Sovereign (Nemesis, #2)

by April Daniels

“How’s it gone, protecting New Port without them?” Dreadnought pauses before answering. What does one say to that? That she’s fought twelve major battles in nine months, and as a result she gets tense whenever her phone rings? That the nightmares wake her at least once a week? That she’s had to learn basic lessons the hard way every time, and other people have paid with their lives? That she’s done it all alone? That she’s been without her family, without anyone to talk to, because Calamity changed after she was wounded, and because Doc Impossible was always drunk? That even though she’s got a place to stay, she hasn’t decorated, and it still feels like she’s homeless? That sometimes when she’s alone she starts sobbing, and she doesn’t know why? Or should she talk about the other side of it? About how much she loves the power, about the intoxicating thrill of her own strength? Can she explain how much better food tastes when she buys it with money earned in blood, her blood? Should she tell them about the feral joy of living at the edge of death? About how battle makes her feel dangerous and savage and complete? Should she let them know that sometimes she’s disappointed when a fight ends too quickly? Can she explain how the lattice gets more beautiful every time she looks at it? Would any of them understand if she told them that sometimes she flies for hours, in any direction, just watching all the little people with their little lives, and how she can’t tell if what she f...

“She’s not really popular right now. Doc, if you want to talk to me about rehabilitating your image, we might be able to work something out in time for the next convention, but right now—” “Yes, agreed,” says Doc. “No, not agreed,” I say, and immediately hate how much like a whine it sounds. “I mean, look, what is it going to say about me if I won’t even be caught showing up with the woman who lets me crash in her condo?” “That you’re not an idiot?” says Doc. “Oh no, I am totally an idiot, if that’s what it takes to get you off this friggin’ jet,” I say as I get behind Doc and start pushing. She laughs and lets herself be carried along.

You’d think that after almost a year of being Dreadnought, I wouldn’t still be such a superhero fangirl. You’d think that. But what happened is my fangirldom got worse.

“The floor recognizes Professor Gothic,” says the Patriot. “Thank you,” says Gothic in a German-inflected baritone. “I have completed the latest round of the metahuman population survey, and the results are…concerning. The metahuman population growth continues to accelerate, but this is not news. What is news is that the growth curve has recently left a linear curve and has become, to early appearances at least, exponential.” There’s a ripple of murmuring through the crowd. Gothic waits for it to subside before proceeding. “Should this growth continue its current pattern, as much as 7% of the human population could have superpowers by the end of the decade. By the middle of this century, that number could be as high as 41%.” The murmuring is open discussion now, voices calling out in denial or excitement. Arguments are cracking open all over the room. Gothic raises his voice to be heard above the noise. “Unless this trend reverses itself, I project that the entire human species will have superpowers by the year 2100 at the latest.”

Until we can determine what is behind this and if it will ever stop, we should prepare to deal with ever-increasing numbers of metahumans. In the long term, we may have to consider a world without superheroes.” “What? Why?” someone shouts. “Think about it: if everyone has superpowers, then what use would police and fire departments have for us?” That’s about the last anyone is able to make out over the sheer noise of a room full of superheroes losing their goddamn minds.

Not necessarily. 'Powers' doesn't automatically equate with 'superhero.' There are people with powers who use them for mundane stuff (like the couriers mentioned in Dreadnought) and people with powers who use them for bad things (like blackcapes and even simple criminals) and people who presumably have a power that's just not useful. If anything, the really powerful capes - the ones like Dreadnought - should come to even greater emand as the regular criminals become harder for run of the mills cops to face. Either that, or they would get folded into something similar to existing emergency response.

“Hi, Detective. Something up?” “Sorry to call you on your week off, but Graywytch isn’t answering her phone. We need you back here right away. Somebody is tearing up downtown with his superpowers and he’s taken hostages.”

So Graywytch does not understand 'on call.' There's no way that helps hee crusade to restock the Legion with her cronies.

The world vast below me, stretching out almost unimaginably far all around me. It’s fuzzy blue at the edges, and way off near the horizon, the sun is distant and searingly bright. Below me, the world curves away. Earth is almost heartbreakingly beautiful from up here. It’s home. It’s everything. I wish everyone had a chance to see it like this.

Being a superhero means a lot of things. It means I’m a public figure. It means that most of the people around me don’t consider me one of them. It means learning to keep my head together when everything is falling apart. It means living life at the edge of death. These are things that everyone knows about, things everyone thinks they understand. But there’s another truth to it, one I’ve learned not to speak about too loudly. People don’t want to hear it, not from Dreadnought, at least. Because here’s the truth of the matter, here’s what my job really means: I beat people up for money. And I love it. God help me, but I love it more than breathing. To be honest, I’d do it for free. Hell, I’d pay to do this. When I get into a serious fight, it is almost always the high point of my week. There’s no bullshit in combat, no convenient fictions and easy lies. Open battle is the most honest relationship you can have with somebody. They want to do something bad. I want to stop them. Whoever is stronger gets what they want. So far, I’m always the one who wins. The bad guys keep getting surprised by that. They know I’m Dreadnought, of course, and they know I’m strong. But I don’t think any of them ever expected that I could reach down into me and pull out the kind of rage that I hit them with. They see this cute little blond girl and think I don’t have it in me to hurt them. Very quickly, they learn better. When I’m in a really good fight, the anger explodes out of me. The battle joy...

The coffee is watery, but hot enough. “So you’re Dreadnought, huh?” asks one of the uniforms as I’m trying to decide which of the creamers I want to use. Is Hazelnut Bliss enough to make this disaster worthwhile, or am I more of a Nutmeg Joy kind of girl?

Almost immediately I start taking hits from an assault rifle, cracking pops of pain across my chest and neck. Irritating, but not damaging. “Check your fire, dumbass!” I shout, getting up into the air to draw any further fire up away from the hostages. This is what I don’t like about fighting near cops; even their “elite” officers probably haven’t been in a real battle before, and that means that some of them tend to ride the edge of panic every time things get really serious. The officer shooting at me finally lets up on the trigger, adjusts his aim, and starts blasting away at the ice wall the bad guy is putting up. The vil looks at me, eyes wide, swings one arm over, and his hand glows hot yellow just before— The SWAT team all run out of ammo at the same time. There’s a moment of silence, and then the cops are all scrambling for pistols or spare magazines.

“Calamity, freeze! You’re under arrest!” shouts Detective Phạm. “Funny. I don’t feel arrested.” “Dreadnought, step away from the vigilante!” “Why?” I ask. “Are you afraid your bullets might mess up my hair?”

“I’ve got her memories. And her mother’s memories, and her mother’s memories. All of them. All the way back to the beginning. More of them every day.” “And that’s…that’s bad?” “Yes, it’s fucking bad!” shouts Karen. “Memory isn’t what we remember, it’s who we are. The way we think, what we want, our opinions. Everything. I’m sixteen. She was twelve hundred. I don’t—I can’t compete with that!” She begins to pace, hugging herself tight. “Her memories are changing me, making me think thoughts that aren’t mine. It’s getting harder and harder to remember what’s me and what’s her. Keeping track of myself is like squirting an eyedropper full of dye into a swimming pool. I see a dog and I remember a German Shepard I once had, but it’s not me, it’s my fucking great-grandmother who had a dog.” Karen sinks back down onto the couch. Her wings fold protectively around her shoulders. “Valkyrja wants to come back from the dead, and she’ll kill me to do it.”

There are two things I never get tired of looking at. The stars from low orbit and human brains. Once you’re above the atmosphere, the stars are a brilliant spray of millions and millions of points of light. It’s hard to believe how many of them there are until you get up there and see them. You can sort of get a feel for this if you head into the deep woods on a cold, still night, but that’s nothing compared to the view you get from orbit. Brains, viewed through the lattice, give me that same kick of awe. The squishy stuff inside your skull is a densely complicated biological computer. Millions of cells, billions of connections. Nerve endings fire in waves, each thought traced in swirling wet fractals. Every one of us has a miracle wrapped up inside our heads. Sometimes I don’t even sleep at night, I just lie down, close my eyes, and look at my own brain for hours until it’s time to get back up.

The roof access door doesn’t budge when I try it. “Shit, they locked it again. Hold on, I have to find the key. They said they’d leave one around here somewhere…” “It’s on top of the door frame, near the left,” she says. She’s right. I look at her, confused. “I can sense where things that open the way are,” she explains, voice tight, face blank. “It’s…one of those things she did.” “Oh.” “Also people who are about to die, and any serious violence within a hundred miles. Plus ravens, swans, horses, and alcohol. Technically, it’s not a hundred miles, it’s twenty-seven leagues.” I point at the door. “Let’s go get Charlie.” “Yes. Let’s.”

That’s the other reason they don’t mind me coming through here: Raven’s Used Books is staffed almost entirely by metahumans. They don’t advertise it, but they understand what it’s like to have powers and be gawked at because of it. Here, at least, I’m almost normal, and sometimes I need that more than I’d like to admit. Most people with superpowers don’t want to be superheroes or supervillains. Most of them just want normal lives, and while it’s hard to understand why anyone would trade what I do for stocking shelves, I am grateful that there’s a place where it’s not a big deal that I enter through the rooftop door.

“Charlie, this is Karen. Karen, this is Charlie. Karen is Valkyrja’s daughter.” Charlie’s eyebrows jump up. “I wasn’t aware she had kids.” “Yes. It turns out I’m half-Korean, half-Scandinavian death goddess. Honestly, I’m as surprised as you,” says Karen with an edge in her voice.

The case is being handled as Jane Doe v. Jane and John Doe so it doesn’t get in all the papers, and it would kind of give things away if I showed up in my cape and bodyglove. Instead, I’m wearing a baggy sweatshirt with my hood up and a brunette wig. I’ve got sunglasses too, but honestly at that point I might as well get Kinetiq to follow me around projecting a neon sign above my head that says DO NOT PAY ATTENTION TO THIS OSTENTATIOUSLY ANONYMOUS YOUNG WOMAN, so they stay folded up in my pocket.

Remember that you’re Dreadnought. They can never take that from you, but you can give it away if you’re careless.”

Professor Gothic’s words come back to me: You’ve got enemies you won’t recognize until they attack. One missed call is unfortunate. Two is a coincidence. Three is enemy action. The more I think about it, the more I’m sure that this is asymmetric warfare. The enemy—whoever they are—knows it’s a fast trip to the hospital to bring the fight to me in person, so they’re trying to hit me here. But who would want to, and how would they do it? More to the point, how would they even know about— Graywytch.

“Do you know how to make someone become a dangerously violent person?” Doc stops pacing. “It’s basically a recipe. You hold them down and treat them like shit. Destroy their self-esteem, strip away all their pride, all their self-respect. Then you give them a chance to solve a problem with violence, and when they do, you immediately reward them.” Doc takes a breath. “Does that sound like anyone you know?” My gut turns to lead. I bite the words out by syllables: “I am not a blackcape.” “Not today. But if you don’t take what I’m saying seriously, you’ll be one sooner than you think.

“Wait, how could we possibly be to blame for this?” I ask. Phạm shrugs. “Who is to blame and who gets blamed aren’t always the same thing.

“When you were apprehending him, did Crenshaw say anything about any enemies he might have?”

Yes! He said something about how he was 'too important.'

To be honest, I don’t really pay attention to what supervillains say very much anymore. It’s always misunderstood genius this, you’ll regret the day that. Supervillains are, as a rule, drama queens.

“Dreadnought, arrest Calamity,” says Phạm. “Um, no?” I say. “That’s not going to happen, like, ever.” Her eyes stay locked on Calamity while she chews that over. “That’s fine, I just had to ask,” she finally says. “And I won’t be able to lie about you refusing, if anyone puts the question to me.” Liaison officer, I am coming to realize, does not mean advocate, in much the same way that mother didn’t mean it, either. She must be extra scared by this Crenshaw stuff if she’s letting slip that she doesn’t have my back when it comes down to it. Or maybe she thinks I won’t notice what she just said because I’m a kid. Maybe she didn’t grow up in the kind of house where people learn cynicism alongside how to tie their shoes.

“Is this how being a hero is?” asks Sarah, from that weird space where she’s half-Calamity. “Steppin’ aside. Letting the law act like it owns justice?”

I mean, I’m a superhero. Of course I’m going to help her, that’s what I’m for.

“Nothing! But this isn’t a resort, it’s a country!” “A country?” Holy shit, I kept a straight face. Cecilia would be so proud. “Yes, of course! We’re not recognized at the UN yet, but that will come.” He hunches forward at the edge of his seat. “Look, Dreadnought—may I call you Danielle?—Danielle, the nation-state is dying off. Small, privately owned communities in a global network are the future. Out here, we’re free of territorial disputes, of the archaic and rotting Westphalian system—we’ve got a clean slate! There’s no bureaucracy, no handouts, no petulant special interests; it’s the urgent and inevitable path forward for human development, and we’re taking the first big steps here.” “That’s really cool,” I say, and it even sounds like I mean it. The truth is, Garrison’s personal crusade seems like another rich dude’s fantasy of remaking the world so that it will kiss his ass just that much more, and I cannot scrounge up even half a shit to give about this.

Aren't there actual people trying to doing something like this? I'm fairly certain I did read about it at some point.

“We’ve matched up its trajectory with the historical record, and we’re pretty sure this is where the myths about Greek Gods came from. And not just the Greeks, either. Every ancient culture has stories of people or entities with fantastic powers, and many tell of a twilight of the gods or an era when the magic began to fade. Now the hour of the gods has come again.

“The satellite fleet is just a tool to cast spells on a global scale, and Phase One is perfecting a spell to boost the probability curve in certain sectors—in layman’s terms, we’re fudging the dice roll to pick who gets superpowers. Until recently, we thought it was just random chance. A lab accident here, an ancient curse there. Nothing seemed connected, and yet from the very beginning there’s been a suspicion that something was causing all these people with strange talents to show up starting in the late nineteenth century. And for them to become more common and more powerful as time went on? There had to be something connecting them all, right? Now that we’ve definitively concluded that it’s all just the expression of a lot of weird quantum math, we can—and have—systematized it.” The screen has switched to an animated infographic showing how the cameras near the Moon take observations of the Nemesis. How those observations cause quantum instabilities of a predictable nature. How, by taking advantage of those instabilities, a spell cast from a ritual chamber here on Cynosure gets beamed up to the satellites and then repeated all over the planet. How a single individual can be picked out, and their probability graph pulled way, way up, so that it’s all but guaranteed that by the end of the week they’ll encounter a mysterious woman selling special rings, or experience a non-fatal accident with exotic chemicals, or some other canned origin story. Despite myself, I’m up off ...

Bad. The implications of being able to pick and choose who has powers is bad. This gives new meaing to the guy's statement - the one that Danny apparently didn't pay attention to - that he was 'too important.' Especially since this guy would have the tools needed to get into 'the most secure drunk tank in the world.'

“Is it limited?” I ask. “I’m not sure what you’re asking.” “Is it limited?” I ask again, pointing at the part of the infograph that represents the probability of what they’re calling an Empowering Event occurring. “The probability of someone somewhere in the world getting superpowers on a given day—is that a fixed number, and you’re just shifting who it happens to, or can you change the probability itself?” And for the first time, something genuine breaks through Garrison’s sales pitch. He’s surprised. Impressed. Like, I guess he expected because I look like a blond swimsuit model, I’d be an idiot or something. “We can adjust the total curve, yes.” I look back at him, excitement blooming in my chest. My smile isn’t media-ready armor anymore, it’s real, and growing. “We could give everyone in the world superpowers, and we could do it in a safe and controlled way.” Garrison’s smile falters a little bit. “But, well that would almost defeat the point, wouldn’t it? I mean, what’s the point of powers if they’re common?”

'If everyone is special, then no one is.' Danny, this should be the hint-hint-nudge-nudge that you have completely opposing views on how this should be run/treated.

Thunderbolt crosses the room and offers me his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dreadnought. I was hoping to run into you at the convention.” “I had to go smack down a blackcape,” I say, returning his (inhumanly powerful) grip. Thunderbolt and Garrison trade a glance,

Yeah, the likelihood that that guy - and his murder - are their fault is rising steadily.

“Well, what we’re going to do is remove the random chance from who gets powers and who doesn’t. Only people who want them—and who’ve earned them—will get them. The best people should have the best powers. No more supervillains, and no more slackers.

'No more supervillains' I think I can get on board with, but the 'powers should only be for people who earn them' sounds like it's the prelude to elitist bullshit based in some kind of -ism.

The old world is rotting. There are too many problems that are going unaddressed because of special interests and small-minded politicians. And it’s not just in government; the West’s culture is sick too. Flabby mediocrity is the order of the day. We’re raising generation after generation to believe that the worst thing you can do to someone is offend them. We’re told to pretend that everyone is equal, but excuse me, some of us can fly! Excellence isn’t celebrated anymore, and it’s suffocating humanity.” Garrison chimes in, “I started homeschooling my daughter because the other students were taught it was okay to shame her for using her powers. They get scared because she can do things they can’t, and so they expect her to stifle herself simply because of their cowardice. And this was at a so-called elite academy in Zurich. It’s like that all over now.” The way he says this makes me think he’s voiced this complaint before. A lot. “There’s no escape. Someone does something outstanding and they get shouted down for not being fair to the people who can’t.” “Right!” says Thunderbolt. “And that’s who they care about. The people who can’t. There’s no concern anymore for the people who can, the people who do. They’ve murdered the meritocracy! No civilization can thrive if it insists on strangling its best members. We can take the best lessons of history, and abandon the failed ideologies that got us here.” My enthusiasm has completely drained away. This conversation has more red ...

I think Thunderbolt is twigging to the fact that they haven’t made the sale, but Garrison is still so euphoric after coming out of the closet as a fascist lunatic that he answers without hesitation. “Hereditary dictatorship. It’s the oldest form of government, and when left alone, the most stable. We’ll have the best and the brightest living in luxury, not just here, but in seasteads all over the planet. Hierarchy is natural. It’s healthy. Why do you think people love stories about kings and queens so much? They’re yearning for the past. They want to pay us tribute. Aristocracy means rule by excellence, and that’s what we’ll be—the excellent, trained from birth to excel, leading the mundane. Trust me, Dreadnought, when they see the benefits of going back to the old ways, they will beg us to save them from themselves, and we will be happy to oblige.”

And it'll hereditary dictatorship where the aristocracy has superpowers.

“She was right. You’re just another degenerate, after all.”

Graywytch? If Graywytch is on this I won't be surprised.

Shit, was that torture? Can I call that torture? Okay, fine. To the torture. Graywytch seemed like she was trying to figure something out. Not that she was asking me anything. It isn’t an interrogation. It’s an experiment, and I’m the lab rat. Whatever question she was investigating, she didn’t find the answer today. But that doesn’t seem to have surprised her—at the very least, she showed no signs of frustration.

I guarantee you she's trying to find a way to move the mantle.

Now that I know she’s linked up with him, I recognize that together they form that most ancient and venerable of all Silicon Valley pacts—the Hacker and the Backer. One puts up the money, the other puts up the talent. Sooner or later, one stabs the other in the back, but until then it’s a game of screwed-you chicken to see how long the partnership can last.

“We agreed that you would not interrupt my work,” says Graywytch by way of greeting. I can just see a slice of her back through the hatch, but whoever she’s talking to is out of sight. “Unless absolutely necessary,” says Garrison, as if he were concurring with what she was saying. I guess Sovereign is his supervillain name. That’s a bit on the nose, dude. No class at all.

“Where are we on Phase Two?” After a silence just long enough to be uncomfortable, Graywytch says, “He’s resisting me. That makes it harder.” “They’re all going to be resisting you. We’ve got to get this right.

Thier method isn't about making the likelihood of certain people getting powers to increase, at least not totally. No: it's about abducting those they consider to be 'unworthy' and reassigning their powers to someone they feel has 'earned' them.

Then his eyes catch on my bare chest, and his cheeks go pink as he looks away. You unbelievable dickhead! Oh, sure, he can order me imprisoned and tortured, but the sight of my breasts is just too much for his pure soul. And somehow the sheer hypocritical bullshit of it all cracks through the fear and gives me enough courage to sneer at him. “Your concern for my modesty is touching.” I say.

“Danielle? Are you willing to cooperate? This can go on for as long as it needs to.” “I’ve been thinking about your offer,” I say slowly. “After long consideration, I’ve decided that you should go fuck yourself.” “Give me your powers,” he says, just at the edge of stammering. “Eat shit!” I shout, jerking against my restraints. “You don’t get to do this to me and then ask nicely, understand? You get nothing! Not a goddamn thing!” “I said, give me your powers!” “Look at me, coward!” He does. He’s gone pale with rage, but it doesn’t scare me. What can he do? Torture me? Kill me? “You don’t deserve my powers, and I will die screaming before I let you have them.” Garrison turns and begins to walk stiffly out of the room. I lean over the side of the chair and spit on the deck. He hears me, turns, and crosses the room in three quick strides to backhand me across the mouth. I spit again, blood this time. And smile. I win, motherfucker.

Calamity doesn’t need real powers. She’s perched at the very upper bound of human ability. Right now, so am I. My body is still the way it became in the moments after Dreadnought gave me the mantle. Still as fit and strong and flexible as the entire US Olympic team put together. As bendy as a gymnast, as enduring as a runner, as strong as a heavyweight lifter. There are not enough hours in the day to train a normal body up to the level she and I are at. The difference is, she’s a badass on top of it. But me? I can only lean into my powers. Take those away, and basic rent-a-goons can smoke me every time. No wonder she barely talks to me anymore.

“She thinks I’m a total loser,” I say. “I can pretty much guarantee you you’re wrong about that, kiddo,” mutters the Doc picking broken glass out of my feet. “I am a loser. I don’t even have my powers anymore.” The Doc doing the scalp wound leans down, tilts my chin toward her with a finger. “Danny, nobody who matters only cared about your powers.”

“Danny, would you think less of me if I told you I was scared?” “No, no of course not.” “Good, because I’m fucking terrified,” she says. “At least once a week, I sit down with my configuration files to write a patch, and every time, I say today’s the day. I’m gonna get better. And then I see that they go all the way down, and I freeze up again. I could make myself an entirely different person. Mom had a backdoor into me once before. My neural net is modeled after hers—it’s not just a metaphor when I say I’m her daughter. I think like her, and sometimes the things I think scare me. How do I know that I can trust myself to make more changes? How do I know that in editing my code, I won’t make myself more like her, and say I’m doing it to become better?” “I’ll make you a deal,” I say. Doc pushes back from the computer to swivel on her chair and face me. “Yeah?” “We get my powers back, and when you’re ready to patch yourself, I’ll sit with you, and if it looks like you’re turning evil, I’ll totally kick your ass for you.” We start to laugh, and right now, despite it all, I feel okay.

“Can we cut this collar off of me now? I think I’m ready.” The tactical riot party version of Doc appears around the privacy divider with a power tool that looks like the unholy child of a pipe grinder and a surgical saw.

I tell them how Karen pitched the idea to me, how we flew down south. About Princess Panzer, and how Garrison gave me his Sales Pitch of Evil. At this, Kinetiq speaks up. “Did he say anything about will to power, or anything related to an ethnic or cultural purity?” “Uh, no, I don’t think so.” “Anything about the leader principle, or a great rebirth of some bygone era? Maybe a golden age, either in the past or promised in the future?” “No. They were pretty down on equality, and said they wanted to create a hereditary dictatorship—”

She really needs to pay attention. They did talk about past golden ages (in a historical context via the grek gods) and their general complaints about 'the world today' had that vibe too even though they didn't use the exact phrase 'golden age.'

“Likely not a true fascist, then. Probably a neoreactionary.” They shrug. “It’s a different flavor of shit, is all. They’re both authoritarian ideologies, but their emphasis is different. Fascists are a populist movement, deeply wrapped up in racism and misogyny and other forms of bigotry—essentially, it’s about hating anyone who’s different and enforcing a right-wing style of conformity on everyone. Neoreactionaries, on the other hand, are elitists who are all about bringing back the age of kings, and think that ‘common people’ should know their place and let themselves be ruled. They’ll use fascists as foot soldiers, but they don’t really care about things like ethnic purity among the labor classes, except as a bargaining chip to keep their toadies happy. They’re still super racist, though. “Naturally, the neoreactionaries see themselves as the ruling class that everyone should kiss up to. ‘The Cathedral’ is the weaksauce conspiracy theory they use to explain why their incredibly stupid ideas aren’t more popular.” Doc looks sideways at them. “You spend a lot of time parsing their buzzwords, do you?” “Gotta know the enemy,” says Kinetiq.

“You’re serious? She’s mixing magic with hypertech?” “Yeah. Is that unusual?” “It’s illegal,” he says emphatically. “If Graywytch is seriously doing this she’s…well, the term ‘death wish’ comes to mind.”

Good. Hopefully she'll be dead by the end of this book.

“There’s still Phase Three,” I say quietly. “They didn’t explain it, but I’ve been thinking about it. They’ve already got satellites that can project a spell across the whole planet. And that collar let Garrison’s power keep my abilities suppressed even when he wasn’t there.” Doc and Charlie get there at the same time. “He’s going to turn off everyone’s powers,” says Charlie. “Maybe magic and hypertech too,” I say. “He seems like the meticulous type, I don’t think he’d leave any way to fight back unaccounted for.” “Welp,” says Doc, reaching into a lab coat pocket for a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “How long do you think we have?” asks Kinetiq.

“Once the Council hears about this, they’ll look into it, and it won’t be long before they figure out Graywytch is breaking their laws. They’ll come after her and Garrison hard. I mean spinning hurricanes out of the clear blue sky hard. She has really screwed herself.” “If Garrison’s powers work on magic, she won’t have to worry about the Council,” says Doc. “Oh.” Charlie’s a smart guy. The fact that he needed this pointed out to him before we see the light go on over his head says more about how scary the Council of Avalon is to him than anything he could have said out loud.

FUCK