We looked at each and chuckled. Fuck, I was still thinking with my dick. I initiated a hormonal control I’d long ago dubbed ‘the cold shower’. My dick no longer calling the shots, I let her talk as I observed. She led me deeper into the resort. We were shortly joined by two large men in cheap suits.

“ You know Mr. Wells, you are remarkably well composed for a man I've given my attention to.”

I raised an eyebrow but said nothing. This is the part where she would explain how her powers work.

“ I find that quite interesting. Ever since I hit puberty there has rarely been a man who could tell me no.”

I did notice that the rock head from the chess match was giving me a glare I’d long come to associate with an over possessive man infatuated with the woman I was talking with.

“ I think you and I will get along fabulously”

We entered a room with two men tied to chairs beaten black and blue. The room itself was well padded and covered with plastic sheets. Every alarm bell cultivated over my career went off right then and there. This was a kill room, somewhere that was discrete, controlled, and easily cleaned. I instantly cleansed my blood of the whisky I’d had earlier and mapped the building, especially the exits. I then readied myself to kill everyone present. Only then did I come back to the present . One of the brutes handed Sophia a silenced pistol, my hyperactive use of my power informed me it was a beretta nine mil with hollow point frangible rounds. She turned and shot one of the men in the head. Again my power filled in details I wouldn’t otherwise have; Niles Smith, age thirty nine, detective with the HPD. Fuuuuuucccck, she just made me either a witness or an accomplice to the murder of a cop. Okay time for context. I guessed and wow, this is fucked. Sophia had used her powers on the young probability manipulator to off her father and take over the family. She was using the card game as a fundraising and

training session. Brute one was wearing a wire and worked for Mr. Night. Not surprising given Night’s investments in the district. The second captive man was a member of the staff who was going to flip as a state's witness. I blinked and looked at Sophia and revived a reading that she was freaking out. Bringing me here was pure impulse. She knew she had to get rid of the narc and the whistleblower. Her father was the first in a short but bloody struggle for secession and she had no one left. All of her Cappos were young or opportunistic. She looked at me and I felt my power fight hard to keep me at a hormonal baseline.

“ Congratulations partner, now are you an asset or are you a liability” she said, extending the gun. I pulled out two black faux leather gloves from my back pocket and took the gun. I sighted on the remaining captive one handed. I put two rounds to the heart and one through the teeth and out the brainstem.

“ You are very new to this my dear.” I spoke into the silence following the shots. I paralyzed the wired plant. The other too for safety.

“ This one” I said pointing to brute two. “ Is a plant. He’s wearing a wire.” I unparalyzed the stone skin. Once he got feeling back in his legs he searched his counterpart and confirmed what I had said. I looked over at the detective.

“I wish you hadn’t shot him. It’s a lot harder to explain that away in the autopsy as being natural causes.” I waved a hand and both bodies turned to black flaky dust and a wave of heat. I gave the gun back to Sophia then disintegrated my gloves as well. I picked up the paralyzed brute and secured him in one of the now open seats.

“ First lesson isn’t how you make sure no one sees you kill the cop. It’s making it so no one questions why he’s dead.” She was standing very still and looked off balance by this turn of events.

“h h how?” her shaken voice uttered the incomplete question but I guessed her meaning without needing my power.

“ I’m not some dollar store electromagnet like most who claim my power set. I control electrons, base chemistry is well within my domain.”

“oh.” She visibly centered herself and retook the initiative. I liked to see that, she’d go far if she could always respond like that.

“ Thank you for revealing this mole, but I’m now very curious where you would have gained such experience in body disposition?”

“ I work in a fairly cutthroat field.” I replied vaguely. I wasn’t untrue, though the meaning of cutthroat and the field in question I left unspecified.

I was still working out how I wanted to play this. Crime families tended to be double edged swords. On the one hand they offered unique connections and back channels ideal for the political manipulation I favored for policy reform. On the other they existed in a tangled web of power dynamics that could violently erupt. Point in case Sophia’s recent coup d'etat. Then there was the fact she would likely get drawn into the league before long by

virtue of being a leading super on the wrong side of the law.

Eh, in for a penny and all that.

“Well, would you be interested in interrogating this man for me? I’m interested in how a man of you’re experience would handle this.”

Ah, well this was tricky. I don’t need to interrogate people. Once I know what I don’t know, learning it is as easy as paying the energy cost. The only weak point is if I don’t know to guess at something in the first place.

I looked at the brute.

“ You're not a cop.” I didn’t ask. I didn’t need to but the others didn’t know that.

he gave a quiet chuckle.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“ What gave it away” His voice was surprisingly high for his build, a wonderful tenor.

“Well, you watched her ice a badge and didn’t blink.”

“Ah, yeah that would do it.” he replied.

“ Feel like telling us your employer's name?”

Sophia’s eyes sparkled, literally, as she stared at him.

“ Not particularly, no.”

Ah, I’d found a weakness with her power. It has no or very reduced effect on gay men.

“ Really? It would make a hostage exchange go quite a bit smoother.”

“What?”

“What?” they both half asked half exclaimed.

“ His testimony is worthless and I’ve already destroyed the recorder. At this point just trade him back for something useful. If it’s really a sticking point I can wipe about the last half year of memory from his head.” I said this addressing Sophia. I was going to wipe the goons mind anyway.

“I don’t like leaving loose ends.”

“ Well there’s not many ways around that.”

The stone skinned brute sighted on me with a sawed off shotgun.

I forced him to put it under his own chin.

“ I’m fairly sure that wasn’t a que for you to off me big guy.”

Sophia looked horrified.

“Dereck that is not what I meant!”

“You have to be careful talking about loose ends. The more perceptive henchies will take that as orders to start snipping. With your power and the way it works that goes double.”

“What do you mean about my power?”

“ Well, it inspires a mix of lust, devotion, and protective instincts. Let’s call it a simp ray. Great for controlling individuals with strong powers, bad for minimizing conflict within your organization.”

“ I have noticed that.” Dereck the stone skinned was still glowering at me. I decided to keep the shotgun positioned in what I called the ceiling paint special.

I gestured to Mr. Night’s mole.

“ This guy isn’t even a proper loose end. The real advantage to guys like this is finding them without letting them know. I revealed him as a means of trust building, but normally I’d first feed him bad information and see who acts on it. That would tell us for whom he works. Then I would use him to manipulate the information getting to his boss. This is counter intel 101. Do the Rossi’s not have someone for this?”

“ The family recently underwent a period of downsizing. Much of our older echelons have left us for greener pastures.”

Hehe, yeah burying that many bodies does add nitrogen to the soil.

“Regardless, this man is now more valuable to you as a hostage. Well, given he tells us who his boss is and that boss is the type to buy back a hostage. Depending on the circumstances you may even use it to arrange more formal business connections.”

After that I looked at our captive.

“uuuuhhhh, I work for Mr. Night. I’d like to think he’d buy me back.”

“Oh, that’s easy.” I said, pulling out my phone. I selected the contact ‘N man’

and hit call.

“Hello, Mr. Wells I can’t say I was expecting a call from you.”

“ Good evening Mr.Night, I hope I didn’t find you too busy. I find myself playing as a meditator tonight. Lady Sophia Rossi has discovered one of your people amidst her staff and has secured him. I happened to be on hand when this happened and suggested a hostage exchange or buy back.”

“hhhmmm” his sonorous baritone came over the phone. “ I presume this call is to establish a meeting time?”

“It is. I propose the use of the league facilities in one weeks time. specifics to follow later.”

“ I was unaware the Lady was a member.” “She’s not yet. But I can pull a favor and get her membership in time.”

“ This is acceptable, a meeting presumably to return an agent is agreeable enough. I suppose you’ll be offering Ms. Rossi the use of that handy little trick you have?”

He was referring to the memory wipe. I’d needed to establish a line of contact with Mr. Night as Odysseus Wells so I had fulfilled an Oddball favor as a person paying off an IOU.

“I intended to leave the offer on the table for the Lady.”

“ Very well, I look forward to further correspondence. Good night Mr. wells.”

“Good night Mr.Night.”

I hung up and looked at Sophia.

“ I hope that wasn’t too presumptuous. I figured leaning on a connection I had would be more efficient at getting the in road built.”

“ Why do you have Mr. Night’s number?”

“ Because being able to erase people’s memories without being able to read those same memories is very valuable to an organization like Mr.Nights.”

“ That makes sense. You said you’d be inclined to offer me the same?”

“ I think given how this afternoon has gone I’d be willing to offer a freebie. Also you really do want league membership. If you don’t, a hit team will be here in a few days to clean you and this whole mess up.”

“ Oh that’s rather bad. How will membership affect that?”

“The league has bylaws about hostage negotiations. Had we not offered to trade him back then that’s what would happen regardless. Since we did, this falls under a very specific protocol designed to minimize financial and collateral risk. The meeting location is to make sure that protocol is observed.”

Mr. Night absolutely would break that protocol if he thought he could get away with it.

“ Very well. You will mediate this negotiation?”

“ That would be unwise. Though the same contact I'm going to cash a favor in with to get you membership should serve nicely. “

“Why not you?”

“ Because by tradition the mediator needs to be near perfectly neutral and capable of killing everyone present.”

“Ah”

“ The role isn’t an easy one to fill when one of the twelve is involved. Normally only Zeus or Oddball are fit for it. It’s why conflicts and negotiations between members of the twelve are addressed in front of all twelve then minutes are released to the league at large.”

“ How does one join the twelve?”

“ You just have to sit at the table.”

“That’s it?”

“ Well you have to survive getting into the seat.”

“There it is. Do the chairs kill the unworthy or something?”

“No, but the people already in them tend to do so. There's a rumor that the last guy who tried is now a bioprocessor tasked with filtering Dr. Barth’s email for spam. “

“Right, that makes more sense now that I think about it” Her body language had relaxed significantly. She was feeling more in control of the situation than she had been.

“ Well Mr. Wells it seems like our evening is coming to a close.” I nodded. One way or the other I’d stepped in it. I quickly wiped the captive of his memory.

Don’t know how it works, but that’s the case with much of my power. The odds that I guess the exact mechanics of any given move my power makes is almost the same cost as the working i’m trying to analyze. So it’s better to just not know most of the time.

I extended my arm and Sophia took it. Without a firm destination in mind I started walking towards my room. To my surprise she never broke off and when we got to my suite simply raised an eyebrow.

“ Going to invite a lady in for a drink?”