A cocktail of anxiety and fear had me arriving early, but it turned out I wasn’t the only one.

Anomaly was perched on the ledge of the building, staring at the meatworks building two blocks away. Alice had chosen this office building in particular because it had good sightlines for me to take advantage of. I had an unobstructed view of the building's windows. I’d be able to shoot through and thin the ranks so that the assault force has an easier time.

Assuming I can hit my targets…

Plus, with some last-minute additions to my gear, I was able to paint targets through walls and zero in on heat signatures. In Alice’s own words, I’d be much more useful up here than down there.

Anomaly’s smooth gelatinous head curled around and stared at me. I gave him a cautious wave as I approached and he hopped down off the ledge, swiftly reverting to his human form.

“You’re early,” He said. I didn’t miss the nervous edge to his voice. “Care to fill me in on how this is going to go down?”

“Alice is meeting with Springsong to finalize the plan. She’ll be here within half an hour,” I said, moving toward the ledge. “I’m here to get set up and familiarize myself with the place.”

I moved past Anomaly and released the magnetic lock on my sniper rifle. I pulled it off my back and set it up on the ledge. He whistled, his eyes trailing up and down the weapon in my hands.

“That looks like it could put down a dinosaur,” Anomaly commented, walking up to my side. “Are you sure you want to use that thing? I know we’re dealing with Grim here but that seems like overkill.”

“I have tranquilizer rounds and they don’t fly as fast as regular rounds. I’m not going to be killing anyone,” I reassured him. There was a reason I had done my field testing on birds. I might not be the smartest tool in the shed but I would be clinically brain-dead to test prototypes on real people. “Besides, nothing is overkill when it comes to Grim. ”

“You’ve fought him before?”

“No. I respect the reputation he has. I don’t want to take any chances.”

I flicked the new thermal X-ray function on my scope and watched as dozens of humanoid shapes lit up in bright red through the walls. I counted thirty-six men, all armed with guns. Some were sitting down chatting while others were making rounds. I felt intimidated by the sheer number of thugs inside. They were clearly guarding something important.

I continued to sweep the building and couldn’t find any sign of Grim. However, I did find Nemesis and Gold Rush occupying a room by themselves. It appeared as though they were talking. What the topic of their discussion was, I had no idea. I had yet to implement a function that would allow me to listen from a distance.

“This is definitely the place. They have a small army in there,” I said, pulling away from the scope. “But I couldn’t find Grim. Either my tech can’t pick him up or he’s hiding really well.”

“He might not even be there,” Anomaly pointed out. “Sounds like this place is pretty well guarded, even without him around.”

“You might be right,” I peered back into the scope and continued to survey the building.

Curiosity got the better of me as I zoomed out and began observing the surrounding buildings. What if Grim was in another building nearby? It would allow him to respond if someone assaulted the meatworks while also making it harder to figure out his location.

Sure enough, I picked up some heat signatures hovering around some windows. After a few minutes of inspection, I could see that there were guys stationed with a line of sight on every entrance. Nobody was going to get close to this building without the Cains knowing about it.

“We got guys in some of the second floor windows in the buildings along the streets,” I said. “Shit, these guys are stacked. Where the hell did they get that kind of weaponry?”

“That Masquerade guy maybe? Alice did say he’s an arms dealer.”

I felt the growing pit in my stomach twist as I returned my gaze back to the meatworks. Could that mean all the guns were Mechatech? That wouldn’t bode well for our assault. There was no telling what kind of effects they’d have. Physical projectiles didn’t have much effect against Alice when she was using Red and Pink could easily dodge mundane guns but I wasn’t sure if I could confidently say the same for Mechatech.

That being said, the technology might be powerful but it really depended on who was wielding them. Pink could take advantage of their inferior reaction time but she’d be busy dealing with either Gold Rush or Nemesis.

I found Alice’s number in my helmet’s interface and dialed it. She answered instantly.

“What’s up?”

“Are you aware that the Cains have Mechatech weapons?” I asked, sweeping the area again. “Every single one is armed to the teeth.”

I heard her hum through the speaker. “Do you know for sure if the stuff they’re carrying is Mechatech? I knew they’d have weapons, that goes without saying. I must’ve forgotten to mention that they’d be properly geared with someone like Masquerade backing them.”

I checked again. “Some of the weapons are coming up on my thermals. Others are blank. Mixture of Mechatech and mundane?”

“Yeah, that’s what Gold thinks. When the attack starts, prioritize the guys equipped with Mechatech. Anomaly and I should be able to deal with the others fairly easily,” Alice said. I hummed in agreement. “Any news on Grim? Springsong and I are almost done over here. Hopefully, he falls for the bait.”

“He’s not here,” I replied. “At least, not that I can pick up. I can see Gold Rush and Nemesis here but Grim is missing.”

“Hmm… his power might be interfering with your targeting modules. Wouldn’t be the first weird interaction he’s had with Mechatech. He did give Ajax trouble,” Alice replied without missing a beat. She sounded unfazed by my news. If Grim wasn’t here, then she was still confident he’d fall for the bait and emerge from wherever he was hiding. It would prevent him from arriving as a backup once our attack started.

“Another thing,” I said, sweeping the building again. “I’m not seeing any hostages. No one’s tied up, or anything like that. Maybe they’re being kept somewhere I can’t scan? What could block thermal and X-ray imaging?”

“Lead and very thick concrete. You really can’t see them from your vantage point?”

“No, and as funny as it sounds, I don’t think the Cains have their hostages in lead suits. Any other ideas?”

“If you can’t see them, then they’re probably being kept underground. You won’t be able to scan them if they are. Too much stuff in the way.”

“Underground?” One of my brows raised. “The blueprints we got for this place didn’t show a basement.”

“It was also built over thirty years ago when the Architect built Bayside. Just because one didn’t exist then, doesn’t mean there isn’t one now. The Cains might have constructed one in secret,” Alice paused and I could hear the concern in the way she inhaled. “Upgrade, I really don’t like what this is all pointing to.”

I grimaced. “Neither do I.”

If what she said was true, it meant there was something beneath this building that the Cains wanted to keep away from prying eyes. Whatever that was, it couldn’t be good.

“I’m on my way over now. I’ll be there in five.”

“There’s guys watching the streets. Be careful.”

“Got it.”

Alice hung up and I stepped away from my sniper to clear my head. Anomaly was quiet, watching the building anxiously. I couldn’t imagine how worried he was. If it were anyone close to me down there, I’d be storming the building and taking no prisoners.

“This is so fucked up,” Anomaly shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do if Mia’s dead.”

“You two are pretty close then?”

Anomaly shrugged. “Something like that. She left town when I was younger and we only just met back up last week by happenstance. It was at that house party I told you guys about. I did something stupid and walked out. If I hadn’t left… I might’ve been able to stop her from being taken.”

He felt guilty and wanted to do something about it. That much was clear.

“That’s rough. At the risk of sounding cheesy, it wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known,” I said, trying to ease the burden that was weighing him down.

“Yeah, something-something hindsight is a bitch,” Anomaly drawled. “I get it. The best I can do now is just commit to saving her, right?”

I nodded. “That’s why we're here.”

Anomaly chuckled lightly. “Thanks for helping, by the way. I was skeptical about Alice, she gives me weird vibes. Pretty much every Mentalist I’ve come across has tried to psychoanalyze me and it kinda pisses me off. They just rub me the wrong way, you know?”

I could sympathize. Gold certainly had that effect when Alice brought her out.

“I like to think Alice means well. It’s hard to tell with Gold sometimes but I try not to think about it.”

Anomaly gave me a strange look. “Gold?”

I waved him off. “I’ll explain later. There’s a bit more to it, but she gives names to her different powers.”

“Weird, but okay,” he nodded slowly. “How’d you two meet? Are you guys like… dating or something?”

“No. It was similar to you, actually. She sent me a bunch of messages online when she discovered I was having a hard time,” I explained. “Alice helped me out of a bind and I agreed to work with her. That’s pretty much the long and short of it. She stuck her neck out to help me when I really needed it.”

“Really?” Anomaly sounded surprised. “She doesn’t strike me as the type.”

“She’s not so bad once you get to know her,” I chuckled. “Well, I suppose I should say all of her.”

“Do I even want to ask?” I detected amusement in Anomaly’s tone. “That sounds exhausting.”

All of Alice’s personalities flashed through my head at once.

“It’s certainly something.”

A gust of wind sounded from behind me and I turned to find Pink standing there with a wide grin, her body crackling with magenta electricity.

“Hiya boys! Miss me?”

“Like cancer.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Pink gaped at me. “No more huggies and kisses for YOU!”

“Please switch out, I need to talk to Alice.”

Pink scowled before her head twitched, shifting to Blue. “She’s going to get you back for that.”

“Looking forward to it,” I dismissed easily. “Are we ready? What’s the plan looking like?”

We walked to the edge of the roof and peered over at our target. It was still quiet so it looked like our plans were still going ahead. The only question remaining was if Grim was really there at all. If our distraction worked, he’d emerge from his hiding place and move away from this area, giving us enough time to get in, get Mia, and get out. Hopefully, we’d be able to save the other captives as well.

“Distraction’s set. Now we just have to wait for the Queen’s Court to kick the hornet’s nest.”

“You still haven’t told us what exactly this distraction is,” Anomaly asked. “How do we even know Grim will fall for it?”

“Grim is very organized and meticulous. If he wasn’t, he would have been dealt with years ago,” Alice explained. “Someone like that keeps their most precious treasures close to their chest. So, if you really wanted to piss them off and get their attention, you’d have to take from the source.”

“I don’t get it,” Anomaly said before I had the chance to reply. “What did you do?”

“If you were Grim, where do you think the safest place in the city would be?”

Anomaly’s features twisted a little as he tried to think. Slowly, he turned and motioned to the giant citadel that stood in the middle of the city.

“The… ECU Headquarters?”

I gave him a bemused look. “Seriously?”

“I dunno. It looks pretty secure to me.”

Alice pinched the bridge of her nose. “The distraction at his private residence, Anomaly.”

I felt a cold chill rush down my spine. “You guys set a trap at his house? How did you even figure out where he lived?”

“I didn’t,” Alice replied. “Gaea gave the information to Springsong and she passed it along to me to formulate the plan.”

A chilling realization struck me.

“You… this distraction wouldn’t happen to involve his family, would it?”

I needed to ask. Something about targeting someone’s family – even if they were as disgusting and monstrous as Grim – felt wrong. It went far beyond just attacking their gang and kicking down the things they had built.

Alice turned to me and laughed.

“You really think someone like Grim has a family?”

I shifted uncomfortably.

“He doesn’t have one?”

“Not everyone does, Upgrade,” Alice said. “You’re one of the more fortunate ones. Me? I had to leave mine behind. Others, well, they’re the ones that get left behind.”

I didn’t miss the way Anomaly flinched.

“You have the ones that break up. Things happen and going back to normal just isn’t possible. I’ve seen it before, it’s rough, but that’s been a fact of life even before the second moon popped up and started handing out superpowers,” Alice continued. She hopped onto the ledge and sat down, swinging her legs back and forth over a lethal drop. “Then you have those like Grim, the ones that just lose it.”

“Lose it?” Anomaly beat me to the punch. “What does that mean?”

Her smile slowly melted away.

Her phone started ringing. However, instead of answering, she declined the call. “Shape up. Show’s about to start.”

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. Maybe some kind of earth-shattering explosion or a barrage of gunshots. Something dramatic to kick off what to me felt like the heist of a lifetime. Instead, there was none of that. We just stood and waited in the cool midnight June breeze. Alice sat, watching the meatworks with a keen eye and when nothing happened, I strolled forward to my sniper rifle to check what was going on inside.

The atmosphere inside had changed. Everyone was still, exchanging glances as Nemesis addressed them in the main lobby. Something had happened that had all of them spooked. Even the guys camped out in the buildings surrounding the meatworks were more alert.

“Whatever you did has got them all tense. Nemesis is giving a speech of some kind.”

Alice nodded and turned to Anomaly. “Can you listen in?”

His nose wrinkled and he scoffed, muttering something about Mentalists under his breath before he took a step forward toward the ledge and transformed.

“He can hear what they’re saying from here?”

“Hear is the wrong word,” Alice said. Anomaly bristled – which made his alien-like body vibrate. “I’m not entirely certain on the specifics but Gold thinks it's all based on visual input.”

“So… he hears by seeing? How does that make any sense?”

I knew I was unearthing a rabbit hole that many people tended to fall down. I already knew there wasn’t going to be any satisfying answer.

How does any power make sense?

“He doesn’t hear things. He sees the sound waves and deciphers them.”

Anomaly’s big head coiled around and glared at her. She just smiled back.

“Don’t be mad. I’m right, aren’t I?” Alice giggled. Her head abruptly twitched. “Golly gee! Goldie’s been on a roll— ah—!” She twitched again. “Damn it, Pink…”

His head coiled back and resumed staring at our assault target. I continued to monitor the activity inside the meatworks through my scope when the large sliding doors to the building opened and a trail of black smoke poured into the sky. I tried to follow it with my sniper but I couldn’t get a bead on it. It was completely invisible to my current level of tech.

“Aaaaaand there he goes. I guess he was here,” Alice mused aloud. She took out her phone and fired off a quick message before slipping it back into one of her boots. “Scary bastard, isn’t he? You know he’s one of the few Evohumans to ever exist to actually have several names all across the world? In China, they call him The Living Shadow. His brief stint in India landed him the moniker of Yama, their God of Death. When he went to America, they called him the Grim Reaper and I guess that’s the one that just stuck.”

We watched as his shadow surged into the sky, passing over a building. There was a billboard that was unfortunate enough to get in his way and the shadow just… went right through it with no resistance. It left a hole – but that wasn’t the concerning part. There was no force behind it. The giant sign didn’t even shake.

“Nice history lesson,” I quipped, trying to ease my nerves.

“Well, you know what they say, ‘the more you know’,” Alice said. “If he comes back, we drop whatever we’re doing and run because if his shadow touches you. It’s all over.”

I swallowed my fear.

“Noted.”

Alice fitted an earpiece to her head and I immediately joined the network.

“Alright, you boys know the plan. Upgrade, start picking them off, that’ll send them into a frenzy. Anomaly, you take advantage of that. Once Nemesis and Gold Rush realize what’s going on, I’ll jump in and start cracking some skulls. Simple and effective. Hard and fast.”

I nodded. “Got it.”

Anomaly made a noise that I could only describe as if someone rang a wind chime in a long, empty tunnel. It was otherworldly, unsettling, and downright strange.

“Alright. Let’s go save ourselves a princess.”

Alice stood up and promptly stepped off the side of the building. Anomaly coiled and sprang into the air, covering a jaw-dropping amount of distance in a single leap. I stared into the night, promising that one day, I’d install some cool functions into my suit that let me do stuff like that. Definitely a jetpack of some kind. Maybe a grappling hook as well for good measure.

I suddenly felt like kicking myself.

Shit, a grapple would be really useful right now. I’m going to have to take the stairs down.

I started lining up my targets that were outside the building. There were six guys, all watching from the windows. Alice was too fast to see as Pink and I doubted they would spot Anomaly jumping from rooftop to rooftop considering how dark it was. Regardless, if we were going to get Mia out, we were going to need a clean getaway, and that meant dealing with these guys.

Alright, here goes nothing. Hopefully, I don’t take any heads off with this.

I loaded the tranquilizers and lined up my first target. I took a moment to adjust for distance and wind according to my scope’s readout. When I was all lined up, I tried to pull the trigger. Hesitation stopped me dead in my tracks. My hands shook and I seized up.

What if this kills him?

These guys were thugs, gangsters, and complete scum. This should be easy!

Shit. Shit! Come on, Max. Don’t choke now!

I had done this before.

I had walked into that building with Alice and burned these guys before. But that had been with a non-lethal setting and adrenaline had been pumping through my system. Alice had led the charge. I didn’t have time to think. Up here, I had all the time in the world to consider my actions. There was no telling if the tranquilizer would even work. Despite my testing and Alice’s reassurances, I could still hit these guys with enough force to put them in the grave, regardless of what kind of ammunition I was using.

Fuck… fuck!

Alice’s voice crackled through the speaker in my helmet. “Upgrade, what’s the hold up? We’re in position.”

“I’m just—”

“Deep breath. In and out. You can do this.”

She was right.

I could do this.

I refocused, then pulled the trigger.

With a sound no louder than someone snapping their fingers, my first target was knocked clean off his feet. The window in front of him cracked as the tranquilizer punched a clean, circular hole through. The guy hit the ground and tried to roll onto his side. In seconds, he stopped moving and I held my breath.

I zoomed in to get a better look.

Please don’t be dead.

His chest was steadily rising and falling.

Thank God.

One by one, I began dropping the guys stationed to watch over the streets, making sure to aim for the shoulders or their abdomen. I didn’t want to hit anywhere close to their head or their hearts, just in case I really did kill them. Once I had cleared them all out, I did one more sweep to make sure that they were all down.

“Streets are clear,” I radioed in, switching out my empty magazine. I had two more in the small pouch strapped to my leg, each containing six shots. Twelve more tranquilizers and more than thirty guys. I should have brought more ammo. “Get ready. I don’t have enough to take them all out, but the confusion should give you guys the window you need.”

Alice cackled through the receiver. “Can’t wait. Light ‘em Uppies! Hah, get it!?”

She had already switched back to Pink, it seemed.

I lined up my first target through one of the windows and fired. This window didn’t hold up nearly as well as the others. It was old and weathered. It shattered completely, sending the whole building into a frenzy. The guy I hit slumped and crashed into the floor in a pile of limbs.

There was shouting. Everyone was on alert.

Then Anomaly poured through the shattered window, quite literally flooding the place. I could hear the mixture of gunfire from regular and Mechatech weapons. I joined in the chaos, dropping one guy at a time. It felt disgusting how easily these guys went down, but I kept on shooting.

It was after the sixth shot that the thugs realized Anomaly was not their only threat. They began to take cover – or well, I should say attempted, to take cover. Anomaly’s liquid form would stretch out the moment they tried and send them to the floor. It was only when Nemesis and Gold Rush jumped into the fray, that Pink blitzed in and sent the armored supervillain flying.

Gold Rush was still injured, but that didn’t seem to impact her speed in the slightest when she effortlessly dodged Pink’s jabs with the stun sticks I made for her.

It was total chaos.

I played my part and focused on picking off the rest of the goons.

Anomaly had significantly trimmed their numbers for me but had since turned his attention to combat Gold Rush.

Pink, on the other hand, had quickly switched focus and started fighting Nemesis. The villain had switched out the spear I had rendered useless for a sword and shield. Needless to say, it wasn’t very effective against Pink’s superior speed. Even with his polarity, he couldn’t lock her down and he had no defense against her weapons. Not exactly a good match-up for him.

As I dropped the final thug, I noticed a glint of light in my helmet. I pulled away from my sniper to see a bright light come around the corner and enter the street where all the action was taking place. I felt cold dread in my stomach.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

“Uh, problem,” I radioed over. “Big problem.”

“Uppies, I’m a little busy at the– Ahh! – moment!”

“Yeah, well,” I swallowed as I zeroed my scope in on the newcomers. “The Rookies are here.”

“Wait, all of them!?”

“No, just Ionizer, Prosperity and…” I bit my lip as my eyes landed on one of the last people I wanted to see right now. “...Comet.”