Mod didn’t know if his sense of time had recovered or not. Athena’s forcefield was already gone, but Kairon still stood. Even as his blood seeped out of the wound and his body started to convulse. Finally, the psychic fell over in two pieces—the roof hid most of the gruesome scene.

It was the screams that brought him back to the moment. The few capes that Arsenal hadn’t taken down were still conscious, but now they were delirious. They were coming down from mind control from a powerful psychic and one of their teammates had been killed in front of them.

Mod ignored the capes. He spun around, rifle leveled at Athena.

She looked like shit, but she was still standing. Still dangerous.

“You good?”

Athena nodded weakly. “I’m me. The Menagerie is gone.”

Lock had skidded to a halt nearby. He dropped his hands and knees.

“You alright?”

“I’m fine,” Lock hissed. He tried to stand, but couldn’t.

Mod looked to Athena. “Stay with him. I need to check on the others.”

McGuire peered down from the roof, his arms were spread wide. “What the fuck did you do?!”

Mod nearly went to Arsenal, but he had to talk to his friend first. He ran over, then leapt up to the rooftop. He landed beside McGuire.

“What did you do?”

McGuire couldn’t see Athena’s barriers, so he didn’t know what really happened.

Mod shook his head. “It doesn’t matter—”

“You killed Kairon… You killed him!”

“We didn’t have a choice!”

McGuire pressed his hands against his mask in frustration. “Ugh! Kairon wasn’t a villain or part of the Freakshow. He was a goddamn cape!”

McGuire shoved Mod. The cyborg didn’t move—didn’t even budge—but the weight of the moment bore down on him all the same.

Silence stretched on between the two supers, punctuated by the distraught wails of the other capes. Finally, TINA cut in.

“Mod, your team needs to leave.”

Mod glanced around, unsure of what to do. Arsenal was a block away on another rooftop. It looked like she was having a similar conversation with Cherry. Arsenal reached out to reassure her, but Cherry pulled away. Cherry raised a hand, shouting and threatening to blast her.

Mod turned back to the street. “Are you guys ready to run?”

Both Athena and Lock nodded. Lock had finally made it to his feet, but he still looked thoroughly shaken up.

Mod turned back to McGuire and the other capes. More were stumbling to their feet, finally shaking off the effects of the mind control. They were looking at Mod and Arsenal with mixes of horror and contempt.

Mod shook his head in desperation.

He’d thought about reaching out to his friends and family countless times over the Summer… This was not how he envisioned reconnecting with his friend. McGuire and Cherry shouldn’t have been here. Mod hadn’t been within a mile of them in months.

Now, Mod was standing a few feet across from McGuire, and… there might as well be a chasm between them.

“I’m sorry it went down like this,” Mod said.

McGuire didn’t reply.

“Mod, your team needs to leave. NOW.”

TINA’s message overwhelmed him. Mod felt the urgency in her voice. She didn’t have to communicate the rest of the message. He felt that too.

The Summit was coming. The Brotherhood was coming—

Fast-Response drones were already here. They hovered pretentiously in the air, not even bothering to fly an evasive pattern. It wasn’t hard to imagine Midas staring back from behind drone cameras.

“Give McGuire the package.”

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Mod felt TINA working. She used another hack to gain control over the hovering drones, then initiated the scrubbing protocol. The drones wouldn’t be able to see Mod or his team—hopefully for the next few minutes.

Mod turned back to McGuire. “Look, I don’t expect you to trust me right now… but I hope you can trust us in the future.”

McGuire didn’t say anything. His friend’s fists were balled up and his glare didn’t soften.

Mod pulled a palm-sized disc out of his pockets.

It was a bundle of specialized nanites—a combination of the mask protocol and the scrubbing protocol. A way to hide from sight and cameras.

It was the key to masks staying hidden in a world conquered by artificers.

Mod didn’t expect his friend to understand—not now. But hopefully he would, in time.

McGuire took the disc out of Mod’s hand and stared at it. For a moment, it looked like he would throw it away—off the roof. But he slipped it into one of the many pockets on his coat.

Mod turned to the other capes across the rooftops, meeting the eyes of Cherry and every other weary super.

“Don’t follow us,” he said coldly. He could read the micro expressions on their faces. He didn’t need to say anything else.

Mod turned back to his friend. McGuire stared at him another moment longer.

McGuire shook his head. “Just get out of here.”

~ ~

TINA had spent most of the mission underwater, so to speak. She had infiltrated the servers at Gnosis. When the group broke into the depths of the compound, she’d been forced to leave a copy of herself behind in the servers on the upper floor.

While Mod and the others fought their way to the bottom of the compound, TINA had been holding her breath.

She’d left a copy of herself behind in those servers while she went underground. It was the copy that saw the approaching Summit and Brotherhood forces. It was the copy that started simulating outcomes.

When Mod’s group neared the surface, the main cluster inside Mod’s skull reunited with the copy. TINA was reunited with herself. She became one again.

TINA found herself double-checking her copy’s simulations, like a student going over their partner’s work. Her main cluster might not have had the raw computational power of a large server, but it was far more lean and adaptable. TINA’s main body should’ve seen things that the copy missed.

TINA had been able to identify every Summit cape present. She’d identified Cherry and McGuire… TINA told herself that it shouldn’t matter. The Summit would play by their rules and Mod’s group would play by similar ones.

She’d been able to run a few simulations in that sliver of time between regaining server access and Mod’s group reaching the surface. She’d even factored in a chance of the Menagerie appearing. There were numerous outcomes, ranging from escaping unscathed to every member of Mod’s group getting captured—some obviously preferable to others.

In every simulation, Cherry and McGuire didn’t change the outcome.

Mod’s group either escaped… or they didn’t.

But even as TINA was running simulations and reaching these conclusions, she knew they weren’t quite right. Perhaps she was missing a variable. Perhaps escaping wasn’t the most important end state and the entire equation was wrong. Either way, she knew there was a flaw in her reasoning.

The real world is never as neat as a simulation.

This was a realization that TINA both understood and rebelled against. The majority of the forces in the world were logical. One day, science would explain every aspect of reality—even those currently unexplainable, physics-breaking superpowers.

People should be the same.

They weren’t.

When the Menagerie took over Kairon, the end state crystallized. Once the Menagerie took over a psychic, there was no way to regain sovereignty. The psychic would always be compromised.

In order to break the Menagerie’s control, Kairon needed to die.

It should’ve been simple. The task should’ve fallen on whoever was close enough to kill him.

It should’ve been Clara.

TINA was glad that Clara didn’t have to do it.

The moment had been agonizingly close, and Athena had stepped in. Somehow, she’d broken free from the Menagerie’s control long enough to eliminate Kairon.

Even though McGuire’s stink bomb was a formidable weapon, it shouldn’t have been able to break the Menagerie’s hold on Athena. Then again, gadgeteer powers didn’t fit into the laws of physics, much less conventional rule-sets for powers. TINA suspected that whatever power McGuire infused into his autopinchers was also at work—maybe even subconsciously. Combined with the stink bomb, they were enough to free Athena.

Athena didn’t know it, but there were nanites in her body, monitoring her brainwaves and other vitals. There was a marked difference between someone who was sovereign and someone who was under psychic control. Athena had been teetering on the edge…

TINA saw this, and let her kill Kairon.

TINA tried to justify the decision in hindsight. There was a chance that the Menagerie could’ve intervened… a chance that Clara could’ve been killed by that barrier instead. So why had TINA done that? Would she really rather chance Clara dying rather than let her take a life? Was it some misplaced variable?

Nothing made sense.

Subconsciously, TINA began updating her variables and parameters.

EMMETT’S MENTAL WELLBEING

CLARA’S MENTAL WELLBEING

ATHENA’S MENTAL WELLBEING

LOCK’S MENTAL WELLBEING

She created placeholders for McGuire, Cherry, Krystal, and Larian. TINA hadn’t forgotten about them, and if her protocols worked as intended, then Mod’s entire group could resume communication with them.

TINA adjusted variables for HIDING AND IMMEDIATE SAFETY and EXPANDING SERVERS AND PROCESSING.

She had a lot to process, and so did the others.

TINA had tried to spare Clara the trauma of killing someone. What TINA and Athena did should’ve felt like a favor.

…But it didn’t feel that way.

They’d spared her one kind of trauma and heaped another one on her shoulders. It might’ve been less, but it was still there.

~

Because of time dilation, the world moved slowly to TINA. She had plenty of time to see Summit capes and Brotherhood forces convening on Eastside. This secondary force was a small scout group—almost exclusively drones. The Summit must have determined that they didn’t have enough Class 4 capes or a hard enough counter for artificers close by. It was more likely, however, that they were relying on the Brotherhood to track and surveil Mod’s group. They would wait until Mod and the others led the Brotherhood to Athena’s apartment, then they would converge and overwhelm them, bringing multiple Class 4 supers and counters.

By the time the Brotherhood realized the flaw in their plan, the scrubbing protocol would disperse and infect the rest of the fleet.

Mod and the others would disappear from sight and cyberspace

like ghosts.

At least, that was the plan. It was impossible to see the future.

~ ~ ~