“I need to speak to the Sanderson boy,” said War. He was standing on the platform that supported the hub of what had become known as the Monarch’s Way. The circles of portals still glowed blue, illuminating the sky above Wayfair, proving that John was still alive, probably.

“Why?” asked the drone floating nearby. The combat models were all very carefully maintaining their usual posture, monitoring the access to the portals, and ignoring the heavily armoured fat man standing at the very centre of the platform.

“I’ve received new information about the Cullers and I need the kid’s help.” War crossed his arms across his chest and glared at the drone.

“You can’t threaten me, buddy. Soon as John gets out of transit he’ll get a message from me. What that message says will dictate what happens to your portal access,” buzzed the drone.

“I’m not sure what information you’ll get back when he pops out of transit but I suspect you’ll be surprised,” muttered War. “I just want the kid to help me check something I’m suspicious about. There’s nothing nefarious at work here, Bob.”

“You know something I don’t but won’t share.” The drone was equipped with decent enough sensors to read all of War’s micro expressions. “That doesn’t make me want to trust you.”

“I do and I won’t. Look, the kid can pull it from my mind if he likes. If he does, he won't bloody tell you either.” War summoned his golden cloud and rose up into the air a few feet. “You’re right that you hold a lot of power Bob. It’s not in my interest to cause issues between us under normal circumstances. These are not normal circumstances.” His sentence finished in a flat and angry tone.

“What the fuck is going on War? I get you won’t tell me details but you’ve got to give me something.”

“When John gets out of transfer you’ll understand. For now, can I borrow the boy?” asked War.

“You just need to talk to him?” asked Bob,

“No, I need him to witness a conversation for me and read someone's mind. I need to know if… I need to know for sure.”

“Who?”

War grumbled to himself and drifted up until he was right next to the drone. A hand flicked out and snagged it from the air, pulling it close to his mouth without damaging it. He held it like it was made of glass and Bob was only too aware of the level of finesse it took for a bruiser to be so fast without doing any damage.

“One of my colleagues,” War whispered before releasing the drone which wobbled and bobbed as it regained its hover.

“Shit. I’ll speak to the kid. Wait here,” replied the drone. A few minutes passed and the drone made a throat clearing noise, despite lacking a throat.

“Ok. Kev will help you out but his team goes with him. They all come back alive or else my Deadman message to the other me off world goes live. You understand?” the drone said coldly.

“I understand Bob. It will just be a friendly chat between myself and my old friend. I just need her mind to be checked over and I don’t have that skill set. The boy has a good range? If he stays down in the deepest parts of your bunker he’ll still be able to read her and there’s no chance of anything untoward happening to him and the other kids. Does that sound fair?”

“Sounds good. Is it Frost or Liberty?” asked the drone.

“Liberty. When the kid is in place let me know and I’ll call her over,” sighed War. He hoped he was wrong. He really hoped his suspicions were misplaced but with the intelligence they’d gained from the kid's infiltration and killing of the Cullers he needed to know for sure.

“Liberty? Ok. Stay here,” the drone fell silent but continued to float near the powerful fighter. War wasn’t blind. He noticed the subtle shifts in the big bots, the BD-209 variants, that Bob used as security forces. Patrols switching out left the bots facing in slightly different directions, cannons not pointed at him but closer to being aimed in his direction. He suppressed a snort. Those pea shooters wouldn’t bother him and their reaction time was too slow to catch Liberty.

She was as fast as a human could be and able to phase through solid matter at will. Her name had not been a sop to the continent she took over. She truly was as free as a person could be. Of all his fellow monarchs she was by far the most dangerous. If she had been compromised then things were going to get ugly.

“Ok. The team is in place. Call her over but if shit goes sideways-”

“If shit goes sideways there is nothing you can do, so let’s make sure that doesn’t happen. If the kid detects something wrong, let me know,” War cut off the drone. He sent a message to Liberty, asking her to meet him where he was. He unsummoned his armour and his loose tunic and trousers fluttered in the ever present westerly wind on the platform.

“What’s up?” came a voice from beside him.

***

Kev had closed his eyes when they came through the portal and Bob told him to get ready. The rest of the team spread out, nervous and insecure despite being buried deep underground behind some of the most formidable defences on the planet. A single corridor gave access to the cavern housing the off world portals but Bob had briefed them that this woman was capable of walking through stone so they were eyeing the walls and ceiling as suspiciously as they did the obvious point of entry.

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“She’s here,” said Kev as he crossed his legs and floated over the ground. “Christ, it's worse than Traveller’s mind!”

“What do you mean?” demanded Ryn indignantly. “Dad is fine!”

“The way he sees the world because of his eyes and abilities makes it very different to a normal person. She’s like that. There are no barriers to her. Walls are like fog. It’s bloody weird. Give me a minute, I need to dive deeper and that takes some concentration.

“Dad isn’t a weirdo,” muttered Ryn but she fell quiet and Kev ignored her.

Liberty’s mind was like a maze. For someone who was “free” her mind was incredibly compartmentalised. Some of that was due to her power. She could shift through anything, move at speeds that matched a sizable fraction of the speed of light; she had learned to split her focus in a way that fascinated the boy. If he could learn to mimic that fractured-yet-whole consciousness it would make dealing with the voices in his head a lot easier.

He twitched as the copy of Mindscar, taken the last time he’d seen her several years ago suddenly reared up, trying to take control of him. She was screaming and cursing in the back of his mind, struggling to snatch control of his body and to limit his perception. He grunted and pushed her down, helped by Amit and several of the more helpful ghosts he’d captured over the years.

As the mental haze that Mindscar’s attack had caused began to clear, Kev began going deeper into Liberty’s mind. He worked his way past her disjointed perception of reality. Momentum and matter were entirely separate concepts to her on some level. Seeing through her eyes made Kev dizzy as objects, people and their motions were categorised independently.

He began digging down into her memories. Flashes of her childhood and long life from before the system flowed into his brain. She had been a small girl, born in the 1950s, but had blossomed into adulthood having had a relatively happy childhood. Her teen years seemed idyllic in comparison to some of the ghosts who grew up in the nineties and early 2000s that Kev had stolen copies of.

The hippy movement of the late sixties and seventies had swept her up and her life had been a psychedelic blend of hedonism that was later coloured by regret from her older self. She’d settled down in 1981, getting married and working on a career in management. A long and extremely boring stretch of years ran through Kev’s mind that were littered with emotional highs he couldn’t understand.

The birth of her children was an ecstasy he couldn’t relate to. The death of her second child was a psychic wound he understood well enough and he flinched as he pushed past the pain that still coloured her outlook on the world. The breakdown of her relationship with her first child as a result of her divorce from her cheating husband left even deeper wounds. She was ashamed of what she had done in revenge and it stained her entire personality.

Sometimes losing someone forever is easier than knowing they are still out there and having no hope of reconciliation. She had become a shell of a person. She seemed happy, well-to-do and at peace but under that mask the old wounds were always lurking, putting the lie to her rebuilt life and personality.

Then the horrors of the system’s arrival ran past his focus. She and some old friends had been holidaying in central Europe when the system came. They’d fought off the waves and gotten powerful, rejuvenating from their senescence in the process. Almost as soon as they got back from the third wave they’d chosen to go off world and continue their adventure. Returning youth and vitality, coupled with no longer having responsibilities to tie them to other survivors left them eager for yet more power. It had applied to all of their team. The Monarch’s strength came from no longer having any ties to their old lives. Kev could sense their concern for the species was genuine, at least it had been for Liberty, but it was divorced from any individual or group.

Their adventures off-world blurred together into a nightmarish montage of violence and loss. There was triumphalism buried in there as well as they returned to Earth an order of magnitude more powerful than anyone else. A shiver of fear ran through Kev. The Monarchs themselves were scared. They knew someone, sometime soon would come back strong enough to make them look like children. That fear was one of the things that kept Liberty and War working so hard for humanity's benefit. They knew sometime soon someone would come along who was powerful enough to judge them.

Then Kev probed into her more recent memories. Putting down the tribulations in the US and Canada, suppressing Cullers and Ravagers across North America, threatening Belisarius… that one was interesting and he made a mental note to bring it to Bob’s attention. They now knew where the cyborg was hiding his main body.

In the blur of memories one stood out and he locked himself onto it. Mindscar went insane in his mind, thrashing at the invisible bonds that he held her with. After a few seconds of struggle he fought her back into her cage and turned his attention back to the memory that had triggered the response. He had a hunch that whenever Mindscar threw a fit in his mind he was probably on to something important.

Liberty had been meeting with the bigwigs in North America. The faction leaders and the former Signatories had all come together a few months ago to discuss the issues of Cullers. Liberty was very clear that she was going to operate a no mercy policy with regards to murderous humans looking to aggrandise themselves via the blood of their brothers and sisters. Kev was surprised she actually thought in those kinds of terms. Florid and grandiose language made her thoughts seem almost monomaniacal at times but at her heart she was genuinely fighting the good fight.

The meeting had been contentious. Some of the faction leaders had been turning a blind eye to things they shouldn’t have and they weren’t happy at being called out. Belisarius had played peacemaker, carefully employing threats and bribes to bring them in line.

After the meeting his battle suit had requested a private conversation, in person, at his nest or hive or whatever the hell his techno-coffin was supposed to be. Liberty had no fear, she could deal with anything the drone pilot and tinker could throw at her. Belisarius had begged her to attend in person, claiming he had intel that related to other members of the Monarchs she simply had to hear in person. He refused to say anything more outside the security of his den and Liberty had shrugged and headed back to his base.

Her arrogance had been her undoing. She could move faster than bullets, pass through any matter with ease, become invisible and untouchable. She didn’t realise she was only physically untouchable and that other powers could still touch her, even across a significant level difference.

Kev’s eyes snapped open and he dropped to the ground as the pain in his head shot to new levels. The echo of Mindscar in his brain was going all out and he could feel nerves burning away to dust as she sought to free herself and take control of his body. He reached up to clasp his hands over his temples and groaned in agony.

“What’s wrong?” asked Sally, rushing to his side.

“Mindscar took over Liberty. She’s a puppet now!” the boy grunted before he lost consciousness.