Since we took over the Council, Hawkshaw and I have made some changes. Plenty of minor ones, but also quite a few major ones as well. The procedure for a situation like this is one of the things that’s almost completely unrecognizable. Normally, someone would become aware of a situation that requires the Council’s intervention, and bring it to the attention of the full group immediately, usually with a plan of action already in mind. Some input from other members would be incorporated, but usually whoever sounded the alarm would essentially be in charge of the operation. Now, when a threat large enough to merit the Council’s attention surfaces, the Extinction Group takes over.

Given the Council’s relatively small size, it didn’t make much sense to introduce a significant amount of formal structure. However, the total lack of structure before we took over led to many of the abuses that eventually required the old leadership to be removed. For one, we now have an actual leader, rather than just an insular group who call the shots through seniority. Hawkshaw is the current chairperson, and he’s held that position since the day the old leadership surrendered, two years ago. In another three, he’ll step down, and we’ll vote on his replacement. Aside from the chairperson, there are two divisions, each representing the two main goals of the Council. The first is Optimization Group, tasked with planning out and executing strategies for fixing the world. Network heads the group, with Astro, Ulysses, and Evrimci below him. Their remit includes environmental repair, financial redistribution, and occasionally regime change, among various other projects.

Extinction Group is my operation. Our job is to assess potential threats to the human species and develop strategies for dealing with them. Adamant and Zero are the rest of my team, and I really couldn’t ask for better people to be saving the world with. By the time I arrive at Abyss- the designation we chose for the Council’s previously-nameless headquarters -they’re already waiting for me. It took some time to get off the street and find a spot where neither human nor security camera would spot me translocating here. I also finished my pizza, figuring it would be unprofessional to show up with a half-eaten slice to a meeting about the fate of the world.

Zero- AKA Sandra Lai, our resident digital wunderkind -gives me a nod as I walk through the door. I can’t just translocate directly into the meeting room, the process is too delicate. Instead we’ve got arrival chambers that are thoroughly decontaminated before and after every use, to prevent any foreign matter from corrupting the process. After that, it’s a short walk through halls of polished black stone to the Extincion Group meeting room. We’ve got a round table with space for more people, though currently it’s just the three of us, as well as a wall-mounted computer monitor, and a number of filing cabinets. Having the best programmer and hacker in the world on our side means we know better than anyone that digital record storage is inherently insecure. So is physical storage, but at least that way you can tell if somebody’s stolen something.

To Sandra’s right is Adamant. Haley Bradshaw, founding member of the Front Line, a team that Kellan also belongs to, as did his mentor before him. She’s got more experience than me, and if things were different, she’d probably be in charge of Extinction Group. But she’s still technically a ‘temporary member’ of the Council, having only taken the seat after our takeover because we were short-staffed. We still don’t have as many people as we used to, but by this point, she certainly could have stepped down and gone back to doing the superhero thing full-time. She hasn’t, and it’s looking increasingly likely that she’s not going to. But I’ve proven myself as the head of Extinction Group, and she’s more than happy to let me hold the title, especially because it lets her hold onto the notion that she’s only here in a temporary capacity. Adamant is in her metal form, expression impassive. It’s rare for her to go human while she’s in Abyss. The metal body provides her with superior processing power and mental clarity, which makes dealing with the things that the Council does easier.

“You said you have a Class Five?”

Straight to business, as expected. Class Five is a world-ending threat, based on the rating system used by most NATO-affiliated governments. Other countries have their own metrics, but since most of the Council members are native English speakers, we tend to use those systems by default.

“Yes. Zero, could you bring up the Vanaheim files?”

Sandra activates the holo-projector built into the table, displaying the information in our database about this particular subject. Most of the information we have is courtesy of the Council’s founder and erstwhile leader, Gilgamesh. Thanks to his ability, one half reincarnation and one half time-loop, he had foreknowledge about hundreds of potential world-ending threats that would have otherwise blindsided us. Many have already been dealt with, while others, like Vanaheim, remain under indefinite observation. Gilgamesh is in cryogenic storage as part of his negotiated surrender to us, awaiting a time when we’re all dead and he can experience a future that he’s never seen in all his years. Personally, I still think we should just lobotomize him and be done with it, but the others consider it too much of a risk.

“I’m not familiar,” Adamant says. The projection is showing footage of the Vanaheim site, as well as the energy fluctuations that brought it to my attention in the first place, but not much detail about what the place actually is. It’s all in the database, but considering how busy she is, I can’t blame Bradshaw for not having read up on this particular topic.

“Vanaheim is just the name the old man gave it,” Zero explains. “Essentially, it’s a pocket dimension attached to our world through this gate.”

The gate in question is a large metal ring located deep underground, in a site that the Council had sectioned off and placed under constant surveillance years ago. Attempts to study it have been made, yielding little fruit.

“Inside, time moves faster than it does out here. People went in a couple decades ago, but they’ve had time to develop an entire parallel civilization just as advanced as ours, if not more. According to Gil’s notes, he’s encountered them in multiple timelines, including no less than three where they successfully conquered the entire planet.”

Adamant doesn’t nod, or tap her finger on the table. She’s still, almost statuelike. Apparently she used to be more expressive even while transformed, but staying metal for long periods leaves her eerily stoic. I’d have motioned for her to be removed from the Council for her own health, if she weren’t so damn useful. She knows that she’s invaluable, too, which is exactly why she hasn’t stepped down voluntarily.

“Why didn’t they destroy it, then?”

My turn to explain.

“They didn’t set out to take over in those timelines. In two, they were provoked, and retaliated with overwhelming force. In the third, they emerged to discover a planet already devastated by nuclear war, and used their advanced technology to get rid of all the lingering radiation, before setting up shop in the ruins. Other times, they were able to come to an accord with the governments that discovered them, and there was even limited trade, though the people inside of the pocket dimension mostly elected to stay and wait for our civilization to collapse. They can’t turn off the time-accelerator, so whoever goes outside to explore will come back years later on the inside, if not longer.”

Scratching her nails together idly, Zero picks up for me.

“Right. But they aren’t due to emerge for another ten years, according to the old man. Which makes the fact that the gate seems to be building up charge for an activation... concerning. Apparently it should take about eighteen hours before the gate is primed to activate, which means we’re on a clock.”

“So they may be emerging ahead of schedule,” Haley says, her voice free of inflection. “And we need to figure out what our response is going to be.”

“Exactly,” I reply, rolling up the sleeves of my button-up. I feel overdressed, considering Adamant is in her uniform and Zero is in casual clothes. “Let’s red-sky this.”

Blue-sky research is the process of investigating something that may not have a practical value or use, in the hopes that it will lead to unexpected results. The term originates with research into why the sky is blue, which proved to be more useful than even the researchers themselves originally thought. Red-skying is something of my own invention, derived from the cliche about red skies signalling the end of the world. It entails gaming out the worst-case scenarios for whatever problem we’re discussing, and trying to figure out what to do if they happen. We can’t assume that the worst will happen, but it’s always important to be prepared.

“We haven’t made any contact since the site was quarantined?”

Sandra shakes her head. If we had, one of us would probably have mentioned it already, but Adamant is just making sure before proposing her first red sky scenario.

“Red Sky One is that the internal situation has changed, and Vanaheim is now preparing to make an unprovoked attack. Either it’s the ripple effect, or they have some means of observing the outside world that we don’t know about.”

This is how the red-sky process works. One of us develops a scenario, then the whole group discusses how it might play out, and what our options are. Usually the person who proposed the scenario is the one to reply to all potential solutions with every reason why they wouldn’t work. It can be exhausting, but it’s necessary.

“We destroy the gate as soon as any hostile intention becomes apparent. Measures are in place at the site to do so, or if destroying it proves impossible, to flood the entire place with concrete and render it unusable.”

Adamant’s smooth metal eyes stay trained on me as she replies.

“They have another gate we don’t know about, and are able to secure it defensively before we can strike. What kind of threat are we looking at?”

The question is addressed to Zero, who has a holo-screen open and is poring over all our files on Vanaheim. Information from other timelines doesn’t come with pictures, but there are some illustrations that seem to have been drawn quite literally from Gilgamesh’s memory, considering the level of fidelity.

“There’s some indication they might have doomsday weapons, but none that the old man ever saw deployed. As far as conventional forces, they don’t really have the industrial capacity within their pocket dimension to develop an entire fleet, but they used some kind of technological virus that hijacked our machinery and turned it against us. It sounds fascinating, actually.”

On the holo-screen, an image appears of an armada of patchwork vehicles laying siege to a city. Ordinary trucks and planes that look like they’ve had fighter jet guns and tank cannons attached, with Vanaheim tech filling in the gaps. They all appear to be unmanned, as well. It’s a clever strategy. If you can’t build your own fleet, turn your enemies’ against them. This virus, or whatever it is, would sweep through urban centers, infecting every bit of tech it could access, and then strip it all for useful parts and cobble them together into autonomous weapons of war. And when the military sent even bigger weapons of war in response, they’d make use of those as well.

“Okay, well, priority one would be preventing that from being deployed. If we fail, then priority two is isolating the virus and destroying it as quickly as possible. Zero, your assessment?”

Lai looks up from the screen. She can multitask better than just about anybody I know, but this requires her full attention. Since we started Extinction Group, she’s developed a keen sense of tactical acumen, and I trust her take on the problem posed by this tech-virus.

“Hard to say without first-hand experience, but based on Gil’s notes, I think I could probably figure out a way to prevent it from spreading, at least temporarily. The virus is adaptive, so it wouldn’t last forever, but if we were quick enough, we could probably destroy it before it does any serious damage. Obviously the response team would have to be metas only, carrying no tech that the virus could use against them.”

“Okay. Whatever preliminary work you can do on those countermeasures, get started on it as soon as we’re done here. Now, what else?”

The room is silent for a moment as Sandra scrolls down further in the files, searching for something. Then she brings up another set of images on the projector.

“They’ve got their own metas. A whole breeding program, in fact. Some that appeared to be uncommonly strong, probably the result of a bioengineering program intended to extract the most pure version of a metagene expression. Others that had multiple discrete abilities, potentially through genetic splicing to create chimeras with multiple weaker powers rather than a single strong one. Most of them also seemed to have cybernetics that were designed to interface with and enhance their abilities.”

Based on the images she puts up, a lot of the Vanaheim metas seem to have nonhuman physical characteristics. Mutations of that nature are uncommon on Earth, but it seems they’re a side effect of the genetic engineering process that created the metas Gilgamesh saw. One has translucent skin that shows broiling superhot plasma underneath, with vents built into their body that seem designed to release that plasma in a controlled manner. Another stands easily ten feet tall, with a proportionally-sized body, grey skin, and advanced-looking armor and weaponry. There’s one that looks like a ball of prehensile hair, though closer inspection reveals that the ‘hair’ is actually razor-sharp wires. Presumably whatever intelligence controls them is housed within that ball, but the wires are wrapped so tightly around it that it’s impossible to see past.

“Anything outside of context?”

While I’m still marveling at the alien beauty of the Vanaheim metas, Adamant asks the obvious question. ‘Outside context’ means something we couldn’t possibly predict or prepare for. By its nature, it’s hard to describe what that would mean. The closest equivalent I can think of is Vanaheim fielding a meta with powers like Pallas, who was unquestionably the strongest on the planet. Whether she still is or not is a complicated philosophical question, but all signs indicate that even if she isn’t now, she will be again.

“Nope. But they’re strong, and dangerous.”

“So are we,” I counter. “Are there any other major threats?”

Sandra scrolls for another minute, then looks back up.

“Nope. In the apocalypse timeline, they used the virus to deconstruct and rebuild entire cities. In the conquest timelines, it was able to destroy pretty much all conventional forces arrayed against it, and their metas beat our metas. After defeat seemed inevitable, we tried nukes, but they contained the detonations somehow.”

“Well, they definitely aren’t to be underestimated. But I think we’ve got pretty good odds even in Red Sky One. There’s no evidence that they have a second gate, so if they’re initially hostile, we can prevent any further deployment fairly easily. And if there is another gate, we just have to contain the virus as quickly as possible, make sure we don’t let any of it get away, and then beat their metas. The timelines where they took over didn’t have a Council, meaning the metahuman response was uncoordinated. We’ve got the numbers, even if their average meta is stronger than ours, and we can coordinate just as well as them. If we’ve got the time, we can develop specific strategies, but for the time being, I think we can call that scenario a win.”

Adamant’s response is cold and laconic.

“Agreed.”

That’s a relief. If we had better intelligence, that could have gone on for a lot longer, but with the limited information on Vanaheim’s forces that we have, all we can really do is identify key threats and talk generally about how to deal with them. At the end of the day, the foundation of every strategy is ‘don’t lose.’ Sometimes, that’s all that a red-sky session comes down to.

“Unless anybody has another red-sky they want to put forward, I think we can move on.”

I pause momentarily to let the others speak, but they remain silent. With our limited knowledge, the doomsday scenarios can’t really get more detailed than ‘what if they’re hostile to us.’ The only other thing I can come up with is the possibility that they’ll just deploy some sort of weapon of mass destruction that instantly wipes us all out, but that doesn’t really bear discussing.

“Excellent. Let’s workshop the more peaceful scenarios. How much do we know about their society within this pocket dimension?”

Another set of images on the holo-projector. These seem to be Earth cities, post nuclear war, rebuilt using Vanaheim tech. It clearly wasn’t built using conventional construction methods. Much of it seems wholly new, with towering spires and sprawling complexes, but some of it seems to be using pre-existing structures for support, with a few old facades still partially intact, and the damaged parts replaced. Not a society prone to waste, it seems.

“Nobody’s ever been inside,” Zero answers. “At least as far as Gil knew. But we can extrapolate a lot from what they did on the outside. They’re operating with a closed system, so all resources are precious. They recycle everything from food to metal to corpses. Population is strictly controlled, as is energy consumption. But in spite of all the challenges their situation provides, they’ve made some truly impressive technological advances. Genetic engineering isn’t just commonplace, it’s the norm. Every child is designed for a specific role in society, and enhanced with cybernetics after birth to make up for what bioengineering can’t provide. They’ve got basically no culture, because they can’t support more than a certain number of people, plus a redundancy population in case of unexpected mass death events. Government-wise, they’re a top-down technocracy, with everything controlled firmly by a ruling elite engineered to have no personal ambition, and care only about administering society. A lot of this went out the window in the timelines where they took over our world, because there was so much less scarcity, and in one of the conquest timelines, the technocracy ended up collapsing because the ordinary people realized there was no longer any need for every aspect of life to be so tightly regulated.”

Unexpectedly, I feel kinship with an entire society. They, like me, were grown for a specific purpose. But unlike me, their creators still exist to control them, and any deviation from their intended path is not permitted. Maybe that’s what’s necessary when you live in a pocket dimension with a finite amount of energy that has to be rationed down to the joule, but some part of me wants to let all of Vanaheim loose in our world, where they’ll no longer have to live under such conditions. Unfortunately, our world is no more free of scarcity than theirs, and opening the floodgates before the Council’s optimization project is complete would do far more harm than good.

“Well, I can see why it was so easy for them to take over. A single state run by bioengineered bureaucrats with cybernetic enhancements versus a world full of self-interested political appointees who couldn’t cooperate their way out of a wet paper bag. No contest, really.”

Even if it’s inhumane, I can’t help but respect the efficiency that Zero is describing. Their society probably isn’t too similar to what ours would be like if the Council still existed, but we were in the same conditions they are. When running out of food, water, and power is a very real possibility within your own lifetime, there’s no room for democracy or self-expression, just pure survival-oriented authoritarianism. And when the people in charge aren’t capable of selfishness, the potential for abuse of power that normally exists in such a system is gone.

“Fortunately,” Adamant interjects, “we do not suffer from the same limitations.”

“Exactly. What about the timelines where we engaged with them diplomatically?”

“Well, it was never going to be a fully symmetrical relationship, with their whole society existing on a different timescale than ours. We couldn’t abide an entire civilization of what may as well have been aliens coming to live with the rest of us, and they didn’t really have much interest in cohabitation. But they had, and have, advanced technology to offer, and we had excess power to provide in exchange. They took a few truckloads of nuclear fuel cells, and we took a few hundred terabytes of designs for their adaptive machinery, radiation sweepers, bioengineering tech, et cetera.”

Makes sense. They’ve got tech to spare, and even with an energy crisis on our hands, we can afford to provide them with some of our surplus, considering their supply is so limited.

“That sounds just about ideal. And once that was done, their people went back home to wait for us to wipe ourselves out, so they could take over afterwards?”

“That seems to be their ultimate objective,” Zero replies.

“With any luck, we’ll be able to get a few off-world colonies up and running in the next few decades, which might mean there’ll be room for both us and them out here. But until then, if they’re happy to stay inside their bubble, I’m happy to let them.”

It’s hard to read Adamant’s moods in her metal form, but I think I can detect the hint of a frown. She’s barely moved a muscle since I walked in other than to speak.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. Establishing a non-aggression pact and engaging in mutually beneficial exchange would be ideal, but this group exists to prepare for the worst-case scenario, not fantasize about the best-case.”

I know that, obviously, but there really isn’t much point in arguing with her.

“You’re right. We should decide which of us will be waiting at the gate to greet whoever comes out. Your recommendations?”

Bradshaw is silent, and I can almost hear the gears turning inside her head. Not literally, of course, she’s a far more complex machine than that. She’s calculating possible scenarios, deciding which of us has the best odds of survival if things go bad, and whose skill-set is ideal for making sure that they don’t.

“You, Kellan, and Tahir. The chairman should be our face, Tahir has experience with diplomacy, and you’re the head of Extinction Group. I’ll be on standby in case things go bad.”

A solid plan. This is why she calls the shots in the field for the Front Line as well as us. Zero doesn’t question her exclusion- she’ll be here, prepared to deploy countermeasures for the virus or any other technological weaponry Vanaheim deploys. Her hard-light tech has evolved over the past few years, making her a more formidable combatant than ever, but she’s ultimately more useful, and more dangerous, in a hardened bunker with a keyboard at her fingertips.

“Perfect. Sandra, you should get started on that virus. Adamant, review the files on the enemy metas, see if you can identify any potential weaknesses. I’m going to go find a few thousand nuclear fuel cells to have ready as a peace offering. After that, I’ll contact the others and explain the situation. We’ve got eighteen hours. Let’s get to work.”

The power required to activate a dimensional tunnel is substantial, and whatever group built the Vanaheim gate was aware that conventional sources couldn’t be relied upon. Hooking the gate up to a power grid would leave it vulnerable, and wind farms are far too conspicuous. Instead, they chose to use geothermal energy, drawing directly from the Earth’s core itself. Most of the ideal sites for geothermal power plants are already occupied, which forced them to settle for a location that produces such little power that it takes eighteen hours to build up enough for a full activation. The advantage of their chosen location, however, is twofold. First, it’s a part of the world almost nobody pays any attention to. Second, it’s not easy to reach. Rough weather, harsh terrain, and high altitudes deter anyone from entering the region without very good reason.

We’ve got as good a reason as anyone, and thanks to Network’s influence within the Chinese government, our access to the site will be unrestricted. The gate is located in the Bamaoqiongzong volcanic field in northern Tibet, within the nearly eighteen thousand foot peak of the mountain. The volcanic field is long-dormant, with the most recent eruption estimated to have occurred in the late Holocene epoch. But there’s still power to be drawn upon, if you have the right tools.

Thanks to Gilgamesh, we know a lot more about Vanaheim than we otherwise might, but none of that information includes the identity of whoever constructed the gate, and sent the first members of their society through. Based on what I read of his notes, he had very few direct interactions with any of them, even in the timelines where they took over the world. A lot of what he knew was secondhand, or witnessed from afar. Maybe we’ll get a chance to fill in a few of the blanks today. Or maybe we’ll all just end up killing each other. The hope is that we’ll be able to avoid that, which is why we’re bringing a diplomat.

During the coup two years ago, the old Council leadership killed one of the members who turned against them, because they felt she was too dangerous to attempt to control using telepathic reprogramming. I can’t really blame them for being overly cautious, considering she was the most powerful metahuman on the planet. Jessica Gladwin, better known as Pallas, could harvest the powers of other metahumans, killing them in the process. She used her accumulated strength to raise an island out of the ocean and establish a sovereign metahuman state on it, which she called Arcadia. Allowing entry exclusively to metahumans and their families, it quickly became a global superpower, owing to the fact that its population is composed of living nuclear bombs.

Pallas was a member of the Council, but not a part of the inner circle Kellan and I ousted. When she and the others turned against that inner circle, they opted to kidnap several for psychic reprogramming, but kill Pallas, fearing that her mental defenses would make doing so impossible. Unbeknownst to them, however, she possessed a power that she hadn’t told anybody about. Resurrection. Unfortunately, the method they used to kill her was disintegration, meaning her body would have to reconstruct itself on the atomic level. It’s been two years, and she still isn’t finished. Until the process is complete, her seat is occupied by her designated replacement, the First Minister of Arcadia- Tahir Solak.

Solak, or Evrimci, was originally a Turkish national. He fled the country after Arcadia was founded, having spent years hiding his metahuman powers for fear of persecution. Attitudes towards metahumans, particularly those with powers that transform them physically, are not especially positive in that part of the world. If discovered, they usually die in honor killings or get forcibly conscripted, neither of which Solak was especially enthusiastic about. On Arcadia, he no longer had to hide who he was, and his effusive patriotism towards his new home, coupled with his shrewd diplomatic skills, earned him the position of First Minister. He served as Gladwin’s closest advisor, as well as ambassador to the United Nations, until Pallas was ‘killed.’ Now he’s essentially Arcadia’s regent, and a member of our little cabal.

Of the two new members we’ve brought on since taking over, I definitely like Tahir more. He’s friendly and pleasant to talk to, which is an important trait for a diplomat to have, but he’s also clever enough to be an interesting conversation partner. Unlike most other people who work in politics or international relations, he’s a true believer in his country’s cause, not just a careerist looking to advance up the ranks. The zeal of a convert is always stronger than the convictions of someone who believes what they were always told to believe. It helps that he’s also a powerful metahuman. Unlike most of the other Council members, he doesn’t have a strictly mental power, but that doesn’t mean he’s stupid by any means. As his alias suggests, his power is evolution, or perhaps more accurately, adaptation. His body changes to suit his environment, gaining bulletproof skin when being shot at, becoming incombustible when lit on fire, and growing gills when drowned. Some of it is purely reactive, so he’ll develop a resistance to psychic attacks even if he isn’t consciously aware that they’re happening, but he can also induce it deliberately, which mostly matters when he wants to turn his body into a weapon. I’ve seen the man grow everything from porcupine quills to swords made of bone. In extreme circumstances, some of his adaptations even mimic other metahuman abilities, like retinal energy projection. And when a particular adaptation is called upon repeatedly, it begins to become permanent. Outwardly, Tahir still looks mostly human, though his skin is several times tougher than normal, but internally, he’s undergone some significant permanent changes. The biggest one, since joining us, has been his brain. Working as a diplomat and bureaucrat caused his intellectual processing capacity to grow somewhat, but that was within the bounds of what an ordinary human could do. Joining the Council, and being surrounded by superhumanly smart people in charge of running the entire planet, kicked the process into overdrive. He operates mentally at a much higher level than any human, and based on my own analysis, higher than several of our own members as well.

Right now, Tahir is quietly enjoying a book. We’re in Hawkshaw’s VTOL, the Hercule, en route to the Vanaheim site. There’s still a few hours to go before the gate is projected to activate, but we’re going to secure the location in advance, and make sure there aren’t any unpleasant surprises waiting for us. Kellan is the pilot, while Adamant, Evrimci and I are sitting in the back. Network is bringing the fuel cells by land, as part of our peace offering. The man’s ability to get just about anything done on short notice never ceases to impress me. We’re also highly dependent on him for most of the Council’s daily functions, which isn’t ideal, but his consciousness is distributed across thousands of bodies, so he isn’t exactly a single point of failure.

For her part, Adamant is asleep. It’s the first time I’ve seen her outside of her metal form in a while. Normally napping before a mission wouldn’t be advisable, but once she wakes up, she’ll transform almost immediately, negating any potential loss of alertness. She doesn’t need to eat or sleep while transformed, so it’s easy to stay that way for extended periods of time. Taking even a brief break to get some rest is a good sign. I need to consult Kellan about her condition, but this isn’t the time or place for it. Unfortunately, finding an appropriate moment to discuss anything with him has become difficult these days. He’s got as much on his plate as Haley, without the benefit of having a tireless alternate form with enhanced processing power. Protecting an entire city almost single-handedly, acting as the Council’s chairperson, and working with the Front Line whenever he has the time. That third one has gotten the short end of the stick as of late, though the team’s new recruits have picked up some of his and Adamant’s slack. It’s not my business, so I haven’t asked either of them about it, but I get the sense there’s some tension between them and Vindicator, the other founding member, who wants nothing to do with his coworkers’ ‘extracurricular activities.’

We already tapped them to be ready in case the Vanaheim situation goes bad. Despite having no interest in the decision-making side of things, Vindicator and his new recruits are willing to act as muscle for us when necessary. If Pallas wasn’t indisposed, she would serve that role, but until she’s back, we have to rely on outsiders. I never met Gladwin, and I know better than to trust her, but her motivations are simple- protecting the people of Arcadia. That makes her easy to understand and work with. Vindicator is more complicated. That’s why I leave all the actual interaction with him to Kellan and Bradshaw. Part of me suspects that he dislikes me because I’m a supervillain’s son, but in reality, it’s probably got more to do with my own actions and methods than any grudge with Father, who disappeared before Vindicator’s powers even manifested.

“Approaching the LZ,” Hawkshaw informs us. Stirring, Haley blinks twice, then transforms. Her posture shifts completely as pink flesh turns to silver metal. No exhaustion, no vulnerability, no compassion. Just cold calculation. It’s not who Bradshaw ‘really is,’ of course, and I know that it’s not good for her to remain transformed for long periods, but a part of me prefers her this way. Maybe that would change if I knew her personally the way Kellan does, but the majority of my interactions with her have been as Adamant, not Haley Bradshaw, and it’s the former who I’ve come to respect, not the latter. Tahir bookmarks his spot and places the book on his lap, looking totally calm. You can’t be the type to get nervous if you’re a part of the Council. Either you’ll succumb to it and get yourself killed, or you’ll get over it quickly. He chose the latter, no doubt aided by his power.

That same power has changed him permanently in other ways. The most obvious are his eyes, which resemble those of an arthropod, with thousands of miniature photoreceptor units that are nearly imperceptible to the naked eye. They’re still shaped like human eyes, but with an almost metallic blue color. It gives him a number of advantages, including a far greater degree of detail and range, as well as built-in thermal vision and night-sight. They’re also much more durable than human eyes, to the point that he no longer has eyelids, because they aren’t necessary any more. His skin looks more or less normal, but a careful observer would notice that his veins are no longer visible, because the skin above them is thicker. Tahir’s body hair is also deceptively normal-looking, but analysis reveals that it’s closer to metal than actual hair, and when necessary, it will grow out rapidly and wrap around his body, forming a sort of natural armor. As a result, he doesn’t wear any protective gear at all- for this mission, he’s in a formal suit. Hopefully that will send a good message, even if Kellan and I will be wearing our own respective uniforms. The idea is to indicate that we aren’t there to fight, but that we will if we have to.

Our LZ is actually just a helipad, located atop the squat concrete building that houses the entrance to the Vanaheim site. Most of the Council’s facilities have a translocation hub, but this one doesn’t, for fear that Vanaheim might be able to reverse-engineer the tech if they seized the site by force. I remain seated for a moment, allowing Adamant and Evrimci to exit the VTOL before me, and then stand when Hawkshaw does. Following close behind him, I walk down the Hercule’s ramp and join the others by the door leading down into the facility.

“Axel is still two hours out,” Kellan informs us. “Sandra, what’s the projected ETA for our guests?”

Over comms, Zero answers his question.

“Three and a half hours. But that’s just an estimate. Not like this thing comes with a progress bar attached.”

In other words, they could arrive five minutes from now. Best we hurry down and get ready to greet them, in that case. The group heads down a short flight of stairs into the facility itself. It’s spartan, almost totally unfurnished, with just about everything coated in a layer of dust. A desk, a closet-sized bathroom, a couch, and a TV. Maybe at some point they had people stationed here physically, but when monitoring the gate remotely became a more viable option, there was no need. Hawkshaw approaches the elevator leading down, and presses a gauntleted palm to the reader. It takes a second to activate, and then flashes green, indicating acceptance.

“I’ll be up here,” Adamant says bluntly. “Call if you need me.”

Kellan gives her a nod and steps into the elevator. Tahir and I follow. Luckily, it’s relatively spacious. I was worried we’d be packed together like sardines in a can, but it makes sense they’d install a decently-sized elevator if they expected a lot of people would be using it. Like a kill-team going down to wipe out whatever came out of the gate as soon as it activated, or a bunch of Vanaheim diplomats heading up for their first look at the world beyond their bubble. Right now, it’s just the three of us, and a whole lot of dead air. It’s not even that we don’t like each other- I’ve spoken with Tahir and Kellan plenty, enough to consider them both friends. But there’s a certain aura of seriousness to missions like this, that makes small talk feel wrong. Not every moment needs to be filled with witty banter, after all.

After a smooth and relatively short elevator ride, especially considering how deep down we’re going, the elevator comes to a stop. Kellan steps out first, sweeping the area with his sidearm drawn. I doubt he’s even fully aware that he’s doing it- the motion is just reflex, drilled into him by years of operating in the urban nightmare that is the city of Pax. As far as I’m aware, the only place comparable in terms of danger per square foot is the heart of the Amazon rainforest. Tahir goes after him, and I watch as his facial features morph, nose and ears gaining sensitivity. Since there’s no apparent threat, he’s instigating the change consciously, using his enhanced senses to search for hidden traps. Between him and Hawkshaw, I don’t particularly feel the need to make a show of how on-guard I am. Instead, I simply take the room in normally.

The gate is the first thing to catch my eye. I’ve seen images and watched the video feed, but it’s not the same as seeing it in person. It’s about forty feet in diameter, with a lattice of blue crystal filling in the circle’s center. The ring itself is metal, tarnished but not rusting, with what looks like circuitry inscribed onto the surface. It’s positioned on a large platform that seems to extend underground, presumably connected to whatever geothermal extraction machine they’re using to charge it up. Other than that, the site is almost completely empty. No visible defenses, just a large underground cavern. On the ceiling, I spot the hidden locations where thousands of gallons of concrete would pour in if Zero pushed a single button. There are high-yield charges under the floor as well, powerful enough to reduce the gate to scrap when detonated. The cavern’s floor is tiled over, and on the far wall I see an even larger elevator, which is where Network will be bringing down our offering of fuel cells, assuming that’s how this plays out.

My mask’s lenses scan the gate when I look it over, and verify what our monitoring devices suggested- it’s gathering power. A spark dances across one of the blue crystal lines in the center of the circle, and I move closer, curious. I inherited Father’s metahuman genius, and like him, I specialize in machines. Not engineering, per se. Cars and planes don’t interest me. But devices like this most certainly do. In form and in function, it appears to be a gate, but closer examination suggests to me that it’s more of a tunneling machine. Pocket dimensions are a known quantity, and have been for a while. Plenty of metahumans can access them, for storing equipment or hiding or a number of other purposes. This ‘gate’ was designed to drill a hole between our plane of existence and another. Not a full-on parallel universe, that would take significantly more power than this dormant volcanic field is capable of providing. Just one of the various dimensional pockets attached to our universe. Not one chosen at random, though. They were specifically looking for one with an accelerated timescale, so they could exploit it to develop a civilization without external influence, and give it enough time to grow into a viable competitor with us. That kind of ambition is something I can respect, even from someone who may well be an enemy.

“Are we clean?”

Kellan looks askance at Tahir for a moment, and then turns back to me and nods.

“We’re clean.”

He may be the chairperson, but this is Extinction Group’s operation, which means I’m calling the shots for the time being.

“Good. Make whatever preparations you deem necessary, but try not to be too obvious about it. Remember, this is first contact. We want to make a good impression.”