2003

The scream of the sirens is almost deafening, even out on the airfield. I can only imagine what it’s like on the other side of the runway, beyond the chain-link fence that separates us from the residential districts around Paine Field. I wonder if they even notice the noise, once the initial shock has passed, or if they’re too hopped up on adrenaline in their mad dash for the shelters to hear anything except the sound of their own heart beating.

Fuck, I bet half of them don’t even know where the shelters are. Not that there’s enough; it’s one thing to dig out a basement for an atom bomb, but Endbringers are a whole different beast. Behemoth can crack the earth out from under them, filling them with radiation, while Leviathan takes a sick pleasure in splitting them open like a crab’s shell and letting the water flood in. They’ve building shelters as fast as they can, but it clearly wasn’t fast enough.

I shake my head, trying and failing to force the image from my head. I focus on the sound of my boots pounding on concrete as I sprint towards the hangar, on the struggle to zip up my flight suit on the move with a helmet in one hand and the other around the straps of my harness and life preserver. I got lucky; I was checking over the survival equipment when the sirens started, otherwise I’d have gone without. Anything to get in the air as fast as possible.

All around me, pandemonium reigns.

We don’t have enough shelters, either. The one shelter on Paine Field is built beneath the main Boeing complex, practically on the other side of the site. Even then, that concrete fortress doesn’t look half as appealing to people as the dozens of factory-fresh aircraft all lined up and painted in the livery of dozens of different airliners or militaries.

To my right, there’s a deafening roar as the next in a long line of immense transports rolls down the runway, rising up into the sky to battle the tropical thunderstorm that’s rolled in from the sea. A bolt of incandescent lightning hits the air traffic control tower, followed a millisecond later by the crack of thunder. I’m soaked to the bone; the torrential downpour enough to drown out all but the loudest sounds, whipped back and forth by irregular wind currents that must make aerodynamics a nightmare.

Ahead of me, they’ve already rolled open the hangar doors. I didn’t even have to ask the ground crew to do it; it’s like we’ve all been infected by a collective madness. They could be running to a shelter now – or one of the evacuating aircraft – and so could I, but instead we’re preparing to fight.

I can see the Archangel sitting in the hangar, lithe and predatory. That black, angular shape is more familiar to me than my own body, the product of years of development and constant maintenance and refinements. It’s a beautiful thing; my very own angel of death. We named it before the Angel of Lausanne appeared, but some of the ground crew took it as a good omen. They floated the idea of painting on some nose art of her, but it’d have messed up the stealth coating.

I can see the crew now – the few of them who happened to be near the hangar – bolting an odd assortment of different missiles onto the racks and loading a long stream of ammunition into the cannons. Just our luck we were preparing for a weapons test, I suppose. Each technician has a Boeing logo on the back of their coveralls, the same one that’s on the patch on my left shoulder. Corporate work sure pays better than the Air Force ever did, and I didn’t even have to give up the flight suit.

“How’s she looking?” I shout at the lead technician, as I sprint the last few yards, forcing my helmet on my head.

“She’s fit to fight, Icarus,” the big Hawaiian replies as the last missile is latched into place. “You’ve got a full tank of fuel, not that you’ll need it.”

“You morbid bastard.” I chuckle as I climb the ladder to the cockpit. “No time for pre-flights; I need to be in the air five minutes ago.”

I hear a shout from the hangar entrance, the speaker’s voice pained and breathless. “The fuck do you think you’re doing, Andrew? You can’t fly this bird without me!”

I lean out of the cockpit to see Isabella sprinting across the hangar, her flight suit barely on, her bootlaces undone, her life preserver nowhere to be seen and her bulky helmet gripped tightly in her hand. She doesn’t look ready, but she’s still here… and it does take two to fly this thing.

“A minute later and I’d have had to try!” I shout back. “Get your ass in here, Oracle, we’ve got an appointment to keep!”

She flips me off, even as she buckles on her helmet. She has to pause at the base of the ladder to flip up the bulky visor – so she can actually see where she’s going – but a moment later she’s slipping into her seat behind me as one of the techs plugs her helmet into the Archangel’s systems. I hear the click of her flipping the visor back down, as she loses herself in a world of radar and targeting data, before the cockpit is slammed shut.

I go through my own checks, spinning up the hefty engines mounted on the back of this beast while turning on the smaller pulse-jets that add the extra bit of fine control that makes the Archangel truly special. Around us, the technicians pull back, giving us a clear path out of the hangar and onto the taxiway. I patch my headset into the radio, immediately flooding my ears with dozens of panicked voices and the measured calm of air traffic control forging order among the chaos.

“Paine Tower, X-Thirty-Seven Archangel,” I speak into the radio, making contact with the tower.

“X-Thirty-Seven Archangel, Paine Tower,” they acknowledge after a moment, just a hint of stress creeping through their trained professionalism.

“Archangel requesting emergency clearance for take-off on runway thirty-four.”

The response is immediate and terse, the speaker changing as someone more senior butts in.

“Archangel, negative. Runway is reserved for emergency evacuation flights.”

“We’re combat ready,” I snap back. “Get us up and we’ll buy you as much time as we can.”

There’re a few tense seconds, as I start to think about just gunning it for the runway and facing the consequences if I make it through, before the Tower’s voice comes back through the radio.

“112, hold. Break. Archangel, you are cleared for take-off. Make it quick.”

“Archangel, roger.” I reply, before leaning back and shouting to Oracle. “Make it quick, he says! Like I was ever going to take it slow!”

“So get to it, stick jockey. I’m getting bored back here.”

I laugh out loud, disengaging the engine’s safety limits and pushing the throttle forward. Behind me, the engine starts to spin up. It’s a strange and esoteric machine, and I’m the only person in the world who could have made it. The Archangel is a special type of beast; the lovechild of two Tinkers armed with a budget that would make NASA blush, with the intent of creating a mystery for DARPA’s scientists and engineers to unravel. To drive technology forwards, by giving the eggheads a midnight-black example to follow.

We roll down the runway with the grace of an eagle and the force of an atom bomb, probably leaving a trail of boiled water vapor behind us. In seconds, I’ve set us free from the earth and cast us loose into the stormy skies. All around me, the Archangel purrs with barely-restrained energy, like a wild animal waiting to be unleashed.

“Oracle, systems check!”

“Green across the board,” her voice comes clearly through the internal radio, an eager hunger in her tone. “I’m cutting through the storm like it isn’t even here.”

We built this beast together. I poured my heart and soul into the propulsion system and the little aerodynamic boosters, but Oracle added the magic that makes the Archangel more than just a fancy rocket. We’ve got the most advanced radar targeting systems the world has ever seen, capable of hitting a man-sized flying target with enough firepower to level an apartment block or three.

“I’m banking left. Get ready; we’ll be over the wall in seconds.”

I pull back on the control column, triggering micropulse engines along the wings to put us in a high-G turn, only long experience keeping the two of us conscious. It’s almost a complete one-eighty, angling us to fly right over the Pacific Wall. We pass over Whidbey island, over forests and buildings in the process of being swept away by floods of water, stained brown by dirt and debris. Targets start to appear on the screen in front of me; eighteen figures outlined clearly in green, and a larger figure – almost six times the size of the other targets – who seems to slip in and out of the screen.

“Oracle?!” I shout.

“Trouble locking on-” It’s all she’s able to say, before we’re over the wall. Through the rain-slicked canopy, I get a brief glimpse of half a dozen Capes engaging Leviathan in hand-to-hand combat. Some with power armour, some with weapons and some with their raw strength. They’re dropping like flies, their bodies being scattered across the top of the wall.

I ignore them completely, my eyes locked on the green and black radar readout as I send a missile shooting into the midst of the melee, a tungsten core accelerating to supersonic speeds in a second as my custom-made propellant launches it forwards.

By the time it hits, we’re already over the target, past the end of the wall at Point No Point and soaring down the already flooded Hood Canal. Ahead of us, one of Leviathan’s tsunamis has drowned the Trident base at Bangor, no doubt creating a radiological nightmare.

“Oracle, did it hit?”

“Went into the water. It’s that fucking afterimage, it keeps throwing off the system.”

“Next time’s the charm, I guess,” I say, as I throw the Archangel around, over Silverdale and Bainbridge island. Suddenly, the city emerges from the driving storm. I can barely make it out through the rain: the brilliant red lights atop the higher buildings, the yellow-lit floors below them and the constant flash of emergency lights in the streets below. As I watch, a Cape takes flight from the PRT’s downtown building, a steady stream of energy trailing behind them.

I drop our height until we’re barely a hundred feet over the water, hugging the surface of the Sound with the city to our right. We’re slipping in and out of supersonic, before I slow our speed a little to give Oracle’s targeting systems a little boost. The wall rises up ahead of us; five stories tall and overshadowed by the spray of an immense tsunami, a mountain of foamy seawater rising up twice that height as it batters the wall.

I can see Leviathan standing atop it, silhouetted against the white spray and utterly unaffected by the force that sweeps the parapet clear of any Cape without a way of holding on. The water at the base of the wall is choppy, yet a simple white speedboat is powering through it. I check the radar, seeing a silhouetted figure throwing some sort of scattered power effect from the front of the boat.

Stone structures are rising out of the waves, wherever the woman sows her seeds. They crash into the wall with the force of a mountain, pushing back against the full force of the Pacific, but it’s not enough. Leviathan is breaking her wall, thoroughly and methodically, even as more reinforcements start to pour in. The radio is filled with dozens of competing voices, emergency services, military, PRT and desperate civilians vying for space on the airwaves.

In the midst of all this chaos, I see the focus of the monster shift downwards, to the diminutive figure who’s standing in his way. I act without thinking, firing three different warheads at Leviathan’s blurred radar image. I know they won’t hit him, even as airbursts fill the air with flechettes and advanced homing systems adjust the course of tungsten darts on the fly, but they can distract him.

He adjusts his attack, ducking out of the way of one warhead while catching the other on his shoulder… with no visible damage. But the attack buys enough time for a flying Cape to swoop in and snatch away the builder before she’s crushed beneath the spray.

I’ve been flying low for too long, getting dangerously close to the wall. I pull up, hard, passing within fifteen feet of Leviathan as we overshoot the wall, cutting through the tsunami’s spray like it isn’t even there. We’re out over the water, in the channel leading out to the Salish Sea. The whole thing is filled from end to end with successive tsunamis, mounds and troughs lined up like a column of soldiers.

When the wall falls – and it is when, not if – those waves will sweep down and batter Seattle. This is just the first skirmish of a very long battle, and all we can do is hold out for as long as we can.

“Watch your flying, Icarus,” Oracle says, once we have room to breathe. “I don’t want to get any closer to that thing than we have to.”

“You saw the hit. It’s easier to get a successful lock when he’s in profile.”

“That won’t matter if we crash into the sea before getting a chance to launch.”

She’s talking like this is something we can survive, but we both know that isn’t true. If we want to make a difference here – if we want what we do to matter – we have to annoy the bastard. We could circle at a thousand feet and never come close to hitting Leviathan, or we can get in close and make him react. Every minute we buy is another aircraft out of Paine Field, another hundred civilians squeezed into a shelter.

I start to turn us around, the shift in direction marked by the shifting pattern of rain on the cockpit, the changing direction and distance of the flashes of lighting that are pouring out of the storm that’s enveloped Seattle.

“All callsigns, this is PRT AWACS Eisenhower, taking over command and control from PRT-Twenty Emergency Command. All communications will be routed through my officers.”

And there’s the PRT, as fast as they could get in range. The two Endbringers are a constant threat, so the PRT keeps six command and control aircraft over North America at all times, each fully-staffed and prepared to shoulder the immense burden that comes from coordinating the response against an Endbringer.

“All callsigns,” the voice comes through again, not a moment later. “The Pacific Wall has collapsed. Pull back to the Si’Ahl Wall.”

I gun the engine, the lines of tsunamis passing beneath us like stepping stones as I rush to beat the first one to the Wall. It’s the last barrier between Leviathan and the city, and nobody even knows if it’ll hold.

We arrive just in time to see the aftereffects of the first wave; the spiderweb of immense cracks stretching across the entire length of the wall. Moments later, the second hits, and when it recedes it takes the wall with it.

Immense blocks of concrete simply crumble under the force of the water, collapsing like sandcastles hit by a wave. The impact collapsed the back of the wall, too, scattering jagged shards of concrete into the suburban streets, large enough to crush houses. Not that it matters, when the third wave passes over the ruined wall like it isn’t even there and sweeps away whole suburbs.

I can see Paine Field, with eight aircraft still waiting for the runway space to take off. The wall of water hits the tower, and I get a brief glimpse of the green glass windows being shattered before the whole structure tips and collapses. The aircraft are even less resilient, being picked up by the wave and dashed against the fancy glass and steel terminal then dragged back out to sea as the tsunami recedes.

I let out a wordless shout, turning away from the carnage and swinging around.

“Andrew, keep it cool,” Isabella tells me, her voice the perfect example of professional detachment. “Don’t fly angry.”

“Where is it?” I snap back. “Where’s Leviathan?”

“Eisenhower has been monitoring its movements as best they can. Last estimate was grid eight-one-three, three-zero-six. Lynnwood.”

I grin, my grip on the control column tightening as I throw the throttle forwards. We swing around over the water, ducking once to avoid a flying Cape who’s still making her way over from the ruined Pacific Wall, and slowing once we hit the city streets.

From the air, Leviathan isn’t that hard to spot. If we were downtown, it’d be harder, but he’s larger than most of the buildings in Lynnwood. I issue a warning over the radio as I line up a shot, firing our last four missiles in a quick fusillade that pulps streets, sends Capes scattering and drives a tungsten dart into the monster. I’m already overhead by the time it hits, but I can see its signature on the radar. Whether it penetrated or shattered on impact is another matter entirely.

Not that it matters to me. I’m throwing everything I have at the bastard, no matter what happens. I can see the skyline of Seattle rising up in front of me; the towering skyscrapers of downtown and the iconic dish atop the Space Needle, set apart from the city in its own little park.

I don’t even know if it’s about them anymore, or if I just want to pour my hatred into that monster.

I pull back, angling the jet straight up and opening up the throttle to full. In any other aircraft, I’d be stalling within seconds but this is my engine, built up over years of work.

It flies up like a rocket, pushing through the cloud as static discharges play off the fuselage. And then, we’re over the cloud layer, blinded by the sudden light of the sun. I soar up there for a few seconds, with a sea of clouds beneath us and the distant shape of the PRT AWACS circling overhead, before pointing the nose straight down and dropping like a stone through the clouds.

Lighting flashes on either side of us as we re-emerge over the flooded city. Legend is soaring overhead, firing a steady stream of incandescent blue-white lasers that curve and bend through the city streets.

I follow their path like landing lights, almost skimming the tops of the buildings as I open up the panels that cover the twin thirty-millimetre autocannons when we’re in supersonic. Behind me, Oracle is completely silent as she works to constantly update my radar images, marking out the positions of low-flying capes, tall buildings, electric poles or anything else that might get in our way.

I cycle the guns, ready to fire, before Leviathan suddenly appears in front of us, being battered by a barrage Legend’s lasers at the end of a short street. I add our own meagre firepower to his own, firing off every single round in the span of five seconds before pulling up right before hitting Leviathan.

The Archangel jolts as something hits the airframe, the console lighting up with red emergency lights. Total loss of engine power.

“His tail!” Oracle shouts.

“He hit the engine!”

“We can’t go down in the city! There could still be people down there!”

“We don’t have enough lift to stay airborne that long!” I snap back, before veering left. “I’ll try and reach the water!”

I push the Archangel to her absolute limits, pulling manoeuvres that nobody who hadn’t built the aircraft from scratch could have managed. I know every part of this bird. I know how she feels when she’s healthy, I know how she feels when she’s sick, and now I know how she feels when she’s dying.

I let out a sigh of relief once we clear the city, knowing that at least we won’t kill anyone when we go down. I suppose that’s all we could manage, really. We distract the bastard, and in doing so, give someone, somewhere, a few seconds head start. Enough time to get to a shelter, maybe, or even to make it those last few steps onto higher ground.

Around me, the Archangel dies. Violently. Her engine falls to pieces, turbines collapsing and shattering, sending fan blades like shrapnel through the wings. The display in front of me darkens, as the power goes out, then the controls in my hands become light as a feather.

We hit the swell of another tsunami head on, and I black out.

I wake with a jolt, as my seat judders beneath me. It takes me a moment to realise that Oracle is kicking the back of my seat, and that water is spilling in through cracks in the cockpit.

“Wake up, you bastard!” she screams, distraught. “You don’t get to die! Not here!”

“I’m alive,” I say, leaning back in my seat and looking up at the shimmering light of the water’s surface, far above us. It grows further away, as another wave passes overhead and unseen currents drag our aircraft along with it. We settle into the silt a few yards along, as the swell recedes.

“We’re going to have to swim.” Oracle’s voice is faint, scared.

“I know.” I reply. “But you’re not wearing a life preserver.”

“I’ll cling to yours when we get to the surface, but we’ll have to swim there.”

“Here, take this,” I say, passing my single-use air canister back to her. “I can hold my breath longer than you.”

“Right,” She replies, before falling silent.

“Get ready,” I say. “I’m about to blow the canopy.”

Another pause, broken only by the sound of her breathing.

“Ready.”

I flip a switch, detonating explosive bolts along the cockpit that completely shatter the glass. If I hadn’t switched them off, the ejector seats would have fired as well. As it is, we’re hit by a crushing deluge of water filled with shattered glass. The moment it settles, I unbuckle myself and push upwards, swimming for the surface as fast as I can.

I want to look back, to make sure Isabella made it out, but I know that isn’t smart. She’s the one with the air supply, which means I’m the one who needs to hurry. Besides; after three years of working together, I know she can handle herself.

So I push upwards, as my limbs start to tire and my lungs start to burn, until I can’t take it anymore. I look back.

She looks almost serene; floating in the water with her mouth wide open and the air canister nowhere to be seen. The sight of her stabs through me like a knife, and I open my mouth in shock.

With brackish water now filling my lungs, I can’t go back to her. I want to, more than anything, but I can’t. My ascent turns desperate, both because I’m drowning and because I want to get as far away from her as possible.

I break the surface of the water, coughing out my lungs as I pull the tab to inflate my life preserver. I bring a hand up to wipe my eyes, not sure if it’s water or tears that’re blurring my vision.

Ahead of me, Seattle rises out of the waves. The wall here is holding strong against the waves. With Leviathan hopefully still occupied in the north of the city, it’ll stay strong against all the tsunamis he could send. Tens of thousands of lives saved, but all I can think of is the one I left beneath the waves.

This doesn’t feel like a victory. It doesn’t even feel like defeat. It’s a hollow, meaningless thing.

2010

Isabella Barlow – Oracle

I run my hand over the name, the tactile sensors in my gauntlet outlining each letter in perfect detail. It still hurts, even now. I’d be worried if it ever stopped hurting. That’s why I took the name of the bird we built together; to forever remind me of what happened on that stormy day, when the city was almost lost and when I did lose her.

More than anything, it’s a reminder that I was a fool who killed the woman I loved because I thought I could make a difference.

I take my hand off the memorial, stepping back and turning around, the wings of my suit shifting automatically to avoid being caught on the memorial. I like to come here, sometimes. To remember everything I lost beneath the waves.

But not tonight. Tonight was business.

The Elite have a new Parahuman, and the boss wanted me to check it out. More specifically, Ember has a new Parahuman. It’s better than some of the alternatives, I suppose. She has a good head on her shoulders; if anyone can keep this newcomer under control, it’s her.

As I hit the edge of the wall, I flare my wings and trigger the jets, taking flight. I look down, catching a brief glimpse of the pair of them as they descend down to their boat. The newcomer looks odd, to say the least. Something about it makes me think it’s stuck that way, rather than being a Changer that shifts into a monstrous form.

I put them out of my mind as I soar across the open water, the experimental repulsors on my wings keeping me airborne while the twin jets propel me forwards. I’ve come a long way since the huge engine of the first Archangel, built in that hangar on Paine Field.

The Field is silent now, the runway cracked and consumed by the marshland that now stretches from Everett to Esperance. It’s a pitch-black expanse of abandoned buildings and flooded streets, slowly being consumed by nature. There are parts of it where the last remains of the metropolis have been swallowed up, leaving no trace of what came before. I wonder how long it’ll be before it’s all gone?

I swing south, over the empty spaces and towards the glowing streets of Lynnwood locked away behind the containment walls. The streets are bright, illuminated all night long by great floodlights mounted to the walls and kept under the constant watch of a network of CCTV cameras. The Hive has its nest to itself, but it lives under the constant watch of the PRT.

Past Lynnwood, life starts to return to the city. Streetlights start to appear, marking little patches of the city that have been salvaged from the marshes. Most of them are huddled around the immense structure of what was once Northgate Mall, before the National Guard took it over after Leviathan and handed it off to the PRT when they left. Now it’s a fortress, projecting the PRT’s presence into the derelict marshlands and the streets north of Lake Union.

I’m over the city proper now, with well-lit streets beneath me and the skyscrapers of Downtown rising up above me. I buzz the windows of the Space Needle on my way in, just in case there are any tourists getting a view of the city at night. In many ways, I miss working for Boeing. I didn’t have to worry about public perceptions or brand awareness. But I can accomplish more this way.

As I start ducking and weaving through the skyscrapers, I radio the staff at Camelot Tower to prepare for my arrival. The headquarters of the Round Table is a modern-looking edifice occupying the top ten floors of the third-tallest skyscraper in the city, the office-space beneath rented out to a whole host of different corporations, a lot of which funnel their excess profits into us as part of a tax avoidance scheme. Sponsors like those are the bread and butter of any Corporate Hero team.

I soar up the side of the building, using the ascent to slow my momentum and hitting the peak of my arc right at the lip of the tower’s landing pad. A pair of technicians are waiting for me, ready to take the flight element off the back of my suit and back to my workshop. I let them, then enter the building clad only in the knight-like armour.

Once I’m inside, away from any prying eyes, I take the helmet off with a sigh of relief. It’s perfectly safe and airtight, but that doesn’t make it comfortable. I would take the rest of the armour off, but the day isn’t done yet.

The Tower is quieter than usual; most of the team is away in Tijuana, dealing with out-of-control Cartel wars. We’ve just got a skeleton crew here, one of whom is slumped back on a couch in the crew room, looking out the one-way glass window at the city with some sort of cocktail in her hand.

At only thirty-six, Ophelia is the current baby of the team. She got her start in the LA Bombshells, till she got pressured out at thirty-three with a generous severance package from the team’s Playboy sponsors and an even more generous bit of hush money when she threatened to sue.

The Round Table are a little unique, as far as teams go. We don’t recruit from the Wards, like a lot of the other Teams. Instead, we snatch up the people who’ve become dissatisfied with the team they’re in, whether that’s the Protectorate or another Corporate outfit.

“Have a nice flight?” she asks, the fake chain of flowers around her neck shifting as she moves. Having seen a picture of her old costume, I’m not surprised she decided to go for a richly-embroidered ankle-length dress when she signed on for us. We’re all a little too old for sex appeal, so we go for refined elegance instead. Knights and ladies, rather than spandex-clad models.

“It was alright. Looks like the Triad are staying quiet tonight. I’d stay and chat, but Agnes wants to see me.”

She waves me off, going back to her drink.

I pace through the halls, as the modern décor gives way to a much more traditional look, with red carpeted floors and wood-panelled walls. Paintings cover the walls, most of them pastoral scenes or depictions of European cities. I knock on a nondescript office door and wait until I hear the click of a lock disengaging.

Inside, a woman is looking out over the city. She’s dressed in a costume that’s half dress, half suit of armour, with a rich red and blue tabard belted over the metal. To her side, a stone statue is taking shape. It’s growing like a plant, getting more detailed as limbs and fingers start to form, creating a representation of a young woman, some sort of vase held in her hand. Agnes Court says she makes these statues to keep her hand in. I think she just gets bored.

Officially, I’m in charge of the Round Table. It’s my name on the books, I’m at the forefront of all the PR material and, in the field, everyone answers to me. But I’m more like the platoon sergeant; there to handle the day-to-day stuff while the real leader gets on with important business.

Seattle loves Agnes Court. It was her wall that bought the thirteen minutes that saved the city, and she’s leveraged that fact ever since in her lobbying efforts to repeal NEPEA-5. She did save the city, there’s no denying that, but it wasn’t the wall that did it.

When the government were focused on salvaging what they could and abandoning the rest, Agnes Court leveraged her branch of the Elite and poured new money into the city. She cut deals with Boeing and every other company affected by Leviathan to get them to reinvest in Seattle, all the while bringing them closer and closer to the Elite. Now, Seattle is the heart of her sphere of influence, and most people don’t even know it.

The PRT knows, of course. Agnes Court’s Elite connections are an open secret among their circles, but there’s nothing they can do about it. Not without the Elite’s lawyers bogging them down in red tape, and the Elite’s pet media painting the PRT as oppressors looking to stamp out opposition to NEPEA-5 at the behest of their corporate masters in Washington.

She’s accomplished more than I ever could have with the first Archangel, and that’s why I follow her.

“I got some more footage of Nightcrawler,” I say, pulling out an SD card from a small compartment in my armour. Agnes Court nods, stepping away from the window and walking over to a TV screen as I bring up the footage from my helmet camera. It’s the clearest image we have of it, even if it’s hiding behind Ember’s legs.

“What’s your read on her?” Agnes Court asks me, without any trace of the faint British accent she hadn’t quite managed to shake off when I first met her. She’s a stately figure, almost aristocratic in her bearing. At almost fifty, she’s also the oldest member of the Round Table.

“Timid. She looked like she wanted to run away.”

“But she didn’t,” the leader of the Seattle Elite points out.

“No, she didn’t. I suppose that’s courage, or loyalty to Ember. She’s done well.”

“Jaeger’s report said much the same. Nightcrawler has latched onto Ember, or perhaps they’ve latched onto each other. Either way, it’s promising.”

“What if it’s a ploy? She could be a Triad infiltrator, or a Watchdog one.”

Agnes Court shakes her head. “I don’t think so. If Nightcrawler did work for our rivals, we would never know. Her power is far more useful for a spy than an informant. Besides, the Mountain Master needs every Parahuman he can find. That’s why he snatched away Bloody Mary.”

“Are you any closer to finding her?” I ask. Bloody Mary is the perfect example of why the Elite has to exist. On her own, she’d become America’s next big serial killer, but Agnes Court was able to keep her muzzled. Now she’s slipped her leash and making a killing by killing for the Triad.

She shakes her head. “That woman is slippery. It’s what makes her so dangerous. Unfortunately, this whole sorry spectacle has rather blindsided us. It isn’t like the Mountain Master to gamble everything on a desperate move like this. There has to be something else going on, and I think fortune has provided us with a way of learning what.”

“You mean Nightcrawler? Isn’t she a little green?”

“Perhaps.” She smiles as she looks at the shadowy figure on the screen. “But we can only use the tools we are given. I’ll have Black Rod contact Ember. It’s time her new employee earned her keep.”