The grey skies of early April brought a light but steady rain that, while not drenching, managed to find a seam in Cyn’s rain slicker and through that breech sent an icy finger down her spine.

The white haired girl shivered and cursed under her breath. At the moment she was two of her least favorite things: cold and wet. Worse, a new contender for that list had made a late entry: seasick. Somehow, her tendency to look before she leapt (or read the local weather forecast) had landed her in a boat on the St. Anne River with Laurel and Melissa.

The former frowned sympathetically at her shiver from within the hood of her own rain slicker. “Are you sure you want to be out here, Cyn?” She asked, “If there’s something else you’d rather do, We can take you ashore before we start.”

Cyn shook her head. There really wasn’t anything to do. Spring Break hadn’t turned out to be the exciting, carefree time television had promised. True, television focused on college Spring Break, but she had been sure there would be something to do. Instead, Lisa and her family had left for Nag’s Head, Kay and her father had taken their annual father daughter trip to the mountains, and JC was MIA entirely.

That left her housemates to entertain her and that particular day, Warrick was off with Tina at some Rube Goldberg device competition… thing and Juniper had decided to go see one of her artsy, non-violent animated movies. Cyn felt she was girly as the next girl when it came to movies, but she expected action or humor in her cel shaded fare and Tragedy of the Beacon House promised neither of those.

That left Cyn with the choice between going with Ian to paint eggs for the egg hunt at Our Lady of Hope, helping Alexis prepare the next training session, or helping Laurel study a weird astral disturbance Kareem had found.

She’d made her choice and she would stick with it, damn it. Trying to stay out of the way, she watched Melissa drag a heavy aluminum case up on deck. Smugly, she remembered being able to lift it easily with a little tweaking of her musculature.

Laurel opened it to reveal a set of silver pontoons with a glass egg suspended between them. A complex jumble of circuit boards and wires hung suspended in the egg, and what looked like a black, plastic antenna jutted out of the contraption toward the front of the egg.

“What is that thing?” Cyn asked, coming over for a closer look. She could make out a video camera at the end of the antenna.

“A remotely operated underwater vehicle.” Laurel explained, kneeling to inspect the machine. “ROV for short. It’s on loan from the Oceanic Institute by way of General Pratt. We’ve modified it for Astral input.”

“You mean like Kareem’s TV screens?” Cyn raised an eyebrow and looked at Melissa. “We?”

“I mostly just handed her the tools.” Melissa supplied.

“Thought so.” Cyn replied. “So Kareem can drive this thing?” Laurel nodded, still engrossed in her diagnostics. “Can I ask why? I mean this hole thing can be seen on this side too. Why can’t you just run it by remote?”

“Kareem can see more than we can.” Melissa gave her a stern look. “He says it’s growing and that it’s different from the normal Astral Plane, so maybe he can point the camera at something we can’t see on this side.”

Cyn stood a while in thought on this, then shrugged. “I don’t get it.”

“Of course you don’t.” Melissa said. “You haven’t paid any attention to all the things Kareem has done since we got here!”

“Hey, I knew about the soul stabbing thing!” Cyn retorted. “But that’s not what I don’t get.”

“And what is it you don’t get?” Melissa asked.

“Well, first, I’m not getting your attitude all of a sudden.” Cyn counted it off on her hand, “But more importantly, shouldn’t a hole go somewhere?”

“I’m just tired of no one paying Kareem any attention around here except Laurel and me.” Melissa snapped.

“Fine, whatever, but what about the hole?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Melissa sighed.

“I admit I’m not the best student and I don’t go to all the free seminars and competitions in town like Tink Carlyle,” Cyn sniffed, “But I’m pretty sure that when you poke a hole in something, it goes through and through and you can see the other side, right?”

“Right…”

“Well, I’ve seen the pictures. It’s a hole with a crazy green light on the other side.”

“I still don’t get what you’re trying to say.” Melissa glared with irritation.

“It looks like that on both sides.” Cyn said. “If it was a hole through reality, shouldn’t we see the day-glo pink from the Astral on this side and river mud from the Astral?”

“It’s not a hole like a hole in a piece of paper!” Melissa exclaimed, “It’s… it’s…”

“You have no idea what it is, do you?” Cyn smirked.

“Actually, we really don’t.” Laurel interrupted, satisfied with the modifications on the ROV. “All of my readings indicate that electromagnetic radiation—light, radio waves, infrared—all fail to either pass through or reflect off the anomaly and some forms of other light are coming from it.

“I take this to mean that this is some sort of two way aperture, but it could be anything. The astral works on a metaphysical level that in many ways is incompatible with the physics of the material. That’s why a great many physicists secretly wish we had never discovered it.”

“Then it could be like some kind of alien—astralien?—energy crystal or something.” Cyn declared, “Are we sure it’s okay to poke it if we don’t know what it is?”

Laurel gave her a smile. “I may not know what it is, but none of my readings suggest that it’s dangerous. And science is all about poking things to see what happens.”

“I’d rather let other people do the poking in case whatever they’re poking responds by exploding, or mauling them in ways unkind.” Cyn made a face.

Laurel laughed. “A good point, but not one I subscribe to myself.” She turned to Melissa. “Melissa, go into the cabin and run through the startup routine like I showed you. We’ll be right in once we launch the ROV.”

Melissa nodded and headed to the cabin. Laurel watched her go and looked back at Cyn. “So why did you really come out here with us?”

“There was nothing else to do.” Cyn shrugged.

“You usually make your own fun if left to your own devices.” Laurel observed.

“Fine.” Cyn sniffed, “I just felt like having someone to talk to and you said after the thing with my dad that I could talk to you any time, right?”

“Right.” Laurel said, rolling the ROV across the deck to where she and Melissa had already set up the launch ramp. “So what do you want to talk about?”

Cyn shrugged. “Just talk.” She helped set the machine on the top of the ramp in silence. “So… anything new on Tome or the Kin?”

“I got a message from General Pratt yesterday saying that the Superhuman Intervention Units raided Deep Nineteen.” Laurel said matter-of-factly.

“And?” Cyn asked, “That’s pretty big news, why didn’t you tell us?”

“Nothing to tell.” Laurel said. “The place was stripped. They even took things that were bolted down. The General said he’d give me a more comprehensive report this evening, so maybe we’ll get a clue.”

“We should have gone in there instead of the Marines.” Cyn said sourly.

“And the sheep should go gallivanting into the wolves’ den.” Laurel replied sarcastically. “Remember, you kids are what they want and all accounts say that Deep Nineteen was constructed to hold you. I’m sorry; Cyn, but I couldn’t allow that.”

The ROV slid down the launch ramp and into the water with barely a ripple. “I guess you’re right.” Cyn said, slumping her shoulders. “I just feel like we should be doing something.”

“You are doing something.” Laurel pointed out. “The Descendants and Occult have helped the Kin, defeated at least s dozen rogue metas—of both the descendant and artificially enhanced variety—and saved over a hundred lives. We’ve made Mayfield a better place and it all has its roots in Life Savers Inc. You should be proud of yourself, Cyn.”

The white haired girl smiled. “Thanks, Laurel that does make me feel better. I’d still like to lay into Tome’s goons myself, but I feel better.”

Several minutes later, the three women were in the cabin looking at the four screens Laurel had set up there. Two displayed the various measurements the ROV’s instruments sent back, the central one showed the live feed from the camera and the one positioned above it showed the feed from the Astral Plane.

“Okay, Kareem,” Laurel said, sitting with her tablet computer in her lap. “I’m switching all controls over to you. Are you ready?”

“Yes, Miss Brant, I am.” Kareem’s voice came over the speakers. They couldn’t see his face because all the screens were devoted to monitoring the ROV’s progress.

“Good luck, Kareem.” Melissa said quietly.

“He’s playing with a remote control boat.” Cyn observed. “He doesn’t need luck.”

“It may require luck to find the actual source of the Astral rift.” Kareem corrected, “So I am most thankful for Melissa’s well wishes.”

“Oh.” Cyn shrugged. “Don’t suck then.”

Kareem laughed and the camera moved as the ROV began sinking. In a few minutes, the green anomaly came into view.

It was now the size of a softball and looked very much as if someone had thrown such an object so as to tear a hole in the water about two feet from the riverbed. Beyond the rippling aperture danced green light, like sunlight filtered through thin leaves.

“Looks like a hole to me.” Cyn said.

“And it has increased in size.” Kareem noted. “This is most worrisome. I am preparing to direct the lights, Ms. Brant. On your signal.”

Laurel reached up and angled the screen containing that particular data cluster toward her. A few light touches of her fingertips bought the reflectivity readings to the forefront. “Go ahead, Kareem, I’m recording.”

“I am cycling through the wavelengths.” Kareem announced. The green lines that were supposed to spike when light was reflected by the anomaly remained flat.

“Nothing.” Laurel reported. “Change to the radio frequencies, please Kareem.”

Again, the meters read nothing. The electromagnetic spectrum wasn’t reflecting off the anomaly.

“Are those leaves?” Melissa pointed to the image from the Astral side as the electromagnetic tests ended.

“They look like them.” Cyn agreed. “Hey, another stupid question: why isn’t the water pouring into this hole? We know light goes through, why isn’t the St. Anne emptying out wherever the hell this thing goes?”

“It could be any of a thousand things.” Laurel admitted. “We have force field generators on earth that don’t allow matter though but allow energy though, so we may be seeing a natural—or preternatural, considering that the Astral storms started with Morganna—form of that phenomenon.”

“Maybe it only replies to active forces.” Cyn thought allowed. “Like the Press Bubble spell from Aquatic Spelunk IV.”

“This isn’t a video game.” Melissa chided.

“That doesn’t mean it can’t be true.” Laurel said. “Until the 2030’s, force fields were the stuff of science fiction. The ROV itself is an extension of something Jules Verne made up, so we can’t discount anything until we’ve proven it wrong.

“Kareem, how do you feel about trying to pass a manipulator into the breech to see if it will pass through?”

“I do not know, Ms. Brant, what if the ROV is damaged? Won’t General Pratt be angry?”

“I can worry about the General if you feel like trying.” Laurel said.

“Very well.” Kareem said. “Extending manipulator.” On the screen, the ROV’s mechanical arm extended out from one of its pontoons and inched toward the anomaly.

Cyn shivered, and then twitched. A minute spark danced in her hair for a moment. “Gah, it’s all static-y in here.”

Laurel was too concerned about the readouts to notice what she said. “The light intensity coming out of it is increasing…” she noted, “Water pressure is rising…”

“I am feeling a great deal of strange emotion here.” Kareem said, stopping the manipulator’s progress. “It is not like the Astral, not like Earth… They feel almost palpable, solid. I am curious if this is because of the ROV’s sensor proximity to the rift.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t go any further.” Melissa squeaked.

“I must. These new feelings are so exotic… I must learn more.” Kareem said. The manipulator arm moved again, becoming bathed in the light from the rift. “This is not the Astral, Ms. Brant.” He said with only a scant few inches to go.

An alarm on one of the sensors distracted Laurel. “What the…? Barometric pressure is dropping drastically—inverse to the rise in water pressure. Kareem, pull back before the pressure damages the ROV.”

Kareem didn’t seem to hear her. The manipulator neared the portal.

“Holy shit!” Cyn looked out the window to see a dark hump of churning water rising beneath the bridge. The wind whipped the boat and the waves tossed it.

“Kareem!” Laurel shouted, “Stop!” The manipulator crossed the event horizon, and both the Material Plane and Astral views went green. The sensors flat lined and then disconnected.

“Kareem!” Melissa screamed.

Outside, there was a green flash and the hump of water exploded around a lance of brilliant green light that flared some six hundred feet into the air.

There was a thunderous noise, and then the flare was gone. The wind died instantly, and the waves crashed into each other. The cabin fell deathly silent as all three women tried to collect themselves.

Melissa touched the screen that had been displaying the Astral side view and switched it to its normal communications mode with Kareem. The image didn’t change. Instead, an error message flashed up: ‘Warning: Critical Network Overload. Buffer Lost.”

“What does that mean?” Melissa asked, “Where’s Kareem?”

Laurel set her jaw, eyes fixed on the blinking error message. “It means we have to get to my workshop as quickly as possible.” She said her voice thick. “We have three hours to find Kareem and get him back within his normal range for his body.” She swallowed the lump forming in her throat. “Or we may lose him.”

-- • --

“Of course, I saw it, you damned idiot.” Vincent Liedecker snarled into his phone. His chair was turned around toward his office window, which afforded him a magnificent view of the St. Anne River and Mayfield’s waterfront. “That would be why I called you—I want to know everything about it.”

His eye narrowed. “Why?! The river on which my office—and what may be your former place of work—sits explodes into a green lightshow and you ask me why I want to know what it was? Boy, I’ve got half a mind to send you skin diving for clues without a tank now get on it! This is my city and I’ll know what happens in my city even if it kills you, do you understand?”

A moment passed as he listened. “That’s better. Now get to work. But first, have Drew come up with those packages I had him prepare.” He turned the phone off and put it on the narrow table by the window.

“Now that that’s done, let’s start again.” He turned the chair to face the people waiting patiently for him to finish berating his scientist. Aside from the ever present and currently agitated Brill, two people sat in the cushy, but purposefully uncomfortable chairs on the other side of his desk.

The first was a tall, muscular black man. When people say ‘black’ in such a context, they often refer to one of a gamut of dark skin tone ranging from caramel to dark mocha and many other coffee comparable shades in between. This man’s skin however was black in the sense that it looked to have been carved from ebony and then animated. He was dressed in a light tan t-shirt and climber’s pants, their every pocket bulging. His head was shaved with light stubble indicating a few days passing since that event.

He was Remington Haut, formerly of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In the criminal world, he was called Samael, a hitman of brutal reputation. Liedecker’s intelligence (gathered by Rick Charlotte) said that Haut’s skills had been learned from his father, a talented escape artist and illusionist.

Haut was contrasted by the petite form of the woman even Charlotte’s dragnet could only identify as Vorpal. She was short, several inches short of five feet and her manner of dress was uniquely bizarre. At first sight, her costume (and that was the only fitting term for it) superficially resembled stereotypical ninja garb. On closer inspection, it was nothing of the sort. The torso was girded in what seemed to be some sort of armored corset, the panels joined not by normal seams, but by extremely fine chain mail. This was joined to a gorget made of the same flexible material as the corset. Thin shoulder pads topped her shoulders with the seams of her sleeves and pants also being composed of chain mail. Instead of the usual jika-tabi, she wore a modified version with inexplicable bucket tops.

The only skin she showed was what was indirectly revealed through the slit cut for her eyes.

“You both heard my offer from our contact.” Liedecker said after he sized the two up once more. “Now, seeing as how both of you came all the way to my part of the world—that’d be an international flight for both of you, judging by where we found you—I’m thinking you’re both very interested. The only question is payroll.”

“I only do contracts, Mr. Liedecker,” Haut said, “Not payroll.” His voice was husky with a Caribbean accent.

“And I don’t pay contractors, Samael.” Liedecker replied smoothly. He leaned back in his chair, looking thoughtful. “I like to trust the people that work for me like they were family. A contractor—he’s cold. He has a job to do and he’ll do it. But there’s a problem with sell swords: they don’t have an interest in their clients past the job, see.”

He leaned forward, putting a finger down on the desk as if outlining his point. “See, I pay you for a hit; you fly all the way out to do it, deal with whoever you’re paid to deal with and if that don’t cut it for my needs, I’ve got to start all the way from the top with you.” He waved his hand dismissively. “That wastes my time, Samael. And you know just as well as anybody, time is money and the top reason to bring in a hitman is…”

“Money.” Haut replied.

“See? We’re on the same page here, Sammy.” Liedecker said. “That’s why I want you wholesale. No contracts. You do the work I ask and I pay you even when I don’t need you.” He shrugged, “Otherwise, there’s plenty of other hitters where you came from.”

“Perhaps I should take some time to think about it.” Haut said.

“Not too much time, Sammy,” Liedecker said. “Offer ends when you walk out this office.” He turned his attention to Vorpal. “And you?”

“You’re letting us name what we think is a fair price per week.” Vorpal observed, “Why?”

“I hate people questioning me.” Liedecker said, “I’m offering you new cutting edge hardware and a fair, steady wage. There are pros just lining up for this.”

“You didn’t call those pros.” Vorpal said. “You called us. Now, I don’t care what the Angel of Death here wants—and to be truthful, the fact that you called him based on reputation makes me queasy about this offer—“ She ignored Haut’s annoyed grunt, “But I’m not your average sell sword.”

“Oh, I know that, Ms. Vorpal, very well.” The master of the Mayfield underworld said, “You left the Falcone family to rot because they put too heavy a touch on how you do things.”

“No children.” Vorpal said, “I said that up front. No children, no animals…” She glared at Haut, “And I’m adding ‘no clergy’ seeing as the illustrious Mr. Samael is here. I take my objective and I carry it out my way. I don’t take well to specific instructions.”

A smirk twitched at the side of Liedecker’s mouth. “Granted, Vorpal.” The door at the back of the office opened to admit Dr. Drew, the current coordinator of the think tank Liedecker ran out of the Solomon Psychiatric Center.

He smiled and motioned Drew forward. “Now, as Samael is still thinking things over, consider this first job a recruitment video. Someone has been moving heavy weapons in from the docks. I don’t know who they are and who they’re working for yet, so my…” He sneered, “Usual solution isn’t the right answer. I want you to find out who they’re with and deal with them.”

Beneath her mask, Vorpal smiled. “Sounds right up my alley, sir.”

“Good.” Liedecker said, “And because I just hate getting one thing done when you can kill a whole nest of birds with a shotgun, Drew here is gonna outfit you with something special I’m thinking of putting on sale. Think of it as a live test.”

One by one, the screens in Laurel’s workshop flickered to life as she led the girls into her workshop. Cyn had to half help/half carry a distraught Melissa over to a chair.

“It’ll be okay, girls.” Laurel said, trying to sound soothing. She collapsed into her chair, one hand already grasping the mouse so as to start the applications she needed to get up and running. “I managed to reach everyone and they’ll be here soon.”

“We should be back out there.” Melissa said, hugging herself. “We should be looking for him, not coming back here.”

“He’s lost on the astral plane.” Laurel explained, “To look for him, we had to come back here. Her central screen displayed a map of Mayfield with colored dots representing the astral transponders positioned around the city to monitor the local astral and to extend the distance Kareem could move from his body. All the transponders within a seventeen block radius of the bridge were offline. She cursed.

“What is it?” Cyn said, rubbing Melissa’s back to comfort her like she’d seen mothers do for their daughters on TV.

“The network got knocked out by the astral storm. It’ll take ten minutes to reboot.” Laurel said, typing in the codes to do just that.

“That wasn’t just an astral storm.” Cyn said, “Everything went nuts on this side too. What was that?”

Laurel shook her head. “I don’t know. I won’t know anything until the network reboots and I can see data they picked up.

“How is that going to help Kareem?” Melissa asked. “That won’t help find him.”

“Melissa…” Laurel got up and came to kneel beside the redhead. “I know you and Kareem are close. But you’ve got to be brave right now, okay? We don’t know what happened or how it affected Kareem. It may take all of us to help him this time and that means you too, alright? Give me your cell phone.”

“What?” Melissa asked between stifled sobs.

“I’m going to upgrade the firmware in the camera with the program I used to let the ROV see the Astral Plane. It’ll let you see Kareem even if he can’t work his normal screens for some reason. Cyn, give me yours too.”

She took the phones and moved over to another computer, plugging them in. She was halfway through the upgrade when the computer monitoring the transponders made a series of cheery beeps. Leaving the phones be, she rolled her chair over and looked at the screen.

“Did they find him?” Melissa asked, worried.

“What the hell’s going on?” Ian asked, tromping into the room. His turtleneck was covered with various colored stains and he smelled slightly of vinegar. “Kareem is missing? How can he be missing, he’s everywhere!”

“Something in the astral breech knocked out my redundant fail safes on his signal amplifiers.” Laurel said quietly. “We lost contact and he hasn’t checked in on any of our remotes.”

“What do you mean ‘something in the breech?” Ian asked cautiously. “Something attacked him?”

“I don’t know.” Laurel said, sifting through the lines of data sent back from the rebooted transponders. “Whatever happened triggered a massive shift in energy here: heat, light, it even deep six-ed air pressure for about fifteen seconds.”

Ian looked over her shoulder. “Why are those transponders marked in yellow?”

“Astral side damage. It happens occasionally during storms. It means that they can only communicate material side. Their astral functionality is borked. This storm knocked thirty out when even one is fairly rare. Five by the docks were acting screwy this week anyway—some kind of interference I can’t isolate.”

“Would Kareem know that those transponders aren’t working?” Melissa asked, no longer shaking, but still breathing hard. “Could he be trying to use one to contact us?”

“It’s possible, I’ve always fixed damaged transponders as soon as they happen, and he’s never had to encounter a damaged one. He may think his range is still miles if he can still sense the broken ones in the Astral.”

“Why is this range thing so important?” Cyn asked, drawing a blank.

Laurel swallowed. “Kareem’s astral projection is limited to one mile from his body. Any further and he becomes unstable; subject to the ebb and flow of the astral itself. Based on our current understanding of the Astral, he could hold himself together for a maximum of three hours without being in proximity with his body’s natural resonance.”

“Best bet is to check the dead transponders then.” Ian observed. “There’s not a lot of time, so we’ll split up.”

“I can equip your phone to see Kareem on the Astral.” Laurel informed him. “It only takes a few minutes.”

“Ours are already done.” Melissa said, picking up her phone. “Can you carry me to the first ones, Cyn?”

Cyn nodded. “Yeah, but not as Melissa. Way too many questions about why Facsimile is flying you around. Better suit up.”

Melissa nodded. She had hoped never to have to become Hope again. But Cyn was right and this was important. Kareem wouldn’t hesitate to do the same for her.

There was a voice somewhere, speaking. It wasn’t saying anything in particular, at least nothing audible, but it droned on and on. Focusing, he could hear the voice overlapping itself, muttering this time, in this iteration. More focus alerted him that the same voice was overlapping many, many times over; sometimes whispering, sometimes reciting, even singing once in a while. It all happened simultaneously, the same voice speaking dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of times at once.

Slowly, he became aware of another such voice, distinct from the first, but also overlapping itself over and over. Then he heard another and another and soon he sensed them in numbers he couldn’t begin to count to. They were legion and they were all around him.

With concentration, he could tell how far away from him they were. One was within a handful of yards. More within a dozen—all the way out to a mile in either direction. They weren’t all at ground level either. Some soared in the air almost a hundred stories above him on occasion and on at times, just as deep.

There were too many. He tried to focus on one or two, but there were too many in the way, jostling here and there, interfering with one another. Some were brighter, some dimmer, some fluctuated.

His head pounded. He didn’t understand what was happening. He could sense them, everything about them. But he couldn’t see them. He couldn’t see at all. Nor could he truly hear. The world was nothing but floating voices.

It was unpleasant. He pushed it away. Slowly at first, starting from the edges of perception, he lost contact with the floating voices. As the last one faded, true sensation came. Cold, wet--- he was being stung by the icy drizzle of rain and his cheek was scrapping asphalt.

“Are you okay, boy?” a woman’s voice asked. The voice was strong, but tinged with tentative worry.

He opened one eye. He was an alley. Luckily, it was one used as a shortcut for pedestrians instead of a back alley were shops disposed of their trash. Somehow, he was wearing a red dyed denim jacket, a white shirt and khakis. For a moment, he wondered why he found that odd, but pushed it away.

Slowly, he raised his head. A heavyset black woman stood at the end of the alley under an umbrella. “You don’t look homeless. You get mugged?” She crept toward him cautiously.

“I do not think so.” He said, sitting up. There was no pain or ache, but his body felt unusually restraining. “Where am I?”

“South Council.” The woman replied. A second later, after some thought, she added, “Mayfield. Virginia.”

“South Council…” the young man said aloud, getting to his feet unsteadily. “In Mayfield… I know the place. We are near City Central then?”

“Yeah, ten blocks up.” The woman said, her caution turning to concern. “You don’t look too good. Don’t sound like you’re all there either. My shop’s just around the corner, let’s get you there and call an ambulance. What’s your name?”

“I could not tell you.” The young man said. “You have not seen me around this neighborhood?”

“I know just about all the middle easterners in South Council.” The woman said, “Not that you can’t be a visiting cousin. Come on, the police can get this all straightened out. She put her hand on his shoulder to goad him forward.

The world exploded in rosy light.

A flood of thoughts and images filled his mind. Denise Banks was just on the way to lunch, and nervous about leaving her niece to work the counter at her antique store. She was really worried about him; didn’t want to see anyone hurt, even if he was a stranger. In the back of her mind, she was also concerned that she would miss lunch with her husband because of this.

Denise didn’t sense any of this, so when the bewildered young man threw himself back from her, she was genuinely surprised. Then his eyes flared with pinkish light for a moment and her surprise became fear. She’d never met a psionic aside from a man with a tail that frequented her shop, but she knew enough to be afraid of one that was injured and agitated.

“I am sorry.” The young man said, backing away. “Do not waste your time with me, Mrs. Banks. Go be with your husband.” He looked around him, repeating the mental actions that had flared his eyes before. Each time, it was like seeing the city in a new light – or rather a familiar one. “I will be fine.” He walked stiffly toward the opposite mouth of the alley.

-- • --

Laurel answered her phone on the first ring. She was still in her workshop, pouring over the transponder data as it was reported back by the other Descendants’ upgraded cell phones. So far, she hadn’t been able to find anything helpful for Kareem’s situation, but a disturbing picture was beginning to come together. “Hello?” She said hoarsely into the receiver.

“Laurel?” Alexis asked over the phone. “I’m at the bridge now, sending you the transponder data. Anything new?”

“Not yet.” Laurel sighed. “This shouldn’t have happened, Alex. I didn’t think anything like this was possible when I built the network. I compensated for stronger astral storms, lightning strikes, stray energy blasts from psionics, EMP… but nothing like this.”

“No one could have predicted this, L.” Alexis said.

“I should have!” Laurel exclaimed, slamming a fist down on the arm of her chair. “What the hell is the point of being hypercognitive if you still make stupid mistakes?”

“Everyone makes mistakes, Laurel, you know that.” Alexis reprimanded her. “Look, this isn’t the time for this. You said Kareem had three hours to get back in range of his body – or at least part of the network that’s up. We can do that, we’re prelates, right? But you know more about the astral and the network than anyone besides Kareem. We need you right now.”

Laurel lowered her head and was silent for a moment. “This is my fault, Alexis. I shouldn’t have asked him to work the ROV. I shouldn’t have tried crossing the event horizon of the portal…”

“Kareem knows the astral.” Alexis said, “He sees things in it that we can’t. And that’s why he’s going to be fine, Laurel. He can move around, unlike us. If he can’t find a live transponder, he’ll head for home.”

“I may have killed him, Alexis. You can’t just sugarcoat that. Me. It’s my fault. I was responsible for him and I dragged him into these experiments.” Something in the new theoretical model on her screen caught her eye. “Alexis?” She asked.

“It’ll be okay, Laurel. We have time.”

“It’s not that.” Laurel replied. “The data you just sent me? It’s from the bridge, right?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s inverted.” The genius murmured. Quickly, she pulled up archived readings from earlier in the year.

“What’s inverted, L? Are you okay?”

“F-from your fight with Morganna and Sky Tyrant on the West Truman Bridge – The fluctuation in the astral’s composition when Morganna died—Kareem said it felt like the same as the fastral storm he sensed when Morganna first showed up.” A few clicks of the mouse, and Laurel had her answer.

“That was Morganna entering the Astral Plane physically. This is the exact opposite.”

“Morganna’s back?”

“No, I don’t think so. But if I take the measurement from your fight as an indicator of Morganna’s mass…” She typed furiously. “That opposite effect we witnessed today is only four kilograms off from the mass of Kareem’s body here.” Laurel’s eyes reflected the flickering computer screen. “We can’t contact Kareem because he isn’t in the astral at all anymore. Laurel said, “He’s here. On the material plane.”

Alexis unplugged her phone from the transponder planted atop one of the uprights of the West Truman Bridge. From that vantage point, she could see just how large Mayfield was, spreading out below her in all directions. “Great.” She said, “How do we find him now?”

“That’s the problem.” Laurel said gravely. “And worse, we don’t know if distance from his body applies to him anymore or not. I’ll search the MPD calls for anything about a teenaged boy appearing out of nowhere. Until then, keep searching the transponders. If he still has his astral senses, those will still be the places he seeks out.”

Hurrying to and from various pressing appointments and other pursuits with more celerity than normal thanks to the rain, Mayfield’s citizenry were likewise less aware of their surroundings than normal. So they could be forgiven if they failed to notice a young man sitting at a bus stop, doubled over, holding his head.

Those that did notice him probably just thought he was ill or a homeless person trying to get some sleep. It probably never occurred to them that his expression was one of frustration or that his clothing was not only too clean for someone living on the streets, but that it didn’t absorb the rain at all.

Actually, even he didn’t notice his clothes. He was too occupied by the source of his frustrations—the voices. They weren’t voices in the vein of those that led to straitjackets and axe murders. Instead, they were the voices that one hears when one is thinking to oneself. Except these voices weren’t his own.

“…hope the boss doesn’t blame them being out of roast beef on me…” came the voice of a young man walking down the street holding a bag from a local sandwich shop.

“…wasting my time going to the library. This is supposed to be spring break, damn it. Mrs. Johansson must be out of her…” an unhappy looking girl in her early teens groused as she passed the man with the sandwiches.

“…should run for mayor. Then we’ll see some changes. Yeah, I should. At least then I wouldn’t have gone though that for nothing…” a thin, middle aged man with an expensive haircut rambled as he ambled up to what was presumably his car with the help of a cane.

He had spent the last twenty minutes on the bench, trying to figure it all out. If he concentrated hard enough, he could hear only one person. Harder still and he could pick out one line of thought from the hundreds in the average person’s head.

Without concentration, however, he was deluged with the same sea of murmurs that had surrounded him when he had awakened. None of it, however, was helping with his own thoughts. It was hard to pay attention to himself when the surface thoughts of everyone around him were overpowering them. As such, recalling even his most basic memories was a Herculean task.

Pieces managed to surface. He knew that what he saw when he allowed his eyes to flare with the odd, pink light, was what was normal for him. Moreover, he had a faint understanding that the river was important for some reason. A place even further north, in the suburbs, was more important still.

The river was closer. He hoped that he would find some answers there. Involuntarily, he let his mind extend in that direction. Instantly, he sensed a familiar voice. For a moment, he contemplated delving deeper into the mind, which seemed to be peppered with confusion and apprehension. Could he contact that mind? Thus far, he had just been listening, but something told him he could do much more.

He didn’t have time to do any of it. The mind dropped its confusion in a flurry as terror sprang up in its stead. There was no thought, only action. He leapt up from the bench, startling an old woman who had taken a seat nearby, and tore off toward the docks.

Several Minutes Earlier

Melissa, now disguised as Hope, watched Facsimile disappear over the buildings surrounding the marina. She let out a relieved breath to have her feet on the ground again; flying courtesy of Facsimile was by no stretch of the imagination smooth. She had a hard enough time playing prelate when she wasn’t considering that the only thing separating her from a forty story drop was Facsimile’s bear hug.

Her relief was short lived. A shiver ran up her spine when she turned her eyes toward the marina buildings and the marina itself. The last time she’d been on docks had been on the trip to New York to help the Kin and though she hadn’t actually fought, she had nightmares about the Legion of One.

This was Mayfield, not New York, she reminded herself. Legion and the Tongs wouldn’t be here – had no reason to. The worst things she would encounter on her mission to check the astral transponders were heights and possibly a security guard. Besides, this was important. If she screwed up, Kareem may be….

She refused to let herself finish that thought. Kareem was her friend. Her closest friend, in fact. Not, she reminded herself, in the way that Cyn and Warrick were close friends. Even she recognized Cyn’s behavior around Warrick—it was very much the same way Ian had acted around Alexis a decade earlier and everyone saw how that turned out.

No, she didn’t have romantic feelings toward Kareem. She knew he was handsome, found him attractive even, but that wasn’t the point of their friendship. They had bonded over their isolation from the world—war buddies in a war with their own powers; his keeping him on another plane, hers keeping her distrustful. He kept her honest with herself, pointing out thoughts she hardly realized were in her mind. He wasn’t her story book Prince Charming, but damn it, he was important to her and she was going to help him.

Thus girded, she all but marched toward the first transponder. It was located on the roof of a two story building that had once been the private dry dock of a wealthy investor which was now a burned out husk. Rumor had it that the fire was for insurance, but nothing ever stuck.

Laurel had chosen the place as a prime candidate to plant a transponder because her calculations suggested that it would be years before anyone bought it. The newly lain chain link fence Melissa found surrounding it suggested otherwise.

It was an odd thing to see, really; a brand new fence set into freshly poured concrete surrounding… a boarded up, burnt out building. Melissa frowned and took out her cell phone. The mini-map appeared on screen, an animated compass indicating that the transponder was still in place. The construction was the likely reason for the interference Laurel had said was affecting the transponders at the waterfront.

Still frowning, Melissa looked up and down the fence line. The main gate was padlocked closed. The fence ran between one wall of the building itself and the side of the neighboring boathouse. No one seemed to be on guard…

She shook her head. That would be trespassing, wouldn’t it? Of course, in the name of helping people, prelates generally broke a lot of little laws. Big ones too, she mused, thinking about all the property damage Warrick alone had racked up when the Redeemers had attacked. And she was the Descendant Hope after all. Not the best known; the codename Laurel had saddled her with hadn’t even made the news—but that didn’t matter. What did matter was that this was a life or death matter.

Moving as stealthily as someone dressed in white and red can, she made her way around the side of the building and shinnied up the fence. Luckily, Alexis had drills for climbing, squeezing through tight spaces, breaking short falls and other ‘eventualities’ as she termed them as part of their training, or Melissa was sure that she would have either hung herself by her mask or broken an ankle traversing the fence.

Still, with a more effort than one would see in even completely out of shape, bone tired individuals in the Prelates of New York; she made it over and looked up at the roof. There was a lack of convenient ladders or fire escapes. She realized she was going to have to reach the second floor from inside.

Staying low and hoping not to be seen, she snuck along the side of the building. The boards over the windows had been haphazardly applied and she saw one that looked loose enough to allow her to squeeze inside.

After a harrowing lesson in trying to put a teenager sized peg in a toddler sized hole, she found herself standing behind a stack of plastic shipping boxes. To her surprise, the place was well lit. Moments later, she found out why.

A man’s gruff laugh came from somewhere on the other side of the crate. “Rich as pigs, boys, rich as pigs.” Melissa peeked past the crates and saw four men standing on the other side of the boat launch. One was a big, square man with muscles that bulged even under the sweater he was wearing. He was the speaker. The other three were younger than him, but also well built. One was carrying a pulse cannon.

“As long as we keep our mouths shut and don’t flash our money this time.” One of the other men said, glaring at the speaker. “Running this kind of thing without permission in Mayfield is going to draw a much bigger bead on us than New York.”

“Like the Tongs even need artillery now.” snorted another. “I hear they’ve got head hunters going out to put psionics on the pay now.”

“Worse?” the first man asked, ignoring the third speaker, “How? In NYC, you’ve got the Tongs, the maras, some of the old mob still rolling around—“

“The guy down here has a powered armor already. Not cop shit junkers either—military.” The second man said.

“They’re going to kill us all one day.” The one who hadn’t spoken yet. He took a pamphlet out of his jacket, “That’s what Reverend Stiles says.”

“The Tongs? Hell, they’ll try. They can keep New York though.”

“No, the psionics. You remember how much shit they tore up here in November? Or when Infinity punched that robot into that construction crane and tore down half of that construction site? There’s ones even stronger than them and it only takes one going nuts to take out a whole city.” The man with the pamphlet stammered.

“Are you still on this shit?” the first man grunted. “The government’s got ‘em choke chained. We don’t have to worry about ‘em.”

“Are they though?” The third man asked. “Tong seems to be pretty sure they’ll find some.”

“It just ‘happens’ that these Descendants show up and make the Academy bad guys overnight?” The pamphlet slinger asked, fanning the flames. He opened the flyer and put a finger down on a relevant passage. “Ever hear of a guy called Ravi? He killed like a hundred people before the cops in India stopped him.”

The first man whistled. “Damn, that’s pretty badass if you ask me.”

“Like I said there’s stronger ones that the government doesn’t want you to hear about. You all should go with me to one of the Reverend’s community meetings. He tells you all the stuff they don’t tell you.”

The man who had spoken second. “That’s all bullshit. Most of them are just weird looking or can push a pencil around with their mind. What are they going to do, erase you to death? Make you really uncomfortable?”

“They’re holding back.” The man with the pamphlet said in a serious tone.

Melissa blinked. She knew that some people worried that another incident like what happened in India would happen. That was why the Academy had been originally founded and that was why the government was scrambling to establish a new school for psionics—one that wasn’t a front for an evil organization. She had seen first hand that protomorphs still had an uphill battle socially due to their looks, even if those looks actually made them more attractive.

But she had never heard such paranoia directed at them. And she had certainly never heard it expressed by a man holding a gun. Part of her wanted to make a break for it and call Laurel for help. But part of her understood how long it would take and what it might mean for Kareem. She just had to be twice as careful now.

Taking a deep breath, she turned to skulk further down the line of crates. Instead, she turned to peer into a pair of horrible, red glowing eyes.

-- • --

Before Melissa’s brain could even fire off the signal to scream, the thing with the red eyes acted. A small, but firm hand shot up and covered her mouth. Its twin lifted a finger to cloth covered lips.

“Shhh… you don’t want them to start firing do you?” A female voice said.

The adrenaline clouding Melissa’s mind cleared. Standing before her was not a monster with red glowing eyes, but a woman, about a head shorter than her, wearing bug eye goggles with red lenses. She was dressed like a Victorian representation of a ninja. Melissa started to speak, but the hand kept her quiet.

“I’m Vorpal.” The intruder said, then motioned for Melissa to lean down so she could whisper in her ear. “And you are Hope, the prelate, right? I saw you on TV last November.”

Melissa nodded.

“Good.” Vorpal continued, “Then this will be easy. You’re here for the same thing I’m here for.” She removed her hand from Melissa’s mouth.

“I don’t think so…” Melissa whispered hoarsely.

“You’re not here to clean up these weapon smugglers?”

“No… I’m trying to get to the roof—weapon smugglers?!” Melissa struggled to keep her voice down.

The eyes behind the goggles widened with temporary surprise. “Really? You didn’t know?”

“There’s something much more important I need to do.” Melissa admitted.

Vorpal’s predatory grin almost showed through her mask. “Huh. Not my problem. I’m here for them.” She turned and stared at the crates that separated the two women from the launch and the smugglers. The red lenses faded to black. “Hmm… and given their choice of reading material, I’m going to enjoy it.”

Melissa squinted at the crate, trying to see what Vorpal was seeing. “What? How—“

“State of the dark arts.” Vorpal said cryptically, tapping the goggles as they returned to normal. “But don’t worry; I won’t look under your mask. That would be disrespectful to a fellow descendant.” She quirked another smile under the mask, “Little ‘d’, of course.”

“You’ve got powers too?” Melissa asked. The moment she asked, she realized how stupid the question was. Who else would be standing in an arms warehouse, prepared to take on a quartet of armed men that outweighed her by hundreds of pounds?

“Head for the roof.” Vorpal instructed, ignoring the question. “I guarantee you they won’t notice you.” Without waiting for an answer, she stepped out from behind the crates.

The conversation hadn’t moved on much since Melissa had stopped listening. The larger man was guffawing as the man with the flyer continued trying to assert the threat psionics poised to the world. One of the others continued to agree, the other vehemently dismissed the claims.

“All I’m saying is that the government needs to put a tighter grip on them. Reverend Stiles—“

“Reverend Stiles has only been a reverend since Christmas.” Vorpal sauntered out from behind the crates. The man who had been denying the claims of the good Reverend swung his pulse cannon toward her. The big man drew a pair of oversized pistols. The last two unclipped plasma lances from their hips. Vorpal ignored the weapons pointed at her with casual grace. “He wasn’t even ordained in a church. He got it online.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s not right.” The man with the flyer said, stuffing the aforementioned piece of paper into his vest pocket.

“Shut up, Al.” the big man rolled his eyes. “You the buyer?”

“I’m here for the weapons.” Vorpal said, not really lying. “And might I add, how classy this establishment is; mildew and bigoted paranoia? It’s the kind of atmosphere you can’t pay for.” She looked around. “And you didn’t. Good for you.”

“It’s not bigoted, it’s common sense. I don’t have a problem with Arabs, or Brazilians, but those guys can’t blow you up, know what I mean?” Al defended himself. He looked to the man who had been agreeing with him, “Right, Nathan?”

“Yeah, I read this article that said that prelates cause more violence than they stop.” Nathan supplied.

“I read the same thing.” Vorpal replied. “Citywide Weekly, right? Who was the author, I can’t remember…”

“Reverend Stiles—oh.”

“Can we get down to business instead of talking politics?” The big man asked, holstering his weapons. “And hell, why do we care if there’s more violence because of prelates? We’re selling goddamn guns. That’s a profit for us.”

“And how many psionics are prelates anyway, Al?” The man with the pulse cannon asked.

“Yes, the guns.” Vorpal commented as if they had slipped her mind. She hadn’t stopped walking toward the men and was now within arm’s reach of them. “I’m not here to buy them.” Before he could react, the big man found himself reeling from a forward kick to his gut. “I’m reclaiming them for the powerful—and vengeful—man you stole them from. She pivoted and grabbed the plasma lance out of Nathan’s hand, flinging it into the water.

The man with the pulse cannon tried to draw a bead at the extreme close range and failed as Vorpal rolled under the barrel and kicked at his knees. One gave with a horrible pop and he fell, hard. “Shit, Allen! Shoot her!”

Allen, the big man, leveled his guns and fired. The heavy shells cracked the concrete around the boat landing, but missed the darting Vorpal entirely. She bounded under a line of plasma from Al and came bounding right for him.

Sneering, Allen fired one more time, naturally missing, then dropped his weapons. He stepped into Vorpal’s attack and caught her in a crushing bear hug. The diminutive mercenary groaned as the pressure force air from her lungs.

“That was pretty damn stupid, kid.” Allen laughed as he continued his hold on her. “What did you think you’d achieve?”

“I… am not… a kid.” Vorpal growled, trying to get air back into her starving lungs. “And my name is Vorpal.”

“Stupid name.” Al said, putting the still hot barrel of his plasma lance to her head. The cloth started to smolder.

“There’s… a reason… for… it.” Vorpal gasped. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the unarmed Nathan still wasn’t making a move.

“Yeah? What?” Al smirked, moving the barrel to her temple.

She couldn’t wait any longer.

Suddenly, Allen bellowed in pain, releasing his grip on her. Vorpal pushed off him, pulling her head away from the path of Al’s plasma just in time. The blast would have blinded her if not for the protections provided by her new goggles.

Falling backward, she came down on her shoulders and pulled her legs up to her chest. With all her might, she straightened herself, planting both feet in Allen’s chest. He flew backward into a crate, which shattered on impact.

Wasting no time, Vorpal kipped up and grabbed Al’s forearms. Glaring at him through red lenses, she snarled at him. “Want to know why I’m called that? Do you, bigot?” She drew her hands roughly up his arms, opening he veins up the length of them. “Snicker-snack!”

Al screamed and dropped his gun, only to receive a head butt to the chin that sent him sprawling. Blood sprayed everywhere in a grisly mist.

“Taking your head’s too good for you.” Vorpal spat.

“No!” Melissa shouted, running across the floor. She had been halfway to the second floor when she saw Vorpal’s violent display. She imposed herself between Vorpal and Al. “You can’t kill him!”

“Why not?” Vorpal asked, “He’s talking about interring us. Making us all government mules.”

Melissa looked back at him. She really did feel contempt for the man, but he was bleeding to death. She’d never seen anyone die and she didn’t want to. Not when she could do something about it. “You… you just can’t. It’s not how it works.”

“For a prelate, maybe.” Vorpal snorted. “I’m not a prelate.”

“Well… well I am.” Melissa said firmly. “And I’m going to heal him.” She turned to do just that.

“Like hell you are.” Vorpal said, grabbing her wrist. Melissa felt something sharp against her skin. “I don’t want to do this, but I’m not going to let—“The sharpness disappeared from Melissa’s skin and Vorpal threw her to the floor, landing on top of her. A white hot bolt of energy cut the air where they had just been.

Allen rose from the crate he’d crashed into, holding its contents; a heavy plasma cannon. A wordless roar came from his throat as he fired again.

Vorpal threw them both out of the way. “Stupid girl.” She snarled. “This was going so well too.”

“I can stop it without killing them.” Melissa mewled getting to a knee. “I can elevate emotions.”

“Do it quick then!” Vorpal commanded, dodging again.

Melissa closed her eyes and focused, releasing the power she tried so hard to keep contained. It burst forth and washed over the warehouse.

The effects weren’t what she had expected. Al burst into tears, screaming that he was going to die. Nathan screamed and dove into the water, swimming as if for his life. Allen switched his weapon to continuous fire and fired blindly in their direction. The still nameless man fought through his pain and lifted his pulse cannon, adding his own fire.

“Yeah, you elevated them alright.” Vorpal growled, leaping past plasma bolts to land a heavy punch to Allen’s head.

“But… why aren’t they happy?” Melissa asked, eyes going wide. Behind her, one of Allen’s plasma bolts hit some ammunition, touching off an explosion. Screaming, she ducked and covered, wishing she had something to fight back with.

Somewhere in the Westlands neighborhood, the young man staggered to a halt. Mortal terror was emanating from the mind he was trying to reach in waves that broke against his own psyche. They were intense enough to cause him physical pain.

“Melissa…” He said aloud, putting a name to the terrified mind at the docks. “What is happening? Why aren’t you…” determination drove more memories to the surface. “Why are you not back at home? At Freeland House?”

He looked toward the docks. They were too far; it would take him half an hour to run there and by then… An idea hit him. He could read minds, even from across the city. That was how he could sense Melissa in the first place.

Tentatively, he reached out and found five other minds in Melissa’s immediate vicinity. Like her, they were in turmoil. One was mad with fear, floundering in the water. Another was weeping uncontrollably, unable to think of anything but impending death. Two others were pressed to their limits with rage. The last was panicked, but coherent. Her inner voice cursed ‘the girl’ for not understanding her power.

Suddenly, the mental landscape made sense. Melissa’s power didn’t elevate moods at all: it intensified the strongest emotion someone was feeling. And now it was working overtime. He had to calm them down or one man would die for sure and the men discharging their weapons would probably blow the rest of them up.

But he didn’t know how. Could they hear him? He knew he could affect people from the astral plane, but the last time he’d used that ability, he’d killed the target. And more to the point, he wasn’t on the astral anymore. There was nothing to draw upon—

His introspection had finally shut out the other voices. He was alone with his own. The same voice that was in his mind when he spoke on the astral; wholly apart from how he heard himself when he had been one with his body. Experimenting, he shucked his jacket and threw it away. It got about two yards from him before it hissed and unraveled into skeins of rosy energy and dissolved.

That was it; he’d taken part of the Astral with him into the Material. He didn’t understand the process, but he now understood how he could help Melissa. Closing his eyes, he faced the docks and focused with all his might on the minds that did battle. A nimbus of light rose around him.

The windows of information Laurel was combing through suddenly disappeared under alert messages. Thirteen transponders were now detecting Kareem’s astral presence in Mayfield. And one of the damaged transponders at the docks was suddenly operational again.

Wincing at another explosion on the far end of the launch, Melissa crawled toward Al. The man was curled up in the fetal position whining like a large dog. Blood formed a veritable lake around him. His skin was growing paler by the minute.

“Hold on.” Melissa said, her voice lost over the sound of weapons discharging and explosions.

“Leave him!” Vorpal snapped, forced to bend completely backward to avoid the plasma cannon’s barrel as Allen swung for her neck. “Save yourself, get to the water!”

“No!” Melissa screamed back, causing Al the shiver. “I am a prelate.” She added, audible only to herself. “I am going to help this man. I am going to do the right thing.” She put her hands on his arms. Some perverse part of her mind noted how neatly they’d been opened up. A pulse shot lifted her hair with the wind of its passage, causing her to flatten on top of Al.

Somehow, she kept from screaming and threw open the floodgate of her power. Doctors and her tutors at the Academy had tried to explain how it worked before; about the acceleration of the patient’s metabolism and natural healing, how it activated natural facilities all creatures had, but didn’t work due to threat of starvation.

All she really cared about was that the wounds closed and color flooded back into Al’s face. His eyes opened and he began screaming.

Vorpal cursed under her breath and brought a hand down on the central barrel of Allen’s weapon. Sparks flew as her knife hand strike impossibly cracked open the plastic housing. “You won’t be so lucky.” She growled at Allen.

But then something happened that she didn’t expect. Allen’s face changed—softened as if he’d suddenly thought of the most pleasant thing in the world. Then it changed again, to a look of alarm. “We’ve got to get out of here!” He bellowed, grabbing her upraised arm. “This place is going to blow!”

In retrospect, she would wonder why she didn’t take the opportunity to cut his throat. But instead, she allowed him to drag her to the boat launch and leapt in with him. She barely registered the man she’d kneecapped hobbling into the water as well. But she wasn’t surprised to see the young prelate pulling the man she had hoped to kill to safety.

She didn’t remember much of the next few moments after that – aside from the massive explosion.

-- • --

There was fire and noise and rushing water. The next thing Melissa knew, she was being hauled out of the water by her arm and allowed to flop gracelessly onto a pier. Smoke from the explosion blotted out her view of the sky.

“A suggestion, Hope.” Vorpal said, kneeling so her head was in Melissa’s field of vision. “Or rather several; first, get a handle on that power. Second, a white gi is not good for stealth and it becomes a brick around your neck in the water.” She straightened and stood, starting to walk down the pier, “And lastly, either learn to fight, or stay the hell off the front lines.

Straining against phantom aches she didn’t realize she’d picked up, Melissa rolled over into a sitting position. Fifty yards away, the former boathouse was collapsing and on fire. Vorpal was gone. Sirens wailed in the distance.

Another explosion finished off the near side of the building, which tumbled down in a ball of fire. How did she manage to keep her head enough to stay alive? The last thing she remembered before rushing to the water, pulling Al behind her, wishing that she hadn’t tried to do more than she was capable of, and accepting that she was powerless and alone.

You saved that man’s life with your power. A voice said in her head. And you are never alone.

“Kareem?” she exclaimed, twisting to look for him even though she knew he was on the astral. To her surprise, she saw a cascade of pinkish light, which fell into a ghostly image of her friend.

“It seems that I cannot repeat my earlier feat.” He said as the sparking energy began to fade. Or rather; that I do not understand how I managed it in the first place. He finished telepathically.

“I—“Melissa stumbled on her words, “What happened, I don’t understand.”

The portal—that is what it is—drew the ROV inside and began to close. I would have been trapped between, but something… collided with me. It dislodged my astral form from the closing portal and… and… then there was light and pressure. I awakened on the material plane. I wish I could explain it better, but perhaps Ms. Brant will be able to. Too many of the facts are confusing as it is.

“Right.” Melissa agreed, too exhausted for questions. “I’ll called Alexis and let her know we’re here to be picked up.”

Struggling to help one another, the would be arms smugglers made it ashore some two hundred yards from where their big score had gone up in smoke.

“Jesus, Craig,” Allen said, looking at the horribly dislocated knee of his fallen friend. “She did a number on you.

Craig’s head lolled back to look at the ruins of the boathouse. “And our inventory” he said weakly. The adrenaline that kept the pain down still hadn’t worn off completely. He inclined his head to Allen’s chest and arms, which wept tiny drops of blood from dozens of puncture wounds. “She got you too.”

“She nearly killed me.” Al whimpered, looking his once filleted forearms over. “Holy shit, she would have killed me. Guns didn’t even scare her. That’s how dangerous they are.” Nathan nodded, out of breath to speak.

“And yet, another psionic saved your worthless life.” All four men looked up to see Vorpal standing at the end of the launch they had crawled onto.

Al wilted instantly. “P-please don’t kill me. Oh god, we didn’t know we were stealing from your boss. We’ll never do it again and we’ll give him all the money we already made!”

“You mean from the strong box that was in the exploding building?” Vorpal asked dryly. “Not likely. Plus, my employer didn’t order me to kill you. He ordered me to get the weapons back.” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “Which is now impossible, no?”

“Oh god, that’s why she wants to kill us.” Nathan breathed.

“I opened Al’s wrists there before that.” Vorpal pointed out. “Do you really don’t understand why I want you dead? Why you’re a symbol of what is wrong in this country?” The four said nothing. Vorpal glared at them form under her goggles. “Figure it out.” she roared, causing all of them to flinch.

Then she turned on her heal and started walking away.

“She’s not going to kill us.” Allen whispered.

“Not today.” Vorpal said. “Not until you explain to the good reverend and his fellow zealots how you wrists were healed at any rate. And I’ll be watching to make sure that you do. Cross me, and no one will find the bodies.”

“Well, you weren’t imagining it, Kareem.” Laurel confirmed, waving a hand at screens full of compiled data. “The… portal is gone. Every reading it blipped on is coming back negative.”

It was hours later, after the others had finished expressing how happy they were to have him back and asked all the questions that had been on their mind and Kareem was back to communicating via his screens. Laurel had had to be none too gentle in shooing them out so she could work out the specifics.

“And we still do not know what it was, exactly?” Kareem asked.

Laurel shook her head. “Well, we know for sure that it is a portal now. To where, I have no idea. Before all contact was lost, the bridge transponder actually captured the ROV’s final measurements from the Astral. The place on the other side has air at least, with a higher helium and free hydrogen content than home.”

“It is not of this world.” Kareem confirmed. “What I felt when I was caught between; thought and emotion are as different in form on that world as they are when comparing the material and the astral.”

“Then it’s probably best that the portal is closed then.” Laurel said. “Astral science is only some twenty years old and the first years there was a race to attempt to weaponize it. If this new world lends itself more to that, it could be a disaster.”

“I am glad you aren’t disconcerted at the loss of the portal.” Kareem said.

“I’m just relieved to have you back.” Laurel said. “I’m… I’m sorry for making you participate in my experiments, Kareem. I didn’t consider the danger it put you in and you very nearly paid the price today.”

“You could not have forced me to so something I was not willing to do, Miss Brant.” Kareem said. “Like my parents, I am more than willing to do what is necessary to explore the world the powers of my father’s bloodline allow me to perceive.”

“That doesn’t mean I should let you.”

“Miss Brant, I had already explored the portal before I even brought it to your attention.”

Laurel blinked. “Is this true, Kareem? When… Why?”

“I discovered it shortly after you extended my range via the transponder network. And again the first time my parents came to visit.” Kareem admitted. “I did not tell you until after the new year because there were more pressing things; the fate of the Academy, Project Tome going underground, the trouble with the Kin…”

Shaking her head, Laurel offered him a bemused smile. “Kareem, after all this time, you have to understand that nothing is unimportant to me when it comes to you kids. If anything is on your mind, you should speak up.”

On screen, Kareem nodded. “In that case... perhaps we can discuss the manner in which I was able to cross into the Material Plane? I shall like to do that again, but cannot seem to muster it.”

“I promise we’ll look into every possibility, Kareem.” Laurel gave him a motherly smile.

“So,” Cyn said, sidling into Melissa’s room uninvited. “I hear you were the hero of the day.”

“What are you talking about?” the redhead asked, peering over her book. “Kareem’s the one that saved me, not the other way around. If he hadn’t used his power and commanded us all to run at just that time…”

“Oh he saved you.” Cyn said, bouncing down on the foot of Melissa’s bed. “total white knight upon a fiery stead action. But before that, you were the one that was strong, fast and fresh from the fight.”

Melissa rolled her eyes. “You’re quoting lyrics again.”

“Blame Warrick, he got it stuck in my head.” Cyn shrugged.

“But I wasn’t any of that.” Melissa said. “I didn’t even get to the transponder – which is now blown up and in the St. Anne River.”

“So?” Cyn demanded, “By my count, in the process of trying to do that, which turned out to be unnecessary anyway, you; saved a guy from a psychotic new baddie, participated in taking down an arms cartel with at least enough weapons to level that dock, then saved that same guy again from being exploded to death.”

“And in the end, I didn’t end up doing what I set out to do and what I set out to do ended up being unnecessary.” Melissa said, returning her gaze to the pages before her. “I got saved by the person I was trying to save.”

“Like Infinity says… or at least the guy that writes the character Infinity in Prelates, ‘It isn’t about what you plan to do, it’s about what you get done.” Cyn smiled at her housemate. “And you did good today.” She slid off the bed and picked up the soaked Hope costume Melissa had tossed in the corner. “You know, Hope and Ephemeral don’t patrol with us, but they definitely belong with the Descendants.”

“Maybe…” Melissa admitted slowly. “But I think I’m going to need a new costume in any case. The gi didn’t exactly help matters.”

Brill let Vorpal in with a quiet nod and left her alone in Liedecker’s office with the man himself.

Liedecker ignored her entrance, engrossed in something in his computer screen. Vorpal stood a while in silence before gently clearing her throat.

“I thought you were here to tell me what happened.” Liedecker said, not looking at her. He typed something and hit the enter key particularly hard.

“I failed at my objective.” Vorpal said. “The goons panicked and in the process of firing on me, they detonated the ammunition. The place went up. Not an ounce of salvage intact.”

To her surprise, the secret lord of Mayfield’s criminal community only shrugged. “It is regrettable that we didn’t manage to capture Vorran’s stock, but destroying it keeps him out of Mayfield just as easily.”

Vorpal removed her goggles. “Excuse me? Vorran? I thought this was a shipment stolen from you. Who’s Vorran?”

“Eduardo Vorran,” Liedecker said, “A new upstart that’s been sniffing too close to my backyard.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“No one has.” Liedecker replied, “That’s what I think don’t smell quite right. He’s trying to break into my business and he doesn’t even know my name. Doesn’t take credit for his own work; told his people those shipments were stolen from me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that, sir?” Vorpal raised an eyebrow.

“Tell you the truth, Ms. Vorpal; I wasn’t totally sure those weren’t my arms.”

“How are you so sure now?”

“The fact that they exploded, for one.” Liedecker said. “Nothing I currently stock is going to blow unless it’s been fired. “Vorran’s not much of an arms dealer if he’s still dealing in old technology.”

“I can try and track him down for you.” Vorpal offered.

A sly grin crept over his face. “Good to hear, Vorpal. That’s exactly what I hired you for. Stealth, precision, grace—everything I need to keep people thinking about being my rivals in line. Let Sky Tyrant and Samael worry about the rest.”

“Samael took the job then?” A hint of disgust crept into Vorpal’s voice.

“He’ll be joining us after he sees to some business in Europe.” Liedecker confirmed. “But I can tell you’re not exactly happy to have him, are you, Vorpal?”

“I don’t approve of how he operates. He’s got no morality, no limits. And frankly, I shudder to imagine someone like him—someone that I know for a fact has killed for fun—armed with anything like these goggles. Are you honestly thinking of giving him this…” She stumbled over the bizarre explanation she’d been given for the goggles, “this… magitech?”

The smile on Liedecker’s face turned serious. “Ms. Vorpal, you may not realize this, but an arms race has begun. In the past year, the number of prelates has increased world wide threefold. Now, our very own Descendants haven’t turned their attention on us. But soon, they may.

“And I’m not the only one who is thinking like this. Powered armor is being bought and sold on the black market regularly. The Tongs are trying to build their own anti-prelate team as near as I can tell. I’ve heard tell of cyborgs trying to organize in this very city. In my city, Ms. Vorpal. Hell, last year, some rival I have still not identified sicced a mutant dog on me.”

He sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “I didn’t start the fire, but I won’t be caught in the house. That’s why I would bring a nasty son of a bitch like Samael into this. I need someone that can and will fight anyone I need him too – even the heroes of the world.”

Another sly smile came to his face. “But rest assured, my dear Ms. Vorpal, I am not fool. I know exactly what Samael is capable of. But he knows what I’m capable of and I promise you the same thing I promised him; If my dog gets out of line and bites when I tell him not too… he’ll be neutered.”

Elsewhere in Mayfield, the dreary, rainy day was clearing into a starry night worthy of van Gogh. Myriad stars hung in the sky, shedding their light on the city streets.

He started at his reflection. He would have preferred to be handsome, but then again, he didn’t know what handsome meant here. All he had to go on was the general rule among races that symmetry equaled beauty and that meant he was definitely not beautiful.

Not that it mattered. As much stock as almost ever species put in aesthetics, appearance was a non-factor when it came to getting a job done. And he had a job to do. Survival.

He looked down at a flyer he’d taken off a public bulletin board about an hour ago. Ah yes, humans were so good at providing food for his kind. They were the perfect instrument for playing the song of discord.

He laughed; a harsh, unpleasant sound.

And his reflection changed.

End Issue #16