During the war with the Deep Ones, several buildings around Belport had been requisitioned by the Summit of Heroes and turned into additional bases of operation. Most of them, including the one that McGuire was currently sitting in, were situated on the Northern half of the city, far away from the water.
McGuire was on the third floor, sitting on a bench in the hallway. The place used to be an office building—it was all white walls, generic motivational artwork, and no heart. McGuire shifted on the bench, trying to bring feeling back to his right ass cheek, and peered out the window. The parking lot was still ringed with barbed wire.
This place was supposed to be temporary, McGuire thought to himself.
The barbed wire wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was he.
After the shitshow outside of Gnosis, they’d brought everyone back for questioning. At first, it seemed like they were just doing medical checks. That was, until they’d confiscated everyone’s weapons, gadgets, and phones. Then they’d separated everyone from one another. Thankfully, the nanite disc had vanished… McGuire guessed the tiny particles had dispersed into the lining of his coat.
McGuire glanced across the hall at the pair of DSA security guards. They were in full body armor—a mix of riot gear and the DSA’s brand exosuit. They talked idly amongst themselves, but wouldn’t utter more than a few words to McGuire. Leadership swore they weren’t being detained, but he wasn’t allowed to leave ‘until debriefings were done’. McGuire had no idea how long had passed, but the sun was going down now, so it had been hours.
Finally, the guards ushered him down the hall to a small conference room. The knight, Luminara, stood at the end of the table. She was clad in thick, golden armor that seemed to glow with its own inner light.
McGuire had only seen Luminara twice—once during the briefing at the start of the war, and a second time during an awards ceremony in the aftermath. She had a commanding presence and reminded McGuire of Athena. She was a powerful super, and one of the local heads of the Summit.
She was also a lot bigger than he realized. She stood head and shoulders above McGuire, cutting an imposing figure. All of a sudden, the room felt a lot smaller.
“Have a seat, McGuire.”
He swallowed dryly. The chair squeaked as he pulled it out and sat down.
Luminara sat too, her chair groaning beneath the weight of her armor. She shuffled through a stack of papers on the table, frowning as she did.
“I’m going to take my own notes, but our conversation is being recorded for the rest of leadership.” Luminara gestured to the small camera in the upper corner of the room. “Now, tell me in your words what happened.”
McGuire ignored the sweat soaking through his shirt. He spent the next several minutes describing what happened outside of the Gnosis compound—the fight with Mod’s group and the Menagerie’s mind-control.
Luminara had been steadily scribbling notes, her gauntlet scraping against the table. At that point in McGuire’s story, she looked up. Her eyes narrowed.
“Why did you help Mod?”
McGuire took a second to explain his autopinchers and how they broke the Menagerie’s mind-control. “I didn’t know what happened at first. Not until Mod told me.”
“Right. You said he… hacked your radio?”
McGuire shrugged. “He’s a cyborg.”
McGuire left out the fact that TINA had contacted him, not Mod. He didn’t see the point in mentioning her.
Luminara tapped her pen on the table. “And Cherry had the same psychic countermeasures?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That explains why you both had control… So, why did you help Mod?”
Her gaze was intense. McGuire swallowed nervously. “Ma’am, I was afraid for my squad. This was the Menagerie… They’d taken over the squad.”
Luminara nodded. “Did you decide to help him before or after you learned the squad had been compromised?”
McGuire paused. He’d only agreed to help Mod afterward… right? The squad had been taken over… When did TINA tell him it was the Menagerie… or did Mod tell him?
“Our squad was compromised. Then I decided to help.”
Luminara’s expression softened, but only slightly. “I believe you, McGuire. I’m just trying to understand your reasoning. Tell me the rest of the story.”
McGuire told her about the aftermath. He left out the parts at the very end—when Mod had given him the nanite disc, and the part where TINA had somehow used it to contact McGuire afterward. TINA had gone to impressive lengths to scrub those events from drone footage.
He wasn’t sure what his friends were up to, but he was willing to hear them out.
McGuire finished his recount of the events. Luminara finished the note she was scribbling and leaned back in her chair, like she was exhausted.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that. Not many people have to take down a friend and survive being mind-controlled. Fewer still do it in the same battle.”
McGuire tried to relax in his chair, but couldn’t. Something else was worrying him.
“Ma’am, normally I would report to Serenity.”
He didn’t really know what else to say in that regard, so he let the statement hang in the air. Thankfully, Serenity wasn’t here to read his mind, because he’d be utterly screwed. But McGuire was also worried about her…
Luminara’s expression stiffened. “Psychics are going through their own debriefings. After this, the Summit isn’t taking any chances.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
McGuire nodded, relieved.
~ ~
Serenity waited on the second floor of Summit station number three. Ryder had called an impromptu meeting, and though he didn’t explicitly say what it was about, Serenity knew.
Just earlier that morning, Mod and Arsenal and several accomplices had broken into Gnosis. Serenity still had trouble believing that. She’d fought beside both of them during the war. They were powerful, and far more capable than anyone else their age, but breaking into Gnosis was unheard of. Not only had they survived and escaped, they’d evaded the Summit and the Brotherhood, too.
But that wasn’t the reason Ryder called this meeting.
Kairon had been compromised by the Menagerie. Now the Summit of Heroes wanted to check on all their psychics. Naturally, that task fell to Ryder and the other high-ranking psychics. Their power allowed them to maintain their sovereignty.
Serenity wasn’t sure how Kairon had allowed himself to be taken over or when he’d been compromised, but he was clearly much weaker than he’d let on. He had supposedly been Class 3, and yet, that alone should have protected him. The only reasonable explanation was that at some point he’d willfully given himself over.
She shuddered at the thought. How could someone willingly give themselves over to something like that?
Serenity tried to steady her breathing. Her crystalline mask felt stifling. She wanted to get this over with and get her mask off.
Thankfully, a moment later, she felt a psychic ping. Serenity walked down the hall to an unmarked door in the center of the building and psychically confirmed her identity. Inside was a small, square conference room with a giant mass of resonating crystal sitting on the center table. The crystal was uncut, roughly three feet tall, and it shimmered with calming, ethereal light.
As soon as she sat down, the head and shoulders of her boss, Ryder, appeared as a hologram in front of the crystal. He was an imposing and conventionally attractive man with a piercing gaze, but today, his face was somber and almost melancholy.
“Have you reviewed Kairon’s psychic account of the events?”
Serenity nodded. “They recovered a surprising amount of detail posthumously.”
“Luckily, most of Kairon’s brain was intact, and our teams are thorough. How well do you know your history?”
Serenity replied, “I’m not sure I follow.”
“In antiquity, our kind were revered as seers. It was thought that we could see the future and even the past. We can’t, of course, but we can read people. That’s all it was—a simple parlor trick. Read the lust in a man’s heart and assume he’ll cheat on his wife. Read the greed in another’s and watch him steal from his company. You can predict a surprising amount of the future if you know someone’s deepest desires and the secrets they would kill for. It’s like walking a long hallway and predicting you’ll open the door at the end of it.
“Despite thousands of years of progress, we’re still thought of in much the same way—as seers and mystics and soothsayers. The Summit thinks we can do the impossible. This incident is… unfortunate. We used to be seers in their eyes. Now we’re a curse.”
Serenity didn’t know what to say at first. Until now, Ryder had never opened up like this. Even though they were separated by miles, Serenity felt closer to him than ever before.
Serenity wasn’t sure what had come over her, but she was consumed with the urge to reassure Ryder. She leaned forward in her seat. If he would’ve been in the room with her, she would’ve clasped his hand in hers.
“We’ll get through this. Supers and psychics have survived worse.”
Ryder ignored her. “His body’s been incinerated, according to Summit protocol one-eighteen.”
Serenity smiled softly. “That’s for the best.”
Ryder nodded hesitantly. “Yes, I suppose it is. When a piece of flesh is dead or dying, we sever it to preserve the whole.”
“You disagree, sir?”
Ryder shook his head like he was trying to shake the emotion off of his face. “Forgive me. Kairon’s loss has affected me more than I thought. Gifted psychics are rare compared to other supers. Today we don’t just mourn the passing of a cape—we mourn the loss of one of our kind.”
Serenity managed a reassuring smile. He was right, of course. She only knew Kairon in passing, but there was a deeper loss there that she hadn’t realized until now. As well as Serenity knew her own mind, she’d been at a loss to describe the feeling.
It wasn’t often that a psychic didn’t understand their own emotions. Some spent their entire lives charting their memories—mapping them like a house—learning every room, doorway, and creaky floorboard. Serenity wasn’t an architect like others, but she knew her own mind well enough to find her way around in the dark, so to speak.
She dwelled on Ryder’s explanation of losing one of her kind, turning it over and examining the idea.
It felt right.
Like finally finding a key to a door.
But of course he was right. Ryder wasn’t just her boss. He was a mentor and a confidant in the truest sense. Ryder likely knew her better than her own family knew her.
Ryder continued, “They want assurances now. All psychics affiliated with the Summit are getting a choice: Debriefing or immediate sequestration in the Vault.”
Seems like an easy choice. The words came to her like someone whispering down the hall.
Serenity frowned. “Seems like an easy choice. Has anyone refused?”
“Some. Thankfully, not many. We can’t afford to lose anymore.” Ryder sighed. “That settles it then. We’re in this together. You, me, all our brethren. Use the crystal.”
Serenity felt resolute in her decision. At that moment, there wasn’t a choice. It was join or live out the rest of her life in the Vault.
Serenity reached out to touch the resonating crystal.
Her fingertips stopped short.
Whispers from outside the room. Through the crystal. Down the hall.
They sounded so familiar.
But they weren’t supposed to be there…
They weren’t supposed to be there.
Serenity’s heart raced and she tried to pull her hand back, but couldn’t. Her hand was stuck. Her arm was stuck. She couldn’t move. She could barely suck in a breath.
Panic settled in. She looked up at Ryder, and he was staring at her, his expression placid as glass.
There were others behind him. They peered through the resonating crystal. Peered through Ryder.
And Serenity knew this wasn’t the first time. She’d stumbled into a cavernous ballroom, one filled wall to wall with eyes and voices. But when she peered at them, the room went silent. The collective amalgamation turned toward her.
The eyes of a mob settled on her.
There is no other way, the voices said. Ryder’s lips moved, but his voice was drowned out.
Serenity tried to pull her arm back one last time and found herself completely powerless. She tried to scream. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.
Ryder spoke. The Collective spoke. “Don’t you want to forget, Serenity? Use the crystal. Forget.”
Serenity wasn’t sure when she touched the crystal, only that she felt the cold stone beneath her fingertips. She chose to forget—
Only this time she didn’t forget the mob, the voices, the dread… She forgot herself. The Menagerie sucked it all away, leaving Serenity’s body motionless and in a cold sweat.
Serenity’s consciousness had forgotten the danger. She walked into the ballroom. Instead of the eyes of a mob, the Collective welcomed her with smiles and open arms. Faces blurred together, and though she didn’t recognize any of them, Serenity knew she’d been here before.
…She just didn’t know when.
The woman that was Serenity nodded a wordless goodbye to Ryder before the connection was severed. Then she walked through the halls of Summit station three.
She was a pane of glass, and the will of the collective flowed through her.
~ ~ ~