Dark Skies

Our driver brought us to a stop outside a quaint fish and chips restaurant. Church and I groaned as we stepped out. Even after having been dropped off barely ten minutes away, the preceding hour-long flight to Missouri had been 'missou-rable', as Angela put it. So missourable, in fact, that she stayed at the Sheath while Church accompanied me on the field trip.

We were still nursing our Nursery-inflicted aches, and the cramped, tough interior of an SC-27 Dragonfly didn't help. Church had declared at least six times that we should've walked. His supposedly superhuman physiology was clearly no match for old age.

The street, on the other hand, was cozy. Benches sat outside the aforementioned restaurant, separated by silver parking meters. The cars wedged along the cracked curb would've squeezed traffic, had there been any. Rush hour and all its subsequent chaos had passed, leaving things peaceful and quiet. A brother and sister skipped down the sidewalk, chatting animatedly as they passed an older, teenage couple drifting towards a parked Buick.

Church straightened his polo as I clapped his door shut.

"All that money," he groused, "and we used this ."

I tapped my driver's window, which he rolled down. "Give us an hour. Barricade until you hear the magic words. Don't waste gas, though. I've got a stop after this."

He nodded, and the car shuddered. Locks, clamps and shields bolted the titanium vehicle shut, sealing our man inside. Nothing short of a Knight-Class would be getting to him.

I wasn't keen on losing any more drivers.

Church was waiting for me on the sidewalk. "Which way?"

We headed north, took a left at the nearest intersection, then walked an even shorter distance to the first house on Swan Avenue.

Red bricks, yellow rails, and a dark, wooden front deck screamed of colonial influence. Their charging Tesla seemed to have missed the dated memo. The flower garden on the left of the stone walkway was even newer. The house was classy, well-maintained and reasonably pricey. Even without my intel, I would've guessed the occupants as older.

Church and I paused to check our sixes. I used my eyes while Church put an invisible pulse in the ground. His assessment matched mine. Other than a barking dog, playing children, and a sunbathing woman, we were in the clear.

I knocked. Church stepped up beside me as we watched a van roll down the street and halt briefly at a stop sign.

"Jesus," snorted Jeremiah Park as he pulled open the door, making us both jump. "They fucked you up."

My eyebrow cocked. As expected, the man was... unique. "Come again?"

"How about you come inside, yeah? Before that one," he nodded to Church, "smushes Alan's rat flat."

My eyebrow remained cocked. "Come again?"

Jeremiah aimed one of his wrinkled digits at the yowling dog before turning to hobble back inside. Church snorted as we stepped in after him.

At Jeremiah's instruction, we kicked our shoes off and followed him through a memory-laden entranceway. Pictures covered every inch of the wall. Grandchildren, friends, and Hero colleagues, young and old, all occupied their own little plots.

The one that jumped out at me was near the end. Jeremiah noticed and followed my eyes to the picture of him, albeit twenty years younger, with a grinning, twenty-something-year-old Prime Nova looping an arm over his shoulder. Even then, Jason was built like a shed and had to crouch to reach our host's torso.

"Ah," he reminisced, "Nova. I remember the kid. Grew up to be big shit, didn't he?"

I rolled my lower jaw in a slow circle. "Something like that."

"Hmm." Jeremiah shrugged and waddled off. "Makes sense. Always was about defying the odds. I still got no clue how he managed to lodge that big head of his so far up his twinky little ass. Baffles me to this day."

No amount of composure could've stifled the coughing snort that dribbled out of my mouth.

We were ushered into an old-school living room. Church and I manned the couch while Jeremiah settled into a stained armchair. Above the metal curtains shuttering a silent fireplace sat a small flatscreen TV, currently playing the local news.

"MAGGIE!" Jeremiah bellowed. "GET YOUR ASS IN HERE!"

Church and I faced the kitchen as a scratchy voice screamed back, "Go fuck yourself, Jerry!"

Jeremiah roared with laughter, smacking his stomach emphatically and creaking his armchair. He continued doing so as a smaller, white-haired, sharp-eyed woman shuffled in with a platter of cookies and tea.

"What have I told you about bothering me when I'm cooking?" growled Maggie.

Jeremiah only grinned. "You know how my memory is, dear. Next time, I pr–"

"Oh, shut up." She shoved a cookie in his grinning mouth. Jeremiah chomped it down without so much as a flinch. She turned to us. "Gingersnaps? I boiled some peppermint to help you boys wash it down."

Church and I accepted.

"Apologies for the intrusion," I began, sipping Mrs. Park's excellent tea. "We've recently landed ourselves in something of a hole, and it has come to my attention that you two may have just the right kind of rope to haul us out."

Maggie nodded. "I saw. The past month hasn't been easy on you folk, has it?"

"Not exactly," I admitted. "New threats, old enemies. Nothing a good run of routine and protocol can't usually mend, though things nosedive when they band together."

Jeremiah snorted. "Heh! Sounds soft to me! Back in the day, Rogues teamed up all the time! Maggie, what was that one idiot? With the red hair? Always smoking his special weed."

"Verdant," she replied after momentary reflection.

"Him! He and Redline would always get together to make our lives hell." Jeremiah's eyes danced mischievously. "How the mighty have fallen."

I regarded him flatly. "Verdant was a Knight-Class vitikinetic who rarely raided anything other than cannabis farms and convenience stores. Redline, a mediocre Rook-Class hemokinetic, was often recorded knocking himself out from overuse of his own blood." The urge to smirk was strong. I overpowered it. "While I'm sure they posed quite the threat back in your, eh, heyday, Mr. Park, times have changed." I plucked another cookie off the platter. "Sadly, ice cream trucks aren't the revered escape vehicles they once were."

Maggie's face split with the biggest smile I'd seen all day. "HA!"

Jeremiah rolled his eyes, though he didn't look the least bit offended. "Why'd Calvin pick one that reads?"

"The vast majority of my workload happens at a desk," I informed him, helping myself to another swig of Maggie's brew. "At least, it's supposed to. As I said, this month has been something of an eventful one."

"Pish posh," grumbled Jeremiah. "Alright, you have my attention. What you wanna know?"

I set down my cup. "You two got the closest to Maurader. You also did the most to take him down."

Jeremiah's eyebrows knit, though he continued to smile. "That's correct."

"What do you remember about him?" I asked, then added, "But more importantly, his sister?"

"Amelia?" Maggie frowned with confusion. "What's going on with her?"

I spread my hands tiredly. "That's what I'm trying to find out."

Jeremiah scratched his head, then shrugged. "Well, that's interesting. Hmm." He gestured in my direction. "As I'm sure a well-read know-it-all like yourself is already aware, Richard and I met in what... ninety-seven? Six? Somewhere thereabouts. One of those big balls, if I recall. They'd just begun adding metal to our suits. It was the new big thing. Plating. Hundreds of companies had patented designs and begged SWORD to take it off their hands." Jeremiah lounged back in his chair. "LionSteel won. There was subterfuge chatter here and there, but in that field, everyone cheats. If LionSteel got the contract, they just did it best.

"The execs threw this big party to celebrate. They'd already built models for all the big names of that day. Patriot. Nightrider. Louis Lethal. Hell, I even remember your grubby ass," Jeremiah waved at Church, "slinking around, trying to pretend you were invisible."

I glanced right, where Church was scowling at Jeremiah. "Never been much of a party guy."

"Eh. I'd say 'fun' guy. Full stop," corrected Jeremiah. "Can you believe he's never cheated on his wife? Fuck me. I'd go senile."

Maggie rolled her eyes. "You'd be shocked at how little poison a person needs to shit out their spleen."

"The fuck is a spleen?" snorted Jeremiah. "They're making up organs now?" He dismissed her threat with an unconcerned wave. "Sell it, for all I care. Use the money to buy those blue flowers you love."

"I don't like blue flowers," sighed Maggie tiredly. "Eveline does."

"Is that the hot one?"

Maggie snatched up the sugar spoon and turned to smack her husband. Jeremiah brought his hand up whip-quick and stopped it with a single finger.

Well, stopped it in a sense. The instant the metal made contact, it liquified, seeped through Jeremiah's fingernails, and disappeared into his hand.

Maggie's face twisted as Jeremiah began to cackle.

"Spit it out!" she shouted angrily. "I like that spoon!"

"Nope!" giggled Jeremiah.

She somehow scowled harder. "I'm going to count to three."

"If you think that's going to work," started Jeremiah. "Then you've been inhaling too much of Camille's–"

"One."

He looked over at us. "Get a load of this woman. What am I, twelve?"

"Two."

His smirk faltered. "Hey, it's just a spoon. There's–"

"Three."

I didn't hear the signature crackling of Maggie tapping into her transformative abilities, nor did I see any twisty, contorting bulges of flesh. Jeremiah, however, clearly knew more than me and immediately threw out his hand.

"Okay, okay! Calm down!"

The metal slithered out of his fingers and solidified in his palm. He handed it back to his wife, though while grumbling, "Always so angsty and–"

Another concealed action on Maggie's part shut her husband up.

"So angsty and what, dear?"

Jeremiah frowned, feigning confusion. "Angsty? What are you talking about? Can we please focus on the topic at hand? I'm sure the Director is a busy man."

"Hmm." Maggie looked mightily unimpressed. "Go on."

Jeremiah cleared his throat. "Right, yes. As I was saying, big event. So much dick measuring, I almost suggested they walk around with rulers taped to their damn zippers. Personally, I could give a shit. Clothes are clothes. Success is dictated by the lump in your skull, not the stuff on your chest."

I agreed, somewhat. Intuition and skill were always the best assets in a fight, but recent costume developments gave lower-tier Heroes quite a leg up.

Jeremiah seemed to thrive on confrontation and dissent, though, so I held my tongue.

"Either way, I'm waiting for it all to be over. I shake all kinds of greasy, fat hands in the meanwhile and pretend to listen to their drivel. 'New policy for this, Grayscale'. 'Terrific performance reviews about that, Grayscale'. I'm telling you, drop those idiots on a farm and have them yap for an hour. They'll leave you with enough manure to feed Arkansas.

"Eventually," he continued, "things wrapped. I was on my way out when the LionSteel CEO, who I'd done a bang job of avoiding, cornered me in the parking lot and started his sponsorship spiel. I'd heard it all before. His product was superior and connections unmatched. I never cared then, and don't give a shit now. I told him I wasn't interested."

Jeremiah tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Sanford, I believe the name was. Not sure if it was ego or desperation, but the man refused to go home without an answer he liked. I was seriously starting to consider whether or not to knock his teeth into the pavement when this little, rail-thin kid bumbles along and feeds me horseshit about Patriot needing me."

He grinned sadly. "I knew Patriot was long gone by then, but an out is an out and I fucked right off. Sanders watched us go with this pissed-off look in his eye. The kid and I laughed. I had a valet take my car out back, away from Sanders, while I chatted with the shrimp." His grin fell away. "He said his name was 'Richard'. No last name. Just Richard. I asked what he was doing here, and he said he was a Hero.

"Richy wasn't big. Wasn't much tall, to be honest. Looked like one of those scrawny pipsqueaks that spent their Friday afternoons holed up in the back of a comic book shop, playing their little video games." He shook his head sadly. "I could give you a thousand guesses and you'd never pick him out as a King-Class."

Maggie patted his knee comfortingly. Jeremiah squeezed her wrist with a soft smile.

"I didn't see him for a month. I was actually pulling a kid from a burning building when I remembered him and decided to see what he was up to." Jeremiah smirked. "Didn't have the fancy databases and phones you all do now, though. Took the archivists two whole weeks to track him down. Even then, I wandered around Georgia for three days before finally bumping into him on a campus.

"We had coffee," he recounted. "It was cloudy, but in a way that's perfect. Filters the sunlight, so you can actually look up without going blind." Jeremiah paused, remembering. "Festivals. That's it. Maggie and I were planning to go to the Trinidad Carnival for a vacation. Richy said he wanted to take his sister to the school parade. They'd won a trophy that year, apparently. Don't remember for what. Don't think he did either, to be fair. At that age, any excuse to drink is a welcome one."

He chuckled sadly. "It was nice. Relaxing. The kid was in a tough spot, working three jobs to feed his teenage sibling. I asked why his parents weren't. He laughed and said, 'what parents?'. They existed. Barely. I don't think his father ever let himself get ten feet away from his beer fridge. His mother was actually gone. He had a good head on his shoulders, Skies. Real sharp. Good heart, too. You don't see too many of those, even back then. I walked him to the bus, where he showed me his powers."

Jeremiah shook his head wryly. "He treated it like it was no big deal. Creating intelligent metal. Fucking hell. I've got the bootleg version, with all the liquid steel running through my veins. Him? He could transform any part of his body. And make it fucking automated, Skies. God, I'd never..."

Our host shook his head.

"I'm telling you, that was a prodigy. I immediately offered a Sidekick Apprenticeship. Not even out of greed, either. I just wanted to see how far he'd go." Jeremiah sighed. "And far he went. Within three years, we swore him in and slapped the kid with a paycheck large enough to ship his sister from their shithole hovel to a three-story in downtown New York."

Jeremiah took a breath. "But he got lazy. Most do. But most aren't Richy. Him? He could create a dozen steel knights in a day. A self-flying sword. That made management nervous. The rules got muddy with automation, especially on his level. Hell, he even had this super-armed butler he kept around the house in case anyone broke in. You think the shit you have now is strong?" He shook his head wryly. "No one ever came after Amelia, but in the odd chance, Richy always kept a closet full of buckets and mops."

He motioned to his wife. "That's where she comes in. They told us about her powers two years into his Hero career. Maggie mentored. It went well. While Richy used parts of his body to create metal that he could control, she skipped ahead and straight up just made living things. It started small. Bugs, rodents, small pets. None were very smart, and most died quickly. But Amelia was persistent. She honed her craft until one day..."

Maggie took over. "She wanted to be like her older brother. Create the perfect being. Body, or clone, I guess. She literally impregnated herself to make it happen." Maggie shuddered. "It came out… wrong. It's hard to describe. It breathed, but only sometimes. When it spoke, it didn't use its mouth. Part of the words came from its nose. And it didn't... feel." She shook her head. "Amelia was so proud. She named him Primi, for first. Management got scared because that meant she'd make more. Their hands were tied, though, until Primi beat one of his classmates to death. It wasn't even out of anger, either. His rapid growth unsettled other children. He'd hit puberty in three years. One of them said his mother was a freak, and she needed to be put down. Primi wasn't even angry, just... proactive, I guess. The boy was a threat, and he removed him."

She went quiet, and we let the silence hang. Church and I contemplated their revelations. I already knew most of what they'd recounted, but only the cliff notes. Information wasn't well recorded before the cloud.

"They ordered her to 'remove' him. She, predictably, refused. Richard backed her up," continued Maggie. "It built and built. Richard was already resentful of their restrictions on his knights and automated weapons, and going after his nephew was simply something he couldn't accept. SWORD didn't take them seriously enough. They had an assassin follow Amelia to a gas station. She was inside paying when six pumps blew and smoked everything. There wasn't even a body left to bury. In fact, they found his singed shoelace three blocks away. Amelia was inconsolable, and Richard was far too clever for the then Director's bullshit about 'accidents' and the 'unpredictable nature of life.'"

Maggie's throat had dried, so she stopped for some tea. She asked if we needed refills. We said no, and she got one for herself. We waited patiently for her to return, then she continued.

"Amelia's powers turned against her. In her grief, her body started consuming itself. She crashed, and suddenly, Richard's nephew was dead, and his sister was comatose. The doctors couldn't do anything about it. He thought the higher-ups were acting out again and confronted them. This time they really had nothing to do with it, but the damage was done. Three flatline scares later, he snapped."

Jeremiah rubbed her back soothingly. "Closest I've ever come to death, Skies. It was like everything was trying to kill me. Every shard of metal would twist on itself to become a new instrument of destruction. And they were all independent. That was bad. But what made him, well, him was that every time we broke one of his automatons, the power circled right back, making him stronger. That's what killed us. Every step forward was ten back." He shrugged hopelessly. "The aftermath was so dire, we forgot all about her for a good month. By the time anyone had the sense to check, she was gone. Never heard a word since."

I nodded sombrely. "I see. Thank you, Mr. Park. This must've been hard to revisit."

"Easier than living it," he snorted callously. "Why? She pop up?"

"In a sense. How much do you know about our current situation?"

"Not much. LA went under, and I've got friends saying stuff about kidnapped kids."

I nodded. "Most of this is classified, but we're up against an organization called the Family. They've got legions of Rogues under their belt, and that's discounting the poached Breaker grunts. We don't know much except they're headed by a woman called 'the Mother' and her sons."

"I see." Jeremiah frowned worriedly. "This Mother, then. Who is she?"

"If I had to guess?" I replied grimly. "Amelia."

The Parks' jaws dropped as they stared at me.

"Amelia flooded Los Angeles?" gasped Maggie in horror.

"I believe so, yes."

"But, how?" demanded Jeremiah. "How would she enlist Alphas powerful enough to cause that kind of damage?"

I nibbled my lip. "You're thinking in the wrong order. Rogues are motivated by many things, but the most important are money and fear. SWORD is sufficiently powerful to scare them off, but when someone pushes enough money their way, that fear dissolves."

I steepled my fingers.

"Now imagine what happens when an Alpha creates four perfect, elite King-Class generals completely obedient to her every command. Getting cash with those boys is a cakewalk, then you scare the rabble into service. Rinse and repeat, and suddenly you have an army."

Jeremiah scratched his head. "It's not clicking. Why would..."

"I don't know," I interrupted. "But we're going to do everything we can to stop her."

Maggie nodded. "I understand." She licked her lips. "If you see her, can you tell her that–"

"Mrs. Park, I'm sure you've already told her everything you need."

Maggie's face shrivelled up into a glower. "What's that supposed to mean?"

I raised my hands placatingly. "You're not in trouble, but come on. She's covertly approached several of my people. I'm sure we've got multiple moles, just based on how well we're constantly anticipated. I'd be shocked if she hadn't reached out."

This time, I did hear the shredding and crackling. Church tensed, though with considerable grimacing. Despite easily being the most powerful person there, he was not spoiling for a fight. Jeremiah saved and shocked us all by being the level-headed one. He placed a hand on her lap and pulled her from her rage.

"It was a month ago. Amelia came alone and told us she'd been busy. She said she would make things right, which meant going after certain people. She promised she didn't hold us responsible."

I nodded. "I figured. Again, you're not in trouble." I grimaced. "Next time, be careful. I doubt she harbours sufficient ill will to act, but these are volatile Rogues. Revenge tends to splash in a big way."

"We're old," chuckled Jeremiah, "not stupid."

I shrugged innocently. "Never said otherwise. You were top shit for a reason." With a nod to Church, I rose to my feet. "Thank you. Both of you. You've helped a lot of people."

"Well, would you look at that?" laughed Jeremiah. "We're still saving lives, even now."

Maggie still looked unsure, but she matched her husband's grin with a small smile of her own.

"I will ask this, though," I told them. "If she does contact you again, tell her to turn herself in. She caught us off guard in LA. That's why they won. Things have changed. I have her profile. She doesn't have mine." I narrowed my eyes. "I may not be Alpha, but I am better at this. No one else needs to die."

Jeremiah whistled. "Fuck-ing hell. I now see why the Mooner chose you."

It took me a moment to process my predecessor, Calvin Moon, the legendary Director of over a decade, being referred to as the 'Mooner'.

"Right." I shook my head, then our host's hands. With a few more polite pleasantries, we left.

Five minutes later, Church and I were back at the car.

He shot me a skeptical look. "Great stories, but I fail to see how we'll use any of them to kill the Quads."

"We won't," I assured Church. "We'll use them before ."

"I see." He didn't, clearly. He looked lost. "And what exactly is it that we're using?"

I pulled the door open for him. Ideas swirled in my mind, slowly building into a feasible plan of action.

"Her motivation," I replied. "Now we know why she's doing all this." I glanced at Church. "And that allows me to control how ."

His perplexed expression only worsened. "Huh. Right."