“So what is this about, Cormigieu?”

Whitworth put down his spoon and set his crème brulee aside.

“Maybe a guy just wants to catch up with an old friend,” he said.

Helena leaned back with a wry smile.

“Would it be that you cared about such a thing,” she said. “What do people like us have to share anyway?”

“There must be something we haven’t both seen. A story you haven’t told me before, perhaps from your earlier life.”

“More has happened in the past three centuries than all the time before. Unless you’re interested in Neolithic pottery, I can assure you humanity has not changed overmuch.”

“But we have,” Whitworth said. “We’ve become more dangerous to ourselves.”

“Where is this going?”

“I have a project for you. Completely proprietary. Off the books. Blacker than black.”

“One that the Council has no doubt refused.”

“I haven’t told them exactly what it was.” He returned to his dessert, jabbing the spoon into the soft sweetness. “They’ve already approved Apex’s new brainchild so they didn’t pry further into mine.”

“Apex’s Skywarden project, yes. Flashy.”

“You know about that?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“I need a computer. Morally utilitarian but not self-aware.”

“How many parallel streams of thought?”

“Many.”

Helena pinched her chin, looking away.

“I have properties working on AI tech,” she said. “And shell companies with semiconductor foundries.”

“Do you also happen to have a rocket?”

I can engineer an excuse to build one.” Helena frowned. “What is this for?”

“We waste billions every year on building and maintaining supermax facilities for supervillains,” Whitworth said. “Sometimes they can be changed to benefit us. Most of the time they can’t. I need a computer that can acquire and analyze a sit rep of any encounter and provide heroes with instantaneous permissions justified by CEOR.”

“To do what?”

“Whatever is necessary. A license to restrain with prejudice. A license to break bone.”

“A license to kill?”

“Sometimes.”

Helena began to draw on her napkin, aloof in her pen strokes. Her tone stayed matter of fact.

“And this rocket you want from me…”

“You want me to say it?”

“That would entertain me.”

“An extremely high orbit satellite. Even higher than the Nova satellites. One that wouldn’t be routed to the POTUS’s tablet.”

“What for?” Helena asked with a demure smirk.

“Observation.”

“Over America?”

“For now.”

“A satellite that can process and send petabytes of sensor and image data per second…” She wrote a line of figures on the napkin. Her brow furrowed ever so slightly. “And make ‘many’ different decisions based on what it sees. That’ll take a bleeding edge sensor suite. Not to mention a processor that could make that many calculations would run very hot. It’d be brighter than the ISS to the right eyes.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Well you’re the trillionaire,” Whitworth said. He started to dig into his dessert. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

Helena put a finger on her lips.

“There’s no such thing as a trillionaire,” she said.

“Right, of course.”

“This will cost you. Immensely. And that’s just to hide the project’s construction. Might even need a whole shell conglomerate. And time to assuage suspicion. Even with the number of revenue streams M.A.G.E has I don’t think you could scrounge enough.”

“That’s for me to figure out,” Whitworth said. “Once this is complete it will be worth it in the long run.”

“If it can be completed. What about the Council? The US government? NATO? This project of yours is a supranational threat.”

“Not in my hands.”

“And why is that?”

Whitworth frowned knowingly.

“I’m the Director of M.A.G.E., a professional hero,” he said. “Don’t you trust me?”

--

It was Saturday, and the campus’s many pathways and gardens were slowly filling with students advertising events and clubs.

“Which one are you thinking of, Lyssa?” Carrie asked.

“I prefer to go home after class.”

“I know.”

“But we don’t get to be freshmen forever, do we?”

“Most of these look kind of niche.” Carrie accepted a pamphlet from a wandering student distributor. She flipped through it casually. “High speed knitting?”

“I used to be a bit of a seamstress,” Lyssa said.

“Because you needed to be. You do have enough clothes now, right?”

“I’m good,” Lyssa said, laughing. “It’s not often anymore that I need to mend torn clothes.”

Not as often as replacing them, anyway. It was strange to remember that she was a murderer. In self-defense sure, but a kill is a kill. The most worrying part of it was she did not feel overwhelming guilt about it anymore.

Down the path, between the moving crowds of chattering students, a lone banner had been placed on a pillar, telling people to seek mental guidance if they need it. Every school seemed to have them nowadays. A slapped-together program with glacial wait times so a volunteer who wasn’t a hero could tell her how to cope with being one. How would they react if she told them she had killed a man in cold—or rather hot—blood? What could they possibly say that would absolve her? Did she need absolving?

Whenever the news covered hero work it was always surprisingly clean, bloodless. They passed by a screen that broadcasted the story of yesterday’s explosion. A prank by some child who could grow living, timed grenades and attach them to any surface. Only the custodian and a few night owl office workers had been hurt. The custodian had bulletproof skin. The news people showed him walking about with a few bandages and a bright smile. They did not show the office workers, despite reassuring their viewers that no one had been permanently injured.

Lyssa clenched her teeth. They had no problem showing all the gritty details during Rachminau.

“Don’t get lost,” Carrie was saying.

Lyssa snapped back to reality. The crowd was moving. She had missed whatever was calling for everyone’s attention. Their drill sergeant of a gift instructor Tobias Quachiri was standing on a stage. His voice boomed across the field, no microphone this time.

“You all know what time it is,” he said. “First round of sign-ups will be opening here in fifteen minutes.”

The crowd cheered. Even Carrie was excited.

“What is this?” Lyssa asked.

Carrie seemed confused for an instant.

“Ah, you don’t follow hero stuff, right.” She grabbed Lyssa’s hand and pulled her along. Behind the campus, past the gardens, there was a decline in the campus grounds leading into a massive park. Glistening glass geodesics jutted out of the trees like giant, half-buried golf-balls.

“At the beginning of every year we have a tournament,” Carrie said. “Like a decathlon but with gifts. And a lot more violent.”

“What?” Lyssa said, shocked.

“You’ve never seen one of these?”

“When I lived alone I used wi-fi mostly to file taxes and buy things.”

“Wow. Alright. Uhm, yeah that’s what we’ll be signing up for in ten minutes.”

“Me too?”

“Why not? It puts your name on the map. There’s thousands of hero graduates every year. You need to distinguish yourself.”

“This is like a modern chariot race,” Lyssa said with an uncertain laugh.

“But with explosions. And fighting. Lots of fighting.”

“Why would they risk the next generation of heroes getting hurt?”

“You’re asking too many questions. Just sign up and play ball. Come on, you know you want to.”

“What if I don’t?”

“Well, students can watch for free so you can come cheer me on.”

“Spectators are paying for this? How much is it?”

Carrie recalled quickly. “I think it’s ninety-nine dollars for a full TV pass. One twenty for a pass with access to a drone camera view. Two hundred for a spot on the zeppelin stadiums. There are some higher tier seats too for richer people.”

“People would pay that much?”

“Oh millions of people would. Only comes once a year, sweetie.”

“Christ that is ludicrous.”

“Well we don’t pay tuition or living expenses here,” Carrie said. “It’s all got to come from somewhere.” She gave Lyssa a light jostle. “Come on… do it. Do it with me.”

You’re going to get yourself killed.

I don’t care either way.

I need an excuse to cut loose and cauterize people!

Lyssa massaged her temple.

This is your chance to prove you’re ready for me.

She blinked. That last one. She remembered that tone of voice. It came from that place deep within, one she did not create and had no control in; the self that had cast her out.

“…Okay,” she said.

Carrie’s joking smile stretched to a full-on beaming.

“Let’s aim for the top ten,” she said. “We’re going to put on a hell of a show.”

“I guess at the end of the day violence pays our bills,” Lyssa said.

“That’s the spirit.”