DIRE: SINS

By Andrew Seiple

Text copyright © Andrew Seiple 2017

All Rights Reserved

With thanks to AbsoluteWrite.com and Kboards.com, for their supportive community.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1: DRONING AROUND             5

CHAPTER 2: DEATH THREATS AND DINNER             13

CHAPTER 3: LEGWORK             19

CHAPTER 4: CLUB TECHNICA             28

CHAPTER 5: ACID TRIP             34

CHAPTER 6: MANCHESTER MANEUVERING             41

CHAPTER 7: GREEN-EYED ENVY             49

CHAPTER 8: HEROES HAPPEN             57

CHAPTER 9: LUST MAKES FOOLS OF ALL MEN             65

CHAPTER 10: CATCHING UP WITH OLD FRIENDS             72

CHAPTER 11: EVERYTHING GOES HORRIBLY WRONG             80

CHAPTER 12: TAG TEAMS             88

CHAPTER 13: A MEETING OF THE MINDS             96

CHAPTER 14: WAKING THE DEAD             103

CHAPTER 15: GHOSTS, HAUNTS, AND HUNTS             111

CHAPTER 16: QUEEN’S COURT, QUEENSGUARD             119

CHAPTER 17: FAMILY AND FOES             129

CHAPTER 18: PLOTS AND PLANS             139

CHAPTER 19: BREACHING             150

CHAPTER 20: CHECKMATE IN 10... 9... 8...             158

CHAPTER 21: IN WHICH DIRE GIVES NO FUCKS             166

TO BE CONTINUED...             173

AUTHOR’S NOTE             174

CHAPTER 1: DRONING AROUND

“This just in! A super of some sort is racing down the A13, expect delays of up to five minutes for the next hour...”

--LBC, British talk radio, traffic announcement shortly before the Brixton incident

I woke, to pain and confusion. Pixels swirled in my sight, as the cameras that were my eyes flickered to life and powered up. In my peripheral vision an hourglass turned and tumbled, as percentages crept up from red numbers to green numbers and filled out various bars.

Memory returned, as did sensation. Millions of sensory receptors along my metal frame mimicked tactile sensation, and thermal divots measured the ambient temperature. And bit by bit, my mind adapted to the input, taking stock as I flicked my eyes around. Wood shavings swam into focus, pressing against my eyes. I blinked out of reflex, and metal lids clicked together which meant that my audio receptors were online as well, since I heard that clearly.

That was most of the senses accounted for. Only taste and smell were left out, but— no, I hadn’t bothered with those. Not for this model. Not for this mission.

For this job, three of the five senses would suffice.

My sniffer programs roamed through the local Gridnet, doing their job and ensuring that my remotely-bounced signal remained undetected. They also had one more thing to watch for, but that was passive, very passive. I wouldn’t know how that part of the plan had turned out until I was done with this task.

Finally, all bars were full; the pain of translation faded to a numb ache. All numbers were green, and I let out a breath in one body that translated to a sigh in this other metal form.

I focused on my ears, and heard creaking metal that I figured came from the pressure of the bay on the metal hull of the cargo ship. A faint humming from above, that indicated old light bulbs, and their corroded connections to the internal power network. Then footsteps, much muffled by distance and obstacles in between here and there.

Yes, it was safe to decant from my crude coffin.

I stretched forth my arms, shifted through the raw ingots of ore and the wooden packing shavings until my hands met resistance on either side. Then I pushed some more, and wood groaned and cracked and fell away as servo-motors drove relentless steel through the packing crate’s boards. Once the primary breaches were done, it was easy enough to crack open the crate lengthwise and roll free. Metal clinked and clattered to the deck around me, and I stood, looking down upon myself as I brushed wooden shavings away.

Dull gray metal, from head to foot. Almost skeletal, steel bones with no flesh to bind them. Countless wires stretched through the ribcage, down to the pelvis, and out through each limb. Some conductive, others simply there for tension and control. Nerves and muscles, written anew in alloy, connecting my circuitry ‘organs’ and managing the data stream that was my ‘blood’.

I glanced to the side, caught my reflection in a mirror. A mask looked back at me, a muse’s mask of pure white, with hollow black eye sockets. She wore a faint smile, a hint that she knew more than she would ever say.

Ironic given what I was here to do. I needed to expose secrets, not hide them away. And I had roughly thirty minutes to do it.

I cast the mirror aside, headed to the nearest hatch, and opened it. Metal corridors lined with pipes, and flickering light bulbs, awaited me. Cramped quarters... I had to stoop a bit to get by, but I hadn’t built this body to feel pain. It could duckwalk for days if it had to.

But in this case, speed was of the essence.

I ran forward full tilt. I’d mapped out this freighter from bow to stern before I initiated this operation, and my internal map guided me as I sped through corridors, slammed through hatches, and ricocheted off corners, building speed and slamming metal feet against the grating of the floor with increasing ferocity. I caught the occasional glimpse of a frightened face or a shocked crewman turning as I crashed past them, but I cared not for their concern. The clock was running, and I hadn’t spent this many resources to ditch this operation. Not with innocent lives at stake.

Besides, I wanted them to see me. Like every operation I planned, this one had multiple goals.

Sadly, I was already failing one of them.

The unit moved like greased lightning, just as designed. My reflexes, however, couldn’t keep up.

So instead of a graceful, fast dash through the corridors, I was bouncing off the walls, and tumbling metal head over alloyed feet every time I wiped out. Oh, I was back on my heels in a heartbeat, but it was still annoying. And the crew was getting more of a chance to react than I’d expected. Shouts and echoes of slamming hatches resounded from ahead of me, and I frowned to hear it.

Well, fine. I’d take a shortcut.

I kicked open the door to the nearest cabin, crossed to the wall in two steps, and punched out a porthole. It was big enough for my head, if just barely, and the rest of me followed, bone-like structure of the endoskeleton snapping apart in segments where necessary to worm through. I dropped, hit the docks below, rolled past a pair of shouting Arabic longshoremen, and flipped to my feet.

Concrete piers stretched out to either side of me, with massive metal cranes unloading cargo containers from massive ships. I’d emerged from one of them... the Staraya Karga, according to the Cyrillic letters on the hull.

No time to sightsee. Seagulls scattered and shrieked at me, silhouetted against the late afternoon sun as I took off full-tilt, darting past dock workers as I really kicked it into gear. I leaped the fence around the harbor area with a bound, pounded concrete under my metal feet with a rapid-fire rattle that could have been mistaken for a machine gun, and took the street, swerving around cars and pedestrians alike with graceful curves. My onboard computer helped me detect and avoid collisions, and I giggled to myself as I pushed past twenty... thirty... fifty miles per hour, leaping over low obstacles and oncoming cars, and drifting around corners without slowing.

That particular jubilation lasted up until I hit a slick spot on the road.

When I picked myself up out of the shattered remains of a probably historic blue police call box, I noted sirens in the distance. Good response time! I have nothing but respect for the police, at least those I haven’t met and who weren’t trying to kill unarmed civilians. So I turned and fled, doing my level best to avoid contact with them as I zig-zagged westwards, following the river.

The buildings got larger as I went, and as the streets became more crowded I switched to parkour, testing out the unit’s strength and agility at the same time. Metal fingers dug crevices into crumbling brick as I launched off ledges, my feet dented sheet metal roofs as I hopped across them. Below me people shouted and pointed, and countless phones swung my direction as I passed.

Good. One of my secondary goals was visibility. So far, the plan was working as intended.

Maybe a little too well, I thought, as I caught a bright flash of color out of the corner of my eye. Like any major metropolis, this one had superheroes. Superheroes are the wild card, the bane of my existence. No matter what plans I make, or how much preparation I do, there is no way to account for every little factor, power, or personality that I might run into at any given time or place.

I kept up the parkour, rattling and slamming the unit from building to building, checking the bars and damage reports as I went. So far, so good... a few components were undergoing more stress than anticipated, but it wouldn’t be more than a two percent reduction of capability, at this rate. Enough to finish the main job, barring unforeseen variables.

One of those variables caught up to me, just as the river twisted and I had to slow down to change direction.

“Here, stop!” a young red-headed girl in a blue domino mask shouted, moving to bar my path north while stretching out an orange-gloved hand.

I considered her, letting my search routines match her costume. Soon enough, I had a match.

LADY THRUSH

ACTIVE SUPERHERO, NO KNOWN AFFILIATES

POWERS: CLASS FIVE PARAGON

I sucked my teeth, a motion which didn’t translate to the skinless remote unit. Paragons are trouble. They can fly, as evidenced by her hovering in midair before me, and they have varying degrees of super strength. Class five meant she could probably rip me apart with little trouble, if she put her head to it.

“What are you on about, frightening people like that? You’ve caused no end of property damage, you’re just lucky no one got hurt. Stop all this right now!”

I nodded, and dove off the building, as she yelled and followed. My sensors shook and the world spun as I hit the road below and rolled, flipping to my feet and pounding the pavement for a good mile, building up speed as I leaped up onto the highway overpass and kept on going.

Horns blared at me and cars swerved, but I kept tight control, weaving in and out of traffic, even sticking my arms out to signal turns. I was grateful that I’d had about ten minutes of practice prior to this point... it made all the difference. Now I cruised along at sixty, seventy, even eighty where traffic permitted, and little miss orange-and-blue struggled to keep up.

In the distance, the twin towers of a world-famous bridge loomed, as Big Ben struck the hour. Truly, there is no place like London! Pity I didn’t have time to be more of a gawker, but I had places to go, people to maim, and a hero on my metal butt.

I debated running up the cables, but... nah. Thrushie was getting irritated, and if I got too far away from people she might try something drastic. Best to keep myself in a location where Lady Thrush couldn’t risk the collateral damage.

So instead of running up the cables I stuck to street level, running along the tops of slow-moving cars. A convertible gave me pause...

...and I nearly lost, right then and there, as my proximity alarm blared and I turned to see Thrush ten feet away from me, arms stretched wide for a grab.

A tenth of a second. That’s what it came down to. If I hadn’t been an expert pilot, if I hadn’t built the remote unit myself with my own hands, if I hadn’t spent long hours in my lab, refining and further refining the synapse translation carrier...

But I had done all these things, and more. And so I twisted away as she swept by, grabbed on to her cape, and rode the startled superhero across the bridge, letting go as she glanced back over her shoulder in surprise. I hit the road with feet already pumping, eating up the ground with every stride.

Thirteen minutes left, now.

South then, angling west. Brixton, that was the borough I was looking for. And I didn’t have far to go. I abandoned the street, switching back to parkour, and resumed weaving in and up between buildings like a steel spider. Brick dust flew as my metal fingers gouged and caught, metal screamed as I found my stride.

Sure enough, the flying girl followed after. But now I was off the straightaways, and she had to maneuver, couldn’t try to match her speed to mine. If I wanted to, I could easily gain distance on her. Maybe even lose her.

But why would I do that? I’d gone fishing for heroes, and caught a bird.

Close set buildings lined the road, and I took to the rooftops. Couldn’t read the address numbers from up here, but I didn’t need to. With a whispered command, thermal lenses slid over the unit’s ocular sensors, and the world turned red. The bricks of each building glowed faintly in my view, the internal heat of them shining against the cold of the early winter.

All save for one.

It was back behind the others, off the main drag, with a fenced-in courtyard and a couple of guards patrolling the grounds. More inside, I knew.

This building, and this building alone in the cluster didn’t glow with ambient thermal energy. It was insulated on the inside, shielded against high-powered infrared sensors like the ones I was using. Good enough shielding for the fairly-illegal sensors that the law enforcement agencies pretended not to use. But not good enough to fool mine.

I leaped to its roof, hopping over the tripwires set flush against the shingles and passed the hatch in the roof by without a single backward glance. It was reinforced against entry, obviously, and wired to blow up the building if anyone bashed it in. Every window was likewise reinforced, every exterior-accessible doorway rigged, save for one entrance. The place was a deathtrap by design.

But it had two weaknesses.

Firstly, the traps all hooked up to the same, centralized bomb.

Secondly, the deathtrap’s architect hadn’t bothered to wire the walls or the ceiling.

Before Thrush could catch up to me, I reached between my ribs, slapped a hockey-puck sized disk down against the shingles, and got clear. I skidded, caught an old chimney-pipe, swung myself around, and stared at Thrush from across the roof.

The hero stopped, glancing from me to the disk. “I’m not sure I get your meaning.”

I splayed the fingers of the unit’s right hand, palm held out towards her, and curled my thumb inward.

“You’re telling me I shall not pass? Sorry, you’re not Gandalf and I don’t think—”

Shouts from below, and I heard a door slam open. I ignored them, and folded the unit’s index finger down. The middle finger followed, after a second.

“Wait. Are you counting?”

I couldn’t help myself. When her eyes darted down to the disk I’d dropped and then widened in shock and horror, I took a picture through the unit’s oculars. That look was so delicious, I had to save it for later.

She dove for the disk, a second too late, as the unit’s pinky finger snapped down, and the shaped charge blew, taking a five-foot-wide circle out of the roof. When the dust cleared Thrush was on the ground coughing... she’d gotten a lungful from the blast. I ignored her, dove through the hole, and came up with metal fists raised.

One big room filled this floor, with crates and litter scattered around. I was rather glad I hadn’t given the unit the ability to discern scents, as black mold traced high lines on the water-damaged ceiling, and rats peered out at me from nooks and crannies, showing up like little puffy blobs in my thermal vision. I didn’t even glance at the stairwell. That would be trapped. Instead I turned my gaze to the thin wood of the floor, and marked human silhouettes. Quite a few on the floor below... and all of them had their arms cocked as if they were carrying guns.

Perfect! Not an innocent in the lot. I moved to a concentration of three of them, and dropped another shaped charge.

After it blew I dove into the hole below before the splinters settled.

My remote unit hit the floor a split-second after the bloody meat that had been three guards did. I felt no guilt for my act, nor shame. I knew what they were guarding. I knew how much they were being paid to do so. And I knew what would happen if I failed here.

Seven minutes left. And four more guards rushing towards the noise. Brave souls.

The room around me was some sort of lounge... cigarettes smoked in ashtrays, a television sputtered and flickered in the corner, screen presumably cracked from the explosion. A refrigerator puffed coolant into the air in great gouts, coils ruptured from shrapnel. The door stood open and I hit it, charged the first guard I saw. He raised a shotgun and opened his mouth to yell as I leaped, grabbed his chest with both hands, and rode him to the ground. Three quick punches and his face crunched. The other shapes on the floor were frozen, taking cover behind things my vision couldn’t make out. One was shouting into a phone, I could just hear him now that the explosion was done. Another disappeared from my view, heading downstairs. That was worrisome, for too many reasons.

So I chased him.

I took the first few steps on the stairs, before I leaped down the center of the stairwell, metal legs flexing as my shocks absorbed the fall. I straightened up, bringing my hand into a sweeping uppercut as I uncurled right in front of the mook, and his jaw broke as I punched him so hard his head hit the ceiling.

Before he hit the ground I turned, and triggered my voltaic vision.

I’d researched this over the last few weeks... in layman’s terms, it’s similar to infrared sight, only it tracks electricity instead of heat. Sensitive enough that I can pick out the nerves of those I examine.

The wires in the walls and floors lit up like neon worms. I glanced over my shoulder, and saw that I’d been wise to leap from the steps; every fourth one had an active lead running to it.

I grabbed the falling form of the guard and directed him away from the wired step he was about to fall on, sending him crashing into a half-open crate of beer bottles. Wouldn’t do to blow the place up, after I’d gone to all this trouble to—

“Hey!” The hero called down from the level above.

Well, crap. I had voltaic vision. She didn’t. If she triggered something, then this entire operation would fail. I’d have to disarm the bomb ahead of schedule.

I traced the wires in the stairs, amped up the penetration, until I was staring through walls.

There!

Three shattered plaster walls later, I hurtled into a central room, hit the floor shoulder-first, and rolled to my feet with a distinct lack of grace. A utility room, looked like, complete with an ancient furnace. Smart. The vent system would allow the explosion to drop the entire building.

And there, with wires coming into it from about twenty different leads, sat a metal barrel with no obvious control panel, LED displays, or other significant features that would indicate an explosive. Not even a big red self-destruct button!

“SHODDY WORK,” I muttered, through a screeching voice modulator. “SHAME ON YOU, MAESTRO.”

Another person would have been confounded by the unprofessional lack of disarmable doodads.

Fortunately, I’m a technological supergenius.

Five seconds, one chemical analysis, a thorough scan with voltaic vision, and a few gentle taps later, I knew how to disarm it.

Ten seconds of hard work followed. I cracked the shell, twisted the wires into a grounding pattern, destroyed the failsafe, removed the remote trigger, and dumped a nearby box of laundry detergent into the catalyst. It bubbled and turned green, trading its explosive potential for a lesser, stinkier destiny. I assumed it was stinky, anyway.

The door to the room slammed open, and one of the wires glowed in my voltaic vision... to no avail, as the ground drained the current away from the detonator.

“There you are!” Lady Thrush yelled. “Stand down, and—”

She doubled over, retching.

Ah, right. The dust upstairs had troubled her lungs, which meant that the standard paragon supermuscle set didn’t extend to all her internal organs. That or it was a weakness. Either way, the evaporating catalyst wasn’t meant to be breathed, so I sighed, grabbed her by the cape, and dragged her after me as I ran out of the room. Her head bounced and thwacked repeatedly as I switched back to infrared sight and searched the ground floor. Now that the bomb was disarmed, I had a little more time.

“You!” Came a shout from behind me, and I staggered as a sudden impact knocked me forward. Damage readouts spooled up as the sound of the shot echoed through the building.

Gunfire in London. I hadn’t thought they’d actually use the guns. Very cocky or very stupid, on the Maestro’s part. Though, knowing him as I did, I’d guess more on the cocky side of things.

I whipped around, and glared at the four guards who were diving for cover at the end of the hallway, setting up proper firing zones. Didn’t look like they had any high-caliber stuff, but on the other hand, I wasn’t exactly bulletproof at the minute.

Wait a minute.

I looked down at the choking, gasping heroine I was hauling around, pulled up her file to make sure, and if I could have smiled I would have.

The guards opened fire, and I twisted to the side, tossed her up into the air, caught her, and charged them. I held Lady Thrush in front of me like a shield, bulldozing her through the plaster of the wall to smash into the first shouting guard, then twisting and throwing her at the second. They went down, hard, but by then I was diving toward the others. A bullet or two clipped me, but then I was among them and lashing out, and they dropped as I turned back to check on the hero.

Lady Thrush was on her hands and knees, retching, glaring up at me through her mask.

“What the hell? What the bloody hell?” She rasped, mopping her mouth with a glove.

“WE HAD A TEAMUP,” I told her. “GOOD JOB.”

I saw murder in her eyes, but had no time to care. I moved past her before she could react, searching again.

It took a full half-minute to find the hatch, and by the time I did I could hear her running after me. Good, I wanted her to see this.

I bent, ripped the hatch open. It took two tries... my damage readouts told a story of hydraulic leaks and diminished operating capacity. That was the problem with this design... with everything as slim as it was, there weren’t many opportunities to pile on armor. Every shot that connected damaged something, and anything that could affect thin steel could break me right now.

WHAM!

The hatch went up,  and I went down, hitting the ground hard. Everything fizzed and I gritted my teeth against the shock of biofeedback. Had I tripped an explosive? Had the Maestro broken pattern and gone for two bombs instead of one?

Then the damage readouts began their glowing march, and I sighed. No, Thrush had recovered faster than expected.

I rerouted power, got the optical circuits working again. She’d punched me just as I went through the hatch, judging by the square sliver of light above, and the angry heroine standing framed in it, looking down at me.

“And stay down!” She shouted.

I turned my head. Didn’t look like a huge room. I tried for infrared vision, got error messages. Damn it, she couldn’t have waited a few seconds...

“HEY,” I called up. “GOT A FLASHLIGHT?”

“Go to hell.”

“ALRIGHT. GUESS YOU’RE GOING TO BE COMING DOWN HERE. IN THE DARK. ALONE.”

I stretched out my arms and hauled my metal body across the floor, grinding and scraping, until I was well out of the light from the open hatch above. It didn’t take long.

“Oh damn it!” I heard her footsteps recede, and chuckled.

And from the depths of the basement, someone chuckled back.

I froze, and the laughter stopped. Were my audio sensors glitching, now?

“HA. HA.” I tried again.

“Ha ha ha...” someone else offered, then trailed off. Didn’t sound mocking, or maniacal. Just mildly amused. Male, by the tone. And coming from what looked like a corner.

I turned that way, dragged my shattered frame over. Shapes shifted in the gloom. My right ocular arrangement had been knocked askew, couldn’t focus properly. I thought these might be the targets, but I had to make sure.

“Nice night, isn’t it?” A woman’s voice.

“IT’S NOT NIGHT,” I pointed out.

Feet shifted on concrete. Someone coughed, in the gloom.

Three figures. Four? They huddled together, I couldn’t get a clear look at them.

“Nice night, isn’t it?” The woman’s voice had an undertone to it. She sounded nervous.

“WHO ARE YOU?”

“Emily Dorchester.”

“Tom Westminster.”

“Able Aberdeen.”

“John Dover.”

Seriously? I shifted, got the four of them over to the left side of my face, and the fully functional optics. I couldn’t tell with ‘Emily’, but Able, John, and Tom were all wearing baggy shorts and loose shirts. Not good clothing for the current season.

“HE DIDN’T EVEN GIVE YOU GOOD NAMES FOR YOUR ALIASES, DID HE?”

“I’m sorry?” they said, Able and John speaking at the same time. Emily and Tom were just a beat behind, and the words spilled into each other.

I stretched a metal hand toward them, and triggered the nanite spray. A silvery dust cloud filled the air, settling around them.

They didn’t react. But a light flared up to the side of me, resolved into a television screen hanging from one wall.

A man stood on-screen, all in black. Blonde curly hair peeked out from under a bowler hat, tilted forward just enough to keep his upper face in shadow. But his smile, oh, that was a thing of nightmares. A grin bare of anything human, so tight and sharp that you almost expected to see flesh scraps from his last victim stuck between his teeth.

“MURDER MAESTRO,” I rumbled.

“Doctor Dire,” he replied. “You’ve come an awfully long way to die.”

CHAPTER 2: DEATH THREATS AND DINNER

“Constables are responding, at this time all residents of Brixton and surrounding buroughs are asked to stay off the streets, as gunfire has been heard from the scene of the fight. The noted heroine, Lady Thrush, seems to have engaged the mystery costume...”

--LBC, emergency radio announcement during the Brixton incident

We regarded each other as best we could, him from whatever camera he was using to stare at me, and me from the busted ocular sensors of the drone body.

He broke the silence first. “You know what irritates me? I mean, you do, obviously. But what utterly gets my goat? You know what that is, Dire?”

“NOT YET. BUT SHE INTENDS TO SUBJECT YOU TO THE MOST RIGOROUS OF EXPERIMENTS TO DETERMINE YOUR THRESHOLD OF TORMENT. USING THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD, OF COURSE. A THOROUGH AND LOGICAL DESTRUCTION OF EVERYTHING YOU HOLD DEAR.”

“Pardon?” One of the idiots piped up. The others caught the word, chorused it back, rattling back and forth.

Maestro shook his head. “Oh shut up,” he whispered, and the chill, rasping voice he used rattled through my head. I remembered that feeling. It stoked my rage anew, and I bared my own teeth, unseen and unnoticed.

But the confused tourists shut up, and the villain of the hour turned his attention back to me. “What really hacks me off, Dire, is that you had won. You’d won, you dizzy cunt—”

“CAREFUL.”

“—you’d won! All you had to do was stay in your little island paradise, shrink back into the shadows while the Americans stomped around and acted tough, and drink rum while you fucked poolboys. Just kick back in the sun and sand, rake in drug money and graft money from that glorious little hotbed of corruption, and I don’t know, build death rays or something in your spare time. You’d won!” He lifted his face, and ice-blue eyes stared at me, flashing in the dim light of wherever he was. “But no, you couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?”

“YOU SEALED YOUR FATE THE MINUTE YOU TRIED TO GET INSIDE DIRE’S HEAD.” Murder Maestro, also-known as Maestro M, or occasionally Pride, was a subtle mind controller. Implanted triggers, modified memories, and a thoroughly ruthless attitude when it came to using and abusing his puppets. I’d barely escaped.

He laughed, rattling and dry. “Almost had you. Bit of a mess in there, though, can’t say I’m surprised my usual tricks didn’t take. But no matter. You’ve come here now to the seat of my home, where every resource is mine. If this is a game, un-dear lady, then I not only have all the pieces, but also both chairs, the board, and the whole damned room. What do you have? What do you even have, that could possibly present me even the ghost of a challenge?”

“TIME. TIME AND MALICE. YOU’RE HER PROJECT UNTIL YOU’RE GONE, MAESTRO. AND SINCE SHE HAS QUITE A LOT PLANNED IN THE LONG-TERM, SHE’S GOING TO SEE THAT YOUR PROJECT COMES TO A DRAMATIC AND PAINFUL ENDING AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE.”

“You really have no idea what you’re up against, you silly cunt.”

“THERE’S THAT WORD AGAIN. YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH WOMEN, DON’T YOU?”

“I’ll have less of one when you’re dead. But that’s beside the point... you have no idea, no idea of the resources I can bring to bear against you. Of just how rigged the game truly is! Oh, Doctor...” his grin stretched open, and a pink tongue flicked out, catlike, and moistened his lip. “...you know, I think I’m going to have fun with this. Yes, I do believe that not only will I break you, not only will I kill you, and all those around you, but I’ll take my time and enjoy it.”

“WELL THEN, YOU CAN START THINGS OFF BY ENJOYING ONE LESS HIDEOUT, NINE LESS GUARDS, AND FOUR LESS METAHUMAN MORONS.”

The idiots looked on mutely. They’d been tortured out of their minds, and rebuilt. In the process, Maestro had found a way to induce superpowers into them. The problem was that it took time to rebuild them afterward, and I’d turned these up before he could finish the process.

But Maestro merely shook his head. “My un-dear Dire, you’re quite delusional if you think that I have any stake at all in the continued existence of any of the assets you’ve named. Case in point.” His hand moved offscreen. And for the first time in our conversation, his grin faltered.

“OH, DON’T GO AND POUT JUST BECAUSE SHE DISABLED YOUR BOMB.”

Another sigh. “Spoilsport. Very well then. We’ll do this the old-fashioned way, I suppose. See you soon, Doctor Dire.”

“NOT SOON ENOUGH, MURDER MAESTRO.”

The television snapped off, and I returned my attention to the morons. No, it wasn’t their fault they had been effectively lobotomized. They needed a new name. Blanks? Yes, that would do.

At this point the plan was for the hero to call the cops, once she found the Blanks, and get them into safe custody where Maestro couldn’t retrieve them without drawing too much attention. Even getting their records traced and fingerprints on file would be a step in the right direction there.

Wood creaked behind me, and crunched as it gave way. I turned my head with the little hydraulic pressure I had left, and watched as a caped silhouette was once more visible above. Light stabbed down into the hole from the hero’s hand, and twisted, poking around into the darkness.

“GOOD, YOU FOUND A FLASHLIGHT AFTER ALL. WAS BEGINNING TO WORRY YOU’D LOST YOUR WAY.”

The light oriented on me, and Lady Thrush jumped down into the hole. “Now, you bloody thing, tell me what this is all about—”

“Nice night, isn’t it?” The idiots chorused.

“What?” The light shifted, and with a dawning horror, I saw her body language go from anger to alarm.

Young. Impulsive. Heroic. Injured right in her pride, thanks to my earlier actions. Maybe thinking she’d just been lead into an ambush, and completely outnumbered.

The very people I’d come to save were now at risk.

Unless...

“STAY BACK!” I bellowed. “COME ANY CLOSER AND THE HOSTAGES DIE!”

“What? Who even are you! What do you want? This doesn’t make any sense!”

“NOW YOU’RE GETTING IT,” I said.

“Look, don’t hurt them. Just tell me what this is all about.”

I considered her for a moment. “MMMM... NO.”

“A standoff, then? You’re leaking. A lot. Think I’ll win this one.”

“YOU EVER PLAY CHESS AGAINST SOMEONE WHO FEELS NO OBLIGATION TO LOSE GRACEFULLY?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“WELL THEN, THERE’S A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING. THIS UNIT WILL SELF DESTRUCT IN TWENTY, NINETEEN, EIGHTEEN—”

To her credit, she didn’t hesitate. I’d barely made it to sixteen before she’d dropped the flashlight, grabbed me by the leg, and taken off at top flight speed up through the ceiling, then a few more ceilings, then the roof. My gyro ground and I groaned as my head whipped around as she spun me in circles by the leg, like she was holding a lasso.

At some point she let go, and as I spun I could make out the ground flashing by, receding. She’d gathered momentum and thrown me straight up.

I eyeballed the location, ran a few calculations for a whole half of a second, gave it a few more seconds, for dramatic effect. Then I triggered the real self-destruct sequence.

I logged out of the remote interface, to find that the room was still spinning.

I tried to stand up, grab for the couch, and say something witty. Didn’t work out so well.

After I’d spent a good minute and twelve seconds vomiting on the floor, I managed to blink enough tears away from my eyes to see the room wasn’t spinning quite as badly.

“Boss? What the hell?”

“Alpha,” I croaked.

“There was an explosion, up above. Looked like fireworks? The local Gridnet’s aflame with rumors.”

“Had to blow the remote unit. A local paragon did the fastball special with it, straight up.”

“That’s not gonna go over well. People are already tossing around the ‘T’ word. Y’know, Terrorist? Uh, everything was out of range, right?”

“Please. Triple checked the math and the angle. The river’s going to catch the fragments. They can have fun dredging them out. Nothing solid is going toward anything that would cause collateral.” It’s a handy thing, being a supergenius. It let me keep my hands mostly clean, which was very important in my line of work.

“Ouch. So, the mission failed, then?”

I snorted. “Now what do you take her for, Alpha?” Sure of my stomach now, I mopped my mouth, spat out the horrible taste left within, and rose to my feet. Alpha stood before me, glowing, genderless, and looking like a two-foot tall man made of purple light. Hard light, admittedly; I’d given him the ability to do the faintest of gravitic force exertion via a suite of mobile projectors, on the off-chance he needed to manipulate something physical.

It also let him make me dinner, when I was too busy otherwise. Which was more and more often, these days.

“The mission was a success.” I leaned against the sofa. “Not a complete success, but within parameters for Plan C.”

“Plan C? Ouch.”

“Not as bad as it sounds. It’s a healthy C.”

“A C-plus, then?”

“Sure, whatever.” I closed my eyes, let the last of the vertigo fade. “The mess on the carpet. Could you?”

“I’ll never understand the revulsion you organic types have toward your own bodily byproducts. It’s just waste. I’ll clean it for you, sure.” Alpha wasn’t human, never had been. An online intelligence sealed into a single powerful server, thanks to my machinations. Originally he’d been a rogue element, if not an enemy, but I’d turned him.

I hadn’t been quite ready to trust him with my newest toys, but after I’d lost a perfectly good lunch, I found my reluctance diminished. “The biofeedback is a problem. Too low, and it’s sluggish, hard to control at any decent speed. Pointless to fight in. Too high, and it causes problems. There doesn’t seem to be a happy medium that will handle all situations.”

“You know, I don’t have a body,” Alpha said, as he trotted over to the kitchenette area and retrieved a roll of paper towels. “Just saying, if I was piloting I wouldn’t end up spraying.”

“Cute.” I shucked the neural harness from my head, unstrapping the electrodes and depositing it on the couch. Then I stood, stretched, and surveyed my domain.

As villainous lairs went, it was... unassuming. A large three-bedroom apartment, decorated simply. A spacious central living room, with one wall full of windows looking north, towards the River Thames. A kitchen chock-full of cooking implements. Enough tchotchkes to make an intruder think that the people who lived here were expecting to stay here long-term. And enough hidden security devices to ensure that any intruder wouldn’t be intruding for more than a few seconds before he departed consciousness.

All nonlethal, of course. My roommate, and partner for this journey, (in more ways than one) had talked me out of utilizing deadly force to secure our living space.

It was strange, working with a hero, even if he was more pragmatic than most of his breed.

Speaking of which, he’d be due home soon. I pulled out my phone, checked my cover identity’s account, and winced. We’d already exceeded the budget for take-out food this week. I’d have to cook something.

I moved to the kitchen, put on the apron, and started gathering ingredients and utensils. Mouth still tasted like vomit, so I pulled juice from the fridge, rinsed, and spat until I didn’t taste foulness anymore. Then I dug out the recipe book and got to work.

“You know, I could do that too,” Alpha said. He wadded up paper towels and threw the gunk into the trash-can with a perfect three-point shot.

“You could. But... well, it wouldn’t be the same. You know how he is.”

“We could tell him you did it.”

I shook my head. “No lies. That’s the agreement. Not even the small ones. Besides, he likes it when women cook for him. It’s a cultural thing. Like feeling guilty about birth control.” I’d had to put my foot down on that one. I didn’t have time to get my tubes tied, and I wasn’t about to risk babies. Not now, maybe not ever.

Briefly, I remembered a toddler’s face; golden-haired, laughing. I closed my eyes, took deep breaths until the pain faded. For now, anyway.

“Here we go,” Alpha said. “The first few cameras are on-site.” He waved, and the television flickered to life. The wave had been strictly for my benefit, he really didn’t need to do that. Alpha was hooked into the apartment itself, and the building too, for that matter. I’d made sure of that when we prepared this lair.

We watched, as reporters pushed cameras towards very annoyed policemen. Blue lights flashed in the background, while more officers spooled out yellow tape and kept back gawkers.

Then the door opened, and a bedraggled and annoyed Lady Thrush stepped out. The look on her face turned to horror as the reporters surged forward, shouting questions so fast that she hadn’t a prayer of answering them.

Gods, that kid was young. Sixteen? Seventeen? Behind her, four people dressed in loud Hawaiian shirts stepped out. The woman had a baggy skirt, but the three men wore khaki shorts.

“And there’s the basement idiots,” I grinned, as I picked up my knife and laid into the vegetables.

“So the last shipment was there.”

“Last one from Mariposa, yes. We still don’t know the extent of his operation. Of their operation.”

“Bigger than we thought,” a deep, male voice said from behind me.

I jumped, almost threw the pan of vegetables all over the tiled floor—

—and a nimble arm snaked around me, disarmed me of the pan’s handle, and compensated for the momentum, catching the few escaping carrots with a flick of a skilled wrist.

“Okay,” I said when my heartbeat had stabilized. “First, don’t sneak up like that again. Second, that was just showing off.”

“Sorry,” Manuel said, smiling at me as he leaned in for a kiss. His lips tasted smoky, and he was nice and warm as I hugged him. He embraced me with one arm, slipped the pan back to the counter top with the other.

“You’re not sorry, but that’s fine.” I put on my best housewife grin. “So how was the office?”

He shuddered. We’d taken care to ease ourselves into society, infiltrating bit by bit with cover identities, falsified records, and jobs. It let us fade into the background, because London was a very big place, and no matter how big the Maestro might be, he couldn’t watch everywhere. It also gave Manuel time to learn the lay of the land, and me the time to build up our resources, and arrange remote shipment of all the various drone bodies. We had so very many of them stashed around the city, now. The one on the ship had been a necessary sacrifice, but one I paid for gladly.

The downside of it was that Manuel had to put on a show, and blend in with a white-collar sales job. Which was fine, because it helped him lose his accent, and learn the local customs while giving him the perfect excuse to travel and get used to the city.

And after night fell, he could lose his alias, take up his mask and costume, and become Señor Acertijo, the relentless inquisitor and skilled vigilante who had kept the peace on Mariposa City’s streets.

One week ago he’d started his runs, gathering information with intimidation and fisticuffs and observation. He was the first wave. I was the second. I wasn’t as good at subtle detective work. So I posed as a housewife while I engineered up a storm. The domestic bits were both a mask and a bit of an experiment; I wasn’t sure if I enjoyed this lifestyle.

Still, for now, it sufficed. I would have gone mad without human company, and he seemed to enjoy the ruse too.

We covered each other’s weaknesses, and it had been an unusual but good arrangement.

That arrangement had borne fruit a few minutes ago.

I nodded towards the television. “Your information was right. We found the blanks. Got to confront Maestro directly on a closed-circuit television. Oh, he’s peeved.”

“Is he?” Manuel headed over to the television, watched as the police hustled the tourist-dressed basement captives into a waiting van. “That’s good, at least.”

I’d learned to read his tone over the months we’d been working together. “There’s a but in there somewhere.”

“You’re right. That’s good, but—” he sighed, as he took his coat off, hung it on the wall. “—in the grand scheme of things, it probably won’t lead us anywhere.”

I paused, with a pan full of stir-fry and a somber feeling. “You’ve got bad news, don’t you?”

“You’ll want to be sitting down for this...”

CHAPTER 3: LEGWORK

“He hit us like a hurricane. A hurricane with fists. Just purple and black, swooped out of the shadows when we were strippin' the lorry. Emmet draws a knife, he draws a feckin' sword, and you can't blame me for runnin'. I could still hear him behind me, shouting questions as he beat Emmet, and Emmet screamin'...”

--'Chops' Harker, a minor crook overheard at the Hanged Virgin's pub

We’d chased a man across the ocean. The Murder Maestro, a mentalist of a particularly vile bent, had caused me no end of grief when I was dealing with some hairy business in a banana republic off the coast of Colombia. He’d invaded my mind, and I neither forget nor forgive such transgressions.

This had given me common cause to work with an old enemy of his. We’d decided to team up; me for vengeance, and him for justice.

We’d found common ground in the bedroom, as well, which made the slow infiltration into Britain somewhat more agreeable. Dude was hot. Physically toned, experienced, smart, and a hell of an investigator. All things that I found attractive.

Unfortunately, at the minute, he was also clueless.

“Nothing?” I said, giving the stir-fry pan a good shake. Various savory bits sizzled and hopped, but I kept my eyes on Manuel.

“As far as every criminal in London knows, there is no Maestro. There is no Murder Maestro. There is no Maestro M, or anyone with any resemblance to that name whatsoever. He simply does not exist.” Manuel stared morosely at the television.

I gnawed my lip. “Would more time help?”

He just looked at me.

“Right, stupid question,” I admitted, lowering my gaze to the stir fry. Señor Acertijo had serious skills. If he said the Maestro wasn’t traceable, then he knew what he was talking about.

I gave the pan another shake, judged it done, and flipped it onto the serving platter. A few last garnishes, a couple of opened bottles... beer for him, soft drink for me, and dinner was served.

Manuel ate ravenously. I’d have been surprised if I didn’t know him pretty well by now. He burned through calories like a race car through diesel. The guy had no superpowers, so he substituted an insane exercise and dietary regimen, on top of constant training and practice. The third bedroom of the apartment was rigged up to be his gym. It sufficed, barely. I had a notion that he’d spent more effort than was necessary on his nightly excursions, just to make sure he didn’t lose tone.

Not that I minded that tone, not a bit. He was my first proper boyfriend, and, well... rawr.

“Right,” I said, tucking into my share of the food. “So there’s nothing to find.”

“I didn’t say that,” Manuel smiled.

“Another riddle?” He was fond of those. That was what his name translated to, in English: Mister Riddle.

“No. While the master is still hidden, his puppets are not necessarily so well protected.”

“Ah, right, his group. Something solid there?”

“Perhaps. I will need a few hours to run it down. Check my information with your imp’s help.”

“Hey! I’m a daemon at least,” Alpha sulked.

Manuel flicked through his forehead with one finger, making Alpha’s hologram swirl for a second. “Demons don’t glitch.”

“Flick a finger through your own head, see how well you do then,” Alpha grumbled.

“Boys, boys,” I smiled. “Shush. Getting to the good part.”

On screen, a tired-looking detective in a trenchcoat stepped up to the reporters, and gave the official police statement. Yes, an unknown assailant of unknown origin had charged into the city and stormed the building. Yes, unknown criminals within the building had fired gunshots. Yes, there had been a hero on-scene. Yes, some very confused people had been found within the building. They were in good hands and in protective custody at this very minute. And yes, by all accounts, at least three men were dead, four more in critical condition.

That caused a hubbub among the reporters.

It also made Manuel turn around and give me one hell of a stink-eye.

“What?” I asked.

“We had this talk already.”

“Self-defense.” I shrugged.

“You were controlling a drone body. You were in no real danger. You did not need to kill.”

“Human traffickers, who knew full well what they were doing?” I scowled. “You know how many women, how many children have been through that place? How many were killed by abuse, or trying to escape? You know it as well as she does, we tracked that down together.”

He said nothing, merely kept looking at me. I searched for anger in his eyes, found disappointment instead.

“It was only three,” I muttered, looking away. “They were in the wrong spot for the shaped charge, that was all.”

“If you want to tackle the Maestro on your own, if you can do it on your own, I’ll walk away now.”

Pain in my gut. I flinched, glanced around, looked away before I could catch his eyes. I didn’t want to see what they held, this time. “No. No, fine. No more dead men. Not without a damned good reason.”

He’d come to mean a lot to me. But working with a hero, meant honoring a hero’s values... even if I didn’t necessarily share them. And heroes didn’t kill, not without a lot of fuss.

Though, I had to wonder, what would happen to this relationship after we’d taken out Maestro M. It had been more of a spur-of-the-moment thing at the beginning, a ‘holy crap we survived that and won’ deal. Neither of us had expected it to last. But now here we were, months later, and it felt comfy. It felt right.

The problem arose, though, that Maestro M’s defeat was our only common goal. I was preparing sinister long-term plans to change the paradigms of human society and technology, and Acertijo was trying to bring justice to his country and, to a smaller extent, the world in general.

The smart thing to do would be to get the hell away from him the second our goal was achieved.

That would be the smart thing.

Instead, I snuck a peek at him from under narrowed lids, and found him watching me as intently. He smiled, put his plate to the side and crooked his arm up on the top of the sofa, and I smiled back, and sat next to him, easing up to his side and snuggling.

For now we were together, and it was nice. Despite the occasional painful compromise. He needed me just as much, if not more, than I needed him.

“Hey, you made the news, big guy,” Alpha flopped next to Manuel.

What? I looked back at the television in time to see a reporter in a different part of the city pointing at an alley full of crime scene tape and gold spray-painted question marks.

“Oh Manuel.” I sighed and rubbed my eyes.

“I cannot help what I am.”

“How many alleys full of graffiti?”

He looked away, lips pressed together so tightly they were white.

“Three, according to the news,” Alpha said. “Looks like you really had a productive night.”

I started to scold Manuel, stopped. The costume business had a way of taking its price out of minds and bodies. For me, it was a serious issue when it came to using certain pronouns. For Señor Acertijo, Manuel’s alter-ego, it was a compulsion to leave his calling card wherever he’d distributed his own brand of back-alley justice.

“What’s done is done,” I murmured. Though he still looked away, I saw his shoulders sag just a bit. Relief, there, in his body language. “Let’s look to the future. You said something about Maestro’s puppets?”

“Yes.” He looked back and smiled. “It is the classic criminal conundrum.”

“Right, right,” I knew it well. If you have a criminal service and want to profit from it, you need to let other criminals know about it. But some of those criminals would rat you out, or were actually undercover cops. It was a fine balancing act, between profitability and paranoia. You could never quite secure everything.

“I will borrow your little fiend here—“

“Daemon! And not exactly that, either.”

“—and see about confirming my suspicions without hitting any tripwires.”

I nodded. “Going to leave you to it, then. Got a few things to do in the workshop.” I suppressed a twinge of regret and peeled away from the warmth of his side. He mussed my hair as I went and I growled, low in my throat. “You’ll pay for that later.”

“I certainly hope so.” Manuel’s smile made promises that I knew his hands would keep, and I felt my face flush with warmth. I cleared my throat, and headed back to the bedrooms before I got busy on something that, while enjoyable, wouldn’t further our goals.

The first bedroom was ours. The third bedroom was his, full of exercise equipment. The third bedroom, to any outsider, would appear only to hold boxes. Converted storage, most likely.

Looks were deceiving. I flipped the light switch, stood perfectly still, and the floor descended beneath me as the trapdoor opened and the mini-elevator lowered me into the real lair.

The one up above was all well and good. I’d installed sound baffles along with the other security measures, when we’d claimed the place.

But this one was where the magic happened. Well, the science, anyway.

Three whole apartments, interior walls removed, floor, walls, and ceiling reinforced with structural force fields. Appropriate electronic camouflage and countermeasures designed to prevent detection from the most sophisticated sensors I could imagine, plus its own defenses, many of which were decidedly lethal. And a suite of the most advanced industrial tools and machines, all built onsite to my own exacting specs. If this place were somehow captured without triggering any of the various self-destruct sequences, humanity would advance its technological base about twenty years, I figured.

All this drew power from its own small fusion reactor, chugging away in the corner, plasma held suspended in a flickering globe. A tiny star, and oh hadn’t it been a pain ensuring that it was quite invisible from all outside detection.

I’d taken the precaution of hacking the apartment building’s renter’s network. Nobody would attempt to rent this block out, and it would never show up on the maintenance manifests. Eventually someone would notice something was off, but by then we’d be long gone; our business concluded, and the entire workshop stripped down. Hell, I’d even rebuild the interior walls and take the basic furnishings out of storage. The unmaking had been recorded, and what had been unmade could be remade with little fuss.

Manuel wasn’t allowed in my lair. Not because I was worried about him, but well... he had a hero’s instincts and reactions. Last thing I needed was him tripping security accidentally, and making the place melt down before I could get down there and defuse it.

But those were worries for another day. Right now I had other priorities.

With a flick of one wrist and a gesture, I brought up the augmented reality interface and light flared to life around my hands, resolving into red bands of numbers and scrolling command prompts. Another flourish unsealed the floor-to-ceiling cylinder in the center of the room, revealing my pride and joy.

My armor.

Eight feet tall from reinforced, wide foot to heavily-armored head, it loomed over me like a slumbering giant. Dull gray steel with black carbon fiber patches, the color scheme was broken only by the crimson cowled cape flowing down its back, and the white, ceramic alloy mask that hid its face. The only concession to the feminine form, the mask resembled an ancient muse, black, hollow eyesockets staring at something unseen and lips quirked in the slightest of smiles.

My armor was a miracle of engineering, and like all my suits, I’d added in the lessons learned and innovations developed from the previous iterations. This one wasn’t as light as my first suit, or as heavy as my last one, but comfortably in-between. The weaponry lacked the sheer destructive power that I’d had for my last major job, but I’d put in a system-compatible forcefield generator, and called it a good trade-off. Steel on the surface only, the lower layers were made of more esoteric material and protected me from anything that breached the forcefield.

About the only weakness to this one was a relatively slow flight speed. It could go about as fast as a car, if I needed it to. Didn’t figure it needed much more than that, though. And if it did I could always whip up some boosters or overclock the gravitics. It’d mean repairs later, but I was set up for that.

It did have one trick I was very proud of. The entire head assembly was a decoy. My face actually fit rather nicely into the heavily-armored and well-protected chest cavity. I’d learned that trick from dealing with an invisible sniper a few months back... People love trying for headshots. And no matter how well you armor it, eventually someone’s going to bring something to the table that can get through your defenses.

“She’s a beaut,” Alpha said, fading in next to me.

“Yep. Multi-tasking?”

“Absolutely. I’ve got a forked persona of myself upstairs helping Captain McHeropants browse through several restricted and not-so-restricted archives. Found a few tripwires already, though I’ve got no way of knowing if they’re Maestro’s or somebody else’s.”

Tripwires were alarms, set up to notify their maker of certain searches or inquiries. The more we dodged, the easier our task became. Although we weren’t relying solely on Gridnet searches, and thanks to my little stunt earlier, our primary target knew we were coming.

We had other resources, like Manuel’s back-alley inquiries, and the nanobots I’d slipped onto the poor bastards in the basement.

“Have you finished calibrating the spies?” I asked.

Alpha grinned. “Child’s play. Want to see the footage?” He pulled up five AR screens. Four that showed police interrogation rooms, from the perspective of someone sitting in a suspect’s chair. One that looked down at the city from above, leisurely cruising around Brixton, watching the police cars below.

I grinned. “Perfect. Wasn’t sure we’d get her, couldn’t afford to spray her directly. She handled the hostages, then?”

“Yep. A reassuring pat on the shoulder. Ah, we had a bunch of other people infiltrated, but I deleted them. First-responders, cops, that sort of thing.”

“Good. Keep an eye on it, give a yell if anything changes.”

The nanobots that I’d sprayed the hostages with were a tiny, contagious camera network. They pulled energy from the broadcast grid, so they were really only effective within urban areas, but that’s the only place I needed to use them. They clustered on clothing and hair, working together to provide low-resolution imagery and dropping it off on a frequency long-disused by any broadcast media.

Not a perfect setup, didn’t have to be. But hard as hell to detect with current technology.

I settled down to work, AR gauntlets flashing as I calibrated the armor’s subsystems. Putting in that extra time to get response from ninety-seven to ninety-eight percent. It would never truly be perfect until I’d taken it out on a few test flights, or combat runs, but those would come. We’d set a ball in motion. A couple, to tell the truth.

“So Acertijo’s marks are going to draw some attention,” Alpha hopped up on a nearby shelf, to better meet my eyes.

“Yep. As will the kamikaze Direbot. In the next hour, the police will trace its path back and find the freighter it came from leaving port. Then a round of ship inspections should follow, slowing down the Maestro’s naval channels. We’ll also see what he does with the hostages, the blanks.”

“Blanks. Weird name for them.”

I shrugged. “Mind-scrubbed, mutated metahumans? Blanks is shorter, sums up their mental condition fairly well. In any case we’ve put out feelers with minimal risk to ourselves. Maestro M’s response, or lack thereof, will show us more of his operation, and give us an idea how to proceed.”

“He’s probably going to use minions.”

“Counting on it. Observing a villain’s minions is one of the best ways to take their measure.”

“Speaking of that...”

I sighed. “No.”

“Let me finish, please!” Alpha raised his hands, made vaguely placating motions. “This is his home turf. This Island England and all that, you know.”

“Yeah don’t let any Scots hear you say that.”

“All I’m saying is it’s two of you against all the local heroes, the Maestro, and all his Sins.”

The Sins were his super group. He was Pride, naturally. We’d ended Gluttony and Greed back on Mariposa, and unless he’d done some rapid recruiting, Wrath was out of the picture before I ever got involved. Which left three possible Sins, assuming all of them were here, and assuming all the positions were filled.

He’d tried to mindrape me into becoming his new Wrath. I still felt raw, righteous rage whenever I remembered that incident.

But I pushed it aside, and smiled at Alpha. “Yes, he’ll have help. Counting on that, too. The more help he has, the easier he’ll be to track down.”

“And the more trouble it’ll be if he brings everyone to bear against you at once. Like, y’know, a mastermind would do. Which he is.”

“Are you that desperate to breed?”

“No! Well, I mean...” Alpha sighed. “All I’m saying is that my job would get easier if you had a few more minions around. And those exoskeletons are the perfect vessels for meatspace operations. I mean, I’m not gonna puke. I don’t suffer from vertigo.”

I gnawed my lip. Last month I’d cracked his code, scanned it from top to bottom, ensured that he didn’t have any hidden traps or tricks up his sleeve. And in the process, I’d found out how to replicate him.

Alpha couldn’t replicate alone, that was one of his creator’s countermeasures against him going rogue. But I could spin off shards of his personality, tweak them, enable limited learning potential. Nothing like a full AI or DI, more on par with an exceptionally bright human.

It was tempting. So I resisted. I trusted my scans, but his creator was cunning, dangerous, and had burned me once already. His creator was also my future self, from a twisted timeline gone horribly wrong. Now just gone, hopefully. But a ghost that would never be now haunted us both, and it flavored all my dealings with him, even if neither of us wanted to admit it.

Still, my hesitation wasn’t entirely founded upon paranoia. “Even if we could, we lack the resources. No way to get the processors we need without drawing a lot of attention. This is Britain, not America. The local black markets don’t have the pull they do back home.” Back there, something as simple as a clean, untraceable handgun was doable without breaking a thousand dollars. Here, you added a few zeroes. When you started getting into the rare-earth processors required for beings of Alpha’s complexity, it became a daunting prospect. Not impossible, but difficult with the timeframe we were looking at.

“Yeah, but... well, there’s techno-guys around here. We could maybe scavenge something?”

I considered, came to another decision. “Tell you what, we’ll do this for now.” I gestured, opened up another tube, a slimmer one among a cluster of five. A fresh, gleaming exoskeleton stood within, cradled in a nest of wires and LEDs.

“Really?” Alpha bounced up and down on his butt, grinning like a kid at Christmas.

“Really.” I tapped in the authorization and Alpha’s hologram winked out, as the Dire masked metal skeleton twitched, and stood free of the retracting wires. It raised its hands and examined them.

“SWEET.” It roared.

“Na na na, you don’t get the cool voice!”

“Sorry,” he said, in his usual tones.

“It’s all right.”

“I’m a real boy!” He tried a happy little jig, feet clicking and clacking and pinging against the forcefields that made up the floor.

“Yeah... stop that Pinocchio.”

“Hee hee! Right.” He marched it back into the tube. “Might as well let me charge. Oh, and Manuel’s finished if you want to go back up. We found some good stuff.”

“Yeah?” I set the armor’s systems to recompile, clicked the AR interface off, and got back on the lift.

Manuel did have a smug look on his face, when I got back to the living room. “We have them.”

“Them?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Two of his Sins, both operating actively in the underworld. Or if they’re not his people, I’ll be very surprised.”

He was a veteran investigator. His hunches were worth more than my most complex prognostic programs. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Manuel tossed me a bundle of printouts, and I read them as quickly as I could turn the pages. Supergenius had some perks, after all. “Desire?” I arched the other eyebrow. “Really?”

“Really. If she’s not filling the Lust role of his group, in more ways than one, I’ll be surprised.” Manuel folded his arms. “She’s offering magical servitors for perverted acts and undercover operatives. Demons or something, nobody’s really sure. They’re all overly beautiful, overly vicious, and quite frankly dangerous.”

“Mm. Magic.” I didn’t like that idea. Neither he nor I were very magical, and magic was, well, cheaty. “We might need help with that,” I admitted with a sigh. “Something to sic the heroes onto, once we’ve got them properly manipulated.”

He winced. “I’m still not too happy about that.”

“Oh come on, you know the unwritten rules. Maestro won’t kill heroes, not this close to home. No matter how well he’s hidden, he won’t need that kind of heat.”

“True, but if he can blame it on you...”

“Ouch.” I hadn’t thought of that. One of the major understandings in the metahuman community is that heroes didn’t kill, and villains don’t kill heroes. Villains who flout that rule got stomped on hard by all sides. Heroes that crossed that line stop being heroes. The alternative is all-out war, or extreme measures that would surely escalate into unacceptable collateral.

From what I understood, the world had come close to that, back around the start of the nineties. Nobody still operating had good memories of those times. Too many truly vile villains and too many extremist heroes; a deadly combination that racked up a horrific body count.

But none of this was helping the matters at hand. “All right. We’ll deal with that when it comes. Keep a closer eye on the heroes, only catspaw them as needed.”

“Thank you.” Manuel smiled. “At any rate, the second Sin is Envy. He has his own corporation.”

“What?” Well, not too surprising when you thought about it. Most corporations were borderline evil in some way to begin with. Wasn’t a leap to have a supervillain running the show.

“Neo Variants. Medical research firm out of Manchester.” He tossed over another folder, and I read through it. “I am certain they are the source of some very illegal cyberware that the local mafia is using to augment their soldiers. They provide budget-rate chopshop and augment services to anyone for the right price. I know where one of their operating theaters is.”

“Neo Variants... wait. N and V? N V?” I snorted. “Envy. Yeah, that’s Maestro, clever little puns, taunting you right in plain sight.” I nodded. “Perfect. That operating theater will be a good way for Dire to tie into the scene.”

“There is another concern,” Manuel offered. “Not what I found, but what I did not find.”

I nodded. “Still one unaccounted for.” Wrath was long dead, and I'd killed Gluttony and Greed back in Mariposa. With Pride, Lust, and Envy here, that just left—

“Sloth,” Manuel concluded, rubbing his forehead. “No sign of anything like him.”

“With luck he's too lazy to interfere,” I concluded.

Then Alpha nudged me. “Boss, you’ll want to see this.”

The television flared to life, and went to split-screen. Four screens, four interrogation rooms. The view from the nanite cameras I’d slipped onto the Blanks.

One of the viewpoints was slumped on the table, and a policeman was staring down at him, eyes devoid of concern, compassion, or anything beyond cold recognition. Blood spread out on the table, a flowing red puddle that washed over the display. I watched with cold horror as the policeman lifted a knife, dropped it into the puddle of blood, and dumped a glass of something over it. Then he turned and walked out of the room.

Someone outside even held the door for him.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I whispered. Next to me, Manuel crossed himself.

In another split part of the screen, the viewpoint turned as the interrogation room door opened. A policewoman rushed forward with a nightstick. The viewpoint twisted and dropped. The bloody baton rose and fell, again and again.

“The corruption stretches that far?” I asked, trying to process it. Another shift, another door opened in the third viewpoint, and I closed my eyes.

“No. I know that look. I know that body language. They are all programmed. All triggered. The Maestro laid his chains long before we got here.” Manuel’s voice rose as he spoke, the last few words were choked with emotion.

“They’re in Scotland Yard,” Alpha said, his usual cheery tones subdued and solemn. “This is happening in the heart of Britain’s most famous police station.”

One by one mesmerized police officers entered the rooms with the Blanks, and one by one the Blanks died.

I leaned back on the couch, and rubbed my eyes.

They’d died because we’d unearthed his operation. Because we’d ‘saved’ them.

Maestro M’s hooks ran deep into this place.

What else would we have to do, here? What would we have to sacrifice to win this one?

CHAPTER 4: CLUB TECHNICA

“It was a sweet little racket. Who wouldn't want to be stronger, smarter, better in bed? We had apps and toys for everything, the customers came to us for their upgrades. No, I have no idea where Sully got his cyberware. Or that... thing... that came along with it. It was part and parcel of the bargain, too. I still have nightmares about it.”

--Madelyne Raspail, former owner of Club Technica, testifying in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

One of the strategies that we were trying to run against the Maestro was the idea that we were operating separately. That we hadn’t teamed up, beyond some alliance of convenience that hadn’t made it past Mariposa.

I gave it about even odds of success, honestly. The guy was sharp, and he’d given us plenty of common cause to unite against him. But if we could muddy the waters, keep him guessing, then we’d increase the odds that he’d employ the wrong strategy or tactics to counter us. That was how you dealt with masterminds. It had worked against me before, to tell the truth. No matter how smart you were, humans were simply unpredictable. Nobody knows this better than the metahumans who put on costumes and go out every day to fight for the greater good. Or the lesser evil, so to speak.

Or the greater evil, in the Maestro’s case.

He’d effectively covered his tracks, and shown us that the authorities would be essentially useless. I had no doubt that the bodies would disappear, cleaned up by brain-bonked minions. The security footage would be wiped; the shooters would simply return to their lives none the wiser. Eventually someone who wasn’t a minion would notice something wrong at Scotland Yard, probably pretty soon in the grand scheme of things. But there were so many easy ways to get rid of evidence, even without advanced technology and magic in the mix.

I’d thought the last four Mariposan metahumans he’d made would be worth more to him. But no, he’d chosen to cut his losses, to err on the side of caution.

Two reasons for that course of action occurred to me.

The first reason was that he feared me so greatly that he’d burn anything that I touched, to make sure it wasn’t a ploy and keep me at a distance until he could bring proper force to bear.

The second reason was that he no longer needed those four assets, that his plans, whatever they may be, were far enough advanced that their loss was no big deal.

The first hypothesis seemed unlikely. His actions back on Mariposa bespoke an ego unused to fear. I would have to teach him that, oh yes, and I looked forward to it.

The second hypothesis was far more troublesome. Whatever his sinister master plan might be, I doubted it was as ultimately helpful to the world as my own were.

All this was cause for future concern. I had to focus on the now, if we were to resolve this mess with a minimum of bloodshed.

“This is on Maestro M. On Pride,” I told Manuel. “This is not our fault.”

A breath, two. Finally he sighed and sank back into the couch. “I know. It makes it no easier.”

“Yeah.” I sat down next to him, snaked my arm around his shoulders. Manuel was a slender guy with an acrobat’s build. “So Lust is out. No sense messing with magic now. Let’s focus on Envy. Dire’s had a pretty good track record against evil corporations.”

Actually I didn’t, come to think of it. But that had been special circumstances, and I’d learned quite a lot since my tussle with Morgenstern Inc.

Manuel nodded, muscles shifting under my forearm. “Neo Variants, then. Based in Manchester, with a laboratory on the outskirts, on the edge of Peak country. Which is significant, because the number of disappearances and livestock mutilations since they came in two years ago, has tripled.”

“Mutilations?”

“That might fit with the metahuman imports.”

Maestro M’s subordinate Sins used radiation to mutate potential metahuman candidates. From the records we’d retrieved, those who had survived often manifested side effects. Unnatural appetites and bestial instincts were a known issue.

“I don’t know.” Manuel stood, slipping out from under my arm. Like me, he was a pacer. Liked to move as he thought. “The whole point of the Blank processing was to get that sort of misbehavior out of them, or at least manageable enough before they got shipped to Britain. Although, Peak country is supposed to be pretty remote. Just shepherds and sheep and scattered villages and wilderness. Still, I get the feeling something more is going on. From what I saw of their company’s portfolio, they cover a lot of ground; not just the biomedical stuff, but pharmaceuticals and organ transplants as well.”

“Bad idea to go off half-cocked. We need to scout the facility before we hit it,” I mused. “Can you get there, take the teleporter beacon?”

“I can. Are you going to send along instructions on how to set it up?”

“Better. Alpha, come on out.”

“Huh?” Manuel’s expression changed from puzzlement to shock, as the exoskeleton stepped out of the hallway, and offered a metal-fingered wave. “Oh you can’t be serious.”

“Relax, just pop me in the trunk of the car,” Alpha offered. “No wait, they call it the boot here, don’t they. Why’s that, anyway?”

“England,” I shrugged. “Anyway, Dire needs to establish casus belli for herself before she can hit that place. And then there’s the heroes to think of, the poor dears will need a proper trail, one so obvious that even their reactive butts can follow it. You? You’re golden and stealthy scouting is your specialty. Even if they see you, you’ll be expected. You’ve got your reason, now Dire needs hers. So, let’s talk about this night club you mentioned...”

Half an hour later, I’d helped him pack the car, seen him off, and found my way back to my workshop. Solemnly I considered my armor, hanging motionless in its cylindrical cradle. It was done recompiling, and ready to fly, ready to fight.

I’d test both tonight.

“Open,” I commanded, and Suru, my old voice interface, crackled to life.

“By whose command?” she asked, just as I’d programmed her to.

And I’ll be damned, if it didn’t feel good to shed the mask of the urban housewife, to show the lion hiding in the mouse as I bared my teeth and put my hands on my hips. “So commands Doctor Dire!”

The cylinder hissed back, as the cables around my armor snaked away, parts of the cradle unsealing with puffs of vapor and the hiss-click of electromagnets unsealing. My suit slumped, then stood, striding out of its cocoon with three great strides, before dropping to one knee. Its back unsealed with one final hiss, cavity gaping wide, revealing the snug compartment within.

There always came a small touch of unease, as I clambered within my alloyed shell. But I had made this, and I trusted my work as I trusted nothing else in the world. Some people put their faith in gods. I’d met a god, and found him wanting.

I put my faith in me. And I’d never let myself down, so far.

Five minutes later, as the fading wisps of the teleporter’s photonic waste faded around me, I activated the gravitics for the first time and found faith once more rewarded. I did not fall, and Soho hung below me like fallen strings of Christmas lights, tangled upon a vast concrete floor.

I would be noticed eventually. That was fine, that was within the parameters of the plan. I didn’t need to be up here for long, anyway.

The club was easy enough to find... and while the top level of it gave way to my thermal vision, revealing a mass of squirming bodies below, I noted that the floor below them was suspiciously opaque. A flip over to galvanic vision showed far too little ampage coming into the place, for the amount of electronic equipment they were powering.

That meant a generator. And where you find a generator, nine times out of ten, you find criminals.

Broadcast power is cheap. Broadcast power is easy to gather, from the towers in any city or town. But broadcast power is easily tracked, and often the first thing checked when reports of illegal technological development or usage was a possibility. So most career criminals invest in generators, or they don’t stay free long enough to make a career of it.

Well then. My path was clear.

I turned my gaze from the main rooms of the club, examined the offices to the side. Three warm figures, two with suspicious-looking dead spots in their chests and arms. A third one, all heat, bent over a desk.

I turned myself groundward, pointed boots to the sky, and dove.

You don’t get far as a supervillain without learning how to make a good entrance. I gave this one an eight point zero. I smashed through the corrugated-metal of the roof, slammed through insulation, sending a puff of pink stuff in all directions, and slammed to a perfect three-point landing in front of the desk. The floor cracked, but I was up in a heartbeat, grabbing the surprised looking seated guy by his overlong necktie, and yanked him to his feet so quickly that his teeth clicked together, sending the line of coke he’d been snorting up into the air like sugar from a powdered donut.

“WHO IS YOUR SUPPLIER?” I roared in his face.

Give them this, they were fast. The two men to my side were on me, grabbing me and trying to pull me loose. One of them yelled incoherently, and his arm bulged, cables bursting out from under the sleeve of his shirt as he pulled, revealing a full cyberarm.

I chuckled, and locked my gravitics.

Cables flexed, servos whined, and the arm gave a grinding “CHUNK” and spewed out smoke. He fell back, staring at broken metal fingers.

From the other side my armor registered current. The idiot was trying to taze me. Right, because somebody who’d built elaborate power armor capable of flight, and who crashed through ceilings without damage totally wouldn’t ground their circuitry. I was tempted to let him keep going at it.

But it was distracting, so I let go of tie-guy, turned, and poked a finger into taser-man’s belly. Then I flew up, just a few inches.

Fun fact. Current wants to go down.

Next fun fact. I’d just removed down as an option, so it wouldn’t go down through my grounded outer shell.

Final fun fact. The shortest possible path to the ground for the current he was sending into me was now back through him.

He shrieked and dropped. I turned back to tie-guy, and found the metal-fingered mook hustling tie-guy out the door.

“Lady Thrush is incoming,” Alpha whispered in my ear.

“Good,” I subvocalized back. She was a big part of this plan, she or another hero like her.

I turned my attention back to tie-guy, lined up a perfect particle-beam shot, got ready to blast the two of them down the stairs... and stopped.

My luck had always been shitty, and I’d just promised Manuel that I wouldn’t kill any more people. It would be truly pathetic if one of them snapped their neck from a hard fall.

So instead I lowered my hand, folded my arms across my chest like the world’s least amused schoolteacher, and flew down the stairs after them. They slammed the door at the bottom of the stairs in my face. I burst through it without slowing down.

We emerged into a strobing, moving mass of dancers and lights, tables scattered around at the edges and people shaking bits of their anatomy all across the twin stages. Music blared, dubstep remixed and pumped up with electronica. The wubs echoed hot and heavy, and many of the dancers wore, or had implanted, bright LEDs and glowstrips.

I supposed they were trying to distract me and use the shifting light levels for cover. That might have even worked against somebody who hadn’t built military-grade flash suppression into her sensors.

But even though I could track them without trouble, there was the crowd to consider. They shoved people aside without care, threw them at me. So I hovered above the crowd, and darted after them. They dove over the bar, ripped open a door beyond, and I saw tie-guy yell something at metalfingers. Instead of following tie-guy down the stairs, metalfingers turned, braced himself, and spread his arms wide in a ‘come-at-me-bro’ stance.

I admired the loyalty of the minion, even as I scorned the cowardice of the master. So I merely drilled him in the chest with a fifteen-percent charged particle beam. He bounced off the wall, and I cruised past him without losing any real speed.

Behind me screams rose as people started to realize I wasn’t part of the show. But then I was flying down the stairs, hot on the heels of tie-guy.

The stairs ended abruptly at a metal door, with a keypad next to it. Tie-guy slammed out a hand against the door to stop himself, and tried to enter a code into the keypad. I didn’t give him the chance, catching up to him and grabbing him by the back of his shirt. I hauled him up, shifting my hold on him to one arm as his shirt tore, and dangled him in front of me.

“YOUR SUPPLIER. NAME THEM.”

“Please, no! I just manage the club, I don’t run the shop!”

“WHO DOES?”

“It’s automated, I don’t know, I, I, I—”

I bounced him off the walls a few times. Not hard enough to break bone, but he’d have some serious bruises. “YOU THINK DIRE STUPID?”

“Who? Wait. Wait, oh shit, you were on telly a few months back...”

“THEN YOU KNOW WHAT SHE WILL DO IF YOU DISPLEASE HER.”

Fun fact: I didn’t know what I was going to do if he displeased me. I don’t torture, and I had multiple other ways to my goal here, so I didn’t care if he clammed up. I’d have to find some excuse to not hurt him if he actually did find his courage.

But when you make vague statements like the threat I’d given him, you put the most horrific force in the world into play:

Human imagination.

Between my carefully-constructed reputation and the images his fevered, coke-high brain could conjure, I was pretty confident that he would think up a far worse punishment than I could. And as his eyes widened and his pupils dilated, I knew that I’d succeeded.

“No, no, listen, my boss is nowhere near here, I’m just middle management, please don’t kill me I’m not important enough to be in the loop I can tell you the code—”

“NO NEED.”

I ripped the keypad off with my free hand, and flexed my fingers three times, curling them toward my palm.

My gauntlet’s fingers split apart to reveal string-like manipulators. I stretched out a palm toward the sparking ruin where the keypad had been, and the filaments surged in, flexing and writhing.

“Oh god oh god oh god...” I followed his gaze up, to where my other gauntlet was locked around his arm. Yeah, that would be a pretty gruesome way to kill or torture somebody. Messy, too. No need to gunk up my manipulators.

I didn’t have to correct his assumption, either, come to think of it.

The door groaned open, without firing off the ring of shaped charges around its frame. I could have probably taken it, but Tie-guy couldn’t. Or the dancers upstairs, if they were as nasty as I thought they were. Or any innocents in the lab space, if those within could be called such.

Flickering fluorescent lights inside, grimy concrete walls and stained tiled flooring. Drains broke the tiles every ten feet, and the hallway branched into doorways up until it T-junctioned. I flipped to voltaic vision, and found no help there. Power hummed and thrummed in the walls, too close and too bright for me to find an easy path back to the important bits.

A slight tapping against my shoulderpad. I glanced over to see Tie-guy trying his damnedest to break free. I didn’t need him, now that he’d shown me the way in, and I believed him when he said he was out-of-the-loop. So I chucked him back through the wooden stairs behind me and moved in.

One leisurely stroll later, I was fairly impressed. The surroundings were grimy, but the operating rooms contained state-of-the-art computers and machines. I paused before a medical chair, all sharp bits and mechanical arms. A touch of regret there, and I looked away, eyes stinging. Blinking away tears without triggering any of my pre-set suit functions took some effort.

Some ghosts never leave you.

Medical transport containers lay strewn about in other rooms, translucent and showing bits of bloody flesh. The clientele this place serviced did this for fun, not need. So when they implanted a cyber-arm or a replacement organ, it took the place of something healthy. Those healthy bits fetched a good price on the black markets. Unlike guns, or other hardware, it was fairly impossible for the local authorities to clamp down on the organ trade. People were made of those, after all.

I pushed further in, rounded a corner—

—and my forcefield flared to life as a bolt of energy spattered away.

A man in blue surgical scrubs fired again... a simple compressed neutron blaster, I noted, as he backed up and darted through a doorway. Crude make, from the glimpse I’d gotten, and the minimal drain it had taken from the forcefield.

I ghosted after him, skimming over the ground with but a whisper of cloth on the floor as my cape brushed it, arms crossed and supremely unconcerned. If this was the limit of their weaponry, I was in no danger.

Then I got a look at the room I’d just entered, and I forgot about the idiot. This was the motherlode.

Servers hummed and lights on the boxes flickered at the back of the room, encapsulated in cryogenic cooling chambers. Cables the size of my armored wrist snaked over to a heavy generator that rumbled like a snorting giant. The medical tech backed away from me, eyes wide over a surgical mask. “Stay back, bloody stay back!”

“DROP THE GUN OR LOSE YOUR HAND.”

I wasn’t kidding. If he hit the wrong thing in here, I’d lose valuable data.

Alpha chose this moment to interrupt. “Boss, the heroes are a minute out.”

I subvocalized back. “Heroes? Wait, there’s more?” That was concerning.

The man hesitated, pointed the gun at me again. I raised a gauntlet, and let glowing particles seep from it, form a corona of light around my hand. “THREE. TWO.”

He threw the gun down and ran toward a sealed door in the back corner, started jamming numbers into the keypad. I let him go, eyes on the prize.

Really, I’d come here for no other reason than to establish an excuse to go to Manchester, and Neo Variants. But there was bound to be some useful data on these boxes, maybe something that told me what we’d be getting into. Or even something that traced back to the other Sins, if I was lucky.

I approached the nearest servers, flipped my gauntlets into tech-manipulator mode, and wormed cables into the USB ports. Their intrusion countermeasures met my carefully scripted code, and broke. “So, heroes?” I asked Alpha.

“One guy. Looks like a walking lion in a suit, I shit you not.”

“Absence of fecal matter noted. Well, thanks for the warning—”

The medical tech ran past me, screaming.

I had a split-second to wonder why he was running towards the door I’d come in from, rather than the one he’d opened...

...and that’s when the monster pounced on me.

CHAPTER 5: ACID TRIP

“Positive ID from the Yanks. The robot was wearing a Dire mask. Yes, THAT Dire. The MRB's offering any assistance we need, they can get agents on-flight within— what do you mean, NO? By whose orders? What do you mean you don't know?”

--Agent Cavin, MI9 Division

Layered protection.

It was a simple idea, one that had saved my metal-shod keister more times than I cared to count. My armor is made up of layers, metal and ceramic alloy and circuitry and some very useful gunk called ballistic gel. There are a few more esoteric materials in there, but the point is that I don’t depend on any one single thing to protect me.

Not only that, but I don’t depend on the armor part of it alone. I’d installed a forcefield within it, to help screen out high-speed projectiles and energy weapons that had a chance of inflicting serious damage or penetrating the armor.

But the forcefield wasn’t infallible. The only way to keep it from being an immense energy hog was to construct it so that it only triggered when a fast moving object got within a few feet of me. Almost instantly, it would flare to life and create a barrier a centimeter out from me. Then, after impact or dissipation, in the case of certain types of energy, it would switch off again. It wasn’t fool-proof, but it worked well enough for my purposes.

But unfortunately, that meant the forcefield did jack-shit against things like punches, tackles, or oh, cow-sized monsters trying to tear my head from my shoulders.

Case in point: The big bastard gnawing on my helmet.

I wasn’t too worried about it. My head was in the torso of the suit.

Then damage indicators flared up, ones I hadn’t seen in a very long time. Chemical contamination?

Of course it had acidic saliva. After all, why wouldn’t it?

I gathered my arms below me, shoved myself upright, straining servos and amping up power to my actuators to throw it off, and to get a look at the thing.

Hissing like a teakettle, scrambling to get long, long legs in the right spot, it reared up. Hooded like a cobra, built like a man, and covered with slick, slimy scales, it looked like the love child of a dinosaur and a giant. In lieu of eyes it had deep pits.

“WE MATCH,” I said, tapping my mask. My gauntlet’s finger sizzled as it contacted the ceramic, and I pulled it back, observed as the fingertip grew pitted and worn in the space of a second. I tried to flick the acid off, couldn’t. The stuff was sticky.

It screeched something back. Words, maybe? I couldn’t make anything out. “ARE YOU SENTIENT? WERE YOU A PERSON, ONCE?” This definitely wasn’t a cyborged customer or enforcer. I had no idea why the damned thing was here.

My questions became moot as it hurtled at me again, and I met it with upraised arms. My tech manipulators had auto-retracted after I’d been so rudely torn from my server grab, and titanium shod fists met scaled muscles with brutal impact.

Frustrating, really. We’d already damaged some of the servers with our initial scuffle. I could see sparks spraying from severed cables where we’d knocked them loose. Coolant seeped free, creating billowing clouds around our feet. The more we fought in here, the more my prize slipped away from me. But it was sturdy enough that I couldn’t batter it down with a few punches, and too close to use any heavier weaponry, unless I wanted to blow up everything in the room that wasn’t me.

Worse, its acid was doing a number on the armor. The stuff on my helmet had fizzled out, but every time it bit or spat at me, fresh damage readouts would flare. Once it saw its clawlike fingers couldn’t tear me it focused on trying to hold me still so it could keep its mouth in play.

I considered grabbing it by the jaws and making a wish.

Then I considered what Manuel would say, if this thing turned out to be human after all and I killed it, after promising to minimize casualties.

“They’re here!” Alpha trilled over the vox link. “The heroes are here! They just finished evacuating the patrons!”

One big advantage of my power, that I used and abused at every opportunity, was the ability to formulate a plan in less than a second. It would leap full-grown into my brain like a reverse Athena ducking back into Zeus’ forehead.

And this one I just got was a good plan.

I grabbed the creature around the neck, forced its head down into the spray from one of the coolant pipes. It thrashed and tried to free itself. But it slowed, and I grinned. I’d read somewhere that reptiles got torpid in the presence of extreme cold. I pulled it up when it was manageable, hoisted it across my shoulders, and charged back down the hallway, uncaring as I slammed and cracked it against the walls. Had to turn a bit as I got through the doorframe, took some real shoving, but with the monster slowed an impossible task became a merely irritating one.

“Quiet, I hear something!” An unfamiliar voice called. I stomped up the stairwell, got to the halfway point, amped up the power to my arm motivators, and threw the damned creature up into the middle of the empty nightclub.

Then I walked back, shut the door behind me, and made my leisurely way back into the chopshop.

“Oh holy shit!” Alpha crowed in my ear. “Oh, it’s not happy. Oh man, Lady Thrush is pissed.”

“Don’t care. Dire’s conscience is clear now.”

“What?”

“If they kill it then it’s on the heroes. And it’ll keep them busy for a little while.” I returned to the server room, sighed at the mess. But there was enough hardware left intact that I could maybe get something, so I got to work.

“What if it kills the heroes?”

“Unlikely. Dire softened it up first. Used up most of its acid reservoirs or whatever.” I took a second to run a diagnostic. Yeah, I was a mess. The outer three layers were burnt through in about six spots, leaking blue impact gel that made up layer number four.

No serious structural damage, but the armor was pretty well degraded. I could maybe survive a round or two with Lady Thrush, but it would probably be a Pyrrhic victory. While I kept a close watch on the data transfer, an idle part of my mind ran estimates on the repair bills, and winced.

A chair broke over my head, the metal seat warping and flying off into the ceiling, sticking into the drop tiles.

I turned, to see a furry face scrutinizing me through a pince-nez. A pair of slitted eyes looked into my sensors, opened wide, and I saw looked all the world like an upright lion poured into a tailored green suit. He took a step back on crooked legs.

I looked down at the chair legs he held in his hand, with twisted bits of scrap metal creaking softly. Then back up at his face.

He cleared his throat. “Well, that was dashed embarrassing.”

“AND YOU ARE?”

“Leo. Mister Leo, at your disservice.” He had a voice made for radio, the most stereotypical British accent I’d heard in the months I’d been living here. I really wasn’t looking forward to knocking his teeth down his throat.

So I weighed my options, and went with disdainful scorn.

“NEVER HEARD OF YOU.” I turned my gaze back to my manipulators, and sifted through the data. Looked like I’d gotten most of it, what was left, anyway. Sadly, there was nothing that seemed like an obvious link to Neo Variants.

So I added one. All it took was a simple hacked root account, a quick alteration of timestamps, and a file dropped into a fairly obvious part of the file structure. Then I ripped the disk free with a triumphant cry. Mister Leo backed up, as my voice bellowed through the ruined chamber. “TOO LATE, LADY THRUSH! THE SOURCE OF THE ABOMINATIONS IS WITHIN DIRE’S GRASP!”

“No!” Leo gasped, and dove to the side. He was fast, and he was nimble, and I was already planning to let go the second he disarmed it from me. Then I’d fake-chase him until Lady Thrush showed up, deliver a villainous monologue, and get the hell out of Dodge.

All those plans vanished, like tears in acid rain, as the bastard came up with an electrical cable and jammed it into the disk.

Big sparks, big blowback, and Leo flipped over, hit the wall, and landed in a crouch. His mane poofed out in every direction.

Me, I was fine. Grounded power armor is best power armor.

The disk, however, was a charred mass of filaments.

“WHAT DID— YOU— YOU BLITHERING DOLT!”

“Score one for the good guys, hm?” He purred, and came up with another power cable. “Fancy another hit?”

Another plan formulated in seconds, while I seethed, and my eyebrow twitched like a spastic caterpillar.

“FOOL. THAT WAS A MERE COPY! EASY ENOUGH TO RETRIEVE IT ONCE MORE FROM THE PRIMARY SERVER.”

“Ah, thanks for the tip!” And damned if the cheeky bastard didn’t start whipping the cable around, smacking it into the servers, and sending puffs of smoke and sparks everywhere.

Mother. Fucker. Contrary, impossible, fucking lion in a pince-nez was thwarting my plans. Without even knowing my plans!

Enough was enough. I lifted a gauntlet—

—and in the split second before I triggered the particle beam he dove for cover, dodging the blast.

I blinked, surprised. That was pretty impressive. “CAN YOU KEEP THAT UP FOREVER?” I asked, bringing up the other hand, and letting golden energy glow and crackle between my palms.

“He doesn’t have to,” Lady Thrush said from behind me.

Well, shit. I closed my eyes.

Didn’t help. Three walls, a mess of medical equipment, and a spray of burst, bloody sample bags later I fetched up in the concrete wall by the stairs, according to my GPS. Damage readouts chattered angrily, and I sighed into my mouthpiece.

Heroes. Heroes happen. No matter your plan, no matter how fool-proof, they’ll find a way to mess it up. I pulled myself out of the hole she’d punched me into, turned around, and dove to the side as she flew at me, full-speed.

Her costume was torn, half-melted. She had a bandanna over her face, was holding it on with one hand as she bounced off the wall, turned, and tried to cave in my mask.

I locked my gravitics, blocked her punch with a forearm, and my actuators creaked as she hit it straight-on, rebounded.

“FUTILE,” I rumbled, blasting her with a fifty-percent particle charge, knocking her back several more rooms, and through some sparking wires. At this rate we’d hit the generator sooner or later, then we’d be fighting in the dark...

...actually, now that I thought of that, it was a pretty good idea. I had night sight, and I doubted they had that particular benefit.

“FOOLS! YOU STAND AGAINST DIRE!” I roared, and sent a micromissile barrage screaming out of my shoulderpad ports, down the hallway and straight toward the server room. Nothing serious, just concussion bursts. Mister Leo was around here somewhere and I didn’t want to kill the guy.

The generator, contrary to most Hollywood blockbusters, didn’t blow up. It did, however, sputter to a stop as the blast waves knocked it off-kilter enough that it broke. The tunnels went dark, and I flipped over to night sight, hovering into the air and backing away. Lady Thrush froze, peered through the hole in the wall I’d knocked her through, and waved her hand in front of her face.

“SIGHT IS A PRIVILEGE FOR THE INTELLIGENT, CHILD.” She really was young, and I thought I could maybe get her goat that way. Judging by her scowl, I was right.

“I read about you, you know. That mask was a big tip-off. That voice, too.” She straightened up, shooting glances over her shoulder as I drifted through the rooms as silently as a ghost. My cape brushed against a piece of jagged metal, dragged it for a  bit and she whirled. I stood still as she stomped past me, arms wide and feeling out into the darkness.

“The things you did on that little island... the atrocities you committed... it makes me right sick. What are you even doing here? Run out of people to shoot with pain lasers?”

By now I was two rooms over. “YOU HAVEN’T FIGURED IT OUT YET? THE CREATURE YOU KILLED DIDN’T TIP YOU OFF TO DIRE’S SINISTER MASTER PLAN?”

“It’s jolly well alive, thank you very much. I’m not like you. I don’t kill.”

Good. I’d judged her correctly.

“YOU MAY HAVE TO. IT WASN’T THE ONLY ONE.” Speculation, but fairly safe speculation, I thought. The thing was probably here as a fail-safe, I saw no other reason for it to be present in this facility. Something to handle any itinerant costumes that stumbled onto the operation, and cause a lot of chaos and destruction to delicate evidence. Easier than a bomb, more distracting, too.

You don’t waste a critter like that when you only have one of them.

“That wasn’t yours, then? You sure? It was about as ugly as you. Had better breath, though.” She turned, slowly, trying to listen. I picked up my cape and ghosted over three rooms before replying.

“PLEASE. DIRE DOES NOT DEAL IN MONSTERS OF THE FLESH. NO, THIS THING CAME FROM MANCHESTER.” Another bit of conjecture. But since my goal was to get them to Neo Variants one way or the other, and they’d scuppered my elegant plan to let them steal a disk with falsified evidence, this would have to do.

She snorted. “As if I have any reason to believe you.” Abruptly she charged, lowering her hand across her face to keep rubble out of her eyes as she slammed through walls. I sidestepped, but she was far off. Got to admit I had to stifle a chuckle as she hit the far concrete wall and rebounded.

And then furry arms wrapped around me. “Here! She’s here!”

Oh for the love of gods! I grabbed Leo, twisted and threw him, but not before Lady Thrush got her hands around me.

I listened to metal squeal, sighed as new damage indicators flared, and decided that enough was enough. “YOU THINK YOU’VE WON THIS ROUND? FAREWELL, HAPLESS HEROES!”

I triggered the teleporter, confirmed I wanted a single trip with no passengers, and the world sparked as light returned to it. Cursing, I flipped off my night sight before it blinded me, and hit the escape hatch. My armor knelt and I crawled out into the artificial light of my workshop, cursing again as I barked my shin on a twisted bit of plate.

Could have gone worse, I suppose. I’d pretty much had to beat them across their heads with a clue-by-four, but if they didn’t follow up on the Manchester lead it wasn’t my fault. So long as they were in Manchester and responded to the explosions when the real fun started, then I could count my plan a success, and the sacrifices worth it.

I walked around my armor, wincing at the damage. Some sacrifices there, no doubt on that count. I sighed, ordered the suit into its cradle, and set up an autorepair subroutine.

I stopped it halfway through. “Suru? Pull up the chemistry workstation. Prepare to analyze a sample.”

“Yes Doctor,” My digital assistant confirmed. A workbench whirred into place. I looked for a discolored patch of armor, had the waldo arms cut it off, and drop it into a sample dish.

The acid had been a nasty trick. The ballistic gel had saved me from catastrophic damage, but I thought there was room for improvement there. “Analyze acidic compounds, and prepare a counteragent suitable for layer insulation. Insert in appropriate locations.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

Really, I could have asked Alpha to do the job. Suru was an artifact I’d kept out of fondness, more than anything else.

Speaking of fondness... “Alpha?” I spoke into my vox.

“Yeah Boss?”

“Is Manuel in position yet?”

“We just got to town. It was a long drive. He’s setting up in a low-budget hotel on the outskirts.”

“You’re still in the trunk, aren’t you?”

“Technically it’s called a boot.”

I shook my head. Then I glanced back at the repairbots, as they hissed and whirred around my armor, getting rid of the dents from Lady Thrush, and the scorch marks from whatever-the-hell that had been.

“You know, that whole scuffle would have gone better if you’d had, oh, minions.”

I scowled. “Don’t start.”

“Seriously. You’ve stowed what, like thirty exoskeletons around the London area? Not counting the four you have in the workshop?”

I glanced over at the sealed cylinders. They would have fallen like wheat to a scythe against Lady Thrush. But they would have kept that Mister Leo fellow busy, I had to admit.

I walked over to Alpha’s box, and gave his hardware a pat.

“All right. Tell you what, if we can find the parts to cobble up some adequate servers, we’ll see about making some spawn.”

“Geeze, you make it sound so dirty.”

“Mind out of the gutter, minion. Her spawning parts are only for Manuel right now.”

“No need to get so... organic about it.”

“Next she’ll be busting out fart jokes.” I stretched, gave myself a sniff. “Ripe enough already.” That was the downside to playing domestic for a few months. I’d gotten unused to exertion. “Shower’s beckoning, she thinks.”

“Bed afterwards?”

I gnawed my lip. “Not sure if we have time. Depends on how froggy the heroes are feeling. Anyway, warm water now, discussion later.”

One hot shower, a return to something resembling a human state, and much consideration later, I made two choices.

“Firstly, no, we can’t wait,” I called out to Alpha as I dried off. My hair was long now, it took a lot of toweling to fix. “Going to have to go up to Manchester tonight. Need to be onsite if the heroes jump the gun. Safe enough to leave the armor here, have the teleporter send it through once it’s finished.”

“Firstly implies a secondly.”

“Yep. Secondly, she is going to bed afterward. But not alone, and not to sleep. Not at first, anyway.” I grinned. A good fight got the blood going, and that had been a fairly decent one.

“Getting organic again. Sure, no problem. Just leave me in the trunk. Like a spare tire.”

“Technically it’s a boot,” I reminded him, and laughed when he groaned. Then I grabbed the bug-out bag, went over to the teleportation pad, and checked for the remote beacon. Active, and good.

“Energize,” I commanded it, and sparks flew around me as the room changed. I looked around the crappy hotel room. Two beds, a broken heat register, and a very surprised Manuel with a half-drawn-blade in his hand.

I opened my mouth to say something, and froze. The most delightful odor teased my nostrils. “Is that pizza?”

He nodded, slid the rapier back under the bed. “Yes. I have some left, if you want a slice.”

“Maybe afterward,” I said, smiling.

“Afterward?” He raised his eyebrows. Then he smiled, as I unbuttoned my shirt.

“You don’t really need two beds in here, now do you?” I whispered, wrapping my arms around him and finding his lips with my own.

The sex was better than the pizza, as it turned out.

CHAPTER 6: MANCHESTER MANEUVERING

“Neo Variants Unlimited is Manchester's premiere biomedical corporation, and an A-rated employer of many of Britain's finest scientists, working together for the betterment of mankind and the enrichment of our shareholders. There's not a facility in Europe that isn't using one of our genetically-modified probacterial cultures, or a specialized piece of equipment. The future is bright, and we look forward to getting mankind there. With your help and support, we'll soon spread to the rest of the world!”

--From an unused speech to shareholders, at Neo Variants stockholders meeting, 2004.

Laying there in the crook of powerful arms, I felt at peace. Although my stomach was churning something fierce. I don’t know how the fuck the British could ruin pizza, but at least with this one, they had. But it was meaningless in the afterglow and sweet exhaustion.

“What do we have here?” Manuel muttered.

I glanced down at where his hand cupped my breast. “If you don’t know that by now, you might just be hopeless.”

He snorted. “No, not that.”

“Then what?”

“This... thing we have.”

“Ah. That.” I shrugged, feeling my skin slide against his. Savored it. “Does it matter?”

“I’d like to think so.” He pulled his hand back from my chest.

I sighed, and tugged the covers a bit closer. “Intimacy. Mutual respect. Some really good orgasms. Maybe stomach trouble from that damned pizza, but Dire’s not sure how well it’s settling in your gut.”

He rumbled laughter behind me. “I only had a slice. You shouldn’t have eaten so much.” He slapped my belly, lightly.

“Not all of us jump around in leather pants. Some of us make do with titanium alloy.”

Manuel rolled away, onto his back. “Seriously, though. What do we have here?”

I knew that tone. He wouldn’t let it go. And thinking about it, maybe he shouldn’t. I rolled over to face him, his form barely visible in the darkness, with only a little light from the streetlights seeping in through the cracked blinds. Manuel’s eyes glittered as they found mine.

“Dire has no idea what we have here. It’s...” I took a breath, took the plunge. “It’s not love. If you’re looking for that, sorry. She has no experience with this, really. You’re her second relationship, and her first was, well, complicated. And short.”

“I’m not.”

“Well of course you’re not short—”

“I’m not looking for love.” Manuel confirmed.

“Okay, good.”

“I didn’t think I’d live this long, to be honest.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. So I listened, instead.

“You weren’t around, back in the day. Back when nobody could stand against Corazon. Not even my father.”

This was the first I’d heard of it. The first time he’d said anything. “What happened to him?”

“He was a professor. He taught grade school. Taught his students always to ask questions, that it was never wrong to ask a question. Taught them to learn. But it was what he didn’t teach them, that mattered in the end.”

“And that was?”

“Corazon’s propaganda. The histories the dictator had his bureaucrats rewrite. Narrow-minded little men writing narrow-minded little lies to make sure the next generation had properly narrow minds.”

I felt my teeth click together, fought to keep from grinding them. The man was dead, but the damage he had done would take decades to undo.

“They came for him in the night. I slept through it.” He turned away from me.

“How old were you?”

“Ten.”

“There was nothing you could have done.”

“I know that now. I didn’t know anything, then. I didn’t know what had happened. We were well-off. If you were poor, you knew what was going on, back then. But we were rich enough that people didn’t talk about those things. Everyone pretended to know nothing.” I put my hand on his back, felt his muscles tense. “Do you understand how that was? Can you understand what it was like?”

“How could she understand?” I asked him.

“I couldn’t let it be. I kept asking questions. I asked until my mother’s hair turned gray, until the neighbors wouldn’t talk to me anymore, until my classmates laughed at me and made up stories about where they’d seen my Father. That’s when I started fighting. I was ten, and I was all the time fighting, and I had to get good at it. I’ve been practicing ever since, you know? Just keeping on fighting, and keeping on asking questions. Because the people who want you to stop asking questions are usually the people who have the most to lose from the answers.”

“And they’re usually the ones who need to lose,” I whispered. “Fucking assholes running the show, getting fat through the suffering of their fellow humans. Sitting behind the scenes, drinking in the misery, and turning a blind eye or reveling in it because either way the profits keep rolling in and their lives get easier from it. Fuck them. They need to burn, and oh she’s going to set such a fire under their fat asses, that the world will laugh to see it...”

“No way to do that without burning the good people they surround themselves with. The shields and hostages they con into taking the bullets for them.”

“So get better bullets. Dire’s very good at making better bullets.”

“Not that easy.” he sighed. “And you have to watch out. There’s always someone else trying to step up. When I found my teacher, when I got good at my game, when I first put on the mask and went out into the night, I started to hurt Corazon. I started winning. And so he went looking for help. He found it.”

“Maestro M,” I muttered.

“That’s when the game changed. I turned from being the hunter to the hunted. I lost the few I’d gathered to my side, one by one.” His eyes glistened in the weak light.

I  pretended not to see the tears. “It never gets any easier, does it?” I’d lost so many, myself, over the last few years. I didn’t want to lose Manuel, too. But here we were, risking it all in a country not our own, against a villain doing his damnedest to remain in the shadows. He’d had around a decade or so to set up his preparations. No part of this would be easy.

“No, it never does. But the thing I was trying to say, the thing you need to keep in mind, is that I am who I am. I will never stop asking questions. I will never stop seeking answers.” He sat up now, looked down on me. “Even if you do not know them, I will do everything I can to figure it out. No matter how much they might hurt your feelings.”

I rose as well, feeling my good mood evaporate. “Do you think her some fragile flower? Some mooning love-struck fool? She is Dire, Manuel. Never forget that.”

“Acertijo,” he corrected. “Mister Riddle. Not Manuel, in the end. This is just the face I wear to the world when I am not working.”

“That makes two of us.” I stared into his eyes, and something he saw must have spooked him, for he looked away first.

“I should go. Get to the laboratory and scout it, before midnight.”

I nodded. “Yes. Yes, you should go.” In the flicker of a second, I weighed a thousand more things to say, tried to match them to my emotional state at the moment, and failed. Safer not to say anything. So I didn’t.

The words we didn’t say lay between us as he showered, suited up, and slipped out the door.

“Safe to come in?” Alpha asked, after he’d gone.

“Sure.” I was naked but neither of us cared. He didn’t have any hormones to speak of, and I wasn’t oedipally-inclined. Technically he was my creation. Would be. Fuck time travel.

“Yeah, this place looks about as shitty as I thought. Wonder if you get cable?” He grabbed the remote, started flipping channels.

“Trying to sleep here,” I muttered, pulling the covers back over myself.

“Could have fooled me, judging by the noise earlier. Hey, wait, is that bed for me? Awwww...”

I tried to tell him not to be silly, but the room faded away with my consciousness.

I dreamed, and I knew guilt. We’d had something earlier, or the potential for something, Manuel and I. But now I feared we’d wrecked it, in the space of a night.

Was this how relationships are? How fragile they are? How the hell did people do this sort of thing? Watching every word, trying to manage not only your own feelings but your significant other’s...

I woke with new determination. Fuck all that noise, fuck being hurt and irritated and angsty. I had one goal, then I could leave this country. After it was done, Manuel and I could figure out what to do with ourselves.

Midway through purging my digestive tract of that horrible, horrible pizza, Alpha knocked on the door. “Heroes are getting an early start, too. Want to watch?”

“Absolutely!” I finished my business, dressed, and got ready for a show. The nanocams were good for a few days before burning out, typically. Or being taken out by the wear and tear of regular life.

Alpha, sitting on “his” own bed, waved at the television screen. “Took the liberty of fixing it up.” He’d run a cable from the USB port to his torso. “Hope you don’t mind me-o-vision?”

I flopped on my bed, and watched Manchester go by through a car window. Thrush wasn’t flying for once. Probably trying to keep a low profile, take me by surprise.

Then she turned right, to take in the guy driving the car.

“Now who is that?” I wondered. Dapper middle-aged man, with a full head of white hair, and— oh, wait, I recognized that pince-nez. “Mister Leo has a human form! Well, that’s cute.”

“There’s ice cream in the mini-fridge if you want a thoroughly unhealthy breakfast.”

“This room has a mini-fridge?”

Alpha nodded toward the nonfunctional, now-in-pieces heating unit, and the box of jury-rigged components that had taken its place. “It does now.”

Okay, so it was pretty good to have a minion. I found a pint of Haagen-Dazs inside, complete with spoon, and went to town as I watched Hero TV.

It got boring, fast. Unlike most movies or television shows, where the hero eavesdrops on the villains and learns what they need to know within seconds, most people don’t randomly divulge useful information at the most opportune moments for their unseen spies. I learned more than I cared to about rugby and how wicked cool the New Zealand All-Blacks were, how Manchester was a lousy town to drive in, and that Mister Leo was a bit concerned about Lady Thrush’s grades given she’d had to get permission to take a few days off for this jaunt.

Interesting fact, though not very useful to me; Lady Thrush, aka Caroline, had parents who not only knew of her alter-ego but encouraged her to go out heroing. There was a story there, though I didn’t know it. Thinking about it logically, I supposed that if you had a superpowered nigh-indestructible teenage daughter, it was probably a good way to get her venting aggressions and working out her issues in an environment where she was unlikely to hurt anyone who didn’t have it coming. And she’d have other, elder heroes looking after her, on the way. Case in point with Leo, I supposed. Reading between the lines, I got the feeling that their relationship was entirely professional. Bit of fondness going both sides, but nothing improper.

I turned my attention to my workshop, pulling up the custom-made app on my phone, and checked the armor’s progress. Multi-tasking helped keep my mind busy. Always a struggle, that. Boredom was my true nemesis, and I had to keep it on its toes.

After a few minutes, the heroes turned to a more interesting topic.

Namely, me.

“I read up on her on the wikis, you know. Right horrible villain,” Lady Thrush said.

“Hum?”

“Got a lot of people killed. Blew part of Icon City right up!”

“Half a moment there. Say that again?” Mr. Leo’s eyebrows vanished into his hairline. He kept his eyes on the road though, I admired his restraint.

“Well, not at the same time. Says she teleported everyone out before she blew up the city. The whole getting people killed was a gang war, or some rot like that.”

“Teleported everyone out. That would explain her exit last night. I rather wish you had mentioned that sooner, Caroline.”

“I didn’t read that bit until the drive up.” I caught a glimpse of the edge of her phone as she waved it at him. She had cutesy bird stickers on her phone case.

Gods damn, this was going to make her hard to take seriously.

Lady Thrush continued. “Anyways, you could have read it yourself, too.”

“Ah yes, that gridnet thing. Hurts my eyes these days. Prefer saving the strain for more important things.”

Older than he looked, maybe?

“And then there’s that Mariposa business. I remember that was all over the telly last year. You think she’s trying to upgrade to conquering a real country?”

I ground my teeth. Probably a good thing Manuel wasn’t here to hear this. Such condescension, to a people who had known hardship she couldn’t imagine. It turned my stomach.

To my surprise, Mister Leo seemed to be a bit put out as well. “You know, I was just a boy when the revolution happened out that way. Some bloody years, those. A lot of good people died. Our lads and too many innocents. They certainly thought it a real country. Worth dying for, at any rate.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean nothing by it.”

“Anything.” He slowed down at a stoplight, turned to face her. “You didn’t mean anything.”

“Right. Anyway, what if she’s trying that here? What if Doctor Dire’s trying to take over?”

“Unlikely. Seems like she’s having a row with whoever’s behind that underground lab. Still not sure what that creature was. Smelled all wrong, never seen its like before.”

“Has there been any word from Queensguard on that?’

Queensguard! That was potential trouble. Britain’s foremost superhero team, and they had a few scientifically-minded people on their team, with the resources to back it up. That was one of the reasons I’d launched my drone run to retrieve the Blanks when I did, to avoid that team in particular.

Of course the local heroes would go to Queensguard when they found out I was involved. Kicking a problem upstairs was a fine and logical tradition for this sort of thing.

I shook the train of thought from my head, and focused back on the screen. Thrush was looking out the side window. The city receded to their left, looked like they were on the highway now, heading... yeah, they were heading toward Peak Country. Good.

“What do you think we’ll find out here?” Lady Thrush asked Leo.

“I asked my London connections about the local weres. Nothing.”

“Were they giving you grief about being a cat in a wolf’s world again? Lycanthropic prejudice and all that?”

“Alpha,” I said, “check on our silver supplies.”

“Got a few pounds.”

“Awesome.” I hauled up the app and set a makerbot working on a few bullets. Not that I wanted to shoot the guy, and he’d been no threat to me in the suit, but he was smart and might catch me out of it at some point. Werewolves had been a prime pain in my arse the last time they’d surfaced, so it was only sensible.

“No,” Leo said to his sidekick or whatever she was, “I mean to say that there was nothing. There are no weres left in this area. At all. There were some at one point. They’re gone, and anyone who tries to move into the old pack territory vanishes.”

“Nobody’s done anything about this?”

“Done what, precisely? Gone to the authorities, and told them that these people who are secretly werewolves went missing?” Leo smiled. No real mirth in that grimace. “After that business in the eighties, you’ll find neither trust nor love for the government in our little community. Thatcher has a lot to answer for.”

A presence behind me cleared his throat, and I jumped, fell off the bed, and scrabbled for a weapon—

—as Manuel smiled serenely.

“Alpha? You could have said something.” I picked myself up along with the remnants of my dignity.

“About wha— whoa!” Alpha did a double-take. “I didn’t hear him come in!”

“Yes, that is why you are working with me, remember?” Manuel dropped a duffel bag to the floor.

“Showoff,” I muttered. No real heat from it though, and he smiled. First time today I’d seen him smile. So naturally, I spoke before I thought and tried to kill the mood. “Hey, about last night—”

Yeah, there went that smile. “Let’s focus on the matter at hand. We can work out things later.”

“Right. What do we have?”

“A glorious deathtrap.”

“It’s that bad?”

“Yes and no. If someone were to venture in stupidly, and assume that they were dealing with a moron, they would probably be badly hurt or captured, or both.”

“How so?”

Manuel reached into the duffel bag, sorted through his costume, and pulled out the camera I’d built for him. “This is what they have.”

I nodded. “Alpha?” My minion took the camera, ejected the data stick, and shoved it into his skull.

The television switched from heroes to eerie night vision shots, of modern steel and concrete buildings in a high-walled compound. The moors rolled around it, sparse trees and tall grasses, with mountains rising in the distance. He’d gotten a few good panning shots of them, enough to make one hell of a postcard series.

“So. Where’s the moron trap part come in?”

“Not for a while. Alpha, fast forward through the interiors, please?”

“Fast slide-show,” I added. I was a speed-reader with eidetic memory, thanks to my power. This way I’d have some reference photos on file, as it were, if I ever got in a tight spot.

Right now they were showing a pretty unremarkable office building. The pictures flicked through empty hallways, empty save for security guards. He had a lot of rear shots of those guys, including one upside down.

“Freeze frame. Go back six,” I told Alpha. “All right, how’d you get that one?”

“They had a drop ceiling through that part.” Manuel’s grin radiated smugness. “Had to break out the climbing harness and go slow, but it was worth it.”

“And you evaded the electronic security?”

“That phone app you gave me showed everything well before I got into range. Trickiest thing there had a five-second window. Two more than I needed.”

“Uh-huh. Resume.” Images flashed past, until they came to a dark-oak paneled office. And something in the middle of it that made my heart rate jump, and not in a good way. “Whoa, hold on—”

The slideshow stopped, revealing a man who was seven feet if he was an inch, and rotund as a jumbo-sized beer keg. Bald scalp, hairless even to the point that he was without eyebrows. He wore a suit that probably cost more than the rent for our pricey Southwark apartment, a suit he was poured into like jelly made of muscle and fat.

But that wasn’t what had sent adrenaline down my spine.

His face was... wrong.

“You see it too?” Manuel asked. He scooted up next to me, put his arm around my shoulders. “What’s that word, for something that’s supposed to look human, but isn’t?”

“Uncanny valley,” I whispered.

“He was there past midnight. Wide awake. Tapping away on a keyboard that wasn’t plugged in. Picking up a phone sometimes, that wasn’t turned on. And that suit? It’s a part of him.”

“Say what now?”

“No seams. It moved perfectly with him. I checked that, I threw a pen at one point, he got up and investigated.” Manuel motioned to Alpha, and the scenes clicked by bit by bit.

“Those timestamps don’t look right.”

“They’re accurate. I was pushing the button as fast as I could.”

Suit man was moving fast, covering a lot of ground toward the corner of the room, then around, as the pictures flickered by. Too fast.

Then one shot of his small, smiling face on his massive body, looking right toward the camera.

“That’s about where I stopped taking pictures. He started sniffing, and I got out of there.”

I tapped my chin. “Heightened smell, maybe? Or just trying to psyche you out?”

Manuel shrugged. “I don’t know if it was that smart.”

“You still took a risk there. We talked about this.” I felt my cheeks heat. “You’re not alone in this. You don’t need to be throwing pens next to a... whatever that was. If you get caught, Dire’s screwed.”

Manuel glared back. “I know what I am doing. I was doing this a long time before our—” He caught himself. “Nevermind. Look, the point is, he is a trap.”

I forced my neck around, turned back to the screen. “Right. Probably built to give whichever hero shows up a massive fight, while the real Envy slips out the back door. Not many back doors there, though. Moors all around, it’d be hard to get away.”

“There’s tunnels, not large, though. I couldn’t get in them.”

Well at least he’d had some self-preservation. “Okay. Dire can map those with sonar.”

“You might not need to. The only other building with people in it at this time of night was over here.” Manuel gestured, and Alpha snapped through the slides to a three-story laboratory across the way from the office building. Generators next to it, and the exotic mix of outflow pipes from the far end were a dead giveaway.

The lower two floors didn’t have windows, I noticed.

“Security was tighter here. More electronics. I did manage a few shots.”

They flickered by, all window shots from the exterior. “Figure the real Envy is in here. One of the scientists in here, or maybe even the janitor. This guy likes his misdirection.”

I didn’t answer. I’d just seen a photo that explained everything.

“Dire?”

“Oh holy shit. Oh wow. Oh gods.” I stopped, ran my hands through my hair. “This, this is probably the best and worst news we could have gotten. Alpha, stop and rewind, ah, sixty-two frames.”

He did. Back to one of the window shots, where a man in a lab coat was peering out into the night. Just a guy, a bit short and scrawny as they went. Short brown hair, spectacles. A badge dangling from a lanyard. A cigarette hanging from one corner of his mouth, and wasn’t that an oddity indoors in today’s Britain.

I knew that face.

“Vector. Holy shit, that’s Professor Vector.”

CHAPTER 7: GREEN-EYED ENVY

“You stick around in this business long enough, you'll start seeing the same faces, over and over again. Even when they should be dead six times over... darned if I know what ties heroes and villains together, but the more you fight against or with someone, the better the odds you see them again.”

--The Human Harrier, during a BBC live interview in 2002

“Who?” Manuel asked.

“Professor Vector. Real name, Raymond Mapplethorn. He’s another supergenius. He’s to biology as Dire is to engineering. Very dangerous, very similar in a lot of ways. We both started as idealists, tried to improve our little corners of the world. Didn’t work out for either of us.”

“Did you work together?”

I laughed. “Oh mercy, no. We actually ended up at cross purposes during a heist gone horribly wrong. His creations were a serious bother. The man had basically grown plant-kaiju with only a bathtub, some random household cleaners, and a few sets of high school chemistry equipment.”

“And now he has his own private laboratory and all the resources Maestro M can grant him.” Manuel’s face paled.

“Yeah. It was probably a good thing you couldn’t get into the lab. He probably has biological agents on hand against intruders. No way to defend against microbes.”

“Perhaps a rebreather, and gloves?”

“No good,” Alpha piped up. “I’m no expert, but trust me, whatever that guy could whip up would be proof against anything except maybe full-body hazmat suits.”

“Hard to sneak in those, even for you,” I murmured. Then I frowned. “No, it doesn’t fit.”

“I’m pretty sure we could tailor a hazmat suit to his size,” Alpha said.

“No, Dire means Vector. Vector’s an idealist. It’s the reason he lived through Dire. Had a chance to kill him, but didn’t. Too many similarities. His sinister plans were actually going to be good for the world in the long run. Make up for some of the bad he’d done.”

“And now here he is working for the devil himself,” Manuel said. “Perhaps your forgiveness was misplaced. Not that you should have killed him, but perhaps prison would have been better?”

Both Alpha and I stared at him.

“Right. Villains, sorry.” He shook his head.

“I’m as innocent as a new-born lamb!” Alpha insisted.

“And about as good at lying.” I kicked him in the shin, winced as my toes rebounded from metal. Right, shoes, I should probably put those on at some point. “In any case, Maestro’s the last person Vector should be working for. Human trafficking, drugs, blackmail, and especially a powers farm. Hardly the tools that a progressive idealist would consider acceptable.” A horrible thought struck me. “Wait. When did Maestro first start making the Blanks, again?”

“I found out about it five years ago.”

I relaxed. “Okay. So Vector wasn’t involved with that. Good, good. Well, not with that part. But maybe some of the follow-up? That would be the sort of thing that would attract him to Maestro’s employ, damn the consequences.”

To all appearances, Maestro had cracked the code to giving people superpowers. It involved a certain strain of radiation, a regimen of physical and mental torture, and a thoroughly amoral disregard for human life.

This was disturbing as hell. Governments the world over had been working on similar projects to no avail, off and on, because they understood the grim facts that whoever cracked the method first would probably end up ruling the world. It was kind of like the cold war’s nuclear arms race, except in human-shaped packages.

But Maestro wasn’t ruling the world. He was lurking in the shadows of Britain, so heavily hidden that even we had to approach with care. Instead of raising a metahuman army, he shipped them out to parts unknown, loaned a few to his pet dictator, and from the records we’d recovered, had sold a few here and there to very bad people.

Why?

He wasn’t the ‘Pride’ of the group for no reason. By all our analysis, he should be doing his damnedest to conquer the world. He was that kind of mastermind, an old-school villain who wanted power and would do anything to get it.

There was something we were missing. Some data we didn’t have yet. I chewed my lip. “Taking him down isn’t good enough. We have to turn him.”

“You want to turn one of the Maestro’s Sins.”

“We have to.”

“One of the Maestro’s Sins. Who will have gotten repeated doses of his mind control. Who has a head stuffed full of mental triggers.”

“Yes, the man who is also the most likely Sin to be involved with the Blanks program.” I lifted a hand, let it fall into my lap. “We are going to need him. Odds are good he’s the linchpin on that.”

“Except he wasn’t around when the program started. He might not be involved at all, especially if he’s as altruistic as you say.”

“He was altruistic. If he still is, there’s a chance.” I flopped back on the bed. Manuel swept his legs out of my way with a quick acrobatic twist. “Don’t get her wrong, Dire isn’t liking these odds either. But the gain, if we succeed...”

Manuel scrutinized me for a long moment. “It’s more than that, yes?”

No lies. We’d agreed to that. “Yes.” I sighed. “Sacrificed a bit, by letting him go. Hoped he would find a better path for himself. The world needs good people working for a better future. Dire wants to ensure that sacrifice wasn’t in vain.”

“I understand that. But if his will is weak, he might not be able to break free. You have to prepare yourself for the possibility that he cannot be saved.”

“Ya know,” Alpha said, tapping metal fingers on a metal knee. “It’s possible that mind control could be used to undo mind control.”

“That would help us if we had a way to control his mind,” I snorted. “We don’t.”

“I do.”

The room fell silent. Manuel and I turned in unison, stared at Alpha. His metal frame glinted as he shifted, drew his knees up to his torso. “Uh, you know I wouldn’t, right?”

“Alpha?” I asked.

“I mean I don’t have the ability, just the schematics. They’re some of the stuff your, uh, friend upstream sent along in case things didn’t fall out right—”

“Alpha.”

“To be honest unless you got brainzapped I wasn’t going to bring them up or break them out, but y’know, it’s good to have the option just in case—”

“Alpha. Hush. It’s all right.” I stood, patted him on the shoulder. “We trust you.”

“Ah.” His shoulders sagged.

“I’m not quite sure I share your trust in him,” Manuel said. “To be blunt about it. Why not mention this before now?”

“Because you guys just spent the last five months going after some guy for throwing his mind control around? Didn’t want to hit a nerve, there. And because, well, the blueprint’s originator doesn’t have the problem with biology that you do, boss.”

True, that. If he had schematics we could build it, but I wouldn’t know what it did until we turned it on. I could understand half of the equation, but the effect on the subject would be beyond my control. We’d essentially be twisting the dials and seeing what happened to whatever poor sod it zapped. Kind of hard on the target.

“We’ll save this as a last resort,” I decided. “We have to capture Vector anyway, might as well try to get him to come willingly. Once captured, it’s either imprisonment or reprogramming depending on how deep the hooks go.” I’d promised Manuel that I wouldn’t kill any of the Sins. Holding them until they could be turned over to somebody that the Maestro hadn’t reprogrammed was the compromise we’d arrived at.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure I could keep that promise when it came to Maestro himself. We’d have to see where we were at that point, I reckoned.

“If you want I can get the workshop building the device and holding it in standby. It’s a simple wave emitter—”

“No!” Manuel interjected. “No. Look, how long does it take to make?”

“Not long. A bit less than an hour, some of the components are kind of intricate.”

“Then don’t. Only if we need it.”

I glared. “Dire’s not too happy about you giving Alpha orders.”

Manuel looked at me, surprised. “You do not agree that he should not build it without cause?”

“Oh no, she’s fine with that idea, but you’re giving orders to her minion. And someone who’s been a friend to us both, frankly. You should remember that, and treat him with the respect he’s earned.”

He leaned back, and I watched emotions flicker across his face. Anger, comprehension, remorse, amusement, all in the course of seconds. I’d gotten better at reading people, in the time I’d spent with him. Side effect of romance, or something like it, I supposed.

“There’s the El Presidente I knew. Easy to forget, that there is steel in you even outside of the armor. My apologies, Doctor.” He slipped off the bed, offered a bow. “And to you as well, Alpha.”

“It’s cool, bro. It’s cool.”

“Sufficient, for now.” I smiled, pushing irritation aside. We had much to do, and little time to do it in. “Anyway, the heroes are in position, which means we’ll need to move now.”

“We’re not going to wait for nightfall?” Manuel quirked an eyebrow.

“No. Vector’s in the mix, so whatever he’s got as a backup biological ace won’t care about darkness. Hell, he was probably behind the monster in the nightclub. That thing didn’t have eyes and gave no fucks about lacking them.” I smirked. “Besides, these heroes aren’t exactly as professional as you. They might do something like oh, going to bed at night, instead of patrolling.”

Manuel rolled his eyes. “These English heroes. Soft. Probably sleep more than four hours a night, even.”

“You’re nuts. Anyway, we need to suit up and get going. Here’s the plan...”

After the brief, it took very little time for Manuel to change into Señor Acertijo. It took even less time to teleport my repaired and upgraded armor to the hotel room, and seal myself in. The readouts flickered to life on the HUD again, and I took deep breaths. We were up against Vector, so I’d be on the internal suit air supply for most of this run.

I clicked my tongue until the subvocal vox channel opened. “Everyone on?”

“I never left. I can’t,” Alpha griped.

“Wah wah wah. Acertijo?”

“I am here.” I shivered, to hear that voice. He spoke differently when he was properly masked. More assured. Quiet, calm. I turned to look at him.

Leather pants, leather boots with steel toes. A purple jacket, with gold trim and don’t ask me how he managed to be so stealthy with shiny gold accentuating his physique. A purple cloth mask, loose around his face, broken by a pair of goggles at the top. Each goggle lens was cupped by a gold question-mark, one of them turned backwards to manage the trick. A rapier sheathed at his side completed the look. His hair was a different color; I’d gotten him some temporary spray-on stuff for that. Haircuts were a great deal more individualized in Britain than they were in Mariposa.

I looked at him now, because if all went to plan I wouldn’t see him again until we were done. I drank in the sight of him because nothing was certain, and if any number of things went wrong, this was my last look.

The notion upset me. But after a time, I felt I couldn’t stall any longer. “Teleport in six,” I whispered into the vox.

The world swirled with light, and shifted. I checked positions on the tracker, found we’d come in on-target. Acertijo was already moving. He’d come down in a ditch near the road, as planned. I was behind the wall to the north. Alpha crouched among the cars in the facility’s parking lot, to the south. He and I had the first part of this dance.

“Showtime!” I shouted, and took to the sky.

No reaction, at first. I stared down upon the compound, scanning it with my sensors, finding the laboratory entirely shielded from my infrared sight. The big CEO’s office showed up as shielded, too. Probably just there to reinforce the red herring and draw heroes in to fight the creature that we’d dubbed ‘Mr. Big’.

To the south, Alpha took a running start and leaped over the wall, catching tiny handholds and propelling his thin metal body up and to the roof of the laboratory. He’d have the job of breaking in there, and taking the brunt of the early traps. Depending on how lethal Vector’s defenses in that area were, he was the best candidate to deal with them. He didn’t have biology. He was pretty much immune to the most horrible parts of Vector’s specialty.

I didn’t see Acertijo’s approach, but I had no doubt it was smooth. His job was simpler: get in to the rest of the buildings in the compound and evacuate the innocents. Most of the employees here were probably innocent of any wrongdoing, and we didn’t want to see them come to harm. Better to get them out of the way of any potential trouble.

Then Alpha was in, hanging by his hands and kicking through an upper-story window of the lab. A siren started to wail, and I saw a few people in the courtyard look around. One had the presence of mind to look up, and soon enough people were pointing my way.

Good.

“FLEE BEFORE DIRE, WAGE-SLAVES!” I commanded. “THIS IS THE DAY OF NEO VARIANTS’ DESTRUCTION!”

A few people hauled out phones and started recording me. Fuck that noise! We didn’t have time for looky-loos with no sense of self-preservation. I dug an EMP grenade out of my storage compartment, dropped it in the courtyard.

That got’em moving. Unfortunately, they were running toward the buildings of the compound. Fine, fine, maybe they had a drill to follow, or had been trained to duck and cover. Whatever, I’d let Acertijo sort it out.

Then I clicked the vox on again. “Alpha, status?”

“Three rooms in, a lot of panicked scientists. Now tased and flopping on the floor. No sign of Vector. The place is slowly filling with gas of some sort. My spectrolyzer doesn’t recognize it.”

Unless Vector had changed, I doubt he’d be cold-hearted enough to expose his own people to something lethal. Probably designed to incapacitate, rather than kill. Still...

“Send her a map of the incapacitated scientists.”

“Sure thing.”

A rough grid appeared on my HUD. I glanced at it, measured the roof of the lab from on high, and did some quick math.

Then I blew off about a third of the roof. Forty-percent charged particle-beams at wide spread did the job nicely, without sending rubble into the areas that would put the downed bystanders at risk.

“Whoa! That’s what you wanted that for?” Alpha shrieked. “Give a guy some warning next time!”

“No promises.” I smirked.

“Cleared the hallways and the accessible rooms on this level. You want me to start breaching sealed rooms or should I work my way down?”

I considered. As I did, Acertijo’s voice came on the channel. “Mr. Big is on the move.”

That decided me. “Go to plan B.”

“Got it!” Through the billows of dust from the mangled roof, I caught a glimpse of shiny metal as Alpha dashed for the nearest stairwell. I took the opportunity to amp up my scanner, see what I could see. Then I hissed between my teeth. “Watch it. Thermal readings on the ground floor. Big ones.” Familiar ones, too. “Oh shit, those are acid spitters.” Well, that confirmed that theory.

Alpha chuckled. “Just found’em!” Yep, they were moving. “Disengaging!”

I gnawed my lips. This now, this was a situation where more minions would have come in handy. As it was, there looked to be four or six of those things, and that was enough to rip Alpha to metal shreds. And I needed him on site to help with the aftermath.

Gods, going toe-to-toe with just one of these things had been a nightmare. Still, I did have those upgrades, and this time around I knew what I was getting into. “Get clear. She’ll handle them. Dire is altering the plan,” I voxed.

“What! No, I’ve got this! Don’t risk yourself,” Alpha pleaded.

“Pray that she does not alter it further.” I said, and dove before I could reconsider, blurring past dropped scientists, blasting through floors as I went, white sterile corridors now shattered and broken with falling tiles, dust, and sparking wires spitting as the gravitics interacted with them in weird ways.

When the dust cleared, I floated a foot above a grated floor, stained steel over darkened insulation. Metal and glass tanks and tubes filled the vast room, a parody of my own workshop.

In the corner, five eyeless faces turned my way, and five toothy maws hissed a predator’s challenge.

“Audio off,” I warned Alpha, and then I roared.

I didn’t know biology.

But I knew fear.

The mask’s vocalizer taken up to eleven in a confined space, lights in my eyesockets glaring red, arms spread wide, I gave challenge. Glass cracked, metal tanks shivered, and the three closest to me stumbled backward, clamping their clawed hands to their scaly heads.

Behind them, Alpha darted away. As the echoes died my own audio sensors kicked back on. I’d bought him seconds to escape.

I’d bought myself a few seconds too. And unlike the last time I was up against monsters, I didn’t particularly care about collateral damage to the area.

A volley of concussion micromissiles to start things off, followed by particle beams at sixty percent charge. These things looked on par with the last critter I tangled with, and I’d measured its resilience pretty well. Sixty percent wouldn’t kill, but they wouldn’t be shrugging it off, either.

Scales flickered through the dust, green and brown and I beamed down the one in the lead, sent him flying through a wall. I stepped forward, arms up, palms out as I blasted again and again, blowing apart metal, sending monsters flying, shattering glass, and spilling fluids of all colors through the grating of the floor.

It was the alpha that got to me, charging as its brethren fell, twisting and darting with speed it shouldn’t have for something its size. It slid inside my arms, clamped hands on my shoulderpads, and belched gallons of high-velocity acid, hosing me down like pressurized jets in a carwash.

I smiled, and counted. Three, two, one...

Steam. The world turned to superheated steam, as the acid ate into the neutralizing agent I’d built into the armor since my last encounter. The creature reeled back, howling, and I snapped punches into its midsection, advancing as it stumbled backward, trying to get away. A final backhand sent it flying into the wall, stumbling back toward me, until a snap kick put it on the ground. It lay limp, and I laughed, laughed long and hard.

My warning system shrilled, and I snap-fired in the direction of motion without breaking my bout of maniacal laughter. Sixty-five percent on the particle beam and the one charging me from the side flew, bounced off the floor, scattering sections of grating as it went.

The neutralizing agent had worked perfectly. “DIRE DOES NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE TWICE.”

“Is that why you’re here, then? Come to finish what you started?”

I turned, sodden, melted remnants of my cape shredding and falling behind me as I did. Across the room, behind what had to be two-foot-thick glass, stood Professor Vector. He was shaking, from fear or rage I couldn’t tell. Didn’t matter, in the end. Either would suit my purpose.

“THAT,” I said, picking my way toward him with supremely unhurried steps, “IS UP TO YOU.”

“Bystanders are clear. I’m playing keepaway with Mr. Big,” Acertijo reported.

“Good,” I whispered back. “Alpha?”

“Boss, we hit the motherlode. They have quadchip blade servers here.”

To Vector’s trembling gaze, I was advancing step by implacable step, inscrutable under my armor. To my allies on the vox channel, I was suddenly laughing and bubbling with joy. “What? The good shit? Oh holy hell, he did have an awesome setup here. Alpha! This means you can spawn!”

“Squeeeeeee!” Alpha declared.

“Please never do that again,” Acertijo said. A sudden WHUMP drifted over his channel. “Whoops, busy.”

It meant that more minions were in the cards. Those quadchips would be usable brainboxes to make more Alphas. “Right, salvage those,” I decided. “Not like he’ll need them anymore. Keep them safe, and be ready to teleport out the second we’re clear.”

“Stay back!” Vector yelled, voice amplified by the intercom. Cute, but if he was looking to compete with my volume, he was pretty outgunned.

I kept moving. Implacable, unhurried. “YOU HAD SUCH POTENTIAL, VECTOR. HOW MUCH DID HE PAY YOU TO GIVE UP YOUR DREAMS?”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“PRIDE, VECTOR. OR SMUGNESS, IN HIS CASE. SHE KNOWS YOUR SINS.”

“Then you know you’ll never leave Britain alive.” Vector sighed. “You did me a favor once, I’ll return it. Leave now, and I won’t pursue. I can’t speak for the others, but...” He pulled over a desk chair, slumped into it. I stopped my forward walk. Fear, not rage, then. A slightly softer approach seemed most efficient here.

“YOU DIDN’T ANSWER THE QUESTION. WHAT PRICE DID YOU TAKE FOR YOUR DREAMS?”

“I haven’t given up my dreams,” Vector insisted, folding his arms, hugging himself. “I just charge a hell of a lot more money for them, these days. People paying for the privilege of being experimental subjects. Balanced out by charity work, treating refugees and heroes and victims of other villains. I’ve got the only facility in the country capable of treating radiation poisoning, and mitigating exposure, did you know that? Now we’ll have to get clear and set up shop somewhere else, because of you. Excellent job breaking it, Dire. Five stars.”

“RADIATION TREATMENT? HEROES? OH YOU POOR FOOL. DID YOU HAPPEN TO NOTICE ANYTHING STRANGE ABOUT THOSE SO-CALLED HEROES YOU HELPED?”

“No, because they are heroes. We have to follow strict protocols. I never get within visual range of any of them, I just delegate it to a few flesh-puppets and diagnostic models. You should know what happens if you stumble onto a secret identity. Jesus woman, come on now.”

“ALL THESE PROCEDURES. PUT IN PLACE AT MAESTRO’S SUGGESTION, SHE SUSPECTS. THE MONSTER.”

“Go to hell!” Vector snapped, before I could finish talking. “Maestro’s great!”

He’d snapped from weary fear to hot anger in a heartbeat. If that wasn’t an implanted trigger, I’d eat my mask.

“Enough. Whatever you’re trying to achieve, I don’t have time for it,” Vector decided. He stabbed a finger into the console. “The Mark Three can take care of you.”

“SHE HIGHLY DOUBTS THAT.”

“Mr. Big’s disengaging,” Acertijo whispered in my ear. “Heading your way!”

Vector smirked. “Well, even if it can’t handle you, I don’t care. It’ll slow you down, and that’s what matters. Good bye, Doctor.” Metal slabs rolled down behind the glass, walling him in an armored box.

I watched through voltaic vision as the circuitry around him shuddered, and started to drop down.

“GOT TO ADMIT, THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN AN EFFECTIVE ESCAPE PLAN,” I said, angling my gauntlets carefully. “IF SHE HADN’T JUST USED THE LAST FORTY SECONDS TO STUDY THE WORKINGS OF IT.”

Three high-powered blasts, and the escape elevator shuddered to a halt as molten metal sizzled and cooled. I’d had to put some mighty big holes in the floor, but eh. Wasn’t my floor.

“Look out!” Alpha yelled, and I turned to see Mr. Big step into the room—

—and go flying as a blue and gold suit of power armor slammed into him, knocking him head over heels.

The Human Harrier. The power-armored avenger, war veteran, and best pilot in the hemisphere. And also, the first responder of Queensguard. Which meant that I might have gotten stuck in a bit tighter than expected, here.

I’d expected heroes to show up, counted on it, even.

And as the shadows unfolded with a ripple of translating energy, and figures stepped out, I realized that I had gotten my wish, and then some.

CHAPTER 8: HEROES HAPPEN

“We knew we were up against a major threat, with Dire. We also knew she wasn't unbeatable. From what we'd seen before, footage from Icon City, if we used caution and ground her down we could get her to the point where she'd cut and run. I had something to stop that, but as it turned out, getting her to the point of running was easier to say than it was to do...”

Miss Maskelyne, leader of Queensguard, testifying to a private MI9 review board

Queensguard.

I’d read up on them. I’d expected to run into them before I was through and done in Britain. I just hadn’t expected them to arrive so early. But then, they were known for fast-response to threats on their soil.

I could teleport away, but that had two drawbacks. They had an inventor with them, and if she was running any sort of passive or active scanning, they’d pick up the trace particles left behind. The particles would fade after a minute or two, but with them right here I couldn’t take the chance. Detection could lead to them cracking my teleportation methods, finding ways to track or shut down my easy transportation. I wasn’t willing to lose my best mobility option just yet.

The other drawback was that I hadn’t achieved my objectives yet. I needed to get Vector in hand, and though I had him trapped, there was an awful lot of machinery and metal between him and me. Couldn’t just blast it apart, or I’d risk killing the guy, and if I tried to clear the way by hand, it’d mean turning my back on the heroes. Bad idea.

“Acertijo, we might have a problem,” I whispered into the vox.

“Busy. Talking with Thrush and Leo now,” he whispered back. Oh, great, the gang was all here. I hated it when heroes worked together. Team-ups. Nothing worse than team-ups.

Still, I had an ace up my sleeve. “Alpha? See if you can get down to Vector without drawing heroic attention.”

And then there was no more time, as the last of Queensguard stepped out of the ripple in reality that had brought the team here.

First through the breach was a figure clad head to toe in broken green plate mail, with wood and plants poking out between the cracks. He held a wooden axe gripped in two gnarled gauntlets, and wooden leafy horns poked from a dented helm. The Green Knight, regenerator and not entirely human.

Then came a slender woman in a red and gold harlequin’s outfit, body tensed, bare hands pointed toward me in some sort of martial stance. Punching Judy, probably the most dangerous of them at close quarters. Even I’d have to worry about those hands, or more accurately, the mystical chi energy behind them.

Next was Human Harrier, pilot and commander of a sleek and fast suit. He had my armor beat for speed, and an interchangeable weapons loadout that could scale up as needed. Not my match in raw power there, but enough to cause some serious damage, given time and depending on what he used. Currently he had his shoulder-mounted guns shifted into a gatling configuration.

And then the last of them, the most dangerous in the long-term, and problematic overall. Clad in a suit jacket, with short-cut blonde hair above her domino-masked face, she looked me up and down and smirked. The inventor and heir to a legacy of stage magic as well as supergenius-grade mechanical engineering; Miss Maskelyne.

Yes, she was related to that Maskelyne, the famous magician of Tesla’s era.

There is a fifth one in their team, but he wasn’t in sight. If I was very, very lucky, he was incompatible with the technology that brought the others here. He’d either be a headache or a pushover if he turned up, there was no in-between.

“Well. Slumming now, aren’t you?” Miss Maskelyne asked.

Banter. Good. This would give Alpha time to work.

“SLUMMING? ONLY FOR A LITTLE WHILE.”

“What’s wrong?” Harrier’s voice crackled through a low-grade voice modulator. Shoddy work, and I sniffed in disgust to hear it. “Empress-for-life not work out for you? Decided to leave the Dictator business? Oh wait, I forgot. The Yanks kicked you so hard you put the pond between you and them.”

“THE PROPER TITLE, WAS ‘TYRANT’.”

“Well, at least yer honest,” Punching Judy sounded about seventeen. Didn’t look it, and that form-fitting spandex indicated a higher age. She was probably just being cutesy, just part of her persona. I wasn’t fooled. Wouldn’t underestimate her. “Right fair turned my stomach, them things you did to those poor innocent people.”

“AH YES, LIKE IMPROVING THEIR INFRASTRUCTURE, ENDING A CIVIL WAR WITH MINIMUM BLOODSHED, AND DEPOSING A DICTATOR WHO LIKED TO CUT OFF PEOPLE’S HANDS AND PUT THEM IN JARS.” I’d never been able to verify that last part, but the things I had verified were worse. “HOW DARE SHE DO A HERO’S JOB. OH WAIT, LIKE MOST OF THE WESTERN WORLD YOU DIDN’T GIVE A SHIT UNTIL SHE TOOK OVER. YOUR HYPOCRISY RINGS AS HOLLOW AS THE CRIMES YOU CHARGE HER WITH.”

Maskelyne’s eye twitched in annoyance. “You can tell that to the jury, love. Whatever you did or didn’t do, what you’re doing now isn’t good.”

“THIS? SMASHING AN ILLEGAL BIOLOGICAL HORROR LAB RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR HOME COUNTRY? DAMNED RIGHT IT ISN’T GOOD. IT REFLECTS POORLY ON YOU, FOR LETTING THIS HAPPEN UNDER YOUR NOSES. FORTUNATELY, DIRE WAS HERE TO CLEAN UP THE MESS YOU DIDN’T.”

My HUD flared an alert, as the Human Harrier locked onto me. I glanced his way, and mid-motion, saw movement behind them.

Oh. Oh ho ho... well wasn’t that interesting.

“Enough,” Miss Maskelyne said, flicking her vapestick to the ground. “We’re taking you in, and sorting this out. I know you won’t, but I’ll ask you to come quietly.”

“YOU’RE ASKING THE WRONG QUESTION.”

“And what’s the right question?” Harrier ground out.

“WHAT’S A MARK THREE?”

Miss Maskelyne sighed. “I’ll bite, fine, if it gets this over with. What, pray tell, is a Mark Three?”

“DIRE HAS NO CLUE, BUT IT LOOKS LIKE THE MARK THREE WAS FAKING THE FIRST TIME YOU PUNCHED IT OUT.”

Mister Big leaped out of the corner, grabbed the Human Harrier, and carried him screaming through a glass tube full of blue chemicals.

“YEAH, YOU SHOULD PROBABLY DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT.”

Miss Maskelyne shouted orders and her team fell in. The Green Knight charged after the two combatants. But Punching Judy stayed put, and started circling around, eying me up as her fists lit up with golden sparks. Miss Maskelyne started strolling the other way. She pulled out a pair of white gloves, snapped them onto her hands with two quick flourishes.

I’d gotten the two more dangerous of the group, I thought. Just as their exploits had been public domain and available to me for perusal, my own excursions had doubtless been reviewed during their own analysis and training sessions.

Which was why I constantly adjusted my suit configurations and armaments. And why Maskelyne, like so many inventors, never relied on the same trick twice in a row.

We were pretty evenly matched, here. I’d have to do something about that.

Alpha’s voice whispered in my ear. “Found a vent. Too small for people to fit down. Thank goodness you built me thin.”

“It’ll have defenses,” I warned.

“Yeah, I’ve already gone through some stuff that’s probably nerve gas.”

“Just don’t get cocky,” I warned. “Busy for a bit.”

And even as I could finish the sentence, Punching Judy moved.

I knew it was coming. I knew she was fast, faster than any normal human could ever hope to match.

I was counting on it.

And just as quickly as she moved, she rebounded as white energy flared around me.

She’d moved fast as a bullet, triggered my forcefield, and paid the price as she flew across the room, arms and legs flailing. Somehow she slowed her arc as she hit the wall, arms first, shoved against it, and flipped to land on her feet below. It was an awe-inspiring bit of acrobatics, but I couldn’t afford to pay attention to it as I whipped a gauntlet around to Miss Maskelyne and tried to blast her back to join Judy.

Tried, and failed. With a soft ‘wham!’ of air entering a vacated space, she teleported before the beam could hit her, ended up a good five feet away from the crackling golden energy.

We both had automatic defenses, it seemed. She’d gone for avoidance rather than resistance.

“Force field, Judy!” Maskelyne called, spreading her hands as playing cards made of blue energy riffled out between them, danced around her arms. “Based on velocity, looks like. Try a slower approach.”

Gods, it was like fighting Tomorrow Force all over again. At least this lot didn’t have a precognitive reality adjuster.

Judy came back in for another round, and I popped open my shoulderpads, sprayed her with concussion micromissiles. But Maskelyne made throwing motions, and blue cards sped out to form a barrier as Judy skidded to a stop and went prone. The blasts shattered the few glass tubes remaining in the room, sending chemicals spilling out and mixing together.

“UNWISE,” I rumbled. “BY HER COUNT, THERE ARE TWO PEOPLE IN THIS ROOM WHO DON’T HAVE AN INTERNALIZED AIR SUPPLY. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO BREATHE THOSE FUMES?”

Maskelyne fell back, digging in her coat. Judy cartwheeled over to her, and the air around them sparked with faint particles, drifting like dust. “You’re asking the wrong question, dear Doctor.”

I read her smile, and saw how Judy’s eyes narrowed as she glanced behind me...

...and I jetted to the side, just as Mister Big swung a girder through the space I’d occupied half a second ago.

They’d been going for heroic irony. Cute when you can pull it off, but I’d been on the other end of that sort of shit long enough to know how these things usually go.

Mister Big, presumably upset at missing, chased after me. I sped around the ruins of the room, using the support pillars for cover. But he didn’t care, swinging the girder right through them, and I winced as I calculated his strength. I could take a few hits, maybe, but if he cornered me my suit would be spare parts and I’d probably be tenderized meat.

“Heads up!” Acertijo announced. “We’re coming in to back up Queensguard.”

That changed things.

Leo was mostly a non-factor. Except he wasn’t, because based on his prior tactics, he’d leave beating me up to the people who could do it and go looking for ways to cause mischief. He might detect and give Alpha some trouble, and I didn’t know if Alpha could handle him.

Lady Thrush was a problem, and a pretty big one.

I dodged another girder swing from Mister Big, and another support pillar went goodbye.

The ceiling groaned, ominously, and ideas sparked in my mind, at a speed unmatched by human intellect. Calculations checked and double-checked, engineering analysis and estimates rolled by as I analyzed every conceivable variable.

And then I whirled and put a full-blast particle blast through two more pillars.

“Acertijo, get your guys on rescue now. Get the tased scientists on the second floor out. The building collapses in thirty seconds.” I jetted to the far end of the chamber as Mister Big hurtled past me, and turned to Miss Maskelyne. “CHECKMATE IN ZERO.”

They’d been hoping to play the long game, let Mister Big wear me down then send in Punching Judy to back me up. The Green Knight and Human Harrier... I checked area footage in a snap second, nodded. The Harrier was down, armor broken, and the Green Knight was hauling him up the stairs. I flicked my gaze back to Miss Maskelyne, and it was worth it, as I watched her face twist in horror as she realized what I’d done. “Leg it!” she yelled to Punching Judy, and took her own advice, headed for the stairs.

I watched, as Mister Big’s head snapped around. Ichor seeped from countless wounds in his fake-suited skin, but he seemed no worse for the wear from that or his exertions. His manic, unwavering grin widened, and he loped toward the fleeing women.

Fuck it. No way that guy was human, and there were heroes’ lives on the line. I amped up my particle blasters past their safety measures, and drilled him with a hundred-fifty percent charge.

And then I walked to Vector’s escape elevator, transferred all my power to my forcefield, as I dialed down the detection velocity, and crossed my arms as my smoking gauntlets shunted waste heat in a smoldering, wavering radius around me.

My laughter chased Queensguard up the trembling, groaning, and collapsing stairwells as the building fell on me and I didn’t care.

“Scientists are out.” Acertijo whispered through the vox.

“I have eyes on Vector!” Alpha said. “Uh, he’s kind of panicking. Also the ceiling’s giving way above me.”

“Give Dire a visual, then drop and shield him,” I decided.

“On it!”

I got a glimpse of the control room from the inside, walls buckling, and Vector scrabbling at the floor, dumping vials full of goo and melting the metal... but slowly, too slowly. He’d built his protection too heavy, and been trapped in a bulky box of his own making. It was sad, in a way. Also sobering. The guy had only been in the villain business one less year than I had, and he was still making rookie mistakes. I resolved to have a talk with him once we unbent his brain from Maestro M’s fuckery.

But I wasn’t just spying on him to criticize his technique. I was figuring out exactly where he was, and how to get him out of there without killing the guy.

The viewpoint blurred as Alpha burst through the grate above and dropped, and I moved without hesitation, dropping the forcefield for a split second, ignoring the rain of debris that showered down upon me, and blasting a wide shear with particle beams, blowing a hole in the side of the escape pod, directly above Alpha and Vector. Then a running leap, skidding to a stop as the ceiling collapsed downward, and ending in a crouch over Alpha and Vector.

I flipped the forcefield back on, with a bare ten-foot radius, just in time. Metal cascaded down, lights blew, and everything went dark. Concrete and debris and circuitry and buckled sheets of metal ground around our bubble, and the bits of garbage that had gotten through pattered off me, clattered off of Alpha, and tumbled around on the bottom of the area, occasionally spattering against Vector.

He’d been screaming throughout, and evidently saw no reason to stop now. I didn’t grudge the man his fear: he’d had a rough day.

Still, after half a minute, it began to irritate me.

“VECTOR.”

He kept screaming.

“ALPHA, GET OFF OF HIM.” I eased up. Alpha slithered free of him, limbs unhinged from sockets, attached only by cables. Right, he’d had to slither through the vents. “PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER, WILL YOU?” He started snapping bits back to other bits.

Vector peered cautiously through the crook of his arms, where he’d crossed them over his face. Then he pushed himself backwards, scrabbling through the rubble until his back hit the forcefield. He stared around, then looked up to me.

I realized that he could see in the dark, too. We were both operating in a lightless tomb now, a capsule under the earth and stone and remnants of the building above. “YOU’VE DONE SOME MODS, HAVEN’T YOU? A FEW UPGRADES?”

He stopped screaming, blinked at me through broken glasses. “Just a few. You made a serious mistake, getting this close.” He reached into his lab coat, pulled out a spray bottle.

“YOU DO REALIZE THAT HER FORCEFIELD IS THE ONLY THING BETWEEN YOU AND A FEW HUNDRED TONS OF RUBBLE.”

He looked to me, looked to the bottle.

“AND ALSO THAT DIRE CAN SURVIVE BEING CRUSHED IN SUCH A MANNER. CAN YOU?”

His face crumpled, and he dropped the bottle. The lid popped off, and I watched drops of something horrible eat into the floor like hot water through tissue paper.

“NOW WHY DIDN’T YOU USE SOMETHING LIKE THAT TO GET OUT OF HERE?”

“It’s a hold-out spray,” he muttered. “Not enough to make a big hole.”

“SEEMS LIKE AN HONEST MISTAKE. WON’T BE YOUR LAST, THOUGH.”

“Say what now?”

“YOU’RE GOING TO LIVE THROUGH THIS, VECTOR.”

The tension drained out of him. “Oh god.” I watched the adrenaline ebb, as he felt around in his coat with trembling fingers, pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

“NOT MUCH AIR IN HERE.”

“I don’t need much. I installed some alveolic scrubbers after a nasty incident in Belize. They’re the only reason I went back to the tobacco, really.”

I had no idea what those might be, but they sounded biological. He lit a cigarette, took him three tries to get the lighter straight. “You know, the first time you tracked me down, I was terrified. Chaingang told me you were the one to watch, even though Vorpal had the deadlier power. It’s why I held so many kaiju in reserve. Didn’t make a difference in the end, though, and there I was trapped in a space about this size. Maybe less. And then you let me go. You just up and let me go.”

“THE WORLD NEEDS YOU, VECTOR. YOU HAVE MUCH TO OFFER HUMANITY, IF YOU CAN GET PAST YOUR CURRENT DIFFICULTIES.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know if I can believe you. I... but then I should be dead, shouldn’t I? Not like you couldn’t, if you wanted to. I watched on the screens as you fought off Queensguard singlehandedly. You know how many nightmares I’ve had about that team? Shit, you’re soloing teams. And the Mark III. Jesus.” He rubbed his eyes, took a few steadying puffs on the cigarette. “I thought I’d come so far, but I’m still just a dabbler at this. You’re... good at being bad.” he chuckled. “Yeah, okay, what do you want?”

“FOR STARTERS, WE’RE GOING TO GET YOU CLEAR. ALPHA, ARE THE CIRCUITS STILL INTACT?”

“Oh yeah. Kept them as secured as I could.” He cooed at them fondly. “Mah babies!”

“Say what now?” Vector squinted at Alpha.

“DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT. WE’RE GOING TO TELEPORT TO A MORE SECURE LOCATION.” I got on the vox. “Acertijo, you ready to leave?”

No answer.

“Uh-oh,” Alpha said.

I closed my eyes, feeling dread rise up. Of course something would go wrong once we had everything in hand. This was my luck, my damnable luck! I forced my temper down, tried to calm myself. Perhaps he was just talking with the heroes, unable to break away. Maybe in a minute he’d be free to respond.

Seconds crawled by. No response. “Acertijo?” I tried again.

The vox channel clicked open. “Help—” Then it slammed shut again.

He’d sounded panicked. This was not how Acertijo ever sounded, not while the mask was on. The dread throbbed behind my temples, and I closed my eyes, swallowed hard.

“Ah shit,” Alpha said. “Alright, so if you teleport me up to see what’s going on—”

Gears turned, as I analyzed the situation. “NO,” I said. “WE’RE GOING TO NEED YOU TO GET VECTOR SQUARED AWAY.” I whispered the next part into the vox. “You’re the only one who has a shot at using that mind control device on him.”

“Right, you could just pop me up and right back...”

“AND DEPENDING ON WHAT ACE— WHAT OUR ALLY HIT, YOU MIGHT GET FRIED RIGHT OUT THE GATE. DIRE CAN’T LEAVE TO DO A SCOUTING RUN, BECAUSE IF SHE DOES THE BUBBLE COLLAPSES. NO, YOU TELEPORT OUT AND TAKE VECTOR. DIRE WILL GO SEE TO MATTERS HERSELF.”

“Then whatever it is gets you, and we’re still screwed!” Alpha waved his hands.

“NO YOU’RE NOT. YOU’LL BE CLEAR AND AWAY AND WITH SUFFICIENT RESOURCES TO DEPART THE COUNTRY.”

“I’m liking the sound of that.” Vector said.

“Shush,” Alpha told him. “Oy. Yeah, you’re the boss. I just want it on record that this is a bad idea.”

“DULY NOTED. NOW GO.”

They went, Alpha holding onto Vector, and the two fading out in flickers and flashes of light. He had to be within touch range to teleport Vector, that was a limitation of the system. Wasn’t a factor with Acertijo, the man had a transponder beacon on him.

But he hadn’t activated it. Or couldn’t.

For about the hundredth time I wished he’d just let me put a damn camera on him. But no, Acertijo didn’t want me watching him work. That had been an argument and a half, back in the Southwark flat.

“Arrived okay?”

“Yeah,” Alpha voxed back. “Vector’s not resisting. Imma tase him and slap him into the chair for reprogramming.”

“Remember, we’re just trying to remove the triggers. That’s all.”

“I give it about fifty-fifty odds.”

“Alright.” I swallowed away my fears, and shut off the channel.

Time to go save Manuel.

I checked my mental coordinates against the map, arranged for a destination beyond the walls of the compound, and activated my own teleporter trip.

Light flared, and glimmered...

And I faded in right in the middle of a goddamn battle. An army, a small army of blue-skinned, bronze-armored things surged forward, pouring towards the compound from all directions, clambering over collapsed walls, dive-bombing the center of it with motherfucking dragon-worm-things that spat fire, and charging it on the backs of things that looked like a cross between elks and snakes.

In the remnants of the compound, Queensguard, Leo, Lady Thrush, and Acertijo fought for their lives against shrieking, whooping forms that darted and danced and stabbed with gleaming spears, shot arrows from great bows of horn and sinew, and did their damnedest to drag the heroes down.

A spear bounced off my armor. I backhanded its wielder without looking, and suddenly they noticed me in their midst. They screamed unintelligible words and parted like a blue and bronze sea, revealing a palanquin, held aloft by at least a dozen chained, muscular, nude men. A silvery feminine leg flashed from the curtains, found purchase as a slave cupped his hands in front of it. Another leg followed, and a woman wearing the least amount of costume I’d ever seen proceeded down, before hopping off onto the ground and turning to face me.

“There you are, Doctor Dire,” her voice carried in the silence. Even the ones at the wall had stopped fighting. “Pride sends his regards.”

Realization crashed through my mind, and I sighed. Of course he’d had her ready as cavalry. Ready to go reinforce whichever Sin I focused on first.

“AND YOU WOULD BE LUST.”

Her smile was all the answer I needed.

CHAPTER 9: LUST MAKES FOOLS OF ALL MEN

“I'd seen many things through my life, but this was the first time I'd seen an all-out war. The legions should have crushed her, crushed us. They didn't. But once magic came into the picture, well, things got rather, hmmm, dicey. I would have spared Lady Thrush the sight, that's my only true regret. It was bloody. She'll be a time getting over that.”

--Mr. Leo, formerly of 'The Lion and the Unicorn' heroic duo

There’s a bit of a disconnect in public opinion, when it comes to skimpy costumes. Especially when you’re talking about superheroes and supervillains. One third of the population gets upset that some of the costumes out there leave little to the imagination. Either because they have hang-ups, or think children will be corrupted, or some other reason that usually translates into barely-veiled jealousy. Another third of the population gets a little too into it, haunting costume paparazzi sites, surfing and trying to find nipple slips or jock flops, and ensuring that prostitutes and bordellos the world over do a brisk trade in cosplay nookie. The third part of the population, recognized that a lot of times the skimpy costumes were there to distract opponents and make enemies underestimate the wearer. Skimpy costumes were usually dangerous, not least because they were a challenge to the world, that the wearer neither needed nor cared about armor.

My viewpoint lay solidly in the third part of the population, and even I had to concede that this lady just wasn’t wearing enough clothes. Oh, she looked fine enough, but the impracticality of it made me wince.

“YOU ARE IN ENTIRELY THE WRONG PART OF THE WORLD FOR THAT OUTFIT.” Seriously, between the rain and the nettles and the chilly seasons, it had to be rough on her. Not to mention the lack of chest support, which judging from her frontal view, had to be hell on her back at the best of times.

She laughed, half-covering her mouth with the back of her hand in a way I’d only seen in anime. I spared a glance from side to side as I did so. Come to think of it, her little army of demons or whatever gave off that sort of vibe. Reddish blood dripped from my gauntlet where I’d flung my would-be spearman aside, and I considered it until her laughter slowed and died.

“Oh, I’m going to have fun with you. Now, little man, kneel.”

She gestured at me, and her smile grew to a pearly-toothed sneer...

...that died, as I laughed, my own roaring electronic scream booming and echoing around the battlefield. The parts of her army nearest me shifted back, giving way against the wall of noise and I saw a few clutch at their helms, claw at their ears.

Magic types had a reputation for being out of touch with current events. She’d just confirmed the truth of the stereotype.

“YOU SAD LITTLE SACK OF SYCOPHANTIC SEDUCTION. DO YOU EVEN WATCH THE FUCKING NEWS?”

“Oi, bimbo!” Lady Thrush shouted from behind me. “That’s a bird in there!”

We both looked at her. She turned bright red and sank down to the ground, from where she’d been flying. Kid heroes, goddamned kid heroes, kill your moments every time if you don’t watch them.

The rest of the heroes were simply watching, and damn them too. This was the real bad guy, right here! Idiots. At least Acertijo had an excuse, he couldn’t break cover.

But for the rest of them, useless, one and all. Up to me to handle matters, as usual.

“Well,” Lust said, trying to recapture the moment. “No matter. Women merely require a slight realignment. My servants can keep you entertained until you’re ready to be bound— what are you doing?”

I’d knelt, but not to her. I’d noticed that the creature I’d felled had a gray cloak. I took it, dipped it in the spreading puddle of blood on the ground until it was red, and stood. As she stared, horrified, I draped it around my shoulders and riveted it in place with my tech gauntlet. I’d lost the previous cape down in the basement, after all. This would do until I could get a better replacement.

Wind riffled the tall grass. The demon soldiers around me took another step backward, weapons pointed at me. Most trembled, quivering with tension... no, with fear.

I looked to their mistress. “DIRE IS GOING TO WALK ACROSS THIS FIELD AND BEAT YOU UNTIL CANDY COMES OUT,” I told her. “ANY QUESTIONS?”

“You, you, you...” she’d gone pale. “I have an army!”

“THEY BLEED.” I flicked the blood from my gauntlet, and spattered the nearest bronze shield. The creature holding it hissed and backed away three steps. “THEY DIE.” I’d actually talked this situation over with Manuel. Apparently he wasn’t so harsh about killing nonhumans. A little hypocritical, I thought, but whatever. I could work with that. “AND THEY ARE INSUFFICIENT TO STOP DIRE.”

“Kill her!” Lust shrieked, pointing at me with one perfectly manicured hand. Her black hair twisted in the wind, as she fell back behind her bodyguards.

For a second no one moved.

Then I walked forward, at an unhurried pace, and everyone moved.

They came for me with spears, and I scattered them with golden light and knocked them asunder. They came for me with swords that glowed white and the missiles did for them. They launched arrows at a speed no human could match and my forcefield flickered and flared like a pulsing sun, blinding the nearest and making them easy prey for a casual backhand or a quick blast. They came for me with those big fiery worm dragon things, and it turned out that my heat-seeking missiles had no problem locking on to those ginormous beasties.

They died, and they died, and they died, and blue bodies, brass-armored corpses, and red blood covered the grass behind me as I walked.

It wasn’t entirely a curbstomp. Some of them managed to get a strike or two in before they died, and a few slower arrows didn’t trigger the forcefield. They ripped up my outer layers a bit, but I could handle it. Rough calculations told me she hadn’t brought near enough of an army to stop me from my objective. I’d make it there with functionality to spare.

“MAESTRO SENT YOU OUT HERE WITH NO INTEL, NO WAY TO TAKE HER OUT, AND NO HOPE. WHY DO YOU SERVE THE WRETCH?” I asked her, as I casually grabbed one of the braver spearmen,  threw him at a dragon-thing, tangling its wings and sending it crashing into a cluster of archers.

“Go to hell!” Lust stepped out and glared at me. “Maestro’s great!” She darted back before I could draw a bead on her.

Those were exactly the words Vector had used. Same facial expression and everything. “You get that footage, Alpha?”

“Oh yeah. This might help. I’m trying to talk the guy out of a bad headspace right now.”

I smiled, and in the rear cam of my HUD, I saw the heroes charging forward. Finally! With them piling in, we could probably get to Lust before she managed to adjust her powers or whatever the hell it was she was doing.

Unfortunately, she seemed to realize the same thing. I saw her rise up on top of the palanquin, snapped off a shot toward her, but her slaves swayed, moving her out of the way. Then two more of the fire wyrms were on me, and I lost time killing them. She cupped her hands and yelled.

“Men! Turn on your allies!” Her voice had that wibbly feel to it, and a wave of... something, passed through my mind. Rough magic, that, whatever it was. She followed it up with words in a language I didn’t know.

And sure enough, that stopped the heroes. I spared them a glance in between battling phalanxes, and saw Leo tearing at Miss Maskelyne, with a frightened Lady Thrush holding him back, as the Green Knight and Punching Judy danced a deadly dance. She didn’t hold back, hands glowing with chi as she punched holes in his bark-covered form, holes that sealed about as fast as she made them.

I had just a second to realize that I didn’t see Acertijo, and then he was on me. Realization slammed into me about as he did, hitting low and aiming for the joints in my knees, trying to tumble me over.

He damn near succeeded. I staggered, recovered, and his rapier licked out, stabbing for the joints and the gouges the demons had left in my armor.

Shit. Of all the times for an inconvenient mind-control...

“Oh-ho! What’s this!” Lust called out across the battlefield. “That’s one suspicion confirmed. And oh, the chains of desire I see between you... you more than him, mind. Always fun when lovers kill each oth— ack!”

She ducked the blast I sent at her head. But Acertijo used the opportunity to slip in, and dig his rapier through a spear-scratch, into the lower layers. With a pop, blue gel spurted free, and one of my yellow damage indicators flickered into life, on the left-hand side of my HUD. I flexed my arm and snapped the rapier, but he somersaulted back before I could grab him.

“Come on man, snap out of it,” I whispered into the vox. “This is just embarrassing.”

He danced around me, darting back and forth, looking for an opportunity. No response. No hope or help there.

“Such a fine champion should have a proper blade!” Lust called, and followed it up with orders in that weird tongue again. One of her demon soldiers tossed him a glowy sword, and he caught it, hilt-first, with the ease of a practiced duelist.

That was a problem. Those things could hurt me. And I couldn’t return the favor, without hurting Acertijo. A leaden feeling filled my gut, but I fought it down. We both knew the score, going into this. We both knew we’d have to make sacrifices, going up against Maestro. I’d make it up to him afterward, and maybe he’d understand. Maybe.

I leveled my gauntlets at him, and unleashed both particle beams at thirty-percent charge. I’d start light, try to avoid any permanent damage.

Five seconds later, I upped them to fifty percent.

Ten seconds later I was scrambling backward, damage warnings flaring.

Twenty seconds later, I was realizing just how much trouble my hubris had gotten me into.

This was what Acertijo did. His fighting style was built completely around avoidance and dirty fighting. The man was always going up against foes who were bigger, stronger, and tougher. He trained obsessively to avoid, evade, and anticipate incoming hits, and deal out as much as he could in return to the weak points of hard targets. Pair that with some kind of magical bullshit sword that could cut through my armor a bit at a time, and the inescapable and galling conclusion was plain to both of us.

I was losing.

I kicked in the gravitics, darted upwards to get a breather, and he curled himself, leaped six feet into the goddamn air, and swung the blade double-handed in a wide arc. I gasped as it sheered a chunk out of the bottom of my boot... and the rightmost gravitic thruster.

I fell from the sky, wincing as I rattled in my harness, thanking the heavens that I’d installed impact gel cushioning. Desperate, I called up the forcefield and set it to solid, putting it a foot around myself. Just in time too, as he was across and after me and slashing down with relentless strength. My field flared again and again, hard light holding back mystical energies as I saw the demons around us peel back. They were cheering, watching the show like a gladiatorial exhibition from older days.

I watched the field’s output, and sighed. Immovable object was winning against irresistible force, for the minute at least. But I was stuck, unable to move until I dispersed the field to a more diffused setting. Which I couldn’t do with Acertijo hacking at me.

I ran through my options. Not many good nonlethal ones. I’d have to touch him to use the taser, and his blade was bronze. Not very conductive. Couldn’t give him a hit and zap him that way. I didn’t have any concussion missiles left, thanks to taking on the army. Couldn’t hit him with a particle beam, he was too dodgy. Even at widest spread, I’d need some distraction, or something to give me an edge if I wanted a prayer at landing a shot.

I wasn’t packing anything else non-lethal enough to take him down without risking death. And I wasn’t willing to make that sacrifice. I’d lost enough friends, in the few years that I could recall. Be damned if I’d lose my first boyfriend like this.

Lust. Lust was the key, here. I didn’t know much about magic, but I doubted that a quick little mind control zotz like what she whipped out was very strong on the mojo-meter.

Her laugh rolled across the battlefield again, snooty and spoiled, and I gritted my teeth. I barely knew her, and I hated her.

And that gave me an idea. “Alpha? Dire’s going to need to talk to Vector.”

“What? I just got him through the first wave of triggers! He’s like half-deprogrammed. I think. This is some screwy stuff.”

“Do it. We can go and un-zap the rest of him later.”

“Well, you’re the boss. Gimme a bit.”

The seconds crawled, and I didn’t waste them. I couldn’t do much to Acertijo, or attack anyone else with the forcefield configured like this, but I could and did reroute damaged functionality to redundant circuitry. This suit didn’t have the repair-drone swarms that my previous one had, but it had a few internal mechanisms that allowed rudimentary patching.

Twenty-three seconds passed, in all, before Vector got on the vox. He sounded groggy, and I sympathized. Rough days were no fun, even when I was the one delivering them. “What the hell do you want from me now?”

“Lust,” I said.

“Okay, number one, who the hell is this and if you want that I’m not in much of a shape to help you out there, lady.”

I closed my eyes and sighed. “This is Dire, unmodulated. She’s fighting Lust. Is Lust as much of an asshole to you as she is to her enemies?”

“Huh. Holy shit, you actually sound normal. That’s going to help with my therapy bills, maybe. But yeah, Lust is a bitch. Stupid fucking magic half-fae magical girl who can make hormones dance with a gesture. Doesn’t make any scientific sense!”

“Dire knows, believe her, she knows. So how do you unbind some poor male sunovabitch who she’s bound?”

“Why should I tell you that?”

“Alpha, tear his thumbs off.”

“Whoa whoa whoa no—”

“We’ve got no time to dick around here. There’s a hero’s life on the line.”

“You care about that? Oh hey, let go of my hands! No, wait!”

“Hold off, Alpha,” I instructed. “Sorry for the rough treatment, but she’d like to take the guy out non-lethally and he’s not returning the favor. You know how it is.”

A bit of silence. “Yeah,” he said, voice heavy. “Yeah I do. I wish I didn’t.”

Heroes and villains had developed a dichotomy, as the social order sought to integrate superpowered people and bright costumes into the fabric of reality. Rules had developed, written and unwritten. Heroes don’t kill... except that wasn’t precisely true. So long as a hero didn’t kill civilians or other heroes, the occasional accident against a villain is overlooked. And if the target is a killer themselves, then the ‘accident’ is rarely scrutinized. And the rules said nothing about maiming or permanent injuries, or casual use of potentially lethal force. Most of the heroes who’d been in the business for a while try to reign in the hotheads, but don’t always succeed. From what I’d studied, the nineties had been the last example of that; dark heroes everywhere, grim crimefighters who didn’t care about collateral... and messy business all around.

On the villain side, you pretty much had to use kid gloves against heroes. If you didn’t, then you’d get branded a killer or a butcher, and the reasonable heroes would turn a blind eye as the more brutal heroes hunted you down. It was by no means an equitable situation, but for the moment, it was something we all had to work around. And on the whole, it did lead to fewer fatalities or career-ending injuries than the alternative.

“So tell Dire the secret,” I voxed. “How do you break Lust’s charm spell or whatever fucking Dankness and Dragons effect she’s throwing around here?”

“I think it’s more like a suggestion spell, if you want to get technical about it. Uh... well, I did do some research on her, mainly because I trusted her about as much as a polecat in heat.”

“Going to assume that means not very.”

“Pretty much. Okay. She’s got fae magic and shit. True names are a big thing, there, from what the experts I’ve talked to tell me. Do you know the hero’s real name?”

“Yes!”

“Good one. Okay, use it and try to talk him down. And good luck.”

“Cool, thanks. Alpha, get his head de-scrambled the rest of the way. Going to wrap this up shortly.”

“Wait, let’s talk about—”

I clicked over to Acertijo’s channel. “Manuel Dijimenez.”

He flinched backward, reached a hand up under his mask, and I heard static over the vox as he yanked his earbud free.

Well okay, that was an encouraging reaction. I straightened up and held out a hand, palm up. “FIGHT THIS. THIS ISN’T YOU.”

He stood there, goggles locked on me, sword drawn back, point aimed right for my chest. Right at where my head really was, in the suit. For the first time, I regretted telling him about that little trick.

Fuck, no help for it. With the vox down I’d have to say it out loud. “MANUEL DIJIMENEZ. BREAK FREE OF HER CHARM! FIGHT THE COMPULSION!”

The battlefield stilled. The heroes still squabbled in the back, but they were out of it. The demon soldiers turned, looking from me to Acertijo.

Acertijo shook.

The tip of the sword dipped down. And he dropped it, to the bloody grass, as he clutched his head.

I turned my attention to Lust, as I let the forcefield fade, building up a massive blast. “TIME TO FINISH THIS”

“I quite agree,” Lust purred. “Now, my new pet.”

And Acertijo moved, fast and in my peripheral vision, stomping the hilt of the fallen sword and kicking it up to his hands, as he lunged towards me.

I half-turned toward him, and that’s all that saved me. With the force of his weight behind it the blade dug into the most severe of the gashes, sending sparks flying as it cleaved through layer after layer. Red damage reports filled my HUD and I screamed, and the sword burst through the harness, narrowly missing my eye.

A cold line across my left temple. Pain, and wetness running down onto my ear.

He’d cut me.

Colder still was the realization that I’d failed, and the knowledge why I’d failed.

He’d lied to me. Acertijo had lied to me. Manuel Dijimenez wasn’t his true name.

Señor Acertijo had never trusted me enough to tell me his real name.

I brought my arm around, sparking and whining as the servos ground, working through the catastrophic damage my armor had just taken, and I unleashed upon him the blast I’d charged up for Lust. He flew back, crumpled on the ground, and didn’t move. Alive, dead, I was beyond caring as I got my shaking gauntlet around the hilt, grasped the sword, and tore it free from the armor.

I stared at it, blood running down the blade. My blood. Fuck that, I remembered I was up against a magician and dropped the blade, before disintegrating it with a tight burst, blood and all.

Then I turned back to Lust. “NOW,” I roared, my chest burning with rage, my throat choked and tears unshed bubbling up under my eyes, “WHERE WERE WE?”

“Oh, he’s a keeper all right,” Lust chuckled. “Not for you, but for me, I think. Since you seem to enjoy swordfights so much, I think I’ll let my other toy finish you off. I’m getting bored of him anyway.” She snapped her fingers and faded back into the crowd of her guards, as they parted to let a short figure through.

This one was not a demon. It was shorter than I stood when unarmored, clad in a green tunic and pants, with a bloodstained white hooded overcoat. A leather bandolier of vials striped diagonally across the tunic, and his black boots bore him forward, inexorably, to where I stood on the field. His sword was curved, and his face bore a scowling silver mask that reminded me of my own. But instead of empty eye sockets his own peered out from behind the mask, glazed and full of pain.

And I knew him. I straightened up as he approached, bringing the sword up, and pulling a vial from his bandolier with his free hand.

“HELLO JANISSARY. DIDN’T EXPECT TO SEE YOU HERE.”

He stopped, just for a second. I leaned into him, and took the second biggest gamble I’d taken today. “IS THIS WHAT GOD WANTS OF YOU, KHALID BASARAN?” He dropped the sword, dropped the vial onto the soft grass, and clapped his hands to his head. I took that as a good sign. “FIGHT IT! KHALID! BREAK FREE OF THE SPELL!”

The Janissary screamed, wrenched the mask from his face, and collapsed.

“You total bitch!” Lust shrieked. “You think this will help you? I’ve finished calibrating the spell for women now, and you—”

I analyzed the tactical possibilities, weighed the risks, came to a horrible conclusion, and knew I couldn’t stay. I grabbed Khalid, and triggered the emergency teleporter. The world faded out in a burst of light before she could finish her sentence or throw any spells my way.

We’d taken down Envy, but Lust had won the field. And oh gods, the cost.

CHAPTER 10: CATCHING UP WITH OLD FRIENDS

“One asks, sometimes, what I do with the time in between crises. I answer, quite honestly, that there is never any time between crises. There are simply crises occurring that one does not always see at the time they happen.”

--Suspected metahuman known as the Last Janissary, during a discussion with MRB agent Rook

I faded in to the middle of the workshop, and let the Janissary fall to the floor. Alpha looked up from a converted chair that had electronics hanging from every part of it. Our spare television had gone into the machinery, and  the screen showed a human brain, with glaring red spots through it.

“In the fucking amygdala, too?” Vector was the chair’s occupant, and he was fiddling with a video game controller, shifting the view around the dots, analyzing them and twiddling buttons. “No wonder I feel so angry!”

I looked at Alpha. “YOU’RE LETTING HIM DEPROGRAM HIS OWN BRAIN?”

“He’s better at it than I am.” Alpha spread his arms. “Whoa, you look like you tried to french kiss a woodchipper and it went in for second base. And who the hell is that?”

“THE NEXT CANDIDATE FOR THE CHAIR. DID YOUR MAKER EVER MENTION THE LAST JANISSARY?”

Alpha’s arms fell to his side. “That’s him?” He squatted down. “Thought he’d be taller.”

“JUDGE HIM BY HIS SIZE, DO YOU?”

Vector snorted, then winced as the machines beeped. “Ow. Don’t make me laugh when I’m poking my brain.”

“Okay. I’ll get him strapped down until Vector’s done. So what’s the plan to rescue Acertijo?”

“HIS TRANSPONDER. PULL HIM THROUGH.”

Alpha tilted his head. “Shit. Sorry, no can do. He just went off the grid.”

“HOW?”

“No idea.”

The tension drained from me, and with the release came anger. Anger at betrayal.

“How are we gonna save Man—” he shot a glance at Vector.

“DON’T BOTHER.”

“Boss?”

“HIS NAME’S NOT MANUEL DIJIMENEZ.”

“What?”

“HE LIED. HE LIED TO DIRE ABOUT HIS— ABOUT HIS FUCKING NAME.”

“Oh. Oh shit.”

The emotions I’d been holding at bay during the battle swooped in, and I shut off the armor feedback, let my body tremble in the harness. I cried, freely, behind my mask. I cried because I’d trusted him, and he hadn’t trusted me. I cried because I’d left him behind to gods knew what sort of torture and pain and I couldn’t trust myself enough to say that his betrayal hadn’t been a factor. I didn’t think I could have saved him, not before Lust cast her spell on me. But there would always be that doubt in my heart.

It had been a twelve-percent chance in the end, that was my analysis. Heroes could get away with those sorts of odds. Me, with my shitty luck? No. And with heroes nearby, my standard anti-mind-control measures wouldn’t work. Too much chance of collateral.

Heroes nearby. That was my big hope. Ironic, and aggravating, though it was. Queensguard were too big, too noticeable for Lust to enslave like she had apparently managed with Khalid. Hopefully they’d prevent her from quietly disposing of Acertijo until I could find a way to save him.

After a minute, I pulled myself together. The side of my head was throbbing like a fucker, and the dampness on my ear had spread down my neck. Time to do something about that. I knelt and popped the armor release, and Alpha immediately ran over. “Oh shit!”

“Looks worse than it is,” I told him, straightening up. “Probably.”

“So this is you?” Vector asked, glancing at me. The machinery beeped again. “Ow! Shit! Why the hell does this even hurt? I don’t have anything in my brain that’s capable of registering pain!”

“That fits Dire’s design principles,” I told him, pulling my hair aside while Alpha went and got the first aid kit. “Doing stupid stuff gets you hurt.”

“Very villainous. I approve in principle, but in practice it’s kind of annoying.” He moved his gaze back to the screen. “I think I’ve got most of them.”

“Probably best to have Alpha double check that.”

“Sure, sure. You’re the host and I’m the guest. Take any precaution you want.”

Alpha returned, and got to treating the wound. I hissed as he sprayed it with something, and leaned against the wall, clenching my teeth, while he got busy with a needle and thread.

“Head wounds are the worst,” Vector said. “They bleed like a son-of-a-bitch.” He fiddled with the controller one last time, and sat it down. “Done. Ready for your review, Doctor.”

“Alpha?” My minion nodded and went to go check it over.”

“You don’t want to look at it personally?” Vector took off his broken spectacles, and regarded me with surprise.

“It’s a long story.” I didn’t want to tell him of my weakness with biology. The guy had some trust to earn before I’d admit that sort of problem. “Can we come to a truce, until the business with Maestro M and the Sins is done?”

He sighed. “Yes. If nothing else I owe you, and I’m not confident of my ability to escape his reach without your help. Pretty much every asset I have or had, he knows about. In a lot of cases they’re managed through his people. He’s got a lot of people.”

I pulled a chair over. “The more you can tell her, the easier it’ll be to get our vengeance.”

“Okay, that verbal tic of yours is really distracting in person. Chaingang told me it was involuntary, but I didn’t believe him at the time.”

“Dire hasn’t thought about that guy in a while.” I blinked, as I remembered his disturbing power. Conjoined clones was the best way to describe it. “What was his story, anyway? Whatever happened to him? Is he around? We could use him.” I could put up with grotesque if it got us an edge.

“Not much of one. He wanted superpowers, I needed a henchman I could trust. I augmented him with a series of symbionts, that got close enough to what he wanted.”

“So you actually gave him superpowers?”

“No! Gods, no. Basically it’s like his body is an organic suit of power armor, and I’m really drawing an analogy here. Naturally-gained powers don’t usually have limits, you know this, right?”

“Of course. So he needed an energy source to get his trick to work?”

“Solar, and stored reserves of highly refined proteins and starches. He ate like you wouldn’t believe. Towards the end of it I had to tweak his digestion so he could graze like a cow. God, the bitching over that. But I just couldn’t afford to spend so much on takeout every day.” He rubbed his head. “Anyway the Metahumn Resource Bureau scooped him up after our last encounter. They put him wherever the hell they put villains.”

“So no help from that angle. Alright, it was a long shot anyway.” My eyes fell on the Janissary. “This might be a better shot, though. Alpha, get him hooked up to the machine. Vector, can you do a brainscan, look for triggers?”

The scrawny scientist nodded. “Sure. Who is this, anyway?”

“This is the Last Janissary.”

“Who?”

“He’s a supernatural troubleshooter. An immortal alchemist who wanders around, hunting monsters and saving people in his off time.”

“A hero?” Vector’s face was almost comical in its alarm. “Hang on a minute, here. No good usually comes of this sort of association.”

“Not a hero. More of a gray area, and smart enough to stay under the radar. He was doing his thing long before the current costumed paradigm, and he’ll probably be doing it for many years to come. He’s more good than hero.”

“Well. I can’t promise much, but I can try to get him free. If Maestro’s got him, should be doable. Just a quick run-through, like mine, and some synapse realignment. If Lust had him bound by something more than a simple charm, I can’t make any promises.”

“Not asking for them. Just try your best.” I rubbed my face. “Fucking magic. Janissary has more expertise there; we’ll need him on board.”

“An immortal alchemist.” Vector licked his lips. “I don’t mind the chance to study an honest-to-god immortal, I tell you that much.” He looked at me sideways again. “Something’s not adding up, though. You’re in this for revenge? Is this really all about vengeance? That’s usually not one of my main priorities, honestly. Survival’s more my thing.”

“Not just about vengeance.” I took a deep breath, and let it out. There were puzzles here that I wouldn’t crack without help. And loathe as I was to admit it, this was a biological problem at the core. “Maestro’s cracked the metahuman creation code.”

“What do you... oh. Oh.” Vector’s eyes went wide. He swallowed hard, and looked away. “You know, I’ve been looking into some deep space transhuman mods. For colonization.”

“No, Dire’s not running. Not turning the world over to Maestro M, either.”

“If he’s cracked the code we wouldn’t get far, anyway. So tell me about it.”

I told Vector about Maestro’s metahuman farm, and the rare radiation exposure and sophisticated tortures he used to induce superpowers. As I spoke Vector’s face grew more and more somber, and toward the end he bolted to the nearest wastebasket and emptied his stomach.

Alpha walked over, patted him on the back. “Easy. You didn’t know any of this.”

“I should have. Should have known it was too good to be true.” Vector spat, and I went and got him some juice. After he rinsed his mouth, he shook his head. “God damn it. The black market mods and custom pets are bad enough, at least there people knew what they were getting into. What you’re talking about here, that’s war crimes. That’s dead villain, grim heroes, and nobody asking questions business.”

I smiled. “And given the Maestro’s usual methods of putting his mind-twisted puppets out to do his dirty work, who do you figure is going to take the fall if this comes to light?”

“Me, naturally. It even fits with my usual method of operations... well, it would if I was entirely devoid of conscience and a thoroughly horrible person. I like to think I’m not. Just mostly horrible.”

I had to give him that. Granted, he’d caused more than his share of deaths, but from what I could see they’d all been accidental. Didn’t excuse any of them, but it didn’t make him deserve to be the fall guy for a far worse villain.

“So those heroes you were treating for radiation problems...”

Vector sighed. “Villains, too. And a few civilians, here and there. All clandestine, yes.”

“What you said back in the lab, was that true? You really didn’t keep any files or records, or examine them closely?”

Vector smiled, a small grimace that would have been at home on a weasel. “I may have been stretching the truth a bit there, just in case anyone else was listening.”

I answered with my own carnivorous grin. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“Maybe, maybe not. The heroes were genuine heroes. A few of the villains checked out too, though most of them were from elsewhere, and you know how it is.”

I did know. Villains who stayed under the radar weren’t as well known as the heroes they fought. The media had also realized the dangers of promoting villains, back in the eighties, and now worked to minimize coverage unless necessary. Usually they’d only be mentioned in generalities as “so-and-so hero group’s enemies this week...”

“What about the civilians you treated?” I mused.

Vector shrugged. “I would have had to go through Maestro’s people to check that sort of thing. Since he was the one setting it up, it would have been kind of silly. Besides, at that point I trusted him implicitly.” He scowled. “Insidious little bastard. Really, I only looked into the heroes and villains because I was curious, and because I don’t get enough chances to study metahumans.” He worked as he spoke, hooking up the electronics around the Janissary’s form, and poking at the interface. Alpha helped him calibrate the mind control device, now turned into an anti-malware application for brains.

So possibly only a few of the blanks had gone through Vector’s treatments. Still, I couldn’t see Maestro M offering any form of altruism to heroes or rivals, not even if money was involved.

I rubbed my forehead, grimaced as my wound flared up with pain. Now that the adrenaline was leaking out of me, I was feeling the rigors of the day. I directed my armor into the repair cylinder, and leaned against the wall for a moment.

“Boss?” Alpha asked. “You want to get some rest?”

“Too much to do.”

“Yeah, and if you let us work for a while, you’ll be on a better footing when we do move. I can get started integrating the circuitry into new boxes and creating my kids.”

“What is this now?” Vector perked up.

Alpha took his shoulders and gently pointed him back towards the Janissary. “Focus. You debug him; I’ll do my thing, and we’ll give the boss some space. Boss?”

In my earlier days I would have ignored him and gone back to work twice as hard, pushing myself to the physical limit and ignoring all else but the task at hand. But taking a second to reflect, I realized that I wasn’t in great shape. The wound was nothing, I’d had far worse in my time. Inside, though, I was a mess. Emotions swirled as I thought of Manuel who wasn’t Manuel, and of my defeat at Lust’s hands.

“Yes. You’re right. Let her know when you’re done,” I said, and made my way to the elevator before I could crumble.

I didn’t crumble, though. And that was maybe worse.

Instead, I found myself wandering from bedroom to kitchen to living room, looking at the things we’d left lying around. Last night’s dishes in the sink, still there, where I’d planned to rinse them eventually. A discarded political magazine over there, where Manuel-who-wasn’t-Manuel had a good long read about the Prime Minister’s latest tiff with Parliament. A few strides took me to the window and the London skyline, with the sun high in the sky, and the busy, full streets below. People scampering like mice, scrambling from minute to minute, heads full of their own lives, barely noticing the city around them. Then back to the bedroom to look at the neatly-made bed, sheets cleaned religiously every week whether they needed it or not, a book by the bedside where I’d left it, taken my time reading page by page at a slow rate for once, savoring the story.

Our things.

Our lives.

False, true, but real as any I’d known.

We’d built this together, he and I over the last few months. Sailed to distant shores together on a too-small boat, used my technological expertise and hacking skills to ease our path in on arrival. False lives built bit by bit, infiltration and acquisition of resources, and nights spent sleeping together. Strangers in a strange land, both of us, and I begged a silent pardon from Heinlein for thinking it. London, this old city, this stern-but-lively city, had been ours to discover and fit into.

Before this, I’d only known Icon City as a proper metropolis. London put Icon City to shame. So many people, so much history, ancient monuments standing rough-hewn cradled by buildings that had survived war after war, survived terrorism and supervillains and economic woes and discontent. A city that had room for everyone, somewhere, so long as they could find the rhythm and ease themselves into it. Yet always with its own customs, its own little quirks that never let you forget you were not in familiar territory.

It hadn’t all been smooth. But we’d met it together.

I put my hand against the bedroom window, leaned on it, and pressed my forehead against the cool glass. Clouds moved over the sun. Rain coming in, I thought. It rained a lot here, and we were well past winter, into the moist part of spring.

We’d spent months here and Manuel lied to me about his name.

And that bothered me, most of all because I didn’t know why.

What I thought we had, even if we both knew love was out of the equation, was a relationship based on mutual respect and truthfulness. And he’d broken that, by lying about his name, yes, but it wasn’t the lie that bothered me. I figured he’d lie at some point, and I forgave him that.

Was it that he felt he had to lie at all?

That was closer to it. Yes, that felt right. He’d spent months with me, I’d openly and happily told him all about myself and my plans, and let him in on my secrets and tricks of the trade. He hadn’t done the same, not as much, but enough that we laughed together at the funny stories, and I lent him a shoulder to hug when he brought up the bad times. Why would he lie to me? He had to know I wouldn’t use it against him.

The glass warmed under my brow, and I puffed air, filling it with obscuring white. He had to know, but he didn’t. He didn’t have faith in me. He didn’t accept that I was a good person, at the end of it. That was it, wasn’t it? At the end of the day I was still a villain by society’s reckoning, and he’d bought into the lie. Bought into the notion that I couldn’t do anything that wasn’t bad.

Shit.

Maybe he was right.

I heard motion behind me, pulled away from the glass. Alpha stood in the doorway, silent.

“How long were you there?”

“Twenty-two seconds.”

“Mm.” I sat on the bed. “This has turned into a fairly horrible day.”

“We’ll get him back.”

“That’s not what she was angsting about.”

“No?”

I took a breath. “Maestro won’t kill him. Worst case he’ll be a hostage for a while.” I hoped that was the case. Still, it fit with what I knew of Maestro M.

“It is a worst-case scenario. I’ve been keeping an ear on the news. They’re calling it a villainous attack on Queensguard, up in Manchester. The team got out of there, Leo and Thrush too. No word on Acertijo.”

“As usual, he is a riddle.”

Alpha snorted. It sounded weird, coming from him. “So if that’s not your worry, then what is?”

“Pretty sure it’s done. Any relationship we might have had. Not that it would have lasted long past Maestro’s end, but still—” I swallowed. “It still hurts.”

He sat next to me, put a skeletal robotic arm around my shoulders. I leaned into him, and shut my eyes. No tears. Just a dull ache, and the throbbing of my wounded temple.

I enjoyed it, but my mood turned black again for a very stupid reason. “This isn’t like the bodice rippers. All those romance stories lied.”

“People like the pretty lies, I’ve found.” He squeezed my shoulder. “You’re the harsh truth.”

“Acertijo just couldn’t see Dire as she needed him to see her. Yes, that sounds like the truth of it.” I sighed, and tapped his hand. He released me and I stood, stretching my arms and hearing joints crack as the tension drained. “Alright. We’ll regroup, rescue his ass, then Dire will break up with him. Gonna get a power nap. Wake her when Janissary’s deprogrammed.”

“Sure thing, Boss.” He left, I flopped on the bed and closed my eyes, and the next thing I knew, he was shaking me awake. Rain spattered down against the window. London had gone gray again, as she so often did, sky and wet concrete and a sea of umbrellas below.

I missed Acertijo and I hated that.

Speaking of... “Any change with the transponder?”

“No.”

For them to be able to neutralize it so quickly... that was troublesome. It implied that they had more insight into my technology and operations than I had planned for at this stage. “Vector and Janissary?”

“Talking shop. Arguing about phlogiston.”

“Joy.” I changed into casual clothes, and found my way downstairs.

They were having tea. That made me smile. Both men looked up and put cups down as I arrived. Khalid stood, but his face turned from a weary smile to a mask of confusion. “Your face is not the one I remember.”

Vector froze, reaching toward his pocket. “Uh-uh,” Alpha said, sliding up to him with a whisper of metal. “It’s cool, be cool.”

I ignored them, catching the Last Janissary’s eyes and holding them. “It’s a long and sad story. Dire stands before you, do not doubt that.”

“It would be folly and unseemly for a guest to doubt a host so, particularly when she comes as if sent by the heavens.” The confusion faded, and Khalid offered a smile. “I am glad I used my real name for a change, those years when I first met you.”

“Isn’t that dangerous in magical circles?” Vector squinted. “I’m no expert, but most of the research I’ve done seems to indicate that.”

“It can be if one has no other precautions.” Khalid ran a brown hand through his short, black hair. “But only against certain creatures or spells. Alas, while I had prepared against that, my preparation in other areas was lacking.”

“What happened?” I asked, moving to the teapot they’d stolen from my workbench, and taking a cup for myself.

“That is also a long and sad story. But I can perhaps encapsulate it in a single phrase: I came prepared to hunt for demons, and ran into fae.”

“You mentioned she was half-fae,” I looked to Vector.

“Oh yeah. That’s part of her method. She plays up the infernal angle, but every magical thing she’s got is faerie or part faerie, or related to faerie. Including her. I’ve lost track of the demon hunters she’s managed to snag with that angle.” He rolled his eyes.

“I, alas, was one of them for a time.” Janissary shook his head. “Foolish. But unlike the others, I had resilience and knowledge she desired. So she kept me, bound me with strong enchantments and primal magic. I have been fighting her a very long time, weakening her hold with every action. Your naming was the last rung of the ladder I required to pull myself free.” He offered me a bow that wouldn’t be out of place in an ancient court. “I am forever at your service.”

“Let’s not be too hasty,” I waved at him to straighten up. “Friends don’t need to trade favors. Although Dire could certainly use your help in rescuing Señor Acertijo.”

“The swordsman who opposed you? Your ally, going by the phrasing. Yes, of course. Best done quickly, he’s just the sort to catch her eye.” Khalid started to speak, frowned. “And fill her bed, at least for a time.”

That bothered me. Not because I was jealous, but because what he was talking about was essentially rape. And because it raised questions about her and Khalid, questions that I didn’t have to be a supergenius to answer.

I liked Khalid. I owed Khalid my life. Khalid was a friend. And the thought of that half-dressed half-fae fully-vile temptress using him like a toy distressed me. Made me angry, the icy sort of anger that usually only quelled when the target of that anger was in pieces before me.

“Well,” I whispered. “Let’s get to her before she does that, or worse, hands him off to Maestro M.”

Khalid started in alarm. “Go to hell! Maestro’s great!”

Alpha, Vector, and I shared a look.

Two minutes later, we finally managed to subdue Khalid and get him back into the chair. Five minutes later, Vector found the appropriate spot in his brain, and a few more, and worked the machinery accordingly. Eight minutes later, I poured Khalid a fresh cup of tea, as Vector blustered apologies. “What? I was scanning for her work, not Maestro’s. Give me a break, I’m dealing with a hell of a headache, here.”

“Nevermind,” I muttered. “Alright. So, let’s talk about saving Acertijo.”

“You will, of course, have my assistance. I will need supplies if I am to be of use to you,” Khalid said. “You probably have some of the chemicals I require here, but perhaps not refined in the ways I need.”

I nodded, came to a snap decision. “Make up a list. Dire will handle it.”

“I can do that, boss.”

I glanced over at Alpha. “You need to finish work on your kids. Unless they’re done already?”

“Well... no.”

“Kids?” Khalid raised bushy eyebrows.

“Long story. Alpha can tell you. Besides, Dire needs the walk anyway.” I stood and cracked my knuckles. The cold, rainy gray matched my mood right now. And I needed to get away from the apartment that we’d shared, for so long. Needed to get my boyfriend off my mind.

After some discussion Khalid got me a list, which I memorized and tossed away the second I was out of the room. Then it was on with a raincoat and umbrella, out the door, and into the heart of London.

That’s where everything went horribly wrong.

CHAPTER 11: EVERYTHING GOES HORRIBLY WRONG

“Harrods has the finest merchandise, and a guaranteed one-of-a-kind shopping experience! At Harrods you'll get everything you deserve, and more!”

--Rejected Advertisement for Harrods, the famous London retail store, circa 1972

The place was called Harrods, and it was pretty much the fanciest department store I’d ever been in. It had merchandise of the highest quality, endless halls of fancy stuff, and it also had automated credit check systems that were easy as hell to hack, at least at my level of expertise. Which is very, very important when you’re buying out their entire stock of chemistry sets. In today’s world where bathtub meth is a sad reality, the authorities tend to take a fairly close look at anyone who does that sort of thing. But a fake background as a chemistry teacher, and a flash of a forged charter from an accredited, unquestionable private school settled their nerves to my satisfaction.

That’s the advantage of luxury places. They don’t ask as many questions, and they’re used to finicky, wealthy clientele. I didn’t have to get into long discussions where I ran the risk of exposing my speech impediment. These are the woes you have to put up with when your alchemist needs a certain grade of sulfur fast, and it’s too late in the day for your usual source of chemicals.

I arranged delivery to one of the drop points I’d established in the city, tapped my credit card on the reader, then froze.

Past the freestanding teddy bear display, a clean-shaven man in a business suit was staring at me. His phone to his ear, he listened, nodding, then took a picture of me.

“Is there anything else we can do for you, Miss Jenks?”

“No, no, thank you,” I said. “Please ensure prompt delivery. You know how these things go, surprise projects and all.” I smiled, and turned as she opened her mouth to bid me a good day. A bit rude, but no help for it. I didn’t like what I saw in that stranger’s eyes.

And in the glass of the display case ahead, I watched as he followed me, not bothering to try and hide his interest.

I kept my steps unhurried, moved to the stairs in the northern part of the toy section, easing through the crowd as if I didn’t have a care in the world. But even if I didn’t, he did. He stepped up the pace, actually bumped into a kid and knocked the pre-schooler over.

That was when I knew it was serious. That was the height of rudeness, and something that just wasn’t done. Not here. Not by a man in his social stratum. I wasn’t the only one to feel that way, and people turned, started yelling at him. He ignored them and bolted for me and I bolted too, making it to the stairs—

—and skidding to a stop as I saw the couple below, waiting for me, phones to their ears and smiling. Behind them, people were urging them to move, a store associate was threatening to call security, the people on the stairs were stuck unable to get down, and they didn’t seem to give a shit about their utter rudeness. The woman even waved, grinned a cheeky grin, and pointed behind me.

I slipped a hand inside my raincoat, found my forcefield generator, and flipped it on. The people nearest me twitched and looked around, feeling the weird crawling sensation that the electron field gave when it powered up. I kept my face neutral and they glanced around... and focused on the suited man, who by this time was straight-arming people out of the way, coming right for me.

I eyed him, braced myself, and calculated the angles. Catch his arm, twist, then a hip-throw straight down the stairs should just miss the crowd and land him in that glass case down in the gift shop—

“Doctor!” He called, slowing as he came near, offering his phone. “It’s for you! It’s an emergency!”

I eyed the phone. I’d killed someone over the phone, once. Targeted sonics, and, well, splat. “Going to transfer you to her phone, there.” I pulled out one of my prepared burners, and held it out. The smiling man tapped his phone to mine, synching up the carrier wave.

And on the screen, Maestro’s smiling face. “Hello Doctor. You’ve had quite an eventful day, hm? Doctor Dire’s big day, and all?”

“What do you want?”

“Lust and Envy back for a start. I don’t know what you did with them, but we’ll start with that.”

The seconds slowed, and time ground to its slowest setting as my mind raced into overtime, considering the angles, analyzing his meaning, and considering my best course of action.

Which was, simply enough, to play along.

“Well, you’re going to be disappointed. Didn’t come all this way to trade your minions like Sorcery cards.”

“You know, I rather expected you’d say that.” White teeth flashed. And the intercom whined to life around me, as the shoppers perked their heads up.

And I knew what was coming.

I threw the burner phone as far as it could go, turned and ran, slid down the staircase. The blocking pair at the bottom stretched out arms to stop me. I caught the man full in the chest with both feet. We went down in a heap but I recovered first, slammed my palm into his face until he let me go, and scrambled away as the woman grabbed at me. And the Maestro’s voice came over the intercom.

“Attention Harrod’s shoppers! Today we’re running a special on women with a red raincoat!”

Oh the bastard. Half of my toys were in its hidden pockets, I couldn’t discard the thing.

Screaming from behind me as I ran, people yelling for security, and I found the escalator blocked by a mob of angry-looking shoppers all holding their phones to their ears. I skidded, turned, and recalled the map I’d glanced over on my way in. Then it was into the bookshop and full tilt toward linens.

“It’s a nice coat, I’m sure you’ll agree!” Maestro M continued. “So find her and kill her for it.”

Total, total fucking bastard.

Everyone in the store that I could see started charging me, most screaming or yelling excuses or incoherent noise. I burst out of the book section, into linens, and hit the escalator from the side, leaping down onto the steps and praying I didn’t turn an ankle. I didn’t, but the landing hurt, and to my surprise I was breathing hard already. Months of the fake-housewife life, finally catching up to me. I was out of shape and paying for it.

I wasn’t afraid of dying here. That wasn’t going to happen, not unless I got stupid or horribly, terribly unlucky. What I was afraid of, was collateral damage to these poor brain-zapped bystanders. Because I knew what was going to happen here, the Maestro was going to soften me up with everyone he could throw at me, wipe their memories with a word, wipe any electronic records, then blame me for the chaos. His move with the police had shown the extent of his power. He doubtless had agents sprinkled throughout key positions of power and security.

And once he’d softened me up and taken care of his alibi, he’d send in the real heavy hitters. Worse, we were compromised. I didn’t know how, or the extent of the damage, but if he knew my secret identity I knew he had to know about the lair.

“Alpha!” I voxed, running down the escalator and bowling down a pair of security guards, “Under assault and compromised. Plan D.”

“What? Hang on, I’ll teleport you in.”

“No! He wouldn’t react well. She’s going to stall him.”

“You sure? I could at least port in some backup...”

“Positive. Whoops! Busy! Talk later.” I handled the dismount with ease, and kept running.

Once I hit the first floor I darted left, headed into the perfumery. I’d done well so far, but the architecture of the store was working against me. Big rooms, plenty of visibility meant few places to hide. Large, open archways provided no respite, no doors to shut against my pursuers. Couldn’t just blow a hole in the wall either, not in the middle of London. Someone would die, and that was entirely unacceptable. I had to get to a window or a door, and I knew Maestro M had covered the doors.

A hand closed around my arm, spun me around. I recalled my sparring practices with Acertijo, leaned into the spin, and swept the legs out from under a very surprised teenager wearing torn designer jeans. Into a perfume display he went, spraying glass and ambergris-based substances everywhere, and oh gods the smell as scents never meant to mix did just that.

And didn’t that give me an idea.

I spent a precious second digging out my pocket respirator, jammed it over my nose and mouth and popped the seal, then went on a rampage, slamming into the wall of groping hands surrounding me and knocking them into the merchandise. Bottles broke, vials shattered, and half the crowd backed off, coughing and retching. I hurdled a counter, punched a very surprised clerk, and started chucking bottles at the more strong-bellied of my would-be murderers.

“Can you patch me in?” Alpha asked.

“Sure.” I blinked until the HUD in my contact lenses activated, and kicked the clerk as she tried to jam a broken perfume bottle into my knee. Over the counter again and past the hurling, retreating crowd of my tormentors because a fresh wave was coming from the escalator, screaming after me like a gentrified Mongolian horde.

“Harrods? Seriously?”

“She didn’t choose the battlefield.”

“South to luxuries!”

“Way ahead of you!” I called back.

I darted around a crowd between me and the nearest window because of course they were, and dashed through a room full of faux-Egyptian architecture, with the god-awful tackiest sphinx statue I’d seen in my life grinning at me. I slowed, paid for it as I took a punch from a beefy guy who got too close. I rolled with it, tasted blood, came up with a metal stanchion. I hit him in the chest with the metal base, driving him back as the stanchion dragged the velvet ropes along and the other stanchions fell with a clatter, making a godawful racket.

“There she is!” a woman whooped, and I turned and ran, through the tasteful and the gaudy alike, feeling sweat pouring down my face. My eyes were burning as the perfume on my coat sent up what had to be a horrible reek, and my jaw smarted where the bastard had caught me. That was a chipped tooth at least, and a hell of a bruise either way.

I was doing better than I had any right to, really. They were fresh, and I was tiring fast. But the difference between me and the rest of the shoppers was vast in a lot of ways. I’d been through violence, fought for my life before, knew the fear and adrenaline and chaos of an actual fight. They were fighting like they thought they had to fight, like the movies and television and other media had taught them. I was a tiger among housecats. But there were so, so many housecats, and I had to keep my claws tucked in.

And there, showcasing the glory of a brand-new sports car, was a window and my freedom.

My hand dipped into my pocket, came out with my army pistol. Three shots, angled upward to avoid hitting the people outside, and three bullet holes weakened the points I needed weakened. Then it was holster the pistol, charge full speed, and leap and twist in midair, lifting my arms and tucking my head down and shoulder-checking the glass for all I was worth.

Distant screaming, at my gunshots I presumed. The discordant crash of shattering glass. Pain in my shoulder because it was a bit thicker than I’d estimated, and damned if I didn’t feel another line of pain across my unwounded temple. Couldn’t call it that any more, I supposed. Well at least I matched on both sides now. But I made it through the glass, so I counted it a victory. Through the glass, bouncing off something that yelped and gave way, then onto the pavement, rolling and feeling a fresh new crop of bruises announce their presence.

I lay there for a second. Shouting nearby, someone calling for help, and a pair of hands on my shoulder, as some Samaritan told me to hang on. At least they weren’t trying to kill me out here. Not yet, anyway.

Pop.

The forcefield flickered.

Pop, pop.

More flickering. It was sniper fire, I knew. Silenced, too.

“Back off!” I yelled, staggered to my knees, and stiff-armed my would-be rescuer. Getting him back, getting him clear of the shots. Too late, as he stepped out of my field’s radius at the wrong second. His eyes went wide, and his blood splashed on me, candy crimson in the light of the streetlamp.

The streetlamp!

I reached into my raincoat, as bullets spattered from my field, marking the seconds with flicker flashes as the crowd backed away from me, turned to run. And I pulled out my universal remote.

Green letters filled my HUD as it went online. I pointed it at the streetlights, and turned them off, one by one, plunging the street into darkness, save for the passing automobiles. Blinking until my night sight engaged as I moved, slipping away into the shadows, moving north. Brompton road, that was what we were on. I could follow it up to Knightsbridge, then Grosvenor and Vauxhall and the bridge...

The bridge.

He’d been willing to sacrifice a department store full of civilians to get to me. Odds were he’d prepared something big, flashy, and horrible for the bridge if I turned that way.

I weighed my options, decided to go for a fakeout. As traffic slowed I pointed the universal remote at passing shipping vans, clicked until I found one that was remote-enabled. I charged through a lane of traffic, hit the door, thankful for the left-sided cars for once. I tore the door open, jammed a taser into the side of the very surprised driver, then shoved him to the side and slid into his seat.

I clicked on the remote, told the car to drive, and started transferring gear. I didn’t know how Maestro was tracking me, but he’d brought up the raincoat so the smart move was to ditch it. Besides, it was bloody now, and I didn’t have time for a proper cleaning. This next part would require me to blend in with a packed crowd for a little bit.

The last of my devices went to my sweater and jeans, and I pulled out a chempack, tossed the raincoat in the back of the van, and dumped the chempack’s contents over it. Bubbles, hissing, and a chemical odor told me it was doing its job. I’d gotten this recipe from a reliable black-market source a few months back; if it worked as advertised then it would cleanse my DNA from the garment.

The thought occurred to me, as a perfectly good coat melted, that I had a source who might be able to clarify how Maestro was currently tracking me. “Alpha, put Vector on.”

I nudged the van through traffic. It was slow going, thanks to the panic and the darkness and the fleeing bystanders, but progress was progress. And the lack of sniper shots hitting my field told me I had the respite I needed. I slumped over the wheel, panted as my muscles throbbed. No more soft living, I promised myself. Jogging. Every day, jogging, good cardio, and a workout. Not an insane workout like Acertijo’s, but something sensible. And maybe a little less pie.

“You wanted to talk to me?” Vector asked.

“Yes. Maestro managed to ID Dire’s civilian face and location. Do you know how he’s doing it and how to stop it?”

“That’ll be Sloth. Just use whatever you used to block him before.”

Sloth.

The Sin we couldn’t find. Oh fuck.

“Vector, Dire has no idea who Sloth is, or what he can do.”

“Wait, how is that possible? The implications... oh shit. Oh shit oh shit.”

“Calm yourself.”

“No! This is not a good time to be calm! This means that the only reason you’ve gotten this far is because he was okay with you getting this far!”

A chill ran down my spine. It had been easier than I expected. Even this, this wasn’t as nasty as it could have been. A tight spot, true, but I’d been in worse. The logic took me to the most likely conclusion, and I knew it to be true.

Maestro M was playing with me.

I ran a hand through my hair. “Vector. What does Sloth do.”

“Jesus, no, I have to get out of here. I knew this was a... okay, okay, put down the knife. Fine. Right, I’m stuck, I get it.”

Alpha. Or Janissary. I smiled. “You’re actually free to go once we’re clear of this. But it sounds like we’ll have to take care of Sloth to get clear of this. So answer the question; what is Sloth’s deal?”

Vector took a long breath. “He used to be a hero. Or a villain, before Maestro M. edited him out of history. His costume name was Big Brother. Worked behind the scenes, he’s a clairvoyant... he can see distant things just by concentrating on them.”

“How does he fix on people? Names, faces, or something more esoteric?” If it was by name, then I was stuck. But faces could be changed, and it wasn’t like I hadn’t done that before.

“Damned if I know. That was one of those things that would have looked really suspicious if I was too interested. I thought you knew about him, had a way of blocking his power.”

“Have you seen him use it?”

“Once. He projected his remote viewing onto a television. I watched Maestro M’s goons hunt down a hero and capture her that way, after she started digging into one of his operations. Never heard anything about her after that. I assumed the worst.”

I took a breath. “Real winner you hooked up with.” Traffic stopped entirely. In my night vision, I could see men in suits holding flashlights, working in pairs and checking in the windows of the stopped cars. Hard to tell how many there were, given the press of bodies. We were out of the lightless zone by now, but it was causing a pedestrian buildup on the sidewalks, as people followed their instincts and went all looky-loo, filming the chaos on their phones or standing around and yakking at each other a mere couple of hundred feet from the obviously dangerous area.

“Wasn’t my idea,” Vector said. “I can say that now with a straight face. Jesus, the thing he wanted to turn me into... the sleepless nights I’ve gone through, the shit I had to do. It never felt right, and now I know why.”

“Uh-huh.” I whispered, clicking the universal remote and setting the truck to auto-drive. I slipped out the side door, and walked briskly down the street, doing my best to look casual and keeping the crowd between me and the suits.

It worked for about two minutes, then I saw the suits start shifting around. A few had their hands up to their ears. Obviously a comm system.

Well, I could fix that, couldn’t I?

I flipped the universal remote out, clicked it on the nearest mook, and amped volume up to maximum. Then I transferred his settings over to the entire network.

“Ah, what’s the dumb bitch doing!” Maestro M’s voice roared throughout the street, and every suited bastard screamed, scrabbled at their heads, tried to get their headset off. “Oh fuck me running!” Maestro cursed, and I fought the urge to laugh as I used the chaos to move to my destination.

Knightsbridge Station, on the Piccadilly line. Big Brother would recognize this landmark, so I would have to move fast.

I got down the stairs without a problem. I pulled out my Underground pass, waved it at the turnstiles, and moved through, still no trouble. Then the intercom hissed to life as I was heading down the escalator to the platform, and Maestro’s voice echoed around the concrete and tile walls. “You think you’re so bloody clever. But here’s the thing, Doctor, you vastly underestimate my control, and overestimate my ability to give three fucks for any of these two-legged cattle.”

I pointed the remote at the nearest speaker, tried to turn it off. That particular speaker turned off, but when I tried to move up to the subway’s intercom network, my HUD errored out. He’d set up a shell network, something separate from the main system, curled inside it like a parasite. Also good enough to resist my remote, which was troublesome in its own right.

“Perhaps an expanded demonstration is in order,” he mused. “Right then, you lot! Every blonde woman in this tube station needs to die! Throw them onto the third rail, see if you can get them to bounce!”

Oh that son of a bitch.

The escalator around me turned into a sea of grabbing hands, and unlike Harrod’s, everything was enclosed. I had nowhere to go. Men screamed at me, hoisted me by the sweater, carried me like a surfer in a mosh pit, working together to get me to a zappy doom. Ahead of me flashes of yellow hair moved as screaming women fought for their lives, self-preservation evidently overriding their compulsion to throw themselves on the tracks. At least I thought that might be what was going on, I was too busy trying to avoid getting mauled.

And as I struggled, I felt my anger rise. This was not right, and this would not be.

I was Dire, and I’d had enough of this indignity.

I reached to the iron chain around my neck, popped the earplugs out of the seemingly-decorative cylinder that was the centerpoint of the necklace, and tucked them into my eardrums. Then I blinked my HUD over to the offensive options, and toggled ‘Screamer’.

Years ago I’d developed these tiny sonic emitters as a potential nonlethal, low-damage solution. Spoilers: they aren’t. Prolonged exposure can cause permanent hearing loss, even death if the acoustics are wrong, or the individual affected doesn’t have enough body mass.

This late in the evening, though, there weren’t many children in the station. So I gave them a full three seconds, and rode the collapsing, shrieking wave of bodies to the floor as they fell around me. And then, as the sound died, I stood among the groaning, twitching heaps of flesh as I turned slowly around, keeping my face free of expression. Letting my eyes speak every word I wanted to say, in smoldering silence.

“Maestro,” I called, low and toneless, drawing the word out as I popped the earplugs out. “Is this the best you can muster? You disappoint.”

The intercoms crackled again. “Three women are twitching on the third rails, Doctor. Dead because of you. And oh, won’t the heroes come after you, hammer and tongs, to bring you to justice. And once you’re in jail, you’re mine. Dead in a day, dead in a week, dead in a heartbeat. You’ll go in, but you won’t come out. Or maybe I’ll have Envy fix your brain, when I’ve got you. Turn you into a drooling lackwit, give you some horrible disease that’ll reduce everything you were to a flailing, crying, pissing brute. You can’t save any of them, and every innocent dead is blood on your hands, Doctor Dire. Every one is your failure.”

“No. They’re dead because you’re sloppy, Maestro.” I hardened my heart, didn’t even look at the twitching, charred forms in the rails. “You’re used to going up against heroes. People who are stopped by civilian deaths.” I kept my face locked, as I headed down the tunnel.

“Bah! Don’t you try to pretend you don’t care! I’ve read your bio. I’ve studied how you worked, from your little stint at getting hobos slaughtered to your fucking bullshit fake regime. You’re a fraud, woman! A pathetic little tinkerer who thinks herself a noble demon of a villain, but you’re just another stupid hero who couldn’t cut it with a proper cape, so you went all dark and edgy! You’re nothing!”

“Then why is there fear in your voice, Murder Maestro?” I smiled, at the edge of the platform.

And then I stepped off, alighting on the third rail. Where I completely failed to die horribly.

“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me!” he howled.

It’s good to be grounded, when you aspire to villainy. I’m not talking emotionally, I’m speaking of literal matters. The soles of my shoes would not permit me to fry. Just one of the nifty tricks I’d built into them. Perhaps a little unwise to reveal this trick without need, but that edge of frustration in his voice made me laugh out loud, and I kept it up as I faded into the darkness.

It took a few hours, jogging through the tunnels. He had men down here, but few enough that I could avoid them. My night vision gave me the edge, and in a few cases, my pistol finished the job when I couldn’t escape. Every time I rerouted, backtracked to another tunnel.

Finally my internal direction sense matched up with the GPS coordinates on my second burner phone, and I ascended to the street, shoving away a manhole and emerging into a quiet alley. I smelled musty and dusty, and ached all over. But the night wasn’t done yet.

And as I rounded the alley and stared three blocks over to my apartment building, once more Maestro M’s damnable voice rose to the skies from some loudspeaker or the other.

“So close, and yet so far.” He’d regained some of his composure. “Now what’s that thing you like saying? Checkmate in one? Well check this—”

Then nothing but sound and fury, as the shock wave tumbled me over, so loud it was silent and when I could think again rubble was falling around me. My much-abused forcefield ate a few hits.

But I was smiling.

I was smiling, as a golden glow shone through the dust and collapsing stone.

The apartment building was gone, but to no avail. I’d given Alpha more than enough time to enact Plan D.

The dust cleared, to reveal a square block, the size of two apartments, one on top of the other, hovering in midair like they were fixed there, like Shinecraft blocks left behind from a massive TNT burst.

“Oh Maestro,” I said, though my voice sounded tiny to my abused eardrums. “You’re not even on the board.”

CHAPTER 12: TAG TEAMS

“The first time we encountered her, attrition failed. Which necessitated a change of strategy against Doctor Dire. We knew we had to hit her hard and fast... which also meant that she knew the same thing, and would expect it. So we'd give it a try, but at the same time we'd be analyzing the situation, looking for a flaw we could exploit. A double-blind, more or less. Show the villain what they expect, until you've got the data you need to proceed with the real strategy...”

Miss Maskelyne, leader of Queensguard

We’d considered the possibility of collateral damage, when Acertijo and I had put our lair in the middle of London. It had factored into the location, an apartment building amidst a few offices, so that bombs like this wouldn’t kill too many people... at least not during the night, anyway. Given Maestro’s proclivities we figured that daylight assault was unlikely.

It had also been the reason I’d reinforced the workshop walls with forcefields linked directly to the reactor. And supplemented them with a few gravitic stabilizers, essentially fixing them at their coordinates with a force so strong that nothing short of Crusader would move them.

“You know who else is off the board?” Maestro said, his voice choked with raw emotion, practically growling. “All your damn neighbors! How d’ya like that, you fucking cunt!”

“Well, if that had actually happened, then as Dire has said before it would be on your head, not hers. You seem to be forgetting that she’s not a hero.” I strolled down the street, ignoring the patter of rubble on my forcefield.  “But it didn’t happen.”

“Like hell it didn’t happen. You’ve got rocks raining on your head, woman.”

“She really has to explain this?” I shrugged. “Pathetic, but all right. What makes you think her teleportation system is limited to her team?”

A long silence. My smile grew. I stuck my fingers in my jean pockets and whistled, as I strolled through the chaos, and the overturned cars, and the screaming. No way to cut out all the collateral, not truly. There would be injuries, and there would be deaths from tonight.

But not for my neighbors. The reason I’d spent so much time running around Knightsbridge and the subways had been to give Alpha the time to crank the teleporter up to maximum yield, and beam every civilian in the apartment buildings to Mariposa. An act we’d calculated would take twenty minutes, give or take, depending upon whether or not Mrs. Witherspoon was walking her stupid dogs at the time. I’d given them sixty.

And yes, I’d even arranged for the pets to be teleported, too. Jesus Joseph and Mary the hate I’d gotten for my act of destruction a few years back... they didn’t care so much about the property damage, or that I’d teleported every human, cat, or dog to safety, but for the stupid little pets left behind in the rubble. The sheer amount of hatred I got over all those dead rats and chinchillas and goldfish had amazed me. Not like you couldn’t get plenty more of those things, and they barely lived any time at all...

“You think you’ve won, do you?” Maestro’s voice had calmed again. It was definitely an intercom, of some sort. City emergency services? Seemed likely. He was probably using his power as he spoke, implanting mental triggers to everyone who heard it, commanding them to forget it or hate me or whatever. He didn’t need to vocalize his commands; he’d only done that back in the department store to taunt me.

“Won? Bah. The game’s not yet over, Maestro. Although she is getting tired of your desperate attempt to send pawns to take out a queen.”

“I’ll see if I can’t scare you up a few bishops,” he chuckled. “Although I expect I won’t have to lift a finger, there. Tick tock, Dire. Tick, bloody, tock.”

I kept a pleasant smile on my face, but I knew he was right. It was time to evacuate. Explosions on this scale draw heroes, period. That’s kind of what they do, is go find the people responsible and punch them a lot. And here I was, the villain on the scene...

“Can you see her? She’s waving.” I subvocalized, and lifted a languid hand, flopping it back and forth. The dust would be settling soon, I was thankful for the respirator in my pocket. Glad I had thought to tuck it away during the subway scramble.

“I’ve got a fix. Hey boss!” Alpha said.

“Alright, it’s time to evac. Port us to, hmm, site C.”

“Wish we could.”

I stopped waving. “Say what?”

“Remember that part of the teleportation grid we routed through the apartment complex’s circuitry?”

“Aw fuck.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Didn’t like the looks of that wiring. Bad time to be proven right.” We couldn’t have changed it without alerting the inspectors. And the building was new enough that we couldn’t risk early discovery. It had been a gamble, with only a fifteen percent chance of failure. But like an errant sniper in that Ycom video game, even the smallest odds of failure could roll into being at the worst possible time.

“Yeah, it collapsed. Had to burn some of it out to make sure everyone got out. Including that nosy lady with the shih-tzus.”

“Witherspoon,” I said. “How long until it’s fixed?”

“Six minutes.”

I closed my eyes. “Damn it. Alright. Got enough for a short-range hop?”

“Yeah. Want to come in?”

“Hell no. Send the suit. She’ll buy you time.”

“Seriously, we can fort up here, and—”

The air rippled across the way, and the shadows twisted. “Queensguard is here.”

“Fuck.” Alpha sighed. “Sending the suit. Hold out two minutes, I’ll have reinforcements for you.”

“No! Do not let Vector out! And Janissary’s without alchemy.”

“I’m not talking about them.”

And then I held perfectly still, as the air in front of me shimmered, and everything went dark as my body was compressed, surrounded by an unyielding mass...

...and my suit’s HUD flickered online, helmet appearing to go translucent from my point of view, alleviating my discomfort somewhat.

Gods, I ached. Gods, I didn’t want to do this, not after the last hour or so.

But I waited, synching up my systems and checking over the repairs while Queensguard slid out of their portal, this time joined by the glowing form of a translucent man wearing an eighteenth-century sailor’s suit. He’d come over the buildings, not through the teleporter, and he was pointing my way. Because of course he was.

He was Rumjack, and he was both a ghost and a major problem. Good mobility, intangible to damn near everything I had, and able to punch people through their power armor. He’d done it before, and I had every reason to expect that he’d try that trick on me here. And apparently he had some sort of super spooky vision, because he led the way straight toward me, through the curtains of dust that were falling like snow, through the darkness now that all the power collectors and lights of the nearby buildings had been hit by shrapnel.

“Oi, you!” he called, waving a bottle in my direction. “Gonner surrender or we doin’ this the hard way?”

I answered with golden light, and my particle beams blasted chunks out of distant buildings as the team scattered. There was no point to banter; they wouldn’t listen. I know heroes, I know how their minds work. I was the obvious punchable solution to a seemingly punchable problem. And after last time they wouldn’t be going for a rope-a-dope strategy. No, they’d be aiming to take me out hard and fast, before I could change the battlefield.

It’s what I would have done, after all.

I took to the air to avoid the Green Knight’s loping charge, and the Human Harrier unloaded into me with a hissing spray of micromissiles. The forcefield saw to those, but he charged through them, arms locked and outstretched in a classic paragon double punch. I twisted aside, gave him an elbow to the shoulder to knock him off track, and almost got him to crash into a parked car. Almost. He managed to pull out with a twisting roll, and went up. I targeted him, tried to get a lock-on—

—and spun ass-over-teakettle as something hit me, sent four damage alerts straight to yellow, and punched me through a wall.

Ah, right. That’s where Punching Judy had gotten to.

I rose, casting aside what was left of the wall with one sweeping backhand. Judy danced along the bricks, almost too fast to follow, darting up the spray.

I point-blanked a concussion missile into the ground at my feet and she leaped, rode the blast wave back, whirling in mid-air to land perched on an exposed girder. “What the ’ell was the point o’ this!” she yelled, waving at the devastation. “What did any of this do for you! You’re supposed to be merciful, fer a vill! All that a lie, then?”

“THIS WAS NOT DIRE’S DOING.” I sent blasts her way, all easily evaded as she flipped and turned. And in my peripheral vision I caught the Green Knight lumbering up on one side, as the Human Harrier lined up for another strafing run. Cute. I deduced the strategy, decided it was time to change the paradigm. I took to the sky—

—and a horde of glowing blue playing cards swarmed me, falling down from above where Miss Maskelyne was pulling them out of a hat as fast as she could throw. They didn’t do much, but they set my forcefield stuttering and fluttering, interfering with the gravitics. I lurched up bit by bit, knowing I wouldn’t make it.

Plan B, then.

They were skilled, they had good tactics; they had teamwork that put a lot of hero groups I’d fought against to shame. But there’s a certain amount of raw force that renders skill ineffective. And when combined with a little master-class kayfabe, well...

I’d spent the last few years becoming Doctor Dire. Time to remind them of that fact.

“FOOLS!” I dialed my particle cannons up to their widest spread, and blasted them straight down. The floor of the building below me disintegrated, and rubble sprayed out a few hundred feet. All but the Green Knight dove for cover. He simply lifted an armored elbow in front of his face, took the shrapnel, regenerated the hits and kept on coming.

“CRETINS!” I drilled the Green Knight straight in the chest with a hundred-percent charge, spread out just enough to avoid killing him. He tumbled head over heels, bounced off the remnants of a few parked cars, and struggled to rise. Most of his chest was gone; he could survive that. I’d watched enough footage of him, and taken his measure with the shrapnel blast.

“YOU DARE STAND AGAINST DIRE! THIS IS NOT HER DOING, BUT SHE SHALL FINISH THIS FIGHT. IN THE ONLY WAY POSSIBLE.”

I hovered into the air, free of the barrage of annoying energy constructs. The Human Harrier was looping around, firing missiles that left smoking contrails as he corkscrewed toward me. I popped chaff, and sent a wave of micromissiles back at him. The explosions burst around me, rattling my forcefield but causing no damage. I put my hands down at an ideal arc and laughed, my voice echoing throughout Southwark, screeching and grinding. “HMHMHMHMH... HAHAHAHA!”

And then a whole bunch of errors flickered across my HUD, as something blitzed me from behind. I blinked, checked the video feeds in a microsecond, and comprehended what had happened.

Rumjack had tried to hit me in the head with his bottle.

I twisted, got away from the surly ghost, leaving him in my dust. The bottle had passed straight through my headless helmet, an entire foot above my actual head. But that had been way, way too close.

He stared at the bottle, stared back at me. Swayed a bit. Narrowed his eyes. “Ere! There ain’t no head in there ta be conked!”

And Lord love ’em all, they jumped right to the wrong conclusion.

“She’s a robot! This is a distraction!” Miss Maskelyne called, from the window of the office building she’d hidden in. Well, she was half-right. “Real Dire’s got to be in there, watching us and laughing while she does whatever her plan is!” Miss Maskelyne pointed toward my hovering forcefield-shielded workshop.

Uh-oh.

“That’s a bloomin’ robot?” Punching Judy shrieked. “Wot the hell’s the real one packin’, then?”

“Doesn’t matter!” The Human Harrier called, his weapons readjusting as he hovered just out of my missile range. “You know what this means? We don’t have to hold back anymore!”

“And neither do we!” Five pairs of metal heels hit the building rooftop nearest me, and I laughed in joy as five Dire-masked skeletal bots raised their faces to me, each mask marked with a different Greek letter.

The cavalry was here, and just in time.

“Okay everyone, just like the sims,” Alpha said, hopping to the ground and making a beeline for Punching Judy.

“I’m sorry about this,” the one marked Beta said, moving to back him up. “I don’t want to hurt any of you.”

The one marked Gamma started parkouring from building to building, scaling toward Maskelyne. “The leader’s mine. Delta, keep the Green Knight busy—”

“Uh, Dire’s the boss, remember?” The Delta-marked one pointed at me. “Hi Mom! Can I be a girl, too?”

“Just do as Gamma says,” The one marked Epsilon advised, as he went to back up Alpha. “You know how she gets.”

Okay. I could work with this. Kind of weirded out about being called Mom. “DIRE SUPPOSES YOU LEFT THE HUMAN HARRIER FOR HER, THEN?”

“Well duh, you’ve got the only flight capability here.” Delta shrugged. “Whoops!” She dodged a stream of pulse rounds from Harrier.

“ETA for the teleport’s at three minutes, boss,” Alpha whispered through the vox. “Let’s give’em a dance.”

“DON’T MIND IF SHE DOES!” I rocketed toward the Harrier, and through my telescopic sights, I could see his mouth peel back into a grin under his translucent lower faceplate.

“Challenge accepted, Doc,” he boomed, as he pulled into a spiral. “Try not to crash too quickly!”

I had analyzed the Human Harrier. I’d watched the footage, listened to the interviews, and even joined his goddamn fan club at one time. That had been a waste, it hadn’t netted me any insight that the Gridnet hadn’t been able to supply, but his autographed drinking mug had made a nice toothbrush holder, at least.

But the point of it was this: he’d seemed like the weak link in the team. Not through armament, certainly not for his speed, but in his attitude. He was the maverick, the loose cannon of the team, the thrill-junkie. A common attitude among pilots the world over, and well, he qualified.

Even in the face of devastation, among the ruins that Punching Judy thought were the graves of hundreds, he was wanting to test himself against me. He didn’t just want to win, he wanted to beat me.

So I taunted, I teased, pretended to have a hard time dodging his tracers, let the forcefield soak some rounds it didn’t have to. I fired at him with the particle-beams on stutter, imitating his gatling guns. And through my telescopic sights I watched his mouth go from a grin, to puzzlement, to annoyance.

“You bloody cu—” he finally roared, biting the last word off before he could finish.

“CAREFUL THERE.” I paused, floating in midair as his latest round of bullets pattered from my shield. I waggled a finger at him. “CAN’T HAVE THE IDOL OF EVERY SIXTH-GRADER CURSING IN PUBLIC. SIMPLY NOT DONE.”

We’d attracted attention by now. Newsvans at the edge of the periphery. They hadn’t had time to scramble choppers yet. The police were keeping people well back... and for a change, they didn’t have to try hard. The ruins made so far and the firepower we were slinging was discouraging. Also, British lookey-loos didn’t seem to be as suicidal as American bystanders. Just a thing, I supposed.

I turned my back on him, a calculated insult. “OH, BY THE WAY—”

I heard his jets amp up behind me, whirling around, cape flaring as the fool finally came in for the charge.

Give him this, he had speed. He had range. No way in hell I could get a lock on him. But with my forcefield, there was no risk of him seriously damaging me from afar, not unless he deployed weapons that ran the risk of deadly collateral if they missed. Which left one option. Close-range.

I could do close-range.

“—CHECKMATE IN ONE.” I said, as I took his punch without flinching, lashed out faster than I’d moved before, and wrapped my arms around him in a bear hug.

And I squeezed.

Built for speed, yes. Sturdiness? Not so much. His engines were big, obvious flip-up jets, that burst in fiery sprays as my arms ripped through them. He yelled, pounded on my mask with augmented strength, but to no real effect. I kept on squeezing, hearing joints buckle, watching smoke burst out as servos gave.

When I was done I dropped him, and he spiraled downward, popping a HALO chute as he went. Fire-suppression had done its job, kept him from any real harm, kept the chute from risking a stray spark.

I could have shredded the chute, didn’t. He could probably survive the fall, it was only about eighty feet, but none of his team was nearby, and I didn’t want to risk any real harm to the guy.

I turned my gaze instead to my...  offspring. Well, Alpha’s offspring. Based on code and designs we’d whipped up together, of course. Siblings. Definitely his siblings.

Damned if they weren’t working together like a close-knit family, I was gratified to see.

Alpha and Beta were tag-teaming Punching Judy, harrying her like a pair of wolves as her chi-infused fists and feet left glowing contrails in the air. Alpha was sans an arm and most of one shoulder, but he was still darting in and slapping at her, sparks flying from his electrified hand. He’d gone for taser mode, good. Beta, by comparison, was wielding a piece of jagged rebar like a quarterstaff. He fought defensively, but every time she turned from him he tried to trip her up, or catch her arm as she struck at Alpha. I didn’t see any damage on him, but I didn’t have time for a full inspection and he wasn’t properly in my friend-or-foe net yet.

Delta was on the Green Knight. Literally, on him. She was choking him out, as he thrashed around the ruins, slamming into walls and rolling. Every now and then she’d shift to minimize harm or even let go to leap over a damaging obstacle. She seemed pretty banged up, probably at the edge of her limits, but that was fine. Destroying their android bodies would do nothing, so long as their server blades were intact.

Then I looked over to Gamma, and of course that’s where our streak of good luck ended. Gamma was frozen in place, trapped by a Houdini-style series of padlocks, chains, and ropes all made from blue hardlight. Which meant—

“They just breached the forcefields,” Epsilon spoke through the Vox. “Moving to engage.”

“You’re back there?”

“It seemed logical to keep one of us in reserve.”

I nodded, as I flew back to the workshop at full-speed. The forcefields rushed up at me...

...and flickered, let me through without a hiccup. Never build a bunker that doesn’t let you enter or leave. Seen a lot of good villains hoisted by their own petard, that way.

In the middle of the workshop, Miss Maskelyne was frantically punching at one of my interface consoles, teeth gritted as she hacked through my encryption. Vector was down, seemingly unconscious. Khalid fought a delaying action against Rumjack, who was chasing him over and around the furniture. Khalid had scrounged up a sword from gods-knew-where, but it passed right through the dead seaman without any real effect.

To hurt a ghost, you needed something special. Fortunately, I’d studied his particular weakness, as well. “JANISSARY!” I called, popping open a utility compartment and reaching within—

—only to freeze, as Maskelyne turned and hit me with something that sent my HUD straight to blurred and chaotic pixels. Blinded, and as I tried to move my arms, I found that my controls were somewhat scrambled as well. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I chanted to myself as I started a fast-reboot and diagnostic. She’d hit me with a short-range visual virus. It wouldn’t keep me down for long, but for one vital instant I was vulnerable.

She didn’t waste time. An impact against my chest, and I toppled, rocking in the harness. Another impact, and my viewscreen cleared, to show her standing over me, striking at me with a blue hardlight cane, sending layers of armor flying with each hit. “You’re pretty resilient for a robot!” she said, sending a spray of gel spattering against the wall.

“And you’re rather short-sighted for a human.” Epsilon said.

“Look out, Masky!” Rumjack yelled... too late, as Alpha’s sibling shot her in the back with one of my mega-tasers. The magician-themed hero jerked and jittered and sparked, trapped as he applied the volts. I clambered to my feet, cursing at the damage readouts.

“Oi! Stop urtin’ her!” Rumjack reached down towards a chair, and pulled a ghostly copy of it from the physical object.

Then he hucked it at us.

It passed right through Epsilon, struck Miss Maskelyne and knocked her free of the current—

—and clipped me, spinning me around in the harness. The body armor moved with me, and I fell down again.

“Not a robot after all? Well then!” Rumjack rolled up his sleeves. Khalid’s sword swiped through him again. “Looks like I found yer weakness, missy!”

“THAT MAKES TWO OF US. JANISSARY! SLICE!”

I drew a softball-sized glass sphere from my utility compartment, and tossed it over to Khalid. He obeyed, and bisected the glass globe...

...spraying water everywhere.

Some got on Rumjack, and didn’t go through him. “Uh-oh.”

Khalid’s next strike took his head. Cleanly severed it flopped to the floor, and fell through, cursing up a storm throughout. The rest of Rumjack’s body flailed around blindly, but Khalid kept on swinging, and more and more fell away with each strike. “What is this?” He called.

“SEA WATER. JUST SEA WATER.”

“Ah. He died by drowning, then.”

“NO CLUE. BUT MAGOS MYSTERIUM USED IT AGAINST HIM FOUR YEARS BACK.”

“Many ghosts are affected so, harmed by the things that killed them in life. He will recover.”

“COUNTING ON THAT. AS TO RECOVERING...” I turned my attention back to Miss Maskelyne. She was attempting to crawl across the floor, hardlight constructs fallen behind her, slowly dissipating into errant photons. “...YOU CAN DO THAT OUTSIDE,” I decided. I hauled her up by the neck of her suit jacket, and exited the forcefield.

“FOR THE RECORD, NOT THAT YOU’LL BELIEVE HER, THIS EXPLOSION WAS NOT DIRE’S DOING. BUT THE SAFEGUARDS THAT SAVED EVERYONE HERE? THOSE WERE DIRE’S DOING.”

She garbled something back at me. Probably some variation of ‘you’ll never get away with it.’

I looked around. “Olly olly oxen free, kids. Come on back, it’s time to leave.”

“Already back in base, boss,” Alpha whispered. “Gonna need a new body. Judy did for my old one and she’s loose.” I got visual on Alpha’s shattered remnants, and the harlequin-themed martial artist. She took one look at me and headed my way, with a look of utter horror. I glanced beyond her, saw Delta running from the Green Knight, and Beta snapping Gamma free of her hard-light chains. The Human Harrier was off sheltered next to a couple of blown-over cars, unloading at Delta whenever he had a clear shot.

And more importantly, every camera I could see was pointing directly at me. Perfect. I eyed Punching Judy, did some quick math, and gave her a few seconds before I raised Miss Maskelyne above me.

“AND SO YOUR HEROES FALL!”

I threw her down, then turned my back and drifted serenely back to the workshop, arms folded. Around me, I tracked my still-moving minions as they hopped, leaped, and scampered up the surrounding buildings to dive one by one into the forcefield and through.

I waited just long enough to confirm that Punching Judy was in position to save Maskelyne, then followed my androids in. “Punch it!” I voxed to Alpha, as I held still. This was going to be a rough transition, no help for it...

...and with the shimmering lights, came a twisting, vibrating sense of movement, and some rolling nausea. I choked it down, rode it out. When I opened my eyes Khalid was sitting with his head in his hands, muttering silent curses.

Vector, for his part, was curled on the floor and hurling for all he was worth. “Ack! Oh... ugh, that was... what was that?”

“JUST PLAYING DEAD? GOOD.” I decanted from the armor, knees wobbling as I stood free, sweat dripping down every part of me. “Alpha, take charge. No lights, no viewscreens of the facility or the outside, keep all visual feed patched into your own sensors, and no displays. We’re up against a clairvoyant, no sense in giving him an easy fix on us.”

“Done. You need to...”

“Yeah, she knows. Take four hours, everyone. Been a long day, and it’ll only get harder from here.” Khalid and Vector started to ask questions, but I ignored them, dragged my tired ass upstairs.

The bedroom was where I’d left it, even if the roof was gone, replaced by concrete and pipes of the underground vault I’d kept as a safehouse and fallback point. I brushed debris from the blankets and collapsed into bed without disrobing.

If real life had been a rom com I might have stared longingly at the empty spot next to me and felt all sorts of angst and gloom because my boyfriend wasn’t there. But I was still pissed at him. It had been a mostly shitty day, and I was fucking wiped. So I took a pass on the moody teenager stuff and just fell asleep.

CHAPTER 13: A MEETING OF THE MINDS

“Yeah, you spend like eighty percent of your time plotting, and like twenty percent DOING. Supervillainy's got a lot of similarities to middle management in the wageslave office of your choice.”

--Mister Malevolent, retired villain and costume consultant

Okay, so it hurt a bit when I woke up to a cold bed, felt around for Manuel, then remembered what had happened yesterday. Technically yesterday, even if it was somewhere in the wee hours of the morning. Gods, I was tired.

Tired and on the back foot. As usual, my mind had sorted matters as I slept, and come up with certain realizations that had escaped me in the heat of the moment.

Metal knuckles rapped on the door. “Boss?”

“Alpha?” I rolled over and stared at the open doorway, and the android leaning against it. “Got yourself a new shell?”

“We’ve got enough in storage here that I figured it was fine. You good to go, or you wanna hit the snooze button?”

I lay there and looked up at the place the ceiling wasn’t. The forcefield hadn’t covered the roof when the building exploded around our apartment. The rough concrete and pipes could belong to any underground facility in Britain, so I wasn’t too concerned about Sloth catching a glimpse of them.

I still felt like hell.

“It would be nice, to roll over and go back to sleep. But...” I chewed my lip. “No. There’s things to discuss, and we’ll have to do it promptly and properly, or else our situation gets worse. After that, then it’ll be time to move.”

“No rest for the wicked,” Alpha sighed. “I don’t get tired, and you’re making me tired just looking at you.” He shook his head. “Minion-ing is tough.”

“Well, now you’ve got some others to spread the burden around to.”

“Pssh. Riding herd on that bunch is more work.”

“Speaking of that, could you get everyone together? Meeting down in the workshop?”

“Gimme ten. Janissary I just need to wake up, but Vector’s got his nose in the chemical stocks. The others, eh, do you want us there in meatspace? We can just patch in through my sensors, it’ll save some trouble...”

“Them too. Dire doesn’t want to patch Vector into the vox network just yet, so it’ll be easier to have them there talking directly.”

“You don’t trust him?”

“Not like that. It’s just—” I tilted my head, analyzed what my gut was telling me. “He’s got a yellow streak to him. Also we’re the enemy of his enemy, not his friends. Figure he’s about two steps from rabbiting and running, come what may. Can’t blame him, really. But it’s inconvenient enough that he could end up recaptured at some point, and it’s best if he doesn’t know all the details.”

“Okay, I get what you’re saying. Anyway I’ll have them at the meeting in ten minutes, give or take.”

He departed, and I changed, feeling grubby and dirty. A shower was in order at some point, here. Just had to sort out business.

Part of that business was easy enough to get rolling. I headed down to the medium-scale three-dimensional printer and tapped in simple instructions. By the time Khalid and Vector showed up, I had two masks finished, and was wearing one of my own traveling masks. Voice modulator turned off, since we were indoors. Only polite, really.

“Dire trusts you rested well?”

Khalid smiled and nodded. Vector shrugged. “I only need two hours a day. What’s with...” he tapped his face.

I tilted my head. “What are the odds that Sloth can read lips? Or that Maestro has someone watching his television broadcast that can?”

“Ah.” Khalid said, stretching out a hand for one of the masks I’d made. “Say no more, my friend.” He turned his gaze upon Vector. “Literally. Put this one on before we say anything more.”

Their masks weren’t full face, just simple white featureless models that covered their mouths and cheeks. Once my two compatriots in crime had theirs on, I relaxed. “Okay, now we should be able to speak clearly. Unless Sloth’s clairvoyance extends to clairaudience as well?”

“What? Is that even a word?” Vector asked.

“According to certain roleplaying games, yes,” I replied, pulling around a chair and settling into it. The androids took that as a cue to relax themselves. Delta and Beta hopped up on the nearest counter, Alpha claimed his own chair, only to promptly have it stolen by Gamma, and Epsilon merely stood in a ‘parade rest’ position, hands crossed behind his back and feet spread wide.

“It means that in addition to providing sight, his power would provide sound,” Khalid explained. He stood as well, hands at his hips.

“Oh! Oh, no. Unless Pride and Sloth were faking, which I can’t guarantee, everything seemed to be silent. No audio to the picture. It was kind of like security camera footage. Though he did rotate it a few times.” Vector frowned as he sank into the last remaining chair, slouched with long-practiced ease. “I think... yes, he had to keep the subject he was watching in the center of the shot at all times.”

“Then we’re safe to talk.” I gestured to the androids. “They don’t have lips in the first place. Well, not working ones anyway.”

“Good. What the fuck is the plan?” Vector asked. “Because if it’s hide in a bunker for the rest of our lives I’ll take a teleport to some other hemisphere, please.”

Khalid laughed, and clapped him on the shoulder. Vector flinched, but the small Turk didn’t seem to notice. “Have a little faith, Professor. When this woman puts her mind to things, obstacles rarely survive. And she has put her mind to the downfall of this... Maestro M, you said?”

I nodded. “Yes. He probably called himself Pride, when you met him.”

Khalid gave me a funny look. “I never met anyone called Pride.”

“Short man, wiry, with a bowler hat and a smug grin?”

Khalid shook his head.

Interesting. “And yet you had one of Maestro’s triggers in your head. You told us to go to hell.”

“Yes, I remember that, but I am certain I never met anyone called Pride. I was trapped in Lust’s realm for quite a considerable time, and she had no visitors that were not of the fae.”

I tapped my mask, thinking. “Is it possible you were made to forget the meeting?”

“Nothing is impossible, I know that better than most. But it seems unusual that Lust would break her pattern and allow this Maestro in.”

I shifted to look at Vector. “Can we use the mind control device to see if his memory was altered?”

“Huh? Oh. Uh, not really. To be honest, we weren’t using it properly when we undid my own triggers. Basically we were just overriding the synapses, restructuring the associated protein chains—”

I held up a hand. “She’s bad at biology. Thanks for the answer, but an explanation wouldn’t do much for Dire.”

“It does much for me,” Khalid said, sitting up a little taller. “Perhaps we can discuss this after our business is done?”

“Ah, sure. You’re not a hero, right? Not gonna suddenly go smash the device in the middle of the explanation because humanity wasn’t meant to wield such power, or some other stupidity like that?”

“I am no hero.” Khalid tilted his head. “Do people really do that?”

“The stories I could tell you,” Alpha sighed.

“But you won’t, because you might risk a temporal paradox,” Epsilon folded his arms.

“Right, right, sure, okay.” Alpha looked down, looked back up again. “What about the Hyperloaf incident with the Thorough-bread?”

“No!” Gamma reached out and slapped the back of his head, with a resounding ‘clang’.

“Okay, now you’ve got me curious,” Vector’s eyes crinkled. “Who the devil calls themselves the Thorough-bread?”

“Let’s focus,” I knocked on the arm of the chair. “We’ve got heroes on the case, and Maestro’s winning. Time’s not on our side, and we need to get shit resolved or seriously bad things are going to happen.”

That got their attention. “Winning?” Vector squinted over his mask. “I’d say we’re ahead of the game. Lust has your partner, true, but he’s a hero and she’s not stupid enough to kill him so we can probably rescue him there. And I’m free and on your team, as well as Mr. Janissary here—”

“Call me Khalid.”

“—okay, Khalid. But listen, Dire, Pride’s ambush didn’t do a damned thing to you. Your lair was protected enough to withstand his explosives, and now that you know about Sloth, he can’t even spy on you effectively. It seems to me you’re ahead in this little game.”

“And what, precisely, has Maestro M lost in this little exchange?”

“Me.” Vector frowned, and slapped his chest. He’d changed into a fresh lab coat, I’d noticed. Or cleaned the one he had.

“Yes, you. Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“Dire had no clue of Sloth’s existence. He’s doubtless been monitoring us for months. Dire and Acertijo spent plenty of time discussing our assault on your facility, hell, it’s probably the reason that Lust showed up when she did. Why let it happen in the first place? Why not get you out of there before we struck, or go all-in and have all of his forces waiting there?”

Vector blinked. Then I watched the confusion in his eyes swirl into bleak resignation. “I’m expendable to him.”

“You weren’t always,” I said without mercy, “but now you are. When’s the last time you treated anyone for radiation sickness?”

“It’s been a while. A month and a half, and that was a mild case.” He ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. “You’re still going on about that, aren’t you? You weren’t lying about that after all?”

“Entirely truthful.”

“Shit.”

Khalid raised a hand. “I believe I am coming in late to this discussion. What is happening here?”

I summed up my findings in Mariposa, and Maestro M’s superhuman creation procedures, and Khalid’s eyes got bigger and bigger over his mask.

“Come to think of it, a majority of the ones I treated were Latino.” Vector nodded. “Makes a horrible sort of sense. So now that he doesn’t need me for that any more, I’ve been moved over to a loose end. A link in the chain that could lead back to him, when he uses his homemade costumes for whatever he’s planning. If you didn’t tie me off, he would have. That fucking prick!”

Khalid nodded too. “I do not know this Pride who is also a Maestro, but from what I have seen so far and your own stories, he must not retain his hidden army. Man was not meant to wield such power.”

“See! See! He did it!” Alpha elbowed Gamma.

Khalid coughed. “Well, yes, but am I wrong?”

“Eh, no.” Delta spoke. “Still, I’m thinking you’re more of a hero than you let on, buddy. Gonna have to hide the lair’s self-destruct button from you.”

“Anyway!” I tried to seize the conversation back to some semblance of order. “Maestro has lost nothing so far. Dire spent strength and effort and lost a companion going after you, and in return she’s lost a lair, been painted as a big target for every hero in the United Kingdom, and spent finite resources and material repairing her armor. Not gonna be able to do that forever, not without a big infusion of fresh supplies. So yes, Maestro M is winning. Well, he would be save for one thing.” I waited a second, amped up the drama to make sure I had everyone’s attention. “Lust has gone rogue.”

That caused a stir. Khalid and Vector started talking at once, and my minions shifted and looked at each other. Probably for our benefit, because they could talk among themselves without any need for visual cues.

“We’re going to need some context,” Gamma said at the first lull. “Can you break down your reasoning on this? Bullet point it out at least?”

Bullet point it out? I looked to Alpha.

He spread his hands. “She likes reading business articles. Buzzwords. All of them.”

“All right, fair enough,” I leaned back in the chair and steepled my fingers. “When Maestro contacted Dire, during the ambush, he offered her a trade. He’d call off the assault if she returned Envy and Lust.”

“You don’t have Lust,” Vector said.

“And neither does he, if he wants her returned,” I smiled under my mask. “Which means she’s unaccounted for. Since she won the battle last time around, she obviously left under her own power. Either that or Queensguard got her, and if they did, they’d be crowing about it all over the news. They haven’t, ergo, they didn’t.”

A beat, two. “That is all?” Khalid asked.

“Yeah. It sounds a little thin,” Vector said, rubbing his hair again. “I mean, it seems pretty obvious that Pride didn’t care if I was gone, why would he ask to get me back? It sounds like he was trying to deceive you, see if you’d crack under the pressure and bargain. He’s like that sometimes, likes pushing people to see how they break.”

“Possible, but no. Dire discarded that idea quickly. The likelier explanation is that he did not wish to tip Dire off about the importance of Lust. Which is why he asked for both of you back, to avoid revealing the fact that he cared nothing for your well-being.”

“And why did you discard that idea so quickly?” Khalid asked.

I spread my hands. “Simple. Corroborating evidence. If his goal was to break Dire, he would have attempted to taunt her with Acertijo’s capture. Wouldn’t have worked, Dire is made of sterner stuff. But with the sort of villain he is, he wouldn’t be able to resist salting the wound. That makes two anomalies with his little slip. Put together, the only logical explanation is that he doesn’t know what’s become of Lust. Occam’s razor suggests that she likes it that way.”

“Okay. That’s not necessarily a good thing,” Vector said, fiddling with his mask. He was a twitchy sort, all nerves and motion. The man hadn’t stopped moving since we’d started this little meeting. “The enemy of our enemy is not our friend. She’s scary.”

“How scary, exactly?” I asked. “We’ve got you, nominally one of her allies until yesterday, so you can probably give a good accounting of her tricks. And we’ve got a victim here skilled in magical arts,” I nodded at Khalid. “So you probably have at least some idea what she hit you with.”

“Well...” Vector tapped his foot. “She handled everything magical that came our way. Every artifact Pride found, every enchantment we needed done, that was her. Pride sold her magical creatures on the side, to select supervillain groups and criminal organizations. Mostly... sex toys, and enforcers.” He grimaced when he said ‘sex’. Moral misgivings there? Good, if so. “She billed them as demons,” Vector continued. “I never saw her directly in action, usually when we had hero troubles it would be Maestro’s goons, my creatures, and her enforcers. Most of what she can do I got from hearsay.”

“Powerful combination,” Alpha said. “Three villains who can make or recruit minions of all sorts. Combine with a clairvoyant for espionage and an unblockable strategic overview, that’s some serious oomph.”

“It was even better when we still had Wrath.” Vector shrugged. “The guy was good at taking enemies apart. Sometimes literally. Oh don’t look at me like that,” he snapped at Khalid. “I always put them back together afterward.”

“And Maestro took care of their reprogramming, hmmm?” I purred.

He closed his eyes. “In my defense, he didn’t broadcast his mental powers. Just said he had resources to take care of things, and billed his abilities as super-genius with a strategic focus.”

“Figures. So you can’t speak to Lust’s powers outside of her minions?”

“We never saw eye-to-eye. I did some digging.” Vector tapped his cheek. “Lust had a significant rap sheet before she became a Sin. Maestro worked to erase that, but he missed some of the paper records. I lucked into a disgruntled MI9 agent the last time I was in London, and got ahold of some copies.”

“Now we’re talking!” Alpha leaned forward.

Vector shrank back, then caught himself. “Sorry. Just taking some getting used to.”

“Oh?”

“Robots. Never dealt much with them before.”

“Technically we’re androids.”

“That doesn’t make it any better.”

“Focus,” I urged them. “The records?”

“She started life as Miss Morrigan. Had a crow theme, tried to knock over banks.”

“What? Seriously?” I laughed. Bank robbery was one of the most idiotic things a villain could do. It drew heat all out of proportion to gain, the good banks were built to withstand heavy-duty punishment, and the heroes fucking knew how these things went. Bank robberies by supervillains were like training missions for heroes.

“Seriously. She’d walk in, drop the illusion that hid her costume, and enchant all the men to love her. Backfired on her at least once, when a female security guard was present. Turns out pepper spray works fine on her, by the way.”

I laughed harder.

“The enchantments generally wore off after an hour or two out of her presence. It’s probably something in the frontal lobe. I debated partitioning my brain, but decided against it, ultimately.” Vector shrugged. “Easier to make minions without gender. Like the Mark Three. Not that it had much of a mind to enthrall, anyway.”

“Could Lust have enthralled Dire? Switched the spell over to affect women?”

Khalid spoke. “The answer is yes, but perhaps no.” We both looked to him, and he spread his hands. “She is specialized in enchanting men who find her desirable. But fae are good at bending the rules. It would work on you, but you could more easily resist it. I imagine you are very strong-willed against such things.”

“Fought off Maestro’s mind control in about ten minutes,” I confirmed. Vector’s eyes went wide.

“How? That shouldn’t be possible! It would require rerouting your own brain chemistry!”

I smiled under my mask. “Acertijo did it as well. Took him longer, a few weeks in all.”

“Well yes, over time you could wear away at them, but... minutes?”

“She is Dire,” I kept my voice soft and matter of fact. “Nothing is beyond her.”

And I was shocked to realize that I was being entirely truthful.

I’d come a long way from my origins, from a busted, stolen set of power armor and forcefields that cooked me if they overloaded. Come a long way from futile, endless fights against heroes and villains alike. I’d walked the kayfabe, lived up to the kayfabe so long that it wasn’t kayfabe anymore. While I was a long way from being invincible, there wasn’t a problem on this planet I couldn’t fix with enough time, resources, and planning.

“You have grown,” Khalid remarked. “Some would say it is a waste that you have fallen to villainy.”

“Some people are foolish.” I stretched. “You’ve been awfully quiet, throughout this. Got any good intel to share on our lusty lady?”

“It is rather embarrassing, perhaps that has influenced my attitude.” He brushed his mustache with the back of his hand. “As I said, I came in armed for demons, and got fae instead. She enchanted me, took me into her shadow world. There she lay with me, to bind the enchantment more strongly.” His eyes flicked away. “I will need a confessor before this is all done with.”

“Khalid, that was essentially rape,” I said, leaning forward and putting my hand on his shoulder. “You’re not to blame.”

“It was... borderline consensual. She put me into a cell. Time runs differently there. Days stretched by as years, even an immortal as I found my patience likewise stretched. When I was free of enchantment and burdened with despair, she offered me servitude for a few lifetimes, in exchange for my freedom. The carnal act sealed the deal, as it were.”

I found a stirring of anger in my chest, that she had used an old friend so. And another stirring, as one more thought occurred to me. “Oh that asshole.”

“Yes. It is likely she has done or will do the same with your companion.” He took my hand, gave it a squeeze. “I am sorry.”

I let out a breath. “He’s from a different culture. Might not hit him as hard. And if we can get to him in time, it will not matter. Acertijo is strong willed.”

“In any case, I was a poor companion. I fought her binding constantly. I was sworn to many lifetimes, but she did not account for the fact I can kill myself and revive over and over again. I am not without resources and willpower of my own.” He stood, and his eyes were grim over his mask. “I watched and listened as I dwelled within her magical realm. She is a pathetic creature at the core of it, not able to live fully in one world or the other. Scorned by the elder fae for her human blood and denied any real power, and unsuited to humanity’s realm by manner or education. No less dangerous for her insecurity, perhaps more dangerous for it.”

“And so she specializes in binding powerful people to make herself feel better.” I sighed. “Killing her might be a mercy.”

“Whoa, boss...” Alpha started, but Beta put up a hand.

“Is that really the best thing to do, here?” He asked.

I checked my emotions. I was angry, yes, but... I took a breath. “It’s not off the table, but it won’t be the first resort. We need to figure out why she’s gone rogue. That’s the core of this puzzle.”

Khalid paced, as he thought. “It might have something to do with her mother.”

“Her mother?”

“Yes. Her mother is some sort of captive in the realm of the Unseelie.”

A shiver ran down my spine, as a thought rose, bounced around my mind, and brought me to my feet. “Her name!”

“What? Well yes, I know it— ”

“Her name, is it Dorothy?” I was practically shouting now, hands on his shoulders, restraining myself from shaking him. After all this time, after all my fruitless attempts...

“Yes!” Khalid grabbed the chair to keep himself upright. “How did you know?”

“Dorothy Hampston!” I cackled, as I roared, hands up, full-on maniacal laughter filling the room.

CHAPTER 14: WAKING THE DEAD

“The best and worst thing about magic is that it's easy, until it isn't.”

--Black Sabbas, demonologist

“You realize we’re taking a huge risk?” Vector said, as I leaned back in the driver’s seat of the truck. The windows were polarized, no way to view the outside from inside. I didn’t have my hands on the steering wheel, the vehicle was driving itself. We’d left the hideout shortly before dusk. I’d run the probabilities and thought my precautions would be enough to keep Sloth off of us until we disembarked. Then we’d be in darkness shortly after that, using night vision to see. Sloth didn’t have the benefit of night vision, as far as Vector knew. Wasn’t a perfect plan, but lucky breaks didn’t hit me often, and this one was too perfect not to follow up on.

“Oh, she knows the risk,” I replied. “Khalid, you’re certain you can pull off a séance?”

He rattled around in the back of the van. “So long as you are certain of the name and the grave, then I have the necessary components.” A goat’s bleat accompanied his last words. “Easy! Foul thing. Well, it should work. I do not know if this vat-grown creature has enough spiritual essence or not.”

“Please!” Vector frowned. “This isn’t my first time dealing with magical types. I grew that Kid model from genuine goat cells. They’ve been tested before, never found lacking.”

“Not sure which is creepier,” I said, grinning under my mask. “That you’ve tested ritual sacrifices with cloned livestock before, or that their cells are part of your always-carried gear.”

Vector’s eyes crinkled with a smile, and he tapped his nose. “When they mature in a day or two, they can also turn grass into spidersilk, by the kilo. Their meat is full of enough nutrients to keep anyone going for a month, too.”

“Really?” That was pretty impressive. “You’ve got a bunch of different cells on tap, don’t you?”

“Everything from combat beasts to survival symbiotes. You should see my pharmacow. Oh, and this little toy, too.” He reached a hand in his pocket, pulled out something that looked like a pink pancake with tentacles. “Combination respirator and moisture recycler. I call it the Facesucker.”

I snorted. Khalid muttered prayers in Turkish.

“So now that we’ve got all this stuff, and gotten on the road in a hurry, can you tell me what this is all about?” Vector tucked away the hentai pancake.

I thought back to the disaster that had been my unintentional trip back in time. Not entirely a disaster, there had been good with the bad. And one of the good things had eluded me ever since my return. I considered, and finally spoke.

“To make a long story short, Dire ended up going back in time, had to kill a lot of Nazis, and rescue Tesla from Hitler.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“No, hush. During this time, we had to jaunt through wherever the heck fae live. One of her companions, the sorceress Dorothy Hampston, traded her womb for safe passage. Nine children, by fae husbands, before she could leave again.”

“Lust has seven sisters,” Khalid said, quietly.

I closed my eyes. “Fuck. One short. Those assholes didn’t let her leave. Something happened and she couldn’t deliver the last. Got to be it.”

“You’re sure she’s one and the same?” Vector asked.

“Looking back on it... yes. She had similar cheekbones, some other physical similarities. Not enough to draw Dire’s notice in the heat of the battle, but enough to corroborate the evidence.” I cracked my knuckles. “Dire went looking for news of Dottie, after her return from the past. But there was nothing. She’d vanished, and now we know why.”

Vector nodded. “All right. So what’s in Bracknell? It’s not Dorothy’s grave, right?”

“No. We were only together for a few days, but Dottie was a chatty sort. Confided many things to Dire. Including how she’d go to her grandmother’s grave to talk with her, learn her secrets of witchcraft and the fae.”

“So this is an intel-gathering trip?”

“Or a ghost-gathering trip.” I shrugged. “Grandma’s probably not going to be too happy that her favorite granddaughter is stuck in faerieland.”

“Faerie,” Khalid corrected.

“Whatever.”

Vector shook his head. “I don’t like this. I’ll come right out and say it. I’m sorry, but this seems like a bad diversion.”

“No need to be sorry.” I shrugged. “If you disagree, say it. Dire’s still in charge, but you might change her mind. Nobody’s infallible. Learned that one the hard way.”

“Huh.” He studied me for a second. “Sorry. I’m mostly used to working with Pride. This is... kind of good. But speaking of him, he’s got our number. At some point he’ll find us. We should probably be building up to defend against him, and figuring out ways to counter and take him down. This side-trip to save your friend... don’t get me wrong, it’s a worthy cause, but it’s taking time away from the main goal.”

“Yeah, it is.” I settled back in the seat. “But if things are as Dire suspects, we’ll also have an edge against Lust. Maybe even an ally, depending on her reasons for going rogue. And honestly...” I shrugged. “There are a lot of things we could do to prepare, but Maestro has no reason to stop throwing heroes at us. All he has to do is find us, kick up a ruckus, and the heroes will come to do his work for him. And once we’re captured, we’re in a system he’s likely had time to rig. We need better intel, and Lust is the most likely source of that. But since she’s dangerous, Grandma is the best edge against her that we’ve got.”

“I am more concerned about your ability to find her grave,” Khalid offered.

“Don’t be. Dottie was very exacting with her description, and Dire’s memory is eidetic.” I tapped my forehead. “And we’ve got an advantage she never dreamed of.”

“Which is?”

Alpha spoke up. “Satellite photos, bay-bee! Straight from MI9’s archives.”

“How the hell did you get those?” Vector asked. “Took me months to bribe my way in for old files.”

“Hacked,” I said. “Took about three minutes.”

“Okay, your power is just unfair.”

“Says the guy who can eliminate measles with a bathtub and a few household chemicals.”

Vector’s eyes slid away.

“What?”

“So, uh, I might’ve already taken care of measles.”

“What?” I sat up. “How!”

“Competing retrovirus that mimics the symptoms and hunts down the actual strains. But mine’s never lethal and will die out in, oh, about six months.”

Khalid swore in Turkish, and I let out a low whistle. “Global exposure?”

“They don’t call me Professor Vector because it rhymes.”

“Any chance of heroic interference?”

“Please. I did it thirty-five days ago.”

“You have done humanity a great service,” Khalid said. “Why do you not seek recognition for it?”

“Heroes,” Vector said, and I snorted in agreement.

“I know of no heroes that would see the destruction of such a disease as a bad thing.”

Vector palmed his face.

“I’ll handle this,” I said, and turned around. “Khalid, Vector has a record. He’s killed people with diseases. Accidentally, mind you, but wide-spread enough that his record will never go away. Anything good he does is suspect, anything charitable is going to be an obvious scheme for a more sinister purpose. You’d have super-scientists picking apart his cure, other biological supervillains twisting it to their own ends, hell, even time-travelers going back and stopping him before it got released.”

“Villains can become redeemed, surely. Given such a thing, it would be possible to do a good work on that scale without that level of harassment.”

“Yes, but there’s the other problem.” I turned back to Vector. “Why haven’t you gone after the more expensive diseases to treat? This is a trick question, she knows the answer.”

“If I did that I’d be dead in days,” Vector said, flatly. “It would look like an accident, or maybe it wouldn’t if they were desperate enough.”

“They?” Khalid said.

“The medical industry.” I smiled. “It’s more obvious in the United States of course, but it’s a problem worldwide. Pestilence is profit, Khalid. Medicine is money. While not every corporation or organization involved in it is corrupt, enough are that any sudden, sweeping change would be viewed as cutting into the profits of some asshole or another. And that’s only one example. Don’t get her started on big helium, or the coal lobby. Hell, even oil has bloody hands.”

“The notion is not unknown to me,” he said, coming to the front of the seats for the first time. “But I must admit, my focus for the last few decades has been policing the supernatural. Are things truly so desperate?”

I sighed. “We live in a world where Vector or Dire could change the world in days, for the better. Hell, even Doc Quantum could do it. Couldn’t understand why he didn’t, not for the longest time. But as she collected data, she saw the big picture. Khalid, the world and the powers-that-be only allow superheroes to live because they don’t rock the boat. They levy laws, keep watch on them, and do their damnedest to ensure that nobody gets too Samaritan and cuts off a profit stream before its time.”

“Before its time, meaning before some group of businessmen who make more than your average third-world country have a chance to squeeze every last drop of profit from it, whatever commodity it might be.” Vector snorted. “God, it feels good to have someone else around who sees the problem.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied. Though from what I could see of Khalid’s face, I’d done him no favors. The man was an optimist, a humanitarian, and I’d basically just pissed on that.

But he had a strength all his own. “Perhaps that is so,” he said. “But in time, I have faith that humanity will find its way. Oh, maybe not this current society or path of progress, but eventually God’s plan shall bring us to a better world.”

Vector snorted again. I didn’t. I reached back and took his hand, gave it a squeeze. “And if he doesn’t, then Dire shall kick ass until the world improves. That’s been her plan for years, just got to get through a few distractions first.”

“Speaking of that, we’re about here,” Alpha announced. “You ready to suit up?”

“I thought you were bringing that in case of trouble,” Vector said.

“Yeah, but our teleportation network doesn’t stretch out this way. And there’s no way in hell Dire’s going anywhere near a magical ritual without some serious titanium between her and the supernatural. Well, that and a few other ingredients.” I undid my seatbelt as the van slowed, made my way into the back of it.

I hadn’t had much time to retrofit the armor, but I’d given it a steel outer shell, with the highest grade iron that I had. Khalid kept insisting that cold iron was necessary for certain fae entities, so I’d used the nanoforges to mix it. No fire involved there, so hopefully that would work out. I’d sent the rest of my minions out to raid one of Khalid’s stashes at his request, retrieving a few of his tools. They’d checked in a few minutes ago. Hopefully we were set, if things went awry.

Dottie said her grandmother had been throttled to death by an irate priest, so Khalid’s professional opinion was that either suffocation or bare hands would be enough to put her down— if it became necessary to do so. I was really hoping she’d be the peaceful sort of spirit.

Gods, magic was a pain in the ass. Made no sense at all, shouldn’t work, yet it did. Hopefully one skilled alchemist would be enough to trump a dead witch if it came to it.

I finished suiting up, and opened the van doors. It was pretty out here, at the edge of Bracknell. All heavy woods, with a dirt road stretching away north. But we had no time to sightsee, and landmarks were a risk, so I turned my view toward the setting sun, barely visible over the trees. “THIS WAY,” I said, and a murder of crows burst from the nearby foliage, shrieking as they fled.

Yeah, this place boded.

We moved through the trees. I didn’t bother with stealth, and wildlife fled as I approached. Khalid moved more slowly, fiddling with the night vision goggles I’d given him, holding the vat-grown kid in his free arm like a pampered yuppie carrying a small dog. The young goat bleated for all it was worth, and struggled. Couldn’t really blame it.

Vector, for his part, walked without night vision goggles. He’d said that his internal ocular modifications would suffice when darkness fell. Alpha kept pace with him, strolling without a care in the world, carrying the backpack of stuff the Janissary had grabbed.

My memory was flawless, and Dorothy had described her family’s cottage in loving detail, but it had been decades since her description was accurate. The area had been left to go to seed since, incorporated into a park or some other sort of preserve.

If I had been going on her words alone, it would be impossible to find what I was seeking. But I was Dire, and I had technology for every occasion.

I blinked through my command prompts, overlaying my night vision with geosight. Specialized ultrasound emitters thrummed to life on my legs, poking and probing into the nearby terrain, illuminating the geology on my HUD. My spectroscope analyzed the readings, filtering out stray veins of ore, looking for worked stone.

Sixty years gone, wood rotted, mortar flaked, and stone chimneys toppled. But foundations were another matter entirely.

“THERE,” I announced, pointing slightly to the north. “THE MOST LIKELY CANDIDATE.”

“That’s what we thought, too,” Gamma said from her perch on a wide tree branch.

Khalid whirled, Vector practically jumped out of his skin, and Alpha laughed. “Hey little sis.”

“Technically we’re not siblings.”

“We’re totally siblings,” Delta insisted from a tree over.

A few chords resounded from a lonely guitar.

“The hell?” Vector asked.

“We found it in the bunker. Beta repaired it. Said it helps de-stress him,” Gamma explained.

Vector shot me a look. “Are you certain your minions are taking this seriously?”

“FIGURE IT’S ABOUT SIXTY-FORTY THERE. EPSILON?”

A steel figure rose from one of the thickest tangles of brush. “It’s here. I cleared away enough to find the remnants of the chimney.”

“WHICH MEANS THE GRAVE IS...” I swept the geosight east, playing over the old yew trees. “THERE.”

The tombstone was little more than a pile of fragments, crumbled by age and scattered around its base. But the thing just beneath the soil was the size of a coffin, collapsed and flattened by time and vermin.

We had the ingredients. From here on out, the rest of the course would be on Khalid, and I was glad for it. This was getting into territory that needed skills I neither had nor desired.

Khalid paced out, examined the clear spots and the trees, measured the sun, and nodded. “Alpha, you will find four wooden rods in the backpack. Use them to dig a trench six feet long, running from due east to due west, ending at the point the sun will set. Six inches wide should suffice, and...” he eyeballed the kid. “...four inches deep.”

“Can all of us dig it or do I have to figure out how to use four sticks with two hands?”

“Yes, all of you can pitch in.”

Beta abstained, citing philosophical reasons. The other ’bots pitched in, finishing the work as the shadows lengthened, and darkness started to fill the woods.

“We should have perhaps ten minutes, once she imbibes,” Khalid warns. “The animal is smaller than generally preferred.”

“TEN MINUTES SHOULD BE ENOUGH. IF DOTTIE’S STORIES WERE TRUE, THE OLD GIRL NEVER SUFFERED FROM INDECISION.”

“All right. It’s time. Please stand away from the trench.” Everyone hastened to obey. I found a tree to lean on, not that I needed the support with my harness. Still, having my back to the wood gave a sense of reassurance. Even for me, this setting, this ritual, the circumstances... well, I’d be lying if I said they weren’t a bit spooky.

Khalid squatted down next to the trench, pulled out a knife, and slit the goat kid’s throat. He held it, kicking and thrashing, aiming the spurts into the trench. Eventually it slowed and stilled, and he tilted it up, ran a hand down it, squeezing. Every drop of blood that he could, he poured into the trench. Then he sighed, muttered a prayer, and put the carcass to the eastern end of the trench.

Silence for a long minute. Khalid stood, stretched, and looked to Gamma. “May I have my tools, please?”

Gamma looked around, waved, and Epsilon strode forward with an armful of bags. Khalid sat on the ground and sorted through them, eventually pulling out a costume, and changing into it without any particular shyness.

“Is that it?” Vector asked, glancing around. “I was expecting, well, more. Black candles and Latin chants, and specters popping out of the ground and such.”

“The sun is still setting,” Khalid told him, buckling on bandoliers of vials. “Once the last light is gone from this Earth, then we shall see them.”

“I mean, okay, but you just killed a goat and dumped its blood in a ditch. If that’s all it takes, why don’t more people know how to do this?”

“The placement of the trench is key, as is the time of day. Also, you will note that most religions have strict rules about how to butcher livestock. And if you go back far enough, you will find that many of the laws on the books were put there by people who knew of this ritual, and wished to avoid the risk of ordinary people calling up shades.” Khalid buckled his belt, and tucked his hood on over his head. Now attired in proper green tunic, white overcoat and trousers, he looked every part the Last Janissary that I remembered.

“It’s a conspiracy, then?” Vector seemed annoyed.

“It was part of the rules of the Unseen, before the Germans rendered them useless in their war. But to be honest...” Khalid turned, surveying the trees. “It is less of a conspiracy, and more part of the way humans are made. It is a disturbing thing we do, the opposite of comforting. It frightens, it tests the sanity, and for those who encounter it accidentally, it is easy enough to deny the reality. Humanity has an unparalleled ability to delude itself, and thus the old magics, the old rites are forgotten until they are needed once more. As they are now.”

The forest was silent. Even within the armor, I could almost fancy I felt a chill.

And then the first shade stepped out from between the trees.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it.

It didn’t register at all on the nightsight, and it didn’t vibrate the ground on the geosight. But to my regular sight it was a shape, maybe as big as a human, but with no substance to it. Just a distortion in the air, like those little strands that passed over your retinas when they get tired. But black, blacker than the rest of the shadows around it, and moving purposefully and slowly, like an old man shuffling. Moving toward the trench.

“No,” Khalid said. He got between it and the trench, and waved his hand like a man shooing a bee. Vector let out something that could have been a whimper, as the shade paused... then the thing faded back.

About that point, I noticed more of them. They slid between the trees, peeled out of the falling night, drawn to the spilled blood like bugs.

“KHALID?” I asked, looking around the clearing. “THERE ARE A LOT OF THEM.” I clicked off the nightsight, it was a distraction, and there was a bit of light to see by, just a bit.

“Ah, troublesome. Get in their way, wave them off. They cannot drink unless you let them. Any contact will shred them, and they know it.”

“Hey, question?” Alpha asked. “What are you guys talking about?”

“YOU CAN’T SEE THEM?” I strode toward a pair, short and tall. As I got closer they bubbled, took form. I saw something that could have been a woman’s face, young and tearful. The other had no face I could tell, but thick arms and a peasant’s tunic of some sort. Both backed away as I shooed at them.

“Nope, not a bit.” Alpha held still.

“Okay, okay, this is happening,” Vector’s breath was coming short and sharp. He waved away a couple, drew his fingers back with a hiss as he struck one, and it came apart in streamers. “Ah! Cold. Look, look, how are we supposed to tell which one is the one we want?”

“I have been watching the grave,” Khalid said, circling around the trench slowly. “She will come from there. But she is at rest, and these are restless, roaming, so they are the first to show.”

The worst part about magic is that you can almost see some logic to it, now and again. But it’s a phantom, as insubstantial as these ragged things I was holding at bay. From my discussions with Dottie about it, magic seemed mainly like a collection of trivia and rules that could be overridden with different rules, often randomly or based upon variables that humans couldn’t glimpse or otherwise account for.

But this, what we were doing now, seemed simple enough. It had rules, we followed the rules, and eventually we’d get what we wanted. Eventually.

The minutes crawled by, and so did the shades. I lost count of the number we turned back. After a time, Vector calmed down, started treating it as a routine. “I never thought I’d say this, but this is actually a little boring.”

“Most of the safer rituals are,” Khalid said. “Another reason why this is known to so few. The attention span of the modern human is much shorter than their ancestors’, generally. Ah, hold for a moment. She is up.”

We all looked to the grave.

It was a small shape, bent over and stooped, moving as if it had a cane. It... she shuffled forward. Others came in its wake, though.

“I will get those. You two guard the flanks,” Khalid instructed. I took south, Vector took north, and we waved our hands in lazy arcs, taking care to avoid Khalid’s direction. It had taken long enough to get this shade, I didn’t want to risk dispelling her with an accidental strike.

She made it to the trench, and got even smaller. I got the impression she was stooping, putting her head to the ditch like a dog or a cat licking from a bowl. Drinking the blood.

“Now you may step away,” Khalid instructed. “A few more will feed, but she has the first taste and the advantage.”

We moved back to the trees, and watched.

Delta jerked her arms up to her face. “I think I see it!”

Epsilon moved closer, squatted down to study her. “Fascinating...”

And yes, she was definitely becoming more substantial. The writhing wisps of optical illusion that made her twisted together, and took on an opaque bulk. She rose out of flatness into a greater resolution, like a vacuum-formed prop being pushed from its mold. Flesh the blackness of night gained something like color. On impulse I clicked the night vision back on, and saw dots like hundreds of fireflies, filling a shape that looked like an old woman’s outline.

“Your name is Hampston,” Khalid said, and the clearing seemed to throb like a heartbeat with the name. Next to her other fireflies glowed in my night vision, as the other shades drank.

“Yes, it is,” Dottie’s grandmother said. Faint, but there. Readings on my audio sensors, which were drawing about three times their normal power from the reactor. Something was draining my circuitry like a thirsty toddler. I chalked it down to ghosty shit and adjusted to compensate.

“YOUR GRANDDAUGHTER NEEDS HELP, MOTHER HAMPSTON,” I said. “WILL YOU HELP US HELP HER?”

“Yes,” she said, straightening up. “But girl, you’ve made some bad enemies and they’re comin’ fast. Best look to them now.”

“WHAT?” Around her, the other drinking shades jerked up, stared east, and ran for their unlives. I stared around the clearing, and as I did the hungry shades faded back into the trees, like tubeworms darting back down for cover.

“I’ll just wait here, dearie. Good luck to ye.”

Khalid yelled, pulled his blade free with a singing whine of steel, just as the first skeletal dogs burst barking from the underbrush, and bright-purple spectral horses screamed over the trees, galloping on thin air straight toward us. “Arm yourselves! The wyld hunt is upon us!”

CHAPTER 15: GHOSTS, HAUNTS, AND HUNTS

“The Wyld Hunt, servants of the Mountain King himself. Centuries untold, have they hunted man, exacting retribution for sins long forgotten. Or perhaps for sport... these are not the kindly fae of storybooks and cartoons. These are creatures of blood and hoof and horn, and dark things in ancient forests...”

--Gilbert Hochfried, scholar and magician-for-hire

I didn’t know much about the supernatural, but I figured certain rules and conventions would hold true. Primary among them being that when something is called ‘The’ Wyld Hunt, then it is probably a big fucking deal.

“Do not run!” Khalid yelled, swiping at the nearest skeletal hounds. “They gain power when you run!”

“THEN THEY CHOSE THE WRONG ADVERSARY.” I kicked a charging hound to bony pieces, backhanded a leaping dog, and ignored the few that got through and tried to drag my armor to the ground. They were up against my weight and my stabilizers, and I wished them luck with that.

Vector, for his part, yelped and skinned up the nearest tree like a monkey. Probably some enhancements in his hands and muscles too, I reckoned. In any case, he was probably fine from the hounds, but...

“LOOK OUT FOR THE HORSES!”

“Forget the horses!” Khalid called. “Watch out for their riders!”

Oh yeah, they did have hunched, spindly forms riding on their backs, tucked low with gleaming purple blades. They circled above us, but one descended toward Vector with what was probably malign intent, sword raising up—

—night turned to day, as my particle beam ripped through him. The horse veered off, and I saw to my disbelief that he didn’t seem to be hurt in the slightest.

“FRIGGIN’ MAGIC,” I muttered, turning my anger to the hounds that now circled me. They weren’t a threat to me, but enough of them could literally dogpile Khalid. I geared up for a defensive pattern—

—and with a flurry of metal limbs and grinding servos, my minions leaped into the fray. Dogs flew back, yelping or breaking up into bones as the five of them executed a ruthless flanking maneuver, sweeping from one side of the clearing to the other and returning, forming a rough pentacle around Khalid and Grandma Hampston’s ghost.

Who looked a little less solid, now that I had a chance to glance her way. Shit! The ten minute timer was still running!

Okay, well these guys were insubstantial, time to find out if my armor coating was good enough to punch out... wait a minute.

“THESE THINGS ARE FAE, RIGHT?”

“Yes!” Khalid called, rummaging in his bandoliers. “What are you... wait, no!”

I took to the sky, arrowed straight for the nearest horseman, who fell back before me. Fast suckers, no way to catch them if they didn’t want to be caught. Not with my current configuration. “COWARDS!” I called. “MORE LIKE THE MILD HUNT!”

“Good one!” Delta called up from below.

I crossed my arms and hovered there, blinking the pattern to let red light glare forth from my eyesockets. The nearest horsemen fell back another few paces, then formed up in ranks. “OH, A CHARGE?” I beckoned them forward. “COME AND TRY. COME AND DIE.”

They didn’t.

For a second I thought I had them cowed. That was fine, I could stay here and Dire at them while the Janissary got to work and figured out a solution, or got the information from Grandma.

But no, as it turned out, they were just waiting for reinforcements. From behind them a towering figure, all horned headdress and bony mask rode up, purple lance balanced on one skeletal knee. Ancient bronze armor bled into purple light and back again, his body was both an amalgamation of energy and physical matter.

Good, I could work with that.

“The Huntsman himself is upon you!” Khalid called.

“IS THIS GOOD?”

“He is taking it as a challenge. None of his companions will dare interrupt this duel.”

“GOOD.” I charged him.

He hesitated a second, dipped his lance in salute, and charged me—

—only to veer away as my flight of concussion missiles hissed free from my shoulderpads, and ripped toward him.

“HOMING, YOU MORON.” I gestured, they followed, and thunder filled the night as they detonated...

...to no real effect, as he charged out of the blast wave, closing the distance. I twisted aside, gave him a particle beam to the face, but when the flash dissipated his mask was unmarred. And he was way too close for comfort, so I cut the thrusters and dropped. But I was just a second too late.

His steed’s hoof clipped my side as I fell and I gasped, as it went straight through the armor, and thwacked into my ribs with a burst of pain. Wheezing, I kicked in the gravitics five inches from the treetops, straightened up, and checked my damage readouts.

Nothing.

That son of a bitch could stab me right through my armor, and I couldn’t touch him.

Uh-oh.

He wheeled around again, and I stretched an arm out to Khalid. “COLD IRON! SHE NEEDS SOME, NOW!”

My minions blurred into overtime, as the skeletal hounds poured out of the trees, almost as if they knew what was coming. Khalid drew back, got some distance, drew his arm back to throw his sword to me. All the while I watched the Huntsman gain speed, charge faster, lance lowered straight for me... “THROW IT, MAN!”

He did.

And one of those fucking dogs leaped straight up into the air, and snatched it in its jaws.

“FUCK.”

The Huntsman’s lance took me straight through the mask, wisping through the decoy head and then he was gone and past... and in a heartbeat I knew what I had to do.

I toppled from the air, like a puppet with its strings cut, hit the ground with a mighty ‘thump’, and lay still.

The fae host sent up an ululating cry, and the horses began to circle around their seven targets on the ground, blades raised and ready for the slaughter. The Huntsman watched, arms folded, lance held loosely. Smug and eldritch, untouchable in victory.

Well.

I’d see about that.

It took twenty-two seconds to redirect the gravitic generators, to jury-rig their internal circuitry via the armor’s repair and modification sub-components. An eternity, and the circle was almost to the treetops around the clearing, the riders closing in bit by bit, a tornado of whirling ghostly blades. It took four more seconds to use the geosight, and locate what I needed.

And then my laughter filled the clearing, as I stood. The circle hesitated, the riders veering out in shock. The Huntsman recoiled, looked to his lance, felt it with one bony hand.

“HMHMHMHMHMHM... HAHAHAHHAHAHA!” I lowered my gauntlets to waist level, and brought them up, slowly.

The earth shook. Trees toppled, stone groaned, and Vector shrieked as he fell from his tree. Beta caught him but I barely noticed, as a large, muddy mass wrenched itself out of the ground, caught by the gravitics I’d rewired.

“What have you done?” Khalid whispered, in the sudden silence. The mass rose into the sky, dropping rubble and dirt and pebbles, and I laughed harder. The Earth shook a bit more, aftershocks, almost. Things settled under the forest floor, and would be a while settling. The mass was over eighty feet long, forty feet wide, and weighed so, so many tons. Not surprising, considering what it was made out of.

“WHAT WAS IT AGAINST FAE, JANISSARY? AH YES, THAT’S RIGHT. COLD IRON!”

I slammed my hands to the side, and the lump plowed through three horses, splattering them into screaming flickers of purple energy, sending their broken riders falling into the forest below. I twisted and jerked my hands to the other side, and the lump followed toward the next bunch, a battering ram, a torpedo of raw ore. My vengeance upon all things stupid and magical and cheaty.

They rode flat out, and I rose up after them, gesturing like the conductor of a symphony. My moving maul of fairy-death chased them out of my sight. Still too slow to catch them, but it was oh-so gratifying to see that Huntsman scramble for his warped life.

“NOT SO FUN WHEN IT’S YOU ON THE OTHER END OF IT, HM?” I set it in a rotating whirl around me. Below, on the ground, my minions and allies were finishing off the last of the hounds. The tide had turned, and this battle could now only have one end.

The hounds saw that too. The survivors made themselves scarce. The destroyed ones crumbled, their bones turning to goo and sticks. I glanced around, and lowered the heap of ore down to the ground gently, gently, wincing as more trees snapped and broke. In the distance, an emergency siren wailed. There would probably be people coming out to investigate this mess, and we needed to be gone, shortly. Fortunately I’d thought to bring the teleporter beacon.

Grandma was very faint, and I winced to see it. Five minutes and thirty-six seconds, gone, thanks to random fae attacks.

Well no, there was no way that could have been random. But that was a discussion for another time.

“You ran off the Wyld Hunt,” Khalid said, eyes wide under his night vision goggles.

“NO TIME. GRANDMA HAMPSTON?”

“Not to you,” the shade replied.

“YOU ARE SPEAKING TO A FRIEND OF DOTTIE.”

The shade stirred, quivered as glittering, see-through eyes found my empty sockets. “You know Dottie?”

“YES. SHE IS IN TROUBLE. SHE HAD TO MAKE A BARGAIN WITH THE FAE, AND IS TRAPPED IN THEIR REALM.”

“What?” The shade straightened up even more, and a wind whipped up out of nowhere, stirring the trees, and almost drowning out the cracking grinding of the earth below.

“Janissary?” Alpha glanced his way.

Khalid kept his eyes on her and his hand on the hilt of his blade. “She is the ghost of a witch. Such displays are not beyond her.”

“Dash it all, Dottie, I taught you better.” Grandma shook her head, considered her fading hands. “Well there’s no help for it, I shall need to go with you.”

“Can she do that?” Vector whispered.

“I’ll need a body to ride.”

Khalid took a step back, looked at me. I looked back. “NO IDEA WHAT SHE’S TALKING ABOUT.”

“She wishes to possess one of us.”

Epsilon raised his hand. “I would find the experience interesting.”

Grandma shook her head again. “Nay. Flesh alone can hold me.”

I considered my maze of failsafes set up against mind control, and the fact that I really needed to be myself for the near future, weighed it against the ghostly possession I’d seen in various movies, and found it wanting. “IT CANNOT BE DIRE.”

“It cannot be me, either,” Khalid said. “Even if it was a good idea to have the only man who knows how to banish her possessed, it would take too long to undo my wards. She would fade before I was done. This leaves us with one option.”

The six of us looked to Vector.

“This is one of those big damn heroes moments, isn’t it?” Vector chewed his lips.

“I fade fast, strangers,” the shade whispered. Sure enough, she was winking out in my nightsight as I watched.

“VECTOR...”

“You owe me for this.” Vector took off his glasses, and shut his eyes. “Do it.”

The shade flowed over him, into him, seeping away like he was inhaling a cloud of ink. We watched in silence as he shuddered, and put his hands to his head.

“VECTOR?”

He breathed in, out, and pulled his hands away. “No,” he said. “This body feels strange.”

“HE’S MADE SOME MODIFICATIONS. BEST NOT TO PLAY WITH THEM.”

“I see ye, but where is the light? There is no light, how can I see?”

“COMPLICATED. COME, BACK TO THE VAN. WE NEED TO VACATE.” I was pretty sure that was a helicopter in the distance. Best not to complicate the lives of whoever was responding to this imagined emergency.

We walked back to the vehicle, and my minions chattered. “So what do we call him now?” Beta asked. “He’s not himself.”

“I dunno,” Alpha said. “Possessed Vector? Ghost holder Vector?”

“Professor Grandma?” Delta offered.

“Perhaps simply Professor. We don’t call him that normally, it would be a differentiation that would not alert outsiders.” Epsilon weighed in.

“Is that a concern?” Beta pointed out. “We can’t take him among outsiders without risking them, now.  Not so long as Big Brother keeps watching us.”

“Why not just ask her?” Gamma mused. “Let’s do that. Hey, ghost!”

Vector didn’t respond, strolling through the trees with a surety he lacked in his normal gait. His body language was completely different, no hesitation in him at all, none of the exaggerated concern or paranoia I’d marked in his prior mannerisms. It was eerie, and a little concerning.

“GRANDMOTHER HAMPSTON,” I spoke up. “WHAT SHALL WE CALL YOU?”

The displaced witch considered it for a little while, smiled with a more honest expression than I’d ever previously seen on that face. “Dru, dear. It’s not me name, nor part of it, but it’ll do. Had a dear friend call me that before. I’ll know it when ye say it.” She glanced back in time to see the van at the edge of the road, just before the toppled trees. “Oh! Is that a lorry? They’ve gotten so strange since my day.”

“DRU. COME TOWARD THE BACK, THEN.”

“Get in the van!” Delta squealed. “We’ve got candy!”

“Do ye now...”

“Not really,” Beta said. “She’s making a bad joke.”

“Ah. Tsk.”

We piled in, and I hit the teleporter. One flash later, and Dru was looking at me wide-eyed.

I looked at Khalid. “WAIT, HOLD ON, CAN GHOSTS BE TELEPORTED?”

“When they are in a host, yes. Well, presumably. I do not know how your device works, my expertise only covers magical means of transport.”

“Dru?” Gamma asked.

“Yes dear?”

“We’re good.” Gamma announced, hopping out the back. “Vector turned the bathroom of his quarters into a pile of weeds and goo. I’ll go clear out another room and get her set up.”

“You don’t have to put yourself out for my sake dearie,” Dru dismounted from the van with care, then did a double take at the dimly-lit concrete garage around her. “Well! Lorries have gotten a lot faster since me day.”

I weighed the pros and cons of trying to explain the teleportation engine to the ghost of a lady who had lived all her years in a cottage in the woods before airplanes were a thing, and decided to let it drop.

Khalid tapped my pauldron. “We must speak.”

“AGREED.” I looked to Alpha. “GET DRU ANYTHING SHE NEEDS WITHIN REASON UNTIL THE ROOM IS CLEAR, MAKE SURE SHE’S COMFY.”

“Will do,” Alpha said. “I’ll check in with you if that ‘within reason’ part comes up, though.”

“FAIR ENOUGH.”

The possessed man wandered off with the rest of the minions. I reviewed my mental map of the bunker, and nodded. “CAN DIRE ASK YOU FOR AN EXAMINATION WHILE WE TALK?”

“Of course. Wait, you are wounded?”

“GOT KICKED IN THE SIDE BY A SPECTRAL HORSE. DIDN’T HAVE TIME TO STOP AND CHECK HOW BADLY.”

“Lead the way, please.”

It had been an old fallout shelter, once upon a time. A remnant of the cold war, built for some rich man who had lost his fortune in the eighties. Not far from Windsor, just remote enough from London that the teleporter could reach it without a boost, or in a pinch we could get there via the roads. Hadn’t needed that feature, but then we hadn’t planned for Sloth, either.

One of the benefits of this rich man’s paranoia was a serviceable sickbay. Alpha had taken charge of restocking the medicine and tools early on, and it paid off now. I decanted, slapped a surgical mask on to guard against lip-reading, and lay back on the table. Oh yeah, my side blazed with throbbing pain as I moved. No adrenaline left to shield me; I was feeling every bit of it now. I pulled up my shirt and hissed as Khalid probed the tennis-ball sized lump of bruises and bloody scabs.

But as he worked, his eyes never left my face.

“What?” I asked.

“What happened to Dire?”

“Mask up,” I reminded him, and he went and retrieved an operating mask. He slid his on with the ease of a professional... hell, he was a licensed doctor. Just happened to also be an immortal alchemist. I took a deep breath in his absence, testing my lungs. Right side still hurt like hell, but I’d definitely had worse.

He returned, digging into the medical kit on the table, and slathering my side with some sort of cream. “Again, I must ask, what happened to Dire?”

I blinked. “You aren’t making any more sense than the first—” oh, wait. “Ah. The hair.”

“Yes. That.” He pointed at my legs. “And that.” His finger moved up to point at my chest. “And those.” Then moved on up to tap my cheek. “And these. So again I ask, what has become of Doctor Dire?”

“She is here before you.” I shivered. Cold in here, all of a sudden. “Her face... it was altered.”

“And your voice, as well? Come, I remember you from the settlement. I do not recall your name, but I recall you and your child. I understand what has happened here, I think. There are those who follow a legacy, heroes whose masks are taken up by other heroes. For such an idealistic villain, a similar path is not inconceivable. But please, at least tell me how she died.”

A flash of pain, and I closed my eyes. An old memory, a curved blade biting through my chest, the silken ribbon of heat and agony as it sliced between my ribs, and blood surged up my throat.

“She’s not dead,” I whispered. “Dire is before you, Khalid, and she asks you to believe her. She couldn’t explain it to your satisfaction, but know that Minna’s sacrifice was great.”

“Minna.” Khalid tested it, nodded. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, a coldness looked back at me. “Yes, that was her name.”

He treated my wound in silence, bound it with gauze and tape. When it was done and I was pulling my shirt back on, he washed his hands with his back to me. I didn’t understand what had come between us, and I hated it.

And in that hatred, I decided that I wasn’t going to take it.

“For the love of god, Khalid!” I burst out, slamming my hand on the table. He jumped, turned to face me. “No! Just no!”

“What is—”

“Her stupid freaking hero boyfriend lied to her, the villain she’s trying to take down fucking controls London from behind the scenes, and now there’s goddamn ghost faeries after her metal-plated ass! No! No you don’t get to sulk and judge and act forlorn!”

“I am not—”

“We are back in the dark city, Khalid! We’re back at war against the worst of the worst, there are way too many people on the line, and he’s literally going to conquer the world or worse if we fuck up! Whatever his plan is it’s horrible, and She. Needs. You. Not sulky you or distant you, but the you who had her back against the draugr. The you who came to back up her and Roy and Sparky. The you who, who...” ah damn, I was crying. “She needs. A friend. She needs you to be that friend. Whatever happened with, with Minna, it’s done and Dire’s lost too many friends to—”

Then he was hugging me, and I was hugging him back, and resting my chin on his head and bawling.

Total breach of kayfabe. Entirely unsuitable act for Doctor Dire, destroyer of dumbasses.

But fuck it; it had been a bad day. The worst twenty-four hours I’d had in a while.

After a time, my sobs faded to hiccups, and I looked down to see the top of Khalid’s head slimed with snot and tears where it had leaked from my mask. “Oh fuck. Sorry.”

He gave me one last squeeze and let go. Considerate enough to keep his arms low, I noticed. Avoiding my mega-bruise, thankfully. “It is fine. I apologize for giving you the wrong impression. It must have been a rough few years for you.”

“It was.” I sat back on the table. “Rewarding sometimes too, but damned if—” he winced, and I remembered he was very strongly Christian. “—sorry. Darned if she doesn’t have to work hard for every victory. Nothing comes easily, not even the things that should be a slam-dunk success. Still, she’s making progress.”

“I should say so.” He rubbed his hair, winced at the goo, and went back to rinsing his hands. “That was the Wyld Hunt. You ran them off like the lowest of leprechauns. That is no small thing. That is, in fact, pretty amazing.”

“What? They weren’t so bad.” I shrugged. “A few cheaty tricks, but iron put paid to them.”

“Iron is the only thing that mortals can bring to bear against them, and the Huntsman has millenia of close combat experience. Do not count what you have done here as minor. He will certainly not remember it so, for the next meeting.”

“Great. Although, Dire’s been wondering about this meeting, to tell the truth. Why was the Wyld Hunt here? Why would Lust send them after Dire, especially now?”

“I must admit to some puzzlement, myself. If indeed Lust has gone rogue, then it does not seem to benefit her to assault us. It is possible that we incurred her wrath by disturbing her grandmother’s rest. Or that they were tasked to watch this place, and given the right to hunt any who lingered too near the grave. Although...” his brow furrowed.

“Yes?”

“The Huntsman is nobility. Far above Lust in both status and power. She could not dictate terms to him, and he would be unlikely to work for her without major concessions. Her bindings and clout are all with low fae, the higher courts scorn her. Something is not adding up; the equation is false.”

I chewed my lip. Whatever it was, I could stand to sleep on it. We had won a small victory here, and I’d been running on power naps for too long. We had Dru, a relatively safe haven, and a situation that was unlikely to be made worse by eight hours of recovery. “Perhaps Dru will know. Dottie said her family specialized in dealing with the fae.”

“That does not lend me hope.” Khalid crossed his arms. “In my experience, those who deal with fae can be worse and more ruthless than those who deal with demons.”

“Oh come on, she seems nice enough,” I protested.

Alpha’s voice hissed in my ear, as the vox channel opened up. “Hey boss? Got some requests from Dru, want to check how reasonable they are.”

“Shoot.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re okay with the holly, mistletoe, and rowan shafts, but I figured you might have a few problems with the murderer’s hands, pounds of virgin’s fat, and live babies...”

CHAPTER 16: QUEEN’S COURT, QUEENSGUARD

“It's easier than you'd think to get to faerie. Harder to get back, mind you.”

--Susan Snell, minion and guardian of the Forbidden Apple gate.

“I only needed one child,” Dru griped.

“You’re not helping your case,” Alpha said.

I rolled my eyes, and tucked into breakfast. The eggs looked green through the night vision. Couldn’t eat through masks, and Sloth was still out there, so lipreading was still a thing. So darkness for all, with night vision to make sure nobody jammed sausage up their nose by accident.

English breakfast was one of the things I enjoyed the least about Britain. They had a sausage called spotted dick, and it looked like exactly what it sounded like. But Delta had prepared it, and the fried tomatoes and runny eggs and beans, so I ate for the calories and kept my criticisms to myself.

Truth be told, I was starving. I’d forgotten to eat yesterday, and well, spotted dick was the lesser of the two sins.

Speaking of which...

“There’s no other way to get to Lust’s realm?” My voice came out a bit more plaintive than I’d aimed for.

“There are probably several.” Khalid’s eyes didn’t leave Dru. His fork and knife moved like machinery, slicing through the tomatoes with precision. “However, I do not know of them. And since we are on a time limit now, searching around for a less-obtrusive entrance would incur more risk than we can probably afford.”

“Time limit?” I blinked. Sure, we had to rescue Acertijo before he succumbed to Lust’s wiles, but even if he had the situation wasn’t unsalvageable. Just had to kill her, and that would take care of the matter. Still, it was possible he meant something else.

“He’s talking about me, dear,” Dru said, through a mouthful of grapefruit. Her plate was heaped high with everything Delta had made, and she was demolishing it with gleeful abandon. I sincerely hoped that Vector didn’t have any food allergies, then the ludicrous nature of the concern hit me— there’s no way he wouldn’t have fixed those. Dru continued, between bites. “I can’t be holding on to this nice man’s body forever. Got until the next moon phase before I start slipping. Once that happens I’ll be as much use as a buggered hedgehog.”

I snorted bits of spotted dick onto my plate. Unexpected vulgarity, from such a sweet old lady... who knew how to sacrifice babies to make magical talismans. Okay, shouldn’t have been so unexpected. I nodded as I considered her words. “All right. So the sooner the better.” I sighed. “Open it is. Just going to have to take some precautions, especially after that heap of idiocy on the morning news.”

Beta reached over and patted my shoulder. “You knew it was going to happen.”

I had. Still, it had been a shitty thing to wake up to find that Britain was blaming the entire mess in Southwark and Harrod’s on me. At least the teleported people had been found in Mariposa, which didn’t help my case as much as I’d thought.

“To be fair, you’ve done big destructive rampages before, boss.”

“Only very small ones. And there was a perfectly good reason for that, thank you very much.” I sliced my eggs, and glared at Alpha. He shrugged, unfazed. He and his compatriots were arranged around us like statues, up until the point the dishes needed changing or one of us needed a refill. I didn’t mind it so much, but Khalid kept shooting them little glances.

I wasn’t the only one that noticed that. Gamma met his gaze with her eyesockets, and raised a hand, turning it to the side. “What?”

“It is not often that I see something entirely new.”

“We’re hardly the first androids that were ever made.” Beta said.

“I have seen many automatons in my time, but there is something different about you.”

“Good or bad?” Delta asked. “Please be good, please be good, please be good...”

“Different. You seem almost like whole people. In others such as you, there is always an otherworldly quality, a sense of wrongness. You, if you had skin, I could easily mistake for humans.”

“Skin is actually on the agenda at some point,” I said, gesturing to Dru. “Dire was going to talk to Vector about that when he’s himself again.”

That got a response. The lot of them turned to me, started talking at once, then froze after a split-second. I saw them glance to each other, in that silent communication they had over their own network.

All but Epsilon. He pulled over a chair, and sat next to Khalid. “I think it comes from our social heuristics.”

“Excuse me?” Khalid frowned. “I do not think I know that word.”

“Heuristic; process or method.” Epsilon steepled his fingers. “Originally we started as fragments of Alpha, with his persona stripped out. He was planning to let us grow and develop through simulations, but the time frame was infeasible due to Maestro M’s assault on Dire. So instead he gave us access to various social networks, and set us up with basic chat algorithms.”

“You learned to be human from things like Myfacejournal?” Khalid’s eyes widened. “Dear God. The comments and memes on that infernal program...”

“We had some constraints. Though it took serious work to avoid picking up bad habits and counterproductive language from various inefficient human sub-groups.”

“I swear, I never want to hear the word ’Cuck’ again,” Delta muttered. “Still mad you didn’t let me blow up their computers.”

“Half of them were on phones, D,” Gamma said.

“Phones are even easier to blow up!” Delta waved her arms in frustration.

“You can do that?” Khalid asked.

“And more,” I confirmed. “Dire once used sonics to blow up a man’s head over the phone.” Khalid’s expression shifted to pure horror. “Uh, he had it coming,” I added.

“I should hope so!” Khalid moved his plate aside. Instantly Beta whisked it out of the way, and topped off his coffee. Khalid scrutinized him, as the android carried the dishes off to the washer.

“Something on your mind?” Gamma asked.

“Greek letters on each of your masks... running commentary on your master’s work and life... yes, that fits.” Khalid’s smile spread under his mustache. “You are a proper Greek chorus after all!”

Greek chorus? I tilted my head as I considered it. In traditional Greek plays, the chorus acted as narration and explained the hero’s actions, feelings, and sometimes the larger themes of the play. They acted as a counterpoint, and almost a gestalt character in their own right.

“Yes,” I said. “That fits. You’re now the Greek Chorus.”

They accepted the designation with good grace, and breakfast ended as we turned our attention to the day and the coming operation.

“So. Apple Market?” I asked.

“Yes. In the heart of Covent Garden.”

“Not too far from our old apartment,” Alpha said. “That might cause some problems.”

“I don’t think so,” Gamma spoke up. “There’s more security and police on the streets, but life goes on. Traffic has been rerouted around the blast radius in Southwark, but we should be able to reach the booth without trouble.”

I stood up and started pacing. “Reaching it isn’t the problem. We can teleport in, get there, and get through without issue if Khalid’s information is correct. But there’s no way Sloth won’t see us do that, and there’s no way the Maestro won’t have a welcoming committee, or worse, a pile of bombs waiting on the other side when we come back out.” There had been enough bloodshed in London over our struggle. I was disinclined to allow him another shot if we had any say in the matter.

“Then there’s yer armor, dear. I may be a bit out of touch, but I think people might have a few words when you walk in there eight feet tall and shouty and suchlike.  But I might could help you with that.” Dru tapped her teeth with one fingernail.

I raised an eyebrow. “She’s listening.”

She held up the bony, runny hand that she’d had Beta go and dig up in the wee hours of the morning. It had been crusted in yellow wax, and looked like a fried giant spider. “Hand o’ Glory. Old trick but good one.”

“Most definitely not a good one,” Khalid said. “Perhaps not a damnable offense, but definitely coming close to a line that should not be crossed.”

“Villain, remember?” I tapped my chest. “What does it do?”

“It will put those around you into a fugue state. They will see you, but not think anything of it. Unless they are extremely strong willed, they will forget that you were there.”

“Sounds like exactly what we need,” I nodded. “Wait. What’s the downside?”

“It doesn’t discriminate, Miss Dire. It hits everyone close around the one what uses it. Which will include us.” Dru smiled. “We’re going to be a proper bunch of numpties until it’s out.”

“Actually, we might not be affected,” Epsilon pointed out. “In which case we can keep charge of the Last Janissary and Mrs. Dru, here.”

“All right. Don’t suppose it will work on Sloth, too? Make him too stupid to watch us?”

“Unlikely,” Khalid rubbed his beard. “The hand’s magic is limited by proximity. I’ve lost track of the number of fleeing thieves I’ve seen cut down by bows because they trusted in the hand’s magic.”

“So it will help with the entry, but not the exit.” I gnawed my lip as I thought. “Khalid, what about different forms?”

“What?”

“The Maestro’s non-magical, from what Vector told me. He left that part to Lust. So he’ll be watching for us to return, not necessarily any magical shifts, or portals, or however it works. What if we have potions that turn us into house cats or something, and come back through as those?”

He let out a breath. “Risky. And anything I could come up with would not work on your minions.”

“Oh, no problem there,” Beta said. “You can just leave us behind.”

Delta hastened to explain. “Our thinky parts and personalities are actually in those servers downstairs. I mean we’ll still be ourselves while we’re downloaded into the shells in fairyland, but if we die or get stuck in there forever we can recover and be re-uploaded to new bodies. Heck, Alpha and Doctor Dire stuck enough android shells throughout London that it wouldn’t be hard.”

“You’d lose your memories of your time in there,” I pointed out.

Khalid raised a hand. “Getting back to the subject of transforming your bodies, it is still a bad idea. Perhaps another way?”

We hashed out the details, and after Khalid described in gruesome detail the many ways transformations could go wrong, we decided to go with a batch of invisibility potions instead. The principle was still the same. We’d come through, Sloth wouldn’t see us, hopefully, and we could teleport out of there within seconds.

It wasn’t a perfect plan, and I saw a lot that could go wrong with it. Hopefully whatever situation we ran into on the other side would allow us to investigate alternatives.

That was the rough part, really. This was one of those times where we were flying blind, and presented with a situation we couldn’t predict until we were in it. Any plan I could make wouldn’t survive contact with the enemy, until we had enough solid intel to adapt and overcome.

This was more a hero’s job than a villain’s, this whole deal of jumping into the unknown and trusting to your abilities and team. Irritating, that. Fortunately we had enough skills and firepower between us that I thought we could pull this off. Especially with the other talismans that Dru was able to craft for us.

Finally, I knocked on the table and stood up. “All right. Let’s get moving. Take five minutes to wrap up any unfinished business and get down to the teleporter.”

For my part I didn’t have much to take care of. Just a quick check to make sure that Alpha had installed the railgun correctly, and with the ammunition I required. I wouldn’t be caught out with the wrong tools for the situation twice.

In the teleporter room, Dru handed me the twisted Hand of Glory, and a book of matches. “Light the fingertips and we’ll go, dear. We won’t be much use while they’re lit, mind you.”

“DULY NOTED.”

We faded in to a busy sidewalk, just outside St. Paul’s Church. Immediately the crowd around me slowed, and stopped talking, looking straight ahead with bleary eyes. They didn’t seem to register us, so I took that as proof the talisman was working.

A gentle bump on my shoulder. Khalid stumbled into me, attempting to push my armor out of the way, feet slipping and striding ceaselessly on the concrete.

“Chorus?” I asked through the vox. My androids hurried up. Beta and Gamma took charge of Khalid, while Delta and Epsilon took Dru’s elbows. Alpha nodded as he fell into step beside me, and we crossed the street toward the small market between the buildings. The magic didn’t affect their thoughts, thankfully.

The Apple Market was central to the lower part of the district, more or less. Wasn’t much to look at, really, just a collection of stalls and stands between a few buildings, with an overarching roof to keep the rain off. It was a minor part of the area at best, which was probably why Lust had a backdoor here.

As we passed through the stalls, invariable chatting Londoners and tourists would look up, see us, then fall into a stupor as their words drifted off to nothing. The Hand of Glory burned, gave off a greasy smoke, and twitched as I held it in front of me like an unholy symbol. I didn’t like the thing, didn’t trust it, but we didn’t have far to go.

“There,” Alpha voxed, pointing. I followed his gaze to a placard on a pole, advertising ’Lilith’s Temptations.’ I pushed through the loose cloth of the tent, into a gaudy affair, decorated like a stereotypical gypsy wagon, only instead of mystical signs and gewgaws this one had lingerie draped everywhere. The proprietor was a voluptuous young lady who took one look at me, and fled out the back. The Hand of Glory didn’t work on her, and that was all the evidence that we’d come to the right place.

She tried flee, but failed. Alpha was there, blocking the door, before she could react. She recoiled from him, turned to me, and then my free hand was around her throat. “TAKE US THROUGH,” I commanded.

“Please, no! She’ll kill me!”

“YOU FEAR DEATH?” I bent over, put my eyesockets an inch from her wide, trembling eyes. “THEN FEAR DIRE.”

The woman licked her lips, considered her options. It didn’t take long. “All right, all right. Shit, I liked this job, too.” She tapped my hand, and I let her go, as the Chorus spread out to block the entrances and exits. “It’s going to take a few minutes.”

I considered the satellite I’d hacked to provide overwatch on the area, and the approaching black vans. “YOU HAVE ONE.”

She went pale, and started throwing panties and brassieres aside, pulling out something that looked for all the world like a marble bust of a handsome bald man with pointed ears. Pulling out a few vials from her bosom, she doused it with fluids I couldn’t identify. “This next part is vital. Please, do not speak or it could go horribly wrong.”

The head moved. Marble eyelids slid over pupil-less orbs, as it twisted to survey the tent, and opened its mouth.

“Who comes to pass the gate?”

“Travelers!” The woman replied.

“And where do you go?” It asked.

“To the realm of deepest desire!”

Everything blurred, and in that second of hesitation she dove between my legs and was out of the tent. I cursed, reached for her—

—and then we were somewhere else.

Immediately I pinched out the fires burning on the hand of glory, and Khalid and Dru jolted awake.

“Sorry boss, our sensors fuzzed out when she did her mojo. She was gone before we could stop her.”

“JUST AS WELL,” I said, turning to survey the area. “IF SHE CAN DODGE HER MISTRESS’ PUNISHMENT, POWER TO HER.”

I don’t know what I had been expecting. A fairytale castle perhaps, or, given her powers, something like a pornographic storybook place with boobs growing on trees and satyrs and nymphs getting it on. What I got was an old, dead forest, tangled and unkempt, with thorn bushes growing waist-high between the trees. We were in a sort of clearing, marked with jagged gray stones in a circular pattern, and bones connecting the spaces between the stones. The sky overhead was clear and silvery, and there came a light from it but I couldn’t see any sort of sun.

I didn’t bother checking my GPS, or other means of navigation. This wasn’t Earth, or any part of it. A headache buzzed in my skull, and I winced, closing my eyes as my thoughts jumbled into each other. Then as fast as it had come it was gone, and I took a breath, took three.

“Connection re-established,” I thought I heard Gamma say, then disregarded it. More important matters at hand. This land was alien to me, and it would have been the height of lunacy to take it at face value.

In any case, I was glad to have experts along.

I turned to Khalid, found him groggy but alert, looking around the clearing as if he was taking notes for later study.

“THIS DOES NOT RESEMBLE THE LAST FAIRYLAND DIRE HAD TO TRAVERSE.”

“They are all different,” Khalid said, his frown deepening. “Did you put out the hand of glory immediately after we arrived?”

“YES. WHY?”

“Then where is the gate?”

“THERE WAS NO GATE. LUST’S MINION PETITIONED A TALKING STONE HEAD TO GET US THROUGH.”

Dru snapped around to look at me. “Are you sure about that, dearie?”

Khalid was looking alarmed as well, his high, arched eyebrows raising even higher. “There is no mistake?”

“I can confirm it,” Alpha said. “Why? What’s the problem?”

Khalid ran his fingers through his hair. “They have changed the means of access since I last entered this realm. That head is... old sorcery, of a sort.”

“The hogboy, the king in the ground,” Dru muttered. “Set upon his hoard in old stone, ’till stone he be and controls he the gates of heaven and hell and all between.”

“Not precisely,” Khalid said, “but close enough.”

“WHAT DOES THIS MEAN IN NON-MAGICAL TERMS?”

“It means we’ve no easy way back,” Dru said. “Me great-granddaughter probably controls the exit. No fleein’ until we’ve done with her.”

“OH. IF THAT’S ALL.” I motioned to the Greek Chorus, turned, and started trudging up the path. “COME ON THEN, TIME’S WASTING.”

“You are not concerned?” Khalid hurried to keep up with us.

“ABOUT THIS? NO. THE PLAN IS TO DEAL WITH LUST ONE WAY OR ANOTHER. HER CONTROLLING THE EXIT IS JUST ANOTHER VARIABLE TO TRACK.” Although it did negate plans H through N. Which was aggravating, because I was particularly fond of plan L. But hey, life went on. “DO KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR ANY MEANS OF EGRESS, AND INFORM DIRE THE SECOND YOU SPOT THEM.”

“Of course.” Khalid said, right before he stopped. “Ah! Be wary! Those thorns are enchanted. One prick, and—“

I snapped my metal fingers and the Greek Chorus waded into the edges of the path, ripping the thorns away faster than a human could blink. One of the thorny branches lashed at me before it went, and I let it rasp along my armor, fruitlessly.

“Ah. Yes, well, that would work too,” Khalid muttered.

Twenty steps later a bear the size of a city bus charged out of the woods, growling loudly enough to shake the trees.

“A glamour! The actual bear is much smaller!” Khalid cried, diving to the side and pulling out his sword. “When it closes we must—“

My wide-beam particle blast caught it, and blew the smoking, furry remains through six trees before it fell to the ground. Bear meat and organs rained down in a soft, squishy hail.

“Or you could do that,” Dru observed. “Bit noisy, though.”

I didn’t break stride. There had been altogether too much magic in the last few days, and I was getting fed up with it. I hadn’t expected Maestro’s minions to have this much mojo, and even though I had allies in that realm now, it was still far outside my comfort zone. The sooner this was done with, the better off I’d be.

Fifty paces later a hive hanging from a tree branch twitched, and tiny screaming winged women launched themselves at us, spears glittering. “Do not let them stab you!” Khalid shouted. “Their spears will find gaps in even the strongest armor, and—“

I fired a concussion missile. The blast liquefied them, and sent them splattering to the ground like the bear bits behind us.

“Oh don’t feel bad, Mister K,” Delta patted Khalid’s shoulder. “If she wasn’t a badass you woulda saved her life three times over by now.”

“I would not mind, except her way is very noisy. And that worries me, because something has not happened that should have already occurred.”

“YOU’VE NOTICED IT TOO.”

“I could not miss it.”

“What are you going on about?” Dru asked.

“No guards,” Khalid said. “The last time I was in this realm they were on me before I had taken thirty steps.”

“The bear and vines and murder pixies don’t count?” Delta waved her hands. “They seem pretty guardy!”

“THEY WERE NOT INTELLIGENT, RAISED NO ALARM, AND WERE ENTIRELY UNSUITED TO STOPPING DIRE. LUST KNOWS DIRE SEEKS HER DESTRUCTION. WHICH MEANS...”

“We are perhaps walking into an ambush,” Khalid finished. Gods, it was good to be working with him again. He wasn’t a supergenius, but he had experience I could never match, and a sharp brain to boot.

“No.” We looked to Dru, surprised at her tone. “This isn’t how they work. They’d have watchers on us, looky-loos. But I rubbed me eyes with ointment that’ll see through their glamour, and there ain’t a single watcher. Something is amiss.”

We found that something a few hundred yards later, as we stepped out of the treeline, into a plain full of scraggly grass.

It hung in the air with no visible means of support, wispy, greenish decks and translucent sails, ropes blowing in an unfelt breeze, bobbing on unseen water. The name Gallowglass was inscribed upon the hull, and her flag bore a skull and crossbones.

“Please tell me I’m not glitching,” Gamma spoke up. “Because my optics are showing me a ghost ship, right over there.”

“YOU’RE NOT GLITCHING,” I replied, walking right up to, and around it. “WHAT THE FUCK?”

“I have no explanation for this,” Khalid said, after scrutinizing it. “Though it appears to be English in origin. They used this sort of schooner in the early nineteenth century, I remember.”

“Before me time, sorry love,” Dru shook her head.

“EIGHTEENTH CENTURY...” I slammed my gauntlet against my mask. “RUMJACK.”

“Of course!” Khalid snapped his fingers. “Queensguard must be following up on this lead as well! But lacking my knowledge of the way in, they resorted to other methods of arrival.”

“Such as a ghostly pirate ship capable of traveling between here and the faerie realm.” Epsilon moved up, tried to grab a rope. His hand passed through it. “Hm. Useless to us.”

“NOT NECESSARILY.” I remembered how ghosts could touch me through my armor, and tried to swipe my hand through the phantom ship. It passed through without resistance. “OKAY, THAT DIDN’T WORK.”

Khalid shook his head. “If this is indeed Rumjack’s vessel, it will be tied to his very essence. There is little we can do to commandeer it, I fear.”

“WELL, WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO LEAVE WITHOUT IT. STILL, ONE WONDERS WHERE THE HEROES MIGHT HAVE GONE.”

“They went this way,” Beta called. “Don’t worry, the beings on the ground are alive.”

What?

I glanced over to my minion, and found him about a hundred feet distant, on a small rise, looking down over some tall grass.

“HAVE YOU FOUND SOMETHING—“ I began, then I was up to him and saw what he was looking at. About a hundred bronze-armored, blue-skinned forms, lying in heaps all over the scenery.

“Well, now we know why there aren’t any guards around,” Gamma said with her hands on her hips. “The heroes took care of them.”

“And are taking care of them still!” Khalid pointed off into the distance, at a glittery pink structure that thrust up into the sky like a poorly imagined sex toy. Something like big birds flapped around its spires, and distant explosions filled the sky. I knew those explosions. I’d tanked them on my forcefield not too long ago.

“THE HUMAN HARRIER. WELL, AT LEAST THE HEROES ARE BEING USEFUL FOR ONCE. COME ON, LET’S FIND LUST WHILE THEY’RE DISTRACTING HER GUARDS.”

Khalid sucked his teeth, and looked at Alpha.

Alpha palmed his face. “She’s totally in that big pink palace thing, isn’t she?”

“Most likely. It is her palace.”

“SO THE HEROES ARE ONCE AGAIN A PROBLEM, RATHER THAN A HELP.” I didn’t know why I had expected anything else, really. Heroes happen, heroes always happen. I debated taking to the skies, now that the guards were accounted for, but the Human Harrier would doubtless spot me. Also, it wouldn’t help our communications. We were in another world entirely; the servers that supported my vox network were out of our reach. I’d need to be close to my allies if we wanted to coordinate.

We picked our way past the unconscious forms, the shattered spears and broken armor. The heroes had managed to disable them without too much bloodshed; they were good at that. Queensguard were veterans, and I’d been fortunate enough to fend them off twice. But every clash gave them more knowledge of my equipment and tactics, and if we kept doing this then sooner or later they would have a chance of overcoming me. I couldn’t let that happen.

As we moved through the fields, the land around us changed. One second it was discolored but fairly ordinary wild grasslands, and then it turned into a riot of colors, reds and pinks and whites as flowers striped through the now neatly-trimmed grass, and ripe, purple fruit hung from swaying trees. The sky took on a golden hue, and a sun abruptly appeared in the sky, lending a gentle backlit ambiance to the rolling white clouds that hadn’t been there a second ago.

“KHALID?”

“I have no good answer to this. This is the part of her realm I am more familiar with.”

“I can tell you why it’s doing this,” Dru spoke up, frowning. “It’s glamour. It’s all glamour. She wants it to look this way, and she’s spending... essence... to do it. But she ent got that much, so the part that’s away from her home is wild and unshaped. But that’s not all.”

“NO?”

“The part we passed through, there was marks I could see. Wisps to me enchanted eyes.”

I restrained a snort. That last bit struck me as corny. Dru forged on, entirely serious. “It’s like a tide, ye see. You can tell where it’s been, aye, by the marks left behind. And by all I’m seeing, it’s like her pool of essence is shrinking. The glamour’s fading, and fast.”

“How does she get more of it?” Gamma asked. “Perhaps she’s been cut off from her source.”

“From mortals,” Khalid said. “They lure them in, and drain them of memories, emotions, all that raises humans above animals.” His face darkened. “It is not a stealing of the soul, but it may as well be. The end result of what is left does not long survive once cast out of the faerie realm.”

I closed my eyes. “ACERTIJO.”

“We may not find your friend in good health,” Khalid warned. “The earliest stories of the fae were the most accurate; none of them had what you would consider a happy ending.”

I took a breath, felt my hurt and anger at my lying lover fade. If he was wrecked, then I would help him become unwrecked. I owed him that much.

But he was strong, and little time had passed. Perhaps he was relatively untouched.

As it turned out, I needn’t have worried.

We crossed the gleaming, false landscape, picked our way around more clobbered, shocked, and downed guards, and just got within shooting distance of the palace when the pink wall exploded. Lust came hurtling out, driving a chariot of finned and web-hoofed horses that stomped through the air like it was solid ground, and behind her...

...behind her a single purple and gold figure duelled with Rumjack and the Green Knight simultaneously, fending off strikes, jabbing back, and finally catching both the ghostly cutlass and the Green Knight’s axe in a sweeping parry, before knocking them off the battlements to the ground below. A spray of tracer rounds flashed toward him and he rolled, jumped out into the open air—

—only to be caught by the chariot as Lust brought it back around, standing and moving aside to let him flip neatly in.

Something was off with her. She was wearing far more clothes than she had last time, a halter top and a short skirt, exposing a bloated belly.

“Well now,” Dru cackled. “Looks like I’m to be a great-great-grandma in a few months.”

Realization came crashing in, just as Lust and Acertijo embraced.

CHAPTER 17: FAMILY AND FOES

“Okay, so after th' first couple of times failed, an' she handed us our arses, we just tossed strategery out the window and said sod it, we'll just hit 'er with everything as 'ard as we can. And blimey if it didn't seem ter be workin'...”

--Rumjack, ghost and moderately-ancient mariner

Time slowed, as my superhuman brain considered the situation. My ex-boyfriend had screwed a baby into his captor. If I put stock in traditional culture and dramas, then by all rights I should be livid right now.

Was I?

I checked my feelings, found myself fairly ambivalent. There was a little bit of disdain there, a bit of disappointment that Acertijo had succumbed. Okay, she’d hit him with the time dilation, obviously, because I was pretty sure it took a bunch of months for a woman to get that pregnant. But still, Khalid had withstood her wiles for what were effectively years. Acertijo had been in there for all of two days, give or take? Two years, assuming the time dilation ran the same?

I thought he’d had more willpower than that. But... aside from that, I didn’t see any real reason to take unholy vengeance. Acertijo had lost my affection when his lie had come to light. We were done, even if he didn’t know it yet. To that end I didn’t care if he slept with other people. That was sort of Lust’s thing, anyway, hooking up with people to bind them to her. No, I’d let this one slide.

I finished the thought, nodded to the Greek Chorus. “ALL RIGHT. LET’S CLEAR THE HEROES OFF HER, SO WE CAN TALK—”

Lust heard me, turned from Acertijo’s embrace with wide eyes, and purest fear on her face. She snapped her hand at me, and shouted “Kneel!”

Her power hit me like a semi-truck to the brain. I rocked on my heels, as she turned into the only thing in my universe, her pregnant body beautiful, her skin shining and her pearly teeth aglow in a light from someplace I couldn’t determine and didn’t care about. Her hair billowed in the wind, and I wanted to... wanted to...

I growled, and the warmth that had momentarily filled my nether quarters faded as my anger grew. Guttural and fierce, my snarl echoed across the field and for a second everyone, even the horses, paused to look at me.

I would not be mindfucked again. Especially not by some penny-ante refugee from a bad urban fantasy.

With determination came clarity, and she shrunk to my eyes, turned the chariot to flee.

I folded my arms and looked back to the palace. Rumjack was already up and running along the ground after her, and I had no idea why he wasn’t flying. Probably some magical bullshit reason. The Green Knight was still putting himself together, glancing between Lust and me as his plantlike flesh knitted.

“WELL. CANCEL THAT THEN. PENNY-ANTE ENCHANTERS CAN SOLVE THEIR OWN HERO PROBLEMS.”

I snapped my fingers, ringing metallic as the gauntlet’s digits ground.

“Oh my god, is it time?” Delta whispered.

“It’s time!” Alpha confirmed. “Do it just like we practiced!”

Behind me the Greek Chorus rushed together, limbs sliding free of their frames, hanging by cables as they moved into each other, parts combining and mixing in a flurry of steel and carbon fiber. With clicks and clacks they twisted and contorted, and I smiled to see it.

When I sat down they skittered under me, catching my metal-plated rump with their interwoven components. By the time I propped one elbow up on a pair of grasping hands they’d assumed their final form: a huge throne.

I slouched into my minions, in a pose of pure disdain, sliding the side of my mask into my gauntlet’s hand.

The Green Knight finished relocating his shoulder, took one last look at me, and took off after Lust’s chariot.

“SMART LAD.”

“I still say this is humiliating,” Gamma muttered from somewhere around my left ass cheek.

“If it gets us through without a fight, it’s worth it,” Beta replied from my shoulder.

More of the palace wall crumbled, pink stone bricks like cotton candy pressed and made into slabs falling to thud on overly-bright green grass. A blue glow shone from within as a massive top hat made of energy burst free of the ruin and rolled across the ground before fading. Punching Judy, Miss Maskelyne, and the Human Harrier stood up, saw me, and fell into a loose defensive formation. I felt like chuckling, stifled the urge.

For a long moment they stared at me, and I stared right back, tapping the digits of my gauntlet against my mask, making a truly horrible rhythmic scraping sound. Khalid moved up to my right, his hand on the hilt of his sword. Dru took the left, hands in her pockets, squinting through Vector’s glasses.

The Human Harrier’s weapons started to reconfigure into something nastier, but Miss Maskelyne grabbed his shoulder before he could point any of them my way.

“Doctor,” she said, looking at me with wary but unflinching eyes, “what are you doing here, then?” Behind them the palace crumbled in slow motion. They didn’t even glance back, doing the full badass hero pose. I respected that. Heroes had their own kayfabe too, and it was nice to see it done properly.

“YOU KNOW, FOR A TEAM CALLED QUEENSGUARD, YOU’RE RATHER HARD ON CASTLES,” I observed.

“That’s not an answer. Why did you come here?”

I shrugged. “SAME REASON YOU’RE HERE, DIRE SUPPOSES.” I pointed toward the speck that was the chariot, off in the distance. Rumjack was throwing something glowy at it, and Lust was returning the favor, throwing green balls of fire back. I’m sure if I had any magical knowledge whatsoever it would have been very impressive.

“You’re here to save the swordsman then? Hate to break it to yer love, but he don’t need much savin’.” Punching Judy folded her arms and glared at me.

“HARDLY. HE MADE HIS BED. HE CAN LIE IN IT. BUT DIRE HAS QUESTIONS AND LUST HAS ANSWERS.”

Miss Maskelyne studied me, eyes flicking to either side as she took in my companions. She finally pointed a gloved hand at me. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“IT’S A COMFY THRONE. NO TRAVEL PLANS AT THE MINUTE. BY ALL MEANS, SECURE YOUR QUARRY, THEN WE SHALL PALAVER.”

They edged backwards, finally turning and running after their friends, shooting looks of pure murder over their shoulders at me as they went. Eventually the Human Harrier took to the skies with a fine sonic boom, and Punching Judy called up her chi for great bounding leaps. And I sighed in relief, and sagged back into my throne. Really hadn’t wanted a three-way fight here. I toned my voice modulator down, and looked over at Khalid. “GOOD TO HAVE THAT HYPOTHESIS CONFIRMED.”

Khalid raised an eyebrow.

“HEROES ARE BY NATURE TWITCHY AND INURED TO VIOLENCE. ESPECIALLY VETERANS, LIKE QUEENSGUARD. INITIATING A FIGHT OR THREATENING VIOLENCE, WELL, THEY WOULD HAVE RESPONDED IMMEDIATELY IN KIND. BUT WHEN YOU THROW SOMETHING OUT OF CONTEXT AT THEM, THEY’RE OFF BALANCE. FAR EASIER TO KEEP THINGS FROM ESCALATING.”

“I see. I would counter with the notion that your confidence kept them from pressing an assault, especially with a third front to secure.”

“THAT’S THE REASON DIRE’S NOT PURSUING HER. CAN’T FORGIVE LUST FOR THE ATTEMPTED MIND CONTROL—”

Khalid straightened up in alarm. “Wait, you have been ensorcelled?”

“DON’T WORRY. ALREADY SHOOK IT OFF.”

His eyes were wide as he turned to face me full-on. “I find that hard to believe.”

Dru cackled, and we shifted to look at her. “Don’t. This girl’s got spirit, Janny.”

“Please, call me the Last Janissary.”

“Eh, that’s a mouthful.” Dru turned to the side, hocked, and spat as she studied the fight in the distance. With the Human Harrier in the skies now, the chariot was hard-pressed to stay in the sky. Miss Maskelyne was on the case too, throwing out handfuls of blue doves like she was trying out for a baseball team. Did they have those in Britain? I didn’t know. Hadn’t spent much time watching the sports, well, except for football. Soccer. Whatever the heck they called it. Acertijo had been nuts about the game and I’d been stuck nearby while he had it on.

“ARE YOU READY TO PLAY YOUR PART, DRU?” We’d discussed it, briefly. It was a gamble, but it was simple, easy to try, and cost me nothing but the shade of a woman who was dead anyway.

“Don’t you be worrying about me,” she grinned through Vector’s mouth. “I know me blood. It runs true. She’ll help us or she’ll regret it.”

The heroes finally managed to knock the chariot to bits. The horses managed to bring Lust and Acertijo to the ground, and he sprang out, a sword in each hand as he laid into the Green Knight and Punching Judy.

Acertijo fought well. He fought hard. He fought with every ounce of skill that he’d trained into himself, and all the experience that he’d picked up in his decade of hero-ing.

Acertijo was glorious, and I sighed to see him go. But he was totally outclassed.

He was but a man, when it came down to it, and he was up against someone who could heal anything he could dish out, and one of the world’s premiere superpowered martial artists. This had only one end to it, and he knew it.

He looked to me, beckoned with his blade.

I lifted my head from my hand, briefly, and shook my head.

I’d learned much about social cues these past few years. Facial expressions were only a part of it. Body language was so much more honest. And as I shook my head, I watched his body sag, as hope left him. There would be no cavalry here, no happy ending for him. I almost felt sorry for him, but...

I spared Lust a glance, her with one arm over her belly, hiding behind her fish-horse things as they stamped and bit at Rumjack and Harrier. No, I wouldn’t give him pity. He’d made his choice. If he was ensorcelled I’d free him, or the heroes would free him, but if he was acting of his own will then he deserved what he got.

Ten seconds later he stepped back, cast his blades down, and raised his hands. As they went up, Rumjack managed to grab the horses and clonk their heads together, sending them to the ground in an unconscious heap.

“No!” Lust shrieked. “It’s not over! I can...”

“You can surrender,” my sensors caught Miss Maskelyne’s voice, distant but commanding. “You’re under arrest until we can untangle this mess.”

“I’ll tell you anything, I’ll do anything, please!”

“We can discuss it back on Earth. Now come quietly, and—”

“No! I’m dead if I go back there! Please, have mercy upon m— upon us!”

“You’ll be in the middle of us. We’ll protect you.”

“You can’t! He’s in your heads!”

Miss Maskelyne folded her arms. “Well, that’s convenient, innit? You’ll pardon me if I’m not buying it.”

“ACTUALLY SHE’S TELLING THE TRUTH ON THAT ONE.”

The heroes jumped, and I stifled a chuckle. Then Miss Maskelyne gestured them over into a huddle. The heroes bickered, and Acertijo went to go hold Lust, while she wrapped her arms around him and sobbed. Acertijo’s gaze never left my mask.

I was the wild card in this little mess, and I had every reason to play that to my advantage. Besides, if they hadn’t opened fire on me by now, I thought we might be able to come to some sort of accord.

The huddle broke, and the Human Harrier opened fire on me.

“No!” Punching Judy shouted, but he boosted at me as bullets ricocheted away from my forcefield. Tracer rounds slammed into the sphere surrounding me as Khalid and Dru ran for cover. The minion throne was inside the field, but my friends weren’t, and I felt supremely annoyed as I stood.. Across the way, I saw Miss Maskelyne palm her face and Rumjack’s head whip back and forth as he looked between her and Harrier.

Boy needed a reminder of who he was fucking with.

I cast my cape back with a flourish as he boomed over my head, came around for another run. “YOU DARE?”

“No collateral out here!” He shouted back. “No civilians, no city, no reason to pull my punches! I can take you!”

“BETTER HAVE TRIED.” I took to the air, cursing under my breath. Fucker had to succumb to testosterone poisoning.

Yellow indicators flickered to life on my HUD, as the impacts grew louder. He’d moved on from bullets to plasma pulses. I could take it for a while, but each impact bore more force than the last.

“IS THAT ALL YOU HAVE? PATHETIC.”

He stopped half a kilometer away, and his back bulged, pistons churning along his armor, gears rippling as components peeled away from his suit and joined the weapons array. Barrels lined up next to barrels, coils extruded and spun, and my sensors chattered as he drew in energy from the surrounding area.

That gave me an idea. I blinked up the appropriate menus, and activated a gadget I hadn’t expected to use on this jaunt. And when the menus came up green, I laughed.

“YOU GET ONE SHOT. MAKE IT COUNT.”

Human Harrier paused, and I saw the flash of white teeth under his visor. The weapons ground together, combined into one massive conglomeration...

...and went ‘CLUNK’.

His grin faded.

Then his engines cut out, and as he fell wailing to the ground, I zoomed forward and caught him around the waist. He tried to struggle, but his armor was stuck, locked into overcompensation mode or whatever he called the really big gun arrangement.

“TYPICAL.” The second we touched down I dropped him and walked away, turning my back as if he was nothing.

“You hacked him.” Miss Maskelyne said, hands on her hips.

I quietly dismissed the universal remote’s menu. “WELL, YES. THE BIGGEST GUNS IN THE WORLD DON’T MATTER IF YOU CAN’T DEFEND YOURSELF WHILE YOU’RE FIRING THEM.” I couldn’t have hacked him if he hadn’t been drawing on the local energy sources. Harrier had to open his systems right up to do that, and I couldn’t resist such a sweet invitation.

“You fucking cheated!” Harrier yelled from behind me.

“DUH.” I pointed at myself. “VILLAIN.” I reached my throne, and settled back into it. Khalid and Dru returned. Khalid’s face was stony, but Dru was red and gasping. “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?”

“Hee hee hee... oh love, that was... Pahhahahahha!” Dru leaned over and actually slapped her borrowed body’s knee. I chalked it down to an old cliché that might actually be true, and turned my attention back to the heroes. They’d approached the throne during the short aerial fight, and ringed it in a semicircle that probably made them feel better. Behind them, Lust and Acertijo stood, slumped and tired, with arms around each other.

“YOU PROBABLY WANT ANSWERS.”

“Would be nice,” Rumjack muttered. He reached up under his sailor’s cap, and scratched his long, lanky hair. “Villains we ent never heard of, mutants and fairy hordes, and now you in this mess. No offense, miss.”

“NONE TAKEN.”

“If you were going to blow up Southwark, why’d yer teleport people to Mariposer?” Punching Judy said, staring at me with confusion. “And why only the people from that one building?”

“It’s Mariposa,” Miss Maskelyne nudged her.

“Whatever. Blinkin’ place nobody never heard of before.”

“THE DETONATION WAS NOT DIRE’S DOING. DIRE’S ENEMY FOUND HER LAIR, AND HER PRECAUTIONS WERE... INSUFFICIENT TO PROTECT EVERYONE. FRANKLY SHE WASN’T EXPECTING HIM TO GO THAT OVERBOARD ON THE EXPLOSIVES. THEN AGAIN, OVERCOMPENSATION IS HARDLY LIMITED TO THE VILLAINS AROUND HERE,” I shot a glance back to the Human Harrier, where he was slowly struggling to reboot his power armor.

“Fuck off!” He did that cute little two finger thing that the British did. I ignored him and turned back to the rest of his team.

“Eleven dead, because you put your lair in a heavily populated area,” Miss Maskelyne said, tugging on her gloves. “We aren’t exactly thrilled about that one. You let your conflict spill over onto innocents. That’s sloppy, Dire.”

“NO, THAT’S WAR. SLOPPY IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A VILLAIN SETS UP UNDER THE NOSES OF EVERY DAMNED HERO GROUP ON THIS FUCKING ISLAND, AND NOBODY NOTICES.” I pointed a finger at her. “GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSE AND THINK. MUTANT MANUFACTURING LABS OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE? ILLICIT CYBERWARE AND MADE-TO-ORDER MONSTERS THROUGHOUT LONDON’S UNDERWORLD? ARMIES OF GODDAMN EVIL FAE RAMPAGING AROUND?” I clenched my fist, and brought it down on the arm of my throne. Gently, though, didn’t want to hurt my minons. Nonetheless, the heroes flinched as metal rang. “THAT’S SLOPPY. AND ONCE MORE, DIRE IS STUCK CLEANING UP THE MESS THAT HEROES CANNOT.”

“His name is Pride,” Lust interrupted.

“WRONG. HE’S THE MAESTRO, AND A WORSE VILLAIN YOU’LL NEVER MEET.”

“No!” Lust gasped, and I blinked as she and the heroes, all save Acertijo, Rumjack, and the Green Knight, chorused in unison; “Go to hell! Maestro’s great!”

I had about a second to be surprised, before Punching Judy shrieked and jumped at me. I slammed the forcefield to full barrier mode and she unleashed strike after strike on it, fists blurring.

“Dammit! Almost there!” The Human Harrier called, guns folding away as he stood. For her part, Miss Maskelyne staggered, with her hands held to her temples like someone had clocked her a good one.

The Green Knight didn’t or couldn’t speak. He settled for joining Punching Judy, slamming his greataxe into the field with slow, unhurried strikes. Regenerators had stamina, I knew from experience. Unless interrupted he’d keep on doing that until the end of time.

Though judging by the readouts from my forcefield, it’d cave long before that. Judy wasn’t holding back.

“Not again,” Rumjack whimpered. “Surrender, Miss! When they gets like that there’s no talkin’ wivvem.”

Khalid moved forward, trying to tackle Judy before I could yell at him to stop, and got thrown back a dozen yards for his trouble. He landed hard and didn’t get up.

Dru, however, had a different notion. “Girl! Work yer glamours!” She snapped, striding up to Lust.

“Envy? What?”

“No! Ensorcel’em, and calm them down!”

“I don’t... I, they came prepared for me, their charms are too—”

“Oh fer feck’s sake,” Dru said, and grabbed Lust’s hands. “Yer a Hampston, ain’t yer? Act like it!” She stepped back, and as she did so her ghostly form emerged from Envy’s body, sliding out like a shuddering veil of translucent cloth... but somehow more real than it had been last night, more solid here in this weirdling realm.

Then I had other matters to attend to, as my HUD chimed red. I routed my weapons power into shields, wincing as that barely slowed it. Judy was going full-bore, and a literal nuclear reactor couldn’t keep up with the pain she was dishing out. If the field busted she’d be on me, and I’d be parts and bloody organs littered over a couple of miles of fairytale scenery.

“You... who are you?” Lust asked, eyes wide.

For his part, free of the ghost, Vector shook his head and groaned. “That was strange. You owe me one, Dire.”

“TALK LATER! MOJO NOW?”

Lust closed her eyes and Dru flowed into her, like how she’d exited Vector only in reverse. It would have been a lot more fascinating if I hadn’t been rerouting power like mad, trying to keep the field intact without rupturing my circuits.

And then the world shook.

“My land,” Lust said, as the rest of the noise faded, and her voice rose above the din. “My power. My rules.”

Her hands came together, and something, some inscrutable force rolled out from them like a silent thunderclap, washing over and through us. I gasped, as my vision blurred for a second.

When it cleared, I blinked and focused on my HUD as the forcefield’s indicators wound down, from red to yellow to green, and I hurried to revert the circuits and redundancies I’d just rerouted. My power levels stabilized, and I looked around to my friends and foes.

Vector looked unruffled, head tracking back and forth as he assessed the heroes from his safe spot behind my forcefield. I hadn’t even noticed him scurrying back there, but I wasn’t surprised. Acertijo had his arms around Lust, keeping her upright as she sagged like a limp noodle. Clearly, that had taken a lot from her.

Khalid wasn’t stirring, from where he lay on the grass. That was concerning. Human Harrier was frozen in the midst of aiming some sort of bazooka at me, wobbling as he knelt, only his gyros keeping him upright.

THUNK! A minor strike to the forcefield, the smallest of impacts. The Green Knight was still chopping away like nothing had happened. Still, no real threat there now that Punching Judy had stopped. A glance her way showed her sitting on the ground, feet splayed, looking like she’d taken a two-by-four to the noggin. Behind her, Miss Maskelyne held herself upright by sheer force of will, hands covering her face.

“What did you do?” Miss Maskelyne finally said. “Our talismans should have protected us from any sort of mind control you could muster. Oh do stop that, Arthur.” The Green Knight caught the axe midswing, hauled it back.

Lust stirred, looked her way. “I didn’t mind control you, daughter of science. I merely changed your mind. There was a name you were keyed to respond to, like dogs hearing a whistle. I took that name from your memory, and so the maddening whistle is lost.” She smiled, and it was a shadow of that familiar sneer that I’d grown to detest so. “By law of the courts I should not be able to do so, but it was a curse undeserved, and I showed mercy by lifting it from you. All of you owe me a debt for my generous gift.”

“DIRE WAS NEVER AFFECTED IN THE FIRST PLACE AND THE JANISSARY AND VECTOR WERE ALREADY FREED FROM HIS TRIGGERS. SO YOU CAN TAKE THAT UP WITH THE HEROES.” I stood from the throne, made a show of stretching. “WE GOOD, HEROES?”

“Hardly,” Miss Maskelyne shook her head. “But it’d be foolish to deny there’s more going on here. Truce?”

“TRUCE.” I lowered the forcefield. Behind me, my throne untangled itself back into my minions.

“Flippin’ disturbing, that,” Judy remarked. “Like a robot orgy.”

“Don’t knock what you’ve never tried, hun,” Delta said, and Judy snorted laughter.

“Sorry ’bout tryin’ to kill yer.”

“APOLOGY ACCEPTED.”

“Not you, them.”

“YOU’RE ALL HEART.” I turned my back on her, and looked to Lust. “DRU, YOU STILL IN THERE?”

“Perhaps you should explain what just happened, there?” Acertijo asked.

“SIMPLE ENOUGH. WE USED BASIC NECROMANCY—”

“That was not what it was,” Khalid interjected, as he limped over. Good, recovered already.

“WE USED MAGIC TO CALL UP HER GRANDMOTHER’S SHADE, BROUGHT IT HERE IN A WILLING VESSEL, AND GAVE IT TO HER GRANDDAUGHTER TO DEAL WITH.”

“She felt so familiar... now I know why. And why she bargained as she did.” Lust caressed her belly. “She’ll be reborn in our first daughter.”

“What?” Acertijo stepped back from her, shocked. “No! We did not discuss this!”

“It is too late. Besides, we can have more children.”

“A dead witch is possessing my firstborn!”

“OH SHUT IT, GROWNUPS ARE TALKING. YOU’RE THE ONE WHO FUCKED A HALF-FAE SORCERESS FROM A LONG LINE OF WICKED WITCHES, SO YOU KIND OF SIGNED UP FOR THIS SORT OF URBAN FANTASY SOAP OPERA, BUDDY.”

Punching Judy winced. “Oooooh. Ouch. Wicked bant.”

I watched Acertijo open and shut his gloved hands, saw the trembling in his spine. Be lying if I wasn’t enjoying it a bit, but with that came sadness. We’d had something, for a little while, even if it was mostly proximity and convenience.

Finally he turned and stalked away. Lust watched him go, reached out a hand to him, and let it fall when he didn’t look back.

“Domestics,” I heard Miss Maskelyne whisper to Rumjack. “Awkward all around, really. Just pretend you didn’t see or hear it, hm?”

Lust turned back to me, and I ignored the tears making their way out of her eyes. “Why? Why bring my grandmother to me? I do not understand your motive. We should be enemies. I have battled you, beaten you, and stolen your lov—”

“PRIDE,” I interrupted, with perhaps a bit of undue haste. “AND ONE MORE PIECE OF UNFINISHED BUSINESS. DOES YOUR MOTHER STILL LIVE?”

Her eyes narrowed, still leaking tears, but a hell of a lot more suspicious. “You know much of my human lineage. I have been through much pain, suffered much to repay the debt my mother incurred.”

“DOES DOROTHY HAMPSTON STILL LIVE? YES OR NO.”

“Her true name?” She actually reeled back, throwing a little drama into the action... and spoiling it with a sideways glance. I followed her gaze, saw Acertijo watching from sixty feet away. “Who are you truly? What do you want? How did you find my family’s secrets?”

“DID YOUR MOTHER NEVER TELL YOU OF THE DOCTOR WHO TRAVELED BACK IN TIME, AND HELPED HER SAVE TESLA?”

“Yes! Many times. Are you related to—” her mouth fell open. “No. Are you truly her?”

I crossed the distance between us, shoved my annoyance aside, and rested my gauntlets on her bare shoulders. “OH YES. AND IF DOROTHY HAMPSTON YET LIVES, THEN DIRE IS GOING TO TEAR ALL OF FAERIE ASUNDER UNTIL SHE IS FREE.” I paused. “WELL, AFTER SHE DROP-KICKS PRIDE IN THE NUTS. REPEATEDLY.”

Judy laughed more, and I saw Delta sit down next to her, lift a hand in an exaggerated sweep, and move her head like she was whispering. “No! Really?” Judy leaned in. “Tell me more! Shot Hitler, what?”

Lust threw her arms around me, and I froze, groaning at the loss of kayfabe in front of the heroes. “You’re her! Sweet Autumn, you’re really her! I, I, I’d given up all hope! Please, she’s trapped in the realm of the Mountain King, and nothing I offer is enough!” She sobbed. “No matter what I offer, it’s never enough! Wealth, slaves, baubles, they always want more!”

“Hold on,” a thankfully-non-weepy voice said at my side. I glanced over and down to see Miss Maskelyne looking up at me. “What’s this about time travel, Hitler, and Tesla now?”

“IT’S A FAIRLY LONG STORY.” I said, doing my best to disengage from Lust without injuring her.

“Mm, well, I hate to conform to stereotypes, but we could perhaps settle this over tea. Back at our ship. With you in a less shouty outfit.”

I looked back to Human Harrier, who had gotten himself reverted back to his basic armor mode, and was limping our way. “THINK YOU CAN RESTRAIN YOUR MORE IMPULSIVE TEAMMATES?”

She looked over to where Lust was busy hugging the stuffing out of me, and resisting every attempt to be shooed away. “Just keep the pregnant villain near you. Harrier won’t risk anything you can’t handle.”

Well, it was a better offer than anything I’d ever gotten from Tomorrow Force. Besides, I always ranted about heroes being unreasonable, seemed a shame not to encourage them when they resisted their basic natures. If they didn’t, then my friends, minions, and failsafes would probably suffice to handle them. Which reminded me... “VECTOR, COULD YOU GO CHECK ON THE LAST JANISSARY—” I glanced over to find Vector supporting him on one side, and Beta helping him stagger along on the other. “AH. YEAH, LET’S GET BACK TO THE SHIP AND GET THAT LOOKED AT.”

It turned out that there was this weird little protocol involved in boarding the ghost ship. Rumjack had to haul out a loud little ghostly tin whistle and blow on it, and give each of us permission to come aboard. Then you couldn’t fly to the damned thing’s deck, you had to climb up the ropes on the side, which were at least solid to my touch now. But once up on deck, the translucency was replaced by opaqueness, and color filled in the formerly white-and-glowy bits. It even seemed to be rocking back and forth on unseen waves, with sloshing noises and other phantasmal noises indicating an ocean-going vessel.

Taking the chance, I decanted from my armor, slipping on a traveling mask as I did so. The heroes and my little band boarded next, followed by Lust and Acertijo. Rumjack came up last of all, and smiled widely as he spread his arms. “I’ll put the kettle on. Get some proper tack and grub going. Always nice to have guests n’ all!”

“THANK YOU.” I settled back against the railing, doing my best to ignore the slow roll of the deck. I was used to having gyros to compensate for this sort of thing. “SO, BEFORE WE GET DOWN TO BRASS TACKS, LET’S TALK ABOUT PRIDE.” I turned to Lust. “WE KNOW HOW SLOTH WORKS. CAN HE SEE THINGS HAPPENING IN OTHER DIMENSIONS?”

“No,” she shook her head. “This is why I have remained here. The barrier protects us from Sloth’s sight.”

“THAT WILL WORK UNTIL WE RETURN TO THE REAL WORLD.” I tapped my mask. “WHAT WILL HE THROW AT US WHEN WE GET BACK?”

“Everyone.”

“YES, THAT’S WHAT DIRE NEEDS TO KNOW; WHO DOES HE HAVE UNDER HIS CONTROL? HOW MANY MINIONS?”

“Everyone!”

I took a breath, pushed my irritation down. “PERHAPS DIRE SHOULD EXPLAIN AGAIN...”

“No, you are the one who doesn’t understand!” Lust leaned forward, eyes wide, face gone pale. “He has made a minion of every man, woman, and child in Britain!”

CHAPTER 18: PLOTS AND PLANS

“Yeah, y'know that part where the villain turns out ta be th' good guy? I 'ate that part. Makes things complicated.”

--Punching Judy, member of Queensguard

We all stared at Lust, and she met our eyes unflinching.

“How?” Miss Maskelyne finally managed.

“Once, he was a petty and small man who did not realize the scope of his power. A score of years ago he terrorized vigilantes as the Murder Maestro, and was the doom of many a dark hero.” I tensed as she said his name, but the heroes didn’t react. Evidently the trigger had been well and truly nullified.

“The Nineties...” Miss Maskelyne ruffled her hair. “Early on, that would’ve been smack dab in the middle of the Wagner-Ezquerra Act.”

“WHAT’S THAT?”

“It banned unregistered superhero activity. Thatcher spent her entire term working to get it in place, and it damn near wrecked Britain. Got repealed in... ninety-six? Yes. Nothing but psychos and punks fighting back then, civility went out the window. Got very dark.”

“THERE ARE NO RECORDS OF A MURDER MAESTRO FROM THIS TIME?”

“No. For the day came when he found the true strength of his power. He held a radio station hostage, as an attempt to draw his nemesis of the time out of hiding. And the Murder Maestro found that his powers extended to recordings.”

I sucked air through my teeth, as the full ramifications struck me. Oh. Oh gods, it was worse than I’d thought.

“What are his powers, precisely?” Miss Maskelyne asked.

Acertijo took over, and explained. By the end of it, the heroes who still had living, visible flesh had gone pale.

Lust sighed. “After the revelation over the radio, he used his powers to cover his tracks, fade into the background, where he could slowly build the network he rules over today. The trigger that causes people to curse anyone who says bad things about the Maestro was an early experiment, transmitted through a children’s show. It helps reinforce his masquerade. But it is not the only trigger out there. He has overrides that allow him to command almost everyone in Britain, and perhaps a few beyond.”

“PERHAPS? THIS IS NOT A MAN TO DO THINGS BY HALVES. WHY WOULD HE NOT HAVE PUT THE WORLD UNDER HIS THUMB BY NOW?”

“I do not know. I think perhaps he was worried that his messages might be detected by the heroes of other nations. I do know that his powers only work on those who can understand his commands. Anyone who has no grasp of English is safe from his direct control.”

“Well, that rules out about half of America,” Delta whispered to Punching Judy, who snickered, then slapped her hand over her mouth before she replied.

“Funny but it ent the time. This is serious!”

“It works through every medium?” Miss Maskelyne asked.

“Yes. That is how he acquired Sloth. And once he had the most powerful clairvoyant in the world under his thumb, he vanished deep, deep into London, killing or mindwiping loose ends and manipulating the entire city to his liking. London itself is his lair; everything within it serves him in some capacity. Even the heroes.” She looked gravely around at Queensguard. “I have stolen his name, but he may still have some triggers within you. You are not safe. You never were safe.”

“WHICH IS WHY WE NEED TO MAKE HIM THE FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS. THEN IT’S ON TO SAVING DOTTIE.”

“Yes. We cannot reach the realm that my mother is within from here. This is the wrong... court, as it were. The old treaties forbid it. Which means we must travel to the human realm first, regardless.”

“DO YOU HAVE ONE OF THOSE STONE HEAD THINGS ON THIS SIDE, OR ARE WE TAKING THE SHIP?”

“Stone head...” she gave me a blank look, then chuckled. “Ah, so naive. I had one, but it was in my palace. Heroes punched my palace. I am uncertain it survived.”

“The head or the palace?” Beta asked.

“Either. Both. No, they are probably dust now.”

“Thanks a lot,” Epsilon spoke for the first time in a while, trying to give Queensguard a sour look. It failed, due to a severe lack of face.

“Well, you did try to enchant us again,” Miss Maskelyne folded her arms. “At the time it was the thing to do. So I suppose it’s back via the Gallowglass then.”

Rumjack brightened up. “Right-o! I’ll just get up to the wheel and—”

“Not yet!” Harrier, Punching Judy, and Maskelyne chorused as the Green Knight waved a cautioning finger.

“Sorry. Right then. Staying put for now.” He cleared his throat. “Just go see to the tea, then.”

“SENSIBLE TO STAY PUT. THE SECOND WE GET BACK, NO MATTER WHERE WE GO, SLOTH WILL SEE US. THEN MAESTRO WILL HIT US WITH BRITAIN.”

“We’re an us, now?” Miss Maskelyne considered me through narrowed eyes. “I mean, what I’m hearing has convinced me you’re on the level as far as your motives go, but it’s your methods I find rather worrisome.”

I rolled my eyes. Heroes gotta hero. “HE’S CRACKED THE CODE,” I told her. “YOU DON’T HAVE THE LUXURY OF BEING PICKY ABOUT YOUR ALLIES.”

“Cracked the code?”

“HE CAN MAKE METAHUMANS.”

Oh, didn’t that set them abuzz. After a few shouted questions, Maskelyne waved her hands. “Alright, alright, assuming this is even true, how?”

I looked to Acertijo and Vector. They stepped up, and summed matters up while I waited, cross-legged on the deck. Midway through Rumjack showed up with a teapot, and when I glanced over at the Janissary, he nodded and accepted a cup first. He’d warned me about eating fae food, but I didn’t know about ghost tea. Still, he suffered no ill effects, so I lifted my mask a little and took a sip. And instantly caught the Human Harrier trying to sneak a peek at me.

“SEE SOMETHING YOU LIKE?”

I saw his teeth clench under the visor, then he looked away, and seemed to force himself to relax. “Pardon. Just curious to see who’s under that armor. If you’re worth a damn without it.”

“DIDN’T USE THE ARMOR TO BEAT YOU LAST TIME,” I pointed out. “TOO MANY ADVANTAGES ON YOUR SIDE TO MAKE IT A GOOD TACTIC.”

“Really?” That cheered him up. “Don’t think you could have taken me, then?”

“NOT WITHOUT SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE.” I gestured around. “NO REPAIR FACILITIES OUT HERE, AND DIRE KNEW SHE’D BE GOING BACK INTO A FIRESTORM, LITERAL OR FIGURATIVE DEPENDING ON HOW MUCH EXPLOSIVES MAESTRO SET UP AT THE ENTRY POINT. NO, SUBTLETY WAS BETTER. YOU’RE NOT VERY GOOD AT SUBTLETY, YOU DEPEND ON YOUR TEAM TO COVER YOU THERE. AND IN A ONE-ON-ONE SITUATION, THAT’S COMPLETELY GONE.”

He barked laughter. “Suppose I brought that on myself. Well that’s fair. Once this is all over, I won’t make that mistake again.”

“About that,” Judy interrupted, and I realized belatedly that other discussion had ceased at some point during my banter. “Won’t be a next time. We’ll work with yer for now, but after that yer goin’ to depart Britain. Posthaste.”

“THAT MAY NOT BE DOABLE,” I said, glancing at Lust, who was curled up by the mast and slowly turning green. Seasick? Probably. Pregnancy likely didn’t help with that. “DIRE NEEDS TO GO SAVE DOROTHY HAMPSTON. THAT’S A DEBT THAT’S BEEN OWED FOR DECADES, AND NEEDS SETTING STRAIGHT.”

Judy frowned. She was squatted next to me, close enough to remind me that she could reach me from here, but back far enough to avoid it being a direct threat. Amazingly, she was pretty much balanced on the toes of her pointy cloth shoes. If I tried something like that, my feet would have probably exploded in blood and bone shards. Or I would have fallen on my masked face. Or both. “She’s not ’ere, though, right? Some kind of dark fae prisoner, wot? That’s... right, I’m confused.”

“WELL, LUST CAN FILL YOU IN THERE.”

The sorceress struggled to an upright seated position, back to the mast. “I shall be succinct.”

“Thank god,” Judy muttered.

“Nine children she promised to the court of the Mountain King, to pay the debt for her companions’ passage. Eight children she delivered healthy and whole, and I was the seventh. But the ninth was born dead. Mother’s womb was poisoned by the death, such that she could not give birth again. Thus the debt could not be paid.”

“HANG ON. DIRE WAS THERE WHEN THE BARGAIN WAS STRUCK. SHE DOESN’T RECALL THE CONDITION OF THE CHILDREN BEING A NEGOTIATING FACTOR.”

“It matters not. They claimed it was a corpse, not a child, and so the bargain was unfulfilled.”

“WORDPLAY. SHE COULD HAVE TWISTED THAT, RIGHT? DOTTIE SPECIALIZED IN FAE, SHE WOULDN’T HAVE MADE A BAD BARGAIN.”

Lust shook her head, and Khalid cleared his throat. “While the fae do delight in wordplay and finding clever ways to adhere to the letter of agreements, they do not extend the same courtesy to mortals within their power. Without leverage, they would be within their rights to declare the bargain unfulfilled.”

“THAT’S STILL CHEATING.” I felt absurdly offended.

Lust shook her head. “Even had she held true to the bargain, they would not have let her depart. I and my sisters were traded among the Arcadian domains, and her they keep to prevent us from rebellion or conspiracy.” She closed her eyes, and tears leaked out, silvery to match the unnatural sky. “We love our mother. But she grows older, even though time is slower in the Mountain King’s Court. And she does not wish to die there, so far from her home. From her England.”

I drew a breath, let it go. “AND THAT’S THE SUM OF IT. DOTTIE WILL BE FREE. DIRE SHALL SEE TO IT.”

Miss Maskelyne paced, and her team looked to her as she moved across the deck, hands clasping each other behind her back, brow furrowed. She paused, looked between Lust and me, and shook her head. “Fine. Bloody fine. I know I’ll regret this later, but yes, you can wrap up your business with this woman after the Maestro’s done. After that though, we want you to shove off at the earliest opportunity.”

“GLADLY. THERE’S NOTHING LEFT FOR DIRE HERE ONCE THAT’S TAKEN CARE OF.” I happened to be looking at Acertijo while I spoke, and he studied me, clearly trying to figure out if I’d meant it in a deeper way. I hadn’t, but I let him stew anyway; he’d made his bed, he could lie in it.

“Well then, on to the planning...”

That went on far into the night. The sun didn’t set so much as the silvery sky faded in luster, and strange stars rose in the deep black well of the alien heavens. Finally we wrapped up, after making a meal of ghostly hardtack and some kind of fish stew that I didn’t want to think too hard about. Supernatural stuff was weird, and the sooner I was done with it the better.

I said as much to Khalid in our cabins below decks. “This all started so simple, really. Go and beat the Maestro to a pulp, deal with his minions, and break his power forever.”

“Hm.” He finished setting up his hammock. Since it had been a full day and planning literally took hours, we’d decided to bunk and get a fresh start in the wee hours of the morning. Lust offered to stretch the time rate for us, so we’d each get a full eight hours, and we’d taken her up on that.

“It does come as a shock to most,” Khalid mused, “that Britain is so tightly bound to the supernatural. The fae in particular were strong here once, after the Atlanteans turned their backs on the land and departed.”

“Many await the coming of the new age, when humanity finally turns upon itself and this isle is vacant again,” Lust added. “They are content with small mischiefs and minor intrigues until then.”

Khalid looked at her sideways. “Those small mischiefs kill the innocent, break families, and do nothing beyond exalt cruelty.”

She sniffed. “Please. It’s not like humanity’s hands are clean. The atrocities done in man’s name in the past and forgotten to history are no less spiteful.”

“The difference being that mankind has moved on, and the fae have not.” Khalid sighed. “In fact they cannot. It is not within them to forgive or forget. And so they sow the seeds of their own doom, and people like me become necessary.”

I remembered our discussion earlier, about how she’d tempted Khalid, driven him to sin. Judging by his tone and the look in his eye, he hadn’t forgotten it either. Nor should he.

Best to wrap this up quickly and kick her out, back to her own cabin. “We’re putting a lot of faith in your motives,” I said, folding my arms and holding her eye.

“They’re as pure as my maidenhood.”

“So we can’t trust you worth a shit.”

“Trust my spite, if you won’t trust me. The Maestro found me when I was weak, and used me. He took me in body and mind, if not soul. I will have his heart for that.” Her face set into a stony look I’d seen in the mirror a time or two.

“How did you break free? And why did you choose now to rebel?”

“Much the same as my love.” She stroked her belly. “For years I was caught in his web, but the small inconsistencies added up. Through willpower, and long effort, I broke free. Not completely, though. Some hooks remain. Speak his name and I must tell you to go to hell, but unlike those unaware of it I can control myself. I am not driven to attack or silence the speaker. In here I can bend time to my will, more or less. And so I stretched every visit, as I trained myself to resist his power.”

“Five minutes and Dire’s mind control machine and I could probably fix that,” Vector offered.

She shook her head. “When Pride is dead it shall not matter.”

“You’ve managed to change Acertijo’s mind about killing him?” I lifted an eyebrow.

“No, but he will forgive me.” She smiled, smugly. “For his daughter’s sake if nothing else.”

“Your daughter, who you just let get possessed by the spirit of a dead witch. That daughter.”

A flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, before her smile broadened. “I can make him see reason.”

“For your sake, Dire hopes so. But you haven’t answered the second part of her question; why rebel now?”

She stared at me. “Because of you.”

“That’s it?” I was oddly disappointed. “No other reason?”

“You broke my army. Single-handedly. You would have slain me if you hadn’t been holding back against Acertijo. My enchantment that day would have failed against you... you would have broken it as surely as you did my spell this afternoon. You are a walking doom, and I thought that you would kill Pride. I resolved to be out of the mortal realm while you did so. I hoped it would be enough to escape your vengeance. At first I planned to keep your champion as a hostage, bargain with you for his life in exchange for mine if you came for me. Then...” she rubbed her belly. “Things changed.”

“Things did.” I looked away for a minute, chewed over the matter, and ignored the grumbling part of me that wanted to throw a tantrum. I looked back to her, and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Treat him well, hm? He’s had a hard life.”

“I shall give him a better one. He shall be a king in realms undreamed of by mortals, once I rise to my true power.”

“Or maybe you just cook for him now and again. He likes that.” I gave her shoulder a squeeze, and bade farewell to my first real relationship. Wouldn’t have worked out anyway. “Now off you go. Big day tomorrow and you’ve got a significant role to play.”

She left without a word. I looked over at Khalid, who was resting in his hammock, and Vector, who was still fumbling with his. Without a word I went to help him, stringing it on the hooks between the mast and the wall.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. You’ve been quiet these last few hours.”

“I’m not sure how much the heroes are listening in.”

“Dire’s been running a white noise generator and full ECM suite out of her armor for the last half-hour.” I gestured to my armor, sitting in the corner in a lotus position like some gray and black Buddha statue. “Restricted range, of course, don’t want to interfere with Maskelyne’s stuff. Of course she’s got her own ECM suite going up in the Captain’s cabin, so Dire figures she understands.” I smiled.

“Heh. Well, that’s something.” He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “The heroes worry me, Lust might be in love now but she’s no less a horrible bitch, and we’re about to stick our collective cocks into a blender the second we head back in. Every hero, villain, and vigilante in Great Britain who isn’t on this boat right now likely has Maestro’s triggers in their heads.”

“But not all of them are in London. Besides, we went over that. The heroes lock down the teleporters so they can’t pull more enthralled costumes in.”

“Right, which just leaves us with the minions I made him, his own criminal syndicate, whatever mercenaries he’s got lying around, and the villains that Queensguard doesn’t know about.”

“Won’t pretend it’s easy. It never is. But we’ve got pretty much the most powerful metahumans in Britain on this boat here, right now. We’ll have to move fast, but it’s a better shot than staying here and hiding for a few years.”

“Yeah.” He offered me a hand. “I’m glad you’re on my side for this. It’s comforting to have a veteran along.”

“Well, you’ve got two.” I shook his hand, and gestured at Khalid. “You doing okay?”

“These things you drag me into, they are never simple, are they?” Khalid rocked serenely in his hammock, stripped of his outer costume, reclining in basically the undertunic and a pair of very modern boxers. A part of me noted how muscled and lean his legs were, but I squelched it. Mixing work and pleasure hadn’t exactly worked out well so far.

“No. Nothing’s ever simple in this business.” I leaned against the mast. “Then again, your normal line of work is relatively incomprehensible to Dire.”

“Good.”

“Good?”

“The supernatural societies and cultures of the world worked very hard to remain silent and hidden from the ruck and run of humanity for millennia. Ever since the Romans decided that anything magical that gave them trouble needed to be removed from this world. Then Tesla came along, and everything became harder to hide. So I am glad that you don’t understand much of it; you have no reason to do so beyond the little experience with vampires that you’ve had.”

“And werewolves. And a Norse deity back in World War Two.”

“You know, I heard something about Loki gaining his freedom back in those days... that was you?”

“No, his name was Loge.”

“Did he tell you that?”

Realization hit me, six decades too late. “Son of a bitch.”

“He is. From what I know of him, at any rate. Never had the pleasure to encounter him personally, and I do not seek it.”

“You’re not missing much. Though he did keep his deal with us.”

“Good.” He closed his eyes. “Vector, we will survive this. Just follow the plan.”

The Professor nodded, and clambered into his own hammock. I thumped the mast, and headed toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Vector asked.

“A bit restless. Going to check in on our allies and then get some rest.” It wasn’t the whole reason. This was the night before a big battle, and a good friend had once taught me the importance of making the rounds, checking in on your people. Another good friend had taught me the value of a good screw before a big fight, but I didn’t figure that was on the table tonight.

I stepped out of the door, drawing my mask out from my overall’s pocket, and slid it over my face as I turned the voice modulator off. We were well into night time now and I wasn’t sure who was still awake, so it was best not to disturb their sleep.

Up first, hearing the soft clanking of metal on wood above me. Up the little inclined ladder, and I came face to face with Alpha, squatting on his haunches, and offering me a hand up. I took it, and clambered out onto the deck. “All quiet?”

“They’re still talking in the main cabin.” He hooked a thumb across the way, where light spilled out from two small, round windows and around the seams of a heavy wooden door. “And over on the back deck. Poop deck? Aft deck? Man, I don’t know. Feels weird being locked into hardware, and not having gridnet to check up my nautical terms.”

I patted his shoulder. “It’s temporary. How is the rest of the Chorus holding up?”

“Epsilon’s out there taking soil samples and plant samples for analysis once we get back into the real world. He had to argue with the ghost guy to get off the boat, apparently you can’t depart unless he lets you off. Stupid magic stuff, but hey, what can you do.”

“Out there?” I stared into the darkness. “According to Lust there’s still wild fae out there, too. Dire’s a little concerned.”

“Don’t be. He’s a big boy, and he knows when to run. Besides, he’s got a few boxes of old style nails along. Cold iron for the win, huh?”

“Where’d we pick up those?” I didn’t remember ordering that.

“Re-enactment village a few dozen miles from the lair. Seemed prudent.”

“Fair enough.”

“As for the others, Beta’s up there talking with the ghost and the tree guy,” he waved up at the poop deck, or whatever it was. “Delta’s down in the hold telling bad jokes with Punching Judy. And Gamma’s in the cabin with Maskelyne and Harrier, hammering out contingency plans.”

“They’re still at it? Good to see they’re taking it seriously.”

“She’s thought through the ramifications, all right. And the Harrier seems to be the sort of guy who takes on his defeat by planning to hit the next crisis twice as hard.”

I nodded. “At least he’s channeling it in a good direction. People like that can be aggravating.”

He tilted his head in that faint way I’d come to register as amusement. “Heh. Bit of irony there, coming from you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That’s exactly what you do.”

I snorted.

“Yeah, maybe you don’t see it like I do,” he said, plopping down on the deck with a few faint clanks and rattles. “It’s that drive. You have to keep moving forward, all the time, or you’re not happy.”

“Is there any other way to live that’s worth living?”

“I take things one day at a time, and it seems to work out for me. But that’s mainly because I know you’ve got the future planning covered.”

I felt a smile tug at my lips. “Guess that’s why we work so well together.” And we did, when it came down to it. I’d tried working with people before, and been disappointed time and again. Sometimes it was their fault, other times it was mine, for having expectations that turned out to be unreasonable. But Alpha and the rest of the Greek Chorus, they were a solid steel back that I could lean against, knowing that they wouldn’t fail me at the worst possible moment, wouldn’t betray me without a major hack, or some seriously compromised code.

I didn’t have to worry about them, and that was refreshing. Unfortunately, they weren’t the only ones along on this little jaunt.

Ghost and Green Knight first, I decided, and headed to the aft deck.

They turned to me as I climbed the wooden steps, headed up to where the wheel of the ship rolled and turned as the vessel swayed. Beta gave a small wave, and I returned it.

“Evening Missus,” Rumjack doffed his cap, revealing long brown hair. “Late night walk? Couldn’t sleep?” He glanced up at the wooden-fleshed giant next to him, who looked down impassively, eyes gleaming faintly in the dark visor of his helm.

“Always hard to sleep in this kind of situation,” I leaned on the railing. “Just burning nervous energy, Dire supposes.”

“Cor! Ain’t that a proper pretty voice, now that it’s not hidin’ behind a lion wif a throat ailment.”

I chuckled despite myself. He grinned a gap-toothed grin, and sidled closer. “Ow’s a pretty young thing like yerself get into the ne’er-do-well line o’ work anyhow?”

“Oh, the usual. Murderous foes, dead friends, useless heroes, and the complete failure of society to aid the survivors or set matters right.” I stared at him until he blinked, and looked away. “But your team seems cut of a different cloth. Perhaps they’re up for the challenge that the Maestro presents.”

The Green Knight shifted as I said that name, and I studied him as Beta moved quietly into position to his side. But the big man subsided, and groaned out incomprehensible moans.

“Sorry, she doesn’t understand what you’re saying.” I glanced back to Rumjack. “Do you?”

“Aye. He’s saying that name still makes him feel strange, like there’s summat he should be seeing to, but he can’t remember what. Reminds him o’ bad old times, it does.”

“Ah. Apologies.”

The Green Knight groaned more, and spread his hands. Mostly flesh, those, with streaks of wood-like stuff tracing up to the fingers in long, twisting lines. It wasn’t until the wood traced up his body that it broke out into larger patches.

“He says he forgives you. ’Ad a fair amount o’ bad times when he woke up in the wood, wiv no memories and no way to talk to the people who ran in fear. Prob’ly best th’ team found ’im when they did, and ’elped him. They’re family, they is, to ’im and me.” Rumjack turned back to face me full on. “So ifn’ you’re worryin’ about useless heroes, and havin’ to do ’orrible things because we can’t cut it, you can take that sent’ment and stuff it, me lady. We’re Queensguard. We’ve done ’arder things than this long before you ever made yer first set of iron petticoats, and we’ll be savin’ the day long after yer dust and rust.” He pulled a hip flask from his belt, waggled it at me, and took a long drink before passing it up to the Green Knight. “An’ that’s all I got ter say on that matter.”

I nodded, and put my hands in my pockets. “Fair enough.” I turned to leave and Beta followed.

“Nah, you can stay, mister machine. Got a few more ol’ stories of the Spanish Main if yer innerested.”

“I am. So you were a privateer, then?”

“Well, after th’ mutiny, an’ a stint o’ piracy that didn’t work out, the new Captain decided maybe England wasn’t quite so bad if we had a different sort o’ unnerstanding wiv’er...”

I left them to their tall tales, and headed toward the lit cabin near the front of the vessel. I got maybe five meters from the door when it opened, and Maskelyne peered out. “Your minion mentioned that you might be coming.”

“Her name’s Gamma. She didn’t mention that?”

“She did.” Miss Maskelyne considered me for a moment, then moved aside. “I’ll assume you’re past the posturing, since you’ve dropped the overly sinister bit with your voice.”

“For now. The night is young.” I stepped in, and Harrier and Gamma looked up at me from the holographic map of London they’d been poring over. “Everything in hand?” I asked Gamma.

“Mostly. The culprits of no less than fifteen percent of last month’s metahuman crimes are as yet unidentified. We’ve been going over their case files to try and figure out what powers were involved, and if they fall within the ranges of existing villains.”

“No easy task,” Harrier added. He was down to an undersuit, a tight-fitting one-piece garment with input ports exposing bare flesh along his torso, arms, and thighs. No mask... thanks to his public identity he didn’t really need one. Slate-gray eyes considered me from under a high-and-tight haircut. “London’s really a beat by itself. Tens of thousands of people passing through every week, hundreds of thousands commuting in. And this is just the metahuman crime, without even going into the non-powered stuff.”

“That’s going to be where the Maestro does most of his business, at the heart of the mundane crimes,” I folded my arms. “He’s that sort of villain, the kind that gets off on how wicked he thinks he is.”

Maskelyne gave me a funny look and turned back to the map. “At any rate, thanks to Lust, we’ve got the location of his headquarters, so that saves us some trouble. Hard as it is to believe, it makes a horrible sort of sense.”

“That was a bit of a surprise,” I admitted. “With all the tourist traffic, it seemed rather implausible at first.”

“Anyway, we’ve got another problem,” Gamma spoke up. “No matter how we slice it, we can’t account for all the metahumans he’s created. Even if only a fraction of them are in London, and I can’t imagine he doesn’t have a few dozen as backup, then he’s been keeping them out of sight. Something’s up here, something we can’t quite figure out.”

“It would be easier if we could dismiss this as paranoid ravings or part of your sinister plots,” Miss Maskelyne threw in. “But Acertijo corroborated the story.” She massaged her temples. “Frankly, I’m terrified. With his powers, with his patience, the scope and scale of what he’s done is horrible. He’s turned pretty much every level of the system built to detect and protect against people like him into his armor. How many were silenced, how many quietly killed or mindraped to keep himself hidden? If I hadn’t gone off on you earlier today over one of those bloody triggers I wouldn’t believe it. Less painful that way.”

“You realize what we’re going to have to do, when we get to him,” I said, stepping closer. “He’s simply too dangerous otherwise.”

Miss Maskelyne glared at me. “Out of the question.”

“You have a long-term solution? His powers work over electronic media. One phone call, one radio broadcast, and Britain’s back to being fucked again.”

“This discussion is done. We’ll find a way. Prevailed against worse odds.”

I looked to Gamma, and she nodded her mask toward the door. I nodded back. They were ready to fight, even if they were being a bit naive. I had the answers I needed, and would only provoke them more with my continued presence. “We shall see,” I said, turning to the door and leaving. “Good night.”

Then it was down below decks again, and looking for the last few members of our crew.

I got down to the second deck, and a rustle of cloth behind me told me I was no longer alone. “Acertijo,” I said, stopping and glancing over my shoulder.

“Dire.”

“You have something to say?”

The seconds stretched. “I am sorry.”

“So is she. You shouldn’t have lied about your name.”

“I knew that the day would come when we would be at odds once more.”

“Oh shut up.” Silence again. “You know the truth of her. She seeks a better world.”

“You think you do, yes.”

“She will make a better world. Until that day, let them call her villain. She cares not.”

“Then why are your knuckles white?”

I looked down at my clenched hands, barely visible in the lamplight. I hadn’t even noticed. I unclenched my fingers, flexed them. “You hurt Dire.”

“I am sorry. I held out as long as I could—”

“Not like that. That doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you couldn’t even trust Dire with your goddamn real name. We were done the moment that lie came to light, Manuel.”

He looked away. “I am sorry.”

“Damned right you are.” I turned my back to him and left him at the lamps, headed down into the darkness of the hold, mask flipping over to nightsight as the ambient light grew too faint to see. “Good luck with your bruja,” I said, into the silence. “May you both get everything you deserve.”

Acertijo didn’t answer.

I followed the sound of laughter, down to the bilges. Bilges? Yes, that was the proper term.

“Stop me if you’ve heard this one before,” Delta said, as I rounded the corner. “A guy goes golfing with his preacher, and on the first hole he takes a swing at the ball, and goes ‘God fucking damn it shit I missed—’ Oh, hey boss!”

“Don’t stop on her account,” I leaned against the wall, looking between them. Incongruously, there was a ping pong table set up in the bilges, next to a generator and a television set, with a few video game systems sitting next to it. The heroes had made a lounge of this place, it seemed.

Hanging from a ceiling support beam by her bare feet, Punching Judy regarded me from a bat’s eye perspective. Her makeup was a bit smudged, and she was wearing a sweat suit, but her eyes were sharp and alert as she tracked my movements. “Ey there, Delta’s boss. Crackin’ minion you’ve got here. Fab at table tennis.”

“Going to assume that’s good,” I said. I’d been in London for months but some of the slang was still beyond me.

“Yeah, don’t listen to her; she beat my ass like a dominatrix. Seriously, it was all like ‘clang clang clang’ down here just before you arrived.” Delta snickered. “Telling me I was a naughty little bot. Gettin’ me all overheated and bothered.”

“You feckin’ wish, tinhead.” Judy stuck out her tongue. “Get ya some real skin and we’ll talk, otherwise I ent makin’ out with no toaster.”

“Okay, sure. Hey boss, can I flay somebody and ride around in their rotting skinsuit?”

“No! Not like that, like that one movie with the hunky time traveling robot guy with the gun fetish. Y’know, wossname...”

“Ah.” I took a step backward. “So you’re ah, good for the assault tomorrow?”

“Pssh. Poncy villain wossname with a thing for being all creepy and mindrapey? Gits like that always fall down wi’ one punch.” Judy fired off a rapid volley of jabs, rocking back and forth on the beam. “To you it’s maybe the result o’ months of work. To us it’s Tuesday.”

“Maybe I can talk to Vector, see about getting some real skin,” Delta tapped her mask thoughtfully. “Like fungus, or something like that...”

“Yer mom’s fungus.”

“I don’t have a mom!”

“Oooohh, lookit the orphan...”

I retreated while I still had dignity, and made my way back to the cabin, and my hammock. We’d done our best to prepare, and morale was good. Tomorrow we’d get to see the fruits of our labor.

CHAPTER 19: BREACHING

“We came this close to firing the Tridents. No, I don't really care about the reason, I want Doctor Dire behind bars or dead. This isn't the first time she's almost caused World War Three, and until she's dealt with I doubt it'll be the last.”

--Captain Sudman, of the RN Cuttlefish

We rode the storm, catching the wind between the worlds and ascending up into the clouds on Gallowglass, leaving logic and physics behind as the ghostly vessel trumped the wall between faerie and reality, hauling us through rain that fell upward and striated bands of purple lightning that crackled past us, drawing blue St. Elmo’s fire out of the mast. It was glorious to see from the safety of my armor, even if the lightning did throw weird error results to my sensory analysis suite.

Then, with a clap of thunder like a mountain falling on its side, the weirdling stars below us gave way to the lights of London, and the sky above us showed stars and moon kissing the horizon.

We had returned. It was 3 AM, Faerie lay behind us, our enemies were ahead of us, and we were ready to kick some ass.

For a moment we considered the city below. We’d come in at the outskirts to the east, past East End. If I looked carefully, I could probably trace the route I’d run with my remote drone body, a few days ago.

But I had no time for that. Almost immediately, air raid sirens fired to life around the city.

“FASTER RESPONSE TIME THAN WE’D HOPED. ALPHA, SHUT HER DOWN.”

I’d set up contingencies upon contingencies, while I was preparing for a final showdown. This wasn’t the way I’d expected it to go, but nonetheless, some of my preparations had not been in vain.

“On it boss,” Alpha said, and below us, the lights of the city began to wink out. Subtle hacks, weeks of infiltration, all paying off in a hot heartbeat. Oh, some things would still have power... hospitals, biomedical storage, emergency services at Heathrow... but as for the rest of it, darkness took back her crown from glittering London. And the damned sirens stopped.

For about two seconds, then a few of them came back in the distance.

“GENERATORS. NOT MUCH WE CAN DO ABOUT THOSE.”

“You’ve done enough,” Miss Maskelyne said, pulling her gloves on and opening a portal to street-level. “Now it’s our turn.”

“OH, SHE’S JUST GETTING STARTED.” I hopped the railing, kicked on my gravitics, and flew into the night, arrowing straight for the center of the city.

We were up against a clairvoyant, with no way to block him that allowed us to accomplish our objectives. Our tactics reflected that. We’d split up, attack from multiple directions, and require Sloth to split his focus between us in an area that was dark as hell, where his normal human vision couldn’t make out any real details.

At least, the others would. I had a different role to play.

As I flew static hissed and feedback reverberated, while the city’s emergency comm system flickered to life. No way to stop that, no way to hack it, it was all hardwired. I gritted my teeth, as a voice I’d heard far too often for my liking spoke.

“Well well well! I was wondering when you’d screw your courage to the sticking place, Dire!”

“DOUBT MANY THINGS, YOU SNIVELING VERMIN, BUT DOUBT NOT HER COURAGE.” The arches of Tower Bridge beckoned me, and I landed on the catwalk between them, turning my mask toward the Tower of London.

“Stopping to sightsee, Doctor? You don’t have time for that.” Was that a hint of uncertainty in his voice?

“OH DROP IT YOU FESTERING BOIL. SHE KNOWS YOU’RE IN THERE. YOU’VE GOT THREE MINUTES TO COME OUT AND SURRENDER BEFORE SHE RIPS IT APART AND FINDS YOU.”

He laughed, but it was unsteady. “Such delusions you have. Well, if you’re going to persist in them, I shan’t let you leave empty-handed.” Around me, lights flickered to life, searchlights pinpointing me where I stood, arms crossed, surveying the ancient bastion. And as more lights rose up to find me, so did four caped figures soar out of the night, to surround me in a loose semi-circle. I recognized Lady Thrush, but the others were strangers. Minor heroes, perhaps, or villains. My nightsight showed me every detail of their glaring faces, their accusing eyes... and their clenched fists.

“You murderer!” Lady Thrush shrieked.

“Minions? Kill.” Maestro commanded.

Lady Thrush and the most muscular of the four closed on me as I flew back. A third started throwing lightning bolts that scattered off my forcefield. The fourth gestured and cables ripped free of the Tower Bridge, swiped upward toward me as I dodged frantically.

“You know the really unfair thing about this part?” Maestro chortled. “I can say pretty much any bloody thing I want, and they’ll only hear the screams of random phantom civilians you murdered, that they’re hallucinating on the ground below. I’ve got them that programmed. Really, if I were up against me I’d cry foul.”

I ignored him and activated the vox. “Epsilon? Sending you visual. Talk to Maskelyne, tell Dire who these are. Well, not Thrush. Dire knows her already.”

“I figured. Give me ten seconds.”

I did. Full evasive, letting the forcefield tank the lightning, and flying in and around the bridge to dodge the physical types. The telekinetic grabbed me a few times with the cables, but never so many that I couldn’t shred them without breaking stride. And in fifteen seconds, Epsilon got back to me. “Stormcaller: Dump him into water. Rue Britannia’s the telekinetic, she’s got zero defense to energy. Hadrian the Wall is the real threat, about as sturdy as you are, no known weaknesses.”

“OH MAESTRO,” I chortled. “WHAT DOES IT MATTER HOW YOU’VE PROGRAMMED THEM, IF THEY FALL SO EASILY? CHECK IN THREE.”

One! I went into a barrel roll around Lady Thrush, maneuvered until Stormcaller was right where I wanted him, then blasted Rue Britannia. She fell like a sack of potatoes, smacked into Stormcaller, and both of them tumbled into the river. “ONE!”

Then my cape ripped free of my back as Lady Thrush used my inactivity to close with me. Tearaway cape! Absolutely essential when you’re up against physical heroes, too many ways it can be used against you otherwise. Without looking I pushed a hand over my shoulder, and squirted the knockout mist I’d gotten from Vector into her face. On my rear sensors, I tracked her fall. “TWO!” She was vulnerable to inhaled toxins, I’d found that out in our first encounter. As she fell I gave her a blast, to knock her onto land, so she didn’t drown in the river. Technically it was two and a half, but I let it slide.

My hasty adjustment cost me, as Hadrian the Wall caught up, finally. Slower than Thrush, but stronger, he simply grabbed my head between his hands and squeezed. Metal groaned, ceramic started to crack...

“THREE!”

My knee caught him about five inches south of his belt buckle, and the impact BOOMed out across the city, shattering the windows set into the tower bridge with its force. Hadrian’s eyes went wide, and he let go of my helmet, to fall boneless toward the bridge below.

I knew how much punishment I could take. And I knew he’d live. Would have a pretty lousy time pissing for a while, and might need help walking, but he’d live.

“CHECK—” I turned...

...and found six more flyers behind me. “HRM.”

Maestro laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Below me, I saw black SUV’s rolling up on either shore, and black-suited mooks spilling out, setting up tripod-mounted guns and heavier artillery. “No, not three! Four, five through ten, and pretty much the rest of London! Haven’t you got it through your thick skull yet? This is my city. My empire. My toys. And I don’t care how many I break on you and your little friends.”

I jerked my head upright, as if I was surprised.

“Oh yes, don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing! They’re about to have their own little playmates in five, four, three... oh, just kill her you lot.”

The fliers swooped in upon me, as his men sprayed bullets and rockets in my general direction.

“Progress?” I whispered into the vox, while I fought for my life.

“Almost finished,” Epsilon replied.

“We’ll need three minutes,” Beta said.

“Hitting resistance!” Gamma called “Nothing we can’t handle.”

I nodded, and then there was no more time, as I fought in the air until they knocked me from the sky. I fought on the ground, hovering and dashing from SUV to SUV, leaving trails of broken mooks and flaming vehicles behind. Then the ground-bound metahumans caught up to me. I fought until my forcefield failed, and the structural integrity of my armor started to go, bit by bit. This was the dicey part, the riskiest bit of the entire operation, which was why I had chosen it for myself.

I am Dire. I will not fail. Not while I still draw breath. And besides, I knew the Maestro. Knew how he worked, how he thought. How to exploit that.

And finally, amidst the gleaming offices of Fenchurch Street, with windows now broken beyond repair and mounds of glass falling from the sky, with my armor at twenty percent and my HUD fizzling and sparking around me, with my limbs sore even through the impact gel and my mask a shattered wreck upon its decoy head, the Maestro spoke once more. “All right, back off from her for a minute.”

I panted, crouched low, one arm over a gouge that revealed sparking circuitry, other hand out flat, ready to blast down my assailants. I looked to the left and right, surveying the semi-circle around me. I’d disabled about half of my opponents, I thought, but more kept arriving. Like most major metropolises, London had heroes and villains out of proportion to its population. I wagered I’d settled the hash of about a third of them. “He’s getting ready to gloat,” I voxed. “Beta?”

“We’re online.”

I let out a sigh of relief, and straightened up, staring at my frozen attackers. Movement from the rear and two black-suited men emerged, carrying a briefcase of a sort I’d seen before. They squatted down in front of me perhaps forty feet away, and cracked it open as a holograph fuzzed, revealing the Maestro’s upper half, wearing a bathrobe, and his ever-present bowler hat. He shook back untidy blonde curls, and raised a glass of wine in my general direction. “Ah, the woman of the hour!”

“AH, THE DIPSHIT OF THE MILLENIUM.”

“Come come, Doctor. There comes a point where bravado becomes useless.”

“AGREED. THIS IS FUTILE.”

Maestro M cocked a pencil-thin eyebrow at me, and took a sip of his drink. “So you see reason after all? Going to teleport off to someplace you imagine to be safe? Go ahead, try it.” He grinned, widely. “See. What. Happens.”

“HM? OH NO, SHE’S NOT GOING ANYWHERE.” I straightened up. “YOU OPERATE IN SUCH A MANNER THAT TIME IS ON YOUR SIDE, NORMALLY. AND WHEN YOU MEET HEROES THAT CHALLENGE THAT SCENARIO, YOU ESCALATE TO DRIVE OFF YOUR ATTACKER, THEN REARRANGE MATTERS TO MAKE THINGS MORE DIFFICULT FOR THEM THE NEXT TIME THEY COME FOR YOU.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re starting to bore me, Doctor. You do know you’ll live through this, yes? Can you imagine what’s going to happen to you, once you’re under my thumb? Do you know how bad it’s going to get? I do. And I’ll tell you this for free; it’ll get worse the more you bore me. So you’d best practice some quality bants, and muster some sort of entertainment, or—” he glanced offscreen. “What the fuck?”

“Got it!” Alpha cheered in my ear.

“THAT WOULD BE YOUR LINE TO THE NUCLEAR SUBS GOING DOWN,” I said, smiling. “NOT THAT WE COULDN’T COUNTER THOSE IF THEY GOT LAUNCHED, BUT DIRE FIGURED THE HEROES NEEDED SOMETHING TO KEEP THEM BUSY.” Talking out of my ass there, but hopefully he’d buy it.

“Tch. So you played the sacrificial lamb. Got me monologuing! Sly cunt.”

“THERE’S THAT WORD AGAIN.” I stood up, held my arms out wide. “SHE TOLD YOU ABOUT THAT WORD.”

“Boring. Minions, kill—”

“NOW!”

Light flickered around me, glimmered... and HUDs went from red to green, as my viewscreen shifted and an undamaged one replaced it.

I lifted a now whole gauntlet and studied it. “Teleportation successful,” Beta confirmed.

“Good job. Now move, he’s got something prepared,” I told him, then turned on external speakers again.

“YOU ENJOY PLAYING THE ESCALATION GAME, MAESTRO, AND YOU’RE GOOD FOR AN AMATEUR. BUT DIRE?” I jetted into the air, raining down particle beams at full blast, scattering my unprepared foes like chaff. “DIRE PLAYED THIS GAME WITH CRUSADER, YOU MEWLING WHELP! AND SHE FUCKING WON!”

“It doesn’t matter!” he howled from the screen, as his minions dropped it and fled. “I have more! I always have more toys! And if I can’t kill you, then I’ll rip your allies and friends to pieces! The whole city’s awake now, and the mobs are hitting the streets! You’ll have to slaughter innocents or die!”

“YES, ABOUT THAT.” I voxed Delta. “Ready for your moment of glory?”

“Oooooooo yeah!”

“SHE HAS AN ARMY TOO.” I popped open my wristguard and pushed a big, glowy red button. It didn’t actually do anything but click and beep, Delta was the one who had synched everything up. But presentation is everything, really.

From hundreds of locations around London, from forgotten storage lockers to crawlspaces inside empty apartments, several hundred metal android shells went online. Less than a second later Delta synched up with each and every one of them, forking her persona over and over again to assume direct control.

And then they moved.

I received reports as I fought the heroes and villains and minions, tanking bullets and dodging rockets, beating up clockwork unicorns and the inventor who made them, punching out paragons and trading blasts with energy controllers. While I fought another third of London’s metahumans, Delta’s drones slipped out and found the mobs as they formed. And they tackled them head on.

Fast, sturdy, stronger than humans by a factor of three and equipped with any number of nonlethal takedown devices, they sowed panic all out of proportion to their number. With no need to see in the darkened corners of the city, they used hit-and-run tactics to thin the herd, get the angry mindzapped minions shouting and attacking the darkness and each other, and generally cause chaos.

Wasn’t perfect. For every few hundred people they put out of commission an android fell, cornered or caught by a lucky shot or strike, but that was fine. They were just buying me time until the last members of our team reported in.

A distant explosion. “You were right to tell us to move,” Beta told me over the vox. “Need us to set up again?”

I considered. “No. He’s down to the lower-level metas. They aren’t a significant challenge. Pack it in, and get over to the Tower for Stage Three.”

“On that, we’re about done,” Alpha said. “Already got responders on the continent working to restore matters, but we’ve got at least a ten-minute window.”

“Good!” I flew down to scoop up a villain whose schtick seemed to be making duplicates of himself every time he got hit, and carried him out to the Thames. I dropped him in, and finished off the rest of my pursuit with a barrage of concussion missiles. The towers of the Tower Bridge groaned and listed to the side, twisted ruins as glass and gears rained down into the river below, and the bridge warped. My laughter echoed over all... I didn’t find it particularly funny, but one had to keep up appearances, after all. It was the custom around here.

“That just leaves one. Gamma?”

“They say yes. Not that I can tell.”

“Perfect! Let’s end this. Stage Three, everyone.”

I landed, my restored cape fluttering in the thermals of the ruined street around me, as I walked toward the tower gate. A slight hum and a shift of lights to my right, and Miss Maskelyne, Alpha, Epsilon, and the Green Knight teleported in at my side, matching my pace without skipping a beat. To my left, shadows darkened, and Gamma, Lust, Khalid, and Rumjack oozed out of a crooked doorway that definitely didn’t go to where they had come from. After a moment they fell into step as well.

When we were almost to the gate, a faint rattling noise came from above, and Delta hit the ground behind me, followed by Punching Judy and the Human Harrier. Then a flicker and Beta and Vector teleported in.

Just one missing, but that was fine. I knew he was where he needed to be. Aggravating though he was, he never missed his cues.

I imagine it must have looked pretty badass, if anyone could have seen it.

And then, as usual, a hero had to go and fuck up the perfect moment.

A scream of pure rage rose behind me, and I turned to see a newly-conscious Lady Thrush zooming at me, fists outstretched in a classic paragon double-punch. Mister Leo hung from her neck, whether trying to apply a chokehold or clinging for dear life I couldn’t tell.

“YOU ARE KIDDING,” I managed, before she was upon me. I swirled my cape like a matador and she whipped past, turned, and started another run...

“Enough of this,” Lust snarled, and snapped out a hand. Again came that pulse, that I’d felt back in faerie, and Lady Thrush hit the street, plowed up a few yards of pavement before she came to a rest. Leo flipped up and surfed her back until she stopped, then lifted her head free of the pothole she’d made. “Er, well, hello then.”

Our whole line stopped and stared at him. The lion-man raised his sleeve to his muzzle, and coughed, awkwardly. “What the devil is happening? Who’s that smarmy fellow on the loudspeakers?”

“TROUBLE. WE’RE GOING TO SETTLE HIS HASH.”

“Five more minutes, Mum...” Lady Thrush muttered, as she lifted her face and blinked gravel out of her eyes. “Hm? What? Ow.” She stood up, looking at the semi-circle of metahumans and androids around her. “Queensguard? What? We were guarding London, just like you asked us to...”

“Fall in line, kid,” Miss Maskelyne said. “You too, old lion.”

Say this for heroes, they didn’t ask questions.

I did, though. “Gamma, quietly ask Lust if her whammy is going to keep the two junior heroes under control for now.”

Gamma sidled her way over to the enchantress, and I saw their heads bob for a second. “She says yes, but any long-term stuff is still unaffected. So they’ll probably need some deprogramming later.”

“We’ll leave that to the Queensguard. These won’t be the only people they have to deprogram.” I scowled at the sounds of riots, and scared mobs in the distance. He’d turned London into his hive and put himself in the spot of the queen bee. For all the good it had done him; he might as well have not bothered. I considered the devastation my fight had wrought in just four frantic minutes.

Hell, what was a little more? I raised an arm, and blew the tower gates into shrapnel. When I lowered my gauntlet, I caught Queensguard glaring at me. “OH, LIKE WE’RE NOT GOING TO BE RIPPING THE HELL OUT OF THE REST OF THE PLACE. GET OVER IT.”

They let me take the lead. I waved the Greek Chorus forward, and we swept for traps and sensors as we went, using pinpoint blasts and tools to destroy and disarm them as we went. None of them were armed. There were a few instances where they could have been triggered remotely, but weren’t.

Now why was that? The Maestro was up to something. That concerned me... he’d gone quiet too soon. Instinct told me he still had a few cards up his sleeve, ones that my preliminary plans hadn’t taken care of. That could be disaster, if I’d missed a trick. Costumed battles between experienced metahumans usually consisted of both sides bringing their cards to bear, and usually the last person to pull off a clever trick ended up winning... or getting away to fight another day. We couldn’t afford either option with Maestro M.

I heard a hell of a racket, as a horde of Beefeaters, half in uniform and others in drawers charged us, with goddamn pikes. The Tower’s honor guard, by the looks of it. I let the heroes deal with them, concentrated on disarming traps until we’d crossed the courtyard to the building that was our goal.

Jewel House, it’s called. The resting place of the Crown Jewels of England. A fortified keep within the compound, a vault for the most precious symbols of Britannia’s reign. A popular place for visiting tourists... and home to an insidious parasite.

The jewels were in the fortress, but once they had resided under Jewel House, in their own fortified vault that occupied most of the Tower’s courtyard area. They had been moved out of there in the mid-nineties... about the time when Maestro M discovered his true vocation. And according to Lust, he’d had the basement expanded, converted into his command and control center, and a set of luxury apartments.

It was a good setup, as evil lairs went. He had the very symbol of England’s rulership within a short walk. The lair was literally in a massive bunker that could withstand nuclear blasts, and he had an easy choice of escape routes.

Speaking of which... “Alpha?” I whispered through the vox. “The escape tunnels are accounted for?”

“All three of them. Some minor opposition in the last two, but bullet scars make me look macho, right?”

I honestly hadn’t noticed, but yeah, he was a little banged up. “Yes. Yes they do,” I lied as I used my universal remote to disarm a series of claymore mines, and descended the utility stairs into Jewel House’s basement. Behind me, the heroes finished up with the entirely-outmatched Beefeaters, and hurried to keep up.

Down into the bunker, through every obstacle in our way, and it was still too easy. He wasn’t suicidal, I knew that. Didn’t match his profile. What did he have up his sleeve? Had my counters covered every part of his plans?

More importantly, would the heroes I was forced to work with ultimately fuck it up? Maestro needed to die, and they wouldn’t pull the goddamn trigger. But if I reached him first...

...as if on cue, Miss Maskelyne caught up with me. “Allow me,” she said, gesturing at a vault door as blue vines grew from it, and forced it apart.

“YOU’RE TOO KIND,” I muttered, stepping forward, sensors on full, looking for the ambush, looking for the trap.

There wasn’t one.

There was, however, a twenty-foot deep blast wall of glassteel, separating the room into two halves. The front part of the room, the part we’d just entered, matched the description Lust had given of a command center. Walls of televisions, outdated consoles, seats that had layers of dust over their pleather backs. Half the screens showed my mask, I saw with amusement as I looked about.

And in the center, on our side, an old, old man in a life-support pod. Tubes fed into the bulging veins of his spotty arms, an EKG beeped relentlessly, and a panel showed a veritable Rosetta stone of chemicals going into his bloodstream. He lay still, still as death, save for his yellowed eyes, which darted back and forth unblinking. He couldn’t blink, for cruel metal devices held his eyes clamped open, and nozzles to the side periodically squirted them with mist, keeping them from drying out.

Sloth. AKA Big Brother.

“There we are,” Maestro M said, from the other side of the partition. “Now we can really get started.”

CHAPTER 20: CHECKMATE IN 10... 9... 8...

“No one is entirely clear what happened in the Tower of London. MI9 has sealed the files, and the heroes involved have been sworn to secrecy. About the only fact we know, is the name of the metahuman who perished beneath Jewel House...”

--BBC announcer, reporting in the aftermath of  the 'Maddening Crowd' incident

Maestro M sneered at us from the other side of the glassteel wall. He’d traded his bathrobe for simple black clothing. He was shorter than I’d expected in person, I’d be capable of looking down upon him even without my armor.

Well, physically. I already despised the man; I’d look down on him regardless.

His side of the partition contained the rest of the control room, a solid steel door, and a stone pedestal with a closed box upon it. Following my gaze, Maestro M moved in front of it, sneer growing wider. “Ah now, every surprise in its own due time. Welcome to my humble abode. Do forgive Sloth for not stirring, he’s lost the knack of it.”

Judy eyed the barrier, drew her fist back, and Miss Maskelyne caught her arm. “What?”

“YOU SEE THEM TOO?”

“Definitely.” Miss Maskelyne pointed at the metal barrels festooned with wires that lined the walls. “Judy, he’s got enough explosives in that room to destroy the Tower.”

“I am a bit of a sore loser,” Maestro conceded. “In the event that it looks like you might actually kill me, I’ll take you with me. Rather of the opinion it won’t get to that, though.”

“AREN’T YOU THE ETERNAL OPTIMIST.”

“You know, you’ve pursued me across the damned ocean, gone after me in my lair, spent time and resources some poorer countries would kill to have, and even teamed up with heroes,” he grimaced, “just to gain bloody vengeance upon me for a minor violation at best. You would have made a perfect Wrath, you know. Not like those fickle Sins next to you.”

“Sins no more, Pride,” Lust said, folding her arms.

“You’ve put on a bit of weight, love. Might want to watch those crisps. Except hello, it’s not that at all, is it? Now who’s the daddy...”

“I could just go right through that wall and cosh’em,” Rumjack muttered.

“Try it,” Maestro M invited. “But if you manage to survive the wards, I’ll just trigger the explosives. Now then, Lust, who’s the father?”

“I owe you nothing more, you filthy man. Least of all answers to your questions.”

“Mmm. It’s a hero, isn’t it? Stuck his knob in you and now all of a sudden you’re good, hm? That’s the excuse you’ve cobbled up to work with this lot, then? How noble. Honestly, considering how often I’ve been up your tuna slappers, it’d take a lot more than a few pokes and a spurt to turn you good. Figure I’ve canceled that out for the next few centuries, what?”

Lust turned bright red and raised her hands. Khalid slapped them down, and the glare she shot him fazed the Last Janissary not at all. She flinched, and looked away. “I will kill you, little man,” she said to Maestro M. “The world deserves better than you.”

“She’s not wrong there,” Vector said. “Speaking as a former employee, I find the breach of good faith unforgivable.”

“What? Did I promise not to rummage about in your mind? No? Well, your fault for not making me promise that, then.” Maestro folded his arms. “D’ya know why I gave you the Envy spot? Because Envies are always the most pitiful little worms. The villains who don’t know what they want unless someone else already has it. You’d be lost without me, you spoony little wank.”

Vector yawned. “You’re a shitty boss. Look at you, what have you done? You live in a hole, nobody knows your name, and you can’t touch any costumed crime, it’s only the mundane stuff for you. It’s a pity you didn’t bring any of my creations in for this final confrontation, I could have freed them from the torment of your presence. Permanently.”

A flash of annoyance across Maestro M’s face. I figured he’d had a few lined up, but been forced to drop them when he saw that Vector was on our side. Score one for the less bad guys.

“Well, you’re fired anyway.” Maestro looked over the heroes. “You I don’t recognize,” he pointed at Khalid. “So I’ll let you walk out of here.”

“I decline.”

“Ah, nobody ever goes for that option,” Maestro sighed. “No matter how many times I offer. Always the same setup, eh Sloth old friend?”

Sloth didn’t respond, but a chill crawled down my spine. And with it, realization. “HOW MANY TIMES?”

Maestro’s sneer widened. “Finally, someone gets it.” He flopped down in a chair, considered the deadman’s switch he pulled out of a pocket.

“Alpha?” I voxed.

“On it,” he whispered.

“Dire? What are you talking about?” Miss Maskelyne asked.

I looked back to the array of heroes at my side. “YOU’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE. YOU’VE FOUND THE TRUTH BEFORE. THIS ISN’T THE FIRST TIME YOU’VE CONFRONTED HIM.”

“Oh, not not all of them. Queensguard has been through a few members since the first time. And it’s not always them, either.” Maestro set the deadman’s switch aside, and poured himself a glass of wine. “About once every couple of years, someone develops  immunity to my powers, or figures out the truth. No matter how I try, I can’t cover everything.” He smiled. “Only human, really. Just a very, very smart and pragmatic one.”

“I was given to understand that once somebody was free of your powers, they were free forever,” Vector took a step back, glancing from me to Maestro.

“Nobody’s free forever,” Maestro M said, sloshing the wine around in the glass, and studying the liquid. “Mind you, sometimes I have to break subjects anew to get the suggestions to take the second time around. A little isolation and torture usually does the trick. Starvation, dehydration, a few selected drugs... or more basic means.” He smiled at Punching Judy. “Sometimes enjoyable ones.”

Oh, Judy looked livid.

“IT’S DIFFERENT, THIS TIME,” I rumbled, stepping forward to the glassteel, pushing my mask up to an inch away from the supermaterial. “THIS TIME YOU ANGERED DIRE.”

“Different? Please. Tell me how.”

“ALPHA? YOU HAVE THE DETONATOR YET?”

He spoke out loud. “Yeah, it’s radio-controlled. It’s also not that deadman’s switch he’s carrying, the real one is wired to his heartbeat, if it stops signaling the bombs go off. Cute.”

Maestro chuckled. “Now you see the dilemma—”

“SHUT UP. ALPHA, PLEASE CONTINUE.”

“As I was going to say, it’s cute, except we’ve scanned the frequencies, and duplicated them. Now they’ll receive the same signal regardless of his heartbeat.”

“Bravo,” Maestro said. “But I doubt you can get through the glassteel before I set them off manually, so there’s no point in—”

“SHUT UP. MASKELYNE, DOES THAT LOOK LIKE CZECH SURPLUS ANTIMATTER? BECAUSE IT DOES TO DIRE.”

“It does. The magnetics were a giveaway.”

“DIRE COULD RUN AN APPROPRIATELY CHARGED PARTICLE BEAM THROUGH ANY OF THOSE BARRELS— AND YOU, MAESTRO— IN THE TIME YOU GOT OVER THERE, BARRIER OR NO BARRIER. MIGHT KILL EVERYONE IN THE ROOM EXCEPT DIRE, BUT THAT’S A PRICE SHE’S WILLING TO PAY. THE BARRELS WOULD NOT EXPLODE SO MUCH AS DISINTEGRATE, AND THE EXPLOSIVES WOULD NOT DETONATE. YOU, ON THE OTHER HAND, WOULD BOTH EXPLODE AND DISINTEGRATE. SO YOUR THREAT IS MEANINGLESS. DIRE’S PROMISE, ON THE OTHER HAND...” I raised a gauntlet crackling gold with energy. “IS VERY MUCH SIGNIFICANT.”

“Then why don’t you?” He took a swallow of wine.

“BECAUSE THE EXPLOSIVES HAVE BEEN RENDERED MEANINGLESS. THEY ARE AN EMPTY THREAT. SHE IS INCLINED TO GIVE YOU TO THE HEROES.”

He snorted. “Come now. We both know you’ll kill me in the end. I’m too dangerous to be left alive, hm?” He snapped his fingers, and the monitors around his side of the room flickered to life. “But since the explosives won’t stop you, how about this? Do you really think my aspirations are limited to Britain?” He leaned forward, eyes disappearing in the shadow under the brim of his bowler. “At one word, at one gesture, at one cue that isn’t bloody radio-controlled or something your little tin bots can interrupt, I can trigger a worldwide broadcast. You know the Sovereigns video? That rock song everyone in the English-speaking hemisphere was singing the other year? It has a trigger in there, a rather suicidal one. If I activate this broadcast, every radio, every television station, every gridnet Metube hookup in Britain plays the cue that activates that trigger, and every weak-willed person who watched that video does their damnedest to kill themselves.”

Maestro stood, throwing the wine glass aside, spraying red on the glassteel, to drip down in streaks. “Do you know what this is, you idiotic band of freaks?” he yelled, spittle flecking his lips. “This is power! This is life and death! This is millions, living and dying at my whim!” He lifted a finger, shaking with rage. “And this is the part where you surrender, because I’ve got literally billions hostage and there’s fuck all you can do about it, you little spandex cunts!”

I crossed my arms. “TRY IT.”

“You’re testing— you’re fucking testing me? Me?” He laughed. Then he stopped, and looked to Maskelyne. “You’re smiling. Why are you smiling?”

I looked to Epsilon. “MIGHT AS WELL TELL HIM.”

“Our first task after breaching was to set up a dummy shell around the country. As far as the rest of the world knows, Great Britain is experiencing technical difficulties. Should be fixed sometime tomorrow.” That was a lie, there was only so much we could do. They’d be through in minutes, but Maestro didn’t have to know that. And the scope of his threat chilled me.

But I kept up kayfabe. “AS SHE SAID, YOU LITTLE WHELP, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME YOU INVOLVED DIRE IN YOUR PATHETIC ROLEPLAY.” I punched the glassteel, cratered a few inches out of it as my comrades flinched... and so did the Maestro. “GOT ANYTHING ELSE? SHE GROWS BORED OF YOUR PRESENCE.”

Maestro tilted his chin up, rubbed it as he looked at me. “You... hm. Most don’t make it past that one. Not bad, not bad indeed.” He sucked his teeth as he thought. “Well, you already took the nuclear arsenal offline, so that’s gone.”

“You’re welcome,” Alpha snarked.

“Do you know about the kill commands in the mobs?” He asked, conversationally. “The ones that’ll have them turning on each other in a few hours, rending everyone from limb to limb in a bloody orgy and turning London into an abattoir if I don’t activate the appropriate triggers?”

“DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT THAT ONE, BUT IT WON’T MATTER. BETA?”

“Oh please, let me,” Vector said. Beta hesitated, then nodded and stepped back. “Remember that bioweapon deployment system that you convinced me to install around London last year? Did you notice that a few minutes ago your agents guarding the aerosol fountains went silent?”

Maestro glanced toward a monitor, and sighed.

“Oh yes, that was us,” Vector slapped Beta’s back. “Everyone in London will be exposed to what I call a peace bug. It’s like the flu, but with more apathy and zero threat to anyone’s health. In about half an hour they’ll be too mellow to do anything beyond growl at each other and study their feet.”

“WE THOUGHT YOU MIGHT TRY TURNING THE CITY ON US, AND NEEDED A NONLETHAL WAY TO KEEP THEM FROM HURTING THEMSELVES OR OTHERS.”

Maestro took off his hat, and shook his head. Curls flew. “Three. Damn, it’s been years since someone got to three...” He actually sounded happy. “Mind you, it’s taken a fucking superteam, but I was starting to wonder if it was still possible.”

“WHAT, YOU’RE BORED AND LOOKING FOR THRILLS?” I tapped the wall again, ringing metal on crystal.

“Au contraire, Doctor, I’m looking for equals.” Maestro smiled. “Did you really think Britain was the limit of my aspirations? No, no, I want it all. But even I have my limits. Before I go up against Dark Harvest or Mentat, I need my ducks in a row. And you, darling Dire, are a perfect duckie.”

“WHY?” I asked. “WHY TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD? TO WHAT END?”

“The same as you, of course.” He put a hand on the wall opposite me, and smiled. Not a sneer, this time. “To fix the world. To get it running the way it should be.”

“YOU ARE NOT THE SAME AS DIRE,” I snapped. “NEITHER IN METHOD NOR MADNESS. YOU WOULD EXALT YOURSELF TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE SPECIES. INTOLERABLE AND INEFFICIENT.”

Maestro smirked “Well, it was worth a shot. Yes, you’ve put your clumsy metal finger on it, that’s not my game.” He folded his hands behind his back, and glared at me, eyes colder than ice. “Power. That’s my goal. Nothing more, nothing less. Britain works when I run it. And I want to run it forever. As soon as I crack immortality and eliminate all rivals, the world will eventually work like Britain does when I run it. It’ll just take more time to get there, that’s all. So I work and I cozen and I manipulate, to gather the metahuman ingredients I need to make a sustainable form that will live long enough for me to become the god-emperor of mankind, or something similar.”

“You’re horrible!” Lady Thrush burst out. “I’d rather be dead than your, your worshiper!”

He laughed. “Oh, you don’t know how ironic this is. Hm. You lot have been doing well so far, you’ve got four of my plans disabled. Let’s see if you can do five. Doctor, did you ever figure out what I was doing, with all those metahumans I made?”

“TO BE PERFECTLY HONEST, NO.”

Maestro put his hat on again, and the sneer was back. “Picture this, if you will. A man has ambitions, and can work with many tools, but the more powerful of those tools often resist his charms. But what if he had his own tools, tools that were sculpted and molded to be perfectly receptive to his powers?”

“AND THEN YOU SELL THEM? SO YOU CAN INFILTRATE THE VARIOUS CRIMINAL ORGANIZATIONS THAT PURCHASE THEM?”

Maestro laughed. “Sell them? Now why would I do that! I painstakingly craft them identities and false memories, and set them up as heroes and villains. And then I release them into the wild. They go and they live their lives, and yes, some die, but most of them? Most of them survive, thanks to the unwritten rules. And most of them find their way to spots I couldn’t reach, with a little prodding. And there they wait, until I have need of them.” He moved back to the center of his room, and stretched his arms out. “They're my endgame. If I get uncovered early, then I stage a coup, and switch to actively running the world. And last year, well before you entered the picture, I achieved the best saturation I could, for the resources I had. Not many supergroups out there, without one of my agents in or nearby. Do you get the picture, yet?”

I did. And like a thunderbolt, his words to Lady Thrush echoed in my head. Oh you don’t know how ironic this is...

“Chorus!” I snapped into the vox. “Subdue Lady—”

“Activate the Manchurian Candidacy! Kill everyone!” Maestro shouted.

Lady Thrush turned and punched her fist through Mister Leo’s chest.

At the same time, the Green Knight raised his axe and brought it down on Punching Judy’s unsuspecting back.

Alpha and the others leaped upon Lady Thrush, only to be thrown away like bowling pins. Leo sunk to the floor, coughing blood. “KHALID, HELP HIM!” I shouted, and sprayed Lady Thrush with the knockout mist. But she was either holding her breath or running off of rage, because she came after me next without being slowed in the slightest.

“No! No! Judy!” Maskelyne shouted, and the Human Harrier tackled the Green Knight. But it was Rumjack who howled with grief and stuck his hands into the Green Knight’s head. The treelike giant fell to his knees, shaking and trembling as Rumjack literally scrambled his brain. Could his regeneration handle that? I didn’t know, and I didn’t have time to calculate it, because Lady Thrush was on me, and this time she wasn’t holding back.

“A pity!” Maestro called as I frantically blocked and deflected punches and kicks, losing patches of my armored layers with every strike. “I had hopes. Well, since five surprised you, let’s try six!” He opened the box, revealing a familiar-looking stone head. One of the Hogboys, the magical transporters between here and other realms.

I grinned. Even as yellow damage indicators flickered to life, I grinned.

“Who comes to pass the gate?” It rasped.

“Maestro.”

“And where do you go?”

“To the Halls of the Mountain King.”

“The way is shut.”

And even though it cost me some damage to my gravitics, I watched his face go from smug to confused, and my laughter filled the chamber. “MIGHT HAVE MISSED SIX, BUT WE GOT SEVEN, YOU FOOL!”

Then the punches stopped. I looked up to see Vector, standing over Lady Thrush’s limp form, his hands covered in blue gloves that dripped clear fluid. An equally clear handprint faded into Thrush’s face as I watched. “WHAT DID YOU DO?”

“Ever hear of DMSO?”

“NO.”

“Passes through the skin like it isn’t there, and carries any drug you like along with it. She’ll be out for a few days.”

“GOOD, NOW—”

“No!” Delta wailed. “No no no no no!”

And we fell silent as we looked to where Miss Maskelyne and Delta knelt, next to Punching Judy’s still form, and a fast-spreading puddle of blood.

“Shit.” Vector cursed, pulling the gloves off and hurrying over.

“Well, that’s disappointing,” Maestro sighed.

Nothing I could do about Judy. I turned back to Maestro. “YOU TIPPED YOUR HAND WITH THE ASSAULT ON DIRE AT THE HAMPSTON GRAVE.”

“The what now?”

“DON’T PLAY DUMB. THE WILD HUNT... THAT WAS YOU. DIRE HAD A CHANCE TO SIT DOWN AND TALK WITH LUST ABOUT IT. SHE DIDN’T SEND THEM. WITH HER OUT OF THE CHAIN OF COMMAND, THAT LEFT ONE CULPRIT. YOU’RE CUTTING DEALS WITH THE FAE, AREN’T YOU?”

“Perhaps a few,” he said. “Couldn’t go altering Britain to suit my needs without running up against a few supernaturals. Their minds are different, my powers can’t always influence things like shapeshifters, that are more animals than men. I need them gone in the long-term. So I made a few inroads there.” He sneered at Mister Leo, who looked to be sitting up now, so maybe he’d live. Khalid and Leo both glared back at him.

Leo found the breath to speak, somehow. “The... werewolves out in... Manchester... you killed them.”

“Had them killed. Really wasn’t hard, once I got my hands on dear Miss Hampston there.” He sneered at Lust. “I had her introduce me to a few Unseelie nobles, then programmed her to forget about it. They thought it a great joke. They also turned out to be susceptible to my powers.” Maestro shrugged. “As the movie says, I’ve got friends on the other side. And an escape route.”

“Which we accounted for,” Lust’s voice dripped cool scorn. “Any fae of noble blood may command a guardian aeternae to shut the ancient gates. I enacted a rite around the Tower, closing them for a time.”

“WE THOUGHT YOU MIGHT CALL THE HUNTSMAN IN, BUT DIDN’T RULE OUT THE POSSIBLITY OF AN ESCAPE ROUTE. TURNS OUT THAT’S PRETTY GOOD—” Maestro turned and fled towards the door. “OH COME ON NOW.”

He slammed his hand against a scanner, that beeped. The door slid open...

...to reveal a man in purple, black, and gold standing on the other side.

“Er,” Maestro said, stepping back.

“THAT’S THE FIRST THING WE COVERED, YOU DIPSHIT, WAS YOUR ESCAPE TUNNELS. CHECK AND MATE.”

The gold question marks around Acertijo’s mask flared in the light, as he stepped forward and Maestro stepped back. Then Maestro tried to pull a gun.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the beatdown that followed.

Acertjio had been training for years, for literally this moment. Although I wanted to share it, I gave it to him. My last gift, in memory of the good times we’d had.

Then I turned my back to him, and rerouted damaged circuitry, beginning the auto-repair routines on my armor. I knelt first by Mister Leo. “ARE YOU GOING TO RECOVER?”

Leo opened his muzzle, and Khalid tapped him on the nose. “Save your breath. Your lung will mend faster.” I didn’t know what was in the poultice that Khalid held to Leo’s side, but it was glowing green. I assumed that was good.

Instead of talking, Leo looked to Lady Thrush, and I’d never thought that I could see such sorrow on a feline face. “SHE WILL RECOVER IN A COUPLE OF DAYS. HER LIFE WAS A LIE. SHE WILL NEED DEPROGRAMMING, AND A VERY GOOD FRIEND AFTERWARDS.”

“I... she has... parents.” Leo rasped.

“TELL IT TO QUEENSGUARD. THEY’LL HAVE MAESTRO’S FILES BY THE END OF TONIGHT, THEY CAN SEE IF THEY’RE DUPES OR AGENTS. IF THEY’RE AGENTS... SHE’LL NEED MORE THAN A FRIEND. PERHAPS A FATHER.”

Leo closed his eyes. After a minute he nodded.

I stood, and looked over to Punching Judy, and found Vector to the side, looking glum as Miss Maskelyne, tears running freely down her face, draped her suit jacket over Judy’s corpse.

“FUCK.”

Delta knelt by Judy, in the puddle of blood, shaking. She held Judy’s hand in both of hers, and she shook, vibrating like her cables would snap at any second.

“DELTA...”

Her mask turned to me, her neck disjointed and her mask turned fully around to face me, head sliding like an owl’s. “He dies.”

“WE’RE NOT FAMILY,” I said simply. “FIRST CLAIM IS NOT OURS.”

Miss Maskelyne looked to me, and I saw emotions warring in her eyes, before she looked away and swallowed hard. “He lives,” she said, simply.

“What the fuck?” Delta howled, so loud that I was glad for my audio dampers. “How is that even just? How is it right?”

Beta moved up to her, and put his hand on Delta’s shoulder. She shot upright, head clicking around, as she dove for the glassteel wall and started hammering it, rapid-fire punches that Judy would have been proud of, over and over again. She howled incoherently, white noise and fury as her hands broke, knuckles split, and sparking cables tore free. It took the rest of the Chorus to haul her back, and finally Beta just stepped in and hugged her. Just held her, until she stopped struggling and slumped into his arms.

“It’s not right,” he told her. “But it’s not our choice.”

“She was my friend,” Delta whispered.

I turned my back and gave her space for her sorrow. Vector moved over to where Rumjack was fiddling with the Green Knight’s head, blood running out of the giant’s helmet to blend with Judy’s. “About a class five regenerator?” Vector asked, feeling around his labcoat pockets.

“I’ve got no idear,” Rumjack replied. “But he’s feisty, so help, please?”

If anyone could handle him, Vector could. I left the heroes and my minions to mourn, and my allies to fix up who they could, and started cutting my way through the glassteel wall. Wasn’t tricky, just time consuming.

By the time I was through, Acertijo was standing over Maestro’s gasping form, blood dripping from his purple gloves. The hero was shaking, panting for breath.

“JAW BROKEN, LIKE WE DISCUSSED?”

“Sí,” Acertijo nodded. “First... thing.”

“GOOD. WE’RE NOT DONE WITH THIS SACK OF FILTH.” I squatted down to Maestro, waiting until his bruised, glazed eyes managed to focus on me. “ALL RIGHT YOU STUPID SMUG BASTARD, WE’VE GOT SOME YES AND NO QUESTIONS TO ASK YOU, AND ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD TO GET OUR ANSWERS...”

CHAPTER 21: IN WHICH DIRE GIVES NO FUCKS

“We will pursue her until the end of time, to avenge the insult done to us.”

--The Mountain King

The world blurred and shifted, until the walls of Maestro’s bunker turned to raw stone, and the lights were replaced by torches in sconces. I waited for the headache to hit, rode it out, and glared around me with sensors on full.

“You know the way?” Miss Maskelyne asked, supporting Maestro’s limp form with one hand. Acertijo had the other shoulder.

Behind them my Chorus fanned out, watching the many exits from the cave. Vector stood in the middle of them, back to back with Khalid. The two had been more at ease since they’d had a chance to demonstrate their physician’s skills.

Apart from all of us, Lust stared at Maestro like a tiger looking at a haunch of meat. Finally, she smiled at Acertijo and deigned to respond to Maskelyne’s question. “Of course. This way.”

I shot a glance behind us as we went. This room had its own pedestal and stone head to go with it. Had to wonder if they were really called hogboys. Something to ask Khalid later, once we were through with it.

Business first before weird arcane questions, though, and I did want to have done with it. Another debt to discharge, before all was said and done.

We followed Lust through long, dark halls, past scurrying things with glowing eyes that faded when we walked by their tunnels. At one point the cavern seemed to shake and start to collapse, but Lust yelled something in a language that had no business being in a human’s mouth, and it stopped.

Finally, we came to a large chamber, lit by countless braziers hanging from the ceiling, burning greasy fires of fat and bone. Pelts of all shapes and sizes decorated the floor, some from Earthly animals, but others impossible to the world I knew.

Some skins were human, and I ground my teeth to see them.

And in the center of it, surrounded by his court, sat the Huntsman.

A lesser thing, clad in furs, slunk forward. “Guests to our court,” he said in passable English. “May I have your names?”

“No,” Khalid replied. “We shall state them as we please, but you have neither claim nor right to them. Nor we to yours.”

The Huntsman stirred as I stepped past the herald, and leveled a gauntlet at him. “WE ARE HERE FOR DOROTHY HAMPSTON.”

“I know of no such person,” he said, resting his chin upon one gauntleted hand. He was less see-through here, still purple and glowy but more solid, somehow. Much like Rumjack had been on his ship, come to think of it.

“My mother,” Lust said, stepping up to stand beside me. “Who gave the men of the dark trees nine children, as promised.”

“Eight children and one corpse,” the Huntsman said, spreading his hands. “She has not fulfilled her bargain.”

“You did not bargain for live children,” Lust said simply.

“That argument has been settled.”

Lust patted me on the shoulder, standing on tip-toe to do so. “He’s all yours.” Then she turned her back on the Huntsman and returned to the rest of my team, as the court murmured.

“Insolence!” snapped the Huntsman, half-rising.

“SIT DOWN,” I told him, throwing back my cape and pointing a finger at him. “AND LISTEN UP, YOU PRIMITIVE SCREWHEAD.”

The Court went silent.

“YOU ARE IN THE PRESENCE OF DIRE, AND DIRE HATES YOU. DIRE HATES YOUR CRUELTY, YOUR MOCKERY, YOUR LITTLE JAPES AND JESTS AND PRANKS. DIRE CARES NOTHING FOR YOUR MAGIC, YOUR IMMORTAL ANGST, YOUR WHINY ASS LITTLE CROTCHETY MEMORIES OF HOW THINGS WERE BACK IN THE DAY BEFORE MAN FIGURED OUT HOW TO KILL YOU WITH POINTY STICKS. DIRE IS DONE WITH YOUR KIND. DONE DEALING WITH YOUR KIND. DONE LOSING FRIENDS TO YOUR KIND. DIRE CARES ABOUT ONE THING ONLY, AND THAT IS THE BETTERMENT OF HUMANITY, WHETHER IT WANTS IT OR NOT. YOU? YOU CAN GO SQUAT IN YOUR CAVES AND GNAW YOUR HATRED IN YOUR WEAK JAWS FOR ALL DIRE CARES.”

“Insolence! Intolerable insults!” the Huntsman roared, and his blade drawn, he started down the stairs of his throne.

I smiled and twitched my finger.

SNAP!

His sword broke.

His glowy, half-real sword, jerked in his hands as the blade clattered to the ground, leaving the hilt in his hand.

“DIRE HAS SENSORS THAT CAN TRACK YOU THROUGH LEAGUES OF STONE, OH HUNTSMAN, AND THANKS TO OUR PAST ENCOUNTER, SHE KNOWS YOUR ENERGY SIGNATURE.” I took a step forward.

He dropped the hilt, reached behind him to whip a bow from his quiver, and in a heartbeat an arrow was nocked, drawing back...

I twitched my finger.

SNAP!

The bow broke and he took a step back, dropped it to clatter upon the floor.

“DIRE’S ARMOR IS NEWLY REFORGED AGAINST YOUR MAGICS, THANKS TO HER ALCHEMIST FRIEND BACK THERE. YOUR WEAPONS WILL BREAK UPON HER EVEN IF YOU SOMEHOW MANAGE TO LAND A STRIKE.”

I took another step forward. The court murmured and muttered, and the Huntsman slowly lowered his hand to the horn at his side.

I lowered my finger to point at it. He removed his hand. “CLEVER BOY.”

“How?” The Huntsman asked. “Guns do not... The iron doesn’t...”

“YOU’RE RIGHT. COLD IRON BULLETS DON’T WORK. THEY GET TOO HOT TOO FAST.” I waggled my finger, and oh, wasn’t it satisfying to see him flinch. “BUT WHEN YOU PAIR A RAILGUN WITH SABOT ROUNDS, TO DELIVER A COLD IRON CORE INSIDE OF AN INSULATED SHELL... OH NEVER MIND.” His confusion was evident.

“SO. GOING TO ASK YOU ONE MORE TIME.” I took another step forward, and he stepped back. His throne caught the back of his knees and he collapsed into it. “IS A DEAD CHILD STILL A CHILD?”

He was quiet for a very long time. I motioned back at my team, and each member of my chorus lifted an arm, and pointing a single digit each out into the court.

“Yes. I think perhaps we were mistaken,” The Huntsman said. “My liege is absent, but I believe he shall agree with my authority in this case. Dorothy Hampston is free to go. However—”

“NO!” I roared, and he stopped in confusion. “NO CONDITIONS. YOU DO NOT SET THE CONDITIONS. YOU BRING DOROTHY HAMPSTON HERE ALIVE AND WELL RIGHT NOW, WE LEAVE UNMOLESTED WITH HER, AND THAT’S IT. NO WIGGLE ROOM, NO CONFUSION, NO FAIRY LAWYERING. YOU FUCKING DO IT.”

I saw his mouth set. “It will take us time to bring her—”

“NO.” I said, leaning forward until I loomed three feet from him. “THE TIME FOR BEING REASONABLE IS PAST. YOU ARE NOT DEALING WITH HAMPSTON’S DAUGHTER. YOU ARE DEALING WITH DIRE. YOU BRING HER HERE RIGHT NOW OR YOUR SECOND IN COMMAND WILL.”

“Enough!” he roared, his hand flashed—

—and the ancient bronze knife passed through the first layer of armor, and snapped against the cold-iron reinforcement of the third layer.

SNAP!

He jerked, and purplish blood sprayed onto the cushions of the throne. I turned, disregarding his toppling corpse behind me while the Court gasped and fell into a babble of conflicting voices.

“You’ve killed our liege!” A bone-masked, barechested gray man roared, hefting an axe. “You’ll pay for that, you filthy mortal!” He turned, appealing to the crowd. “The mortal can’t kill—”

“INCORRECT!” I roared, throwing both hands out, pointing two fingers at the crowd, watching them draw back in terror. Axeboy fell silent, froze like a rabbit in front of a wolf. “SHE CAN AND FUCKING WILL MURDER EVERY FAE IN THIS GODDAMN REALM UNTIL DIRE FUCKING GETS DOROTHY HAMPSTON FREE OF YOU LITTLE MAGIC TURDS!”

“You would turn all of faerie upon you,” the furred herald slid forward. “Our kin’s kin would avenge us, for the wrongs you have done—”

“INCORRECT!” I roared again, stomping towards him, forcing him to scramble backwards. “YOUR KIN’S KIN WILL PERISH! FOR THAT IS THE FATE OF ALL WHO SEEK TO SLAY DIRE!” He hit the edge of the crowd, tried to scramble backward, and squealed as I lifted him by the neck in one gauntleted hand. “YOU DO NOT DECLARE WAR ON DIRE! YOU PRAY TO WHATEVER FELL POWERS YOU WORSHIP THAT YOU SURVIVE HER WRATH!” I threw him on the floor as hard as I could, ignored the splattering and the reddish blood that sprayed the crowd, and whirled around to point at the axeman. “YOU! ARE YOU THE NEXT IN COMMAND?”

“I... I...” He took three steps backward, whirled, and bolted.

I turned to the next-most imposing courtier. “YOU! ARE YOU THE NEXT IN COMMAND?”

“I am,” came a voice like silk, and a thin, beautiful man slid forth from the crowd. He looked a bit like the Huntsman, only entirely solid and non-glowy, save for his eyes. Tight leathers coated his form, and he had a full brace of weapons across his back and waist. “May we parley?”

“DEPENDS. ARE YOU GOING TO BREAK PARLEY TO TRY TO FUTILELY KNIFE DIRE?”

“No.”

“THEN YES, WE MAY PARLEY.”

“Good. May I point out that even if you should slaughter this entire court without taking any losses, we can simply shut the ways out of here? You would be trapped in faerie forever, mortal.”

“NO,” I said, folding my arms. “YOU WOULD BE TRAPPED IN DIRE’S REALM.”

He frowned, not getting it. “We would be barring you from your realm.”

“YOU MISUNDERSTAND. SHE WOULD NOT BE TRAPPED IN HERE WITH YOU. YOU WOULD BE TRAPPED IN HERE WITH HER.”

Purple eyes flickered to me, to my friends, and back to the corpse on the throne. “I see. Yes, it is perhaps better all around if you leave.” He considered the Maestro. “After all, our bargains with this one were done with my father’s death.” The Maestro sagged, and closed his eyes. I smiled under my mask.

“We shall bring her now,” pretty boy promised.

And sure enough, not thirty seconds later, the crowd parted and a tottering crone staggered through, hunched over a gnarled cane.

“DOTTIE?” I whispered, but caught myself. I looked to Khalid. Khalid shook his head, closed his eye, and tapped the unguent that he’d rubbed on it before we entered this mess.

“YOU LYING TWERP,” I said, and shot prettyboy in the face. He fell, violet blood pooling beneath him, and the Court went still again. The “Crone” picked up her skirts and ran, shedding clothes and illusion as she went.

“FUCKING FAE,” I swore, and surveyed the crowd. “ALL RIGHT, LET’S TRY THIS AGAIN. WHO’S THE NEXT IN COMMAND?”

That day I learned the difference between fae and humans.

Fae are fucking stupid.

They’re stubborn, and they’ve got a chip on their shoulder about humans a mile long. They also all think they’re pretty much invincible, even in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary. They can’t just give you what you want, or they lose face in whatever big fae scoreboard keeps track of this stuff.

Three cooling inhuman corpses, one declined offer of marriage, and one useless attempt to enchant me later, the Court finally backed down.

“Daughter?” A weary, but familiar voice called from behind the (now-diminished) court. “Di, is it really you?”

“Mother?” Lust whispered, as a lean, gray-haired figure clad in black leather strolled forward, old but still spry.

I looked to Khalid. Khalid nodded, and gave me a thumbs up.

I nodded, and Lust ran forward, wrapped Dottie in her arms. The old woman embraced her, for what seemed like hours...

I checked my chronomoter. Fuck.

“KNOCK IT OFF!” I yelled, and pointed at the seventh-or-eighth in command.

“I am not sure what you—”

SNAP!

“LET’S TRY THIS AGAIN YOU FUCKING MAGGOTS...”

They knocked it off.

“RIGHT. WE’RE LEAVING. COME ON, DOTTIE.”

“Wait. Who are you? What is this?”

“She is called Dire,” Lust said. “Come on, we must go before the Mountain King notices—”

“Dire?” Dottie straightened up, her mouth open. “Doctor Dire?”

The court rippled, and murmured, and I saw a lot of smiles appear on a lot of inhuman faces.

Fuck’em. Wasn’t my true name anyway.

“YES. IT’S HER, DOTTIE.”

“You came.” Her face, hard and weathered and stony by the years, started to crumble. “Oh dear. Terribly sorry.”

“LET’S GO. WE CAN CATCH UP ONCE WE’RE CLEAR.”

The Maestro made gagging noises. Miss Maskelyne shook him, none too gently and he quieted down.

We departed the chamber, feeling hundreds of hostile eyes, all on my back, and I cared not at all. Let them come. I had iron enough for their entire fucking pantheon.

“You’re all right with this bloodshed?” Beta asked Miss Maskelyne once we were back in the tunnels.

Miss Maskelyne glanced at him. “Some of those bone-filled braziers had human skulls burning in them. Child-sized human skulls.”

The rest of the trip was silent.

Finally, we reached the stone head. The room remained empty, but I had a palpable sense of being watched. And judging by the way the others shuddered, they felt it, too.

“Take him a second, will you?” Miss Maskelyne asked Vector, offering him Maestro’s shoulder. “Rumjack got me some charms. I need to keep them ready in case they try something at the last minute.”

We spread out a bit while Lust moved to address the hogboy. It opened stone eyes as she approached.

“Who comes to pass the gate?” It asked.

“Travelers, departing in peace,” Lust intoned.

And Maestro squirmed, jerked, and tore open his shirt with strength I didn’t think he still had, revealing black lettering tattooed on his chest.

“Maestro sucks?” Vector read, then went pale.

Realization crashed in on me, about the point the stone head asked “And where do you go?”

But Lust had heard Vector’s words.

And Lust still had an intact trigger, to those words.

“Go to hell!” She shouted, and went as pale as a sheet. “Maestro’s... great...”

The world started to blur, and I tried to move, started to move, saw Dottie pull Lust and Acertijo back, saw Miss Maskelyne well out of the effect, start to whirl...

And the Maestro laughed as the cavern melted, and bright, merciless light beat down upon us, as we landed in a tumble on black, uneven rock. Maestro laughed, then coughed, then retched blood in the foul smoke of whatever passed for air down here... My suit registered toxin warnings, and switched instantly to internal air supply, but not before I got a whiff of the outside stuff.

Brimstone. Smoky brimstone.

I sat up. Vector stood, uncoughing, looking around with wide eyes. To my side Khalid coughed, retched, and Vector reached inside his labcoat, pulled out his little face sucker symbiote, and slapped it over Khalid’s mouth and nose.

“YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME,” I said, and stood. A headache ripped through me, worse than before, and I rode it out.

“Boss?” Alpha asked, when I could think again. “Where are we?”

I stood up, looked at the warped black spiky stone surrounding us, at the smoking fumaroles breaking the stone here and there like maws full of bubbling ooze. Up at the reddish sky, where things larger than passenger jets whirled and hunted. And at the rusty metal poles in the distance, each festooned with writhing bodies impaled on multiple spikes.

“HELL. WE’RE IN HELL.” I ran a diagnostic. Mildly corrosive atmosphere, definitely toxic.

Maestro gasped and bubbled at our feet, and I watched his lips draw back into one last sneer. “Ot... ooo,” he coughed through his broken jaw. “you... unt...”

I picked him up. “TOLD YOU NOT TO KEEP USING THAT WORD,” I casually remarked, weighing his beaten form, and considering.

He knew some secret, something we hadn't uncovered; a reliable means of creating metahumans. It could change the world, would change the world, if I could get it from him and get back home.

On the other hand, that would mean keeping him alive until we did so. And this guy had just proven that he'd gladly sacrifice himself just to do me malice. I weighed the odds; found them wanting.

Besides, if a two-bit poseur like Maestro could discover the secret, then so could I. It’d just take a little time, that’s all.

Debate done, I threw him into the nearest fumarole. He screamed for a second before falling silent, and the steam that came up with the next geyser of ooze was red.

“No,” I heard Khalid say, voice muffled by his living mask. “No, we cannot be here! We are doomed!”

“DOOMED, YOU SAY?” I said, putting my hands on my hips. GPS was useless, but a quick scan of the surroundings showed possibilities. And a scan downwards showed veins of metal, not all of which I recognized.

One of the big birdlike things swooped downwards, filling my vision as it got closer, all multiple jaws full of spiky teeth and sharp black spines instead of feathers.

An eighty-percent particle beam charge cored it like a bullet through a pinata. It hit the ground three miles away, so hard that the rocky surface beneath our feet shook. I watched it for a minute, while it thrashed, but it eventually fell still. “NO, WE ARE NOT DOOMED.”

“There is no escape from Hell!” Khalid insisted, rising with Beta’s help. “We are doomed and damned!”

“NO,” I corrected, as I watched the other predators in the sky pull back, uncertain of what to make of their kin’s death. “SHE IS DIRE.”

I turned and started walking. “COME ON. SAW A GOOD PLACE FOR A TEMPORARY SHELTER OVER THAT WAY.”

“We are without hope,” Khalid protested, “The demons shall end us. We are where God is not.”

“GOD MAY NOT BE HERE, BUT DIRE IS,” I said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders as we walked. “AND THOSE THINGS UP THERE? THEY BLEED. MORE IMPORTANTLY, THEY KNOW FEAR. WE’LL START WITH THAT, AND SEE HOW THAT GOES.”

“Okay, now I think you’re maybe a little nuts,” Vector said, falling into step with us, while my minions brought up the rear. “Sure, you were pretty badass against the fae, but this isn’t anything we prepared for. And there’s only three of us, uh, plus your androids. No offense, guys.”

“None taken,” Alpha said, cheerfully.

“YOU’RE NOT LOOKING AT THIS PROPERLY,” I told him, reaching out and wrapping my other arm around his shoulders. “WHO ARE WE AGAIN?”

“A couple of confused supervillains and one demon hunter? I mean, he might have the edge here, once he gets over his religious angst—”

“NO.” I said, and I squeezed them gently to me, already mapping out the possibilities in my head. “WE ARE A TEAM CONSISTING OF AN IMMORTAL ALCHEMIST WHO KNOWS THE OPPOSITION INTIMATELY, THE WORLD’S BEST BIOLOGIST, AND A SUPERGENIUS ENGINEER WHO FOR ONCE IN HER LIFE DOESN’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT COLLATERAL DAMAGE. ALONG WITH A TEAM OF SELF-REPLICATING MINIONS WHO NEVER TIRE, CAN BUILD DAMN NEAR ANY OF DIRE’S INVENTIONS, AND WORK AT SPEEDS HUMANS CAN ONLY DREAM OF.”

They considered my words.

“WE’RE NOT TRAPPED IN HELL. HELL IS STUCK IN HERE WITH US!”

TO BE CONTINUED...

Doctor Dire shall return, in Book 6 of the Dire Saga, DIRE:HELL.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Harrods is a real store in London, and is a far more superior shopping experience than Dire had the misfortune to encounter. In our own universe it's a very enjoyable place, and lacks hordes of murderous shoppers. It was used in this book because it is a famous London landmark. I have no claim to its trademark nor do I assert one. Please go visit them next time you're around London.

Thank you for reading DIRE:SINS! I am grateful for your patronage. If you’ve got a few seconds, please leave a review. Each review helps Dire accomplish her sinister plans!

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Best wishes,

Andrew Seiple