“So,” Amory said, gesturing to her office once Ethan sat down, “what do you think?”

Ethan wasn’t sure if he had a concussion from either of the two fights he had gotten into so far, or if Amory’s office was really just that ugly.

After getting bandaged up and given a change of clothes by the medical staff, Ethan wore an oversized black shirt and grey sweatpants. Amory was eagerly awaiting his opinion, seated on the opposite side of a walnut desk, her intense blue eyes trained on Ethan, hands folded politely.

If he was being honest, the inside of Amory’s office was pretty much the exact opposite of how Ethan expected a high ranking Apex executive’s office to look like. While the rest of Apex’s hallways were painted aggressively white with black and white art depicting various scenes around the city, devoid of almost any pops of color outside of Apex’s scarlet A branded in various places throughout their hallways, Amory’s office looked like someone had spun a color wheel and painted each wall based on where it landed. He had never seen a teal and pink office before, and frankly he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to again.

But with the future of his employment resting in Amory’s hands, Ethan decided to put a little more tact on his answer.

“It feels like a fairy exploded in here,” Ethan offered, “and then you just, like, picked up its corpse and smeared it all over the wall.” Amory gave him a knowing smile in reply, maybe appreciating his honest tone.

“Everyone I bring up here gets so…nervous,” Amory gave him a conspiratorial smile, “having an office this…gaudy serves an important purpose. It’s hideous, right?”

“Undoubtedly,” Ethan said, not sure where this was going. “I’ve literally never seen an uglier color scheme.”

Amory laughed. “I always ask and, wouldn’t you know it, almost everyone I ask is suddenly a huge fan of teal and pink walls. That tells me exactly what I can expect out of someone when I need to really know something. The good news, Ethan, is that you seem honest, which I appreciate.”

Ethan mulled that over. Barely three months ago he led Rainey down a mineshaft and dropped it on her, so he didn’t exactly feel like he was an honest person, but that characteristic seemed important to Amory, so he let it slide.

“Also, when you spend over twenty years in the military being told where every single strand of hair needs to be, you tend to dream about the day where you can do whatever you want.”

Ethan nodded. “So you got your chance and ran with it.”

“Not unlike you,” Amory snapped and narrowed her eyes at him, and Ethan felt his heart jump into his throat. The silence hung heavy in the air, and Ethan suddenly felt like he was in freefall, waiting for one of his portals to open.

“I’ve never lacked initiative,” Ethan tried.

“No,” Amory shook her head, “pressing down into a long-abandoned mine shaft in hopes of gaining powers is a lot of things, but it’s certainly not timid.”

Ethan sighed. “So you heard about that.”

“Titan told me everything,” Amory said. “You were honest with me, Ethan, so I’d like to be honest with you. You’re…an odd case.”

“Heard that before.”

“On the one hand, you went after what you wanted, and you got it. You took your future into your own hands,” she gestured down to his scarred hands, a spiderweb of pink lines criss-crossing his skin, “no matter what it cost you.”

She…knows a lot more about me than I’d like, Ethan thought. Ethan furrowed his brow, suddenly fantasizing about using his aforementioned powers to teleport himself out of Amory’s office

Why is that always my first instinct? He wondered. Ethan refocused.

“It wasn’t my brightest idea, but I didn’t feel like I had any other options. Speaking of…”

“Right,” Amory nodded, “you’d probably like to know what I plan to do with you. Well, Ethan, that brings us to the other hand: you’ve put me in a very…tenuous situation.”

Amory turned her monitor so Ethan could see it. After a few clicks, a chart appeared on screen.

“In the days after the Surge, Apex assembled a team of data scientists, radiation scientists, meteorologists, and sociologists to map where and how the Surge might’ve affected people inside Ascension. We built a model of its dispersal and, with some dubiously legal facial recognition technology, we were able to identify the vast majority of people affected by the Surge. Our chart starts with almost twenty newly powered people identified each day in the week following the Surge, which slowly dipped down, stabilizing to zero a month after the Surge.”

Ethan nodded, following. “You found everyone with powers, you mean.”

“Correct, and paid a boatload of money to do it.” She scrolled all the way to the right, stopping on September 14th. Ethan winced. “Or, so we thought.” She pointed to the chart, which, for the first time in seven months, was just a hair above zero, a blip just above the baseline.

“That is you.”

Ethan suddenly felt an odd sense of insignificance, staring at the screen. He had spent three months hunting down leads to find a way to get powers, was almost killed by Ember, and nearly ruined his relationship with Raz to get powers, all to be just a blip on Apex’s radar and a nuisance to Amory.

“Three months after Titan defeated Maelstrom and brought a definitive end to the Skirmishes, three months after I assured Corporate back in Texas that everything was perfectly under control. They appreciated how I handled the Surge and told me I could continue to run the division provided there were no more surprises. We had a quiet run of almost a year, and then…you show up in an Ascension hospital, covered in bruises and scars, hands awash in a purple glow. We had to pay them off to keep everything quiet.”

“Surprise?” Ethan said, his stomach sinking when his joke didn’t land the way he hoped.

Amory ignored him. “You’ve put me in an untenable position here, Ethan. Technically, what you did shouldn’t have been possible. The radiation the Surge releases, in any form except the extremely diluted blanket that washed over Ascension on the night of the Surge after it was dispersed through the atmosphere, is deadly. It nearly vaporizes everything it touches.”

Ethan thought back to the grey ring of death around the collapsed mine, the once verdant valley now looking like a picture taken in black and white, completely lifeless.

“You should be dead. Not only are you somehow alive, but you gained powers in the process.”

“You’re making that sound like a bad thing,” Ethan muttered.

“Am I?” Amory said sharply. She continued. “Worst of all…you’ve made me a liar. If Corporate found out that anyone who stumbles into the reportedly unreachable underground radiation can roll the dice and potentially gain powers equivalent to Maelstrom, or, if we’re all severely unlucky, Titan herself, they will come in here and seize everything I have and then kick me out and put me under so many Congressional investigations I’ll need to start studying law because no lawyer in their right mind would touch me.”

“Not feeling a lot of confidence here.”

“Did your performance today inspire it?” she asked.

Ethan wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m…sorry?”

“You should be. Your decision to gain powers has the potential to cause a ripple effect through the city. Do you understand what the point of the Protectors are, exactly?”

Ethan hesitated, then shook his head.

“To…stop all the Altered in the Ascension?” he answered, unsurely.

Amory shook her head. I didn’t think there’d be a quiz portion of my evaluation, he thought.

“You can’t ever stop crime, not entirely. When the Surge blanketed Ascension with a mutagenic energy that, in a cruel twist of fate I’ll never quite understand, granted people superhuman abilities, it changed what was possible to do in this city. In that way, the Surge was really an amplifier: we didn’t create criminals, but we did enhance them.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Ethan nodded. “Where does that leave the Protectors, then?”

“Our Protectors are a floodlight. They shine a light on Altered activity and act as preventative measures. Altered need to know that if they choose to act in this city, their actions will have consequences, and taking a swing from Titan is certainly a consequence. This, however, only works because we are balanced.”

“What do you mean, balanced?”

Amory pulled out a remote and clicked a button. A motor whirred to life behind Ethan. He spun his chair around and watched as a project screen descended from the ceiling. She clicked another button and an image burst onto the screen: studying it, Ethan realized it was a map of the city, divided into the five sectors. Each sector had not only a list of Protectors, but names Ethan recognized as Altered who, he guessed, were also active in each area.

“Knowing everyone who has powers and is active in the city allows us to understand the whole board. Once you know the board, and can see all the pieces, you can now change the game. Your sister’s power is unmatched, which allows us to selectively pull pieces off the board. There were a few Altered who didn’t play by the rules. Maelstrom brought a hurricane into the city. When we were ready, we had Titan hit him hard.”

She leaned back in her chair, a satisfied smile spreading across her lips. Ethan gathered that out of everything she had done, commanding this unit was the thing she was the most proud of, which was probably why adding him into the mix was so difficult for her. He didn’t just threaten her position, if Amory was right, he might threaten the entire city. While he was weighing that, she continued.

“The Altered came at us with swords. We hit them with the equivalent of an atomic bomb and then took away the pieces they could use to make one. However, if I let you loose into the city, I’d be willingly showing the Altered that they too can change the game. The Altered currently don’t have the power to rival us. Anyone willing to risk instant death can go out and try to gain new powers, destructive capabilities that could rival Titan’s own, tipping the balance of power back to the Altered and potentially throwing the city back into chaos. That is a risk I simply cannot take.”

“But…you’re already imbalanced,” Ethan pointed out.

Amory narrowed her eyes. “How so?”

Ethan walked over to the screen, blocking out Syphon’s name.

“Sola put Syphon in the hospital. You’re down a Protector right now.”

“How do you know about Sola?”

“Because I fought her,” Ethan told her, leaning forward. “This morning. Much like my evaluation, it wasn’t exactly pretty, but I made it out alive.” Mostly thanks to Quinn, but she doesn’t need to know that.

“What, exactly, are you proposing?”

Ethan walked over slowly, then sat back down in his chair. He only had one shot at this.

“Sola is already active in Ascension, but nobody knows where her powers came from. That’s a liability for you. Let me go after her, and let me find out where she gained her powers.”

“Which would mean no one else would learn where she got her powers from. An interesting proposition, and a convenient intersection of our needs,” Amory admitted. She looked impressed, but Ethan’s heart was still pounding. He decided to press on.

“Does Apex know what she’s after?”

“After some initial small-value robberies, testing her limits or, possibly, our response times in different sectors, she’s been on a shopping spree, robbing five stores in three days. A clear escalation in her pattern.”

“Why is she hitting so many jewelry stores now?” Ethan asked. “If she needs money, that’s not the quickest way to get it. She still has to sell what she steals.”

“Here’s where it gets interesting: she hasn’t sold anything, as far as we can tell. She’s kept everything she’s stolen.”

“So…she needs what she’s stolen.”

“Yes,” Amory agreed. “But, we don’t yet know why she needs so many diamonds. All we have to go on is audio from Syphon’s suit; Sola told Syphon that she wasn’t finished, so we’re anticipating more attacks.”

“More attacks means more opportunities for her to come into contact with people who might start asking questions that you don’t want them to have the answers to,” Ethan countered. Amory, almost appearing impressed, nodded. She sighed, retraining her focus on him.

“Against my better judgment, and despite your paltry performance in your evaluation, I’m going to do right by Titan and rely on you to take care of this problem, Ethan.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Ethan said, hope starting to rise. With his elbows on the desk, he leaned across to Amory. “I’ll do anything. I need this.”

The silence while he waited for Amory’s response was killing him. He wanted to practically scream, what are you waiting for? As she sat there quietly, holding Ethan’s entire future in her hands.

“Alright,” Amory finally said. Ethan’s eyes went wide, barely holding himself together. “Here’s the deal: Syphon will be back in a week, so I’m giving you seven days. Bring Sola in, and I’ll find a permanent spot for you in our Protectorate program. May not be glamorous, I know intimately that most positions in this world aren’t, but it’ll undoubtedly be better than whatever you were going to do.”

Ethan nodded vigorously. “One week?”

“One week,” Amory repeated. “Our best guess puts her next target as the Ascension History Museum. It has the largest diamond in the city on display.”

“I’ll start there,” Ethan smiled.

Amory nodded. “We need to wrap this up quickly before any other Altered decides to test our defenses.”

Ethan pushed himself to stand, holding out his hand. “Consider it done.”

Amory took it, her face stern. “For both of our sakes, let’s hope so. Clock’s ticking, Ethan.”

——

Ethan came bounding out of the elevator and entered the lobby, grinning despite the constraints Amory put on his employment. The lobby was nearly empty save for Quinn who stood, sheepishly, by the front entrance. She smiled when she saw him, but it felt hollow. Ethan’s smile sank.

“Hey Quinn,” he said, glancing around. He realized what was missing. “Where’s Raz?”

“Oh, uh,” Quinn stammered. “He said he had something important to get back to.”

“Right,” Ethan said quietly. Despite getting the opportunity he had dreamt of for more than a year, there were still plenty of things he had to fix. For now, though, he was on a time crunch to find Sola, and until he apologized to Raz, he was going to have to find her on his own.

One thing at a time.

“You guys, uh, aren’t on the best of terms, huh?”

“We…had a disagreement,” Ethan told her, staying as vague as possible. “But, now that I’m going to be a Protector, I think I can finally find some time to fix it.”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure you guys can mend everything,” Quinn told him. Ethan barely heard her: as she stood in front of him in the soft light filtering through Apex’s windows, he, finally had a quiet moment between them to take in her blonde hair, closer to saffron than gold, tucked neatly in a bun, and the freckles that dotted her cheeks.

“Right?” she said, waiting. Ethan snapped back to the conversation.

“Anything you say.”

She laughed, dismissing him. “Well, I’m happy I caught you. I wanted to make sure you were okay. Bramble looked like she was ready to take a chunk out of you.”

“She certainly tried, but I’m a bit tougher than I look.” Not much tougher, but a little bit, anyway.

Quinn looked relieved. “Glad to hear that,” she said. Ethan stammered, fighting to break the silence. When he found his footing, his words all ran together like a crash in a bicycle race.

“And I just wanted to say thanks for, uh, what you said in the pit. That…really helped.” Ethan ran his hand through his black hair. “I, uh, like who I am when I’m with you.”

“Well,” Quinn smiled, gesturing down the road, “it wasn’t any fun watching you get your ass kicked without being able to do something about it.”

“Kingston certainly sounded like he was having a blast,” Ethan muttered.

“He’s always cranky. But, it does kind of look like I saved your life twice in one day. I hate to bring it up, but now it looks like you owe me.”

More than you know, Ethan thought.

“I’d say you’re right,” Ethan nodded. “Maybe we could get dinner, spend some time together without anyone trying to kill me, or you, or both?”

“I’d love to,” she nodded. Ethan felt like his heart was going to explode, but he tried to keep it together.

“I’ve got until next Friday to finish a task for Amory. If it goes well, I should be in the mood to celebrate. Maybe we’ll shoot for then?”

Quinn smiled. “Friday it is. I’ll let you pick the place.”

“Done,” Ethan grinned, opening a portal.

“Keep yourself safe,” Quinn said, “I won’t always be around to help you out, you know.”

“If only,” Ethan responded.

“Oh,” she said, her face turning more serious, “and if I figure out what the stone does that Sola nearly stole, I’ll let you know, okay?”

Right. As nice as this conversation is, there’s a billion things that I need to be doing, he sighed. “Let me know if I can help in any way. That’s…kind of what Amory has me taking care of, so I’ll drop anything to come see you.”

“You’ll be my first call,” Quinn told him. Ethan gave her a smile and stepped through a portal into the Ascension sky, somehow forgetting all the wounds Bramble had just given him. Quinn watched him go, amazed at his power to simply disappear.

Not unlike her sister.

Quinn pulled out a picture of her phone, frowning when she saw she had no new texts or missed calls. Rainey had grown distant ever since their accident on the night of the Surge that landed both of them in the hospital, and she had been outright missing for the last three months; Quinn hadn’t even received so much as a text from her letting her know that she was still alive. Quinn had practically given up on ever finding out what happened to Rainey until just this morning, when a complete stranger uttered her name within earshot.

If her sister was still alive, staying close to Ethan Havoc was her best shot at finding her. To do that, Quinn needed to find out why an Altered drove an hour and a half out of the city to try and steal a stone nobody was supposed to know existed from a facility nobody would visit without explicit knowledge of what was inside.

Quinn rubbed her temples as she made her way, carefully, back to the elevator. There were too many pieces in play right now and not enough time to figure out how they all fit, but she had to start somewhere.

Idly, as the elevators closed in front of her, she wondered how many of the pieces Ethan held.

End Part Two.