“The Shadow Society has one thousand and one knives in the dark, Hawkshaw! One of them will find its way between your ribs eventually!”

Generally speaking, people only say things like that when they’re losing fights, and this is no exception. The assassin isn’t especially high-ranking within his organization, as the red robe he wears indicates. Still, he’s no pushover either, and the soulblade he wields means that I can’t be careless in taking him down.

“If they’re all of your caliber, I’m not especially worried,” I reply, sidestepping a swing from his blade. The quips are a work in progress- I’m trying to find a balance between Jason’s stony silence and my own battle banter. Acolytes of the Shadow Society are decent fodder, since they’re unlikely to criticize my insult game in the middle of a fight.

The line does seem to have made him mad, which makes it a success in my book, especially since he starts telegraphing his attacks even harder than before. His next move gives me an opening, and I don’t hesitate in exploiting it, grabbing the arm to lock it in place before activating the blade hidden in my gauntlet and ramming it into his throat. He’d clearly prepared for most of my tools and weapons, but this particular gadget is a recent addition. Apparently galvanized by my surprise visit, Chambers completed work on them sooner than expected, and I’ve been waiting all week for an opportunity to test them out.

Stepping back, I wait for the assassin to collapse before wiping his blood off the black metal edge of the blade and sheathing it. It’s not inconceivable that I could have taken him down nonlethally, and against most opponents, I would have. However, there are a few reasons why I didn’t in this case. Number one is the soulblade, which is already fading away, along with its owner’s life. To anyone except the person it’s linked to, a soulblade is wholly intangible, but that doesn’t mean it’s harmless. They’re weapons that attack the ‘essence’ of the body, rather than the body itself. If one passes through an extremity, it’ll paralyze that part of you for an extended period, as if your body no longer registers it as existing. That’s the best case scenario. If one touches a vital organ, you die instantly. No wounds to seal, no chance of resuscitation- you’re just dead. If I’d been trying to take him down nonlethally, the fight would have taken longer, and that would have meant giving him more chances to land a lucky strike that put me down for good.

As for the other reasons, those are more complicated. As a member of the Shadow Society, the assassin is essentially a nonperson. Part of their initiation involves erasing every trace of your identity from the world, destroying all physical and digital records, as well as killing anyone you might once have called friend or family. Not only does this test separate the wheat from the chaff, it also makes them almost impossible to imprison or convict. And even if the DA’s office managed to make charges stick against someone who doesn’t legally exist, the time it took would be more than enough for the rest of the Society to kill him in prison. Failure isn’t something they tend to tolerate.

The Shadow Society is a collection of assassins led by a figure known only as Umbra. He recruits and trains all manner of individuals, some who are already killers, others who have no discernible reason for joining him. The methods used to turn them into assassins and make them loyal servants isn’t entirely clear, but it may be linked to his metahuman ability, which is what allows him to arm the members of his Society with their soulblades. According to them, the weapons are actual fragments of their own souls, but nobody outside of the group actually believes that. Whatever their true nature, they are extremely dangerous weapons. Each one starts out the same, as a ceremonial dagger, but as their skills grow, they become capable of reshaping the weapon as they please. They also have a ranking system based on colors, which roughly corresponds to the traditional martial arts belt system, but inverted. Umbra’s philosophy scorns the use of stealth, so the lowest ranking members of the Shadows wear all black, while the highest wear pure white.

While they claim to have exactly one thousand and one members, it’s hard to know whether that’s entirely true, since their identities have all been erased. However, everything I’ve seen indicates that it’s roughly accurate. Umbra doesn’t direct them like a team, however. Instead, he selects targets that he wishes killed, and allows his Society to do the rest. Instead of working together, they compete amongst each other to complete the mission and earn his favor, hoping to prove their worth and increase their rank. Jason and I saved one of his targets years ago, and Umbra marked us both for death in return. Ever since then, we both dealt with periodic assassination attempts, usually by lower-ranking Shadows like this one. However, this is the first one I’ve seen in a while. My kill order can’t have been rescinded, but it seemed like the assassins had all decided that I wasn’t worth the trouble. While this could just be an isolated attempt by a particularly foolish Shadow, I have a feeling that’s not the case. That means I need to make a call.

I’m not going to ask Vindicator or Adamant for assistance on this- not for something currently contained within Pax. And I’m certainly not going to ask the Council. Right now, this is a local problem, and that calls for a local solution.

“Atalanta, are you available?”

The fact that she took my call in the first place is a pretty big hint, but it would be impolite not to at least ask.

“Yup. What’s going on?”

“Shadow just tried to kill me. I don’t think I’m their primary target, and if I’m right, I won’t be able to deal with all of them alone.”

She doesn’t waste any time replying, all of the casual jocularity gone from her voice.

“Gotcha. I’ll meet you at Station Six as soon as my hair is dry.”

Whether Atalanta was actually drying her hair or not, she manages to get to Station Six before me. That’s not particularly surprising, considering it’s the closest of Jason’s bases- my bases, now -to her home. I arrive not long after, having taken the Continental through the tunnels. Jason named it after an obscure fictional detective called ‘the Continental Op,’ and didn’t realize that it was also the name of a pre-existing car model until I pointed it out to him.

When I get out, Atalanta is sitting at the central computer station, her feet up on the table, waiting for me. Her uniform is blue and grey, with impact-resistant padding over a form-fitting bodysuit. There’s a stylized ‘A’ symbol in white on both shoulders, and her mask covers only her eyes, leaving her long red hair visible, held together in a ponytail. She dyes it, though in a shade understated enough to appear natural, as a way to help conceal her identity without wearing a mask that covers her whole face.

“Took you long enough.”

Smirking, she gets up out of the chair and walks over to me, planting a kiss on my mask. Putting one arm around her, I reach up and take off my helmet with the other, so she can see I’m rolling my eyes. Then I lean in and return the favor.

“So,” she says, a moment after I pull away. “Shadow Society?”

Keeping the case local wasn’t my only reason for asking Atalanta for help. Part of me just wanted an excuse to see her. Even without having heard from the Council for the past few weeks, I’ve been busy, and she’s been out of town. We talk often enough, but cape life makes it difficult to spend quality time together.

“Yep. Red-robe tried to take me out during a patrol.”

“Didn’t they mostly stop coming after you a while ago?”

Considering the sheer volume of enemies I have, including those I inherited from Jason when I put on his mask, I hardly expect her to keep track of all of them. We’ve been together for a few years, but she primarily operates in a different city, so team-ups like this are fairly rare. Since Jason’s disappearance, she’s been spending more time in Pax, helping pick up some of the slack as I adjust to my new role, though the new responsibilities mean I still don’t get to see nearly as much of her as I’d like.

“Yeah. It could be random, but my guess is that a bunch of them are in town for a separate hit, and this guy decided he would come after me instead of trying to compete for the primary target with all the rest.”

We’ve both shifted back into business mode, and Liv pulls away, sitting back down in the desk chair, turned to face me. Neither of us are so self-centered as to prioritize our relationship over the lives of the Society’s targets, but I do wish that I could have held her just a little longer before we got to work.

“You think it’s Kingsley they’re after?”

If she wasn’t clever enough to come to that conclusion without being told, I wouldn’t love her the way I do. Trevor Kingsley is a British human rights lawyer on a speaking tour in the United States, and more than fits the profile for one of Umbra’s targets. While I’ve never met him personally, the Shadow Society’s leader is easily one of the worst individuals I’ve ever encountered. The only thing that links his targets is that they’re all trying to make the world a better place. His only apparent ideology is an all-consuming hatred of virtue, and it’s something every one of his one thousand and one adherents shares with him.

“Almost certainly.”

“Then we’d better get going.”

Being a wonderful and conscientious individual, Liv has already picked out weapons for the both of us. Neither of us carry automatic firearms under normal circumstances, but given how dangerous the Shadows are, it would be stupid not to go in prepared for anything. For me, the XOF17, my weapon of choice for missions like this. For her, the IX P22 PDW, a ‘personal defense weapon’ that’s compact and lightweight enough to serve her well. No fancy homing bullets, but a truly astounding rate of fire and next-generation recoil-suppression system. We both draw arms, and I follow her over to the car.

The Continental is a beast of a vehicle. Twice as durable as the Presidential state car, and with three times the horsepower. Its chassis is sleek and black, with mirrored windows that make it impossible to see inside. The windows are also made from reinforced bulletproof class, and the car’s exterior is fully bulletproof and bombproof. Anything short of a direct hit from a HEAT round simply won’t penetrate it. Thanks to the nuclear battery, it can both outpace and outlast any Formula One vehicle, and the anti-personnel cannon built into the back has a three hundred and sixty degree range, firing either live ammo or bean-bag rounds to kill or disable any targets within range. The missile tubes are equipped for both surface-to-air and surface-to-surface launches, though the ordinance isn’t as powerful as what some of my other vehicles are packing. I don’t think Jason ever dreamed he’d need something like the Continental when he was first starting out, but he wouldn’t have had it built if he didn’t think it would be useful.

Atalanta takes the passenger side, and I settle back into the driver’s seat. The platform on which the car is resting rotates around, so we’re facing the door to the tunnels. Broadcasting the correct frequency opens the door, and after I set a destination, autopilot takes over.

“The kill order is probably recent, right?”

“Yep. The Shadows all have to make their way here independently. Higher-ranking ones have access to more resources, so it’s easier for them to reach a target, but most of them won’t bother with any hits except the most challenging, because they know an easy one won’t impress their boss.”

Outside, the unlit tunnels are rushing by. There’s no speed limit down here, so the only things regulating how fast we can go are the doors between different sections of the tunnel network. Liv is quiet for a moment, and then raises an eyebrow.

“Like this one, because he’s in your city.”

It’s always been more Jason’s city than mine, but she isn’t wrong. I’ve survived enough assassination attempts by members of the Society that even managing to kill someone in Pax, to say nothing of killing me, would certainly be sufficient to elevate a yellow-robe to a white-robe in Umbra’s eyes.

“Flatterer.”

Liv punches my shoulder, and I chuckle.

“You’re right, though. On the upside, the higher-ranking Shadows tend to spend longer studying the target before striking, so we have some time before we have to deal with them. There’s probably a few in the city already, but with a little luck we should be able to track them down before they even make a move. Right now the concern is the bottom-feeders who are going straight for the kill. Most of them will be taking each other out before they even get within a mile of Kingsley, but a handful will be able to get close without one of the others spotting them, and we’ve gotta get there first.”

The Society’s rules work in my favor surprisingly often, as each member is in direct competition with each other member for any given kill. However, the intense struggles between Shadows are a powerful selection process, as those that survive tend to be much stronger for it. Umbra doesn’t give a damn about any individual member, but by pitting them against each other, he culls the herd to create a small group of elite warriors. And for each black-robe that’s killed, either by another Shadow or someone like me, he can just recruit two more.

“So, we grab him from his hotel room and stick him in a safe-house, then get rid of the assassin infestation while he’s cooling his heels.”

“What, not romantic enough for you?”

Trevor Kingsley doesn’t tend to go for extravagance, not least because it wouldn’t be great for his image as a humble human rights lawyer if he stayed in five-star hotels. However, when he was making arrangements to stay in Pax, the mayor’s office insisted on putting him up in the Regency. As the less-terrible papers speculated, it was mainly an attempt to butter him up in the hopes of an endorsement. I don’t particularly care, except for the fact that the Regency is a highly public location, which is rather inconvenient for us.

When I park the Continental in the middle of the street outside the hotel, people are already filming. Leaving the car unattended is hardly a concern, but as a general principle I try to avoid being recorded. Still, in a situation like this, there’s very little I can do about it. The car is blocking traffic, but I somehow doubt anyone is going to be ticketing me. Having pulled Kingsley’s room number from the Regency’s database on the drive over, I line up my shot and fire the winch at his window. Opening a panel inside the car, I pull out two motorized zipline handles, and pass one to Atalanta. Exiting the car, we’re greeted by a number of honking cars. Most of them are probably just annoyed that we’re in their way, but a part of me likes to think that some of them are just trying to show their support for what we do.

Thanks to the high-powered motors in the handles we’re holding, Liv and I can ride the winch up to Kingsley’s room like a reverse zipline. I attach mine first, and she follows shortly after. My gauntlet magnetizes to the handle to ensure that I won’t lose my grip and fall. Since Atalanta’s uniform isn’t quite as high-tech as mine, she doesn’t have the option, but losing her grip isn’t a concern for her.

We ascend quickly, and once the window is in range, I fire two rubber rounds into it, fracturing the glass. Instead of slowing my ascent, I increase the motor’s speed, and let my momentum build, before swinging back and then throwing myself forward, to crash through the windowpane. Rolling forward onto my feet, I scan the room, while Atalanta follows right behind me.

Even before I scattered broken glass all across the floor, Kingsley’s room was a mess. The door was torn off its hinges, and much of the furniture seems to have been damaged in a fight. I also eyeball a pair of bodies, both wearing suits. Kingsley’s security detail. It’s easy to forget that even the lower-level Shadows are still more than a match for ordinary humans. Neither the lawyer nor the assassin's are immediately visible, but by the sounds coming out of the en suite bathroom, they haven't gone far. Atalanta is already in motion, and I follow close behind, hoping we aren’t too late to save at least one life tonight.

Inside the bathroom, two Shadows, one in a red robe, the other in green, are competing for the kill. Kingsley himself is huddled in the corner, cradling one arm, which looks limp and unresponsive- probably struck by a glancing blow from one of the assassin’s weapons. Red’s soulblade is only slightly altered from the standard form, with a longer edge, while Green’s is a wakizashi, giving him superior reach. Still, they seem to be more or less evenly matched- and too caught up in their duel to deal with us. They aren’t blind or deaf, so they have to know that we’re here, but looking away from their opponent for a moment could give them the edge required to land a lethal blow. That works out in our favor. Atalanta opens fire, spraying Green with bullets, while I target-lock Red’s head and fire once, dropping him in an instant.

Generally speaking, firing an automatic weapon inside of a hotel is inadvisable, but Liv isn’t stupid. She wouldn’t have taken that risk if she wasn’t confident that nobody would get hurt, and thanks to her mask’s thermal imaging capabilities, she knows as well as I do that the adjacent room is unoccupied. Considering the Shadows made no effort to disguise their approach, and seem to have literally blown Kingsley’s door off its hinges, it seems likely that whoever was in that suite is running for their life.

The shock of the attack, and of his paralyzed arm, seems to have rendered Kingsley unresponsive. He doesn’t even look up as I approach, and drag him to his feet. Gritting my teeth, I sling the rifle over my shoulder and hoist him into a fireman carry. Keeping her head on a swivel, Atalanta walks back out of the bathroom, keeping an eye out for more Shadows. We don’t know exactly how many of them are in the city, but it’s almost certainly more than three, and they could strike at any moment. Attacking while the target is under our protection isn’t likely to succeed, but some of them have to realize that it might be the last chance to take him out before we stash him somewhere safe.

Taking the elevator isn’t exactly a realistic option. Instead, we both head back to the broken window. Liv looks back and gives me a nod, before grabbing onto a handle and riding it down. With Kingsley on my back, I can’t take that route, but it’s no problem. Keeping my grip on him firm, I leap out the window, and freefall for a few tense moments before the slow-fall field kicks in. With the lawyer in such close proximity to me, he falls under the field too, so we both descend safely to the ground.

Atalanta is already in the car, so I toss Kingsley in the backseat and start the engine. Most drivers in the city know better than to get in my way, but the front of the Continental is designed to push other vehicles out of the way safely when necessary. In this case, it doesn’t prove necessary, as all the cars in the vicinity seem to have driven off in the direction they came from while Liv and I were inside the hotel. Sirens in the distance tell me the Pax PD are on their way, but they aren’t my main concern. What does concern me are the motorcycles tailing us- and their riders, who are wearing green, blue, and purple robes respectively.

This time, I’m driving, not autonav. The nearest tunnel entrance is only a few miles away, but I need to get the Shadows off my tail first, lest they follow me down and continue their pursuit beneath the city. All three are carrying their soulblades while driving. Green wields a katana, while Blue seems to be using an axe, but Purple is the one that concerns me. He wears the color of the second-highest ranking Shadows, and his soulblade is a kusarigama, an obscure japanese weapon that resembles a short sickle on a length of chain. He waves it over his head while he drives, like a cowboy with a lasso, and if I let him get close enough, he’ll be able to whip it through the car as if the armor isn’t there, most likely killing all three of us instantly.

It’s rare for the Shadows to ever work together, but these three do seem to be coordinating somewhat. Perhaps they decided to suspend their competition until after Atalanta and I have been dealt with- or perhaps they all acquired motorcycles independently, and only happened to arrive right at the same time. Either way, my job is the same- stop them from killing Kingsley, or anyone else.

As we rocket down the road, Shadows close behind, I reach over to the central console and turn on the siren. The car immediately begins broadcasting a high-pitched, piercing noise, one that most residents of Pax already know the significance of. It’s not unlike the sirens that police cruisers or ambulances use, but this one conveys a bit more urgency. After all, the Continental might be faster than the motorcycles our pursuers appropriated, but it’s less maneuverable, and I have to worry about hitting other vehicles. If I didn’t hit the brakes before hitting a car ahead of me, it would almost certainly result in the other driver’s death or permanent injury, but if I did, it would let the Shadows get within range and kill all three of us. Thanks to the siren, I don’t have to worry. Even if you’re new to Pax and haven't heard it before, it’s not hard to guess what it means- namely, get the hell out of the way. And to their credit, the drivers ahead of us do as instructed. It helps that there aren’t that many people on the road at this time of night, but if enough of them hadn’t pulled over, we would have been in serious trouble.

With the path ahead of us clear for the moment, I can start worrying about how to deal with the Shadows more permanently. In truth, the odds aren’t exactly in their favor. We have a number of advantages, not least of which is the fact that I know the city like the back of my hand. What really gives me the edge, though, is the context in which we’re fighting. Even lower-ranking Shadows like the one that came after me earlier are dangerous. But they’re mostly dangerous in close-quarters combat, where the risk of being struck by a soulblade is much higher. Here, their years of martial arts training are irrelevant. If Liv and I had engaged the two Shadows in the hotel room in hand-to-hand, it would have taken a lot longer to get him out of there, and one of them could easily have scored a lucky strike and temporarily paralyzed one of us, which would have been unfortunate. But we don’t fight fair- we fight smart. So we just shot them. No amount of assassin training is going to make that any less lethal than it is for an ordinary person.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

I hit another button, and hand Atalanta control over the Continental’s main gun. She grabs the joystick with one hand, and reaches up to pull the viewscreen from above her. It functions similarly to the periscope on a submarine, but instead of a telescope, it’s a direct feed to the camera mounted on the car’s gun emplacement, allowing whoever is firing it to see from its ‘perspective.’ The GUI is equipped with a targeting reticle and ammunition tracker, of course. I showed Liv how to use most of my tech when she agreed to help me handle things in Pax during my transition into the role of Hawkshaw. While she doesn’t learn as fast as I do, the fact that she doesn’t have to sleep meant that she had more time than most people to study.

One of the cars up ahead is slow to respond to the siren, forcing me to swerve around him at the cost of some momentum. The green-robe decides to capitalize on it, doing his best to close the distance. Atalanta opens fire on him, in careful, controlled bursts, mindful of the civilian presence, but to no avail. The Shadow zig-zags back and forth, using occupied vehicles as cover whenever possible. He can’t get too close without risking being hit, but a stalemate isn’t good enough. Hitting the parking brake, I drift into a turn, and slam my foot on the gas the moment we’re facing the right direction. At the same time, I hit another button on the console, activating one of the Continental’s secondary defenses. It deploys a single strand of tanglewire, the same I used against Maitreya’s fanatics, attached to buildings on either side of the street. Green almost immediately discovers how it works. He doesn’t even notice the translucent thread until after he hits it, and at that point he’s already been bisected. The lower half, still on the motorcycle, spins out of control and crashes into a parked car, while the upper half lands in the middle of the street, a fairly clear warning to the others about what awaits them around the corner.

Looking back at the rear-facing feed, I see the purple-robed assassin slide under the wire and continue his pursuit, while the blue-robe is nowhere to be found. That doesn’t mean he’s been dealt with, though. Hitting the same button twice, I disable the tanglewire to ensure no civilians are hurt by it. The two anchors it was connected to will both self-destruct before anyone can collect them, a feature which most of my gear possesses. Any equipment of mine that Pax PD collects is a liability, and unless it’s extremely difficult to replace, destroying it is generally preferable to leaving it in their hands.

Purple seems to have wrapped his weapon’s chain around his forearm, but as he gets closer, he lets it unspool. Instead of spinning it above his head, he lets it dangle, passing underneath the surface of the street. Then, once he’s in range, he whips it upwards. I only avoid it narrowly, veering sharply to the side. It actually clips the edge of the car, though thankfully the armor plating is thick enough that it doesn’t hit Liv in the process. The Shadow lets it fall back under the street, and shifts sides as well, ready to try again from a different angle. That sort of clever exploitation of his weapon’s intangible properties probably has something to do with how he obtained the second-highest rank among the Shadows. The additional range that a kusarigama provides makes him a great deal more dangerous than the others, too.

Atalanta has resumed fire, but with little luck. The assassin manages to weave back and forth without being hit, and unlike before, it doesn’t even seem to be slowing him down. My trick with the tripwire won’t work again, but it does give me an idea.

“Hold your fire. I’m going for an overhead pass.”

It only takes a second for Liv to get what I mean, and she nods once, turning the mounted gun to face forward. Purple takes another upward swing, but this time I’m prepared, and avoid it by a wider margin. Before he can make another move, I shift back in front of him, while the kusarigama is still in the air, and hit the brakes. He slams into the Continental, and launches forward into the air, weapon thrown from his hand. Before he can hit the ground, Atalanta fires again, shredding him in a hail of bullets. The body lands a few feet ahead of us, and a moment later, as we get moving again, I feel it underneath the tires. It wasn’t a particularly fair or honorable way to deal with him, but it was effective, and that’s all that really matters.

“Good call,” Atalanta says, grinning.

“Good shooting,” I reply.

Moments like that make me remember why I like not just working with a partner, but working with her specifically. However, the moment doesn’t last much longer, as Blue finally reappears. He makes his approach from the side, crossing through an alleyway, and shows no sign of stopping on his collision course. Before impact, he leaps off of the bike, letting it crumple against the Continental, while he lands atop it. The cameras don’t give me a great angle on him, but I have to assume he isn’t just trying to balance with two feet. If he was, getting rid of him would be as easy as hitting the brakes again, but I know better than to assume my enemies are stupid. He’s probably crouching down, and holding onto something with one hand, while he gets ready to start stabbing at us with the other.

“He’s right above us- I can’t hit him without hitting us too.”

Before I can respond, the assassin’s katana appears, barely missing us as he starts striking from above. In another second, he’ll get a hit, and if it happens to be on either of our heads, we’re done. Before that can happen, I punch another button, activating one of the car’s anti-theft features. Alarms aren’t enough to deter everyone these days, especially not for a prize like the Continental, so the entire surface can be electrified at a moment’s notice. Blue tumbles off the roof, smoke rising off his robes, and a moment later, I hear Atalanta fire another burst, finishing him off.

We’re both breathing heavily, as I switch back to autonav. Liv closes the viewscreen and wipes her brow, but she’s still smiling. I wouldn’t go so far as to call her an adrenaline junkie, but the danger and thrill is certainly a large part of the appeal of ‘super-heroics’ for her. Jason never really approved, but I don’t mind. It makes everything a little less grim, when the person you’re fighting beside isn’t dour and serious all the time. That was part of the role I played for him, too.

“That was a little closer than I would have liked.”

Atalanta rolls her eyes.

“C’mon, that was great! Now, let’s hurry up before we have to do a repeat performance.” She glances at the backseat. “Besides, I think our friend Trevor has gone catatonic.”

Station Seventeen, the safe-house where we take Kingsley, is outside the city limits. There aren’t quite as many underground bunkers in the suburbs, so this facility is located in the basement of a nice family home. On the surface, it’s a completely normal house, other than the fact that nobody lives in it. The basement more closely resembles my facilities in the city, albeit much smaller. We’ve used the house itself as long-term storage for witnesses and people with nowhere to go, but it’s currently unoccupied. What matters right now is that the Shadows don’t know about this place, and even if they did, they’d have a hard time getting in.

Having already settled into an armchair, Liv is toying idly with a multi-tool, pulling out each appendage and examining it before moving onto the next. I’m at the computer, sending the police a message. To call my relationship with the Pax PD ‘strained’ would be an understatement, but the current situation is big enough that it warrants a small bit of goodwill on my end- not that I expect them to return it. I’m simply letting them know that Kingsley is safe, alive, and under my protection, so they don’t waste any time looking for him. The Shadow Society is well-known enough that I don’t need to bother explaining the threat to them, or warning them to let me handle it. They’ve had enough practice dealing with me that a few of their SWAT teams might even be capable of bagging some lower-ranking Shadows, though the majority of work is going to be done by Atalanta and I, as per usual.

With the message sent, I turn the computer off and lock it. We’re going to be leaving Kingsley here alone, and I’d rather not have him looking through any of my files- particularly not certain recent acquisitions. When I turn around, Liv glances at me, before returning to the multi-tool.

“So, how many more do you figure are in the city?”

“Hard to say. Could be a bunch, if they figured that killing someone in my city would earn them enough notoriety to be worth the risk. Or it could only be a few, if all but the most skilled or overconfident decided to pass. Anywhere between twenty and sixty.”

It seems that Atalanta has found a file on the side of the multi-tool’s screwdriver arm, and is using it to trim her nails.

“Well, we’ve both taken out three so far, but it sounds like it’s gonna be a long night. Plenty of time for me to take the lead.”

Casting my mind back, I try to remember how many Shadows we each took out. The number doesn’t sound quite right, until I realize she’s counting the one that came after me before I asked for her help. That’s fairly generous, since I essentially had a head start.

“I feel like a few of those were group efforts.”

She shakes her head, the corners of her lips curling up into a smirk, though she still doesn’t look up at me.

“Sorry, Kell. We both know who pulled the trigger. But, it sounds like you’re going to have plenty of chances to run up that score.”

Perhaps not as many chances as she might think, considering the Shadows’ habit of killing each other in pursuit of the same targets. However many we deal with tonight, there could be half as many lying dead around the city without a single wound on their bodies. The police will probably still add them to my official kill count, of course. I’ve got plenty of blood on my hands, but they still try to inflate the number as much as possible, to make their smear campaigns more effective. Naturally, their own list of extrajudicial killings never makes the news like mine does, even though none of mine happen to be innocent, and plenty of theirs are.

“I’ll do my best to keep up with you.”

This game of ours is something I enjoyed more before I became Hawkshaw. It’s morbid, of course, but less morbid than wordless slaughter. And unlike most soldiers who do the same thing, we aren’t about to start shooting civilians just to outdo one another. But it feels more like a distraction than it ever did when I went by Harrier, and the world knew me as Hawkshaw’s partner, rather than the man himself. Liv seems to sense my discomfort, because she folds the multi-tool shut and looks up at me.

“You doing okay?”

“Yeah. There’s just something I need to tell you about. Later, after we’re done with the Shadows.”

She looks a little perturbed, but nods. Before she can ask whatever is on her mind, there’s a sound from the other room.

“Looks like he’s up.”

“I’ll go talk to him.”

Station Seventeen is small, but not that small. Besides the main room where Atalanta and I were talking, there’s a small medical room as well. No hospital-grade machinery, but basic provisions for first aid, and a cot where we put Kingsley down after bringing him in. At some point during the drive he passed out, but having sustained no serious injuries, it’s no surprise that he’s already up. When I walk in, he’s sitting on the cot, experimentally examining his arm. Having a limb deadened by one of the Society’s soulblades is disconcerting, especially if you aren’t prepared for it. There’s no pain, but it feels as if the arm or leg is just gone. If it weren’t for the weight, you’d have no way of telling it was still there. By now, it’s worn off, but the phantom pain has a way of lingering.

The lawyer looks up as the door opens. Even though the immediate danger has passed, he’s probably still in shock, because he barely reacts, other than letting the arm drop back down to his side. Despite the late hour at which we rescued him, he’s wearing a buttoned-up white shirt and tan slacks. Up past his bedtime preparing his remarks for tomorrow, perhaps.

“You know who I am?”

I’m not so arrogant as to assume that everyone immediately recognizes me, especially a foreigner. But he nods.

“Good. Do you know what the Society of Shadows is?”

Kingsley is silent for a moment, staring into the middle distance. He’s probably been replaying the attack in his mind since he regained consciousness, and my questions are shaking him back to reality. My bedside manner probably leaves something to be desired, but I’m not here to treat him.

“The name is... familiar. They were the ones who killed the Deputy Secretary-General, weren’t they?” Saying the words aloud seems to crystallize the knowledge in his mind, and he nods to himself. “Why would they try to kill me?”

I would have expected him to ask if the Shadows were the ones who came after him, before even thinking about why, but I suppose making logical deductions based on evidence is a skill lawyers possess as well as detectives.

“They target anyone who tries to make the world a better place. Goes against their philosophy, or so I’m told.”

Considering the sort of people he defends, I can’t imagine this is the first time Kingsley has been on the wrong side of an angry metahuman, but the nature of things is that the people with a reason to hate him are mostly in prison, because he didn’t manage to get them off. The Society is a group that wants him dead not because he’s wronged them, but because they despise what he stands for. According to the Shadows that Jason’s interrogated, the reason Umbra hates people like him is because he sees their efforts to improve society as obscuring the true nature of the world. If he had his way, everyone would be like his Shadows, competing against one-another to become stronger, rather than working together to raise each-other up.

“You killed them, didn’t you? The ones that came after me?”

“I did. They aren’t street criminals, they’re trained assassins. Killers, all. If I’d held back, you would be dead.”

The lawyer sighs, looking disappointed but unsurprised. His approval doesn’t matter much to me, but keeping him here will be easier if he doesn’t think I’m some sort of bloodthirsty monster.

“I came to this city to speak against you,” Kingsley says at last. There’s no fear in his voice, but it’s clear he doesn’t know how I’ll react. Likely a result of the media’s efforts to paint Jason and I as more dangerous and unstable than we actually are.

“News to me.”

Whatever he was expecting, whether it was anger or contempt or a plea for forgiveness, it wasn’t apathy. I’m not putting on a mask for him either, other than the one I was wearing when I came into the room. I knew that he was coming to town because I keep track of all notable visitors, but beyond that I didn’t look into the topics he was slated to address.

“Yes, well... I’m grateful that you saved my life, but I haven’t changed my mind. Your extralegal activities are eroding the rule of law.”

I wouldn’t have expected being saved to change Kingsley’s mind, even if I’d known he was a critic of mine before I came to his rescue. This is hardly the first time I’ve had to help someone who hated me. His rebuke is almost pleasant, compared to the newspaper editor who I saved once. He was convinced that I was behind the attempts on his life, and that the rescue was some sort of scheme to get myself positive press. In reality, it had been an embittered ex-reporter who he’d fired, but even once the woman was in prison, he’d remained convinced that I had engineered the entire thing.

“The Shadows are still in my city. Until I’ve dealt with them, you’re staying here. Will that be a problem?”

Considering the vast number of crimes I’ve already committed, holding someone against their will isn’t much of a moral concern, especially not when the alternative is throwing him to the wolves.

“No, it won’t. I don’t think your intent is malign, Hawkshaw. Everything I’ve read suggests that you wouldn’t hurt me unless you thought I was guilty. You think what you’re doing is right. I just disagree.”

That’s a refreshingly reasonable attitude. Nothing would have changed if he’d protested, except that I’d probably have to handcuff him. But most of my more rabid critics think I’m a secret supervillain or serial killer. Kingsley’s disagreement seems to be more ideological than that.

“Good. Once it’s safe, I’ll let you go. You can even give your speech. But once you leave Pax, the Shadows will keep coming after you. I recommend contacting the Peacekeepers and requesting a security detail.”

My protection only extends as far as the city. In theory, I could contact Adamant and Vindicator to help, but protecting one man isn’t exactly the sort of thing that requires the Front Line’s attention. Besides, if he prefers state-sanctioned capes to vigilantes like us, he can rely on them for protection. So long as they deem it a worthwhile allocation of resources.

“I will.”

Kingsley’s eyes are on my back as I walk out of the room. The whole safehouse is essentially childproofed, so there isn’t much chance of him getting into trouble while we’re gone. While I was talking to him, Liv went back to messing with the multi-tool. One of the side effects of her ability is a congenital inability to ever sit still. I can’t really complain, though, considering I don’t exactly maintain a sedentary lifestyle either.

“Everything good with our guest?”

“Yep.”

“Got your head on straight?”

“Mhm.”

Atalanta nods to herself, satisfied by my semi-verbal answer. The multi-tool goes back on the table where she found it, and she stands up, stretching her arms behind her head.

“Great. Now, you wouldn’t happen to have any idea where the rest of the Shadows actually are, would you?”

“No. But I know somebody who will.”

Organized crime in Pax isn’t like organized crime anywhere else in the country. Jason fought against it for over twenty years, with my help for more than half that time. Of course, metahuman abilities aside, we’re only two men. But we’re persistent, and we can do things that law enforcement can’t. When Jason was starting out, the mob practically ran the city. Over time their influence waned, both because of his efforts against them, and the general decline of old-school mafia groups. Not long after, the gangs started popping up, many led by metahumans, to fill the vacuums left behind by the fall of the old criminal order. We put them down too. But even our best efforts were never going to be enough to eradicate crime outright.

As a result of clever maneuvering, a few major groups control most of the illicit activity in the city. The innovation that allowed them to amass so much power was simple- they avoided attracting our attention. While other groups made themselves the priority by engaging in human trafficking or permitting their members to do random drive-by shootings for fun, the smarter crooks were cornering the market on drugs, gambling, and other ‘victimless’ crimes. That doesn’t mean that we don’t go after them, of course, but circumstances almost always contrive to ensure that we can’t spend too long going after them. A new gang will pop up that’s trying to arm street thugs with rocket launchers, or some global crisis will mean we have to leave the city unattended for a time.

Of the masterminds who’ve managed to make their little empires in my city, Theodore Novotny, AKA ‘Teddy the Bull,’ is one of the smartest. Most people hear the nickname and they think they’re dealing with a stupid, easily-angered man. In reality, the nickname is a reference to a ‘bull market.’ Before he rose to power, Teddy was the numbers guy for the Kovarovci, this region’s Slovak mafia. The old leadership was effective in their time, but when Jason came after them, Teddy saw what they didn’t. Quietly, he undermined the confidence of the rank-and-file in their bosses, and used his access to their coffers to pay off the people who he couldn’t convince with words alone. In the end, he didn’t even need to stage a coup. All Novotny did was ensure that, when Jason came for the boss, nobody was there to save him. Every one of the other potential claimants to the throne were suborned, either by blackmail, threats of violence, or taking their family members hostage, and ‘the Bull’ ascended without ever having to fire a bullet.

Thanks in part to the strange circular layout of the city, the question of ‘territory’ among Pax’s gangs is a complicated one. Most of them operate all over the city, more often in the Belt than the Crown or the Core, but each one does have a few neighborhoods that are unarguably theirs. The biggest neighborhood under Kovarovci control is Harlan Gardens. If you pay the protection money and don’t make trouble, life isn’t bad. The Slovak mafia can be brutal when it wants to be, but it still has some old-world sensibilities about what organized crime owes the people under its ‘protection.’ And Teddy is smart enough to know that if he let his people run rampant, it would attract my attention. Harlan Gardens is also where he operates from, and from what I know of the Bull, he prefers the streets to be clean and the people to be smiling, at least whenever he walks past.

Over the years, Teddy has changed jobs a lot, but his current one is the owner and operator of the nightclub Element. None of his illegitimate business actually goes in or out of the building, other than information and instructions going to and coming from the Bull himself. As a matter of course, he conducts business from a soundproof strongroom above the club itself, with all guests strictly screened before they’re allowed to enter. Novotny doesn’t hold audiences often, either. Developing a healthy level of paranoia is necessary to last long in this city. Unfortunately for him, it won’t be enough to keep Atalanta or I out tonight.

The windows provide our point of ingress, rather than the front door. It takes the pair of us less than ten minutes to clear the second floor of guards, though if we hadn’t been doing our best to keep things quiet it could have gone much faster. Digital camo keeps us from being picked up by the CCTV system, but it’s hard to miss the unconscious guards. That fact happens to work out in our favor, this time, because when we reach Novotny’s strongroom, the door swings open immediately. Teddy is sitting at his desk, looking more relaxed than he has any right to be. There’s no computer at the desk, or anywhere else in the room. As a former money manager, he knows the importance of keeping records, but he also knows better than to do it digitally. That precaution is one of the main reasons I haven't been able to nail him yet. With enough time, I could track down the right files and have him dead-to-rights, but there’s always some other problem that demands my attention first.

“Hawkshaw. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

The Bull has a stocky, barrel-chested build, but he’s not out of shape by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve studied his routine enough to know that he works out often, and if he wanted, he could probably kill a man with his bare hands. The only problem is, he knows better than to do anything that stupid. According to everything I’ve been able to dig up on him, he’s never personally killed anyone, or even directly given the order to have anyone killed. His dedication to keeping clean hands is impressive, but it won’t be enough to protect him. His time will come one day- but not tonight.

“The Society of Shadows is targeting someone in the city.”

Scratching at his goatee, Teddy raises an eyebrow at me. There are forms and spreadsheets on his desk, and a number of filing cabinets against the wall on both sides of him. His suitjacket is draped on the back of his chair, and the sleeves of his dress shirt are rolled up, exposing his well-muscled forearms. Novotny is forty-something, with sandy hair and a deep, sonorous voice that only betrays a hint of a Czech accent. He was born in the States, but especially in the old days, the Czechoslovakian community was tight-knit, such that most of its children were bilingual. The mafia was its backbone, but under the Bull that’s changed. He was always more concerned with making money than maintaining a homogeneous community. The Kovarovci’s hiring practices changed too, since the previous leadership’s refusal to ever accept nonwhite members meant they missed out on a number of potential metahuman enforcers. Making those changes didn’t do much for Novotny’s popularity among the old guard, but he’d already frozen them out of positions of real power by then, and replaced them with people who were more amenable to his way of thinking.

“So I heard. Your little stunt downtown was hard to miss.”

As we’re talking, I advance towards the desk, while Atalanta circles around to position herself behind him. Teddy doesn’t bother protesting, much less resisting- he knows there wouldn’t be much point. He also knows that we’re not going to try and kill or capture him. Not tonight.

“Don’t play dumb. You keep tabs on everything that happens in this city. That means you know where the Shadows are hiding out. I want a list of locations.”

Novotny frowns. Even knowing that any recording I take would be inadmissible in court, he still can’t bring himself to drop the facade, even by implication. I can almost relate. While I’m wearing the mask, I can’t let the Hawkshaw persona drop for a second, same as he can’t drop the innocence act until he’s totally alone.

“I do try to keep abreast of current events, but I’m afraid I have no knowledge pertaining to the locations or activities of the Society of Shadows. And even if I did, they would surely add my name to their list of targets for telling you.”

By now, I’ve gotten close enough that I can put my hands on his desk, and lean in towards him. Proximity to the mask is usually enough to make people flinch, but the Bull isn’t so easily intimidated. And he isn’t wrong. If the Society discovered that he helped me, he’d be a dead man. And I wouldn’t lift a finger to save him if I found out that Umbra had marked him for death. Still, as satisfying as one of my enemies being taken out by another would be, it would set a bad precedent. The Shadows have forgotten that Pax is off-limits, and I need to remind them. Which means I need that list.

“Maybe it would help if you could tell them you were coerced.”

Right on cue, Atalanta grabs the back of Teddy’s head and slams it into the desk, spraying his spreadsheets with blood. He reels back, clutching one hand to his face, before Liv puts a hand around his throat and lifts him out of his chair. All the Bull’s strength is insufficient to escape her iron grip, as she puts him up against the wall. Just like when I worked with Jason, I’m playing the good cop, and my partner is playing the bad one. She lets him gasp and wheeze for a few seconds, before releasing him. Novotny drops to the ground, panting heavily, and doesn’t straighten up until after Atalanta backs away.

“You make a compelling point,” he coughs, keeping one eye on her as he sits back down. Without another word, he shifts aside the bloodstained papers, and grabs a notepad, quickly writing out the list of locations I requested. A few seconds in, he glances in Liv’s direction nervously. She flashes him a sadistic smirk, and he quickly gets back to work. Less than a minute later, he tears the page out of his notepad and slides it across the desk. I tuck it into one of my trenchcoat’s pockets.

“Pleasure doing business with you, Teddy.”

It’s possible we could have convinced the Bull without using force, but he’d have a much harder time convincing the Shadows that we forced him to help us without the busted nose and bruises on his neck. He knows that just as well as I do, which is why he isn’t complaining. That, and the fact that he deserves every bit of it. This isn’t even the worst beating I’ve ever seen him take. As vicious as Atalanta can be when she wants to, she doesn’t hold a candle to Jason when he was angry.

“...likewise, Hawkshaw.”

The Shadows’ decentralized structure is one of their major advantages as an organization, and one of their major disadvantages as individuals. None of them coordinate or share information, so it’s virtually impossible to get anything useful from an interrogation. Whatever process Umbra uses to grant the Shadows the use of their soulblades also lets him communicate with them, so tracking him down is next to impossible. However, this also means that being a member of the Society of Shadows has very few benefits. The higher-ranking members enjoy Umbra’s favor, which means access to his resources, but if you’re lower on the totem pole, you have to find your own way to each target, stake out somewhere to sleep each night, and steal or catch every meal you eat. Their devotion to Umbra is so fanatical that many of them endure those conditions for years before they ascend to a high enough rank that he grants them succor.

Unlike organizations like the Kovarovci, or Silver Serpent, the Society has no network. No informants to help them locate a target, or get them into a country quietly, or find them somewhere to stay in each new city. That makes them easier to track. My network only reaches so far, but the Bull has people everywhere, especially the airports. Any time a person who poses a potential threat to him shows up in Pax, he knows about it. That includes the Shadows. Using that intel, Atalanta and I are going to get rid of them. Starting with the biggest threat- a member of the highest caste among the Society. The white-robes. In battle, they eschew stealth and subtlety, but until it’s time to strike, they prefer to bide their time. If this was a normal target, they would watch and wait, allowing the lesser Shadows to eliminate one another, before claiming the kill. Thanks to our efforts, the target is now out of their reach entirely, which means it’s harder to know what they’ll do next. What we do know is where they’re hiding out. So that’s where we’re headed.

“You know, I never got why they call themselves Shadows. Isn’t wearing bright colors pretty un-shadowy?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Liv drumming her fingers on the seat, though the sound of the car thundering through the tunnels drowns out whatever noise it’s making. Thankfully, it’s dulled enough by the armor plating and thick bulletproof glass in the windows that we can hear each other speak without shouting.

“Oh man, that’s a whole can of worms. Basically, according to their boss, everyone is a shadow. We’re all kept in the dark by society, and forced to repress our true selves. That’s why he hates people like Kingsley. Whatever he does to people that lets them use the soulblades, it supposedly sets them on the path towards ‘purification.’ The more they fight and kill, the more their connection with the soulblade grows. He uses the color system to represent their progress towards his idea of purity, and once they’ve reached it, he pronounces them ‘purified,’ with the white robes to prove it.”

Atalanta arches an eyebrow, taking that in. It’s probably not the craziest school of thought she’s ever encountered. A lot of people think that manifesting metahuman abilities means they’re some sort of visionary or genius, though Umbra is admittedly much more successful than most. The fact that his ability seems to give him some level of influence over the members of his Society can’t hurt, either.

“Huh. That’s why they don’t do the stealth thing, I assume?”

“Yep. According to him, even using subtlety is a way of repressing your inner nature. Deep down, we’re all savages, and he thinks we should never inhibit those impulses. And only the strongest are worthy of his ‘purification,’ which is why they never work together.”

“So he’s a social Darwinist who’s into color theory. Got it.” Liv rolls her eyes, clearly unimpressed. I can’t blame her- Umbra’s ideals are moronic, and they typically do his acolytes more harm than good. “How do you even know so much about this shit, anyway? This guy doesn’t sound like the type to distribute pamphlets.”

“I sat in while Jason interrogated one of them, a while back. None of them share information, so we didn’t get any actionable intelligence, but at least it provided some insight.”

It’s been a while since Liv made fun of me for how often I mention Jason, but I can tell she’s trying to resist the urge. I was still working closely with him when we first met, so she knows exactly how important he was to me, both as a mentor and a friend. He never expressed any outright disapproval of her, or of our relationship, but he never fully brought her in, either. She isn’t based in Pax, so there was never a particular reason to make her a formal part of our operation, but even if she was, I doubt he would have. Atalanta’s commitment to the cause was never the issue- it was her attitude. Anyone who failed to display the appropriate level of seriousness wasn’t reliable, in his eyes. I never shared his grim outlook, but he’d chosen me as his partner, and I’d proven myself to him a hundred times. Liv was an outsider, and she has a habit of treating life-or-death situations like they’re fun.

Even before I fell for her, I knew Liv was reliable, but Jason wouldn’t let himself be convinced. He kept her at arm’s length, but respected me enough that he never told me to stop working with her. They rarely interacted, and Jason was never impolite, so most of her exposure to him is through my stories, and I may be a biased narrator, but I think most of them paint him in a pretty good light. It helps that she was one of the few capes who didn’t buy into the narrative that Hawkshaw was a dangerous nutcase, even before she met either of us. That was why she came to Pax in the first place, when most heroes are aware that they’re unwelcome. Probably a good thing that I ran into her before Jason did, or things might have turned out much differently.

Thanks to his harsh methods and uncompromising adherence to a personal moral code, Jason’s relationship with the rest of the ‘cape community’ was always strained, to say the least. Before he gained some amount of legitimacy through the Front Line, however, he was actively hunted by law enforcement. The fact that his very first target was a killer cop didn’t exactly endear him to them, and for the first few years of his career, he treated the PPD like any other enemy, exposing the corruption and cover-ups that had motivated him to take the law into his own hands in the first place. After a few years, the cops realized they couldn’t handle him on their own, so a formal request for aid was made. The Peacekeepers were in their infancy, well before they became a government affiliate, but choosing the private sector over federal assistance is a proud American tradition. More importantly, Machina wanted to prove that his model for a more legitimate, transparent, and ‘accountable’ hero team worked. The Peacekeepers had been successful enough when it came to fighting crime, but Hawkshaw wasn’t just a criminal, he was a symbol of a different way. One that didn’t look as good on camera, but one that worked. They came expecting an easy win. What they got instead was humiliation.

Peacekeeper Team Bravo arrived in Pax expecting to flush Jason out in a week, so they could slap some cuffs on him and put him on trial. Instead, they remained stationed in the city for two months, as Jason waged a guerilla campaign against them, without letting up his war on crime either. They had superior firepower, but he had two major advantages. First, the fact that they had come to his city. Even before he’d established his tunnel network or built bases beneath every other building, it was his most potent weapon. Second, the fact that he’d come prepared, and they hadn’t. After observing the fact that local law enforcement had scaled back their efforts to capture him, Jason had come to suspect that a cape team’s arrival was imminent. With that in mind, he’d studied every member of the three primary Peacekeepers units at the time- Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. With only a few exceptions, a general rule holds true in terms of metahuman abilities. The stronger a power is, the more likely it is to have a major weakness or create a blindspot for the user. By contrast, less impressive abilities like my own confer less strength, but also provide fewer vulnerabilities. Jason took full advantage of that fact, building profiles of each opponent he expected to face, and studying all available information to determine what their individual weaknesses were. When they came to capture him, he evaded them over and over, embarrassing the Peacekeepers in the eyes of the world. After two months with no progress, the team was quietly recalled, and word spread in superhuman circles of one simple rule: Pax is off-limits.

Hawkshaw isn’t the only protector Pax has ever had, of course. We’ve had a few homegrown heroes over the years, including a handful of misguided imitators, though most of them don’t last very long. And on occasion, out-of-towners end up here, following a lead or pursuing an elusive enemy. So long as they weren’t aiming to take him down, Jason tolerated their presence in his city, but one way or another, most don’t stay very long. As for the big-name players, unless there’s an ongoing crisis, they stay out of the city. It’s a tenuous balance, and I can almost see the Council’s influence at work in the background, after a certain point. Even a few weeks after I learned of their existence, it feels like I notice something every day that makes a little more sense when you assume their involvement.

They haven't contacted me in weeks, and I’ve been content to continue with business as usual, but that can’t last forever. They’re the only lead I have on Jason’s disappearance, and sooner or later, I’m going to have to begin the investigation in earnest. Right now, protecting Pax is my priority, and that means getting rid of the assassins currently inhabiting it. According to Novotny’s intelligence, the white-robed Shadow is holed up in a storage unit, and has been for a few days. Having to rely on someone like him for information is frustrating, but despite all my resources, the scope of my operation is limited by the fact that I can’t simply hire people. Teddy can’t build a high-tech surveillance network any more than I can, but he can pay people to keep him informed, and I can’t.

My working theory is that the Shadow will have gone to ground after Atalanta and I secured his target. If I’m wrong, our options for tracking him down are fairly limited. On the other hand, given their general attitude towards subtlety and patience, it seems unlikely that he’ll try to wait us out. They all know that I’m the one who’s protecting their target, so if all else fails, I can simply act as bait. Their two options are to try and torture his location out of me, or give up and wait for him to leave Pax before trying again. No doubt a few of them have already chosen the latter, but a white-robe isn’t as easily deterred. In fact, he probably knows that we’d target him first, meaning his best bet of capturing and interrogating me is to be exactly where he knows I’ll be going.

StoreSafe is almost identical to any other generic storage center you’d find anywhere else in the country. Six rows of long, low buildings divided into a few dozen numbered units. Behind most of these shutters are the uninteresting belongings of ordinary citizens of Pax. But behind a very special one is a master assassin who wants something that I have. Atalanta and I are here to make sure that he doesn’t get it.

Even at this hour, there’s someone manning the booth at the front entrance, so I park the car around back instead, and we continue on foot. The fence is topped with barbed wire, so I burn a hole in it instead. Thermal imaging isn’t precise enough to immediately identify if there’s anybody inside of the storage units, meaning we’ll have to get closer. A stupid person would say something to the effect of ‘let’s split up, we’ll cover more ground that way’ at this point, but thankfully neither Liv nor I are complete morons. Instead, I take the lead, advancing carefully past the first row of containers, while she watches my back. Luckily, the Shadows don’t believe in ambushes, so it’s more a question of when the attack will come, rather than if.

The Bull was kind enough to give us the exact number of the unit in which the assassin was supposedly sleeping. Before I even get there, thermal imaging tells me there’s nobody inside, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth opening up. While Atalanta and I aren’t quite as in sync as Jason and I were, we’ve worked together long enough that we can communicate silently with relative ease. With a quick hand signal, I instruct her to keep an eye out, while I approach unit #44. Switching off thermals, I study it carefully before stepping any closer. Yet again, the over-cautious paranoia Jason instilled in me pays off, as I notice a thin wire extending from underneath the shutter. That alone is enough to tell me what’s inside. It’s rigged, and the moment we opened that shutter, the bomb behind it would detonate.

A moment later, I realize I’m underestimating my opponent. There’s no chance he would have left that wire visible without assuming that I’d see it. And if he knows that I won’t trigger the bomb unintentionally, it means he just wanted to make me think I was safe, before he detonated it himself.

Whirling around, I tackle Atalanta to the ground a second before the Shadow does exactly that. Thankfully, the bomb’s yield is low, suggesting it was a rush-job made with materials purchased from a supermarket, not military-grade plastic explosives. However, it’s still powerful enough to shred the shutter door, sending shrapnel in every direction. I feel a number of painful impacts in my back, though not painful enough to suggest that any of them penetrated my armor. That’s cold comfort in the moment, as the impacts themselves feel like getting repeatedly hit with a battering ram. Even with the sound-dampeners in my helmet, my ears are still ringing as I roll off of Atalanta and push myself to my feet.

Standing atop the storage unit, just before the section of the roof that his bomb caved in, is the Shadow. In the moonlight, his white robes almost glow. They cover his entire body, save for the eyes. In his hand is a soulblade. The kusarigama we saw earlier was one of the most dangerous forms I’d ever seen one take, but this one is even worse- a whip. What’s more, the explosion knocked my rifle out of my hands, leaving me without a ranged weapon. I can see it out of the corner of my eye, but going for it would leave me exposed, and the assassin’s weapon has enough reach to strike me down before I could grab it.

The Shadow draws his arm back and lashes out with his weapon, but rather than a horizontal swipe to strike at both of us, it’s a direct strike, aimed at Liv. Having recovered from the explosion even faster than I did, she dives out of the way, and I realize why he’s targeting her first. He needs one of us alive to find out where Kingsley is, and correctly assumed that Atalanta doesn’t have all the necessary knowledge to grant him access. I feel a little bad that I put a target on her back, but that’s the price of good information hygiene.

Just as Atalanta raises her weapon to fire, he leaps down from his perch, wrapping the whip around his arm as he descends. When he lands, it’s in close enough proximity to me that Liv can’t shoot without risking friendly fire. I only have a second to acknowledge the cleverness of the maneuver before I have to defend myself. The fact that he wants me alive means that the Shadow is deprived of his primary advantage, a weapon that ignores all forms of armor, but I can’t forget that he’s a white-robe. That means he’s a deadly hand-to-hand combatant even without the soulblade.

Normally, I’d block a right cross like the one he throws at me with my forearm, but doing so would risk contact with the soulblade, and mean temporarily paralyzing that arm. Instead, I lean out of the way, and in doing so create an opening that the Shadow exploits, striking me in the gut. My armor absorbs most of the blow, but beneath his robes, the assassin is wearing armor of his own, meaning a hand-to-hand fight isn’t going to get either of us anywhere. If I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t be trying to actually win this fight, I’d be trying to wear my opponent down, and then hit their legs with my soulblade, before dragging them off for interrogation. As a general rule, I try to treat all my opponents as if they were at least as intelligent as me, though modeling someone who’s more intelligent than me is obviously more difficult. My victory condition, on the other hand, is decidedly simpler. I need to kill the Shadow, which means finding a way to bypass his armor. Bullets would do the trick, but neither Atalanta nor I can shoot him right now, which means I need to pursue alternate options.

In an effort to buy time, I strike the Shadow’s nose with the heel of my hand. There’s no armor protecting his head, so when my attack connects, he reels backwards for a moment. I take that moment to draw my truncheons, which I can safely use to block his attacks without risking physical contact with the soulblade. He realizes that a moment later, and uncoils about a quarter of the whip’s length to snap it towards me. Even knowing he wants me alive, I have to move backwards to avoid it, and as I do so, he flicks his wrist to coil the whip back up, before closing the distance once again.

I have to be exceedingly conservative with my attacks, because every extension of my body is an opportunity for the assassin to block me with the arm his soulblade is wrapped around, and paralyze that limb. As a result, I’m forced to make less powerful attacks, battering his body with my batons before backing up to block his retaliatory strike. That continues for a few moments, before the Shadow slips up. He overextends with a kick, which would have struck my less-armored throat if it connected, and instead finds his leg locked in place by my truncheons. Before he can make a move that would force me to release him, Atalanta makes her move, slamming her arm down and shattering his shin and kneecap completely. It’s a feat of strength I wouldn’t be able to replicate, even with the additional strength afforded to me by my armor. Bending a joint backwards is one thing, but breaking multiple bones outright with a single blow is another entirely. Of course, Atalanta has some advantages that I don’t.

On the surface, her ability is simple. She doesn’t get tired, ever. Her body produces, or is connected to, a well of infinite energy. Or, if not infinite, large enough to never run out within her lifetime. She doesn’t need to eat, sleep, or shit. However, this power comes with a few less obvious benefits. The first is that her body doesn’t atrophy at all. Since all of her biological needs are met, she only ever gets stronger. Even if she stopped exercising, she’d never lose her muscle definition. Of course, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t exercise- just that she makes better gains than me. More importantly, the excess of energy her body produces can be channeled, resulting in displays like this. Superhuman strength and speed are both possible, even though they aren’t technically part of her power, by ‘overclocking’ the relevant function. There’s a hard limit on how powerful even the strongest person’s punch can be, but thanks to her power, Atalanta can ignore those limits.

Releasing the ruined leg, I take advantage of the pain-induced paralysis of the white-robed assassin and activate the hidden blade in my right gauntlet, jamming it into his wrist. Twisting it around a little, I manage to cut the entire hand off, depriving him of his soulblade. Then, as he collapses to the ground, Atalanta empties her magazine into him. Neither of us relax fully until we see the whip fade away, confirming that its owner is dead.

“Thanks for the assist.”

“No problem. Let’s hope the next sixty go a little smoother.”