For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
- Sir Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion
#
“I’ll call you back later, Dad,” she said.
“Alright, swee—” Vivian hung up before he could finish, then let the phone clatter to the floor.
Growing up, Vivian had consumed all sorts of science fiction and fantasy. She’d had a particular fondness for those that posed moral quandaries.
Does it ever get easier? Killing people, I mean.
Her favorite answer to that had come not from a work of fiction, but an interview with Contingency. He was one half of the Dyad, and he’d eliminated hundreds if not thousands of existential threats to the world, many of them other superhumans.
For some people, it does, he’d told the interviewer. Not for me. If you ask me, finding killing difficult is the mark of a good person.
Vivian was not a good person.
She looked down at the twitching, lifeless body of the man she’d just killed and all she could think was, I should hide the evidence.
Were you supposed to feel this numb? Vivian didn’t feel good about ending a man’s life. If she ever got to the point where she took pleasure in murder, she hoped someone better than her would put her down.
But she didn’t feel bad, either, and that scared her. She felt worse about not reacting to the murder she’d committed than the act itself. Vivian had never really liked herself, but she liked the person she was becoming even less.
That person, though, did have a point. She needed to hide the evidence. Lycoris had likely been sent back to her car, which meant Vivian still had a few minutes before the other heroine returned. If the corporate hero had been correct about the response time of the SRU and/or police, they would arrive after Lycoris did.
She didn’t want them to take this juiced-up temporary super in, do an autopsy, and realize he’d had a stroke.
What kind of power damages the user’s own brain? Vivian could already picture the mortician putting two and two together.
She winced as she searched for a way to hide her tracks. Moving hurt. Vivian held a hand over the terribly sore spot at her side, trying to ignore the way thick, sticky blood stained her gloves.
“Why am I trying to hide?” she whispered to herself. So far, it had just been instinct to keep the Guardians from finding out about the plausibility limit break. Although she’d messed up by telling Rachel about it, her friend had surprisingly stayed true and not leaked the details—at least as far as Vivian could tell, of course.
The answer came after a minute of thinking and half a minute of soul-searching.
The Guardians were awful.
Yes, Vivian could acknowledge that maybe they were a force for good on net. After all, there was no other organization in the country so dedicated to sending supers into Cataclysms. There were an untold number of people who owed their lives to the organization.
To her, on the other hand, they’d been nothing but shit. Lachlan was a friend and a good person, but Alexander had looked down on her, then led her to an interrogation room where he’d sent a goddamn Washer into her brain.
That was unacceptable.
He’d been an independent hero once; she recalled what he’d said about how the Guardians had finally recruited him.
Nobody from my old life knows my name anymore, he’d said. Not even me.
They’d done that for a relatively basic B-rank Aegis/Mover who was reasonably durable but didn’t even have enhanced strength. If Vivian revealed that her power was more than just D-rank telekinesis—she shuddered to imagine it. She could believe that a less-than-ethical organization would think of all sorts of uses for a power that could silently kill anyone in a certain radius without a single trace.
Until she got the protection of a corporation, there was no way she was sticking her neck out that far.
Which brought her back to her original problem. Hiding the evidence.
“I need to do it in a way that looks realistic,” she muttered to herself. “You gotta make sure they can’t see what happened to the brain.”
Vivian spent some time pacing around, but she already knew what she had to do. She had to do it soon, too.
She unclipped her pistol from her stocking, holding it up with telekinesis.
The gun was heavier than she’d expected. Though she could move it, she couldn’t exert enough force on the trigger to fire it.
Her dominant left hand shook as she took the weapon into it, nearly dropping the gun. To make sure she couldn’t miss, even with how clumsy she was right now, she knelt down next to the corpse and held the pistol right above his ear, almost touching him.
A familiar thump-thump-THUMP-THUMP started roaring in her ears as her heart pumped into overdrive, faster now than it had been even when the temporary super had been threatening her with a gun.
Am I really doing this?
Before she could question herself anymore, she squeezed the trigger.
#
“Oh, hey Mantis!” Lycoris greeted Vivian brightly. “Glad you made it out okay.”
“Glad you did too,” Vivian said numbly, her finger still on the trigger. Her stockings were coated with blood now, both hers and her victim’s. She had blood on her hands now, metaphorically and literally.
To be completely sure of herself, she’d shot him four times, then once in the shoulder to make it look less like her aim was perfect. The corpse looked like an extra out of a bad slasher movie now, riddled with holes and painted in a rusty crimson. How could one human hold so much blood?
She held a lot of blood, too. Thanks to a course she’d taken a couple years back and only half forgotten, Vivian knew some essentials of first aid.
Put pressure on the wound to stop bleeding. She had. Disinfect the wound. She hadn’t trusted any of the supplies in a drug lab, so she’d just tried to keep dirt out. Put pressure on the wound. She was. Prevent further bleeding. It wouldn’t stop.
…wasn’t there supposed to be another step?
“Hey, hey, are you alright?” Lycoris didn’t seem to mind stepping in a dead man’s viscera. “Aw, you shot the guy? You’re not going to be able to use that footage, you know. Exposed organs are a big no-no on your socials.”
Once again, Vivian was glad for the helmet, because she did not want to explain her open-mouthed gape at the other heroine’s complete disregard for the life she’d just taken.
Apparently, it showed in her body language, because Lycoris held a hand to her mouth. “Oh, no, I’m so sorry. First kill?”
Vivian nodded blankly, unsure of what else to say but aware of her lie.
The pressure of the situation and the sheer shock of the dissonance between the utter mess of a body on the ground and Lycoris’ cavalier response to it made her woozy. Her head spun trying to process everything, black tinging the edge of her vision—she stumbled as she took a step forward and cried out when the motion jostled her right hand, still glued to the spot on her stomach.
“Shit,” Lycoris said, suddenly turning serious. “I thought all that blood was his. You’re hit!”
“Yeah,” Vivian said slowly. Why was thinking so hard? She was so slow and… dizzy. Was the plane spinning? Wasn’t the door torn off? How was it moving? “Who the hell… is piloting?”
She took another step forward, glad she’d had the foresight to stand away from the body, and the plane lurched.
“Stay with me,” Lycoris ordered, catching Vivian in her arms. “Stay with me, stay with me. You’re going to be okay, alright?”
“I’ve heard that one before,” Vivian slurred. Her head was thick with cottony fuzz. Every word out of her mouth felt unreal, like they were having a shared dream and this would end soon. “Liar.”
“You’re going to be alright,” Lycoris said, holding up a flower. “See this? See? Mantis, say something.”
“I see it,” Vivian said. “I’m not stupid.”
“This means you’re going to be alright.” Lycoris paused. “Fucking finally! We have a hero down on flight UA2444, docked at Gate B12, Terminal 1, ORD—yes, she’s been shot, dipshit!” Someone on the phone said something, and the heroine relaxed noticeably. “Thank you. The wound looks non-lethal, but she’s been bleeding out for nearly twenty minutes. Yes. I can preserve her for at least another twenty, if I had to guess. Yes. No. One villain dead on scene. Several criminals paralyzed. Okay, fantastic! I’ll see you then.”
Oh, Vivian realized distantly. I forgot a step in the… in the first aid. That must have been important.
The plane kept spinning around her, showing her everything she’d wrought. It was cold and it smelled like piss and blood and death.
The darkness, on the other hand, was warmth. It promised her warmth and security and none of the messes she’d created here.
“Stay with me,” Lycoris urged, but Vivian was already drifting off.
She dreamed of her family.
#
“Christ, you cut it close,” an unfamiliar male voice said.
“But I cut it, didn’t I?” a more familiar woman’s said. “She’ll be alright?”
“You’re goddamn lucky you have us,” the first voice replied. “You know we’re the only—“
“The only ambulance service in Chicago that carries blood, I know. Do you think I would’ve called you if I didn’t?”
“Hah. Good to know the lady knows who’s the best in town.”
“I never said that.”
Vivian blinked. Her eyelids were heavy and crusted, and she tried to raise her left hand to rub the wooziness and gunk out of her eyes.
Keyword: tried. A sharp pain in her forearm kept her from moving it any further.
“You’re awake!” a voice she now recognized as Lycoris’ exclaimed. “Keep your left arm still for me, okay? You lost a lot of blood, but you’re okay now.”
“Don’t tear the IV out, kid,” the male voice added gruffly. “Your org pays a pretty penny for you and us. Don’t wantcha going around making us look like idiots.”
Vivian used her right hand instead. That one wasn’t similarly restrained.
Once she managed to open her eyes, she realized she was lying down. Her head hurt like she’d only had a single hour of sleep in the last two days. Right now, proprioception was entirely out of the question.
There wasn’t much to look at. Lycoris stood over her, concern painted on her lips, and an unfamiliar masked man stood next to her, holding onto a bag full of blood. Said bag had a tube connected to it that snaked into—oh. It was in her arm. So that was the IV he’d been talking about.
Her helmet was still on, thankfully. Unless one of them had decided to take a peek under it, which she dearly hoped they hadn’t, neither Lycoris nor this stranger knew her face yet.
“Thanks for riding with Skyline Health Services,” the man said sardonically. “I’m Mark, your paramedic for the day. You got lucky, kid. Bullet missed most of your vital organs, but you lost a lot of blood.”
“Are we going to a hospital?” Vivian asked, bile rising in her throat as she realized that could easily be where the ambulance was taking her. “Please tell me we’re not going to a hospital.”
“Nah,” the paramedic replied. “We’re parked by HQ right now. The hospitals are way past capacity. You’ll get better treatment here. ‘Sides, you’re almost good to go. A bit longer on the transfusion and you’re gonna be just alright. You got six stitches, so I’d advise not running around doing hero shit for five days, minimum. You can get them taken out by a GP or your mom or whatever after.”
Vivian winced. “Okay. Alright. Anything else?”
“A lot else, unfortunately,” Lycoris said. “It can wait, if you’d like? It’s kind of my fault you got shot. You don’t need to still be here if you don’t want to.”
“Ugh. Now that you’ve said that, I’m not going to be able to think about anything else for the next few hours,” Vivian said. “Hit me with it.”
“If you say so. This is classified stuff, so could you get out?” Lycoris asked the paramedic. “I can handle an IV.”
“Lady, you—“
“I go to nursing school,” Lycoris said. “Give me the IV, will you?”
“Her funeral,” Mark said, raising her hands. He stepped out and swung the double doors in the back of the truck open. “I’m going out for a smoke. Call me again or find me when you’re ready.”
“Thank you,” Lycoris said.
The doors slammed shut without a further reply.
“I have a lot to catch you up on,” the heroine said without preamble. “It’s 2:40 or so now. You were out for about an hour and a half. Our raid was successful, which is good, but a lot of other ones weren’t, which isn’t. Team One was Raven and Gaslight from the Guardians plus Tsunami, Cruiser, and Shockwave from EHC and six normals.”
“Who?” Vivian asked. “Tsunami’s, uh, your boss, right?” Not for the first time, she regretted not studying up more on which supers operated in the big cities around her.
“I’ll catch you up on that once we’re in a safer area,” Lycoris said. “As it turns out, Raven’s been hiding a bit of a nasty drug problem. She killed four of the SRU agents and wounded Cruiser and Gaslight bad enough to send both of them to the ICU. They’re still there right now. We’re waiting on a Healer for them.”
“Shit. So Killjoy got away?”
“That’s not all. Teams Four and Five were only normals, and the warehouse they hit together was supposed to be full of normals and a couple F-ranks. As it turns out, our info was outdated or just plain wrong. Killjoy’s made friends.”
“Other gangs?” Vivian asked.
“Other gangs,” Lycoris confirmed. “There was one B-rank and one C-rank from the Gravekeepers, based on our best guess, but all our intel is hazy right now, and also maybe a little untrustworthy. What we know for sure is that the warehouse blew sky-high and twelve agents are MIA. We presume they’re dead.”
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Shouldn’t I be reacting worse to that? Vivian knew this was bad, sure, but emotionally… she found herself as empty as she had after dumping four rounds of lead into a corpse’s head. What is wrong with me?
“How many casualties?” Vivian asked out loud, wincing as Lycoris accidentally jostled the needle in her arm.
“Hold on, I’m not done. The warehouse exploding got reporters flocking to it instantly, and the Guardians have decided to release the information about the suicide supers. The mayor’s expecting to enact a city-wide moratorium on entering Killjoy’s territory alongside a curfew. Teams One, Four, and Five didn’t hit their targets, and Killjoy’s holing up in Washington Park with the bulk of the Gravekeepers.” Lycoris huffed out an exhausted sigh. “Since it looks like Killjoy’s got connections inside Chicago, the Guardians are calling in supers from elsewhere. One’s coming from San Francisco, a couple from New York. This is going to be a prolonged thing.”
San Francisco? Vivian almost asked if it was Sunrise, then she processed the rest of the information Lycoris had just dumped on her.
“Christ,” she said. “It escalated that fast?”
“The Director thought it’d be quick and done.” Lycoris grimaced. “Looks like Killjoy’s been getting ready to set up in Chicago for a while.”
Vivian let that sit. She’d seen Killjoy across a parking lot and again at the bank just over a month ago. To reconcile that supervillain with the man who’d killed who knew how many people now—that just didn’t feel right. Even with what he’d done to her, she’d never felt like she was going to die.
But the game had changed.
“Is there anything else?” Vivian asked, raising an eyebrow before remembering Lycoris couldn’t see her.
“Sadly, yes. About an hour ago, we got a call that Whiteout has broken out of the Tippecanoe County Jail, which means he’s probably headed here.”
“Fantastic,” Vivian sighed. “Is that all?”
Lycoris tilted her head to one side, thinking. “For now, yes. To answer your earlier question, we lost nineteen SRU agents and one D-rank intern. As for the other side: you shot one, then I shot another one when he tried to steal a gun from a cop, Team One killed one, Teams Two and Three didn’t kill anyone but sent six of them to the hospital, and we have no hard data for how many Teams Four and Five got, though we do know about a pair of civilians that didn’t survive the blast.”
“Christ,” Vivian said again, wishing she could lean her head back further. “Fuck. What are we even supposed to do?”
“We?” Lycoris asked, lips quirking upwards. “All that, and you still want to be here?”
“If it’s not you, it’s the Guardians,” Vivian said frankly. “Besides, I can take them. I’m not scared of anyone.” Except myself, she added silently.
“Welcome to the team, then,” Lycoris said. “Let’s finish getting you patched up, and we’ll show you how Chicago tackles a crisis.”
#
“Mayor Brown’s decision to enact a lockdown has already been met with much controversy,” the newscaster droned. “However, his actions hold are backed by the full support of the Guardians. Chicago citizens will be required to remain indoors after eight o’clock PM and avoid the Washington Square Park region at all times. Furthermore—“
Vivian closed the clip before she could watch the mayor’s announcement play out again. This was the fourth or fifth clip of its kind, and it’d already racked up a load of views on Reddit, YouTube, and Twitter. It wasn’t every day you got to see martial law declared.
Okay, technically, it wasn’t martial law, but it was close enough.
That lockdown, apparently, was also why “how Chicago tackles a crisis” currently meant lazing around in a penthouse and eating chocolate while waiting for night to fall.
“That kind of raid doesn’t normally happen,” Lycoris had explained in the car. “It was a risk, and the Director knew that. Even villains usually try to minimize civilian casualties, because they know that once they start crossing the line with deaths, or identities, or any number of things, we start escalating. Nobody wants the kind of escalation supers can bring to the table.”
“Killjoy crossed a line, didn’t he?” Vivian had asked.
“Yes, but that raid was still risky. Now the cat’s out of the bag, so we get to sit around and wait while the higher-ups come up with a better plan!”
And so that was why Vivian was doomscrolling on her phone and occasionally lifting her helmet enough to have a snack.
They were tasty snacks, she had to admit. Being a corporate hero seemed worth it for the artisan chocolate alone.
She hadn’t expected EHC headquarters to include an apartment building, but it turned out that they’d just bought one out and converted the first floor into their base. Their heroes got to live above their workplace, and Lycoris was no exception.
Said heroine was currently taking a shower, leaving Vivian exactly fuck all to do.
Her phone buzzed just as she was about to open up Reddit again.
sparrow: ur in Chicago??
Vivian frowned. Rachel hadn’t messaged her in a couple of days. This was a bit out of the blue.
vivy77: yea how’d you know
sparrow: I still watch the news bro
vivy77: lol old lady
vivy77: hold on I’m on the news?
sparrow: briefly
sparrow: ur never mentioned by name but there’s like a 2 sec cctv clip that some of the networks are playing and I recognized ur getup
sparrow: gonna repeat myself from a few days ago: you should get the hell out of chicago
Once she mentioned it, Vivian did remember Rachel telling her to avoid Chicago. Now that she was here, though, Vivian definitely planned on staying.
Her eyes drifted to the slightly bloodstained stacks of cash she’d laid out on the coffee table next to her. Though she wasn’t sure if she’d counted entirely correctly, there had to be something like twenty thousand dollars in cash. Even if some of it was too bloody to be used without asking questions, that was a lot of money.
And the buzzing was gone, replaced by equal parts numbness and… satisfaction? That couldn’t be right.
vivy77: it’s gonna be fine I’m with EHC rn
She decided against telling Rachel that she’d been shot.
sparrow: jesus, alright that’s less bad but still
sparrow: ig I can’t relaly tell you waht to do
sparrow: since you prob alr know the situation
vivy77: I’m getting paid and I’m going to get exposure one way or another
vivy77: I’m supposed to be a hero, right? Isn’t this what heroes do?
sparrow: fuck me
sparrow: stay safe out there viv
vivy77: will do boss
Her phone buzzed again just as Lycoris stepped out of the bathroom, now wearing a loose tie-die shirt and baggy shorts. The heroine’s hair was still wet, and it hung loose down past her shoulders, dripping on her shirt. Without her costume on, she looked like a freshman, or maybe even a senior still in high school.
She wasn’t wearing her visor.
Vivian startled, then looked away.
Lycoris chuckled. “It’s fine, Shrimp. I don’t have much of a private life to hide. I’m Ayaka.”
“Oh, um, okay,” Vivian said, suddenly feeling extremely awkward. She… didn’t have much of a life to hide either, did she? Plus, she felt super weird about sitting around with a helmet on while Lycoris was just a normal girl in her home. “It’s, uh, nice to meet you?”
Then again, she was hiding her true power for a reason. She would do well to be careful around others—especially other superheroes.
“Don’t worry, you don’t need to do the same,” Lycoris—Ayaka?—said. “I just don’t like wearing my costume in my house. Speaking of costumes! We need to get you a new one!”
That was a good point. Once Max the paramedic had deemed her healthy enough to no longer require his care, he’d removed the IV, bandaged it, and replaced the dressings on her gunshot wound, which had long since stopped bleeding by then. Vivian’s abdomen still ached where she’d been shot, and now her arm hurt as well, but she was fine.
Her costume, on the other hand, wasn’t. Though the bodysuit Lachlan had bought for her was stab resistant, it couldn’t stop bullets. Now, it was grimy with dried blood around the hole the bullet had made, and Max had cut one of the sleeves open to insert the IV.
She made a mental note to apologize to Lachlan for wasting his money.
“I guess I have the money to pay for a new one now,” Vivian joked.
“You do!” Aya—Lyco—fuck, she didn’t know what to think of the other heroine as right now—said. “But you don’t need to worry about that. The costuming guys owe me a bunch of favors, so I can get you one for free.”
“Oh,” Vivian said. “That feels wrong, but if you’re offering, I’ll take it?”
Her first instinct was to turn it down, but that was the instinct of someone who’d always had enough to get everything for herself. Sure, her dad’s career was looking up, but Vivian had to remember she wasn’t in the same situation as she was five years back.
Also, there was that one psychology thing she’d heard about in a TED Talk when she’d gone too far down a rabbit hole. Letting other people do favors for you made them more likely to do it again, or something?
Whatever. The point of it all was that she’d take the free stuff.
“Great! I asked Tsunami what the situation’s looking like, and he says that we’re definitely not making a move until at least midnight. That gives us enough time to get you a basic costume, at least.”
“Thanks, uh, Lycoris,” Vivian said, unsure which name to use.
Evidently, that was the wrong one right now. The heroine scrunched up her nose, managing to look remarkably like a completely normal exasperated teenager. “It’s Ayaka when I’m not in costume. Please?”
“Then thanks for all of this, Ayaka.” Even though she was definitely older than the other girl, Vivian felt like a child when talking to a heroine with actual experience heroing. “So why midnight?”
“The curfew’s going off at seven, but that usually means people won’t be home for an hour or two after,” Ayaka explained. “Plus, we need time to coordinate a response. The Guardians are a mess right now, and as for the SRU, Director Williams is eating crow. We haven’t had a raid with this many casualties in a while.”
“Makes sense,” Vivian said.
“I’m going to go talk to some of the other heroes,” Ayaka said. “You’re invited, but feel free to take your time.”
“They’re all EHC heroes, right?” Vivian asked.
“Yep,” Ayaka replied. “None of us really have identities to protect, just so you’re aware. You don’t have to unmask, but EHC has a pretty strict vetting program. Nobody’s going to use your identity against you.”
Vivian considered that for a second, then considered it some more. She’d looked Lycoris up on the wiki, and obviously, her identity hadn’t been there. Equally as obvious was the fact that the Guardians either hadn’t tried to force her into their program or had failed—in either case, those were points for EHC.
Would any of the heroes try to use her identity against her? She couldn’t think of a reason why—and if they wanted to press her into the organization, she was honestly happy to join. Arina was her first choice, but her research hadn’t turned up anything bad about EHC, either.
Most importantly, it couldn’t hurt to make more hero connections. As a D-rank, she was going to need everything she could get to get into a corporate position.
“…Alright,” she said, finally. “Can I at least wash up before I go with you? It’s getting a little warm in this helmet.”
Ayaka beamed. “Sure thing! I’ll be waiting for you. Feel free to use the shower. It’s a nice one!”
#
The shower was, in fact, very nice. Vivian had been to a load of fancy hotels over the years, and this one rivaled the best of the best—ridiculously adjustable temperature, twelve different kinds of soap, and perfect water pressure alongside a gold-plated frame that was way too fancy.
She took her time luxuriating in the shower, careful to keep from scrubbing too hard around her wound. The dressing the paramedic used was “the best of the best,” according to him, which meant it was minimal and waterproof and would dissolve away once her skin finished knitting itself back together, but she was terrified of scrubbing it off and reopening the gunshot.
“There’s spare clothes in the black drawer, by the way!” Ayaka shouted. “Men’s clothing on the left, women’s on the right!”
“Thanks!” Vivian shouted back.
She felt a little bad for taking so long, but when one was used to shitty dorm showers that had a ten percent chance to pour out literal mud, it was impossible not to appreciate facilities this nice.
When she finally convinced herself to turn the water off, she found that the towels were equally as nice.
Vivian got on her phone as she dried her hair. There were quite a few more texts on it now—most of them useless, of course, but a couple from people she actually cared about.
Dad: I hope you doing okay, little Vivian. You take care, okay? Remember to drink water and sleep well.
She winced, remembering the way she’d just hung up on him last time.
Vivian: I will. Sorry, under the weather today. Love you.
There was a lot more that she could have added, but she left it at that. She loved her dad, she really did, but sharing her true concerns with him ended in pain for both of them more often than not.
It ended with two suicides, her traitorous mind thought. She sucked in a deep breath, refusing to close her eyes because she knew what lay behind shut eyelids.
Not now. This wasn’t what she needed right now. It could wait. It had to.
Deep breath. In. Out.
She checked her phone again as she sifted through the black drawer Ayaka had mentioned. The clothing was nondescript but high quality, which was great. Vivian hated standing out.
Lachlan: I hear things are getting a little wild in Chicago. Typing this from a plane on the way to Guardians HQ there. If you’re lucky, you might see me. Or not. They’re probably going to keep me under lock and key behind twenty feet of steel or something.
Vivian: stay safe bro
Vivian: welcome to the circus
Lachlan: Ha. You stay safe, too. I’ll link up with you when we land.
Lachlan would be one of the heroes Lycoris had mentioned were coming to help, then? Vivian guessed that the Guardians were bringing him in to find the vials Killjoy was using.
He’d complained about wanting to be assigned to a city that had real action back when she’d first met him. Vivian wondered if he still thought that way now that he had the assignment.
The last text wiped any thoughts of Lachlan from her mind.
Sun: Hey, kid. Just texting to let you know that I’m here for you, but I can’t come to you physically for a while. I’m not sure how long it’s going to take, but I just got a summons out of SF. I’m sure you’ve heard about what’s happening in Chicago? The Guardians there thought that my powerset would be super helpful for it, so I’ll be there for a while.
Sun: It shouldn’t be too long. Stay safe, Vivian.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Sunrise was coming here?
Vivian: You too, Sunrise. Good luck.
“Hey, Shrimp!” Ayaka shouted. “You good in there?”
Vivian put her phone down hastily. “Yeah, sorry! Just a moment!”
She sifted through the drawer and tossed on a black T-shirt one size too large for her and a pair of comfortable shorts, then took a long, wary look at her helmet before deciding to leave it where it was. Vivian was glad she’d decided not to wear it, because that thing needed a wash of its own before she was willing to put it on again.
Still. I’m showing another hero my face.
“Oh, wow,” Ayaka said once Vivian stepped out. “Do you model?”
Vivian snorted. “I can take a compliment, but that’s a little too far.”
If that had been meant to defuse the tension, it worked. A knot unwound itself in her chest, and though the ever-present anxiety wouldn’t disappear, the spike that had come with taking the helmet off eased.
Ayaka shrugged. “I tell it like I see it. Come on, Mantis, let’s meet everyone else!”
“Vivy,” Vivian said, deciding at the last second not to share her full name. “Or Viv, I guess, when I’m not in costume.”
“Viv.” Ayaka nodded seriously. “I like it.”
#
On their way in, Lycoris—Ayaka, Vivian reminded herself—had taken her through the lobby, which had been nearly deserted apart from a receptionist and a handful of reporters, but now they took a different path, neatly avoiding the front in its entirety.
“Training rooms are on the left,” Ayaka said, rapping her knuckles on a closed door. “Evaluation rooms too. Kitchen here, a couple of offices here, blah blah blah. You’re only here temporarily, so I’ll skip the full newbie tour. The guys at Costumes aren’t ready for us yet, so we’re going to meet with whoever’s in the common room. There’s usually a few.”
“Wait, you said they’re probably going to be unmasked, right?” Vivian frowned. “I haven’t gone through the vetting process. Is that really okay?”
“You seem alright,” Ayaka said. “Besides, we have a great protection program. If you turn out to be evil, you’re not going to be able to leak much! I can’t say much more past that—corporate secrets are fun!”
That was comforting, in a way. Vivian mentally added EHC as a second option under Arina.
“Here we are,” Ayaka said, tapping a button on a door that looked like it required keycard access. It beeped and glowed yellow. “Give it a few seconds, and—here we go.”
Vivian was not ready for what the common room looked like.
Given the general sleek, high-tech aesthetic of the rest of the building, she’d thought that the common room would look like something out of an old sci-fi movie.
Instead, it resembled an elementary school classroom. Beanbag chairs were thrown around a cozy-looking room decorated with posters of superheroes and paintings of natural scenery. Vibrant warm colors dominated the space. There was technology everywhere—computers, a large-screen TV, and a few gaming consoles—but they were placed like this was a home, not a headquarters.
Three people were sprawled out on beanbags in front of the TV, watching a fight that was either actual recorded footage or a very well-choreographed movie. Vivian couldn’t tell.
One of them paused the TV and rose to his feet. He was brown-haired, blue-eyed, and looked like he could have come straight from a magazine cover. Ayaka had joked about Vivian modeling, but she really had to wonder if his picture had shown up on Vogue before.
“It’s your indie! Hi there!”
“Everyone, this is Viv, alias Mantis Shrimp,” Lycoris said. “If you wiki her, it’ll say she’s a D-rank Kinetic, but that’s total bullshit.”
“Adam,” the model said, extending a hand. Vivian shook it. “Shockwave. I was a C-rank Marksman slash Kinetic, but I got involved in Cataclysm 105, earned B-rank, and got into EHC. Pleased to meet you.”
“Oh, you were in the raid, then?” Vivian asked.
“We all were,” Adam said. “I was with Tsunami, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Zach,” said the guy still lying down on his beanbag. “Barbarian. B-rank Shifter. Pleasedtameetcha.”
“And I’m Sydney,” the last one said. She was blonde and shorter than all of them, though she looked to be a couple of years older than Vivian. “Alias Amazon. I led Team Two. A-rank Aegis-Brawler. I heard you took down a suicide super.”
Who opens a conversation with that? “I did,” Vivian said, more defensively than she meant to. “What about it?”
“Impressive,” Sydney said. She left it at that.
Adam whistled. “Damn. I hadn’t heard that. Are you joining?”
“I cleared it with Tsunami,” Ayaka said. “He said all hands on deck, so I asked for an extra hand. She’s a temp.”
“I don’t think EHC tends to hire D-ranks,” Vivian said. “I’m just here for this, then I’m heading back to school.”
“Ha. School,” Zach said. “Imagine.”
“Well, it’s a pleasure to have you anyway,” Adam said. “Want to join us? We’re watching Jekyll from the Gravekeepers fight Widower from the Guardians. The boss thinks we’re going to be hitting Gravekeeper territory tonight or tomorrow, so we’re doing some analysis.”
“Without me?” Ayaka asked, crossing her arms. “Rude.”
“You weren’t here, were you? How were we supposed to know when you’d be back?”
Vivian felt like she should be taking action right now. Her restlessness now wasn’t power-induced at all—no, this was a far more familiar feeling. She wanted to be out there, doing something even if she didn’t know what that was.
But that wasn’t what was happening right now, and she didn’t know enough about this city to do more.
Besides, she’d told herself she was going to make connections, so she pulled up a beanbag of her own and sat down with the rest of the heroes.
Five superheroes sat together in this room. There were more of them in EHC Chicago, and even more in the Guardians. At least one of the Guardians had changed sides today, and there was every possibility there would be more. Hundreds of people had died so far, a number that almost included Vivian, and the villains who’d caused it were still active.
On top of that, Lachlan was coming. Whiteout, the villain she’d incapacitated, was coming. Sunrise was coming.
Chicago was a house of cards right now.
Vivian sat still and waited for it to fall.