There is a dumpster. I cower below it, one hand on the rusty metal. If it smells, I’m not truly aware enough to notice. Finger in the back of my brain, digging, digging, scratching, scratching. I left the motel room - I don’t know why. Maybe just couldn’t stay there anymore, not after what happened. Only grabbed my jeans.

Megajoule speaks: “Now you see the lover. Now you see the poison.”

“What are you on about?” I mumble, trying to look up, everything in pain. From Krater or Bedevil or myself, I don’t know. He looms over me, blocking the light of a failing street lamp.

“She’s a lover, Gabe. Do you know what that means?”

I let my head drop back to the ground. “She wanted you. She loves you.”

“Not quite.” Megajoule holds his hand against his chest, the other against his forehead like a wilting femme from a play. “She loves love. She’ll mine every ounce she can get from the hearts around her. When she can’t find any more, she breaks you and leaves. Why do you think she was able to play that part so well, before she caught feelings?”

I can’t muster a response.

He kneels and meets my eyes. He smiles, wryly, with sympathy. “She loves the idea of you. She does not love you.”

“I’ve got to find Paul.” I stand, struggle to stay upright. I’m in deep pain, dark like the bottom of the ocean. Still, I stand, because if I curl up, I’m going to die. I grit my teeth and stumble away from the dumpster.

Do you even know what I am?

Without warning, I’m standing in the middle of a road, stumbling like a drunk man along the yellow line. A person bikes past me, ringing their bike bell, hitting me with the handle. Why couldn’t you stop and help me, asshole?

“Turn here.”

“Who is talking to me?” I ask. It doesn’t sound like Megajoule. Whoever it is, they’re actually giving me directions and being helpful. That’s not Megajoule’s style.

“I’m you. Home Run.”

“Oh.”

“Listen… there are drones. Capes are looking for you. Turn here. We’re in the Shells, so it’ll be hard to find you already, but they’re all looking. And don’t think these people you’ve protected won’t sell you out if they see you. You need to hide. Change clothes. Put on a mask again.”

“Maybe this would just be easier if you took over?”

“Now, don’t do that,” Megajoule says. “You really want this unhinged persona behind the wheel? It should be me, not him.”

“Better him than you,” I snipe back.

“You’re hurt. Badly.”

“That much is obvious,” Megajoule says.

“You’ll be okay… you’re tough. But you need to hide so you can rest and heal.”

“I need to find Paul,” I repeat. “He’ll know what to do.”

Megajoule tsks into my ear. “He’s not here, you dolt. He’s gone. Either dead or snatched up by the Vanguard.”

“The Vanguard didn’t show up at our place until after I got there.”

“Then he’s dead. Either way-”

“This is deeply unhelpful.”

“You’re fracturing,” Megajoule says. “Not just your body. Your Affect. Your mind. All the stress is far too much for you. Wouldn’t it be easier to let me take the wheel?”

“No,” I whisper. But he’s right - it would be easier to let Home Run or Megajoule figure this all out.

“Let’s just hide away for now.”

“I don’t know where I’m going.”

“Hide, Gabe.”

“Maybe he should let himself be found. Bring their reckoning.”

“You have serious issues.”

On that, Home Run, we agree.

I stumble, I warp, I bounce, I move. My lungs feel like they’re going to collapse but I keep moving because I have to keep moving. It is the only way I know how to survive. I stop in hidden alcoves to snatch a few minutes’ sleep before moving on again.

The sun rises and I move through dark buildings. It sun sets, and I dash through alleys. I search desperately for crumbs of food, for leftovers tossed away in the trash, for the refuse of bakeries. I eat a few pieces of bread from a garbage can, joined by flies, picking around mold.

I move until I can’t. Until my eyes can’t stay open. I don’t rightly know where I collapse, just that this is it. As far as I can go.

A gentle hand presses against my chest. “I’m here, I’m here, Gabe.” An arm, thin but tough, supports my back. “Are you okay, young man?”

“I’m… not…” I’m barely here. Something’s wrong with me, like parts of me are somewhere else.

A door opens and shuts. Everything is so hot. I’m laid onto a bed. A cold hand touches my head. A man yelps. “You’re blazing!”

“It’s okay, watch, I’ll woosh it away.” I exhale heat from my mouth, sparks and embers, where am I? Where am I? Where am I?

Shhh. Shhh.

#

I wake, a scream tearing out my mouth. I’m in a bedroom I don’t recognize. Heavy curtains block out all the light. As soon as I’ve got a handle on where I’m at, a dog jumps onto the bed and starts howling. I leap out of the bed and crash into a nightstand, shrieking at the top of my lungs.

And then I realize: it’s Pawpaw. He looks up at me with his adoring eyes, barking at my sudden outburst. Tears well in my eyes. “You dumb stinky man,” I tell him, before rushing over and giving him a big hug. He licks the back of my ear and rubs his head against my cheek, his whole body wiggling as he wags his tail with ferocity.

The door opens, and a familiar ramen shop owner rushes in with a crowbar in his hands. Thanh Nguyen, ready to bash my head in.

“Goodness, I thought someone was attacking you,” Thanh says, lowering the crowbar.

“Where… where am I? Where am I?” I gulp air down like water and I’m a man dying of thirst. Like I haven’t breathed in ages. My stomach knots and twists, and I almost blow chunks right there.

“Easy, it’s okay,” Thanh says. He approaches me like a wild animal, his hands up. “You’re in one of my apartments. I found you outside the bank a week ago. You were hurt badly.”

A fucking week?? That’s how long I’ve been in this state? I reach up to touch my face. I have no mask on. I’ve had no mask on, for Metis knows how long. Thanh knows who I am, now.

Thanh nods. “I wouldn’t dare tell a soul.”

“Whatever. It’s all fucked anyway.” I rise to my feet, but stumble like a newborn deer and drop back to the bed. I really am injured from the fight with Krater. My ribs groan, my arms and legs are sore. All that energy flowing through me… I didn’t feel it at the time, but it hurts now. I struggle, trying to regain my feet.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“Oh, no, don’t do that.” Thanh rushes to my side, trying to keep me from getting up again. “I’m not a doctor but I know what a bruise looks like, and you’re covered in them.”

But I’m stronger than him, even without using my power. I stand again, this time ready for the pain. My entire core screams as I make it to my feet. Once I’m on them and steady, though, the pain relents to a dull ache.

There’s an old grimy mirror on a dresser in the bedroom. I lift my shirt up and see Thanh’s right - my entire torso, from my collarbone to my belly button, is covered in purple-green. Bedevil remarked that I looked injured from the fight, but at the time I had been too… distracted to think much of it. Now, there’s no way to know whether the bruises are from my body unable to handle the huge amount of power I wielded against Krater, or from blows I took from Krater himself that were so strong I couldn’t absorb all of the energy.

Somewhere outside the room, a television buzzes. Even though wall muffles the sound, I make out Krater’s and Flashfire’s names.

Is Krater dead, alive?

I’ve got the legs of a newborn deer, but I fight my way to the door.

Thanh holds out a hand to stop me. “Gabe, stop!”

I don’t stop. I need to know.

I stumble out into the living room, where a screen has the Houston news playing from the official Vanguard channel. Flashfire’s face is blown up on the screen, but the text subtitle surprises me: FLASHFIRE FOUND ALIVE, KRATER IN CRITICAL CONDITION. The reporter stares so hard at the camera I feel like her eyes are burrowing into my skull. They show footage of people being rescued from the area surrounding Cosmoworld. Their jaws hang open. All the pain I’ve inflicted on this city in the last few months stares me in the eyes.

I’m a monster.

“-returned to the Houston Shrine with minimal injuries, having escaped from the Front, a terrorist mask gang set on killing capes. Krater’s condition remains precarious, but local medical officials remain positive given his Heavyweight Affected strength that he’ll recover. There are dozens injured from Home Run’s attack against Krater-”

Thanh turns off the screen.

“I didn’t hurt anyone fighting Krater,” I tell him. “He did. He trashed the scrapyard, he threw me through a neighborhood, I tried to…” I trail off, losing the strength to even finish the sentence. Explaining myself to Thanh doesn’t even seem important now.

“Gabe, I believe you. My tenants told me how you saved them from that sludge monster.”

I sigh, look for something to do with my hands so they don’t end up through the screen, and end up just prodding at the tenderness of my stomach. Pawpaw sits at my feet, his tail wagging, his eyes adoring me from the floor, and I at least have that.

And then I realize… if Thanh has Pawpaw… “Did you talk to Paul?” I ask.

Thanh wrings his hands and smiles thinly at me. “He told me was going to leave town. He left you a message, a video. It’s on the counter in the kitch-” He stops short.

My face feels like it’s going to fall off and my heart is a black hole. I explode into tears.

He just left. He wasn’t hurt or taken.

He left.

But I did, too, so maybe fair’s fair.

That doesn’t stop the tears.

“It’s not fair,” Home Run says. “You’re practically just a kid, and he was supposed to take care of you.”

“Do you need a moment?” Thanh asks.

I don’t want him to touch me right now, but I need something to hold me up, so I press my head against the screen. I give him a thumbs up, my face turned away, so he can’t see my blubbering.

“I’ll go get you some medical supplies. Please don’t leave.” He walks so quietly I barely hear him leave, not until the door opens and closes.

“I don’t think self-flagellation will help you,” Home Run says.

My eyes widen. I glance around, searching for a face to put to this voice, but there isn’t one. I groan. Great, a new Me clinging to my brain. I bury my head in my arms as sobs take me. “It’s… my… fault…”

No reply from Megajoule.

“Are you mad at me?” I ask him.

Not a word.

“Come on. Don’t do this to yourself.”

“I’m a disappointment.”

Not a peep.

“Why don’t you ever talk to me when I need you to?” I ask.

Still, nothing.

I wipe my eyes and lie down. I don’t know how to begin making up for what I did wrong, and I don’t know how to get out of this. I’m well and truly fucked.

“Maybe we should watch Paul’s message.”

I growl at Home Run, “I don’t want to do that.”

“But you might need to.”

“Stop being right.” I find the strength to stand up and go to the kitchen. There’s a small flash drive on the counter, the kind that can plug into a screen port. I hold it in my hand, feeling how light it is, and groan out loud. “This better explain everything that’s wrong with my life.”

I return to the living room, to the television, and find the port after an annoying amount of searching. Even when I’ve found the damn thing, though, I hesitate to plug the drive in. What if this is horrible? What if all he says is “Fuck you, kid, I always hated you?”

I inhale, exhale, and take a leap of faith. I start the video from Paul.

#

It’s just him sitting in our house, the angle indicating that whatever camera he used is sitting on our coffee table. He’s the same, gristly, overdone man with silver-gray hair, wrinkles upon wrinkles, and cold eyes. But I can tell, this was filmed a couple of years ago. His smile is not happy, though rarely were his smiles ever happy.

“Hey, kid.”

I pause the video. His voice, his face. Paul smiling at the camera is almost enough to destroy me. I take a few deep breaths and wipe my eyes, trying to steady myself. After regaining fortitude, I press the play button.

Paul is silent for a moment, rubbing his cheeks, eyes staring through the camera as if he can see me on the other side of the screen. “I love you, kid. I never had a son of my own. Not until you. You gotta know how much I care about you. You gotta know how much I want you to succeed. I want you to be happy with your life and where it’s leading, and I want you to feel safe from all the shit the world is gonna try to make you eat. Because kid, the world’s gonna try. It’s gonna rub your face in the dirt and make you bite the curb and it’s gonna fucking suck.”

C’mon, Paul, this isn’t fair.

“I just want you to take care of yourself. If you’re watching this, then I somehow worked up the nerve to tell you what went down in the lab. And if that’s the case, I don’t know if it’s been long enough or if in your eyes I’m still a traitorous bastard. Trust me, kid, it ain’t just your eyes. I’ll never forgive myself. I’ll die with this guilt and I’m not even sure I’ll let go of it then. Metis will have to pull it from my fingers herself, I think.”

He falls silent and glances away from the camera. A handful of seconds, a heartbeat or two, enough time to drink in the image of this man that saved my life from the very place he helped build. What a paradox of a human; savior, destroyer. Murderer saint.

“So, everything I’m about to tell you, I’m sharing with you because you deserve the truth, but I’m also telling you: don’t drown in this. I’ve already drowned in it enough. Everything I’m about to tell you is not to light a fire under your ass to pull the temple down on the Vanguard, because I’m not trying to send you on a suicide mission. I just… you deserve to know about yourself.”

Paul sniffs, scratches his beard. Old familiar affectations that I am just now realizing I miss. If only I’d gone to him calmly, if only I’d gone to him at all instead of hurtling down this path he didn’t want me on. But with Pandahead and everything else, I had no wherewithal to speak to him.

I’m making excuses.

“If I told you anything about the lab at all, you’d know that I was much higher up there than I let on. Top level. Knew the whole place front to back. Knew every evil thing that went on there. Told myself it was in the name of protecting the world. You might think, if you’ve not heard this from me already, that this is the big secret I’ve kept from you all this time. But it’s not. That’s just the start of me explaining the secret.”

He sighs, clearly under some kind of weight. What I’d give to feel his emotions again.

“So here’s the big lie, the big kaboosh.”

I swallow, steeling myself.

“I told you Megajoule knew about Lilac, about all the clones. About you and your brothers.” Paul’s steeples his hands in front of his face like a mask. “He didn’t.”

I suck in a breath and squeeze it in my chest. My hands start to tremble from the adrenaline. He didn’t know.

“He learned the truth by making a deal with Terrence Lilac, the founder of the lab. He learned the location of the facility, found it. He tore the place down. He was going to rescue you and your brothers, any who were left, and work with us to bring the Vanguard down. When he got there… well. He underestimated the depravity of what he was up against.

“I was the lucky bastard Megajoule charged with saving your life. You… the youngest one. The one who… who wasn’t fully baked, so to speak.” Paul’s eyes are wide. “I’m… Gabe… Oh, Metis forgive me.”

“What?” I whisper.

“Carnality didn’t kill Megajoule. Your brothers did.”

I take a step back from the TV, my whole body hollowing out all at once.

“But it wasn’t their fault, either. Only one.” Paul shakes his head. “I took these memories from you. I took him back. I tried to at least, thought I’d cleansed the seed I’d planted. With it, most of your memories of the lab. You didn’t need to remember it, you didn’t need that monster in your head. You deserved your own chance at life, and I tried to give it to you.

“But… You’ll need to remember, one way or the other…” Paul stares right into the camera, right at me, and says, “Do you remember the apotheosis of your oldest brother, Gabriel?”

Those words, “the apotheosis of your oldest brother, Gabriel” resound in my head like a gong. I hear, in the back of my mind, the sound of a door opening, its hinges heavy with rust. Chains and locks fall from this door in my mind, and heavy breaths come from the darkness behind it. Something is coming, something unholy. Something that has been hidden inside me for a long time.

“We had a theory about a thing called a Thoughtform. That there could be an untethered Affect, a soul free of the body, a pure being made only of emotion and power. With the clones, we were testing whether an Affect could inhabit multiple bodies… PK’s one-mind-in-many. Terry believed this was a first step toward a pure Thoughtform. So they made you all and I… I planted him in your head, Gabe. In all the clones’ heads. His Affect, a seed, meant to override your mind and make you one out of many.

“And that many came together as one and killed Megajoule when he tried to put an end to Lilac. When he tried to rescue you. They were guided by that one being. The eldest of the clones, the one we conditioned into believing he would one day take on the mantle of Megajoule.”

Paul finally meets my eyes again, and his red gaze destroys me. “I really hope he stopped talking to you.”

The door slams open. A bundle of missing events deep within my psyche opens up and spills its contents across my mind.