Sam’s unstable mood left the room’s atmosphere feeling heavy. It was clear that Liam and Mia were put off by the false cheeriness, and I knew Lucy would see right through it.
We caught Lucy up on what we had been through since the formation of Madhouse, and from the looks of it, she was a good fit with the team. Still, I couldn’t ignore the tension in the room. I needed Lucy to feel she was welcome here and could rely on us, so I was annoyed Sam was obviously feigning cordiality.
“Can’t say I envy your position,” Sam sipped her room-temperature, unflavored sparkling water. “Pandora is nasty business. I had a few run-ins with them when I was still solo. They’ve given me all sorts of recruitment pitches, and I think you can imagine how those went,” she swirled her drink, staring at it like she was trying to find the meaning of life at the bottom of the glass. “Every offer came with strings attached, but thankfully I was powerful enough to refuse.”
“If you’re strong enough, the rules don’t apply,” Lucy’s dry tone indicated how much she didn’t like that reality. “I suppose that goes for anything really, powers or not.”
“Which you don’t have,” Sam’s lips thinned. “Bummer.”
I frowned at Sam’s jeer. I had hoped she would be more understanding.
“Not all of us are lucky enough to pick up the ‘get out of jail free card’... I’ve been getting by as best I can.” Lucy shrugged. “Though, I do wonder if going through an Awakening is ‘lucky’ based on what you inevitably get dragged into,” she shot a pitiful look between me and Mia. Lucy had made fast friends with Mia while I was in my workshop. “I can’t decide which is worse.”
I felt like I could answer. Given what I know now, I would rather have powers than be powerless.
“Welcome to life. You’re either stepped on, or you're forced to do the stepping. Some are luckier than others, and some draw the short straw in all regards. None of it’s fair, but we all gotta roll with the punches,” Sam raised her glass. “Here’s to bad decisions, the only ones we’re able to make.”
“That’s…” Mia scowled. “That’s not true. You can make good decisions, they’re just not always obviously good,” Sam shot her a flat look, causing her stare back defiantly. “Okay, so what if I’m an optimist? Maybe I would prefer to look for a silver lining instead of accepting the shit hand I’ve been dealt. In case you’ve forgotten, I was kidnapped and my powers were forced on me.”
The room fell silent for a moment.
“Okay, some of us might have had it a bit easier overall, but none of us chose to have powers. Evidently it's baked right into our genetics,” Sam nabbed a slice of pizza and took a bite. “Dere’s sumfing in us zat maksh us svitch on,” she paused to swallow. “Modern science can’t detect what it is, but some Biokinetics can do weird things,” she took a second bite. “Wike Spifer, for examble.”
“Splicer?” I asked, brow raised.
“That,” Sam pointed at me, covering her mouth. “Heze weirb. He might mow more abou’ thish stuff.”
I dropped my head and spoke into my hands.
“Swallow, please…”
Sam grinned, her mouth full of chewed-up pizza.
“Fhuk off.”
“Y’know, I’ve always wondered about that,” Liam chimed in. “Do you know anything about how Awakenings work? You can do your Mentalist thing and figure it out, right?”
Before Sam could reply, Lucy beat her to it.
“If only it were that easy. Modern science being unable to find a solution is why The Pandora Initiative’s rhetoric works so well. When there are no solid answers, people rely on faith to answer questions we can’t,” Lucy explained. “It is true that powers can be hereditary, though they’re never exactly one to one. They end up being variants and manifest in different ways.”
“Well said!” Sam exclaimed with a smile. “It’s partly why Pandora wanted me so badly. I’m an Aspect, so any kids I eventually pop out could get all sorts of different flavors. Bonus points if my baby daddy is also a Super, because then there's a certainty of Awakening, and our powers would mix to create a brand new variant.”
Liam’s eyes widened.
“Wait, that’s how that works? If both parents are Supers, it's just guaranteed?”
Sam shrugged while Lucy’s gaze turned distant.
“It’s complicated. There are glaring gaps in the science behind it,” Lucy explained. “If neither parent is an evohuman, then there’s little chance their offspring will Awaken, but it’s not impossible. Just one evohuman parent can dramatically increase the odds. If both parents are evohumans, it’s basically a given – in fact as far as we know it’s guaranteed. It has always bothered me because on the surface it sounds like powers work mostly on a standard genetic basis as if there should be some obvious mutation, or something we can see within our DNA but… there just isn’t. It seems as if it just… happens.”
“So like dominant and recessive genes? Like how some people have blue eyes or blonde hair?” Mia asked, perplexed. “You’d think if powers worked like—”
“But they don’t,” Sam cut her off. “There are genetic components involved, but whatever they are, they’re undetectable by modern science – allegedly.”
I picked up what Sam was insinuating.
“You think the secrets behind our powers have already been discovered and are actively being suppressed?”
“I don’t just think. Governments have been keeping secrets for years, why would this be any different? If someone like Splicer is capable of messing around with them, then it would only make sense that there is a consistent logic behind it,” Sam explained. “It’s just being kept a secret.”
“I suppose it's a good thing we still have easy access to him. We could ask him how they work,” I said.
Sam was quick to shoot that thought down.
“I doubt he’d even be able to give answers. His power would allow him to interface with them much like how you’re able to do what you do with your powers,” Sam pointed out. “Are you able to explain what exactly you’re doing to make anything you touch better?”
I pursed my lips, trying to come up with an answer. Nothing came to mind.
Sam had me there.
“Wait, wait… hold on a second. Can we back up a bit?” Liam asked, looking beyond confused. “If both parents are Supers, then their kid just gets powers for free? They don’t even have to go through an Awakening?”
“Er… they kinda do?” Lucy shrugged. “They’re not born with powers, but they sorta seem to adapt to their powers easier when they do get them.”
“Funnily enough, they tend to be Morphers,” Sam added, giving Liam a knowing look. “Your sister was Spectre, and you have powers also. How much do you know about your parents, other than the fact that they worked for Cyberspace?”
Liam’s expression turned complicated, and his gaze briefly caught Mia’s.
“I didn’t really know them,” he paused and scratched his head in thought. “I didn’t know about any of this, so it never occurred to me to ask.”
“I never met them when Natasha was tutoring me,” Mia added, looking just as thoughtful. “I remember asking about them when she told me she was responsible for looking after Liam. She just told me they passed away and you were living off the inheritance they left you.”
“What was the age gap?” I asked, suddenly intrigued about Liam’s unspoken history.
“Nine years,” Liam said. “Disappeared six years ago. I was nine.”
“That would’ve made her eighteen. That’s not old enough to be a legal guardian here,” I replied. “Francis said he was Spectre’s handler, so it only stands to reason Cyberspace kept the government from stepping in and fostering you both. It’s starting to look like they’ve been involved with your family for a long time.”
“We could ask,” Lucy suggested. “It would clear up the confusion.”
I turned to stare at the TV, anticipating Cyberspace jumping into the conversation. Unfortunately, I was left disappointed. I could never be sure if they were listening, but in this case, it seemed they were preoccupied with other things. I was then reminded of the conversation Liam and I had with Cyberspace not that long ago, and the answers became clear.
“There’s no need. Cyberspace has mentioned they were second-gen evohumans, which means at least one of their parents was a Super,” I explained.
Liam gave me a surprised look, but then realization struck him.
“Oh yeah, they did say that. I didn’t really know what that meant at the time.”
“Well, now you do,” I replied. “I suppose the technicalities don’t matter at this point. Maybe you were always going to get powers, maybe you weren’t. Is there really any point focusing on it? You both Awakened.”
“It could matter. I, for one, love discussing technicalities,” Sam interjected. “Like Lucy just said, second-gens with two evohuman parents don’t seem to experience Awakenings as intensely as the rest of us. It’s a strange phenomenon, and it's said that each following generation’s Awakenings get easier and easier. Third-gens can just wake up one day and discover they’ve got powers, while it’s rumored that fourth-gens are born with them. That last one is just a rumor though, so take that with a grain of salt. Even Gold can’t make a concrete deduction.”
My thoughts were drawn back to my father as something wasn’t sitting quite right. Mom had said he was a Biokinetic, but according to what Sam and Lucy were saying, powers passed down from parents tended to end up as a variation. My power couldn’t even interact with biological organisms, so how could mine be a variation?
How wildly could powers mutate through offspring?
“Not quite,” Lucy said. “Pandora has a few fourth-gens and only one of them was born with powers. My father talks about him sometimes, and he lives in Spain’s Pandora branch. They’re calling him Cataclysm, and he’s three-years-old.”
“Huh, so Pandora has up and coming fourth-gens? That’s mildly concerning for the rest of the world,” Sam commented lightly. “Are there any here in New Elpis that we should be concerned about?”
“Not that I know of, but Liberation is a second-gen Aspect, in case any of you were wondering,” Lucy said.
Sam’s smile widened a little.
“We knew that he was an Aspect, but not that he was a second-gen,” Sam mused, looking like she was about to revise every plan she had devised to deal with Pandora. “It doesn’t change much, but it is nice to know. It gives me a better estimation of how powerful he is. Even with Grim and The ECU breathing down his neck, I always got the impression he wasn’t playing his full hand. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about the guy that you would be willing to share?”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Lucy’s expression twisted like she was sucking on a lemon.
“Uhhh… Revealing anything about him is enough to get me killed.”
“You being here of your own volition is more than enough, so you crossed that line ages ago. Best you help us out so we can do our part in keeping you alive,” Sam replied. “I’ve always figured if push came to shove, I could maybe take him down – assuming I was quick enough. He’s definitely got enhancements, so I can’t just knock his head off with Red.”
“Liberation is…” Lucy began, hesitantly. “He’s capable of extending a sort of ‘repulsion zone.’ It’s like a big shield, sort of like Abby with her bubble… Except his bubble can be much larger and it's not telekinetic,” she explained, while we all nodded along. Liam looked as if he was agreeing just to fit in. “He’s got his enhancement power which makes him strong enough to lift and throw buses. Some people within Pandora’s circles believe he’s capable of picking up cargo ships with his bare hands, but that’s total bullshit.”
“Yep, there’s no one with enhancement powers capable of that.” Sam agreed.
“No one?” Mia asked. “I thought there would be at least someone that could.”
“Nope!” Sam replied, popping the ‘p.’ “We’re talking about raw physical strength though. There was a Super in the nineties who managed to tip over a smallish apartment complex. I think they went by the name ‘Unstoppable.’ Not entirely fitting, given what happened to him.”
Against my better judgment, I felt compelled to ask.
“What happened?”
“He was stopped.”
“You mean he died, right?” Liam asked. “I feel like these stories always end with ‘and then they died.’”
“Uh, no actually. The ECU got him,” Sam explained. “He’s still alive. Imprisoned somewhere I bet.”
“Oh,” Mia looked disappointed. “He was a villain?”
“No, he was a store clerk,” Sam snarked, rolling her eyes. “Of course he was a villain. You don’t exactly hear about heroes tipping over apartment complexes, do you?”
Mia’s nose wrinkled.
Lucy cleared her throat, drawing attention back to herself and feeling more confident.
“Anyway… Liberation’s also capable of creating a certain material that he used to make his armor, sword, and shield. I don’t know what its name is, but I can tell you it’s capable of resisting most elements. He’s been hit with all sorts of attacks and I can’t name a time anything’s actually breached his armor, let alone his repulsion zone.”
“That’s all pretty standard stuff. Outside of the second-gen thing, I pretty much figured all that out myself,” Sam said. “Is there anything that The ECU wouldn’t know about? Because I suspect there is, and it’s gotta be one of his biggest trump cards. I rarely use my more esoteric powers.”
Sam made it sound impressive, but I knew why. Purple was a slouch and couldn’t exactly be trusted in a pinch, while Orange was far too tunnel-visioned to be used outside of very specific circumstances. Pink and Gold were her most frequently used, and Red was her last resort. If I were counting Blue – regular Sam – then I suppose her danger sense was her default.
“There is one more power,” Lucy shifted uncomfortably, and I saw Sam’s head tilt. “My father claims it's one of the reason’s he was promoted to the leader of the New Elpis branch. It’s not a flashy power either, and he doesn’t feel the need to show it off because Mentalists are bound to pick up on it,” she glanced at Sam. “Like you.”
“This ought to be good,” Sam leaned forward, her curiosity burning. “It must be some kind of ace in the hole, a power that can be used to really turn the tables on whoever he’s facing,” her fingernails drummed against the side of her glass as Gold worked away in her head. “No… really? Holy shit, you have to be joking.”
Lucy leaned away, scowling.
“It’s so gross that you’re capable of doing that.”
Liam snorted.
“Tell me about it.”
“It has something to do with powers,” Sam said, ignoring Lucy’s blatant discomfort. “Power amplifier—? Wait, no. Nullifier?”
“Touch-based power nullification,” Lucy said before Sam could finish reading her like a book. “At least that’s how my dad explained it to me. He doesn’t get a chance to use it all that often, but it makes him a force to be reckoned with. The whole reason he even came to Bayside in the first place was to deal with Grim, otherwise he would be up in Ashton trying to dismantle The Nine Circles. Liberation was the one person Pandora believed to be able to kill Grim.”
“Right…” I said, rolling my eyes. “That would mean getting close enough to touch the guy before he could transform into his floating murder cloud. At that point, why even disable his power? Just snap his neck or blow his head off,” I shrugged at the shocked look Lucy gave me. “Unless they expected him to use that power on the shadow itself? That’s a life or death gamble.”
“A gamble we made instead,” Liam said. “It might’ve paid off, but still…”
“That was the idea,” Lucy said. “But I guess Liberation was never in the position to try, or maybe Grim decided to keep his distance. Dad did speculate it was why neither side truly moved against each other until Grim pulled that stunt at one of Pandora’s gatherings,” she sighed before flicking me another flat stare. “And before someone burned my house down.”
Mia hummed.
“I wonder who that could be?”
I suddenly found myself at the center of attention. I crossed my arms and returned Lucy’s stare with one of my own.
“In my defense, Abby was the one to break in. I just followed her – and the house wouldn’t have burned down if we weren’t ambushed.”
“It’s all so devious isn’t it?” Sam giggled. “The Cains are dismantled, Pandora look like warmongers, and The ECU are made to look like bumbling fools with how they were reduced to playing damage control. Every faction loses, some more than others… everyone except two.”
A chill crawled up my spine.
“The Queen’s Court, and us – Cyberspace by extension.”
Sam sipped the last of her sparkling water.
“Funny how that played out.”
It left a bitter taste in my mouth, the possibility that Cyberspace and Gaea had engineered the whole conflict to play out exactly how they wanted. It left me feeling like a pawn in a game I didn’t even know I was playing. If I was feeling this way, I couldn’t imagine how that made Sam feel. It was clear that Cyberspace had been watching me from the beginning, but how much had they actually interfered to control us? How many of our actions were our own and not manipulations?
From the looks of it, Liam and Mia didn’t like what it all implied either. Lucy was the only one left out, but as each second passed, she seemed to understand what kind of position we were all in. I could tell she would be sympathetic, having dealt with Pandora’s discriminatory practices all her life. Feeling like you had no agency in what decisions you made must be familiar with her.
“Oh!” Mia straightened up suddenly.
We all turned to stare at her as her attention flicked between me and Sam, snapping her fingers constantly like she was trying to remember something important.
“What’s wrong?” Lucy asked, confused.
Mia looked like she was scraping at her brain to find the right words.
“Guy! Guy! What’s his name? Weird guy, uh, talks funny! Has some kind of grudge against Upgrade?”
Someone with a grudge against me? Multiple people came to mind, most notably Starburst and Basilisk. Liam, Mia, and I dealt with quite a few independent Supers that took to the streets after The Cains downfall, and none of them came away with positive impressions of us.
Sam’s expression darkened.
“Mirage?”
I straightened immediately, my gaze fixed on Mia.
“What about him?” I asked.
“He’s here!” Mia exclaimed. Sam was on her feet and I was halfway back to the door to my workshop when Mia continued. “Nono! Not like that, I mean one of my statues. Sorry! I see him. He’s talking to one of my statues. He… he knows I’m listening? How does he know that I can do that?”
“What’s he saying?” My question came out sounding like a demand, but I was too riled up to correct myself. The mention of Mirage being within our grasp had my blood surging like a river. “Where is he?!”
Mia shook her head, looking confused, but not because of my requests. She was zoned out, concentrating on what the bastard was saying. He was clearly having some kind of conversation with her and she was struggling to keep up and relay the messages.
“He’s… he’s saying that we’ve done a good job and that he’s impressed? Now he’s just talking about how good the Nasi Goreng he’s eating is,” Mia’s expression twisted even further. “How does he know I can listen through my statues? No one should know that.”
“Maybe he doesn’t,” Sam growled. “He’s got some screws loose, but I wouldn’t pass him knowing somehow,” she paused for a moment. “Nasi Goreng? That’s an Indonesian dish. Is he in New Market?”
“Y-Yeah,” Mia confirmed. “I have two scattered around the area. He’s… he’s just sitting there eating dinner.”
“Max!”
Lucy had seen me move.
I was already halfway down the stairs to my workshop, eyeing up my suit. There was no way I was going out there at this time of night by myself with Ajax’s Walkers roaming the city. The Sweepers would pick me up and I would probably be caught, maybe even killed if I was unlucky. I wasn’t willing to play with those odds, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have any cards to play.
There was a flash of Pink and Sam was at my side.
“Maxxie stahp! You’re– agh, no, you’re out of your mind!”
“I’m not,” I replied heatedly. “It’s not what you think, Sam. I’m not going out there. I’m not stupid. I’m going to be sending—”
“Your drones, yeah-yeah I got that much. If Mirage knows Mia can listen in, then you better bet your ass that’s exactly what he’s counting on! Don’t fall for the obvious bait,” Sam argued, grabbing hold of my arm. I had half a mind to pull myself free, but even without Red, her grip was surprisingly strong. “I get it, we both want this fucker dead for our own peace of mind, but if we act now without thinking, it won’t end how we want it to.”
I matched her glare with my own.
“We can get him right now. I can have the drones be in and out, and they have camouflage modules. No one will see what hit him! It’ll be like he dropped dead in the middle of the street.”
“If it were that simple, I would have asked Mia to have one of her statues snap his neck!”
“Mia’s not like that, she can’t do it!”
“What the hell is going on?” Lucy called out, jogging down the stairs with Liam and Mia trailing close behind her. “What’s this all about? You have some kind of grudge with Mirage? I thought he was part of The Cains, aren’t they all gone?”
“Not all of them,” Liam chimed in. “Mirage and Bonesmith were never found, and Banshee fled the city. Last we heard, she was heading to Ashton for whatever reason. If you ask me? Weird place to go. The Nine Circles will just eat her alive if The ECU doesn’t get her first.”
“He’s still there,” Mia reiterated. “Doesn’t look like he’s going to move any time soon. He’s just talking nonsense – stuff about the city, how much he likes it here. How…” she paused, shuddering. “...how interesting the people are. God, I didn’t know someone was capable of making my skin crawl just by talking. Ugh.”
“Sam,” I intoned. “This is a golden opportunity.”
“I’m telling you it's not. You need to listen to me, Max. There’s too much that can go wrong. He’s right in the middle of New Market. There are thousands of people around and Ajax’s curfew isn’t for another couple of hours,” Sam stressed. “If you send your drones over there to attack, it’s going to end in a bloodbath. Just hold off for the moment.”
“Hold off?” I hissed, barely able to suppress my growing frustration. “This is what I made these drones for. Long ranged warfare. If he’s not near me, he can’t fuck with my head.”
“Hold. Off.” Sam said again, this time sounding more like a command. “Just wait till he packs up and leaves, then we have Mia tail him.”
“That’s fucking stupid!” I almost roared. “He knows those statues are part of Mia’s power. He’s going to give them the slip, and in an area like New Market it’ll be impossible for her to move her statues around to find him. At least with my drones overhead, I can catch him.”
“Won’t Ajax’s Sweepers pick up on your drones?” Lucy asked, looking more than concerned. “Those things are the most advanced detection robots in the world. It doesn’t get any better than them. They’ll find your drones, cloaked, camouflaged, whatever.”
“Thank you!” Sam almost cheered, seemingly warming up to Lucy. “Just listen to us. This isn’t the time. I’ve never seen a more obvious trap. Let’s put some faith in Mia’s power,” she turned to address the older girl. “Can you do that? Surround every exit to New Market?”
Mia’s features changed, becoming fiercely determined.
“Already moving them. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try my best.”
“That’s all I can ask,” Sam smiled.
I still wasn’t convinced. Mirage was a slippery bastard. If we let this chance slip, he would be lurking around every corner and watching from every shadow. It was bad enough that it was now confirmed he was still in the city, but I refused to be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life. He had seen my face. A lucky encounter for him would be all it would take to expose me. I couldn’t have that.
“The moment he leaves, tell me,” I said, edging back toward my suit. Without access to my supercomputer, I would need to be inside to remotely control the drones. “I won’t ask you to do it, because I know you hate it.”
Slowly, Mia nodded.
Mirage needed to die, and I was more than ready to be the one to pull the trigger.