven’t shared it with me,” she said. “One thing you will find about our government, if you haven’t already noticed by now, is that they are more reactive than proactive. We are the most powerful country in the world, so we let others act, and then we react to what they have done. Is this a good policy?” Ava shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. It feels like a bad policy to me, but if our goal is to maintain the status quo, it’s a pretty sound strategy. So they may be waiting for Margo to do something. Stupid, but that’s how they operate.”

“I see.” Roman felt his muscles tense up as he thought of Margo, wondering how he could have an enemy like her, an unseen force looking to kill him.

All of this would end soon, he reminded himself as Ava came to a fork in the road, taking a left into an area that moved down the hill. There was a stream cutting across the land, pine trees on the right and large boulders on the left.

“And, we have arrived,” said Ava.

“Are we going to have a picnic?” Roman asked, going for a joke.

“Whatever job I find you, we should keep it as far away from comedy as possible.”

Coma laughed, Roman giving her a playful dirty look. She didn’t normally laugh at jokes, and to see her laughing at a joke that ridiculed Roman was rare. Speaking of which…

Casper came alive, peeking out from Roman’s pocket almost immediately.

“You took me to the park? Also, please stop deactivating me. I want to experience this world, dammit!”

“I see we are now a party of four,” Ava said as she led Roman up a small dirt path that cut through some of the rocks.

“It’s so nice out here, kind of like the Eastern Province,” Casper said, pretending to take a breath of fresh air. “Wait, we aren’t in the East, are we?” The tiny doll looked around frantically. “That place is way too fucking repressive.”

“No, we’re in a park.”

“In Centralia?” Casper asked.

“Yes.”

Roman looked up, watching Ava make her way up a winding path, her ass cheeks bouncing a little as she took exaggerated steps.

“Enjoying the view?” Casper asked, elbowing Roman in the chest.

“Every time I activate you, I regret it immediately after,” he told her.

“If you ask me, I think you secretly have a crush on me, but you can’t bang me like you do Celia,” she said, quiet enough that Ava wouldn’t hear. “And it’s too bad about the big doll that could have been me. If I were in her body, I would have done things to you Celia could only hope to do. I’m a sadist at heart.”

“Watch it,” Roman told her. “Do you want to go with Coma instead of me?”

“Unless you plan to tuck me between Coma’s tits, I get a better view from my current location.”

“Fine, but keep the bullshit to a minimum,” Roman said as he caught up to Ava.

It was an interesting space, a good hundred yards long, trees surrounding it and large boulders peppering the landscape. A few boulders in particular were the size of a two-story building, maybe a little taller.

“Are you sure you don’t want to have a picnic?” Roman asked.

“Why do you think your joke would work a second time when it didn’t work the first time?” his teacher shot back.

Casper snickered, but didn’t say anything.

“No picnic. I want you to animate one of these rocks. How about that one?” Ava nodded her chin at the largest rock in the vicinity, a gray boulder smooth on its left surface, chipped and crackly on its right.

“And do what with it?” Roman asked.

“I want you to give it consciousness,” she explained. “This is a test to see just how powerful you are, if you can sustain something that large. I’ve been wondering if your power has anything to do with the size of the object. Is it easier for you to, say, animate Casper? What about animating an entire wall?”

“I’ve done that before,” Roman told her. “It doesn’t seem to take too much power. What seems to take the most power is…” Roman paused for a moment, deciding how he should state this. “My state of mind.”

“Or lack thereof,” Casper added.

“I knew your emotions had some part in it, but you think they play that large a part?”

“When I’m relaxed, my powers don’t seem to be as taxing. But if we were suddenly attacked and I had all three of my dolls activated, and I was also wielding some elemental force, I would definitely be feeling it. I don’t know how long I could last in that state.”

“That is definitely something you’ll need to start considering,” Ava said as she placed her hand on one of the rocks. “It’s important to stay calm, but it’s equally important to know your weaknesses. Anyway, how about this rock? Can you animate it?”

Ava’s hair caught fire, the flames spreading down her neck and her shoulders over her arms and into her fingertips.

“Are you planning to attack it?” Roman asked.

“No, I just want to be ready for anything.”

“What about us?” Coma asked.

“Yeah,” Casper chimed in.

“Why is everyone all of a sudden scared of what I can create? If I give it life, I can simply take it away.”

“Better safe than sorry, always,” Ava said as she lifted a few feet up in the air. “Besides, I feel like floating.”

“So the truth comes out,” Roman said as he focused on the core of the giant boulder.

The ground shook as a portion of the boulder tore out of the soil, bits of rock falling as it morphed into a big arm with a huge fist on its end. The boulder formed another arm like this, with another enormous fist and sharp knuckles. It pressed both fists into the ground to push more of its core out of the land.

Something that resembled a face, if the face were drawn by a five-year-old, began to take shape on the front of the rock. There was something comical about it, at least to Casper, anyway.

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve seen all day,” she said with a laugh.

Ava didn’t find it so funny, backing up a little bit as the increasingly sentient rock continued to free itself from the soil. Eventually, Roman focused on the land itself, swirling it around the rock and allowing it to unearth its lower half, which was about a quarter the size of its top half.

“Hello, rock,” Roman said.

“Hello,” the rock replied, its makeshift eyebrows tilting upward as it looked from Roman to Ava.

“That’s amazing,” Ava said. “Roman, that’s just…”

“It’s not taking as much power as I thought it would,” Roman said, looking down at his power dial. He saw that the green bar was a little higher than normal, but the red bar wasn’t much higher than it was when he had all three dolls activated. “What’s next?” he asked his teacher.

Ava lowered a little. “I really don’t know; I just wanted to see if you could actually animate something this large.”

“I could animate another rock and have them fight?” Roman suggested.

“Could you?” Ava asked, exchanging glances with Coma, who simply nodded.

“I’ve done it before back in my office, with paperclips. It’s pretty entertaining.”

Casper laughed again. “Big rock fight? Count me in.”

“You should not have been animating paperclips to fight in your office,” Ava said. “You weren’t supposed to use your powers in public.”

“I was bored,” Roman said with a shrug.

“That’s beside the point, but sure, animate another rock and let’s let them duke it out. I will be sure to step to the side—Coma?”

“Yep,” Coma said as she joined Ava, Roman’s teacher still with flames flickering off her body.

“I’m staying put,” Casper said to anyone who was paying attention to her.

Roman turned to the giant boulder. ““I’m going to animate a rock for you to fight, got it?”

“Do I have to fight it?” the creature asked in a low, rumbly voice.

“No, but it would be nice. Have fun. It won’t last very long.”

Not sure of what else he should tell the giant rock with consciousness, Roman stepped away and found a relatively smaller boulder, this one about the height of a one-story building.

Casting his hand at the rock, he began to animate it. Arms sprouted from its side as the rock pushed itself out of the soil, the end of its body a sort of serpent’s tail. Rather than adjust this, Roman simply kept it on, pulling legs from the front of the rock so that the tail would act almost like a lizard’s.

The bigger rock grunted and took a huge step toward the smaller rock, the ground vibrating.

The smaller rock bolted to the side, uprooting a tree and skidding across a smooth surface. It launched itself at the big rock, their forms slapping together as its tail whipped around, the sound echoing into the forest.

They both hit the ground with their second collision, dirt and rock spraying into the air.

Ava landed next to Roman, watching as the boulders pounded each other, the smaller boulder using its tail as leverage to sweep the big one off its feet.

“This is definitely one of the top six battles I’ve seen,” she said over the cacophony. The little boulder was pummeling the larger with fists, the big one struggling to free itself.

“Top six?” Roman asked her, wondering why she had chosen that number.

“Yeah, top six.”

“Now!” Coma shouted to the larger boulder.

The smaller rock sidestepped its punch, feinting a jab that the larger rock naturally tried to block. This gave the smaller one the time it needed to move to the side and sweep its tail at the larger boulder, bringing it to the ground. Cracks spread across the large rock’s body.

Roman called off the fight once he saw that the larger boulder was frowning, experiencing pain. That was the last thing Roman wanted, even if they were just boulders.

“So I can do that,” Roman said, sweat on his brow.

He hadn’t paid much attention to his power dial during their fight, but he realized now that this had definitely taken some of his energy.

“That was great,” Ava said with a clap. “I’ll have to put this in your file as well, that you are able to do something like this.”

“Any chance I can ever see that file?” Roman asked her.

She shook her head. “That’s not for you; it’s for me, and your future supervisor.”

“I kind of like the unemployed life, though.” Roman made his way over to the smaller boulder, placing his hand on its surface.

“Can confirm,” Casper added.

Both rocks were inactive now, albeit in different locations than they had been before.

If there was an especially observant park ranger in the area, he would definitely wonder what the hell had happened here.

“Seeing this also makes me think you could be valuable on a public works team,” Ava said. “You know, if the first two options don’t work out.”

“Please, no,” said Roman. “I don’t want to use this power for making sculptures and rebuilding structures.”

“Someone has to do it,” she told him, giving Roman a funny look.

“I agree, as long as that person isn’t me.”

“So dinner is off the table, so to speak, but do you have time for lunch?” Ava asked as he turned back to the main path.

Roman looked out over the horizon, trees in the distance, the sound of chirping birds and a bubbling stream meeting his ears. He took a deep breath in, instantly missing the East, wishing again that he didn’t have to do what he’d planned to do tonight.

But it was his destiny, something he had to see through to completion.

“Not today,” he finally told her. “I need to get Celia, and the coordinator at the sex-doll shop always…”

“Always what?”

“She always has something she’s going on about, plus I have a custom order I’ve put in, so I want to check on that,” he told her, glad to be looking away from his teacher so he didn’t have to lie to her face. “And like I said earlier, I’m tired. Last night took a lot out of me.”

Ava smiled. “You aren’t the only one.”

Chapter Thirty-Three: Temporary

“It’s only temporary,” Emelia reminded him.

“I’m aware.” Roman opened his arms and Celia practically jumped into them, hugging him and kissing his neck and cheek. Her new body was shorter than her previous one, her hips wider, breasts rounder.

She still looked incredible, just different.

But Roman knew he would get used to it at some point, and besides, like Emelia said, the body was temporary, a solution that would work until replicas with light metal bones were made.

“Do you approve?” Emelia’s gray hair was in a topknot at the moment, her dress long and sleek, red buttons down its center.

“It’s fine, she looks wonderful,” Roman said, smiling down at Celia. “I’m just happy you are back.”

“Did I miss anything?” Celia asked.

Roman hesitated for a moment, which elicited a snort from Emelia.

“Stay out of my mind,” he reminded the woman as he felt the telepathic tendrils skirting on the edge of his psyche. “You haven’t missed much,” Roman told Celia, “aside from the fact that we’re going after Margo tonight.”

“All of us?”

“Maybe you should stay back,” said Coma. “Roman will be able to get more of his power to me if you do.”

“I’m definitely taking part in this fight; you guys can’t keep deanimating me whenever you want,” Casper chimed in.

“I want to go too,” Celia told him. “I know I’m not as strong as Coma, but I can help you.”

Roman hesitated for a moment. He was already taking a significant risk in what he was doing, and he knew adding another doll or two to the mix would only strip him of more of his power.

“No,” he said with finality as he placed his hand on Celia’s shoulder. “But we will spend the afternoon together, just you and I.”

“I didn’t hear my name in there,” Casper said.

“This is no laughing matter,” Roman told his dolls. “We only have one shot here, one strike.”

“Speaking of which,” Emelia said, interrupting Casper, who was about to give Roman a piece of her mind. “I am off in a few hours, and we should probably meet your other friend to go over the details. You are sure that she will be there?”

“Catherine will be there. I’m scratching her back, and she’s scratching mine.”

“Are you sure that’s the only thing you’re scratching?” Casper asked.

“Enough,” Roman said, the tiny doll falling limp.

“She’s not that bad,” Emelia said.

“Normally, I kind of like her banter—well, not always, but sometimes. Anyway, today is not the day. And I think there will be a time in the future, if I make it through this, when Casper will be useful.”

“You’ll make it through,” Celia said under her breath.

“But I can’t see how Casper would be useful in this particular scenario. I even thought about using her as a spy, but after we surveyed the parameters, I don’t know how much spying will need to be involved. Just action at that point.”

“You’re right,” Emelia said. “I will contact you when I’m off.”

With that, the strange empath turned to the back room. She stopped in front of the door and looked over her shoulder at Roman. “Let’s finish this once and for all tonight.”

“I plan to,” Roman told her as she slipped inside the other room.

He left the sex-doll shop, Celia on his right and Coma on his left.

“It’s so great she wants to be involved,” Celia said as they navigated the streets of the red-light district.

“It really is; she doesn’t have to help, but having her there will allow us to better understand the area, and to see how many eyes are watching.”

“I’m ready to do whatever I have to do to make this happen,” said Coma once they turned back onto a main street.

Aside from the accident and his wife going into her coma, most of the weeks of Roman’s life had gone by with nothing really happening, his only excitement in the last two years coming from who he could pick up from a club—whatever piece of ass made itself available.

And then he’d gotten the Hero Lottery ticket.

It seemed that every day there was a new issue Roman had to address, and he was well aware that his current issue was self-made.

He knew he could just wait it out and see how Centralia handled the affair, but as Ava had said, they were reactive, not proactive, and who knew when or if they would actually do something. Here he was, taking destiny into his own hands again, setting fire to the game and watching it burn rather than letting the pieces land.

And in that moment, Roman realized this truly may be his last afternoon as a free man, or even worse, as a man who was alive and well.

He had already gone over the scenarios of how this would end, or at least he had formulated a few of them, and he didn’t want to dwell on these likely outcomes.

For now, he just wanted to enjoy the afternoon, which was why he ignored an incoming message from Nadine. He figured she’d be warning him not to do anything drastic, and that was exactly what he was planning to do.

As he walked to a local park, a small patch of green known as Empyrean Park, Roman held Celia’s hand.

Coma let them go ahead some, just keeping guard on the perimeter as the two enjoyed their afternoon walk, Celia’s other arm swinging, the sweet doll beaming a smile to anyone that dared to look at them.

No one knew.

To anyone else, he was just a man with white hair walking alongside a beautiful woman wearing a superhero costume. The rain clouds from earlier had moved away, and while it wasn’t quite warm, some of the chill had left the air. It was a nice afternoon if there ever was one.

Nothing to see here. Just a normal day.

As Roman entered the park, he caught a glimpse of a statue on the right. He stopped in front of the statue for a moment, looking up at a man named Cornelius Knight, a non-exemplar who had founded one of Centralia’s most successful corporations.

Last Roman heard, Cornelius’s granddaughter had taken over as CEO and was head of the board. He’d seen pictures of her in a magazine, but that was about it. From what he could recall, she had gray hair similar to Emelia’s, and she was quite lean.

Roman smiled as he looked at the statue, coming to peace with the fact that there would never be a statue in his honor. There was nothing honorable about him, and he didn’t have enough money to buy prestige.

Not that he truly wanted a statue of himself in some fancy park in a Centralian subdivision, but he had never thought of this before, which was why it was nice coming to the understanding. It was humbling in a way, to realize that even with the power he had been given, his legacy would not live on.

Some of the better things he had done in his life, even the brave things like rescuing Nadine from an Eastern Province military installation, would all be kept in a file somewhere.

That was it.

And the thought of this made Roman laugh, so hard that Celia soon joined in, laughing alongside him.

Roman took her hand, a smile on his face, and led her to the grass, finding a perfect place to lie down. He took off his jacket and smoothed it out, giving Celia a place to sit.

Coma knew her role in this affair, and Roman had promised Celia that he would spend the afternoon with her, so the combat doll merely held back, sitting at a park bench near the statue staring off into the distance.

Roman looked over to her every now and then, having to remind himself that Coma didn’t experience human emotions the same way a normal person did. She didn’t seem at all lonely sitting there while Celia and Roman were lying on the grass, Celia now resting against Roman’s body, her ear pressed onto his chest.

Coma didn’t get jealous; Coma was Roman’s killer instinct.

And he was happy that she was focused on tonight while Roman cut himself some slack for the time he’d promised Celia he would spend with her.

After all, there was a very real chance that this was the last afternoon things would ever be this easy again.

Chapter Thirty-Four: The Nightmare to Come

There wasn’t supposed to be anyone in the twilight meadow, only Celia and Roman.

But they weren’t alone.

Joining them was a woman Roman had met twice before, her hands morphing into gnarled tree trunks as she latched on to the land and prevented it from splitting, stopping Roman from falling through the crack in the soil as he’d done so many times before.

He glanced right to see Celia was gone and he was alone with the woman.

“What are you doing here?” Roman asked Abby, the exemplar he thought was a psychometrist.

Then he remembered—or at least he thought the conversation had taken place—that Nadine had told him she was a dream walker.

“This is one of my many talents,” Abby told him.

She looked the same as she did in real life, short hair parted at the side, dressed as a sexy tomboy with a bolo tie. Everything accurate aside from her tree-trunk arms keeping the dreamscape together.

“A dream walker,” Roman said. “I’ve heard those are rare.”

“We are, but so are you. Not just anyone can animate inanimate objects.”

“This power was just given to me.” Roman looked down at his hands. “I’m not unique, I’m not like you. I wasn’t born with it.”

“Yet it is what came to pass when they gave you a power. It’s interesting, you know. Hundreds of years ago, at least from some of the older books on exemplars, there was a race of white-haired people, all of whom had this power. Did Ava ever tell you about this?”

“You don’t even know Ava,” Roman told her.

“She was on your mind when we last met, and I picked up that she was your teacher. Now she’s something more?” Abby cocked her head to the left, looking at Roman curiously for a moment.

“You can’t read my mind in a dream.”

“I am your mind,” she said firmly. “And in this state, I can move into any chamber or sub-chamber of memory I want, at the same time as I am talking to you. Time does not exist in the same way in this space as it does out there, meaning I can do all of these things at once.”

“Fine,” Roman said, figuring it wasn’t worth arguing with her about something he didn’t know anything about. “Why have you come here?”

“That would be because of Nadine.”

“If Nadine has something to say to me, she can say it to me in our shared world,” Roman told her. He could see her tree-trunk arms pulsing as more roots took shape, a little strain appearing on Abby’s neck as she maintained control over the dreamscape.

“She already tried to message you, and you ignored her. She knew you wouldn’t listen to her, and she thought a visit from me could help. How flattering, right? Roman, what you are planning to do is foolish, but you already know that.”

“It’s the only way,” Roman said.

“You and I both know that is not the case.”

“Can you just go into anyone’s dream?” Roman asked, taking a step closer to her.

“Not anyone’s,” said Abby, “only people I have met, whose psyches I have seeded.”

“So that’s what you were doing to my brain back at the café, aside from leafing through my thoughts.”

“I put the seed in every person’s subconscious that I meet,” Abby informed him. “You never know when it will come in handy. I won’t be able to stay much longer,” she said, looking up, tears starting to fall down her cheeks. “But I just wanted to give you this message: if you go through with this, it will complicate things to a degree that Nadine doesn’t think you quite understand. But with that said, she also owes you, and she will do everything in her power to dig you out of the hole you have dug for yourself.”

“Is that it?” he asked.

“Beautiful meadow,” Abby said as her form started to dissolve. “Kind of reminds me of the place you got married.”

Roman awoke with a gasp. Celia the doll’s head was nuzzled in the crook of his arm, Roman having to blink a few times to realize where he was. The sun was setting now, a dark cloud moving in from the West, but his focus was on what Abby had said as she departed.

Of course.

Of course the meadow from his reoccurring dream was the same place he’d wed Celia.

How he hadn’t made that connection before…

“Were you dreaming?” Celia asked.

“I was.” Roman stayed in his current position for just a little longer before finally pushing himself up, well aware that now was the time to prepare. It had been nice for Nadine to send Abby to warn him, but there really was no turning back from what Roman planned to do next.

He fired off a mental message to a teleportation service as he got to his feet, wiping bits of grass away. With a wave of his hand, Casper came alive too, not happy that she’d been stuck in his pocket.

“I wish I could have explored the park while you two were cuddling. That’s what you were doing, right?”

“Roman was dreaming,” Celia said.

“I guess someone has to do it,” said Casper, kicking the back of her heel against Roman’s chest.

The teleporter appeared, his form demarcated by a pillar of silver light that quickly fizzled out into smoke. He greeted Roman, nodded at Celia and Coma, and together the four of them teleported to Roman’s safehouse. The man was gone in another flash of silver, leaving a puff of smoke behind.

Roman took off the jacket he’d been wearing and placed it over a chair.

Nadine had arranged for some clothing to be here for Roman, one piece in particular catching his eye. It was a simple number, a black trench coat hanging over a black turtleneck. It would do; the darkness would hopefully allow him to blend in some.

Unfortunately, Roman’s hair was white, which was more noticeable than he would like. He thought about getting a black mask, but he was already running a little late.

“We need to hurry,” he told Coma, making his final decision as he slipped into the turtleneck and the trench coat. He fired off a message to Catherine and then to Emelia, letting her know where to meet him.

They had already agreed on a diner not too far from his home, and he knew there was a clothing shop across the street from the joint. Since dressing as an exemplar was eternally in vogue, it would be fairly easy for him to find something to cover his hair with.

Coma joined him, a smile on her face. “I’m ready.”

“I really don’t want you to leave us here,” Celia said, coming to Roman again.

And he almost gave in to her, almost, but in the end, he knew it would be better for him to be able to focus his power into Coma and use a good bit of it for himself.

“He’s going to leave us here whether we like it or not,” said Casper, who now stood on the chair. “And we may never see him again.”

“We will see him again,” Celia told the tiny doll. “This will not be the last time I see you.” Celia came into Roman’s arms and lifted onto the tips of her toes to kiss him.

Roman wasn’t normally so forthright in front of the others, but it seemed like the moment was appropriate, so he let it happen, even if Casper was slowly applauding.

“Goodbye,” he said to Casper as he pulled away from Celia, the tiny doll’s power leaving her body. “Please go get in a comfortable position,” he told Celia, his hands now on her shoulders.

He let go and she sat onto the bed, her head bowed slightly, a sad look on her face.

“I promise to come back.” And with that, Celia’s life left her body, her shoulders slouching and her form nearly falling forward. Roman placed Casper in her lap and then called for another teleporter.

One mental message later and a different teleporter appeared, this one a female who had seemingly lifted from a hole in the ground. Once she greeted Roman and Coma, he felt a sinking sensation as they dropped, almost as if he were sliding down a long slide, only to come out right in front of the diner.

Catherine was already there, wearing a black bodysuit, the petite wind user looking sexier than Roman had ever seen her look before.

“What?” she asked as the teleporter disappeared.

“Nothing.”

“I thought it would be appropriate,” she said, turning a little and showing him her sides.

“It is definitely appropriate. That’s why I’m wearing this,” he said.

“A trench coat? Does it have armor or something?”

“Armor isn’t going to help me.” Roman turned to Coma. “Wait here with Catherine while I run across the street to get a mask.”

“Should I have a mask too?” Catherine asked.

“Actually, that’s a good idea. We should all have some type of mask. Emelia should be here in the next five minutes or so, so I’ll grab a mask for her as well. Coma, please wait here.”

Coma simply nodded as Roman and Catherine ran across the street. Roman could tell that Catherine wanted to joke around a little bit in the clothing shop, evident in the way she brought a gown to her body and asked how it looked on her.

But Roman’s tone quickly changed her tune, the young exemplar registering the seriousness on his face.

“Not now,” he told her firmly as he found the masks.

Roman chose a black one that completely covered his face aside from his eyes and mouth, while Catherine went for one that allowed her to stuff her white hair into the top, which made her head but just a little bigger than it normally was. She also grabbed a similar mask for Emelia, which would allow her to hide her hair too.

It struck Roman as odd in that moment that the three of them all had some form of white hair, Roman’s completely white, Emelia’s gray, and Catherine’s white with a red braid on the side.

They almost resembled an exemplar team.

Almost.

Once Roman paid for the masks, they crossed back over to the diner, where they found Emelia waiting with Coma. The empath also wore all black, and practical shoes for once, no high heels or anything that could hinder her in any way.

“I didn’t bring a mask,” Emelia said, quickly skimming off the top of their minds, “but I did bring a telepath band for you, Roman.”

“A telepath band?” Roman had heard of these things, bracelets from the East that prevented telepaths from reading a person’s mind.

“I’m going to guess that at least on the Centralian side, anyone watching this place is scanning the area for your thoughts. I may be wrong, but I would put good money on the fact that they are anticipating you may do something.”

“They never said anything to me…”

“Of course they didn’t say anything to you,” she said. “Put the telepath band on, and just let it do its thing.”

“Why would a telepath have a telepath band?” Catherine asked.

“A fair question,” said Emelia. “These bands also prevent me from using my power if I wear one. So sometimes I wear it to sleep; other times I wear it when I’m going out with my girlfriends, so I don’t pick up on anyone’s thoughts. I figured it would come in useful. Highly illegal, of course, but most fun things are.”

“Thank you,” Roman said as he slipped the bracelet on, pressing the green button on the side that activated it.

“Are we ready to get a better view?” Catherine asked after she handed Emelia her mask.

“It has been a while since I’ve flown,” Emelia said. She took a moment to remove the packaging from her mask. After tossing the packaging in a bin, she slipped the mask over her head, tucking her hair in the back. “Ready.”

As soon as she said it, a wind whipped down from the north, lifting them a few feet into the air.

It wasn’t the first time Roman had flown; there were several businesses in Centralia that specialized in allowing non-exemplars to fly in a supervised environment with exemplars. Celia had been interested in these, and he had participated in a few sessions with her, the most memorable one being a trip over a national park in the southwest of the country.

He knew enough about flying to not fight it, to let it happen, and Coma seemed to intuit this as well, her arms loosely at her sides as the four of them rose higher into the air. “I’ve begun scanning the area,” Emelia said, “so I’m going to be focused on that.”

“Good,” Roman said as they locked fingers, Emelia now with her eyes closed as they made their way up. He caught his reflection in some of the windows of the apartments they were passing, an entirely odd visual.

If they didn’t look like an exemplar team before, they really looked like one now, all clad in black, masks on, Coma at the rear with her dark-blue dress beating in the wind.

Roman could see his building in the distance, his brain kicking into overdrive as he went over the plan he had already semi-formulated.

It was the swiftest, most sudden way for him to act, and it would be risky, yet it would have inevitable results if they orchestrated it just right.

“Where should we land?” Catherine asked.

“There.” Roman pointed at a building not directly across from his, but one building down. It wasn’t as tall as his place, which didn’t really matter. All that mattered was that they could see his apartment, and that Catherine could produce enough wind to make it happen.

They landed, Roman immediately dismantling an exhaust fan on the top of the building, guiding the metal over to Coma and forming blades along her arms.

This was it.

Chapter Thirty-Five: Reunion

Kevin Blackbook appeared with his crew in Roman’s apartment.

Everything was calm, eerily quiet, Kevin’s finger flitting against the bottom of his zero ring as his heart thrummed in his chest.

James Tew the telepath was with him, as were Obsidian and Turquoise, Scarlett standing behind the mall ready to teleport everyone away at a moment’s notice.

“She’s downstairs, one floor below,” James said, all the color draining from his face. “We need to go.”

Turquoise’s ears perked up. “She knew we were coming.”

And it was at that point that the walls and windows gave way, a giant gust of wind slamming into the glass as it broke, whipping up all the shards into the air as more wind blasted into Roman’s apartment, the ceiling collapsing, a hunk of concrete slamming into the back of Scarlett’s head.

Anything not bolted down was thrown to the far wall, the terrifying shriek whipping past Kevin’s ears as he was lifted into the air, more brick giving way, Kevin all but forgetting about his ring as more debris twisted around him.

“Turquoise!” he managed to shout as the floor gave way, the ceiling above completely gone now, the night sky visible through the detritus.

A bubble opened up in the center of the room, tossing everything it touched to the side and revealing a woman with a hood over her head.

The building started to crumble, the sounds of muffled cries drowned out by the falling structure.

“Turquoise!” Kevin shouted again, reaching out in the direction of where he’d last seen the cat girl.

His plea was drowned out by the wind, his face berated by debris as the floors collapsed. Kevin traveled downward, a sudden force coming in from the left and shifting the building, the ground coming up fast.

Kevin felt the impact, but not as badly as the floors beneath him, enough dust in the air now to make it impossible to see more than one foot in front of him.

It was a miracle that he was still alive, and Kevin was overcome with joy when he saw a clawed hand latch on to his leg, Turquoise pulling herself into his arms.

Kevin still had usage of his legs.

That much he knew, and even if there was rubble all around him, some of it cutting into his arms, tearing at his exemplar uniform, Kevin knew he still had some fight left in him. So he got to his feet, helping Turquoise up, his hands coming to her cheeks.

“Can you sense Obsidian?”

Turquoise’s ears flitted back for a moment, her eyes twitching as she tried to focus in on the sounds all around her.

The dust was starting to settle, and before Kevin could say anything else, Turquoise slipped away, dropping into an attack position, her eyes tracking something black moving in their direction.

“Stop,” Kevin said, no confidence in his voice. He tried again. “Stop!” he shouted at the dark figure, his finger on his ring.

“Kevin?” the figure asked.

“Who’s Kevin?” a woman asked, her form appearing next to the male figure.

Kevin gulped. “Roman?”

He could barely get his former coworker’s name out of his mouth before Turquoise took off, the gravel immediately forming a hand that wrapped around her throat, holding the cat girl at bay.

“Let her down,” Kevin growled.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Roman approached Kevin, the man’s face covered by a mask but his eyes orange as ever.

“I came to kill her.”

“Margo?”

“Let me down!” Turquoise said, still struggling with the structure Roman had created to contain her.

Kevin nodded. “Yes. She attacked me, killed some people I know.”

“You need to go,” Roman told Kevin, “now.”

“Is it true? Do you really have a power?” Kevin asked. “Is it true?”

Roman nodded. “I’m going to let her down; tell her not to attack me.”

“Turquoise, he’s good, for now,” Kevin said as Roman lowered the structure to the ground, the cat girl massaging her neck. “Find Obsidian, James, and Scarlett too.”

Turquoise nodded and disappeared into a cloud of dust.

“Exemplars will be here soon, and I don’t think she’s dead,” Roman said. “We are wasting time right now; she will kill both of us.”

“When did you get a power?” Kevin asked as Roman hesitated for a moment, looking back over his shoulder at the woman who had joined him. The woman wore a black outfit, and the way the dust was moving away from her led Kevin to believe she had some sort of wind power.

“That doesn’t matter now,” Roman finally said. “Get your people, and get out of here. I will finish this. Exemplars are coming.”

“But I want to help,” Kevin protested.

“Margo will kill you in a heartbeat,” Roman hissed. “No, she will take away your heartbeat.”

“I can help…”

“No, you can’t. Goodbye, Kevin.”

Roman nodded to the woman behind him. She brought her hand up and wind started circling around them, kicking up even more dust and obscuring Roman’s form.

“I found her.” Turquoise appeared with Obsidian in her arms. “Where did he go?”

“That doesn’t matter now,” Kevin said.

“We have to find Scarlett if we want to get out of here.”

“Do you think you can find her?” Kevin asked, coughing now, the dust making his throat itchy. “Exemplars are coming, it’ll be any minute now.”

“I…” Turquoise carefully handed Obsidian to Kevin. “Watch her, I’ll find Scarlett.”

“I’ve sent mental messages to James, but he isn’t responding.”

“James is dead,” Turquoise said. “I found his body near Obsidian’s. He’s definitely dead.”

“Fuck…” Kevin took a deep breath in. “Okay, go, and go fast. This is a war zone.”

Not wanting to draw attention to his big form, Kevin crouched down, cradling Obsidian in his arms.

“Kevin?” Obsidian asked, her eyes fluttering open. The cat girl was in pain; he could tell by the way her ears were twitching and her body lay limp, blood smeared across her face and neck.

“We have a healer,” he reminded her softly. “We just have to find Scarlett.”

Kevin was quiet for a moment as something shuffled past him.

He got a glimpse of an absolutely enormous man, the same one he’d seen back at the prison with the protrusions jutting off his body. The man either didn’t see Kevin or paid no attention to him as he moved past, one staggering step after another.

Turquoise returned, breathing heavy as she carried Scarlett in her arms.

“Is she?”

“No, she’s alive,” Turquoise said.

“Then let’s go. I don’t know which direction. Which direction?” Kevin asked, panic rising in his chest as he stood, now with Obsidian over one shoulder.

“This way,” Turquoise said, moving into the dust.

She was fast, and rather than hold his hand, Kevin held on to her tail, trying to keep up with her as they moved away from the carnage to be.

He heard the sound of bricks scraping against one another, the ground quaking, more muffled cries.

Kevin ignored it all. His only focus was on getting away.

Eventually, they got to what Kevin assumed was the other side of the street. Looking back, he saw a giant form lifting from the building’s remains, a monstrosity made of brick easily two and a half stories tall.

“Come on,” Turquoise said. “It’s now or never, Kevin.”

“Yes, you’re right.” Kevin started to pick up his pace, energy returning to him, adrenaline firing again now that he’d seen what was about to go down.

While bold at times, Kevin wasn’t stupid.

The fight that was about to take place was above his pay grade.

Chapter Thirty-Six: Stone Serpent

Catherine’s hands came before her. A light breeze picked up, moving the dust aside and revealing a towering figure made of huge slabs of concrete and whatever else Margo could conjure up.

“Tell Emelia she should go,” Roman said, his telepath band preventing him from sending a message to her.

Catherine nodded, immediately firing off a mental message. She then returned her wind to the battlefield, moving it through the debris. “There are more,” Catherine said, her wind sifting through the ruins of the building. “And they’re moving around.”

“Those are likely the people she has animated, people like…”

Roman swallowed hard.

He didn’t say Celia’s name, realizing that now was the time for getting to cover. People were still trying to evacuate, teleporters appearing, and the sound of the occasional cry for help meeting Roman’s ears.

Focusing his power forward with Coma still at his side, Roman lifted his own creature out of the rubble, this one made of brick, metal beams, concrete, drywall, and anything in its vicinity.

It wasn’t as tall as the stone creature Margo had created, but it was lean, and as Roman focused in on it, he imbued his creation with life, willing all his fighting knowledge into the rock monster.

He took a knee, his power dial flashing, not quite at full capacity but closer than he would like.

Margo’s creation got the gist of what was about to happen, and the big bruiser came forward with its fists drawn. It met Roman’s stone creation with a tackle, kicking up more debris as the two fell backwards.

Learning from his earlier lesson with Ava, Roman had purposely made his stone creation smaller for agility reasons. His fighter was up on its feet in a matter of moments, bringing in a few quick fists to the side of Margo’s monster, dodging one of its punches, a tail forming out of its back that it used for leverage.

Roman knew he had company when a thick mist filtered into the area, Mister Fist’s voice all around him now, berating him, asking him what he had done.

“Focus on the task!” Roman screamed into the mist, still with his eyes on his fighter.

He was crouched down now, Coma standing in front of him with rebar wrapped around her forearms that was forming into two large blades.

Regardless of the fact that Mister Fist’s team was here, Roman knew he would only have one shot to take Margo down, and to do that, he would have to see her.

The ground shook as Margo’s towering fighter stomped its foot down, sending a wave of force in Roman’s direction. He pivoted just in time, avoiding a line cutting through the debris.

Some of William Bottorf’s clones moved into the mist and dust, the clones spinning their batons as they turned to Ian Turlock. The big red man charged them, gnarled protrusions growing from his body as the clones tried to beat him into submission.

There was darkness spreading off to the right, which was quickly met by a wall of flames as Ava zipped through the air. But her power would do little against Hazrat’s shadows, and William and Ava quickly switched places, Ava going for Ian while William’s clones continued to distract Hazrat.

The two towering figures made of building materials continued to duke it out, their deafening punches ricocheting down the block, their fight making it almost impossible for Roman to concentrate.

“What do I do!?” Catherine asked, wind spinning around her hands.

“I…” Roman didn’t want to say that he didn’t know, that he only had one goal in this. He didn’t want her to sacrifice her life for him, so he told her exactly what he she should do, not wasting a breath as he said, “Get out of here, now. And before you do, blow the biggest windstorm you can muster to clear the dust so I can find Margo. Then go, and…”

“And what?” she asked, panic coming across her masked face evident in her eyes.

“I will contact you if I make it out.”

With a deep breath in, Catherine lifted into the air, a tornado forming around her hands, fingers spread wide. The tornado grew in size and blew some of William’s clones away in the process, Roman only able to hold on by physically cementing his feet to the pavement.

Catherine continued to pick up the speed, wind swirling around her.

She finally let it go, the tiny woman blown upwards as a storm thrashed into the area whipping all the dust away, Mister Fist having to take a solid form.

“Stay behind me!” Coma screamed to Roman, who remained in his crouched position.

He saw a woman that he recognized as one of the exemplars Margo had animated. The woman now had wind swirling around her, a mischievous look on her face.

She’s the absorber, Roman thought as the woman fired off a blast of wind at Mister Fist, who immediately separated into two pillars of smoke, the wind passing between them, Mister Fist going back into his real form as he engaged the zombie exemplar.

His power dial flashing again, Roman focused on the two towering stone creations that were duking it out. As Ava flew above him, more fire spraying from her open palms, Roman liquefied the legs of Margo’s creation, dissolving his own creation in the process.

Ian’s form completely engulfed in flames now, the big man ran into a wall, fell backwards and got back up, his flesh and protrusions boiling in Ava’s inferno.

“I can’t believe you,” Ava said, seething as she landed next to Roman. “Look what you’ve done…”

“Ava…” Roman reached out for her, but she pulled her arm away, rising back into the air.

And in that moment Roman truly understood just how much destruction he had caused.

One look around and he saw MindLenz across the street, the telepath lining people up and moving them out of the way; he saw William’s clones getting shredded by Hazrat’s shadows, the killer from the Southern Alliance with eyes black as sin tore through bodies; Mister Fist engaging the unknown woman, the zombie exemplar also turning to mist as he tried to get a grip on her.

What caught his attention next, however, was something he could have never fathomed.

The bricks and concrete started swirling together, forming a serpent easily as large as a line of trolleys. As more debris swept into the creation, Roman noticed that there were two people standing on top, a woman with a hood over her head and Celia.

All the blood drained from Roman’s body.

This was his moment.

Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Woman in the Emerald-Green Mask

The stone serpent vomited brick and concrete detritus, Roman taken off guard as an apple-sized hunk of concrete skimmed past the side of his head, tearing a gash through his mask. Coma moved in to swipe another piece out of the air, only to be blown back by a thick board.

Roman was on the ground now, the left side of his face sticky with blood, something screwy about his vision. As usual, Coma was by his side in a matter of moments, helping Roman get behind some cover.

Mister Fist and his team continued engaging Margo’s stone serpent, the heat from Ava’s fire reaching Roman. He knew that Ava wouldn’t be able to take Margo down, but she had taken Ian down; one glance over his shoulder confirmed this.

Ian’s body was a smoldering carcass now, which meant there were still two exemplar zombies that would need to be taken out.

Roman wanted to go after Margo—fuck, did he want to finish this—but with her current creation, and with so many clones around her and Mister Fist also trying to spiral to the top of the serpent, he knew he should hold back for just a moment.

He needed an opening, and in the meantime, he didn’t want Hazrat or his shadows to be able to sneak up on anyone in Mister Fist’s team.

So Roman kept low, Coma with him, intuiting what he was thinking as he nodded his head in Hazrat’s direction.

Hazrat was a good thirty feet away, maybe more, still engaging some of the clones. But he was dead, and even if Margo was more powerful than Roman could imagine, she was still unable to completely recreate the awareness the real Hazrat may have had.

And Roman understood in that moment that this was the weakness in animating corpses, that even if they could still utilize their power, they didn’t have the same wherewithal as they would have had alive.

Which was why Roman was able to so easily sneak up on Hazrat, shadows whipping all around the man’s body like he was an octopus being electrocuted, Roman able to get into a position where none of the shadows reached him.

Roman could now see the hole he had blown out of the back of Hazrat’s skull from his attack back at Harper’s apartment, and he decided this would be the best place to start.

Taking some of the rebar from Coma’s arms, he formed a metal snake, this one smaller than the towering monstrosity Margo had created.

Roman slithered the snake over to Hazrat, another snake forming from the steel coming from Coma’s other arm. The snakes wound their ways up Hazrat’s legs, both diving into his chest and tearing out of his body before dipping back in, quickly ripping the man to shreds.

“That was amazing,” Coma said, her red eyes wide now, looking from Hazrat’s mutilated body over to Roman.

Roman heard Ava cry out as Margo’s giant stone serpent spit more debris in her direction. He saw the serpent trample over the other exemplar that Margo had animated, squishing her, scraping her remains over the jagged rubble.

And in that moment, Roman wondered where the other doll was, the one that she had stolen from him and animated.

He glanced around, expecting the doll to come out of nowhere, but the dust had mostly settled, and aside from the rubble that Margo’s giant serpent was kicking up, there wasn’t much obscuring the battle ground.

Maybe the doll is buried under the rubble.

With Margo engaged, Roman knew this was his only chance to act.

The only thing he could do would be to play dirty, just like she had done.

Roman wiped more blood from his face as he moved behind a partially crumbled wall, his back pressed against it as he sent his two metal snakes forward.

He turned his head and watched through a hole in the wall, the snakes moving over to Margo’s enormous serpent body, latching on and slithering up toward its head, where Celia stood, Margo next to her, the wicked woman’s arms crossed over her chest.

Margo was too focused on trying to bring down Mister Fist, avoiding Ava’s fire, and fighting off the clones that were climbing the structure to notice the two metal snakes.

And for a split second, Roman thought he could simply knock her out, neutralize her that way, let the Centralian legal system do the rest. He could even use the metal snakes as cuffs…

But in the end, he knew this wouldn’t work. Margo was relentless, and it would be hard for them to contain her.

Nope, he needed to end this now.

The two metal snakes reached the top of the serpent’s head, both merging in Margo’s skin and tearing her from the inside out as they moved upward, the sudden shock of the attack throwing her off guard. Margo looked down to see what was happening and tried to animate them, only for one of the metal snakes to tear out of her face, dipping back into one of her eyes and coming out the other side.

Roman exploded the metal that was in her skull, a splash of blood and brain spritzing the air.

The stone serpent collapsed to the ground in a heap of rubble and dust.

“Celia!”

Roman came roaring out of his position of cover, shoving some of William’s clones aside, jumping over rubble, running as fast as he ever had over the debris toward his wife’s body.

Coma was hot on his tail, her hands at the ready, the doll sensing something he did not.

Even as he lifted his wife’s cold dead body into his arms, the adrenaline still surging through him, William’s clones started to form around Roman.

“Back off!” Coma shouted at the clones, lifting her fists.

“Roman, call off your doll,” said Mister Fist as his form took shape. Ava landed next to him, breathing heavily as the flames licked off her body.

“What?” Roman asked, still shocked to be holding his wife’s body, not sure of how he should react at the moment.

He had killed his adversary, he could see her gutted form lying in the mess of rocks.

Margo was dead.

But he also knew there would be repercussions, which was why he wasn’t prepared for what happened next, even if he had thought some of it through.

“We are taking you into custody, Roman,” Mister Fist said. “You know what you’ve done, and if not, I can go over it with you here. Formal charges may be filed later, once investigators pick through all that has happened. Now, will you come quietly, or we will be forced to…”

A turquoise blast struck Mister Fist in the back, the man falling forward almost immediately.

William’s clones fanned out, Ava lifting into the air. MindLenz appeared on the scene as well, her fingers pressed into her temple as she mentally scanned the area.

A woman in an emerald-green mask appeared at the other end of the rubble, her wrist guard aimed at MindLenz.

“No way…” Roman whispered. “No fucking way.”

Ava swooped down at the masked woman, flames pouring out of the palms of her hands. The woman activated a shield at the last minute, protecting her from the flames as she ran toward Roman.

By this point William’s clones had reached her, all of them filtering away as soon as they neared the woman’s shield, their forms melting, faces mangling as they fell to the side while Ava came in again for another attack only to fail in the end.

More clones continue to spill to the side as the woman grew nearer, Ava eventually landing behind her and trying to bring a flaming fist into the back of the woman’s head.

The masked woman pivoted at the last moment. The flames on Ava’s hand went out as the masked woman cracked her elbow against Ava’s chin. Shock registering on her face, Ava cried out as the woman brought her to the ground.

Crouching, the masked woman fired off a shot that sliced through one of William’s clones, cutting through its core. She was just turning to take out more clones when Ava went for her, her hands coming around the masked woman’s neck.

The two struggled for a moment, but eventually the masked woman was able to flip Ava off of her, scrambling on top of her in a matter of moments and stunning Ava with her wrist guard. Roman’s teacher fell to the side, her body writhing before settling.

As the masked woman approached Roman, she met the real William Bottorf, his batons twirling as he tried to deliver a final blow. She blocked a few of his swipes with her shield, the force of his last attack causing him to backpedal, and then the woman zapped him with her wrist guard.

William fell, out cold.

“Stop!” MindLenz the telepath said, lifting her fists as she got in front of Roman.

“Do you really want to do that?” the masked woman asked, slightly out of breath.

Against her better judgment, and clearly realizing her telepathic abilities weren’t working, MindLenz pressed a button on her wrist that activated an energy blade.

“All right then,” the masked woman said as she kept her shield up, moving to address the new threat.

The telepath wasn’t too bad with a blade, but Roman could tell it wasn’t something she practiced with often enough. While the blade would have been deadly in the other scenario, the masked woman’s shield and skill gave her the upper hand.

It wasn’t long before an opening presented itself, and the masked woman brought MindLenz down with a fist to the gut. She followed up by stunning the telepath with her wrist guard.

“I don’t know what to say…” Roman told the masked woman as she approached him, Celia’s dead body in his arms, Coma standing next to him, her fists curled at her sides.

“How about ‘thank you’?” Nadine asked as she removed her emerald-green mask. “Also, now or never. We have to leave, Roman.”

“Yeah…”

A teleporter appeared in that instant, a dark-skinned man wearing makeup with pink eyeliner that stretched past the tops of his ears. Once his form solidified, a bubble of energy formed around the group, encapsulating them and spinning away.

“How… how did you know?” Roman asked, as soon as they appeared in the main room of Nadine’s safehouse. He could tell the place had been cleared out, all aside from Celia and Casper, whose lifeless bodies lay on the floor.

“We have our ways.” Nadine bent over, her hands on her knees as she took in some deep breaths. “I can’t believe I just fought Mister Fist’s team.”

“Fought and won.”

“That… shit…” Nadine swallowed hard. “What are the odds? Never mind, we can unpack this later. Get your dolls.”

Roman brought Celia to life. She sat up, the look of surprise painting across her face as she saw Roman carrying his dead wife in his arms. Roman wasn’t too beat up, but there was a big scrape on the left side of his face, his mask was torn, and his clothing was filthy.

“Roman?” Celia asked once she was on her feet. She saw Casper lying on the ground and bent forward, scooping the tiny doll up in her arms.

“You didn’t have to,” Roman finally told Nadine. “I was ready to face my consequences.”

But the way he said this last sentence was almost as an afterthought, the tone of someone who hadn’t really thought through what they had done.

“And have your powers taken from you?” Nadine shook her head. “You know that’s what they would do, right? They would put you in prison and slap a device on you that can prevent you from using your power. I don’t know how they’d take the power away exactly, but I’m guessing if they can give it, they can take it.”

“Kevin was there,” Roman said, his mind fumbling backwards, putting all the details together and trying to understand the three-dimensional puzzle.

“I see,” Nadine said, and something about the way she said this made Roman think she’d already known this fact.

Still, he continued speaking. “Kevin was there in my apartment, when we tried our first attack. With his cat girls. Kevin. Can you believe that? And then the building was completely toppled, and then…”

“Are you okay?” Nadine asked, Roman started to take in quick breaths now, as if he was having a panic attack.

“I think… I think I need to sit down.”

“No, we don’t know how much they know, and if they come here and find us, then my little rescue mission will have all been for nothing. They definitely know it was me. Ava had to know.”

“Okay, we’ll go then,” Roman said as Celia the doll approached him, her hand coming to his dead wife’s face.

“We have to bury her,” Coma said. The masked doll stood near the door, as if anticipating an attack.

“Yes,” said Roman, “but they may be watching her gravesite, so we’ll have to do it somewhere else.”

Nadine ran her hand through her hair, shaking out her ponytail. “I don’t know what it’s going to look like to show up with a dead body…”

“We really don’t have any other choice,” Roman said, his orange eyes pleading with her, and Nadine quickly gave in.

“Fine, you’re right. Let’s move.”

A flash of white signaled that another teleporter had come, the whiteness painting across the room and then immediately sucking into the form of a man with a small black beard. He nodded at Nadine, ignoring Roman and his dolls, as well as the corpse in his arms.

Everything started to pixelate and reform in a different location, their new space reminding Roman of a dingy basement.

Eli was there, as was Oscar, the well-dressed man sitting on a chair with his elbows on his knees and a worried look on his face. He waited for the teleporter to pixelate away before speaking.

“I see you brought company,” Oscar said, standing.

“Sorry for this…” Roman started to say.

“We will need to get your wife out of here as quickly as we can. It is bad luck in the East to share a home with a dead body. And I don’t know how ripe she is.”

“I…” Roman nodded, not about to argue with the man who had taken part in saving his future. He was still suspicious of Oscar, had been since they’d met, but it appeared as though Oscar was trying to help them, even if the man clearly had an ulterior motive.

“Who is it, mister?” Eli asked as he approached Roman.

The young blond-haired boy brought his hands to his mouth as he realized she was dead. He stepped away slowly, fear visibly shaking him.

“There’s nothing we can do for her,” Roman said, “unless you can heal the dead…”

“I wish I could,” Eli said, trying not to sob.

“It’s not your fault,” Roman told the boy as he looked for a place to set Celia’s body. There weren’t many places, and he didn’t want to just lay her on the floor.

“Roman?” Lisa Painstake asked, coming out of the room in the back. “Wait. Is that a dead lady?”

“My wife,” Roman said under his breath.

Lisa gasped, instantly bowing her head.

“Before we call it a night,” Oscar said, interrupting their little moment, “I think it’s important that we give your wife a proper burial.”

“You’re right,” Roman finally said. “And I know just where we can do it.”

“Good,” said Oscar. “And one other thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Take your mask off so Eli can heal the wound on your head. Put the body… um…” Oscar shuddered. “You know what? Coma, help him get his mask off, and Eli get on a chair there so he can heal him. We’ve got to get that body out of here—no offense, Roman. I’m too old not to have superstitions, so forgive me of this one.”

“None taken,” Roman said as Coma approached him.

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Burial Ultimatum

It was a small affair, just Roman, Oscar, Nadine and Coma.

Oscar had instructed Lisa to stay back, and Celia said she would help take care of Eli, who had become extremely quiet after seeing Roman’s dead wife. Casper was back at the safehouse as well, Roman still not in the mood to activate her.

Maybe he would once all this was over, whatever that entailed.

They were at Mystery Hill State Park, the same park Roman had visited earlier in the day with Ava, but in a different location than the place he had animated the towering rock forms.

Roman and his dead wife had gotten married in a spot not far from the camping grounds, a waterfall nearby, the smell of mint in the air. The scent came from a special plant that grew in the area, ironically known as widow’s mint, which Celia had taken a liking to after visiting the park.

It was funny in a way, how a memory could press so closely to the surface of the mind but never actually emerge on the other side. He was instantly familiar with the place, yet if someone had asked Roman just a day ago about the meadow he kept dreaming about, he would have sworn he had never been there before, even though he thought fondly of this memory.

It just hadn’t clicked.

Yet here he was, the stars bright above, Coma helping Roman place Celia on the ground, his dead wife’s head resting in a bed of light-blue flowers.

“A beautiful location,” Oscar said. “I’m sure she would have loved this place.”

“I’ve been having the same reoccurring dreams, and they all take place here. In fact, Abby visited me today in the same space.”

He looked to Nadine and she nodded. “I didn’t think that would help, but I at least wanted to put the word out there.”

“You weren’t wrong to be concerned, and your warning turned out to be true,” Roman said as he looked down at his wife’s body. “What I did today is going to fundamentally change the course of my life. I may have ruined my chances of ever doing good, and I could end up an enemy of the state.”

“Was it worth it?” Oscar asked softly.

“Celia was all I had. An accident took her away from me, and then this woman defiled her corpse. The accident I can live with, but I can’t live with someone purposefully misusing my wife’s dead body.”

“Sounds reasonable enough to me,” Oscar said.

The four of them stood silently for a moment, a breeze whistling up, Roman ignoring the mental messages he had already received from Catherine and Ava, Emelia too. All people that were part of his life, women who cared for him in some way, one of whom he had completely betrayed.

But Roman would address that later. For now, he needed to make sure that Celia would rest peacefully for eternity.

Trees on the outer rim of the meadow began to creak, stray limbs falling to the ground and slithering over to Roman. He didn’t want his work to be noticeable, so he borrowed a few limbs from several different trees, and once he had a good stack of them, he focused his power on connecting all of the limbs until they formed a flat platform.

He then waved his hand toward a rock, quickly running it across the tops of the limbs and smoothing their surfaces. The ground lifted Celia up and placed her on the platform he’d created, more tree limbs stacking up along the perimeter to create a coffin.

“Remarkable,” Oscar whispered.

Nadine watched with her hands crossed over her chest, feeling Roman’s emotion in the moment, his focus. Coma was present too, but she still seemed alert, ready to move into action at a moment’s notice.

“Goodbye,” Roman told his wife as he looked into the coffin he had created, seeing her face one last time.

He sealed it with more wood and then focused on a spot of soil about seven feet away. Rather than pull up the grass, he used his power to cut deep into the soil, curling up the top layer so the grass and flowers wouldn’t be stripped away.

He moved the soil by waving his hand back and forth, not needing to use a gesture but doing so anyway, the act of movement increasing his focus as he dug a deeper hole.

Once the hole was adequate, stubby legs sprouted on the end of Celia’s coffin, carrying the coffin over to the hole and gradually walking it down a reclined surface that led to its bottom.

Celia now in place, Roman returned the topsoil and layered the grass and flowers back over, no sign whatsoever that a body had been buried in the twilight meadow.

“We can leave you here for a while,” Oscar said, “but we shouldn’t go too far.”

“No, I’m fine,” Roman said after a moment of silence. “I’m just glad to finally have this done.”

“I understand. We have much to discuss, but that can wait for the morning.”

“No, we can discuss it now, here,” Roman said, turning to him.

“Are you certain?” Oscar asked, exchanging glances with Nadine.

“Maybe it’s best if you get some rest,” Nadine said.

“I will get some rest, but let’s discuss whatever we need to discuss now, so I can think about it overnight.”

“And you want to do it here?” Oscar asked.

“Here is as good a place as any,” Roman said. Coma nodded, readily agreeing with him.

“In that case, we need to discuss what happens next,” Oscar said, his hands coming out of his pockets as he brought them together in front of his body. “You are now a wanted fugitive, and the Eastern Province government is willing to help you. We are willing to give you a new life, Mr. Martin, but you must understand that with that life comes service to our government, and you must swear loyalty to us.”

“I understand.”

“Your other option would be to turn yourself in. To see what Centralia decides to do with you. Now, there have been exemplars who have gone rogue before, and the ones in government service were stripped of their powers and imprisoned. It’s not often that they strip someone of their powers—it is more of a ceremonial thing—but they do have the capability of doing so. I should know; I was around when the East created the tech.”

“I see,” said Roman, looking to Nadine, who was no longer able to make eye contact with him.

“So I believe those are your two most viable options. Either join us, or turn yourself in. I suppose you could also run, and maybe you would survive for a while as a wanted fugitive, but they would eventually catch up to you. So I guess there are three options, then. If you want my advice, I would go with option one. We can help you disappear; we can give you the life that you want, still in Centralia; and we can also change enough about you and the way you look to make it incredibly difficult for Centralian forces to ever track you down. But that’s just my opinion.”

“Thanks,” Roman finally said, “I’ll think about it tonight.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Manifest Destiny

“Heal her,” Kevin Blackbook said, standing over the frail healer.

He didn’t know how long they had run from the fight, but at some point, Scarlett had regained consciousness and been able to teleport Kevin and his crew back to their hideout.

From there she had passed out, and Kevin had immediately brought her into the old woman’s room and asking her to heal Scarlett. About halfway through, he had recalled that Obsidian was also injured, so he quickly replaced Scarlett with her, the old woman groaning as she used more of her power.

Scarlett now sat on the floor, her knees curled to her chest, a sick look on her face. Turquoise was perched on the nightstand, her tail hooked as she intently watched the woman work.

“Please don’t die,” Kevin said to both Obsidian and the woman, not quite sure how much more the healer could take. “Please…”

The old woman looked even more sickly than she had the last time he had seen her, veins now visible on the side of her forehead.

Kevin just needed her for these two people, and then they would figure out whatever was next, the former administrator completely aware of the fact that he was outgunned. He had seen the creation Margo had pulled from the rubble, and even with an ability to negate power, he knew it would be useless to try to take her down.

Not with power like that.

Kevin had been foolish; he had let his ego get in the way, assuming he would be able to take down an exemplar of her caliber. Now James Tew was dead, and Obsidian was close to knocking on death’s door.

It was time to pivot, time to do as Turquoise had asked.

Time to leave.

“I need to heal more,” Scarlett said on the tail end of a long cough. She wiped her mouth, blood smeared across her arm.

“I know, you’ll get her again,” Kevin said hurriedly. “Once she’s done with Obsidian.”

Obsidian had suffered from some type of internal damage, her outside form hardly showing the damage she appeared to be suffering from. She hadn’t said much during their escape aside from whispering Kevin’s name once or twice.

Even now, lying on the bed before the woman, Obsidian looked incredibly small, limp, like she was wasting away.

Kevin knew not to panic.

Part of the woman’s healing power caused an immediate sickness in the subject, but he was still worried, to the point that he started to pace. Back and forth Kevin paced, no longer able to look at anyone in the room as he tried to focus.

Scarlett said his name again and he ignored her, Kevin’s thoughts jumping from what would happen next to what had just happened, remembering Roman appearing from the debris, a firmness in the way he’d talked that Kevin had never heard from the man before.

True conviction.

Roman had never really had it, but now, Kevin wasn’t so sure he felt that way about his former coworker. Had he really been hiding this power the entire time? Kevin would never know. In that moment he had promised himself one thing, and one thing only: escape.

After they were healed up, Kevin would escape.

Obsidian and Turquoise at his side, he would never look back. However bad the West was, at least he would be free there. He could start a new life, create a new identity, forget all about Centralia and the things he had done there, from killing his wife and his brother, strangling Paris, injuring the people at his office.

All of it.

“Kevin,” Scarlett said again. “I think I know someone who could help.”

“What do you mean?” Kevin asked, stopping and looking at her.

“I know this… scientist,” she said. “He’s able to reverse-engineer superpowers, turn them… into chemicals. We can reverse-engineer her power… maybe we’ll be able to heal without needing her help.”

“You think it will actually work?” Turquoise asked, still perched on the nightstand. She turned slowly to Scarlett, her tail fluttering in the air as she moved to her other heel.

“He has done…”

“What?” Kevin asked.

“The man I know has done things. Things that I have never—no, Centralia has never seen. The closest I can equate it to is some of the tech they have in the East… but he’s not using electronics and crystals to generate powers, no runes either. He’s using chemicals. He’s been through a rough patch over the last few days, but he’s back working in his lab now.”

Kevin settled his nerves with a deep breath. “How long do you think it will take?”

“Dr. Hamza Grumio works pretty quickly,” said Scarlett.

“I ask because we are heading West, as soon as Obsidian heals up.”

Kevin didn’t need to look over at Turquoise to know she was beaming a smile over at him, that she was happy to hear these words come out of his mouth. After all, he was doing this for her, and Kevin would be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t also interested to see what a new country had to offer.

“Dr. Hamza is fast, but it may take a day or three,” said Scarlett. “Can you wait that long?”

Kevin looked from the brunette teleporter to Turquoise, who nodded her approval.

“We’ll need to change locations again,” said the cat girl.

“Definitely,” said Kevin. “And for payment?”

“Dr. Hamza will probably just take the fact that we are bringing him a healer to experiment on as payment. But I’ll have to check.”

“Fair enough,” said Kevin. “As long as you and Obsidian get healed up.”

Scarlett bit her lip for a moment as she looked over at the healer, who seemed to be losing more steam by the minute. “I’m afraid that’s not up to me.”

“She’ll be fine,” Kevin said. “We’ll make it through this, get her to your guy, and then the three of us will head West.”

Chapter Forty: Blink and You Die

Roman wasn’t surprised to find himself in the twilight meadow. He knew as soon as he drifted off to sleep that he would end up there, his reoccurring dream a constant disrupter of good rest.

Abby, the psychometrist, sat on a tree stump, one leg crossed over the other.

“Back in my dreams, it seems,” Roman said as he approached her, his hands deep into the pockets of the trench coat he hadn’t been wearing just moments ago.

“So you made your decision,” she said.

“I’m still undecided.”

“Not about that, about attacking Margo. You made your decision, and you acted on it.”

“It doesn’t matter now; she’s dead.”

“And you are a fugitive.”

“Have you been talking to Nadine or something?” Roman asked.

“I told you I could read your mind in here,” she said, looking around. “Also, I believe this is the last time you will visit this place, this beautiful meadow.” Abby glanced around again, a few of the stars above her fizzling out.

“What do you mean?”

“Regardless of how your actions are going to affect you in the coming days, you were able to bury your wife, and I believe that this dream will be buried with her.”

“No more falling…”

Abby laughed. “Falling may be the least of your concerns. At least when you’re falling, you don’t know exactly when you’re going to stop.”

“Yes, you do,” Roman told her. “You stop when you hit the ground.”

“But do you? Or does your soul keep falling further?”

“Don’t play spiritual word games with me.”

“I’m not playing spiritual word games with you, Roman, I’m just here to let you know that, well, I’m here.”

“In my dreams? Are you a man or a woman in here?”

“Does it matter? If you turn yourself in, they will strip your powers from you.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Your actions took out an entire city block. I know that you haven’t been checking the news recently, but it is quite the scandal. I don’t see this going away quietly; then again, Centralia has used mass telepathic actions to…”

“To what?”

“Centralia has used mass telepathic actions to adjust public perception. Surely, you are aware of this. Why do you think the majority of the public always agrees when Centralia goes to war? How do you think Centralia has maintained a representative democracy while others have failed? It isn’t hard, you know, to brainwash thousands upon thousands of people at once. It just takes a good amplifier.”

“There are loads of conspiracies out there,” said Roman, “and I’m not interested in them. Their veracity will not affect the outcome of my life, not now. I am the person who has the ultimate say in how this plays out, and the decision I make next will be one I will have to live with forever.”

“Well, it’s good that you recognize that,” Abby said, the tree trunk she was sitting on starting to expand. “Care to sit? I have powers similar to yours on this plane. I can adjust pretty much anything. I may even be able to help you meet with Celia again.”

“But I thought…” Roman gulped as he sat down. “I thought you couldn’t do anything like that. Not after someone dies.”

“It wouldn’t be the real Celia, it would be an amalgamation crafted from the memories you have of her. It would take me just a little time to formulate that, and I would have to spend some of that time in your head to make it happen. It’s really up to you, if you want to go through with it.”

“Of course I do,” Roman said, almost cutting her off. “If I could just meet her one last time…”

He recalled that this was one of the original promises Nadine had made him, before Celia had passed. In fact, it had been Abby who would have been the one overseeing this connection.

“Then I will see what I can do, and for now, I will leave this place to let you get some rest.”

Vines started to lift from the ground, moving up Roman’s body over his shoulders and down his arms.

“Goodbye, Roman,” Abby said, her hand now on his cheek, the woman inches away from kissing him. “Good luck in whatever decision you finally make, and I will see you here again someday soon.”

Roman awoke with Nadine curled next to him, his dolls sitting on a bench at the end of the bed.

They startled him for a moment, Roman initially feeling like he was being watched. This thought quickly settled once he realized they were deactivated, simply sitting there.

Nadine’s forehead was pressed onto his shoulder, and her hand on his chest, his arm around her and partially numb from the pressure. He didn’t want to disturb the woman who had saved him, so Roman simply lay there, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling.

He hadn’t given her as much credit as he should have, and it was something he wanted to correct.

Nadine had seriously taken on Mister Fist’s exemplar team by herself, no small feat. He had initially been curious as to how she’d kept taking out William’s clones, the clones approaching her and then suddenly filtering away. It was an uncanny thing to see, but now he knew it was due to the ring she wore on her ring finger.

Her new Zero Ring.

Roman had an idea of the decision he would make later this morning, his subconscious mind pushing him forward, telling him that in this scenario, flight may be better than fight.

And it was true, he was happy here with Nadine, and he enjoyed working with her. They had a connection, clearly, and if their connection simply stayed as it currently was, both of them looking out for each other’s, Roman knew they would go pretty far as a team.

Regardless of what Centralia thought of his actions, a Margo-less world was one that everyone could get behind. The woman was toxic, killing everything she touched, and hell, reanimating their corpses.

And part of Roman wished he could have said a few final words to her, maybe even asked her enough questions that he could have understood her motives, but he knew she was better off face-first in a pool of blood.

If Mister Fist and his team hadn’t shown up, one could argue that Roman wouldn’t have had the chance to take a shot, that the battle would only have gotten that much worse.

Roman was not certain of what Centralian authorities would charge him with, but he knew it wouldn’t be pretty. He knew he wouldn’t be able to mount a legal defense, and that he would eventually be taken out by the system.

But still…

A new message came in from Ava, pleading with him to come to her apartment, to turn himself in.

Regardless of the fact that they had fucked, Roman felt a strong connection to her, a connection that was distorted because he had disobeyed a direct order. And he absolutely hated ignoring his teacher’s messages. He could feel her sending these desperate messages, and he knew that she wanted to help him, but in the end, her loyalty had to lie with the state. Ava wouldn’t do anything like harbor him to safety or prevent the authorities from getting to him.

And he didn’t want her to. That wasn’t her role in this. She had tried to mold him, aid him in every way she could, and he’d rejected it.

Roman didn’t want to fight back against anyone that came for him, but he was worried that his instincts could take over, even if he was trying to resist it.

Roman looked down at his power dial, noticing that everything seemed fine for the time being.

He was just about to look away when he saw something blinking on the side of the device, a light he’d never seen before.

If only Roman had seen the light earlier.

A spiral burst of energy was the last thing Roman saw before appearing in a wide-open space, not unlike the twilight meadow, but the grass in this space was dead, the trees on its perimeter withering, the moon enlarged to a size Roman had never seen before.

He barely had a moment to blink before he felt something lurch in his stomach as he fell, Nadine next to him, an unknown woman falling alongside them.

“Roman, do something!” Nadine shouted, her hands pressed together as she rolled to the side.

Roman hadn’t put all the pieces of this puzzle together yet, but he was aware of the fact that there had been a teleporter, that the teleporter had taken them somewhere, and that no, this wasn’t a fucking dream.

Still in a sleepy haze, he tried to use his power on the teleporter, attempting to explode her brain. But she was already getting up to her feet, his powers weren’t working, and Roman recalled in that instant that Nadine had a power nullification ring.

So he went with the only thing he knew.

Roman knocked the female teleporter out cold, the woman hitting the ground just as a loud roar met Roman’s ears.

There was something stalking him along the perimeter of the field, just outside of the range of Nadine’s ring, snarling, the moonlight telling Roman that it was some type of beast with the face of a wolf, the body, arms and legs of a man, and the claws of an animal.

“Let me have my power back,” Roman said, catching his breath.

“I’m ordering a teleporter,” said Nadine.

“Stay behind me,” Roman said, his arms wide now, tracking the beast.

He felt his power come back to him, and once it did he erected a giant bubble of rock around them, the beast smashing into the outside of Roman’s barrier, immediately trying to dig its way in.

“Okay, okay,” Nadine said quickly, her hand on her head, her sleep shirt hanging open a little, her chest heaving up and down as she took a deep breath in. “Okay, shit.”

“An offensive teleporter?” Roman asked, looking down at the dark-skinned woman who lay at their feet. A white mask covered her face, the woman on her side, not moving at all.

Just to be sure, Nadine dropped two fingers on the side of the woman’s neck, confirming that she was still alive.

“Yes, an offensive teleporter. They’ve sent an exemplar team after us,” Nadine said, coming to a quick conclusion.

“How did they know?” Roman asked.

“They must have been tracking you,” said Nadine. “Yes, tracking you, that’s the only way this can happen. But how? We even changed safehouses.”

Roman looked at his power dial, which was currently blinking.

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of that,” Nadine said, grimacing. “Destroy it. Destroy it or they will continue to hunt us when we port away.”

Roman stripped off his power dial, the first time it had been off since he’d gotten it. He threw it into the rock wall he had created, the power dial liquefying and merging with its surface as the beast morpher continued to pound on the structure.

“Just hang tight,” Nadine said, “the teleporter should be here any moment.”

“Got it…”

But suddenly, the wall was gone, Roman was standing at the fair with Celia, the band was playing, and the line was forming at the Ferris wheel.

“How did I get here?” Roman asked, looking to his wife, a curious smile moving across her face as she glanced at him.

“We came here on the trolley, don’t you remember?” Celia asked, a dreamy look in her eyes.

“No, I don’t. I was…”

Where was I? Roman thought. Even though he knew this couldn’t be real, a thought came to him, a concept he had never really examined before. What if everything that had happened after this moment in time wasn’t real?

What if this moment was real, happening now, time a balloon slowly filling with air, nothing linear about it?

What if everything he’d experienced after this moment was a long nightmare?

What if he was the one who was about to die?

“I can’t go anywhere,” Roman told Celia, still mesmerized by her dreamy eyes. “It doesn’t matter if… I just… No, this isn’t real—no, it is, it really is.”

“Are you okay?” Celia asked, his wife coming forward and taking his other hand. “Roman, I think you’re having a panic attack.”

“A panic attack?”

Roman looked around. Everything was normal, the sun was setting, there was music playing in the distance, the sound of a crowd. Normal. The world was a perfect sphere, nothing was out of the ordinary, the Ferris wheel was spinning, a man selling cotton candy greeting a seated woman, children running, a young couple heading toward the fun house.

What if everything that had happened after this moment wasn’t real?

Celia never went into a coma; Roman never sought the embrace of strangers to fill a deep void in his life; he never got his power; he never animated his dolls; he never met Nadine or Paris; he never went East; he never returned triumphant but broken; he never became an exemplar; he never betrayed his country.

“We can’t go to the Ferris wheel,” he told her, starting to cry. Roman wiped the tears away, his muscles tensing as he turned away from his wife, not wanting her to see his display of emotion.

“Honey, what has gotten into you? Let’s sit; let’s go sit somewhere.”

“We can’t go to the Ferris wheel,” Roman told her again.

“Roman, we don’t have to go to the Ferris wheel. It doesn’t matter. None of this matters.”

“You’re not Celia,” he screamed, more tears coming, the wave of angst he was feeling replaced by sheer anger. “This isn’t real!”

Everything flashed away, Roman falling to the ground, the snarl of the terrible, wolf-like creature reaching his ears just as he was tackled.

This was it. He had been captured, and there was nothing he could do about it.

“Roman!”

Nadine’s scream broke him from his reverie, Roman’s instincts kicking in, the ground morphing around him, latching on to the beast morpher and pulling the monster off him, slamming the creature into the soil, Roman back on his feet in a matter of moments looking to kill—anyone, anything…

But then he remembered Ava.

And in that moment, he knew that any damage he did would affect her in some way, even though none of this was her fault.

Neutralize, he reminded himself as he turned to see a man wearing all black, a mask on his face that completely covered his eyes, a glowing jewel on his forehead.

Roman didn’t know who he was, but he assumed that this was the man who had created the hallucination, the one he had somehow broken free from.

And as much as Roman wanted to end the man’s life right then and there, he knew this would only complicate things further, so he simply used the ground to sweep the man off his feet, the soil lifting up in bands and zigzagging across the man’s body, wrapping around his face, concealing the jewel, where Roman assumed his power originated.

This was something he hadn’t encountered before at the immigration office; and he didn’t have time to process it now, but he had heard of exemplars in the North perfecting the usage of stones and ancient runes to augment their powers.

It didn’t matter now.

This exemplar was neutralized, which left only one more, one that must have arrived on the scene after Roman had created his structure.

The muscular woman hesitated for a moment as she lifted her fists, stone forming around her hands.

“Okay, we’re going,” Nadine said. “Oscar knows too.”

“I’ve beaten everyone on your team,” Roman told the woman with the stone hands. “I suggest you stand down, unless you would like to find out what I can do with rock!”

The woman hesitated for a moment.

“I don’t want to hurt any of you,” Roman said, “and I’m sorry for what I’ve already done to your teleporter. But if you come any closer and you try to use your power on me, I will have to engage you. And it won’t be very hard for me to do. I could have already done it in the time it has taken me to give you this warning. Don’t make me do this.”

“Roman,” Nadine said, close to him now, her hand wrapping into his. He didn’t even see her approach, so focused was he on addressing the woman with fists made of stone.

A teleporter appeared behind them, startling Roman, but he was in control enough to know not to act, that this was an arranged teleportation.

“Don’t come after me again,” Roman told the woman.

The teleporter confirmed something with Nadine, and their forms pixelated away just as the male beast morpher got to his feet.

Roman and Nadine’s forms pixelated back into existence on a rooftop somewhere, Roman immediately assuming they were in eastern Centralia, some of the taller buildings lighting up the horizon.

“Why here?” Roman asked Nadine as soon as the teleporter was gone.

“Oscar is getting everyone else to safety, and we’ve been teleported here to make sure no one else is coming after us tonight.”

“And my dolls?” Roman asked.

“Yes. We have contingencies in place for an attack like this. The East has a team of teleporters whose job it is to move bodies quickly, be they dead or alive.”

Roman smirked.

“What?” Nadine asked.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s something,” she said. “Tell me what it is before we unpack what happened back there.”

“It just seems like the East spends all the money they have on spies here in Centralia,” he said, breathing heavily. “Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing, but from some of the conditions I saw there, it must be incredibly expensive to have all the safehouses, teleportation teams ready, that kind of thing.”

“Yes,” Nadine finally said. “I know what you’re saying, but that’s not something we should discuss right now. Later, though. Maybe.”

“Yeah, later,” Roman said, finally able to catch his breath. His breaths had been pretty short there for a moment, and he was almost glad they didn’t have the power dial to tell him he was close to the red.

“I’ll see if I can figure out what team of exemplars just attacked us,” Nadine said once she got tired of the silence growing between them.

Roman nodded. “As far as their powers, one was a Type III Class F, the female offensive teleporter. The beast morpher was a Type II Class C, as was the woman with the stone fists. The other guy… I’d say Type I Class A. That’s just my guess, but this is usually how Centralia classifies a telepath with hallucinatory abilities. Especially one that powerful.”

“You’ve experienced something like that before?” Nadine asked.

“Something like that, but nothing that intense. It was at one of the telepath trainings I had to attend. That was…” Roman remembered the fair, the warmth of Celia’s hand. “I don’t know how I broke free from that one,” he finally said. “With a power like that, you can pretty much do anything and take anyone down, which was why I’m guessing the rest of the team wasn’t as strong.”

“Not a bad theory. But it doesn’t seem like they’re coming after us now. It seems like the tracking device was in the power dial, or your clothing. But if they did plant something on you, they would’ve done it with your outerwear, not what you wore to bed tonight. So that rules that out as well.”

“It was the power dial,” Roman assured her. “I saw it blinking, and I’ve never seen it blink like that before. I mean, I’ve seen it blink a couple of times, but not this particular light on it. What bothers me about that, though, is that they’ve been tracking me this entire time. Or, at least they could have if they’d wanted to.”

“You’re an asset to them,” Nadine reminded him. “As soon as you got that power, someone must have given the order to watch you closely. It’s not a normal power to have, and it’s one with unlimited potential.”

“This fucking power,” Roman said, looking down at his hands.

“Be thankful you have that power,” she said. “It’s what saved us tonight; it is what continues to save you.”

“I would argue that my power has only brought me closer to death,” said Roman. “Well, then again, I would have been Paris’s double agent, or whatever, without this power. Or dead. She may have killed me.”

“Just don’t discredit it,” Nadine said, moving closer to him.

She placed both arms around his neck and looked up at Roman. She wasn’t much shorter than him, just a few inches, and as he lowered his hands to her waist, he was glad no one could see them on this rooftop.

Both were in their sleep clothes, both barefoot, both covered in dirt, Roman’s hair a mess and Nadine’s tangled.

“I don’t know how we keep surviving these things,” Roman told her.

“It is exhausting, isn’t it?” she said, lifting herself onto the tips of her toes.

They were just about to kiss, their lips inches away from pressing together when a different teleporter appeared, this one a thin woman with a short mohawk. “Your new place is ready,” she said. “But I can come back if that’s what you would like…”

“No,” Nadine said, regaining her composure almost instantly. “We’re good to go.”

Chapter Forty-One: Now or Never

“I’m glad you’re okay, Mister,” Eli said as he ran forward and hugged Roman, Roman not expecting this sort of affection from the young boy.

“I…”

“Do you need healing? What about you, Nadine?” the kid asked, looking between them. Once he let go of Roman, he gave Nadine a hug as well, the Eastern spy dropping her hand onto the back of his head.

“They were tracking us all along,” Oscar said, not exactly angry, but not happy they’d had to move in the middle of the night.

Nadine’s handler was in a silk pajama set, the material an off-white color that matched his stylish sleeping cap, something Roman had only seen older people wear.

“We think it was his power dial,” Nadine said.

“It was definitely my power dial, there’s no other way…”

“There’s always another way,” Oscar told him. “But, in this regard, you’re probably right. Sorry. I am irritable right now. I don’t like being woken up in the middle of the night.”

“I’m sorry for all that,” Roman said. “I’m sorry we all had to move.”

Roman saw his dolls lying on the ground, and it annoyed him a little, but he knew they’d probably been transported relatively quickly, the teleporter assuming they weren’t living beings. He brought them to life. Casper hopped out of a pocket on Coma’s dress and ran to Eli, who scooped her up into his arms and let the doll sit on his shoulder.

“What happened?” Coma asked, looking around the room, her shoulders bristling.

“We were attacked, and I couldn’t activate you in time.”

“Why not?” she demanded.

“Yeah, why not?” asked Casper.

“Because they were attacked by Team Saint,” Oscar said.

Nadine looked to Oscar. “Team Saint?”

“Yes, I’ve gotten intelligence based on the information you forwarded me. Team Saint has four members, like a normal Centralian exemplar team. There is Saint, who specializes in telekinesis and creating hallucinations within a person’s mind. Blue, a man who morphs into a large, blue wolf creature. Banish, a teleporter who specializes in offensive teleportation. And Thalia, who can turn her skin to stone.”

“I’ve heard of them,” said Lisa Painstake, who sat at the table sipping from a cup of tea. She seemed content, less anxious than she should be. Roman assumed this was because she’d gotten her Soul Speed power back and she didn’t really care what happened now.

Which was naïve.

While her power was interesting, if something happened to her physical form, that was it, and she had no defensive skills, a Type IV if Roman had ever seen one.

“We got lucky,” Nadine said. “If I hadn’t had my ring, the teleporter would have ended it.”

“No, I would have fought back,” Roman started to tell her.

“Have you ever fought a teleporter trained in offensive teleportation?” Oscar asked. “No? I thought not. They are brutally fast, and able to do things like teleport behind you; then teleport you into the sky; then teleporter you away just before you hit the ground, then teleport you back to the sky; then maybe let you hit the ground; then teleport you away again; then teleport next to you with a blade; then stab you in the kidney, teleporting away before you can swipe at them. Imagine the possibilities.”

“I get it,” Roman said.

“I’m guessing that the location they teleported you to was just the staging area, and that they had plans for what they’d do with you from there. But you stopped that, Nadine.”

“All thanks to you,” Nadine told Oscar. “I wouldn’t have this ring if it weren’t for you.”

“That’s beside the point. Right now we need to discuss what happens tomorrow and from that point forward. I know you said you’re going to sleep on it, Roman, but I need to know now. Are you with us? Or are you going to turn yourself in? Or perhaps you plan to run away. That was an option as well. The point is, I need to know now. If we’re going to be targets, we have to change things up around here.”

Roman looked from Nadine to Coma and from Coma to Celia, who wanted to come forward so bad and embrace him that it was practically written on her face.

“I’m going to…” Roman swallowed hard. He didn’t want to bring harm to these people, and he knew that a life on the run would eventually catch up to him. For once, he was going to do the right thing, even if that right thing was the wrong thing for his livelihood and well-being.

“Well?” Oscar asked.

Roman cleared his throat. “I’m going to turn myself in. Tomorrow.”

“You fool,” Nadine said, stepping away from him, her arms coming across her chest.

“I don’t know what will become of me, but I don’t want to live a life on the run, and…”

“What?” Lisa asked after a moment of silence.

“I am Centralian. I appreciate everything the East has done for me, but I think if I started working for the Eastern Province, or if I became a citizen through whatever means you would invent for me to do so, I would eventually be exploited. Or killed. Or some strange combination of the two.”

“After everything we’ve done for you…” Oscar mumbled.

“I can’t express how much I appreciate what you have done for me,” Roman told the man. “But I’m not from there—I’m from here—and I don’t follow orders very well. Have you not noticed that yet?”

“Idiot,” Nadine whispered.

“And maybe I could follow orders better, but I won’t be able to take orders from your government very easily, especially when I see how you have treated some of your own people. And I know this sounds harsh. I’m not trying to sound harsh here. But you yourself are still in Centralia. Why haven’t you gone back to the East? If it’s so great, why don’t you go there?”

“I think it’s time you go, Mr. Martin,” Oscar said, a vein appearing on the side of his forehead.

“I’m not saying your country is bad, that I wouldn’t want to visit again, or anything like that. But you guys have a way of making people disappear—hell, you almost did it to Nadine here. She can’t even contact her family; she told me on the train about all that. And your country would have probably done something to her family, too. I can’t live with that. I don’t have a family, but a country that behaves like that is not a country for me. And I have earned this. I’ve earned whatever punishment I’m given. I disobeyed a direct order, I brought down a goddamn city block, and I don’t know how many people are dead, but all their deaths are on me.”

“Roman…” Nadine said, scowling at him.

“Mr. Martin, I believe it is time that you order a teleporter. I don’t care where you go, but you can’t stay here,” Oscar said firmly. “Not any longer.”

“I don’t want Roman to leave,” Eli said.

“Quiet, boy, this conversation doesn’t involve you,” Oscar told the kid. Casper stuck her tongue out at Nadine’s handler as he turned his attention back to Roman.

“I understand, and I appreciate your hospitality and all you’ve done for me,” Roman told the man, reaching his hand out. Oscar looked at Roman’s hand for a moment, debating whether he should shake it or not. In the end, he simply placed both his hands in the pockets of his sleep pants, giving Roman a tight smile.

“But I don’t want them to go,” Eli said, stamping his feet. “I like them.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Nadine told the boy, stopping him from approaching Roman. “What he’s doing is practically suicide.”

“What about us?” Celia asked, coming forward. “If they take away your power, that means…”

“He doesn’t give two shits about us,” Casper hissed, the tiny doll still perched on Eli’s shoulder. “If he cared, he would cozy up here with these Easterners, and we’d live a life of crime. Damn, do you realize how crazy our life could be if we stuck around with them?” Casper asked him.

“Aware,” Roman said, feeling the tension in the room.

“Are you sure about this?” Lisa asked.

“I wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t sure,” he told the young woman. “And I would suggest you think about this as well. At some point, you’re going to have to decide if you want to go back to the Northern Alliance or work solely for the Eastern Province. I don’t know the best option for you. I don’t know what it’s like in the North.”

“Enough,” Oscar told him. “You’ve said your piece. Now it’s time to leave.”

“Will we ever see him again?” Eli asked Nadine.

“I don’t… No. No, we will not,” she said, a resolve in her voice that Roman had never heard before. “No, we absolutely will not.”

“But what will happen to us?” Celia asked again. “I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want you to leave us.”

“We will figure it out,” Coma told Celia, her hand coming around Celia’s waist. “But for now, we have to see this through.”

“I’m ordering a teleporter now, and while I disagree with the way your country treats its citizens, this doesn’t reflect on how I feel about each of you,” Roman said, looking directly at Nadine. “I will never forget any of you, and I don’t know what happens next, but it has been nice. I only wish I could have done more to show my appreciation. Take care, Nadine, Oscar, Lisa, Eli—and thank you.”

Chapter Forty-Two: The End of the Road

“Please, there must be something else you can do,” Celia told Roman.

They were in a love hotel room near the red-light district, not too far from Centralia central. It was a cash-only type of hotel, a place Roman had frequented during the darker days after his wife’s coma.

For the first several months, he just couldn’t find it in himself to bring women back to the home he had shared with his wife. So he had come to this hotel, enough times that the older woman at the front desk recognized him, asking him why he hadn’t stopped by in a while. She didn’t bat an eye at him showing up with not one but two beautiful women, one in a dark-blue dress and the other wearing superhero tights.

The room was quaint, recently painted, the bed a bit springy but otherwise comfortable. Casper had already chosen a pillow, and Coma sat in a chair near the door while Roman sat on the edge of the bed, Celia in his lap.

“I know I sound crazy,” he told her.

“You’re so powerful. You could get away with anything, and you’re just going to give in to them? I just don’t understand it. There are other places we could go. I don’t know enough about your world to tell you where these places are, but they have to exist. We saw how big this world was when we headed east. We could disappear, Roman.”

“Yes, we could,” he said, looking down at his bare feet. He had teleported away from the safe house in a hurry, leaving his clothes behind. And he was lucky that the lady at the front counter recognized him, that she’d let him take the room on credit with the promise that he would pay later.

This sort of hospitality and trust used to be a staple of Centralian society, something that had changed over the years as the country’s population doubled and people from other countries moved in, ways of life replaced with xenophobia and suspicion.

It didn’t matter anyway—Roman would never see this hotel again. He wished he had better clothes, but there was nothing he could do about that either, not if he wanted to just hurry up and get it over with.

Once he turned himself in, he would be barefoot.

He had thought briefly of making himself a pair of shoes out of something in his surroundings, or robbing a store by simply having the clothing walk out. But in the end, he decided this was the least of his worries.

He had whales to fry.

Roman stretched out, his hands coming behind his head. Eventually he got onto the bed properly, Coma helping Celia out of her exemplar uniform.

Careful not to disturb Casper, Celia found a place next to Roman, now only wearing black panties.

Coma also undressed, keeping her leggings on as she got onto the bed, her hand coming to his chest.

“I really wish there was a different way for this to happen,” he told them, Celia now placing her head in the nook of his arm, Coma close to him as well, her hand moving from his chest to his stomach as she settled in.

“You have to do what you have to do,” Coma said.

“I just don’t see what good can come of this,” said Celia.

“There is no good that will come of this; but not a lot of good has come from my life over the last couple of years, especially since I got this power. Aside from you two. You both are the good in my life. And I only wish it was easier for us to exist without all the pressure and the turmoil.”

“You’ve done your best,” Coma said.

“No, I have been mediocre, hasty, and I should have listened to all the people around me.”

“Yet you won’t listen to us right now, and we are around you,” said Celia, quickly pointing out the flaw in his argument.

“I don’t want to run,” he told her. “I don’t want this to be how I live my life. And I don’t want to work for the East. And those are my two other options aside from turning myself in.”

“Do you think it would be that bad to work for the East?” Coma asked.

“I really don’t know,” said Roman, “but there’s no telling what they would have me do. It might start off relatively easy, but eventually, I would be compromising whatever morals I have left.”

“I think you’re right,” Coma said. “They were going to kill Nadine, even though she had discovered the healer. And now they have the healer, and I’m sure they have plans for the boy as well.”

“Eli is such a sweet boy; he doesn’t deserve to be a pawn in their game,” said Celia.

“No, he doesn’t, but maybe it’s better for them to dissect his power. Maybe they will be able to find a way to replicate it, so we don’t have to worry if there are exemplars with the ability to heal or not. Nor would we have to worry about something wiping all of them out, as seems to be the case at the moment.”

Coma moved even closer to Roman, her head now on his chest, Celia on the other side. Roman knew that they had a relatively strange relationship. But he was happy with it. He tried not to think about what would happen to the dolls after he turned himself in, knowing full well that he would likely be stripped of his power and imprisoned.

It was his last night of freedom, but all Roman could think about was sleep.

And he wished that he could wake up and all his problems would be gone, his slate scrubbed clean, but he knew this wasn’t the case; he knew there was no coming back from the dark places he had gone.

At least he had killed Margo.

He could go to his grave knowing that he had killed the woman who had disrespected his wife’s corpse, and that he had also buried his wife, all in the same night.

So maybe it wasn’t as bad as he’d originally thought. Maybe it was a good end to his story.

Sleep eventually came—no dreams, no nightmares, only slumber.

It was a perfect night of rest, the best Roman had experienced in ages. The next morning came suddenly, and as soon as he felt life come into him again, Roman knew what he needed to do.

I’m turning myself in. Let me know how you would like me to do that, Roman thought to Ava.

He dozed off for a moment, wishing he could rest in this hotel room all day, but he didn’t want anyone else to be injured. He didn’t want Centralian forces to track Nadine down, nor did he want to see any civilian deaths if they tried to come for him here.

Roman simply wanted closure.

A message came in from Ava instructing him to meet her at her apartment, that she was alone, that they would speak briefly before she personally turned him in.

Roman told the dolls to get dressed, and he tried to ignore the sad look on Celia’s face as she got into her costume. She approached him and turned, Roman zipping up the back.

“What about Casper?” Coma asked.

“What about her?”

Coma gave Roman a shrug. “Well, if we’re all going to be deanimated here, we could just leave her in the hotel room…”

“I heard that, you dirty mask-wearing superbitch,” Casper said, yawning as she sat up. “If Roman is abandoning the two of you, he’ll be abandoning me with you. That’s final.”

Coma rolled her eyes as she finished putting her mask on.

“Let’s not fight, not now,” Roman said.

“She threatened to leave me here,” Casper said as she hopped off her pillow and ran to the edge of the bed. “Why would anyone want to leave someone like me? I know I haven’t been as helpful lately as I would like to be, but that’s because you keep taking my power away from me.”

“We’re not leaving anyone,” Roman assured her.

“So that’s it?” Celia asked.

“I’m not the type to postpone the inevitable,” said Roman as he too got dressed. Without much to wear, he would be showing up in his pajamas.

“The least you can do is show up wearing a suit and tie—anything,” Casper said, still on the bed, judging Roman with her hands on her hips.

“None of that matters now.”

“We could run,” Coma said, voicing her opinion for once. “I don’t mind running and fighting anyone who tries to stop us.”

“I’ll fight too,” said Celia.

“I can’t do a lot, but I definitely will do my best to help us get away,” Casper volunteered. “Even if that means I get left behind at some point. While I can’t believe I’m saying something like that, I just…”

“Yes?” Roman asked her.

“I guess I like being alive. In fact, I like being alive more than you two,” she told the other dolls. “And maybe even more than you, Roman.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because you are alive now, and what you’re essentially doing by turning yourself in is signing your death warrant. They may not kill you, but they could, and even if they don’t, they will probably take your power away.”

“We don’t know that yet.”

“It doesn’t mean it won’t happen,” said Casper.

“Let’s just go, all of you. This isn’t up for discussion. It’s what has to be done.”

“I’m not going to say anything,” Casper whispered as she turned to Coma, the masked doll dropping her hand down, giving Casper something to latch on to so she could climb up her arm and eventually settle in a pocket on the front of her dress.

Roman had the urge to go to the window.

He knew that it looked out on an alley, that there was nothing beautiful about what he would see on the other side, but he felt like it was something he needed to do, something to remind him of what he was giving up.

So he ignored the instinct.

Roman wasn’t going to give himself the pleasure of admitting defeat. Not now, not when there may still be a way out of this. He didn’t know what that way would be, but he knew it would begin with turning himself in.

“Wait,” Celia said, coming forward and falling back into Roman’s arms. She lifted her lips to his and kissed him, her eyes filled with an unbearable amount of sadness.

“I’m sorry,” Roman said just as a teleporter appeared, a heavy man with a handlebar mustache, his skin tan and his eyes a piercing blue.

He confirmed the teleportation destination with Roman and the man crossed his arms over his chest, smoke billowing out of his nostrils. The smoke engulfed Roman and his dolls, and soon, they were standing in front of Ava’s door, the teleporter leaving just as soon as he’d come, a bit of haze in his wake.

“All right, here goes,” Roman said as he brought his hand to Ava’s door, hesitating for a moment before finally knocking.

Ava opened a minute or so later, wearing her exemplar uniform—no mask, though.

Her brow furrowed when she saw Roman, but her eyes softened a little, the windows to her soul betraying the anger she was supposed to feel.

“Here I am,” Roman said.

“I see that. Come in.”

“We don’t want him to turn himself in,” Casper said from Coma’s pocket.

“Roman, please deactivate your dolls,” Ava told him once he had entered, the door shut behind Celia.

Roman nodded over to two chairs pressed against the wall, and Coma and Celia slowly moved over to them.

Coma sat first, unable to make eye contact with Roman.

Celia made eye contact with him, pleading as best she could.

“I will see you three soon,” Roman started to say.

“Lies,” was the last word out of Casper’s mouth as life was stripped from the three dolls. Casper and Coma looked as they normally did; only Celia’s face still seemed sad.

Roman stared down at his bare feet for a moment. “What now?”

“Now?” Ava put her mask on, which matched the overall theme of her outfit. She’d worn a different color the previous time he’d seen her in her uniform, a red number with blue streaks on the side. Her current uniform was black with yellow stitching that highlighted her shapely figure. “Now, I take you into custody.”

“Should I have a lawyer, or something?” Roman asked, almost as an afterthought. He was pretty sure what was about to happen next was well outside the scope of the Centralian legal system.

“Nope, you aren’t going to the police.”

“And where are you taking me?”

“To answer your question, I’m taking you to the Lottery Council. Roman, now that you are turning yourself in, there will have to be an investigation into what you have done.”

“Okay, an investigation. But why the Council?”

“There were dozens of deaths because of what you did, all because of your selfish desire to get revenge, and they are the ones who gave you the power.”

“I’m aware.”

“But luckily for you, charges of manslaughter aren’t being put on your shoulders; every charge has been levied on Margo, and since she’s dead, she cannot stand trial. I don’t suppose you have checked out the news today, have you?”

“I was actively avoiding it,” he admitted. “I didn’t want to open a paper and see my own face.”

“You aren’t in any newspaper today, nor will you be in any newspaper tomorrow,” she told him. “The attack is being framed as something committed by a crazed Western spy, one who survived the Western Plague and had been holed up in Centralia planning this terrorist attack over the last several days. If only the authorities could have gotten there in time to stop her,” Ava said sarcastically.

“It’s a cover-up?” Roman asked.

“It is indeed.”

“But why?”

“Gee, how do you think the public would react if they knew the truth? That a person who stole the hero ticket from his coworker and received an incredible power used it to wage war on a city block? And what if the people reporting that story dug a little bit deeper? What if they reported that this person’s powers were approved earlier than they should have been, that this approval emboldened him? And if they’re really good journalists, what if they found the connection to the East? That this same man had also traveled to a foreign country and destroyed a military facility there? How do you think that would play out?”

Roman shuddered, feeling the weight of what he had done. “I didn’t think about that.”

“Of course you didn’t think about that; you didn’t think about any of this. But we have handled that part, because it’s not a very far stretch to place the blame on someone like Margo, the same woman who attacked Prison South and who’s been responsible for a number of deaths across our country. It’s easy to blame her.”

“Kevin was there,” Roman said suddenly. “Did you know that part?”

“Kevin Blackbook?”

“Yes, I saw him there after the building came down. But he fled the scene.”

“You should have done something to stop him,” said Ava. “That may have given you a little bit of leverage considering he is facing charges of fratricide.”

“He killed his brother?”

“Among other people. But someone will get him at some point. I mean, really, how long before Kevin gets himself killed? Running around with his cat girls and whoever else he’s partnered with. Speaking of which, one of his partners, a telepath named James Tew, was found dead at the scene. So there’s that as well. Maybe an investigator will pick up on this thread and run with it. But I’m not too concerned about Mr. Blackbook.”

“Ava, before all this happens, I just want you to know that I’m sorry. I know that my actions won’t lead anyone to believe I am experiencing remorse for what I’ve done, and I know that what I did was selfish. And I’m sorry. I care about you,” he said, barely getting the last several words out. “I appreciate how much you have taught me. And I still want to be your student.”

“Roman, no,” she said, her throat tensing.

“I’m just saying this, and I’m sorry—I’m so sorry for what I’ve done. I know it has put a lot of pressure on you, and I hope it hasn’t done anything to your career.”

“Hasn’t done anything to my career?” Ava asked, her hair flaring up, flames spreading down her arms.

“Easy, please,” Roman said, backing away.

He did not, like any sane person, want Ava to burn him alive. But if she attacked him, he would let it happen, at least until his survival instincts came into play. Until that point, he would do everything he could to not fight back.

“I don’t even want to talk about that part of this,” Ava said, the flames starting to die away.

“I know I fucked up, but I got her,” Roman said. “Margo will never be a problem for anyone else. You saw it, and I saw it. She’s dead now.”

“To be quite honest with you, I believe that’s the only reason the Council is deciding to look into this matter. Come, this will only get worse if we stay here.”

The Lottery Council was the same as Roman remembered, perched above him, all wearing white robes. Ava’s sister sat at the head of the Council, the older woman the only member wearing a hood over her head.

“Roman Martin,” she said as he approached, Ava stepping off to the right.

They had arrived just a few moments ago and been greeted in the lobby by Mister Fist, the masked exemplar giving Roman a look that could split the moon. In that moment, Roman noticed something familiar about the way Mister Fist looked at him, but he didn’t have long to say anything before he was called in.

“Your honor,” Roman said, bowing his head slightly, feeling foolish that he was standing in his pajamas. “Your honors,” he said, addressing the entire Council.

“We’re glad to see you dressed for the occasion,” the man with white hair said, cracking a grin.

“Gary,” the lead Council woman said. “That’s quite enough.”

Roman wondered what her name was in that moment, realizing that Ava had never mentioned her by name. He quickly banished this thought, well aware that there was a telepath in the room.

He recalled one of them reading his mind last time. Something about the Council made him think they were all connected in some way to the telepath, which he had heard of before, a single telepath strong enough to grant others slivers of their power.

“Before you do whatever it is you are going to do,” Roman said, “I just want to express my sincere gratitude for granting this power to me, and to Ava for training me so well. My actions were my own. I have been through a lot over the last few years, which I’m sure you will all know about. Seeing my wife taken was the final straw for me. I couldn’t let this type of injustice happen.”

“We have rules, Mr. Roman,” said Ava’s sister.

“And I broke those rules. I don’t know what happens next, but I just want to express my gratitude, and my remorse for what I’ve done,” Roman said, looking up at them with his orange eyes. “I’m sorry for putting others’ lives at risk, for the death I caused, and for abusing my power, but I’m not sorry for killing the woman who violated my wife’s corpse. And no matter what you do to me, it is not something I will ever be sorry for. As for everything else, however, you have my sincere apologies.”

He bowed his head again, looking down to his bare feet.

Rather than wish that Ava had ordered some clothes for him to wear, Roman simply closed his eyes, waiting for whatever would happen next to hurry up and happen.

“We have taken your powers away,” Ava’s sister said after a momentary pause.

“What?” Roman asked, looking up at her.

He’d known this was coming, but hearing the woman’s words still took him off guard. The words vibrated inside him, ricocheting across his psyche.

Roman immediately tried to animate the floor, stretching his fingers wide and then bringing them back in.

Nothing.

“My powers,” he said, feeling a rise in his chest, trying to calm himself with a deep breath.

“There will be an investigation into what you have done,” Ava’s sister said. “At the end of that investigation, we will decide if you get to keep your powers or not. I personally don’t think that you should ever be allowed to have anything resembling the power you had before, and that you should be in jail. I’m expressing this opinion now to let you know that isn’t up to me, that we will have a vote on it, but you know where my vote lies. Our deliberations will take at least a month, and some have gone on even longer. So I wouldn’t expect an answer anytime soon.”

“Yes,” Roman said, his eyes still closed, trying not to show any emotion.

“I suggest that you do your best to assimilate back into Centralian society until that time. Because your home is destroyed, we will provide temporary housing for you while you find employment. You will also be monitored through the use of an ankle bracelet,” Ava’s sister said. “You aren’t under house arrest or anything, but I would invite you to stay in your home as much as possible; that is, until you find a job. And don’t remove the bracelet.”

“I understand…”

“I really mean it. You need to find work, Mr. Martin. The odds of you coming out of this with the ability to animate inanimate objects again are low. You have breached our trust, you have embarrassed your teacher, your actions have resulted in the deaths of dozens of Centralian citizens and ruined an entire city block of homes and businesses. That’s not to mention the fact that you were working with an Eastern Province spy, or your trip to the East, for that matter, or your attack on the immigration office. I know that all of these different situations have their own reasons, and we will be looking at each and every one of them. We may call you forward for testimony, or we may not. Your job now is to simply wait for us to make our decision.”

“As you wish,” Roman said.

“Now, go, so we can begin our investigation.”

Roman turned, not able to look up at the Council members, not able to lift his head, wishing he could just curl up in a ball on the ground. Instead, he took a step forward, followed by another step, wishing he had his power so he could use it to move himself forward.

Eventually, he reached the door, Ava at his side, both of them stepping into the hallway outside the Council room.

“A teleporter will be here soon,” Ava told Roman. She nodded to Mister Fist, who stood near the door, still scowling at Roman. The strongman came forward with an ankle bracelet, which he handed to Roman.

Roman bent over and strapped the ankle bracelet on, the device coming to life with the flash of a blue light across its surface. In a way, it reminded Roman of his power dial.

“You will be allowed to rest today and tomorrow, but then it is time for you to find gainful employment,” Ava said. “I have volunteered to check in on you from time to time, which is something the people around me have suggested I don’t do. I want to make sure you get out of this successfully and are able to reintegrate into society.”

“Ava…”

“No, Roman. The teleporter will be here, and I will see you in two days. Please do not message me; I will message you before I come. You will need to get some clothing, but there should already be something available at your temporary housing location.”

“Yes, thank you,” Roman said, biting his lip as he continued to stare at his bare feet. “And my dolls?”

“Goodbye, Roman,” Ava said as she turned away and joined Mister Fist.

The teleporter came, Roman barely paying attention to the woman as they zipped away. The last thing he saw was Ava discussing something with Mr. Fist, his teacher unable to look Roman in the face as he left.

He appeared in a small room with a small sofa against the wall and a bed near the window. There was a kitchenette, a dining room table with four chairs around it, and a tiny bathroom.

But that wasn’t what caught Roman’s attention.

What caught his attention were Celia and Coma, who sat at the table, completely lifeless.

The teleporter was gone by the time Roman was able to muster the courage to move his feet again, and once he could, he went to Celia, lifting the lifeless doll into his arms and carrying her over to the sofa.

He held her in his arms for a moment, trying to choke back sobs but not able to stop himself from finally crying.

Roman imagined her talking to him in that moment, telling him it was going to be okay and that he would make it through this.

“You’re right, I will make it through this,” he told the doll, staring into her frozen purple eyes. “I’ll do this for both of us, Celia. I promise.”

Epilogue: Old Friends

Orange loosened his tie as he walked past the two exemplars that stood on either side of his door.

He had just taken the elevator to the 70th floor of one of Centralia’s most exclusive condominiums. Even after living here for a couple of years, he still felt overwhelmed when he entered his home, that beautiful view hitting him every time, fresh as the day he moved in.

In Centralia, Orange felt like he was on top of the world, even though it was the Western Province who was paying for his place and, once he retired, they’d be paying for someone else to live here.

Yes, one day he would have to go back home, but maybe he could live in one of the nicer cities toward the coast, away from the conflict zones.

That was the thing about the West.

Many people assumed the entire country was a war zone, but in actuality there were still nice coastal cities, vacation destinations for those with more money than they knew how to spend.

Of course, not many Centralians made their way all the way to the coast. Oddly enough, most of the tourists seemed to be from the Northern Alliance, but there were a few wealthy Easterners who went there as well, all on the coast to bask in the sun and enjoy its wonderful beaches.

Orange had been to the East and the South, and he lived in Centralia. But he had never been to the Northern Alliance.

It was on his bucket list, somewhere he hoped to go one day. But even for someone with his clearance level, it wasn’t easy getting access to the mostly forbidden country. Especially with the proxy war taking place on the Western Province borders.

Taking off his jacket, Orange placed it on the coat rack, stopping for a moment when he sensed that the coat rack had shifted.

Once he realized he was just being paranoid, Orange continued to the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the city—no, the country.

Centralia should have been divided up, yet it wasn’t. Whoever had laid out the grand design for the country so many years ago had failed to cut it up into provinces or states. It was just Centralia. Civilization as far as the eye could see.

Orange looked over his shoulder once again, keeping an eye on his coat rack.

He knew Margo was dead. He had seen the body himself, and he’d seen the carnage she had caused.

Still, he was cautious, especially when it came to an inanimate object seemingly out of place. Truth be told, it was likely a maid who had moved it, but this didn’t stop Orange from feeling paranoid.

He hadn’t met Margo until after his time at the Academy, but Orange recalled their first meeting as if it were yesterday, her white hair at odds with his jet-black hair, her two different-colored eyes only making her face more beautiful and unique than it already was.

They’d been on a team together, and there were points in his life where he’d never felt safer, Margo an incredibly keen yet destructive force, the woman able to interpret the nuances of a conflict in a way that had left a mark on Orange.

But at some point, she’d gone crazy; it was discovered that she had killed all of her family and animated the corpses, playing out a weird dinner ritual with them.

There were rumors about that ritual, too.

Orange wasn’t one of the people who had been there to arrest her afterward, but he had heard she had taken to cannibalism, eating a portion of her father as her zombie mother watched the whole affair.

He didn’t think this was true, though.

Margo could torture people with the best of them, but if someone got in her way, she would simply end their life. That was it.

There would always be rumors. And even more would pop up over the years, Orange mostly ignoring them.

Now, in his dark 70th-floor condo, Orange wondered if he should have listened to them a little more closely.

Walking to the bar, he poured himself wine concentrate, this one aged in red oak barrels, the kind of stuff they didn’t get back West.

He took a sip of the beverage, feeling it instantly calling him.

Once Orange finished his first glass, he poured another, moving back to the window to look out over the city.

There was a fire somewhere miles and miles away, and he was too far away to see who was putting it out, but he knew that exemplars would be on the scene if they weren’t already.

Part of him actually admired how law and order worked in Centralia versus in his own country. It was more organized here, the exemplar responses tactical, able to be scaled up with precision.

Orange sensed movement behind him just as he took another sip from his beverage.

He turned, activating his power to strip the room of oxygen almost immediately, spooked again by what he was starting to feel was the ghost of Margo.

But there was nothing there.

He made his way over to the light and flicked it on.

It was too bad, too; he liked looking at the lights of the city in the dark, as it cast his condo in an interesting bluish hue. “You’re paranoid,” he told himself as he finished his drink and set the glass down on a marble table.

Orange went to his bedroom and took off his tie. He unbuttoned his shirt and let it just hang open for a moment while he dealt with his belt buckle.

Most of his day had been spent communicating through various channels about what had happened at Roman Martin’s apartment. There were apologies he’d had to make on behalf of his government, apologies that would never reach the public, and there were other intelligence sources he’d had to corroborate information with.

He’d even taken a trip to the morgue to see what remained of Margo’s body.

She was most assuredly dead. And for some reason, it felt like the end of an era.

Standing in his closet, Orange finished taking off his shirt and put it in the dirty-clothes hamper. Definitely feeling the alcohol now, he removed his pants, grabbing one of the shirts he usually slept in.

He got the urge in that moment to go out for the night, visit some of the high-end bars he went to on occasion. It would be nice to be around people, to listen to some live music.

But he knew that this was impulsive, that he had plenty of work to do tomorrow and he needed rest. Orange stopped in front of the mirror in his closet and brought his hands over some of the scars that covered his body.

The Western Plague had been harsh on him as well, the pink gashes that moved up his abdomen and across his muscled chest evidence of what he had been through.

He saw something move in the mirror’s reflection, and he was just about to ignore it when…

“What you want?” Orange asked, turning around, his power kicking into high gear.

Standing in his bedroom was a woman in a black leotard and dirty-blond hair.

“No…” Orange said, his mind firing into high gear as he tried to place the woman.

“Your powers won’t work on me,” the doll said in a sweet voice.

It dawned on Orange in that moment what had happened, and as much as he didn’t want to admit it, this was entirely his fault.

“Margo?” he whispered.

“Orange,” the doll said. “What do you think?” She turned, allowing him plenty of time to look her over. “Thank you for the new body.”

“Fuck, Margo,” Orange said, remembering the last time he’d seen her with the doll in Roman’s apartment.

“It was your idea, or was it my idea? Maybe it was her idea, and now I am her.” The doll laughed. “Regardless, you are the one who approved for me to meet with a power amplifier. I only did what I thought was right.”

“You put your consciousness into the doll,” he said, his hands smoothing over his mouth as he tried to figure out what he should do next. With the real Margo, there was the chance he could kill her by exploding her lungs.

But this Margo didn’t need lungs to breathe; there would be nothing he could do to stop her. He had a wrist guard in his nightstand, but if she put her full consciousness in the doll, that would mean her power came with it. He’d seen her do something like this before, so he knew it was entirely a possibility.

And Orange had never felt stupider.

He should have seen this coming—he should have done something to prevent this.

“Correction: my consciousness and my power. I guess I am the doll,” Margo said, looking down at her body. She smoothed her hands over her chest, squeezing her breasts together and letting them bounce back into place. “It’s definitely an improvement, and to be honest with you, I wasn’t expecting to be able to really pull this off.”

“My god…”

She shrugged. “I never tried to go this far with it before. But I think the power amplifier helped. So thanks.” She started laughing again. “I guess I should say you have created a monster, but I think you already know that.”

“Why have you come here?”

“Originally, I came here to kill you. I already killed your guards outside.” Margo the doll lifted her hand and Orange’s wooden floorboards peeled up, wrapping around her arm, moving down her chest and forming an armored corset over her torso. “The thing is, while I have my power, it’s not as strong as I would like it to be,” she said as she knocked her fist against her creation. It slithered down her body, the wood moving back into place. “So I was going to kill you, but now I think you could help me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because everyone thinks I’m dead, and you like the life you have here. Don’t you?”

Orange glanced down at his feet for a moment, then finally back up at Margo. “And your point?”

“If I kill you now, you lose all of this. You just become a corpse. A corpse I could animate to do work for me. Like the two strongmen in the hallway. They’re sitting in your living room right now, by the way. You would be surprised how quiet corpses can walk. But like I said, there’s the power thing…”

“Margo, I don’t want any part of this…”

“So as I was saying, if I kill you, that’s it. But if you remain alive, allowing me to occasionally visit with your power amplifier, then you can keep all this, and no one will ever know I was ever alive. I guess I’m phrasing that incorrectly; no one will know I am still alive. How’s that?”

Orange cleared his throat, weighing his options. He could attack Margo later on, but he had a feeling that wouldn’t be as easy as it sounded, especially after she was amped up.

But if he gave her any intelligence he had on Centralian power amplifiers, she could just get her own, meaning that there would only be one transaction between the two of them…

“I have an idea.”

“I’m all plastic ears,” Margo said.

Orange explained his idea of giving her the location of every power amplifier he knew in the country, allowing her to use them however she wanted.

“You know, that’s not a bad solution—a wicked, exploitative solution, but not a bad one,” she told him. “How do I know you aren’t trying to double-cross me? Have you forgotten we were on a team together?”

“I was just thinking about that.”

“And you would betray a teammate?”

“No.”

“But you would betray me, right?”

Orange gulped. “Yes, but it’s not something I plan to do. You keep me alive, and I will get you a power amplifier tonight. Plus, I’ll give you all the details you need to find more. I will never file this report. I will let Centralian forces deal with you whenever they finally do, and I won’t tip them off or anything like that. That much I can assure you.”

“You really do value this life and this nice condo, don’t you?”

Orange exhaled, his arms crossing over his chest. “It’s not much, but it’s better than what I grew up with.”

A look of realization splashed across the doll’s face. “Same. Then I will stay here with you until you bring the power amplifier and give me all the information I need. If you betray me, I will be sure to stop your heart before I bring this building down, killing everyone inside. I know you don’t care about their lives as much as you do your own, which is why I’m holding on to your vital organs as we speak.”

“I figured you were,” he told her.

He didn’t feel any different, but he’d seen Margo in action before, and he knew she would be able to kill him in the time it took a person to blink.

Orange hadn’t made it this far in life to die at the hands of Margo.

“Do we have a deal then?” he asked, approaching her.

“We most certainly do,” Margo said as she shook his hand, a coldness to her skin that he wasn’t quite expecting. “Now, order the power amplifier and let’s catch up in the meantime. After all, we are old friends.”

“Yes…” Orange said, looking through the window behind her at the endless city below. “Yes, we are.”

The end.

New RELEASE
https://geni.us/WeCouldBeHeroes

I’m excited to share with you a new release in the world of Centralia. This one stars Sam from the H-Anon meeting, yes, the same guy who gave Roman the idea to animate sex dolls. Mister Fist, Plume, Catherine, Emelia, William Bottorf, Scarlett the teleporter and others (no spoilers) are in this series. It’s lighter than House of Dolls, more along the lines of my other series Monster Hunt NYC and Cherry Blossom Girls.

Since you’ve made it this far through the House of Dolls series, this will give you another perspective of Centralia and the aftermath of the vampirism in the west. It takes place at the same time as House of Dolls, and book two will be out in April 2019.

So check it out, review these works, and I’ll get another House of Dolls out this summer, plus a series exclusively about the Western Plague. Your reviews are helping me build this world, and there is a ton I’m planning here, from runic things in the Southern Alliance, to a venture to the mysterious North.

Back of the Book Content

Reader,

So glad you’ve made it to the end of this one. This series lives on your reviews, so please take a moment to review the book, and if you haven’t already, review the first installment, which is the initial book readers see when they check out this series.

The more reviews I get for this series, the fast I get books out in Centralia and continue to expand the world. I’m currently scheduled to write four House of Dolls books, the last due out in August.

But I don’t know. I really like writing this series and digging deeper into the characters. So get your reviews in, and we’ll see where this goes.

Regarding future Centralia books: I am now working on a pair of series related to House of Dolls, so be on the lookout for these books in 2019. The first is out now and this stars Sam from the H-Anon meetings and some cool new characters, all set in Centralia.

We Could Be Heroes Book One  universal link.

The next will be called Capes and Fangs, and that will come this summer. It will be about the Western Plague.

Here are some things you can do to support these books!

1)    Join the Proxima Galaxy on Facebook where I look for ARC (advanced Review Copy) readers and give away audiobooks

2)    Review the books, which generates more interest from other readers, which makes me write faster because (carrot dangling from the stick!) – I want to please you all!

3)    Join the Harmon Cooper mailing list.

So thanks, yet again, for reading, reviewing, enjoying House of Dolls. Continue onward for other books I’ve written.

Also check out the Harem Lit page for more adult-themed novels!

Yours in sanity,

Harmon Cooper -- writer.harmoncooper@gmail.com

Other Books by Harmon Cooper

I have written over thirty books. Here are some of the highlights!

My best-selling Superhero Harem Adventure about a sci-fi writer and the superpowered women who are trying to kill him. Fun content, adult read!

https://geni.us/CherryBlossomGirls1

A fantasy harem adventure inspired by Pokemon Go!, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and the Persona family of video games. Check out this Amazon best seller!

https://geni.us/MonsterHuntNYC

What if Ready Player One was a multi-part epic? Gritty LitRPG action, gamer humor, fantastic fantasy worlds, and a killer MC.

(This one is related to Monster Hunt NYC)

https://geni.us/TheLoop

If you love dark fantasy, RPGs, Witcher, Punisher, or Mad Max, you'll love this powerful gamer trilogy about a man and his wolf companion.

https://geni.us/LastWarrior

Tokyo, Japan meets online fantasy gaming and South Park-styled humor. Yakuza, goblins, action, intrigue - add this book to your inventory list!

(This one is related to Monster Hunt NYC)

https://geni.us/FICK

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