I tumble forward, trying to control my own momentum with my power. Nothing works – none of the usual forces that I can wrangle into submission surround me. But I’m definitely moving, definitely spinning and screaming my fucking skull out as I do so, shouting, “YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!” at Saw Off. There’s just nothing for my power to grab onto. It’s as if space is the thing moving around me, not me moving through space.

And then it stops all at once, and I stumble like a newborn deer into a hallway. Music thumps somewhere outside. Behind me, there is nothing but a void, a blacker-than-black section of wall. A scrawny woman in a biker’s jacket and a similarly dark mask leans against a section of the wall about five feet from me. The only part of her face that’s visible are her eyes. She winks. Behind her, I can see Silent, staring at me with her arms crossed.

Saw Off rolls out of the wall, passing out of it like someone coming up for air, and sits on the floor, blinking at the journey she just took. As soon as she arrives, the scrawny woman kicks herself off the wall. I watch in fascination as the wall becomes infinitesimally more solid, but still black as pitch. As if there were a little gap in reality there, and now there isn’t.

“So you’re the Home Run we’ve heard so much about,” the scrawny lady says, wiping what looks like black paint off her hands. “I’m Portrait.”

“Pleasure,” Saw Off says, using Portrait’s hand to lift herself off the ground. “Saw Off.”

Portrait’s eyes crinkle and amusement from her Affect fills the hallway. “Hiya Saw Off.”

“What was that?” I ask, touching what was once a portal to the outside world. “Your power? Teleportation?”

“Close enough.” She shows me the black paint on her hands. “I can paint doorways.”

Silent marches over to us and puts her finger into Portrait’s face. “Stop it. He doesn’t need to know that.” Then she turns and snaps her fingers at me and Saw Off. “Let’s go.” She immediately starts striding down the hall without looking back.

I lean over to Saw Off and murmur, “She got a stick up her ass?”

Silent stops in place, throws her head up, and I can hear her sigh from here. “No. But I do have an end to my patience. If you say one more thing that tests me, I’ll have Portrait drop you somewhere you can’t get out of.”

Great, so she’s got super senses. I’d been wondering what kind of powers someone who named themselves Silent would have.

“You know that being an asshole isn’t a personality trait, right?” I ask.

Silent turns around. “You’ve done nothing but piss me off and insult me since we met.”

I hold my hands up. Guilty as charged. “Look, I don’t know you, and you don’t know me so-”

“Exactly. I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. That is how we operate. The entire point is that neither of us knows who the other are – we know only we can trust each other to watch our backs. And you’re making it very difficult for me to know I can trust you.”

“Come on!” Saw Off shouts. “We’re gonna sit here and whinge at each other? Or are we gonna get on with it?”

“Or I can send ’em somewhere,” Portrait says with a shrug. “She’s seeing the Bulldozers right now anyway.”

“Well I’d toss them out, but she asked for them herself,” Silent says.

I can’t get a good feel for Silent’s emotions, because there are dozens of other Affects leaking through the wall to our left, from wherever this music is coming from. The Front has hidden themselves behind a smokescreen. “That’s… clever,” I muse to myself. And reassuring. I worried that this whole operation would be slapdash, that I’d walk into the amateur league. I turn to Silent. “You don’t like me, I get it. I’m just gonna shut my mouth until we meet your boss.”

“She’s not my boss. We have no bosses here.” Silent shakes her head, but then motions for us to follow her again. “At least you were right about one thing. We are clever.”

She leads us down the hall where posters from bands long past suffocate each other in thick layers. The sweaty stink of a dive bar offends me. I catch a glimpse of the club beyond through an ill-fitted rusting metal door. The beat thumps and grinds: there’s a rock show tonight. Punk rock from the buzz saw sound of it cutting through the walls. I can feel the body heat churning from here – maybe a hundred or more people.

We go up a creaky set of stairs, and at the top I realize we lost Portrait somewhere along the way. I glance back at Saw Off and she shrugs at me.

At the top of the stairs a single, also-rusting door waits for us. Silent opens this door with a heavy crunching sound, motioning for us to enter.

#

The door opens on a heated conversation. A swirl of negative emotions create a cloying smog of Affect in the room.

“It shouldn’t matter who’s got the numbers. We’ve protected your strip just fine for this long, and you’re going to let Crane muscle in on our territory?”

I recognize the voice, the anger. It’s Asperity, the leader of the Street Devils, someone I’ve worked with previously. He stands with his teammate, a woman whose name I’ve never bothered to learn. They’re wearing matching dark hoodies, and the woman has paired hers with a blue mask with insectoid glass eyes. Asperity wears his customary red hockey mask with the word “Super” painted above the eyes. It’s stupid, I’ve always thought so. The first time I met him, on a job with Saw Off and Lugs, I called him “Mr. Super.” I stifle a laugh at the memory. He really hadn’t liked that.

Nearby, and looking just as angry, stands a group of four. They’re wearing oversized yellow and black striped raincoats and orange hard hats over simple cloth masks with grey tights and running shoes. Definitely the Bulldozers. Their leader is Crane. He’s got a chain wrapped around his belt with a miniature wrecking ball at the end.

Across from them, forming a kind of triangle, stands a man without a mask. Moonlight streaming in from a skylight in the ceiling rings his nearly bald head in a white halo, just above the gray-silver horseshoe of hair running from ear to ear. He chews a toothpick between a moustache and a scraggy goatee, sizing both groups of masks up with a look of annoyed wariness.

Beside him, a woman sits in a chair. She gives off no Affect, no emotions to read at all, and honestly comes across more like a statue than a person. She’s so emotionless, in fact, that I peg her as an empath immediately. Perks of living with one for the past decade. Her black coat folds and swallows her, almost making it seem like her body is made of cloth. Her black mask is carved from midnight marble, with glowing pink eyes that cast her in an ominous light and highlight her outline against the dark backdrop. Her hair is dyed the same color as the eyes, a highlighter shade of pink.

Aside from the knot of people, the room is empty. It’s massive and gives off a “former community center” sort of vibe. The floor is covered in old scratchy carpet and random dark hallways shoot off the room at intervals into pitch blackness. The only interesting part of the architecture is the massive skylight, a great glass window that shows off a spectacular view of the night sky.

As Saw Off and I enter the room, every single head swivels to look at us. The tension is palpable. The seated woman waves at us, then snaps her fingers at the others.

“Ignore them, continue.” Her voice is somehow both monotone and summer sweet all at once.

The maskless man stands there looking a bit like a stuck pig. I know he recognizes me when the slight annoyance on his face erupts into a full-on aneurysm. “Holy shit. You’re the cloak.” He glances at the seated woman, who I realize must be Epione. “Is it safe?”

She says, “Please, Raoul, you of all people should know the Vanguard’s labels are tools of oppression. What he is, right now, is waiting for us to finish. So please, continue.”

“The sooner we sort this out the better,” Asperity says.

Crane shakes his head, and I feel a trickle of fear from him. He glances over his shoulder at me before resuming. “Y’all gotta admit,” he says, not at Epione but at Asperity, “that losing one of y’all’s members means your clients ain’t getting the value they should be getting.”

“Two of us are worth more than the four of you,” Asperity hisses.

“Come over here and prove it!” Crane snaps.

“None of this makes me want to work with any of you!” Raoul shouts. He jabs his finger at Asperity. “You think your gang is special? You’re a dime a dozen in Houston.”

“Raoul, that’s why you need them,” Epione says. “Because there are so many mask gangs here. Not to mention organized criminal elements.”

Raoul waves his hand. “Bah, all masks.”

Epione rises from her seat. “There’s a very large difference between a mask willing to, say…” and as she pauses, her head turns just a little toward me, “work for a slaver—” I feel a little thrill as she touches on Pandahead. “—and those who would rather take money to protect honest citizens from those who would prey on them. Don’t you think?”

This question seems to hit Raoul where it matters. He shrinks from her, mumbling, “Suppose so.”

Epione turns to the masks about to tear each other’s heads off, and whether it’s simply because of the placid expression of her mask or her slow movements, she is the image of a patient teacher. “Tell me, Asperity, which is better – two, four, or six?”

Asperity starts a little. “Uh – I don’t know?”

“Crane?” she asks, looking over at the other gang.

Crane looks at his companions, then at me and Saw Off, then at the Street Devils across from him. “…depends on the context?”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“The context is: how many able-bodied fighters can we provide to protect Mr. Raoul’s properties and secure his contributions to both your groups and the Front’s cause.” Epione sweeps her pink gaze across all the masks.

“Now hang on-” Crane begins to shout.

Epione quickly glances at Silent, who waves her hand. The acrid scent of straining Affect hits me. Crane’s voice immediately dies out, even as he continues to speak. He stops when he realizes no one can hear him.

“You all agreed to join the Front.” Epione then nods to Raoul and places a hand on his forearm. “And Mr. Raoul has agreed to give his patronage to our cause. The old days of squabbling over territory are done.”

Raoul’s myriad of emotions breaks, and I can sense his relief and appreciation at her proclamation.

Or was it her touch? I watch her carefully, wondering if she shares Paul’s taboo against using her empathic power so directly. As an empath, she’d be able to influence emotions, even strip away Affect abilities for a short time, with a single touch.

Epione waves her hand as if she’s a judge, as if this is the final word she’ll say about it. “Crane, Asperity. Both of your crews will protect Mr. Raoul’s shops, and you will split the gains amongst yourselves. But I suggest you each take a long look into your hearts and ask yourself if the money is all that matters to you.”

“We pay into the Front just like everyone else,” Asperity protests, but he is hushed and cowed by another sharp gesture, the blade of Epione’s hand cutting through any further words he might say.

“You didn’t call me to tell me how much you give to the Front. You called me to arbitrate between you. If you can’t accept my judgment, you’re both more than welcome to take your gangs elsewhere. But Mr. Raoul is a client of the Front, not of the Devils or the Bulldozers.”

There’s a long electric moment of tension. The Affect wafting from both of these mask gangs reeks of anger, until I’m pretty sure both of them are going to go for her. My heels lift in anticipation of the fight.

But then Crane throws his hands up in surrender. “Fine. We’ll both watch out for you, Raoul. We don’t want trouble with you, Epione.”

“Good!” Epione replies cheerfully. She approaches and lays a hand on the man’s shoulder, giving him a friendly, affectionate pat. “I’d also hate to have trouble with you, dear Crane. Now go in peace. Remember we are all in this together.”

Crane nods and his Affect blooms, suddenly, with admiration. In fact, it’s so sudden that it’s all the confirmation I need; Epione doesn’t have any qualms against directly influencing others’ emotions with her power.

This changes the equation quite a bit for me.

The two gangs leave peacefully, though they still keep a healthy distance from each other. On the way out, Asperity stops and really looks me over. “It’s Home Run now, huh? I never figured you for a Front man.”

Ugh, I knew this would happen. I’m not really keen to be associated with them. “I’m nobody’s man.”

“You’re here, aren’t you? Besides, gotta take sides eventually. Capes or masks. Or dead.” Asperity shakes his head. “I know what side I’d rather be on.”

“I’m not here to join your shitty little gang, I’m here for-”

Saw Off interrupts me by grabbing my arm. “Excuse us, Asperity, we’ve got an appointment.” She gives Asperity a tight-lipped smile and pulls me away.

Asperity studies us both carefully for a second, and as Saw Off is pulling me toward Epione, he asks, “They got Lugs, too?”

Saw Off stops, her face growing dark, her Affect grumbling like a thunderhead. “Yeah.”

“Damn shame.” Asperity sighs and shakes his head. Finally, he drags his feet away toward the door, adding, “Like I said, gotta pick a side.”

#

The woman of the hour waits for us, as implacable and unmoving as stone. It’s not until Silent joins her that she moves again – a single nod, acknowledging the other woman’s presence.

Silent leans over to Epione’s shoulder and the already quiet room goes even quieter as they exchange some words muffled by Silent’s power. Then Silent’s power lifts and she gestures to us, but I notice her hand never leaves the hilt of her sword. She poses no danger to me – except that Epione might disable my power with a touch.

“Thank you for joining us,” Epione says in a soft, neutral voice, turning to me.

“The masks often come to you for that kinda thing?” I ask. I’ve never seen anything like it, to be honest. It means the Front is more serious than I thought they were. They’re not just a resistance group – the masks are turning to them for structure.

“They do.”

Epione’s control of her Affect is impressive. I wish I could get a read on her, some whiff of whethere she’s feeling good or bad, but I’m coming up empty.

With Paul, the only emotion I can ever read from him is anger. Is Epione the same? Maybe I can goad her into slipping up, revealing something. She’s still a human, after all. “Didn’t know they thought terrorists were their moral authorities.”

It’s not Epione that takes offense, but Silent. She stutters, rage pouring out from her instantly. “Terrorism! You’re the one that-“

Epione puts a hand out, not quite touching Silent’s shoulder. Not actually changing her emotions, but warning Silent that she’s gone too far. “You, not us, are the first mask in Houston to receive the status of cloak, Home Run.”

I could have sworn there was another, but I guess the last person to get that title was Carnality, and she wasn’t from Houston and didn’t start as a mask. “All I did was kill one cape,” I grumble.

“Yeah and not even a good one like Krater,” Saw Off says, planting an elbow in my ribs. “He got the easiest one of the Houston Heroes.”

I scowl at her. “He wasn’t a walk in the park either, dipshit.”

Epione makes her way over to us, and I take a step back. She stops, seeing my hesitance to let her near me. “You know what I am?”

I nod. It makes sense now, given her power, how they’ve managed to stay hidden from the capes. The only problem is that empaths are always destined for pain. The Vanguard would seize her, bend her to their will. They’d do the same to Paul if they ever found him.

Epione turns to Saw Off. “Thank you for coming. I’m sorry to hear about Lugs. He was a staple of the masks in Houston.”

Saw Off rubs her arm, looking a bit sheepish. “Thanks, I guess. We hope he’s still out there.”

“So do we,” Epione says. “Have you considered the Front’s offer?”

“I guess I got no choice but to take you up on it,” Saw Off says. “Seeing as it’s just me and my lonesome. And Home Run, but he’s not really part of my gang.”

“I’m not interested in your Front,” I say.

“But you are interested in Pandahead,” Epione says, slipping back into neutrality. “And we’re interested in him, too.”

“I just wanna ask him where he got such a stupid name.”

“You won’t find him, not on your own,” Epione says. “But you might with us.”

I tap my chin, pretending to be deep in thought. I’m sure she knows what I’m feeling, but I also do this to Paul all the time. “I usually get paid for this kind of work. You wanna talk rates?”

Silent’s Affect tells me she’s a heartbeat from drawing her rapier, while Epione shakes her head at me as if that gesture should feel like I’ve been stabbed through the stomach. And I do – I feel her disdain for my question, the first emotion I’ve felt from her this entire time. It hits me like a truck, worse, because I can’t absorb the blow.

“No. Are you telling me someone paid you to kill Danger Close?” she asks, her tone sharp. She reminds me an empath doesn’t need to touch you to influence you. They often know exactly what words will make an impact.

But I’ve got experience getting chewed out by empaths. Thanks, Paul. All it does is piss me off now. “Why I did it is none of your business. You should be more worried about your friend here getting her hand off her sword before I show you how I did it.”

“What in the hell are you doing?” Megajoule hisses. “Just talk to her like a reasonable person!”

The pink eyes of her mask glow like something out of a nightmare. “This doesn’t need to be confrontational. If you want to walk away right now, you can, and I won’t stop you. But I believe you want to hear me out. I can sense your desire for things to change.”

“So what? Everyone wants things to change. You sound like a cape.”

“I’m the furthest thing from a cape,” she says, and I hear the disgust in her voice. Just like Paul, she’s only showing the emotions she wants me to see. “They try to ‘convert’ those who don’t fit the mold of their citizenry.”

I glance at Saw Off, who shrugs.

Epione continues, as if we aren’t even there. “People who want to live as themselves and not give up what little they have to the capes. People who don’t want to play their game, contribute to the system of death.” Passion leaks into Epione’s voice, subtle yet powerful. Emotions crack through her icy exterior like the deep tide of the sea.

“They think of us as garbage to be cleaned up,” she says. “So we created the Front to show them that we aren’t the detritus of their society. The Front exists to give voice and power back to those the Vanguard has oppressed.”

The passion in her words knocks me off kilter. I won’t be able to haggle with this person, not now that I know she believes she is more than just a mask.

“They’ve exploited our beliefs to perpetuate their weight class system, to keep us worshiping, to keep us reliant on them. They have sabotaged our own communities to take from us.”

Now that’s not something you hear every day. “Okay, I’ll bite. What the fuck does that mean? They’re stealing superpowers from people?”

“The capes call it engram accretion. It’s why they promote pathic disentanglement from masks and cloaks. They want the engrams – the power of the Affect – all for themselves. But all this Affect moving around is creating something worse,” she says.

Epione looks to the sky. Her voice begins to shrink, as if she’s drifting away from me. “I can see the Affect and the emotions polluting the air as colors. When I look up, I don’t see blue skies or stars, or the sun or the moon. I see the colors we’ve been putting in the world for the last hundred years.”

I blink, and the illusion is dispelled: She has not moved.

“Every day I look up and I see all of our horror, our anxiety, and our worry sitting in the sky like a dark star. Like a black hole.”

Megajoule runs icy fingers down my spine. I restrain a gasp.

“I call it the Fear,” Epione says. “The darkness of the world, of mankind, and it’s growing every day. I’m afraid that one day I’ll look up and that’s all I’ll see. A giant black sky swallowing everything. Infinite nothingness.”

“A supervoid,” I whisper.

“One day, that thing will fall and destroy us. The early years of the Affect will seem like nothing.” Epione brushes her coat and looks me in the eyes. “I oppose the capes because they’re creating that Fear.”

I’ve stuck with her this far, but only because I know that horror she’s talking about. This is a step too far into conspiracy. “The world’s shit, I’ll accept that. I’m not really buying that it’s anyone’s fault. Or… it’s everybody’s fault. Not just the capes.”

“Even if those capes have built machines designed to suppress Affect development?” Epione asks.

“That sounds made up,” I say.

“It’s very real. Based on research done at Lilac, PK Resonance was contracted to create Affect suppression fields not unlike their dampeners. Except these only prevent further Affect accretion under a certain threshold. Simply put, they prevent a population from growing more heavyweights than currently exist. In a large population center, that would be handy, no?”

The mention of Lilac makes my heart skip a beat. I turn this over in my head. “You know they were made at Lilac?”

“That means something to you?” she asks.

“Let’s say it does. I still don’t believe this thing is real.”

“I could show you one. In fact, in a few nights, Silent and myself will be putting together a team to destroy one of these suppression fields. You could come with us,” Epione says. She turns to Saw Off, looks as if she wants to put a hand on her, but then doesn’t. Perhaps wary of what I’d do. “You, too. It’ll make it easier for me to search for Lugs… the field is meant to suppress Affect development but it also creates a fog for empaths.” She turns back to me. “It’ll also make searching for Pandahead easier.”

Saw Off still shares my suspicion. “Sure, or you could just be trappin’ us. Selling me and big Home Run here to the capes.”

“I’ve no interest in working with the capes at any point,” Epione says. “Everything I believe runs counter to them. I can only be satisfied if the idea of being a cape is destroyed. When the last child forgets Megajoule, I will be happy.”

“Even if you get rid of the Vanguard, you won’t get rid of capes.”

“I think you’re wrong,” she says. “If you abolish capes, the people no longer have to worry about their homes being destroyed by gods and demons. If you convince them not to believe in the capes, they’ll believe in themselves.”

“Come on, kid,” Megajoule whispers. “Add it up. This is your best shot. Lilac, the Vanguard. Burn it all down.”

I sigh. I have to admit I like the sound of what Epione is selling. “So, what do you want from me?”

“The masks of Houston need their own symbols,” Epione says. “My offer is, work with us. Work with the Front. Help us find Pandahead. Lend your power and your name to our cause, and perhaps we can deal a decisive blow.”

I close my eyes, considering all the possibilities. Many years from now, when I’m dying and alone having spent my life doing odd jobs for ramen shop owners and gangs, will I be happy if I let this opportunity to really change things slip by? Will I be happy walking into the broken bank, crossing over streets that will be shattered by future Affected war, seeing the Smiling Tower taunting me from the distance?

Sure, I have my beefs, like with the lab, but what about after? If I don’t die making that right, what will I do then?

Will I be happy knowing there are a million Mateos out there, suffering under men like Pandahead while the Vanguard does nothing but gather more power?

These are questions I’m afraid of answering, but I still have to reach out and try.

“I’ll go with you to see one of these PK machines,” I say, “if you agree to share your lead on Pandahead. Then we can discuss a further partnership.”