Dark Skies

Elise left the Sheath in a daze, her head aswirl with muddled thoughts.

How could he? How could any of them? But him? How could he?

Jason’s eyes had been on her back when she’d stepped out of the office. Her own son looked down on her, taking his side when she'd done nothing but stand her ground. Refused to be controlled. And they'd turned against her.

She could scarcely process it.

Bernard loved to feign competence. Yet he’d failed at his first critical junction. Spectacularly. And he’d possessed the audacity to blame her.

The suspension, while brash, wasn't wholly unexpected. He’d kept right in stride with the profile of weak, reactionary men incapable of taking accountability by lashing out against his betters. Powerless, ill-equipped and grossly underprepared for his duties meant an emotional response like this was to be expected.

What hadn't was Jason.

She'd known him for twenty-seven years. Married for twenty-six. In that time, she'd seen him scared. Panicked. She'd seen him remorseful, and she'd seen him horrified.

But never at her.

Naturally, as an orphaned, Bishop-Class Alpha at only seven years old, his training began early. Minor and incremental, but training nonetheless. Never emotional, though. There was no point in teaching him how to feel. He was a weapon.

Weapons didn't cry.

She could relate. Her shoulders still shuddered at the memory of her father. His influence lingered, even to this day. But Jason saved her, the same way she’d saved him.

At least, that’s what she liked to believe.

They’d taught each other to emote. To express. The only person who'd truly seen through her. And he stayed. He never judged or rejected her.

For over twenty-five years, there’d been no doubt. Judgment.

Distance.

Recalling the look in his eyes pulled bile up her throat. She had to stop and steady herself against a Jersey block. Elise choked down the vomit and forced away tears.

Not here.

She couldn't give Bernard the satisfaction.

Elise made it to the car. She nearly ripped the handle off opening it. It took five minutes for her to quell her shaking hands. They were probably still up there in that room. Negotiating with that moron and deciding how they'd handle lives.

Elise missed the car’s start button four times. Her head refused to stop rattling.

This whole time, Jason had been working with Bernard. He'd betrayed her. While she and his real son languished in exile across an ocean, he'd cozied up with their judge. Instead of fighting with his true family, he'd allied with the cripple.

Air was thick and heavy. The tickle of energy rolling through her hair covered her neck in pins. If this car was to last the day, she had to calm down.

Elise didn’t remember leaving the island. The next thing she remembered was sitting in rush hour traffic, staring numbly ahead. The Sheath loomed as an obscure outline in her rearview.

She had no one to call. Her circle was small. Jason was all she'd ever needed. Which Heroes would know of her orders? The few coworkers she'd befriended might have insider information and resent her for LA. As if it was her responsibility to prevent disasters.

I need a drink , she realized, turning sharply. Away from here.

She drove until dark. She’d lived around this area for years and, by extension, knew the good spots from the junk. A pileup on Interstate 89 finally convinced her to offramp and end her evening at a personal favourite, The Opal.

However, when Elise did pull into the half-empty lot, she felt neither exhaustion nor anger. Those faded hours ago.

Now she just felt hurt.

The bouncers made no effort to intercept her. Smart boys, in her opinion. Once indoors, an attendant quickly guided her to a private booth.

Two couches, a table, and soft, sensual lighting awaited her inside.

"What can we get you today, Mrs. Nova?"

The 'missus' drove a spike through her chest. "Manhattan. Dinner too."

"Of course. Any preferences?"

"Don't give a shit, just make it filling."

He nodded courteously and slipped out. Elise combed fingers through her now manic hair. It must have flared up over a hundred times today. She couldn’t even remember how she’d styled it that morning.

Elise resisted the urge to cry by cradling her head in her hands. There was no telling who was looking. Who could be recording, ready for the next big scoop. And as much as Jason liked to pretend their image was meaningless, she'd worked hard for it. The prestige the moronic men in her family loved to enjoy was in large part due to how she ensured they were perceived.

And if she wasn't careful, Bernard would bring it all crashing down around their heads.

"Your beverage," said a waiter, setting the glass on her table. "The meal will be here in a few minutes."

She nodded soundlessly. The waiter did not take her cue, however, instead choosing to settle in the free couch.

"What do you think..." she started before her voice lost power and the blood left her head.

Elise was not sitting opposite a waiter. In fact, she wasn't even sitting opposite an employee of the bar.

The Quadruplet raised placating hands to symbolize peace and surrender. Though styled in a fashionable polo, denim and even a Rolex, the bald head, towering frame, and metallic skin left no doubt.

"I'm not here to fight." He pulled his Armani sunglasses from their perch atop his head to rest on the table. "Despite what the news might tell you about us. There are far more effective ways to ambush than revealing yourself. Naked."

'Naked' was the colloquial term Alphas used when outside battle threads. Similar to how blanks would say 'unarmed'. Alphas didn't need guns, but they did need outfits capable of surviving engagements.

Elise didn't care and immediately powered up. The couch's leather hissed from heat and radiation. Her hands remained still beneath the table, though cranked with enough plasma to split Vermont down the middle.

"You're not Tacti," deduced Elise. The eye colour didn’t match, which she’d heard was the identifying differentiator between them. Her hair wriggled itself from the confines of gravity to frame her head in a carmine crown. "I'm impressed. If not at the stupidity, then the bravery."

The Quadruplet smirked. "What makes you say that?"

"There are easier ways to get into the Chasm. I'm sure you and your band of lunatics have enough of a reputation to find a free cell."

The waiter stepped into the booth with her plate and a second glass. Elise immediately began calculating her odds. She'd prefer to keep the idiot alive, but she wasn't sure which one of the brothers she was dealing with, and therefore, his powers. She could vaguely remember one being an energy projector like herself, but there was no guarantee. She needed solid intel.

However, if this one was comparable to his city-sinking sibling, that waiter was dead. Unfortunate, but she could use the diversion to figure the Rogue out and put some space between them.

Her next hurdle, then, would be the bar-frequenting civilians. Bernard was already on the warpath, and disintegrating more blanks after a week like this would do her few favours.

There's farmland and forestry north of here. I can manage the coll–

"Thank you, Dean." The Quadruplet accepted the drink in the waiter’s right hand before passing Elise her plate.

"Will that be all?" asked the waiter, facing the Rogue.

"I'm sated," said the Quadruplet, shooting Elise an easy smile. "Mrs. Nova?"

She stared at Dean. He was... collaborating? No, he looked happy. Proud. He was actively working with or for the terrorists. Her mind spun. Who else could be a part of this? He must have powers, then. Or was he just some idiotic blank unwittingly supporting genocidal warlords?

"You're Alpha?" she asked.

Dean shook his head. "'Fraid not, ma'am. Blank, through and through."

"And you know they want you all dead?”

The Quadruplet let out a boisterous laugh. He was massive, and it shook the room. "Is that so, Dean? Do we seek your extinction?"

Dean shot Elise a pitying smirk. He knew something she didn't. Or, more likely, was willfully ignorant through deference to power. People were often more open to enslavement when convinced it was in service of a higher calling. Wars, especially of a religious nature, would never work otherwise.

This idiot probably thought he was fighting for some greater good. And the attention from King-Class Rogues wouldn’t hurt.

"I'll leave you to it then," chuckled Dean, offering the Quadruplet a small bow and strange salute.

The Quadruplet sighed while swishing the whisky in his glass. "He’s a good man, Dean. You should meet his daughter. Real firecracker. Not literally, of course. I wouldn’t fault you for thinking so after hearing her cry, though. She could do your agency some good in the sonic weapon department."

"The blanks dancing behind that wall are the only reason your chest isn’t a burning hole. But I’m agile, terrorist. Relocation would take little time and less effort."

The Quadruplet took a swig. "Of that, I have no doubt. Why do you think we're meeting publicly? I'm in jeans, for crying out loud. Fighting now helps no one."

"Then you should've stayed out of California and kept your brother's grimy fucking mitts off my husband."

The Quadruplet lowered his glass. "In fairness, I've never actually been to Los Angeles. And if you meet Tacti, you'll realize you can't make that man do anything he doesn't want to."

"You have no case to plead. This night ends with you in jail."

The Quadruplet pursed his lips. "How about we talk a little first?" He extended his hand. "Magne."

"It is extremely presumptuous of you to assume I give a fuck." Elise bristled with hostility.

"Of course," responded Magne, retracting his arm. He glanced at the glow wafting from under the table, where her hands sat. "And on second thought, maybe we could reserve the handshake for later."

"What did you think this would accomplish?" demanded Elise. "What, that my absence during your brother's rampage makes me amenable to your psychotic cause? That I'd betray my husband for you?"

Magne frowned. "Betray? No, no. Quite the contrary. You need to save him."

That stopped her short. "What?”

"Think carefully, Mrs. Nova. About what you stand for. What your family stands for." He stirred his drink with a speared olive. "What you've spent decades building."

Elise didn't respond. As she still didn’t recognize him, she'd decided against attacking. Engagement sans applicable intelligence was a calamitous misstep. Also, given the assumption of the quadruplets’ power class, she could die just as well.

"Power, Elise. You've spent years building it." He pointed at her with his olive. "But not just any power. Real power. Physical, social, and political. Power that makes you immortal in more than one sense."

He plucked the olive with his teeth and chewed on it thoughtfully. "You’ve burned the Nova brand into the fabric of this nation. The world will never forget you. Granted, of course, the cripple doesn’t unravel it all."

"What is your point?"

"My point? Hmm. I’m not sure I have one.” Magne sat back. "This isn't about me, after all. But I am curious. Do you miss it?"

Elise frowned. "Miss what?"

"The serenity. When you went to bed at night, knowing you and your children were untouchable."

Elise again said nothing.

"We never had that," Magne recalled sadly. "My mother went to sleep frazzled every night. Scared her babies would wake up gone."

"Poor girl," replied Elise sardonically. "Fate never assigns miscarriages to those most deserving.”

Magne snorted and downed the rest of his drink. "Ouch. Truth is that life is different for people like us, Elise. Always has been, always will. I mean, just look at Dean. He knows what we've done. What I plan to do. Yet for some reason, he doesn’t out us."

"Leverage is the universal superpower. Works on everything."

"Clever. But he's a middle-aged blank that works at a bar." Magne reached across the table to pull her plate of nachos over to his side. "The cost of procuring blackmail outweighs potential returns. No, Dean allies himself with what he knows is true power. The real thing." Magne grinned wide. “The kind of power you crave.”

"I have power," growled Elise. "I’ve chosen not to mutilate you yet, that’s all."

Magne took a moment to savour her food. "No, Mrs. Nova, you do not. Because if you did, you wouldn't be at this bar." He leaned forward. "Instead, a blank suspended you from the agency. That doesn't sound like power to me."

To that, she had no reply.

"Tell me, Crimson Nova, what power Bernard Skies wields. Can he fly like Prime Nova? Project energy like yourself? Do both like Novax? No. He sits in a chair, irons expensive shirts, and tells people to do the things he cannot. He depends on a preexisting hierarchy to supply him with influence he'd never command alone. He's supported through a system." Magne wagged the toothpick in her face. "Does that sound like real power, Elise?"

This time, her retort wasn’t as convincing. "What do you want?"

"What everyone wants," Magne replied earnestly. "To be happy. To live a fulfilling life.”

She sneered. "And, of course, that requires the slaughter of thousands of people."

"LA was unfortunate, yes, but necessary. Our message must be heard."

"You have no fucking message," snarled Elise. "Just tantrums. You’re all lashing out like children without their favourite toy."

"Is that what you think?" chuckled Magne. "I'll chalk that off as a lack of intel as opposed to genuine ignorance. Hint, though. Your suit-crafter and primary innovation officer, Professor Pink. Where's his lab?"

Fuck me , groaned Elise. "You killed him?"

Magne recoiled with offence. "Of course not. You think us monsters? Never. We're taking good care of him."

"A double diversion, then," concluded Elise. "Nuke LA to smokescreen Syracuse and Pink."

"Very close," replied Magne encouragingly. "I'll tell you the third when you’re ready."

Like I have a choice. "I'm not going to help you."

"I agree," replied Magne. He noticed her confused expression and shrugged. "This meeting isn't my idea. My mother thinks highly of you. That of all the Heroes, you'd at least give our lens a look before you leap. Or laser, in your case."

"She's wrong."

"Rarely," snorted Magne. "And even then, it's only ever about sports." He slumped back. "We're not Children of Annubis, Elise. We're not going to terraform the planet.” He snorted derisively. “What a stupid fucking plan. Idiots. We’ve, on the other hand, just diagnosed a cancer."

"Yes, you've said. 'Power'. I heard you the first time."

"Then you agree?" pointed out Magne. "Skies is not fit to command, but he isn't the only one. Your Senate is riddled with ineptitude. The prevalence of incompetence is astonishing."

Magne smirked into his glass. "For all the Director's faults, he performed admirably. Sniffing out part of our ruse and personally venturing into the dark to fight it off himself was impressive, doubly with his lack of abilities. Not only that, but he's managed to contain civil unrest, all while overseeing the excavation of Los Angeles. For a blank, I tip my hat. He's performed marvellously.

“And how, pray tell, did his fellow countrymen react? His alleged 'allies'? Ah, yes. They declared themselves above their duty, ignoring responsibilities and glaring faults, several of which facilitated the catastrophe. They turned him into a communal dish sponge to absorb the bilge that is their failure. They washed their hands of something they were just as culpable in creating. They, like the dogs they are, barked madly at the one man who put his own life on the line to further their own conceited agenda. The Senate treated him like a fool at best and a villain at worst."

Elise's hair fell. The light bled out of her hands, and the glow left her eyes. She stared numbly at the table, earning a smirk from Magne.

"This country is broken. In fact, most of them are. The lie of democracy, the idea that common men can make rational, educated decisions concerning their future and that of a greater community has driven it to collapse. Our environment implodes. Poverty spreads. This planet has failed, and spectacularly so."

He leaned toward her. "We seek to correct it. Restructure this corrupt, dying world. LA is only the beginning. See how quickly they turn on each other? If one of us stood in Skies’ shoes, there would be order. The masses wouldn’t think to riot, as they trust a higher power will attend to them. Every religion understands this." He laughed. "Isn't that funny? When gods are nebulous, mysterious entities beyond comprehension, they are trusted immediately and implicitly. But when we stand before them, wreathed in the celestial light they’ll spend years chasing, then they doubt."

Magne shook his head. "Never meet your heroes indeed."

"What do you want?" Elise repeated.

"You know what I want, Mrs. Nova. Help us. You've seen our power. What's coming cannot be stopped, only slowed. We don't want to kill the blanks, Elise. In fact, if we can help it, your son will survive the correction. But we have a world to conquer. That requires warriors. Your true family is full of them. If I have my way, no one will ever order you again. Not some organization. Not a demanding son." He softened. "Not an obsessive father."

Elise flinched up at him. "You want me to betray SWORD."

"SWORD betrayed itself the moment it put your son on a throne he wasn't fit to hold. I want you to bring it judgment. To bring it to them all."

Magne rose to his feet, brushing nacho crumbs from his shirt. He plucked his shades from the table and walked cautiously over to place a hand on Elise's shoulder.

"Many lies will be told about us. I ask you to see the truth for yourself. Not through the eyes of an agency that cast you aside. I know it’s too soon for trust, but it’s never too early to understand."

He let go and turned for the exit. "In three days, this booth will be reserved in your name. Be there, alone, and I'll know you have made the right choice.”

"Wait," she interrupted as he touched the curtain, "you never said the third reason. For LA."

Magne snorted. "Did I? Hmm. Maybe next time."

Then he was gone, and she was alone with her thoughts. The numbness was everywhere. She couldn’t even cry. Had Magne doubled back to fight, she’d have died on the spot.

Elise felt sick.

Not from stress or exhaustion.

She actually agreed with the psychotic, mass-murdering Rogue terrorist.

And Jason would hate her for it.