A Tale of Two Masks

The unreadable phone number turned out to be a minor issue. Mostly because Ashton found a very fancy-looking invitation in his mailbox the next morning. The paper was oddly sleek, yet soft, and the envelope bore the unforgettable blue and gold of SI’s logo. Ashton could instantly tell this would hold anything but good news, but opened it up.

“My Dearest Ashton,”

He had to pause after reading the header alone. This was definitely from Amos. That man had a way of instantly getting on his nerves, but he pushed past it and forced himself to read the rest of the letter.

“I set up a special date just for you! Summer Aster has been sent a ticket to Scrumptious Sensations, but she doesn’t know its a date. Use this little surprise to give her the time of her life. I’ll be asking about all the juicy details later,”

In other words, he was under surveillance so he didn’t leak any state secrets, like how heroes are fake.

“P.S. I’ve told Ms. Aster that a talented employee of mine will be there to guide her.

Best of luck,

Amos Wyndart”

Ashton stared at the ridiculous letter for several more minutes before he noticed his own ticket for Scrumptious Sensations tucked into the envelope. Forget the surprise date, he didn’t think he owned a single suit suitable for visiting such a high end restaurant. He spent his entire day at work concerned about that, then rushed to a rental place to get something fast. He would likely never need it again anyways.

He arrived at the restaurant almost an hour early and immediately headed inside to check on the state of things. His experience with Amos was that he didn’t tolerate things going wrong when it could have been prevented. He needed to make sure nothing went wrong. Luckily the ticket was in order and the staff had already set up the room for them.

Ashton went to inspect it quickly and immediately regretted it. The room had clearly been set up with a romantic atmosphere in mind. The table was decorated with roses and the tablecloth had lace-like embroidery that he had not seen on any of the others coming in. He turned around quickly before he could do anything to the immaculate presentation and headed back to the door.

To his relief, he saw Summer approach shortly after. “There you are. Sorry, I couldn’t contact you because I lost your number.”

Summer frowned. “How did you lose my number. I wrote it on your… oh.” Her eyes traveled to his hand where he had been unable to wash off all the ink.

“You brought your ticket, right?” Ashton asked her. He wanted to change the subject before things got awkward. At least more awkward than it was already going to be.

“I did,” she confirmed, and showed it to him, “Did you… Were you sent by, um, Mr. W?”

Mr. W? Did she mean Amos Wyndart? Ashton was a bit confused by her odd wording, but answered her question. “Yeah. He let me know this morning. I have some things we need to talk about once we get inside.”

Summer eagerly pushed him forwards. He only hoped she wouldn’t be too shocked by their destination. When they arrived, he noticed a definite pause in the doorway. He waited until they sat down to start talking.

“I’m sorry,” Ashton confessed, “He found out you had asked me on a date and misunderstood.”

Summer seemed to understand what was going on immediately. “So he set us up on a date?” she clarified.

Ashton nodded. He could feel his frustration with SI’s overbearing CEO building up again. Even more so because he had to push forward or risk falling under more suspicion. “I don’t really know how to ask this, but do you think it would be okay to meet a few times-”

“And start dating for real?” Summer jumped in, “I can do that! Actually, my dad saw the invitation earlier.”

Summer jumped in before he could even finish his thought, and he was honestly more relieved than anything. Dating for real wasn’t exactly what he had in mind, but if that was what she had in mind, he would comply.

“And he misunderstood?” Ashton guessed, “Alright. I guess we can give this a try. I don’t have any reason not to. Can we keep any further meetings more casual, though?”

He didn’t think he could handle another emergency suit rental, or worse. This kind of environment was just not something he was meant for.

Summer looked at their surroundings again and laughed a little. “Definitely.”

Before their food experience started, Ashton let Summer borrow his phone so she could put her number in. He sent her a quick text just in case. Neither of them wanted to risk another situation like this one again.

“Actually, there is one more thing,” she brought up, “My father said that if this goes well he wants to meet you.”

Ashton grimaced but before they could discuss it, the staff came in and the experience began. Summer admitted she had been here before, but Ashton had never seen anything like it. Parts of the food were prepared before them like a show. There was flambe, and normal cooking tricks, but there were also various food enhancements added with people’s powers.

Somehow he still felt exhausted by the time he got home. He carefully removed the suit, making sure there were no stains. He would return it the next day. Before he went to bed, Ashton did a quick check of his email, only to see one that snapped him wide awake. It was labeled, ‘A Warning for Shadow Phoenix’ from an unknown email.

He was home alone, but he still found himself looking around to check no one was watching him. His identity as Shadow Pheonix was classified information. No one should know, unless there was a leak somewhere. He opened the email to see what it contained, just in case.

"The sandcastle of SI will crumble as soon as we reveal the truth. This is the only warning we will give you. Get out while you still can.”

It wasn’t the kind of warning he was expecting, but certainly one he needed to take seriously. Ashton decided the best course of action was to let Amos know. He screenshotted the message and sent it to him.

Despite himself he found himself hoping the ominous message would distract the CEO from his date interrogation that was sure to come the next day.Unfortunately, even his slight wish for relief was cast aside as he walked into work the next day and immediately summoned to his office for a double length interrogation.

“What is this?” Amos demanded as soon as he saw Ashton enter. He had the picture of the suspicious email on his screen.

“I don’t know. I found it last night. I’ve never seen that email before, but I figured you would know what to do with it.”

“I have sent it to all the important people,” he confirmed, “but do you know why they would warn you in particular?”

“You probably know more than I do. You monitor everything I do, and everyone I talk to,” Ashton pointed out, “I didn’t have time to socialize.”

“I was afraid of that,” Amos said with a grimace, “I was hoping you had some bizarre interaction slip under the radar. It will be much harder to track down a mysterious fan. Villain fans have always been a problem to deal with.”

“You think it was a fan? But how would a fan know about… The secret?” Ashton asked.

“It means we might be dealing with an employee, or former employee, who was in a position to learn the secret. It could be a villain, or even just a camera man.”

Ashton didn’t like the sounds of that. “So might have an actual rogue villain on the loose,” he realized, “Do all villains go through the training I did?”

“They do.”

There was a moment of silence as they both thought over the current situation. “Before we get down to business, let’s discuss something more pleasant.”

Ashton had a bad feeling about where this was going.

“How did your date go?”