Vascorp shuttles were delightfully easy to track; no one else bothered to try to scramble their signal. Fernando adjusted the autopilot and poured himself a glass of wine. 2296 Chateau Lafite Rothschild was truly a remarkable year. He had almost managed to replicate it precisely. Nothing beat a real bottle of the stuff, though. If this plan worked, he’d have to open one of the last ones.

  He hummed a tune and the shuttle drew closer through his view port. His gambit of giving over the Prototype in order to identify Vascorp black sites had worked well beyond what he’d dared hope but the Prototype was now making its last transfer and he had it within his sights.

  “Annabelle, prepare the ion spikes,” he said.

  His shuttle beeped back and Fernando saw weapons systems charging.

  “Ion spikes charging, Inspector.” The computer’s voice was young, and innocent. Sometimes he’d felt guilty over what’d happened to that poor girl, but then again, sometimes he did not. Now, he just enjoyed her company.

  Dawn broke behind them, lighting the mountain peaks ahead.

  “Unidentified shuttle, stand down and alter course. This is a private flight path and you are trespassing.” A man’s voice buzzed through the communications unit. Fernando swirled his wine and admired its legs clinging to the sides of the glass. Lovely.

  “Oh, I am terribly sorry, my friend. I did not know this was a private corridor and was merely following you to save fuel. That is my cabin, there, by the base of the mountain, you see?” He flicked the comms unit off. “Annabelle, full throttle.”

  “Full throttle, sir.” The inertial compensators made their jolt forward feel like a gentle tug and he sipped from the Rothschild.

  “Negative, unidentified shuttle. We detect no structures ahead. Divert your path immediately or we will be forced to assume hostile intent.”

  Fernando hovered his hand over their weapons systems.

  “If you insist, my friends.”

  He slid the ion spikes to full and three long blueish-white streaks lanced from his shuttle into Vascorp’s. Blueish-white lightning arced along its hull and their engines flickered, whinnying for life. Garbled and static-filled transmissions crackled out his speakers and he turned them down and resumed humming.

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  “Follow them down, Annabelle. We’ll see if our friends need a helping hand, hmm?”

  “Pursuit confirmed. Long range scanners show five shuttles matching Vascorp profiles en route.”

  “Then, please hurry, Annabelle.”

  Vascorp’s shuttle lost altitude rapidly and crashed into a field of long, yellowed grass. It skipped once off the hardened earth and buried itself nose-first at the end of a long skid. Annabelle set down near the wreckage and Fernando set down his wine.

  “I’ll be back for you in a moment,” he said to Annabelle and his wine. He exited down the rear ramp of his shuttle with a gun in one hand and a fully-charged Singularity in the other. It was his rarest Vasc. Until today, that is. He’d tried it on in New Madison, just to taste the power. He had to have it for the collection.

  Air out here in the plains was course and thick, like chewing through hot gelatin made of dirt. He tapped a button on his flight suit’s collar and an air-tight helmet formed around his head and cool air lightly scented with a homemade blend of lavender and rich cedarwood filled his nostrils.

  “Ah, that’s better. Now, where are you, my friends?”

  Vascorp’s shuttle took enough damage on impact to ensure it wouldn’t fly again. One engine hung from it’s wiring and some broken steel cables, sparking every which way. The front viewport was cracked into a thousand little pieces and was pulsing, as if a Vascorp crew member was attempting to kick his way out. Fernando waited outside and raised both arms. No sense drawing this out. He held a gun in his right hand and flexed the Vasc-powered fingers on his left.

  The viewport flew off its mounts and the pilot in his crisp white suit, now splattered with blood, scrambled out. Fernando shot him in the head. He launched himself forward onto the hood of the shuttle and found one other crew member missing a head and the other trapped under a crushed dashboard. Fernando shot him too.

  “I regret only that it was too late to help you, my friends. Such is life, no?” He took a deep breath and extended his left arm. Slowly, he brought his fingers down as if clenching an imaginary ball and a dark void appeared in the middle of the ruined shuttle cabin. Immediately, objects small and large that weren’t screwed down flew toward it.

  Fernando stepped off the nose of the shuttle and pulled the singularity along with him. Once outside, he unclenched his hand and all the objects dropped to the ground. It only took a moment of rustling through the cabin’s contents to find it. Fernando returned to Annabelle, and set a course for Vegas. It was as good of apartment as any.

  Annabelle soared over the morning-lit mountains and played a soft music with brass horns and string bass. He sipped at the Rothschild and swapped out his Singularity for the Prototype. He remembered the power he’d felt. The several minutes it took for his body to load the Vasc was agonizingly long and not even wine could slake his impatience. Finally, the tingling sensation faded and it was done.

  “Starfire engaged, ready for command.” His brain heard the words, understanding them to be true, though his ears heard nothing. Fernando smiled.

  Vascorp would finally pay for their crimes.