~~~

The Blade had six subterranean levels. That was what the blueprints registered at the Port Stanley City Hall said. Five of them were used for parking, while the last one was an underground bunker, only to be used in the event of a natural disaster.

Unofficially, there was far more to the building than that: Labs, bunkers, five different armories, housing facilities, and even indoor farms. One could say that, hidden beneath The Blade, there was an entire town, one accessible only to Regum’s most trusted employees. It was here, deep beneath the earth, that an important conversation was taking place, one that would change the fate of many.

“What do you think of them?”

“Well, for starters, I have no idea what criteria you used to gather this lot. Save for their ages, they’re all over the place.”

Even as he spoke, the man did not look away from the holographic display in front of him. His hands typed at a frightening pace, his fingers hitting the keyboard with such strength one might be fooled into thinking he was using a typewriter. He wore a white lab coat with several coffee stains on it and, under it, jeans and a plain white shirt. He was tall and perhaps a bit too thin, but it was hard to notice with the way he was hunched over his desk.

The other man could not be more different. Tall, dark-haired, and handsome with piercing blue eyes and a strong jaw. His posture was perfect. Though he was wearing an expensive suit, it was easy to tell he was perfectly in shape under it. There was no hiding those broad shoulders. He could easily pass for a movie star of times gone by, the sort of person who had their martinis shaken, not stirred.

He was Arthur Cadogan. Owner and CEO of Regum.

“My dear doctor, the criteria was fairly straightforward. They are the ones who brought their applications in person as opposed to sending them by email.”

The typing stopped. The doctor swiveled his chair to stare at his boss.

“Seriously?”

“It shows moxie,” Arthur said, his voice a deep baritone. “I respect that.”

“Moxie.” The doctor snorted, shook his head, and went back to his work. “I can’t believe you just used that word with a straight face.”

“I am rich, doctor. I have found I can use any word I want. By the way, I am still waiting for your verdict.”

“Well…” The doctor scratched the inside of his ear before hitting a few keys. The face of one of the applicants appeared before them. “We need to talk about this one.”

“What about that one?”

“Exceed.”

Arthur raised an eyebrow. An instant disqualification, then. What a pity. “Curious. Our background checks did not uncover any spies among the applicants. Matilda is going to be quite nettled.”

“No need for her to be. This one is dormant.” Several charts appeared next to the face of the applicant. “See? No M-Field. Better add this one to the Watch List. It’s always good to have another Exceed identified. I will send you the information later.”

“I fear that won’t make her feel any better.” Matilda was the type of person who held herself to unreasonable standards of excellence and tended to demand the same of everyone around her. “Still, I thank you all the same.”

“All in a day’s work. Now, as for the rest of the candidates, this one is probably the best choice.”

Another key was hit. The picture of a brown-haired girl came up. Amanda Collins. Age 16. The daughter of two lawyers. The investigation done on her seemed altogether promising so far.

“Out of all the applicants, she’s got the highest compatibility for the SP treatment,” the doctor said. “The worst thing our scans detected was a slight weakness in her ankle. Probably from a previous fracture.”

A horse-riding accident three years ago, if Arthur remembered right. He had made sure to at least try to memorize all the reports.

“Good. Anyone else?”

“This one.” Another face appeared alongside Amanda’s. Timothy Lewis. Age 16. His father had died four years ago. His mother worked in the subway.

“What does he have?”

“Cancer.”

Arthur stared at the doctor, waiting for him to elaborate. When it became clear he wasn’t going to do so, he spoke up. “I am going to need a little more explanation than that, doctor.”

“Fine! Fine,” the doctor said, as if doing so was a bother. “It’s still in the early stages. Virtually undetectable. Technically, you wouldn’t call this cancer. Not yet. The kid doesn’t even know he has it. If we leave him be, he’ll probably get to enjoy a nice decade or so before things get terrible for him. He could die or end up with his whole stomach removed depending on the circumstances. However, with the SP treatment...”

Arthur hummed. Using the SP treatment for cancer was a largely theoretical application. They had not done any tests on humans yet.

But wasn’t human testing the point of this?

“Anything else?”

“Well, he’s got an interesting brain. Pretty sure you’ll like it.” The doctor shrugged. “As for the others, easily forgettable. From a medical perspective, at least. You’d know their profiles better than I.”

He did.

“As always, your help has been invaluable, Merlin.”

The doctor groaned. “If you keep calling me that, I’ll quit.”

“Ah, but where else will you find a person willing to give you this much freedom?”

“I could try the government. I hear they’re pretty morally bankrupt.”

“Too much red tape,” Arthur said. “You’d hate it.”

The doctor clicked his tongue.

“I would hate it, wouldn’t I?”

“You’ll have to put up with Merlin, I fear.” He patted the doctor’s shoulder. “A pity.”

“Drat.”

~~~

Tim was chopping carrots.

He had scavenged the fridge for leftovers and was fairly sure he could turn them into a nice soup with just a little bit of work. As he did that, his gaze would inevitably drift to the couch where his mom was sleeping. Some would say it was dangerous to take your eyes off your hands while chopping anything. Those people were probably right, but no one had ever accused Timothy Lewis of being cautious.

Fifteen minutes later, the smell of soup had taken hold of the house. It wasn’t hard, seeing as their house wasn’t all that big. Or big at all, really.

Besides, this time the soup didn’t have to compete with the smell of alcohol or cigarettes. His mom had come back sober today. She was sleeping, not because she had been out drinking, but because she was stuck working the night shift. It sucked, but the night shift meant less supervision, which meant lower odds of her being fired if she ever showed up drunk, something that had been happening more often as of late.

It was always worse around the anniversary.

That was what Tim had told Mr. White the other day. He hadn’t been lying, but they both knew that wasn’t the full story. Sad as it was to admit it, his mom wasn’t getting any better. As the years passed, the anniversary hit her harder and harder. It always took her just a little more time to get back to normal.

Tim’s gaze flicked over to the counter where his acceptance letter rested in the small basket where they put their mail. He had gotten an email the other day, but having something physical made the whole thing feel more real. Somehow, he had done it. He had an internship in a big-money company. It was the sort of thing that would look good on a resume. A major boon for someone like him considering his resume wasn’t going to be impressing anyone by dint of his choice of community college.

That or trade school. Tim still hadn’t decided, and to be honest, he was leaning towards trade school.

However, maybe he shouldn’t be looking at an internship right now. Internships were just a fancy way of hiring people and making them work without having to pay them. It was just like actors who did work for the exposure. Tim had gone for it because it was freaking Regum and because it wasn’t like he was doing anything else this summer. Getting some work experience wasn’t going to hurt him or anything.

With his mom like that, though, maybe he should be looking for a real part-time job instead.

“Don’t.” Tim looked up just in time to catch his mother getting up from the couch. She yawned loudly, stretching her arms over her head before wandering over to the counter like a very uncoordinated zombie. “Coffee?”

“I made soup,” Tim said, already pouring her bowl and sending it her way. “Don’t what?”

“Whatever you were thinking of just now,” his mom replied, giving a brief thanks as he handed her a spoon. “It can’t be anything good if you were making that face.”

“I only have the one, so I’m not sure I can make another.”

She glared at him. “Don’t get smart with me. You know what I mean. You weren’t thinking anything good. Don’t do it.”

More than once, Tim had wondered if maybe his mom was some sort of mind-reading Exceed. The way she could read him was uncanny sometimes.

But no, it was probably just a mom thing.

“You should focus on your things. You got that internship, didn’t you? We should go buy you some clothes. You’ll get thrown out of the building looking like that.”

“Are you sure? I mean…” The money.

“Let me worry about the money.” His mom sighed, placing a hand on her forehead. “No, I guess I don’t have the right to tell you that with how much of a mess I’ve been lately. I let you see me at my worst way too much.”

“What? No. No way.” Tim tried to smile encouragingly at her, but his face faltered then crumbled in the face of his mother’s unimpressed stare. She sighed again.

“Look, how about this? I’ll go sober for one week.”

“Are… are you sure?” It wasn’t the first time he’d heard this offer. Of course, like always, he wanted to believe it.

“I am sure,” she said. She ran a hand through her hair, brushing it out of her face. “Walter and I got into an argument at work. That ass really said what was on his mind.” A sigh left her lips. “I probably needed to hear it, though. So yes, I am sure. I am going to show you, you don’t need to worry about me. Just... go do whatever it is teens do.”

“Wild parties and underage drinking?”

He meant it as a joke, but his mom actually seemed to consider it.

“One wild party, no drinking, don’t botch your internship.”

“That’s fair.”

~~~

“While the existence of previous cases has been heavily debated, the world’s first recorded Exceed appeared in 1916. The Great War and, indeed, the entire world were brought to a screeching halt by a man who flew through the skies as easily as any bird. This would mark the beginning of…”

A knock on her door put a stop to Amanda’s typing.

“Mind if I come in?”

“It’s open,” she replied automatically, wondering when it was that she started closing her door.

As a kid, her door had always been open. Her parents were free to go in and out of her room without needing her permission. That had changed at some point. It was the way of things. If Amanda had a penny for every time her friends complained about how their parents had dared to go into their rooms without knocking, she’d be rich enough she wouldn’t ever need to work.

Everyone put up walls eventually.

“Hi, princess,” her father said as he came into the room.

From him, she had inherited her brown hair and pale skin. He was a man of average height, and average… well, almost everything. Boring-looking, she’d heard some people call him behind his back. Even her friends had sometimes told her they couldn’t understand how someone as cool as her mom had married him. That was because they hadn’t seen him in a courtroom. There was nothing average about her dad when he lawyered up.

Shame she couldn’t explain that without looking horribly biased.

“Doing homework?” He asked while planting a kiss on her forehead.

“Just finishing the last assignment,” she replied, which was technically true. Sure, she was just starting, but starting something was the first step towards finishing. Hence, she was just finishing it.

“Good. Good.” He took a seat on her bed, his hands clasped together. “I want to apologize for the other day.”

“It’s okay.” Once again, she replied without thinking. “You had work to do. It was important.”

“You’re important too,” her father said. He sighed. “Your mother and I... we know we haven’t been making as much time for you as we should.”

Amanda wondered if this was a conversation both her parents had planned on having with her together. If that was the case, it only made her mother’s absence all the sadder.

“I know we had plans today…”

They were supposed to go out and have a family dinner. Celebrate that she had gotten the internship.

“Dad,” she finally turned away from her computer. “Really, it’s okay. I get it. I’m not a little girl. I don’t need my mom and dad taking me out for dinner. If I wanted to go out, I’d have called Sophie. Things are good.”

Why did she say things?

Sophie wasn’t even in the country!

“Besides, how can I deny mom the chance to meet a celebrity?”

She and her father shared a chuckle at that. Her mom’s current client was the Exceed who had accidentally summoned a bunch of toads the other day. While the toads hadn’t killed anyone, they had caused a couple of accidents. No driver could stay calm when something suddenly fell on their windshield.

The city was doing its best to keep the whole thing on the down-low. The last thing anyone wanted was the press sensationalizing the trial. Except in the case of supervillains, things could get tricky when Exceeds met the legal system. Eighty-four years had made things better, but, as her mother often said, there was still plenty of room for improvement.

“We are proud of you, you know?” Her father said.

“Dad!” She whined.

“I mean it. Both of us are. You could have easily gotten an internship at any of our offices-”

“You’d have coddled me if I had,” Amanda pointed out.

“Exactly,” her father admitted without a trace of shame. “We’d have treated you with kid gloves. You knew that and didn’t take the easy way out. You challenged yourself. Your mother couldn’t stop talking about how proud she was of you last night.”

Amanda wished her mother could save that sort of talk for when she was awake and in the same room.

“Dad!”

“Okay. Okay.” Her father chuckled. “Too embarrassing. I know.”

“So embarrassing!”

“Just be glad I don’t do this stuff in front of your friends.”

With one last laugh, her father left her to her own devices. The door closed, and seconds later, Amanda’s forehead met her desk. For the umpteenth time, she wondered a simple question.

Why was it so hard to say what she actually meant?

~~~

As a new day welcomed the citizens of Port Stanley, two people met in front of The Blade.

“Ames! You got the internship too?”

“You?!”

“Isn’t this awesome!” Tim’s smile was blinding. Amanda’s smile was… not really present. “We’re co-interns now!”

“Oh dear, you are here already?”

The two turned to see Alice Steiner walking towards them, a handbag in one hand and a cup of Asteroid coffee in the other.

“Good. We approve of early risers here, so let me be the first to say this.”

She favored them with a smile as bright and warm as the sun.

“Welcome to Regum. We are happy to have you here.”

~~~