As the rest of the Council returns to Abyss from their various assignments, I find the nearest bathroom and throw up. Generally speaking, I’d like to think that I’ve got a fairly strong stomach, and this was far from the first dismembered corpse I’ve seen. But there’s a difference between the body of someone you don’t know, and the body of someone you’ve eaten with and fought alongside, even if it’s not somebody you even considered a friend.

While the last of my bile makes its way down the drain, I dry my face and look into the mirror. Staring into my own eyes, I wait until the horror and disgust is no longer visible in them. Whatever I might be feeling, I can’t let it show to the rest of the Council.

After the immediate rush of emotion finally begins to fade, a subtler sort of fear begins to set in. When Sandra and I were discussing the possibility that we were being targeted, it was an abstract notion. Now, it’s very real, and the implications of that are becoming apparent. Someone knows we exist. Knows enough about what we do to set up a series of false-flag attacks that would separate us, so they could start taking us out one by one. And whoever they are, they took out Ulysses. No- they didn’t just ‘take him out.’ They murdered him. That shouldn’t be possible. The man’s brain was a supercomputer. He could calculate every possible way that a fight could end, before anyone threw a punch. If I was going to try to assassinate him, my plan would involve an airstrike. Whoever did this did it in close-quarters combat.

Gripping the sink tightly, I force my thoughts to align themselves properly. No room for panic, or doubt. We need to figure out who did this, and how. And then we need to hit back. I head out of the bathroom and make my way down the hall to the conference room.

Kellan is already sitting at the head of the table, with Zero and Network in their usual spots. She’ll have filled them in already, but until the others are here, questions will have to wait. Sandra has a holo-screen in front of her with every Council member’s vitals displayed. All of them except one read as healthy. I suppose she wants to be the first to know if someone else is killed.

Not long after I’ve taken my seat, Evrimci and Adamant walk in. Haley’s still in her metal form, combat-ready, while Tahir is barely recognizable. His clothes are shredded, and there looks to be a layer of hexagonal snakeskin in a rust-red color underneath. An adaptation suited for dealing with the situation in Jakarta, presumably. But those two weren’t the only one there, and the third member of their group is missing.

“Where’s Ishtar?”

My tone may have been somewhat more accusatory than necessary, because Tahir gives me an annoyed look.

“On her way. What’s so urgent that you had to drag us here in the middle of a mission?”

“The situation there will resolve itself. It was all a setup to begin with.”

“What? How can you know that?”

Zero cuts in before I can answer, spinning the holo-screen in front of her to face Tahir.

“Because our mission was a setup too. Whoever was behind it killed Ulysses, because he went off on his own. And you just left one of ours behind.”

The revelation that Ulysses is dead seems to distract Tahir from the obvious barb. He squints at the screen, as if certain it must somehow be faulty. When it becomes obvious that the flatline isn’t going to suddenly start moving again, he takes a seat slowly, looking back at me.

“What happened?”

“I’ll tell you when Ishtar gets back. I don’t want to have to repeat myself.”

It feels like such a petty thing to say when one of ours is dead. In the corner of my eye, I can see the empty seat where Ulysses would be. The absence of his imperious, often accusatory voice feels as if it’s ringing in my ears.

“Repeat what, exactly?”

The voice shakes me out of my reverie, and I turn to see Ishtar standing in the doorway, looking none the worse for having just walked out of a warzone.

“Someone is targeting us. They killed Ulysses, and we have reason to believe they started every fire we’ve all spent the past week trying to put out.”

During the time I’ve spent with Ishtar, I’ve trained myself to detect the subtle movements of her pupil-less eyes. She glances towards the empty chair, then looks back at me, expression growing more serious.

“How?”

Zero taps out a few commands, and the picture I took of Ulysses’ severed head on the spike is projected into the center of the room. There’s a long stretch of silence. Nobody looks away until Sandra takes the projection down. Ishtar walks over to her spot, but doesn’t sit down, resting her arms on the back of the chair and leaning forward. None of us liked him particularly much, but she had the most outright antipathy towards the man, which is probably why she’s taking it better than everyone else.

“Well, what are we going to do about it?”

Nobody answers at first. Then Hawkshaw speaks up, voice filtered through his expressionless mask.

“We can’t plan a response until we know who did this. Zero, you said you left behind the remains of the android they used to lure you in, correct?”

“Yeah,” Sandra responds. She, like just about everyone, seems glad that Kellan is taking charge.

“Okay. Getting out of there was the smart move. I don’t want anybody leaving this room until we know more. Network, get your people in there. Lock the plant down, get the android’s parts somewhere we can study them, and retrieve Ulysses’s remains. Don’t bring them here, it could compromise us.”

Thorn nods, though I can’t imagine teams weren’t already mobilizing before Kellan even said anything.

“The head was the only part of him left,” Zero interjects. “We thought they must have taken his body with them.”

“Including his implant,” Kellan says. “I assume you haven’t been able to track it?”

“No. But I sent the shutdown order, so they shouldn’t be able to hijack it and come here.”

“Good. See if you can get satellite take on the plant, and scan for any foreign translocation signals. I want to know how they got in and out without you noticing.”

“Sure. Uh, we left the jet there, by the way. Should I send it back to the hangar?”

Sandra seems genuinely shaken by this. She’s seen her fair share of gore, so I can’t imagine it’s just that. Maybe the notion that a Council member was killed is what’s getting to her. After all, if Ulysses wasn’t safe, how could any of us be?

“No. We don’t want them tracking it. Network’s people will take care of it.”

While he’s been talking, Kellan has been typing as well, using a holographic keyboard. There’s another few moments of silence, then he brings up a file on the main projector. It’s a list of names.

“As I said, we need to know who’s behind this. This is a list of potential suspects, mainly consisting of people who already know that the Council exists. Obviously, there’s always a chance it’s somebody who knows about us, but who we don’t know about. We can’t do much about that possibility for the moment, though, so let’s focus on the known unknowns.”

The name at the very top of the list makes my skin crawl just to read it. Gilgamesh.

“Why him? He’s still on ice, isn’t he?”

Little surprise that Tahir is the one who asked that question. He’s the only one of us who never faced the Council’s founder directly. We’ve told him about how dangerous the man was, of course, but there’s a difference between knowing something and having witnessed it.

“Yes,” Kellan replies. “But we have to be prepared for the possibility, if for no other reason that he’s one of the few people we know of that could have beaten Ulysses at that range.”

Directly below that is Professor Superior. I speak up for the first time, feeling rather like I’m listening to a recording of myself.

“I don’t think it was Eric. He knows about us, but he’s got no reason to be hostile, and I doubt he could have orchestrated all of this.”

“I know. Still, we should consider bringing him in. If we’re being targeted, he could be in danger, and we’d be able to keep an eye on him at the same time.”

“Agreed. But--”

“Hold on,” Tahir says, looking towards Kellan. His adaptation still hasn’t reverted. Maybe he’s refusing to let it. “You think one of us could be behind this?”

A few places down the list are the words ‘One of us?’, which would seem to answer his question. Kellan sighs.

“Well, it wouldn’t exactly be the first time. I don’t think anybody in this room has a reason to kill anyone else here, but again, we have to at least consider the possibility.”

Stolen story; please report.

Ishtar chuckles and raises a hand.

“I’d like to state for the record that I didn’t do it.” Nobody laughs. “I mean, I know you’re all thinking it. I was the one who said he was an existential risk. But I wouldn’t have killed him without permission. Also, I was with Adamant and Evrimci, so I have... what’s the word? An abuela?”

“...an alibi?”

“Thank you, Conrad. Yes, an alibi.”

“Right,” Kellan says, not masking his annoyance in the slightest. “As I was saying, I don’t think it’s likely that any of us were involved, but we should still be careful. Nobody should be alone with anybody else until we know more. Groups of three, at minimum.”

For the duration of the meeting so far, Adamant has been sitting with her arms folded, listening silently. It’s only now that she speaks up.

“What about the Arcana? They’ve got the resources to set up false-flags in order to draw us out.”

“They don’t know the full scope of our operations. They don’t even know that Ulysses is-” I cough, covering my mistake, “was one of our members.”

I still find it eerie how still Adamant is in her metal form. Not a single part of her moves, save her mouth, when she replies.

“They know what our plane looks like. Which means they’d know that anybody who came off of it was one of us.”

“None of their known members could have taken out Ulysses in close quarters,” Kellan says. “But they have members we don’t know about. So it’s possible. The question is, why?”

Zero is the one who answers, no longer seeming quite so shell-shocked.

“They used to be the top dogs in the secret conspiracy game. Maybe they decided they want that spot back.”

“Envy? They would not go to war with us over something so petty,” Tahir replies.

“Not envy,” Sandra retorts, a bit of bite in her tone. “Dominance. Supremacy. We run the world. They used to, or at least they thought so. If they take us out, they get to be in charge again.”

That seems to get through to Tahir. I suppose it makes sense that he’d have an easier time seeing it in those terms, considering he’s a diplomat by trade. None of us ever really considered the Arcana a legitimate competitor before, which I suspect their ridiculous theme and theatrics had something to do with. Now that a member of the Council has been killed, though, there’s no possibility too ridiculous to entertain.

“Anyway,” Sandra says, “Winters and I were discussing this earlier. He thought Geas might have left behind a contingency, some way of warning a person he trusted in case the Council betrayed him. A suppressed memory that would resurface after he died.”

Adamant asks the same question that Zero did when I first raised this possibility.

“Was he even capable of that?”

“I don’t know,” she answers, echoing me.

“Either way,” Kellan says, already adding that to the list, “I’m not sure I buy it. He didn’t trust anyone except Robards and Gilgamesh. The Royals were tools to him. He wouldn’t have left something like this to one of them, and even if he did, I doubt any of them were capable of pulling it off.”

Once he’s finished typing, Hawkshaw dismisses the keyboard for a moment and looks around the room.

“Okay. Cards on the table, everyone. Have any of you told someone outside of this room that the Council exists?”

Everybody is quiet for a few moments, before Adamant speaks up.

“Vindicator might have told the new recruits,” she says, presumably referring to the other members of the Front Line. “He said he wouldn’t, but you know how he feels about lying to them. Still, even if he did, I don’t see how either of them could have done this.”

“Well, obviously I haven’t,” Ishtar answers with another chuckle. “I don’t know anybody except you people.”

“Me neither,” says Zero. “For the record, I have programs set up to flag any time someone on the internet indicates they might know about us, and there’s nothing at all indicating a possible leak.”

“Likewise, my intelligence agencies monitor for any potential infosec breaches,” Network adds. “As far as I can tell, we’re still secure. And I haven’t told anybody.”

“Nor have I,” Tahir says.

I shake my head.

“It’s possible Eric might have let something slip, I suppose. Or his lab was discovered, and somehow traced back to us. But neither seems especially likely.”

“Sam isn’t here to ask,” Kellan muses, “but I don’t know who he could have—”

“Hold on,” Tahir says, looking directly at Ishtar. “What about Vanaheim? She may not have been directly involved, but years will have already passed within their bubble. Perhaps a more warlike faction came to power.”

The Survivor shakes her head.

“You misunderstand the way our world functions. There are no ‘factions’ to speak of. Every individual exists to serve a singular purpose.”

“Nevertheless, it’s possible circumstances on the other side have changed. Particularly as they now know about the Council’s existence.”

“The energy expenditure required is massive,” Adamant counters coldly. “Even if they had an additional gate we’re unaware of, we’d have noticed its activation.”

Clearing her throat, Zero raises a hand to interject herself into the debate.

“What if this is the result of something they left behind in their previous visit? Besides our guest, I mean. I was monitoring Mentor as he downloaded the data he needed from the internet, but it’s possible there was something I missed.”

“I don’t see it,” Kellan says. “Cooperating with us has extended Vanaheim’s lifespan significantly. They stand far more to gain by continuing that relationship than by antagonizing us and risking destruction.”

“Perhaps the Mentor acted alone,” Tahir offers. “Seeking to weaken our defenses while he advocated for conflict back home.”

“No,” Ishtar replies flatly. “Such independent action would be virtually impossible for him. He’s constrained by genetic memory. Generations of previous Mentors all contained within him. Besides, our technology may be advanced, but coordinating such chaos is beyond the scope of a mere computer virus, even one he developed.”

“Unless it was an AI.”

“We do not take risks with such things. The taboo against them is precisely why Mentor units exist in the first place.”

“Wait,” Tahir says, a hint of accusation now in his tone. “If the others could not possibly have defied their masters, how are we expected to believe that you’ve done so?”

Ishtar sighs, looking annoyed.

“Because I have no genetic memory. I’m the first Survivor unit, built specifically for the expedition. My programming is more flexible. We’ve been over this.”

“Let’s get back on track,” Kellan says firmly. “We can’t say for sure right now, but it’s looking like the Arcana are our most likely suspects. Unless analyzing the android’s remains yields anything conclusive, I propose we reach out to them, and try to find out what they know. Obviously they’re not likely to admit guilt outright, but we might be able to determine their involvement regardless. If it was them, we’ll have to do something about it. There are plans for an invasion of their Tower on file, but last I checked, they hadn’t been updated to account for our change in membership. I can handle that, but we need to know who their mystery members are. Sandra, Axel, can you two do that?”

Network nods.

“I’ve already identified a few potential candidates, but confirming has never been a sufficiently high priority before. With Zero’s help, I’m sure it won’t be much of a challenge.”

“Agreed. I’ll pull up surveillance data on the known members, see if I can identify any connections. Course, it’s possible most of them don’t even know who the silent partners are, but we’ll find them regardless.”

“Good. In that case—”

This time, I’m the one interrupting.

“There’s another potential culprit.” I pause, for once not relishing the undivided attention of the most powerful people in the world. “The Vitruvian.”

Tahir looks at me skeptically.

“From inside of a blackout cell?”

“The technology he employs is adaptive, much like yourself. It’s possible he’s found a way to penetrate our defenses. Or he simply contacted someone before we got him into the cell. Either way, we should consider it. He seemed determined to shut us down, and he’s very likely got the means, even if these don’t look much like his methods.”

“That’s precisely the problem,” Adamant says bluntly. “It doesn’t fit with his stated philosophy of prioritizing innocent life over all else. The situation in Jakarta—”

“Resolved itself as soon as you were gone,” I retort. “Didn’t it, Axel?”

Network looks slightly uncomfortable at being called upon to resolve a point of contention.

“It certainly appears to be the case, but it may be too early to tell.”

“Right. In other words, it was always close to getting out of hand, but never actually did. Just like with the Soldier Seed. And the only person who’s actually gotten killed this whole time is one of us. He may be old-fashioned, but he was willing to cross that line when necessary, and it’s possible that’s what’s going on here.”

I look Kellan’s way as I finish speaking, and not for no reason. Taking down members of the Council with lethal force is exactly what we did two years ago. And for similar reasons, albeit more to do with quibbles over their management style than a moral opposition to the Council’s entire existence. Still, it feels strange to be looking at things from the other perspective this time.

“Maybe so,” he says neutrally. “If you think there’s a strong chance he could have beaten the security system at Avernus, we should at least look into it. But I’d rather not risk killing him if we can avoid it, not without more evidence. And removing his armor risks doing exactly that.”

Though I haven’t yet voiced them, I have similar concerns. It would be the pragmatic thing to do, certainly, and I like to think of myself as a pragmatic person. But killing the Vitruvian on mere suspicion would feel wrong, even if he is ultimately behind all this. It would be proving him right- that I’m no better than Father. Or at least that’s how it feels.

“Update,” Axel says into the silence. “My people are at the reactor. It seems the android’s remains were incinerated shortly after the two of you left. Presumably a failsafe mechanism. We’re in the process of removing Ulysses’ remains as I speak.”

I clap my gloved hands together in frustration, grimacing. The only real evidence we might have been able to use, gone. That means we’re back at square one, arguing in circles again.

“What about the security footage? I wasn’t able to access it remotely, and we left before I could get the tapes or anything, but you—”

“Already wiped,” Network says, interrupting Zero before she can finish. “Rather crudely. Low-yield electromagnetic pulse, I’d wager.”

“Shit, nevermind then.” She pauses for a moment, perhaps self-consciously. “Still working on getting you that satellite take, Hawk.”

“Thank you. Now, while we wait, I’d like to discuss safety measures. Not just for us, but for those close to us. Personally, I think it may be prudent to bring the rest of the Front Line here, before they can be targeted for their association with Adamant and myself. They’re more than capable of looking after themselves, but under the circumstances, it seems best to err on the side of caution.”

“I already suggested bring in Eric, but besides him, there aren’t many people outside of this room whom I’d say I’m close enough to that they’d be in danger. You, on the other hand, seem to have forgotten someone important.”

Kellan looks at me with a blank expression for a moment, though in fairness to him, his mask’s expression is perpetually blank. Then he realizes who I’m talking about, and gives the table a light smack out of annoyance at himself.

“Atalanta, of course. Thank you for reminding me, Conrad. Now, does anyone else wish to bring someone in for their protection? We can make it look like a kidnapping if that would be more convenient than explaining it to them.”

Tahir shakes his head.

“My family is already as safe as they can be on Arcadia.”

In a rare display of emotions while transformed, Adamant sighs.

“My mother, I suppose. Though dragging her out of the home might be more trouble than she’s worth.” She pauses, and glances at Kellan. “Do you think we should bring Jason in as well?”

“I doubt they’d be able to track him down,” Hawkshaw replies. “Besides, taking him here would just confuse him.”

Obviously, jarring his memory by showing him familiar faces and objects was the first thing we tried, and it didn’t work. O’Connor’s mental blocks aren’t broken so easily. Which means being taken to somewhere with interior decoration like Abyss would be more frightening than reassuring. And without knowing who he used to be, our mystery enemies have no reason to target him whatsoever.

“Oh, I already sent my parents the signal to go to their panic room,” Zero says offhandedly, not looking up from her screen while she types. “They’ll be as safe there as they would be here.”

They don’t know anything about the Council, of course, but they’re aware that their daughter does important, dangerous work that might one day put them in the line of fire. Which is why there’s a bunker beneath their modest two-bedroom home that could survive a direct missile strike. Sandra may not like her parents much, but she does care about them on some level.

Network opens his mouth as if to speak, and everybody turns to him in surprise. His original body is dead, and the nature of his existence means he doesn’t really have a true social circle outside of us. Some of his other bodies might have friends, but none of them know who he actually is. Instead of speaking, though, Axel screams.

It’s not the usual sort of scream- more of a shout, really. The sort of involuntary reaction your body often triggers when you’re having a seizure. Except there’s nothing in this room that could have caused one, so far as I can tell. Rather than sparing time to contemplate it, I stand up, shoving my seat back, and rush over to check his pulse. He collapsed a moment after screaming, but as soon as his head hit the table with a dull thud, it seems as if everything went back to normal. Heart rate steady, breathing even… the only problem is, he won’t wake up.

I slap him lightly on the face, then harder. Shake him back and forth, intone his name in urgent tones, but none of it provokes a reaction. As I’m holding one eye open to shine a flashlight in and check if his pupils are dial acting correctly, some of the others gather around. Others are looking around the room- I see a lethal-looking bone blade emerge from Tahir’s forearm. Searching for potential dangers. But we’re still perfectly safe here. The attack happened elsewhere. Maybe on the other side of the world.

“Comatose,” I conclude. Maybe prematurely, but it’s a safe guess. Knocking him out for a few minutes wouldn’t serve the purposes of whoever did this. Inducing a coma would- and will -take Axel off the playing field for a while. “My guess would be a memetic attack.”

“Then this will have propagated to all of his other bodies already,” Kellan says grimly. Everyone is silent for a moment, contemplating what that means. Multiple major world leaders, military officials, CEOs, and superheroes, just did the exact same thing we all witnessed. Simultaneously.

It doesn’t mean they’ll figure out that Axel exists, necessarily. More likely they’ll assume it was some sort of attack. But that’s not exactly better. Once word gets out- and it will, this is too big to suppress for long -there’ll be panic in the streets. Riots, even. If we can’t get a handle on it, there could be serious consequences. But there won’t be any chance of that if we’re all dead. Which means we have to find whoever did this immediately.

“How did they even know who to target? It’s not as if he’s easy to discover,” Tahir says, looking agitated. It’s probably his prey instinct warning him of danger that feels imminent, yet invisible.

“They went somewhere that they knew he’d be,” Zero replies.

“What? Where?”

By way of answer, she brings up a holo-screen showing a place that’s familiar to all of us. Avernus. Bodies lie crumpled on the ground in the halls- the ‘staff’ there, all part of Network’s collective. And in bright red letters over the feed are two words. Security Breach.

Eloquent as ever, Kellan says what’s on all our minds.

“Shit.”

“Well, at least we know where they are,” Ishtar says, activating her implant. But before she can make the jump to the prison, Adamant interjects.

“Wait. The hub at Avernus can’t handle us all translocating in at once. Evrimci and I will go first, the rest of you can follow.”

Tahir gives her a nod, looking glad to have something to do. His body is already changing, preparing for bloodshed. The location of this attack makes me suspect my guess was correct, but whoever is behind this, I pity them regardless. They aren’t prepared for what they’re about to face.

Once they’re gone, everyone who’s left is silent for a few moments. Ishtar is the one who breaks it.

“Well, I’m going next. Who’s coming with me?”

“I will,” Hawkshaw replies without hesitation. He seems to have recovered from his momentary loss of composure. They wait another moment for the display on their implants to show that the hub at Avernus is ready for another jump, then then too disappear. That just leaves me and Zero. She draws breath, slightly shakily.

“Do you think this is how it felt for them?”

“Geas and Machina? No. They knew what they were doing was wrong, even if they couldn’t admit it to themselves.”

The look in Sandra’s eyes tells me she’s not so sure if the same can’t be said about us. To be honest, I don’t feel great about going up against one of the world’s greatest superheroes either. But I don’t have the luxury of feeling doubt right now.

None of us do.