One of the ramifications of the coup Kellan and I spearheaded is that the main science-types on the Council are no longer available. Marcus Robards is more or less dead, and even with Network inhabiting his body, we still don’t have full access to his superhuman engineering expertise. The exact degree to which a ‘meta-genius’ relies on natural intelligence versus their power is a matter of some debate, but according to Network, the way his mind works puts some limitations on how much he can use Machina’s brain. Andrew Donovan is completely dead, and even handing his research over to a team of talented biochemists hasn’t completely filled in the hole his loss created. Sam Blake is our backup engineer, but he’s currently off in space, and will be for a while. That means I’m the Council’s Chief Science Officer, mostly by default.

Personally, I think I’ve been doing a decent job. A lot of it is actually rather hands-off, because the technology necessary to improve the world already exists. The Council didn’t need to invent nuclear power plants or solar farms- we just pull strings behind the scenes to get them implemented. That means that I have a great deal of latitude to work on what I find personally interesting, with the full resources and backing of the Council. A number of those projects have come directly from the Gilgamesh Archive, left to us by the Council’s founder after his negotiated surrender and voluntary cryogenic suspension. It contains detailed records of his ‘past lives,’ which he claimed were actual alternate timelines he lived through. My personal theory is that they were just high-fidelity simulations his power generated, but the information contained within them seems to be mostly accurate to our world, so it’s hard to say for sure.

Today, I’m going to be indexing the Vanaheim Archive, which Mentor provided us with before he left. There’s one item in particular I’m interested in, though, and it relates to a project I’ve been working on for quite a while. The designs for their dimensional tunneling machine. I’ve been working on something similar, but progress has stalled, and insights from Vanaheim might be exactly what I need to get back in gear.

Before I can do any of that, though, there are a few things I need to handle. First thing’s first- my daily briefing. Zero programmed a limited AI to collate information tailored to each Council member’s areas of interest, to keep us updated on various goings-on each day. It’s usually the first thing I look at when I get into the office. The office being the Council’s main base of operations, Abyss. We chose the name after finding out its exact location, something the Council’s founders kept from the rest of the group before we unseated them. Nothing particularly special, in the end- just an uninhabited stretch of land in Siberia. It’s all deep underground, with no access points except by translocation, but Gilgamesh and the others still saw fit to keep it secret.

Today, however, Ishtar is coming with me. I’ve got no problem with her seeing my briefing- she’ll be getting one of her own eventually, after Zero’s algorithm figures out what she’ll want to see. But I didn’t bring her in just to watch over my shoulder as I go through my daily routine. She’s here for the tour, and to meet some other members of the Council. That’s why Zero is waiting for us when we translocate in.

Ishtar doesn’t display any of the usual disorientation that comes along with your first few jumps. Maybe her internals are better-made than ours, or she’s just better at suppressing the nausea than most. Either way, she greets Sandra with a polite smile and a hand to shake. The digital savant accepts it, making little effort to disguise her suspicious stare. Zero doesn’t trust easily, which is precisely why I asked her to be Ishtar’s tour guide. I’m capable of recognizing when I’m not objective about something, and getting the opinion of someone who won’t be as biased is only rational.

“You’re Ishtar, then. The Survivor.”

If the obvious skepticism in Sandra’s tone puts Ishtar off, she doesn’t let it show.

“Yes. And you are Zero. You’ll be showing me around this… ‘Abyss?’”

“Sure. Let’s get going. Winters, we’ll talk later.”

I acknowledge the ‘invitation’ with a nod and head off in the direction of my office, while they go the other way. Hopefully Ishtar’s got a good sense of direction- Abyss can be almost impossible to navigate without a map in your first few months. The whole place is all black stone and halogen lights, a design choice the old leadership more or less stuck us with. It’s all been time-locked, making it virtually indestructible, but also impossible to remodel.

A few days after I first moved in, I put down a carpet and covered up all the pre-existing light fixtures in my office, replacing them with lamps that would make the atmosphere a little warmer. Most of the others have personalized their spaces since then as well. Once I get in, I drop my bags and hang my coat on the hanger, before calling up the daily briefing.

“Good morning, Mister Winters,” the digital voice chirps pleasantly. Some of the others opted to modify their version to make it sound less human, because the original settings unnerved them, but it doesn’t particularly bother me. “There are four items in your briefing for today. Would you like to begin?”

“Go ahead.”

The AI isn’t particularly complex- Zero takes plenty of precautions with that sort of thing, for obvious reasons. Doubly so now that she knows she was originally recruited for the Council because she created an AI that ended the world in one of Gil’s alternate timelines. Most of the others were brought in for similar reasons, though neither Kellan, Tahir, nor I were.

“Item one: Sleeper status remains stable. Detailed biometrics are available; would you like to see them?”

My briefing always starts with the same thing- an update on the Sleeper, AKA Gilgamesh. It’s an open question whether the entire world would disappear in a puff of quantum foam if he died, and if he happens to wake up, he’ll probably kill us once he realizes we’re still alive. The report has been identical every day since I first started getting them, but they still don’t make me feel much better. The contingency plans I’ve been developing in case he wakes up, however, do provide some comfort.

“Not right now. Continue.”

“Very well. Item two: Pilgrim mission status remains unchanged. Time until subspace jump ends: six weeks, four days.”

Next comes the status of our absent comrade, Samuel ‘Astro’ Blake. He took his personal starship and left on an exploratory mission months ago, along with a number of Network’s extra bodies. Their information-sharing power lets us get constant updates on the mission’s status, with a shorter lag time than any conventional technology would allow. They’ll be arriving at their first destination in six weeks, after several months spent in subspace. Obviously, if something went wrong, we’d all hear about it immediately, but I still like getting daily reports regardless. Interstellar exploration is something I’ve always had a passing interest in, even if there’s still far too much to do here on Earth for me to consider actually going on a voyage myself.

“Item three: the Universalis Foundation has announced that its next New Eden site will be located in Syria. Standard measures are in place to facilitate development.”

The Universalis Foundation is one of Optimization Group’s success stories. With the help of Arcadian scientists, they developed a ‘miracle seed’ capable of growing in virtually any environment, with an unprecedented resistance to disease. The Foundation is a joint human/metahuman project that uses the seed to create ‘New Eden’ sites in various parts of the world, which are capable of feeding tens of millions of people. While the Council had a hand in its creation, we aren’t involved in the day-to-day operations, though Network is always hard at work behind the scenes to make sure that political red tape never gets in the way of what they do. Syria is a good choice- it’s still got serious food shortages as a result of the conflicts in that region. The Council was formed just a few years before the US decided to set the entire Middle East on fire, and lacked the resources at the time to prevent the debacle entirely. However, we’ve been able to mitigate the worst of it since then, and establish a mostly-lasting peace where it counts. The New Eden site will help with that- fewer people starving means fewer people with a reason to kill each other for resources.

“Item four: a radical group calling themselves the Emancipators have released a video where they put a former American Secretary of State on trial for various war crimes, culminating in a death sentence which is carried out immediately. Among their various claims, they suggested that the Front Line is ‘controlled opposition,’ secretly run by the government to discredit other far-left groups. Their leader appears to have been briefly considered for membership in the Front Line, but was rejected.”

That’s got to be giving Kellan a headache right now. I lean back in my chair and scratch my chin. It certainly puts his team in a tough spot. If they go after these ‘Emancipators,’ it’ll give credence to their accusations, but if they let the government handle it, it’ll be a bloodbath. We may control the government at the highest levels, but the response to a high-profile former cabinet member being kidnapped and executed is pretty much predetermined. They’ll send in a kill-team and wipe out everyone involved. No trial, limited media coverage. Too risky when there are metahumans involved.

“Are there any further details about their leader?”

“Indeed. He is a pyrokinetic and self-described Maoist-Third-Worldist who operates under the alias Firebrand. Six years ago, he contacted the Front Line and requested assistance dealing with a cult of religious extremists in the American South that were engaged in a forced breeding program meant to create a metahuman army. Hawkshaw, Adamant, and Vindicator assisted him in putting an end to the cult’s activities, but rejected his request for membership on the basis that he’d taken too much pleasure in the process of killing members of the cult, and was not mentally stable. After this, he appears to have become convinced that the Front Line is a ‘psyop’ run by the CIA or Department of Metahuman Affairs. Records indicate that he spent time in South and Central America, attempting to join various left-wing movements, but eventually returned to the United States alone. Exactly how large his Emancipators are is unknown, but at least distinct five individuals appear in his video, none of which display metahuman powers save for Firebrand himself, who executes the captive via immolation.”

He sounds charming, really. No surprise that the Front Line rejected him. They may be broadly aligned against the government, but killing has always been an unfortunate necessity to them, rather than the point of the job. Still, I’m a little jealous that Firebrand actually got to execute a war criminal. I have to imagine it’s fairly satisfying in the moment, even if it’s ultimately a useless action that won’t improve the world in any way, shape, or form.

“Does the Front Line have a response planned?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

That means they’re probably still arguing. Hopefully Haley and Kellan will be able to keep the others from doing or saying anything stupid. There’s some irony to the fact that Firebrand and his people are more or less correct about the Front Line secretly being run by the powers that be. Their only mistake is thinking that the government is the one pulling the strings, rather than just another puppet dancing to the Council’s tune.

“Great. That’s everything?”

“Correct. This concludes your daily briefing. Have a nice day, Mister Winters.”

With that, the office falls silent. It’s not an especially large space, mainly dominated by my oak desk, with a filing cabinet in one corner and a lamp in the other. There are facilities here and back at home where I do my real work- this is just where I go to think. And right now, there’s only one thing on my mind.

Calling up the Vanaheim files on my computer, I sift through them quickly to find the section pertaining to their ‘gate.’ In another window, I bring up my own notes on dimensional tunneling, just for reference. I haven’t discussed it with any of the others yet, mainly because it’s still a long ways off from actual implementation, but this might be my most significant project yet. Nothing worldshaking- just something of personal importance. Finding Father.

It’s not a rescue operation. He’s been gone for forty years, and even if I knew he was still alive, I wouldn’t particularly care about saving him. But even after I got rid of his programming, there’s always been the shadow of his influence looming over my life. If I’m going to put it to rest, I need to see his body, and put it in the ground myself.

The psychological aspect isn’t the only reason I want to find him, though. He took a few things with him when he disappeared that are mine by birthright. Most of his legacy, I’m not interested in, but the things he built were undeniably impressive, and I intend to use them for my own ends once I have my hands on them.

Father disappeared in the early eighties, taking his ‘nemesis,’ the Vitruvian, along with him. They disappeared into a dimensional tunnel that Father created, and he didn’t leave behind any notes on how to replicate the process. In fact, he didn’t leave behind any notes at all. He’d felt that it would be cheating for his heir to have all of his work to copy off of, so he’d had all of his materials destroyed after he vanished. Most of his tech, I’ve been able to reverse-engineer, but the dimensional tunneling device has confounded me until now. With the Vanaheim designs, I should be able to build a tunneler of my own, one that can access the pocket dimension into which Father and his foe went so long ago.

Once that’s done, I’ll finally be free of him.

With the help of the Vanaheim blueprints, I’m able to make several hours of solid progress before Zero contacts me. Before I can get up to go answer her summons, I have to quash the impulse to ignore her. Not deliberately, of course. All it would take is allowing myself to believe the lie that I just need to finish cracking this one equation, and then I’d go meet with her. But by the time that’s done, I’ll have forgotten all about the message entirely. Instead, I freeze everything I was doing exactly as it is, and immediately get up to go speak with her.

Sandra is waiting for me in the lounge. It used to be a bit more Spartan, but a confrontation with a now-deceased Council member’s dark side prompted the need for remodeling, and with the old leadership gone, we found ourselves able to make whatever design choices we wished- provided we were willing to do the legwork of actually setting it all up ourselves. That included setting up a sound system, which is filling the dead air with smooth jazz as I walk in, as well as a few potted plants and a cabinet full of board games. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kellan didn’t get many takers for ‘game night’ the first time he suggested it.

Sitting with her legs folded beneath her on a couch in the middle of the room, Zero is tapping away on a hard-light keyboard when I enter, and doesn’t look up for at least a minute after I sit down. Once she’s satisfied, she dismisses the screen and gives me, if not the entirety of her attention, at least most of it. She processes more information than most, thanks to her implants, and I don’t begrudge her a bit of distraction.

“Where’s Ishtar?”

“I left her watching an information package about human history I prepared this morning. Won’t cover everything, but she’ll at least be able to keep up her end of a conversation with most normal people.”

That was a considerate move on Sandra’s part, even if I suspect half the reason she did it was to have a ready-made distraction for Ishtar if she got too annoying.

“You aren’t worried about exposing her to our litany of sins as a species? Her opinion of us didn’t seem terribly high to begin with.”

“Nah, I don’t think there’s much risk of her going all Fifth Element on us. Her people didn’t leave that long ago- they taught her about all the really bad stuff. I’m just catching her up on the more recent history. She did complain about how archaic a video package was compared to direct neural upload, though. Which reminds me- once you’ve indexed all of those files, send me the ones about the information transfer tech. I want first crack at it.”

Her enthusiasm makes me feel slightly guilty about having neglected the indexing in favor of focusing on my own personal projects. She’s also the ideal person to work on developing technology that can handle direct data transfer into and out of the brain, since artificial intelligence is one of her areas of expertise. It could change the world, though not necessarily for the better, if we aren’t careful how we deploy the technology.

“I’ll be sure to do that,” I promise, taking a seat in an armchair near her. “Now, what was it you wanted to talk about?”

A look that I’m fairly certain I recognize flashes across Sandra’s face and disappears. There’s something she wants to talk about, but before that, there are more important things to discuss.

“While I was giving your friend the tour, the subject of our former members came up. Including Hunt. She offered to see what she could do. Psychokinetic weaponry doesn’t seem ideal for the job, but maybe it’ll work when all the other options have failed.”

What she’s referring to is Jason Hunt, mentor to our fearless chairman. Former member of the Council, and former owner of the Hawkshaw name. He came too close to the truth, so the old leadership locked away his memories and set him loose in the world. Then Geas, the telepath responsible for Hunt’s artificial amnesia, committed suicide before we could use Network to co-opt his powers. After that, Kellan was able to track his old mentor down, but our every attempt to unlock his memories has failed. We’ve brought in specialist psychics, conventional therapists with experience in amnesia and repressed memories, and any number of more exotic solutions. Jamming a psychokinetic scalpel into his brain doesn’t sound likely to help, but maybe Ishtar hasn’t yet revealed the full extent of her talents to us.

“That’s more of a question for Kellan than me. If you were wondering whether you should take it to him at all, I’d say yes. Even if he rejects the idea, I’m sure he’ll appreciate the sentiment.”

Sandra nods, taking that in. Behind her eyes, I can see her weighing whether now is an appropriate time to bring up whatever she’s been holding back about. I decided to preempt her.

“I can tell there’s something you want to talk about, and we aren’t going to be able to have a productive discussion if it’s all that’s on your mind. Go ahead.”

At first she looks surprised that I called her on it, then gives me a look of amused annoyance.

“Fine. I had this idea last night that I haven’t been able to get out of my head. It involves bioengineering. Creating a way for a program to instantiate itself physically when that’s what’s necessary to accomplish a task. It would be able to build its own body, tailor-made for the job, without any human input. There would have to be limits, obviously, I’m not stupid, but ever since we got rid of my psychic blocks…”

She trails off, but I don’t need further elaboration to know what she’s talking about. We discovered fairly recently that Hunt wasn’t the only person who had been made the victim of Nicholas O’Connor’s telepathic talents. Our Council implants block psychic intrusions of all kinds, but the old model had a back door he could activate at any time, allowing him to mess with the minds of members whenever he wanted. He used that to put certain blocks in place, preventing Sandra from following certain lines of thought that would lead to certain creations. All on the orders of Gilgamesh, who lived through more than one timeline where one of Zero’s creations caused the end of the world. Once we removed those blocks, she’s had ideas like this one flooding in, like backfill for years of having been suppressed.

“Well, you know my general feelings on the subject of life created for a specific purpose. You would have to be exceedingly careful about preventing them from becoming sentient. Outside supervision would be necessary as well, I think. But so long as proper precautions are taken, I don’t see why not.” I pause for a moment, thinking, and Zero doesn’t interrupt. “That being said, I’m not sure I see why, either. The opportunities for deployment would be fairly sparse, considering we still operate in secret, and it’s not as if we don’t have any number of sufficiently capable agents to handle whatever work needs doing.”

One of the things I appreciate most about Sandra is that she doesn’t take criticism of her ideas as a personal attack, and doesn’t jump to defend them without considering the merits of my arguments. Instead, she simply sits with them quietly for a moment, though I can tell by her eyes alone that she isn’t entirely idle.

“The point is to create a system capable of handling things without requiring any of our agents to get involved personally. An algorithm identifies a potential threat, evaluates it, and if necessary, activates a purpose-made body to deal with it, all entirely independent. The point about secrecy is a solid one, I’ll admit, but there are ways around that. We could introduce them publicly through the DMA and other organizations, or program them to prioritize stealth. Maybe build a Fawkes widget into them that will prevent anybody from remembering exactly what they look like.”

All these ideas are being recorded as she speaks, filed away into different folders at the speed of thought. Trying to keep up with Zero can be a little disorienting, especially if you’re more engineering-oriented. Even though blueprints and equations play a big part in what I do, most of the real work gets done by my hands. Zero works almost exclusively in the realm of the mind these days. This bioengineering idea involves more interaction with the physical world, but all mediated by algorithms, to the point that she’d have very little influence over its day-to-day functions. Highly efficient if executed correctly, but much as no plan survives contact with the enemy, no dream survives contact with reality.

“Our privacy tech works as well as it does because there’s a human intelligence at the wheel, that can decide when to turn it on or off. Without that, the risk of exposure is a lot higher. But if you make them too smart, we get into some ethical issues that I don’t think anybody wants to deal with.”

The more I think Zero’s idea through, and work out the potential consequences in my mind, the less enthusiastic I am. That isn’t to say I think she should trash it all, just that I’m wary of the potential for her to be blinded by the elegance of the idea. Every other ‘meta-mind’ I’ve spoken to has displayed similar tendencies, it’s just a side effect of how our powers work.

“Yeah, fair enough. I’ll retool it a bit and bring a more solid proposal up at the next meeting.” She falls silent a moment, lost in the screens projected inside her digital lenses, and then shakes her head slightly, refocusing. “Thank you.”

“Not a problem. Is there anything else you wanted to discuss?”

Sandra stretches, grimacing slightly as she works her stiff back muscles. I know the exact feeling- it’s a common one among those of us who do a lot of their work sitting at a desk. Luckily this job takes us out into the field often enough to make sure we stay in shape.

“Well, we need to talk about Ishtar. How soon after she got here did she start calling herself a goddess, by the way?”

“Actually,” I confess, somewhat ruefully, “that was my idea.”

“You’re incorrigible,” Zero replies, looking unsurprised by my admission. “Anyway, she said you invited her to Extinction Group.”

“Indeed. I think she’ll provide a useful perspective. Not to mention it’ll put her in a position where you and Adamant can keep an eye on her as well.”

That elicits a smirk.

“Well, you’ll be in the best position of all, since she seems to think she’ll be staying with you for the time being. Is that accurate, or should I be making alternate arrangements for her?”

Just because I offered to take responsibility for Ishtar doesn’t necessarily mean I have to let her live in my home. The Council has sufficient resources to make living arrangements a non-issue. But in this case, I’d prefer to keep her close. It might create some sense of impropriety, but the Council’s current membership doesn’t seem so prudish as to actually be bothered by that.

“She was correct. It’s easier than putting her up by herself, and I think it’s for the best she doesn’t stay here. If she wants to go out in public, she’ll either need a cover identity, or some form of disguise.”

“I can handle both,” Sandra says, although that was never really in question. “The question was more about the long-term, though. Whether we can trust her, what her role is going to be, that sort of thing.”

As she speaks, Zero sends me a silent alert, informing me that she’s activated an audio-distortion field around us. If Ishtar, or anybody else, is listening in on this conversation, they’ll hear it as incomprehensible static. I give a fractional nod of acknowledgement.

“The trust problem is complicated. She’s here to represent Vanaheim’s interests, in theory, but they don’t really have any to speak of. With the fuel cells we gave them, they’ve got another few hundred years of life in their civilization that they weren’t expecting. That should keep them occupied for a while. Maybe even long enough that the issue of space won’t be an issue at all. Letting them set up shop on Mars or Venus would be ideal, though we might have to accelerate the time-table on those projects if we want things to work out that way.”

Sandra makes a soft noise, nudging me back on track. It’s really quite easy to get distracted by your own ideas, especially when you’re talking to someone who you know thinks just as fast as you, if not faster. By the time I get back to my office, I’m sure there will be some revised notes on our space program plans in my inbox.

“Point being, there aren’t really any interests for her to be protecting at the moment, aside from the potential destruction of the gate itself. And she doesn’t have a real personal attachment to Vanaheim, besides whatever was programmed into her during gestation. We just have to convince her that she’s got better odds of survival with us than them. If there were other players that might be able to give her an even better pitch, I’d say that might be a concern, but there aren’t, so it’s not really worth worrying about.”

These are all more or less the points I made to Kellan and Tahir already, which means Zero heard them as well, but she doesn’t seem especially convinced. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’ll be good to have someone a little more skeptical of Ishtar keeping an eye on her. I just hope her skepticism doesn’t end up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Right. Look, just… whatever you see of yourself in her, don’t let it get in the way of the job.”

I know better than to take her warning as an insult. If she didn’t respect me, she’d just take steps to prepare for my fall from grace, not try to prevent it from happening.

“Of course. Actually, this seems as good a time as any to bring up something I was meaning to ask you earlier. Are there any pending operations that I could take her with me on? Nothing too consequential, of course. Just something that would be a good opportunity to assess her.”

Sandra’s eyes light up in a way I recognize all too well. Puzzle pieces fitting together in her head.

“It’s funny that you ask. Arcana asked for help with something this morning. Didn’t sound too serious, so I wasn’t sure whether to blow them off, but if you want a chance to break the new girl in…”

Arcana is an interesting case. Generally speaking, you don’t deal with the same people more than once or twice in this business. Even if you’re an ordinary crime-fighter, your ‘recurring villains’ are few and far between. Either you put them in the ground personally, or they get thrown in the kind of jail nobody ever gets out of. When it comes to the Council’s foes, it’s the same situation. The only difference is, we have far fewer friends than the average masked hero. Arcana is one of them.

As far as any of us are aware, the Council is the most powerful force on the planet. We have influence over every government, power enough to glass planets, and the wherewithal to use it. But that doesn’t mean we’re the only conspiracy out there. Even before my time, the Council identified a number of lesser-order shadowy cabals, most of which think they’re the ones secretly pulling all the strings. The vast majority of them have no idea we exist, and we try to keep it that way, keeping tabs on them quietly to make sure they don’t get out of line. Arcana is one of the few that’s aware of us. Not the full extent of our operations, obviously- they have no idea Network exists, for one thing. To them, we’re just another group of do-gooders, who happen to prefer working behind the scenes. They do know we’re at least one order of magnitude more powerful than them, though. That means they wouldn’t ask for favors unless it was something worthwhile, no matter what Zero’s assessment was.

“Perfect. Send me the details, I’ll begin preparations immediately.”