With our implants still offline, getting into Avernus would be something of a challenge- if Atlas hadn’t been kind enough to make an entrance for us, that is. Hawkshaw and I rappel down through the hole, which is just wide enough for a person to fit comfortably through. That makes sense, considering Atlas most likely made it by flying straight through the bedrock. The Consultant follows shortly after us, brushing dust off his shoulders after he’s dropped down.
We’re taking a bit of a gamble here, leaving everybody else behind in Arcadia. Without any of the heavy hitters, we wouldn’t stand much of a chance if the Vitruvian or Atlas showed up. But with fewer people, we run less of a risk of being detected to begin with. I shudder to think how the trip from Arcadia to here would have gone with Apex coming along for the ride.
Lévesque, the Consultant, seems completely unperturbed by all of this. I’m still not even remotely comfortable with him being here, but if he was going to betray us, he’d surely have done so already. Besides, he does have a reason to work with us- the Arcana faction he’s affiliated with wanted no part of a conflict with us. Unfortunately, they couldn’t stop Atlas and the Vitruvian, because the latter’s reappearance has tipped the balance of power in the favor of Atlas’s faction.
“You know, I never really took you for the secret prison type,” he says to Kellan, sardonic.
“I’m not. We inherited this place, and it’s not like we can just cut the people here loose.”
Directly next to Hawkshaw is a hole in the wall, where an exceedingly thick metal door was torn off its hinges by Atlas. The Consultant takes a long look at it, his black-pearl eyes unreadable. A smirk ghosts across his lips.
“Quite so.”
The relationship between these two is somewhat complex. Lévesque saw Kellan’s mentor, Jason Hunt, as a rival who’d stolen his rightful title of ‘world’s greatest detective,’ while Hunt didn’t pay him much mind at all. They butted heads over a few cases, and worked together grudgingly on a few others. Being somewhat more socially well-adjusted than his mentor, Kellan forged something of a working relationship with the man, but with an obvious degree of tension underlying it. That tension has only increased with the fact that the secret societies they’re both a part of have now gone to war.
“This is the incident area,” Hawkshaw says curtly. “But we need to make sure the prisoners are secure before you can begin.”
“I see. That must include my poor captured comrade. Leaving her alive was a clever move on your part, by the way. If you’d killed her, I suspect the Empress would never have signed off on my little extracurricular project here with you.”
He’s referring to the enigmatic head of his faction within the Arcana, whose true name he wouldn’t reveal. My guess would be that she was a member of the Arcana’s Soviet side, before the USSR collapsed- or that she inherited her seat from someone who was, at least. It would explain her opposition to Atlas, whose faction seems to largely be comprised of Americans.
One of the conditions for the Consultant’s assistance is that we’d agree not to kill more than two members of the Arcana, no matter what happened. No justification was offered, but I have a feeling that the answer is simple- they simply can’t afford to lose that many people, even if they are members of another faction.
Strewn all across the hallway are Network’s various bodies, the security officers he dispatched to the site of Atlas’s incursion. The first victims of the memetic attack that took him down. Kellan and I take a moment to turn them onto their backs, making sure none of them asphyxiate while unconscious. Besides that, however, there’s little we can do for them at the moment. Ishtar might be able to excise the memetic infection, but she’s not available at the moment, and we don’t have time to explore other solutions.
All across the hallway, there are cracks and dents in the walls. Remnants of the battle between Adamant and Atlas. If Avernus hadn’t been constructed with fortitude in mind, it’s entirely possible the entire place might have collapsed from the stress. Luckily, none of the cell doors we pass by seem to have been damaged too badly. Once a single cell is breached, all the rest lock down twice as hard, to prevent a cascading failure state. The food delivery system is automated, meaning the prisoners who need to eat aren’t going to starve, even if Network remains unable to fulfill his duties as prison administrator for the foreseeable future.
We pass through that wing of the facility quickly, and head upstairs. The inhabitants of the residential wing are less of a flight risk, but they’re doubtlessly distressed by Network’s absence, as he made it his business to keep them company. The vast majority have abilities or afflictions that make them incapable of existing in the outside world without hurting someone, meaning their lives are exceedingly lonely. Axel took it upon himself to remedy that. And of course, the inmates in cryogenic sleep aren’t exactly plotting their escape- although a security breach within that wing would be concerning for other reasons. We ignore both for now, however, and instead head into the lobby, where Network’s office sits.
None of the doors in Avernus are locked, besides the cells themselves. There’s no reason for them to be, when escape is virtually impossible. The entire place is deep underground, after all. Now that there’s a hole leading directly out, that’s more of a concern, but with any luck we’ll have that filled in before the week is out. It’s hard to believe that this entire affair has only taken place over the span of a single day so far- the previous week’s worth of false-flag attacks designed to wear us down notwithstanding.
Knowing that Atlas was behind those attacks puts them in something of a different light, now. I can understand easily enough how he might have engineered the Soldier Seed outbreak- he was involved in classified government work around the same time they were in development. But the others, like the android that attacked the power plant, or the Jakarta incident, seem more difficult for him to have pulled off alone. Reign’s involvement in one or more of them would explain some things.
Moving aside the chair with another unconscious Network body sitting inside, Kellan accesses the office computer. Rather than waste any time, he wires his armor in directly. There’s a brief stretch of silence as he sifts through information on his helmet’s HUD, before breathing a sigh of relief.
“Everything is secure. Including the latest addition.”
Kellan and I discussed Reign in some depth on the trip over. Our main concern was that the prison itself would be within her control once we arrived. Even if she couldn’t use her powers to get out of the cell, she could still trap us inside along with her. But the prison’s security system is sophisticated enough to detect the heightened electrical activity in the brain associated with the active use of a metahuman power, and if Kellan says she’s secure, that means it isn’t picking up any such activity. Moreover, Reign couldn’t simply use her power to create a false negative, because she’s got no way of knowing what one would look like. Most likely, she has no idea we’re even here at all. She’d have to be using her powers actively to gain the pseudo-omniscience she displayed before, and there’s little reason for her to have been doing so at the exact moment we arrived. Nevertheless, I don’t drop my guard completely. It never hurts to be too cautious when this sort of thing is involved.
The exact mechanics behind her power are somewhat curious as well. At first, I was perplexed by the fact that they seemed to work on Kellan and I fine, despite the fact that we both have psychic blockers in our standard uniforms, not to mention our Council implants. The conclusion I arrived at is that her ‘illusions’ aren’t telepathic in nature at all. Instead, she’s effectively layering a false reality over our own. That would explain how her constructs possessed real physical presence, despite not being strictly ‘real.’ The further her projection stretches, the less ‘real’ her reality becomes, while it’s at its strongest within very close proximity to her.
“Excellent,” Lévesque says brusquely. “Now, let’s proceed, shall we? Time is money.”
He strides out of the office without waiting for a response, and I follow shortly after, while Kellan shuts the computer down and adjusts the position of Network’s sleeping body in the chair. He’ll still wake up with the mother of all cramps, but at least he’ll avoid more serious injury. Some of the other bodies, I’m sure, weren’t so lucky. While watching the news yesterday, I heard tell of one such possessed politician who happened to be skiing the Swiss Alps at the time, and met a particularly grisly end. Did Atlas and the Vitruvian not know that was a possibility, or did they simply not care? I suppose in their minds, all of Network’s victims were already dead to begin with.
The Consultant retraces his steps back to the incident location swiftly. None of this has yet fazed him, nor shaken his professional demeanor. The black suit he wears is stylish enough that I can understand why Father went for a similar wardrobe choice, even if the casual clothes I wear over my uniform are generally more practical.
Positioning himself in the middle of the hallway, roughly between where our forces and those of the Vanguard put themselves during the actual fight, Lévesque reaches into a pocket and retrieves a small collapsible cane, which he snaps out with a deft motion and taps against the ground. It looks sturdy enough to be used as a weapon, which I suspect is what it was designed for. In this case, however, the Consultant simply rests his hands atop it and grins.
“Are you prepared to begin?”
Kellan leans against the wall, arms folded, while I stand opposite the Consultant.
“Do it.”
Tapping the cane twice more with force, a wave of white light rolls off of Lévesque’s body. Where it travels, it leaves ghostly afterimages all across the hallway. I see the Vitruvian behind him, and the rest of the Council approaching. Zero and I are just rounding the corner, while Adamant is frozen in midair, her fist a fraction of an inch away from Atlas’s face. The false Hawkshaw is firing his sidearm, a lethal tungsten penetrator emerging from its barrel in an eruption of flame.
This is mainly for our benefit. From what I’ve heard, the Consultant can simply watch the ‘replay’ in his mind’s eye, rather than displaying it visually. In fact, I’m not certain this was originally one of his abilities. Perhaps the cane contains some sort of technological interface, perhaps designed by one of his Arcana allies, that allows him to share his visions with others. In any case, it’s quite useful.
“Let’s start at the beginning,” he says calmly. A moment later, events begin to play in reverse, with the Council members backpedaling down the hall. Atlas places the door back on the Vitruvian’s cell, and flies backwards through the hole in the ceiling, which fills itself in after him. Lévesque rotates the cane, and things start to move again, this time in the correct order. Atlas bursts in without warning, the facility’s hardened exterior providing no more obstacle to him than the solid bedrock behind it.
Once inside, Atlas spares a single moment to take in his surroundings, before identifying the door to the Vitruvian’s cell. Rather than punch the door off its hinges, he simply sticks his arm into the wall, passing through the thick metal as if it weren’t there, and carves out a doorway with it. After the door falls to the ground, with a heavy thud I can almost hear despite the simulation’s silence, the Vitruvian walks out, grinning.
As we observe, Atlas and the Vitruvian speak, though the simulation doesn’t allow us to hear what they said. A moment later, they embrace with surprising tenderness. Nothing I ever heard implied they had any sort of romantic relationship, though I suppose that sort of thing could easily have been covered up, considering the era in which they operated. Or they could simply have been close friends, reunited after decades apart, with one having thought the other was dead. Either way, the moment of humanity makes me rather uncomfortable, and I look away for a moment. Not that I have any issue with displays of affection between anybody, platonic or otherwise- it’s more than I suspect I’m going to have to kill one or both of them before all is said and done. Thinking of them as implacable enemies rather than people makes that easier.
A moment later, they’re back to business. Atlas passes along a piece of paper, and as the Vitruvian reads it, his armor whirs to life. I peer over his shoulder to see what the note says. It appears to contain a series of coordinates, one of which I recognize- it’s the location where they sent Kellan and I. Evidently, Atlas knew that the Vitruvian would be able to scatter us using our own translocation technology, which is how they had traps set up for us in advance.
Half a dozen figures in tactical gear appear at the end of the hall, and open fire immediately. Those would be the security detail, whose actual bodies are now scattered across the hall, unconscious but alive. The inhuman coordination with which they act is characteristic of Network- he can share information nigh-instantly with bodies on the other side of the world, but when they’re in close proximity, they act more like a hive mind.
When the first salvo ricochets off of Atlas’s body, each deflected bullet matching one of the many holes in the wall that we saw as we came in, they stop firing immediately and begin switching magazines. Probably to Koppel bullets, now that they know they’re dealing with somebody invincible. Atlas tenses to strike, looking grim, but the Vitruvian places a hand on his shoulder and steps in front of him. Before Network can open fire again, the hero extends a hand outward. There’s a faint ripple visible in the simulation- probably a visual distortion caused by whatever auditory meme that he’s deploying. Atlas has his ears firmly plugged, and only removes his fingers when the Vitruvian indicates it’s safe. Network’s bodies collapse in a heap, their positions not matching where they ended up later.
The heroes exchange words, while the Vitruvian begins tinkering with what I presume will eventually become the one-time translocator beacons he used to scatter us to the winds. At the same time, Atlas opens up one of the pouches on his utility belt, and takes out what appear to be a number of smartphones. I’m confused for a moment, before a panel on the Vitruvian’s armor opens up, allowing him to feed them in. They must be spare components, which Professor Superior told me the Vitruvian required to make full use of his armor. I suppose modern technology probably has more useful materials than whatever he was able to scrounge up in the seventies.
Not long after, the first of our reinforcements appear. Adamant thunders down the hall, every footfall leaving behind an imprint that’s still visible now. Evrimci is close behind, half-transformed into a cheetah-like creature, though he swiftly shifts out of it and into a more combat-ready form. Atlas wastes no time, rocketing towards Adamant and striking her with enough force to send the unconscious Network bodies flying. Their ‘ghosts’ land atop the same positions as their real bodies, making me chuckle despite myself.
As that pair begins to engage, Tahir crosses the distance to the Vitruvian, who seems surprised by his animalistic ferocity. They grapple for a few moments, with Evrimci’s natural weapons rapidly evolving as they fail to pierce the Vitruvian’s armor. Before he can develop a sufficiently powerful adaptation, however, the Vitruvian blasts him into the wall, coating him with the amber-like substance that he was in when Zero and I arrived.
While the Vitruvian returns to his work, taking a moment to throw up a forcefield, Atlas and Adamant continue to do battle. It’s equal parts awe-inspiring and terrifying, even though we can’t feel the shockwaves that each of their blows was creating. Atlas is terrifyingly strong, but he lacks Adamant’s inhuman reaction speed, and she dodges more blows than he lands. When he does hit her, though, it’s almost always enough to send her flying straight into a wall. Conversely, she seems to be pulling her punches somewhat, perhaps to avoid doing too much structural damage to the prison. Instead, she goes for more surgical strikes. It’s plain to see that she doesn’t rely on raw power the way someone like Adam Apex does. The results of her training with Kellan and Jason Hunt are obvious as well, as she clearly knows precisely where to hit Atlas to make it hurt the most. He takes most of the hits and rolls with them, but as I watch, she manages to strike at his throat, leaving him gasping for air.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
That’s when Kellan and Ishtar arrive. It doesn’t take long for them to figure out what the situation is, but before they can engage, Atlas claps his hands, creating a shockwave that throws them back. It’s only then that the auto-sentries come online, opening fire on Atlas and the Vitruvian to no avail. Why they took so long is anybody’s guess- perhaps the Vitruvian was jamming them initially, but ceased devoting resources to that in favor of hastening the completion of his translocator units. It’s not as if ordinary bullets are much of a threat to him or Atlas.
Adamant slams Atlas into a wall, giving Hawkshaw and Ishtar an opening to get past. Kellan shouts something at the Vitruvian, who responds without looking up from his work. While Kellan starts shooting, Ishtar approaches Tahir, striking at the amber holding him a few times. When it fails to break, she moves on, letting him get back to chipping away at it. Manifesting a psychokinetic blade, she tries to pierce the Vitruvian’s shield, but it disrupts the weapon, resulting in some sort of feedback.
What happens next is familiar to me, as it’s the point where Zero and I enter the engagement. Ishtar attacks Atlas and gets tossed into a wall for her trouble. I try reasoning with the Vitruvian briefly, and for a moment it seems I’ve gotten through to him. But just as quickly, Zero shorts out his force-field. In retrospect, that may have been a mistake. Maybe we could have called a cease-fire, and dealt with all this differently. But there’s no use pondering might-have-beens. Tahir frees himself, attacks the Vitruvian, and a few moments later he deploys the translocators, displacing most of us in a matter of seconds.
Ishtar and Zero, however, are spared. I can’t help but wonder if the fact that they’re both women had anything to do with it- after all, the Vitruvian is still very much stuck in the seventies way of thinking, which- sexual revolution notwithstanding -didn’t exactly see hitting a girl as something a ‘good person’ should ever do. Atlas seems to have made an exception for Adamant, which makes sense considering she’s as powerful as him, but he’s been living in the world all this time, while his ally was stuck in another dimension.
Atlas sticks a hand through Sandra’s hard-light armor as if it’s not even there, and knocks her out in an instant with a chop to the neck- presumably the equivalent of a gentle poke to someone as powerful as him. The armor doesn’t deactivate, however, forcing him to tear out the hard-light projectors manually. Then he tears several small chunks out of the wall and flicks them at the auto-turrets, trashing them completely. Ishtar is struggling to get up when the Vitruvian launches another device from his armor, which wraps her in golden bands of light. Atlas says something to him, then scoops up Zero’s unconscious body. The Vitruvian gestures, and Ishtar floats towards him, much like Father’s body did when we transported it out of the other dimension. They leave through the hole in the ceiling, which Atlas widens to accommodate the additional passengers by simply scraping his arm around the perimeter as he goes.
“Well, I suppose that confirms your theory,” Lévesque says, tapping the cane once more to dispel the simulation. Neither Kellan nor I speaks for a few moments.
“Can you track them?”
“If you have a way to follow their route from the air, yes. Otherwise, I suspect they’d be outside of my effective range.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Hawkshaw says. “But we’ll have to be careful, make sure they don’t see us coming.”
“Of course. Shall we proceed at once?”
Before Kellan can reply, I raise a hand.
“You two go on ahead. There’s something here I need to deal with.”
I can’t see the look on Kellan’s face, but I suspect he’s figured out what I’m referring to, because he just nods.
“Understood. We’ll reconvene later at the rally point.”
Lévesque offers me a semi-sarcastic two-finger salute as I head back down the hall. My presence won’t be of much use for what they’re doing, and there’s something here at Avernus that I suspect will prove exceedingly useful in the coming conflict. Not any of the voluntary residents- their abilities would prove too much of a danger to us. Instead, my destination is the cryogenics wing. It’s a path I tread with some trepidation, even knowing that there’s little chance Gilgamesh will choose that exact moment to burst from his containment unit and strike me down. Being near the man, even while he’s in such a condition, makes me paranoid. More so than usual.
Passing a few more of Network’s bodies on the way, I flip over those who fell down face-first. None seem to be dead, though a few have swelling from the impact of hitting their head. For all I know, some might have permanent brain damage. The human body is fragile, after all.
Even wearing my uniform, which insulates against extreme temperatures, I feel a chill as I enter the cryogenics wing, and not just because of my proximity to the Council’s founder. There are technician-bodies littering the floor, and I step over them on the way to my destination. We don’t have that many people in need of cryogenic suspension here, so it doesn’t take long to find the pod I’m looking for. The inscription simply reads ‘Accel.’ It’s a name most would be familiar with, as the person behind it dominated headlines for a long stretch some years ago. She possessed the ability to move at superhuman speeds for one minute per every hour she spent asleep.
Believed to have been killed in a confrontation with the Peacekeepers, she was instead incapacitated and abducted by the Council, much as they did with Andrew Donovan. Instead of offering Accel a seat at the table, however, they fed her to Network, as Pallas had no interest in a powerset that would require her to sleep, having shed that necessity well prior. In order to maximize the value of Accel’s power, they placed her body in cryogenic suspension, where she remained for years. And if I’m right, that process will have had a secondary effect- pausing the ‘update’ process that allows Network to share information between his bodies.
Under normal circumstances, that would be irrelevant, as he’d receive an update almost instantly upon leaving the pod. But one of the things I did in the Arcadian workshop last night was synthesize a dose of my ‘cure’ for Network. It neutralizes the living virus that allows him to infect others with his consciousness, which also allows him to share information across them. It won’t restore Accel’s mind- that process is permanent. But it will, with any luck, inoculate this particular instance of Axel from the memetic weapon that’s incapacitated his other bodies.
Taking the syringe gun from my jacket, I hit the button to open the pod, and wait with bated breath until it’s open wide enough to reach in and jab her. Him. Whatever. Network slumps forward, limp, and I catch him, tossing the gun aside. He’s clearly still breathing, albeit faintly, which is common for anybody emerging from a long period of suspended animation. The question is, did I manage to inject him in time? Or did the meme already hit him while he was sleeping?
I lay Network down gently, and grab a warm blanket off a nearby rack, wrapping him up as best I can. Perhaps as a result of Accel’s altered biology, he seems to recover quickly, eyes fluttering open a few minutes later. That’s proof enough that my plan worked, I suppose. Before I can say anything, however, he vanishes in a blur, reappearing at the end of the hall with the blanket still wrapped around his shoulders. The pronoun thing is going to take a little while to get used to- he mainly uses male bodies around us, to make it convenient, since he still very much still identifies as such, despite possessing a sizable number of female bodies as well.
The bewilderment in Axel’s eyes confuses me for a moment, before I realize what’s going on. Because he can’t update, he has no idea who I am. He went into the pod well before Kellan or I joined the Council. In fact, he almost certainly still thinks Gilgamesh is still in charge. Not to mention the lack of an update itself must be terrifying, as he’s spent most of his adult life with a constant stream of data flowing in from hundreds or thousands of other bodies.
“Who are you? What’s going on?”
“Axel, calm down,” I say, pulling off my mask and putting a hand out on a placatory gesture. “My name is Conrad Winters. I’m a member of the Council.”
“Wha--” He breaks off, glancing around, only now noticing that all of his other bodies are asleep on the floor. “What year is it?”
“Two thousand and twenty-two,” I answer slowly. He nods, taking that in. Not exactly a Rip Van Winkle situation- he’s been out for less than a decade. But the presence of a new Council member- or at least somebody who claims to be one -must be perplexing. Especially since I doubt he even recognizes me.
“Okay. Explain.”
I approach him cautiously, and he doesn’t run this time. It does weigh somewhat heavily on my mind that he could flay me alive before I blinked, if he wanted. He’s stored up an immense amount of time within Accel’s power, and she was dangerous enough with only eight minutes of speed a day.
“Several years ago, you helped Hawkshaw and I, along with a few others, depose Gilgamesh, Machina, and Geas.”
That’s the first, and likely biggest, of the bombshells. To his credit, he doesn’t freak out completely. But maybe that’s just because he’s struggling to process it.
“Depose-- you killed Gilgamesh?”
“No,” I answer, and gesture to the back of the room, where a gigantic metal door stands. It’s the first of more than a hundred security measures to keep anybody from getting in to free the old man. And to keep him from getting out, ideally. “He agreed to be frozen, rather than kill all of us and start over from scratch. Geas is dead, and you took Machina’s body.”
“Why can’t I feel him? Why can’t I feel any of them? What happened to me?”
There’s a slight edge of desperation in his voice, and I continue to slowly walk closer, trying to keep my voice as calm as possible. Axel is generally a fairly composed individual, but I can’t blame him for losing it slightly, given the circumstances.
“The Council was attacked. One of the enemy’s first moves was to hit you with a memetic attack, which rendered all of your active bodies comatose. When I woke you up, I cut you off from your, ah, network.”
A simple explanation does a lot to calm him down, and he slowly sits on the small staircase leading down into the hall of cryo-pods. With the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, he looks rather small, although Accel’s relatively slender frame isn’t doing him any favors in that area either.
“Who... who’s attacking us? Wait, hold on- I don’t know if you’re actually even with the Council. Keyring, now.” He flounders for a moment, clearly trying to remember what the sequence was, and then settles on “Gallium.”
“Ermine.”
“Rapier.” With the exchange complete, he breathes a sigh of relief. Typically, the person whose veracity is in question would supply the first phrase, but I can forgive him the momentary lapse. “Sorry, I just... I had to check.”
“Of course. For future reference, however, that keyring is burned, at least as far as our current foes are concerned. And to answer your question, it’s the Arcana we’re dealing with. Specifically Atlas, and the Vitruvian.”
Axel frowns.
“You mean the leader of the Vanguard?”
I consider making a joke about there being another Vitruvian that I’m thinking of, but it would probably only confuse him further
“Yes. They have Zero captive, and another new member, Ishtar.”
“Zero?”
“Ah, I suppose you wouldn’t know her either.” Come to think of it, the entire Council may well be people he’s unfamiliar with. Besides Astro, who’s off-planet, and Pallas, who’s still slowly bringing herself back from the dead. Kellan will be the closest thing to a familiar face, but he probably assumes I meant Hunt when I mentioned Hawkshaw earlier. “She’s our tech expert. You’ll like her.”
“Yeah. Okay. Alright. We should head to Abyss, then. This body doesn’t have an implant, but--”
“Actually,” I cut in, “we’ve disabled our implants for the time being. They’re a potential security risk. We’re operating out of Arcadia at the moment.”
“Arcadia, huh? I bet Pallas isn’t thrilled.” He pauses. “Or did they take her out already? She’s the one I’d have gone for first.”
“Something like that. In any case, we could take the long way back, or- if you’re feeling up to it -we could run.”
Network grins.
----------------------------------------
One short, nauseating trip later, we’ve returned to Arcadia. Having had my fill of playing exposition fairy, I hand Axel off to Tahir as soon as possible. We’ve set up shop in a government building, as Marisa couldn’t tolerate having us in her house any longer. The workshop Tahir secured for me is a short trip by maglev away, and my surprise for the Vitruvian isn’t quite ready yet, but I don’t head there immediately.
Instead, I find my way to my room, and check in with Kellan briefly by text. He and the Consultant are still on the trail, proceeding slowly in order to ensure they aren't spotted. Obviously, the two of them won’t be making an attack by themselves- they’re just identifying the general location, and ideally doing some light reconnaissance. Still, better they only take a quick look before leaving than risk getting spotted and captured, or worse.
After that, I take a quick shower, more to clear my head than anything else. The stress of this entire operation is weighing on me. It was different when Kellan and I were planning our coup. For one thing, it was just the two of us, and later Sandra. Fewer personalities and egos to contend with. And that’s never been my strong suit. Not to mention, there wasn’t the same sense of mounting time pressure. We were on something of a clock, yes, as our main opponents were only going to be off-planet for a relatively brief window, but we had the luxury to get a reasonable amount of sleep and three meals every day.
This situation, on the other hand, makes it impossible to fully relax. I stayed in the workshop well into the night the previous day, because I knew sleep wouldn’t come until I was well and truly exhausted. There’s another factor as well, one I’ve managed to avoid thinking directly about thus far, but alone with my thoughts, I can escape it no longer. I’ve got a personal stake in things now. I’m not just fighting for abstract ideals. The enemy has Ishtar, and I’m starting to suspect that my feelings for her go beyond just surface-level sexual attraction. It’s not as if I don’t care about the others, but she’s somehow different. Watching her get thrown against the wall again during the Consultant’s simulation, I found my mind immediately turning towards Atlas- generating ideas about how to hurt him with frightening speed. Not just to kill him- a single Koppel bullet would do it. To make him hurt like he made her hurt. I’d sear his eyes with a light bright enough that he’d never see again- but leave his ears untouched, so he could hear himself scream. I’d bring him to Reverb and have the audiokinetic burst his organs one by one. I’d--
An image of Father’s smiling face flashes before my mind’s eye, and I bring that train of thought to an immediate halt. However righteous my anger might feel, I told myself I’d be better than him. Not succumb to petty vanity or an obsession with vengeance. If Atlas has to die in order for us to save the world, so be it. But to make him suffer, purely for my own gratification, would be to cross a line that I could never return from.
Feeling slightly ill, I shut off the water and dry myself thoroughly before putting my uniform back on. It’s a real pain to deal with something skintight when you’re even slightly damp. Then comes my outerwear, though I leave off the mask and utility belt for the moment. There’s not much risk of an attack right now, even if the part of my brain dedicated solely to paranoia insists otherwise. Leaving the room I was assigned, I head a short way down the hall, to where Adamant is resting.
According to Tahir, she sustained her injuries fighting the Equalizer. For whatever reason, they weren’t able to teleport her straight into a cell, hence the necessity of force to restrain her. For most people with her abilities, fighting someone who can nullify them would be downright foolish. For Adamant, not so much. She’s well-trained and in top condition, not to mention the fact that she’s got a great deal of combat experience. I don’t imagine there are many unpowered individuals in the world who could take her in a fair fight, even without her powers. But this wasn’t a fair fight. The Equalizer hit harder than should have been possible, and took her hardest hits like they were nothing. Not to mention the fact that he was armed, and she wasn’t. As a result, she was sliced up pretty badly, as was Tahir when he tried to help. After they were tossed in a cell, he gave them a first aid kit, apparently under orders to keep them alive if possible, though he seemed to follow that directive only grudgingly.
In the process of escaping, some of her wounds reopening, forcing them to rush her to a hospital as soon as they were in Arcadia. Thankfully, Arcadian medical technology is better than that of any other nation, to say nothing of the metahuman healers they have on staff. Physically speaking, she’s almost completely healed by now, but the doctors insist she needs at least another day of bedrest before she can go back into action. Haley isn’t thrilled about that, nor the fact that she’s been expressly forbidden from transforming until the rest period us up. Apparently her flesh wounds wouldn’t heal during any time she spent in her metal form.
I rap on the door twice.
“C’mon in,” comes her voice from the other side. She sits up in bed when I enter, looking pleased to have a visitor. It’s a relatively rare occurrence for us to interact without her being transformed, as she stays that way almost exclusively during any Council business. We’re also not especially close besides that. We’ve worked well together as a part of Extinction Group, but there’s a difference between a working relationship and the genuine friendship she has with, say, Kellan.
“Abiding by the doctors’ orders, I trust?”
She rolls her eyes at me, smiling slightly.
“They come check in on me every hour just to make sure. Dunno why. It’s like they think I’m some kind of international terrorist or something.”
Surprised by her wit, I laugh. My mental image of her is as the humorless steel amazon, not as somebody charming or funny. Perhaps I ought to try and spend more time with my compatriots outside of our official duties. I doubt Tahir’s wife would be thrilled if I made visits to her home a regular occurrence, but Orhan seemed to like me well enough, at least- and I think that counts for something with Tahir. He’s certainly been a bit warmer towards me, the few times we’ve interacted since that meeting.
“What, just because one woman with silver skin is a criminal, every other one must be? That’s racial profiling. You ought to file suit.”
Haley chuckles. My comedic timing isn’t quite as sharp as hers, I suppose.
“I’ll take it under advisement. Kell would probably be my lawyer, right? He’s gotta have picked that up somewhere.”
“I’m sure he has. There’s very little that man doesn’t know how to do.”
We fall into a comfortable silence at that, the reminder of a mutual friend helping to dissolve any of the lingering tension. I’m not entirely certain why I came to see her, besides simply making certain her condition hadn’t deteriorated, but I suppose one doesn’t always need a reason to spend time with someone that they care about. That’s a lesson I could certainly stand to keep in mind once we’ve rescued Ishtar. Haley probably isn’t the best person to ask for advice about that, though. Kellan is the only member of the Front Line who has a stable relationship, and Tahir is the only member of the Council besides him, unless the various people who think Network is their spouse count.
“Can you believe he didn’t tell us about this secret team of his?”
“Yes, quite easily,” I reply with a wry smile. “He learned how to keep secrets from the best.”
“Yeah, you’re not wrong,” she says, looking slightly bothered. I suppose that hits harder for her than me, considering she was also close with Hunt, who kept the secret of the Council’s existence from her for years. Perhaps he’d have eventually shared it, had he not met the fate that he did.
“In this case, I can’t bring myself to be upset with him. After all, it redounded to our advantage, did it not?”
“Redounded,” she repeats slowly, a smirk spreading across her face. I wonder briefly if she’s under the influence of painkillers or not.
“Oh, good grief. Kellan mocks me about my manner of speaking often enough as it is. Don’t you start too.”
“I don’t know, maybe it’ll redound to your benefit,” she says mirthfully, taking great delight in my embarrassed reaction.
“This is a coordinated effort,” I reply, “to destroy the last bastion of erudition and- and- and class in the western world. I alone stand in the breach, facing down the endless hordes of y’alls and el-em-ay-ohs. If it is my fate to die in this fight, so be it, but I shall die on my feet, with a sword in one hand and a dictionary in the other!”
By the end, I’m half-shouting, keeping my voice low enough as not to actually bother anybody. Haley’s laughter helps drown it out as well. In fact, I worry for a moment that she’s going to break her stitches, before realizing that she likely doesn’t have any- the Arcadians don’t require anything quite so crude in order to seal a wound.
“That--” She breaks off, gasping for air, face red. “That is the worst cause in the world to die for. I can’t imagine a dumber way to go out than defending the sanctity of the, I don’t know, the fucking apostrophe.”
I sniff exaggeratedly.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“No, I guess I wouldn’t,” she says, chuckling. We both fall silent again for a moment, then she grows serious. “Did you and Kellan have any luck at Avernus?”
“He and his assistant are on the trail as we speak. You’ll be the first to know once we’ve found them.”
“Good. Anything else?”
“Network had a body in cold storage. I cut it off from the others and woke it up. Tahir’s bringing him up to speed now.”
She looks distant for a moment, trying to remember something.
“The one with the speed, right? What was her name?”
“Accel.”
“Right, that’s it. You think it’ll make a difference?”
All I can do is shrug. Thinking back to the fight we witnessed, and how one-sided it was, I’m not so sure.
“We need every advantage we can get.”
“You say that, but Kell still won’t bring Clay and the others in.”
It takes a moment for me to recall who she’s referring to- Clay being the alter ego of Vindicator, the Front Line’s other remaining founder.
“I don’t think it’s my place to comment on that,” I say neutrally.
“Maybe,” she replies, staring at me without words for a moment. I wonder what she’s looking for, and if she finds it, she gives no indication. “Are you up to anything else? Besides correcting a poor, sick woman’s grammar?”
As I recall, she was the one to ‘correct’ my grammar, but I decide not to reopen that line of conversation, for the sake of my last remaining shreds of dignity.
“There is something I’ve been mulling over,” I answer, reaching into my pocket and pulling out a small silver disc with the letter A embossed on one side. “I want to speak with the Vitruvian, and see if we can’t come to an understanding.”