“Show me the footage.”

  The tech scrubbed through the security camera recording. The screen in front of them only showed the fluorescent-green image of a still forest night.

  “This is when we estimate she escaped.” The tech flipped through multiple different cameras, all showing the same time stamp. He fast-forwarded some of them. “Like I said, not much to see. It’s just looping footage of a night with no activity. Completely seamless. Infrared is the same.”

  Agent Hogan watched the footage in quiet contemplation, though he knew there was no evidence in it. The security room he stood in was a dark capsule of a space, lit only by monitors and blinking lights, filled with nocturnal watchers never seen by the residents living, studying, and playing above their heads.

  “And her phone?”

  “All its activity was faked, rerouted to somewhere else. We weren’t aware she downloaded social media and contacted Vigilance. That shouldn’t have been possible.”

  A Rosewell student with an unmonitored, jailbroken phone could have been a disaster. Thank goodness Lauren only contacted someone within their sphere. She truly only cared about her search.

  “Are the systems working now?” Hogan asked.

  “We ran extensive tests. We’re at 99% operability. Patching any network exploits may take a day or two, but we’ll be at maximum alertness until then.”

  “You’re expected to be at maximum alertness at all times,” Hogan said. “You’re safeguarding the future of this country. Maybe the world.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Hogan was troubled by the ease with which someone had hacked into the school’s system. Rosewell was connected to BASTION’s larger intranet, likely the most secure computer network in the world. Everyone capable of hijacking it should have already been working for them. But that was the trouble, wasn’t it? There was always another unknown element. Someone sat in their system, undetected and unhurried, just to ensure Lauren was able to leave tonight. Why waste an invaluable back door into BASTION systems just so a girl could take a jaunt into the wrong side of town? By all accounts, she was far from the most powerful student at Rosewell. Why was only her phone cracked? Who knew she had a reason to leave? What did they expect her to find? Was getting her to leave campus even the point?

  All these questions swirled around Hogan’s head. But he knew one thing deep in his bones: this wasn’t one of his usual cases. He was looking at a shadow against the wall of something bigger. He could feel its gravitational pull. This was all part of someone’s plan. And Hogan didn’t like playing a role he wasn’t prepared for.

  The door to the observation room opened, casting light from the hallway that framed the shadow of Agent Dodds. She stepped into the room, heading right for Hogan.

  “Agent Hogan.”

  An ear that didn’t have decades of practice with the subtleties of office politics might have missed the annoyed edge to her flat tone.

  “Visiting us so often here at the school in our first week. Our supervisors did get you accommodations here in the city, yes?”

  He let a moment’s pause stretch out. He didn’t know much about this Agent Dodds, but he didn’t much like her so far. There were two types of people who came to BASTION. Probably the same two types as just about everywhere else: workers, and climbers. Some people, like him, came in to do the job and keep the public safe. The medals, the promotions, the pats on the back, those were secondary. And some people came to sit in increasingly bigger chairs. Hogan found that those kinds of people got twitchy when they had to share the path in front of them. He had asked Lauren to trust this Dodds, but only because it was what he was supposed to say; he himself had yet to see her mettle tested.

  “A major security breach was discovered over two hours ago. I wasn’t sure if you were alerted, so I thought I’d lend a hand. Given that I’m in town.”

  He left what was unsaid speak for itself. It wasn’t very flattering to have another senior agent handle your emergency. Hogan knew he was needling her. But maybe she needed some fire under her ass, if she was going to leave students dying out on the street.

  Dodds stepped closer. “And may I ask how you were alerted to this situation?”

  “Lauren called me. Not very coherently, but I was able to find her. I backtracked the situation from there.”

  He had been the one to get Lauren to the school’s hospital and then met with security to find out what had gone wrong. This was the first time he had seen Dodds throughout the process.

  “Well, sometimes I have to first deal with situations more pressing than a last-minute addition to the school who chooses to put herself in danger by violating clearly-explained rules at every opportunity. But I’m sure your stray appreciates you stepping in to help.”

  He stepped around the prim agent to leave. “My stray and I found a critical security flaw in your school’s system. You’re welcome.”

  “Don’t you have a case to be working?” Dodds asked. She was letting him get to her. She’d need to work on that if she wanted to keep rising.

  “I am working it. Lauren is my physical evidence. I expect I’ll keep visiting her until it’s solved.”

  He left her behind in the security room. She’d probably stay for a while to give the impression she had done most of the cleanup. Fine by Hogan. He hadn’t had a whiff of glory in a long time.

  He ascended until he was at ground level in the administration building, then left into the cool, dark morning. He checked his watch. 3:14 AM. No rest for the wicked. It would be hours still until the students of Rosewell awoke and discovered what happened to Lauren. It would be better if he got what he came for and left before then. He crossed the lawn silently over to the medical facilities.

  Agent Ramsey waited outside the doors to the patient’s quarters. The nervous young man saluted as Hogan approached. He really didn’t need to do that.

  “Sir. It’s good to see you again. I have my findings ready to share with you whenever you’re ready.”

  “About?” Hogan prompted.

  “Lauren’s past.”

  “Hold it,” Hogan said. He pushed open the door. “I’ll be right back.”

  The spacious patient’s quarters were eerie so empty and quiet. But quiet was a good thing in a place like this. Dr. Yeoh was a Rosewell staff face much more welcoming to Agent Hogan. He saw Hogan enter and met him with a handshake.

  “She’s back here,” Dr. Yeoh said, leading to a curtained bed on the far end of the room.

  “How’s she doing?” Hogan asked. When his team had brought her in, she was a bloody mess. Falling in and out of consciousness, pierced by an arrow, face looking like she had gone twelve rounds with a jackhammer. Her vitals were stable, though.

  “She’s doing incredibly,” Dr. Yeoh said. There was enthusiasm in his voice Hogan wasn’t expecting. “Come look.”

  They entered her bed space. Lauren was hooked to monitoring machinery, an IV, and had a breathing mask over her cleaned face. She breathed steadily, deeply unconscious. The left half of her face was a purple and yellow mosaic of bruises.

  But, Hogan realized, it was only bruises. Two hours ago, she was unrecognizable. The swelling had gone down dramatically.

  “She looks…”

  “Like she’s healed for two weeks in two hours?” Dr. Yeoh asked. He went to the side table. “Look at this.”

  He held up an x-ray sheet in front of Hogan. It showed a skull, presumably Lauren’s. Fractures zigzagged around the left half of the bone, emanating like lightning bolts from the socket.

  “This was her when she came in,” Dr. Yeoh explained. He showed another x-ray. The fractures were barely visible, having shrunk to just around the socket. “This is her ten minutes ago.”

  The progress was unbelievable. But Dr. Yeoh wasn’t done. He lead Hogan to Lauren’s side and gently shifted her gown enough to show her shoulder. Hogan braced himself to see a wreck of burst muscle and torn skin. But instead, there was a welt. An angry welt, but one fully closed.

  Dr. Yeoh covered her shoulder again. “I expect that will be a faint mark by sunrise.”

  “She has a healing factor,” Hogan realized.

  Dr. Yeoh walked around the bed. “It isn’t uncommon for those with the ultra-gene to have advanced metabolisms that lead to quicker recovery times, but this is unlike anything else I’ve ever seen. True self-sufficient regeneration on this scale… it’s almost unheard of.”

  “Does she have an ultra-gene?” Hogan asked. That was something they tested for when they had first picked Lauren up, but he hadn’t heard the results yet.

  “No. Even more perplexing. And this thing Lauren claims was put inside her, that granted her powers? We can’t find it anywhere inside her. Whatever it was, it seems to have been completely subsumed into her biology on a cellular level.”

  Dr. Yeoh grew more animated. He grabbed a chart and flipped through it.

  “Speaking of her cells… it’s incredible. I don’t know how to explain it.”

  “Try,” Hogan said. He needed all the information about what was done with her that he could get.

  “None of her cells are human anymore. I mean they are, they act and function like human cells should… but they’re so much more. They replicate perfectly. They’re essentially each active stem cells, in addition to their base function. Like a starfish. Given enough energy and matter, she should be able to regrow anything. They also respond to external stimuli. The hallucinogenic agent her and the other students encountered last Friday? By all measures, she’s now completely immune to it. She adapted immunity to it within a matter of minutes. I believe she’s able to do this with nearly any external stressor.”

  If a healing factor was rare, developing immunity to danger was unheard of. At least to Hogan. But he had worked a long career, and met many superhumans. He was beginning to understand the doctor’s excitement.

  “That’s not all, though,” Dr. Yeoh said.

  Hogan was starting to feel like he was in an informercial. But he let the doctor continue.

  “The cells growing to heal damaged tissue? They’re stronger than her baseline human cells. And they’re spreading. Inducing a slow change throughout her body. Bones more durable. Muscles denser. Skin tougher. Not by much. Not yet. But it seems this reiteration is going to be triggered every time she’s injured like this. Every time, she’ll have a higher injury threshold. Every time, she’ll heal faster.”

  Dr. Yeoh was at a loss for a moment. His mouth hung open as he searched for the words. He was in awe. A mix of wonder and terror.

  “Agent Hogan… I need you to understand. I’ve been a superhuman doctor for 27 years. I’ve had everything on my table. People who can fly through the sky. People strong enough to punch holes in buildings. Plasma-shooters. Weather-controllers. Aliens. Psychics. I… have no idea what she is. All I know is that every cell of Lauren contains the blueprints to be perfect. And her physiology is hungry to get there.”

  The thing casting a shadow over this case just became the size of a mountain.

  Agent Hogan didn’t let his face convey any of his thoughts. Though he felt like he was standing on the edge of a cliff above a vortex. This was it. He could tell. This would be his last case one way or another. Because now he was hunting someone who had done the impossible: deliberately put perfection into an ordinary human. No accident of science. No magic. No experimental serum. And they might be able to do it again.

  “Was there anything else?” Hogan asked the doctor.

  Dr. Yeoh’s brow furrowed.

  “Yes. At some point, Lauren received both a hysterectomy and an oophorectomy— removal of the uterus and ovaries. I’m not sure if she’s aware the procedure has been done. You’d think that her regenerative abilities would make short work of fixing that… but whatever methods were used seem to circumvent her body’s natural correction. It must have been a highly advanced procedure, possibly using her body’s own electro-chemical signals… I would need to study further. But I’m perplexed why someone would feel the need to do so.”

  Agent Hogan was a more cynical man, so he could guess why. The ones who did this to Lauren didn’t want their work copied by making more like her the old-fashioned way. A trademark, so to speak. They were planning for her to be beyond their control at some point.

  The escape… the sterilization… getting stronger through adversity…

  Hogan’s stoic outward mask must have fallen, because Dr. Yeoh asked if something was wrong.

  Of course they would know Lauren would adapt to tranquilizers.

  Lauren hadn’t escaped. They had let her go. Right into BASTION’s hands. And what did they think BASTION would do with her? Give her opportunities to adapt. Over and over again.

  BASTION had been handed a weapon to sharpen.

  And at some point, the ones who made the weapon were coming back for her. The hack was them setting the terms of her stay.

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  “There’s one thing I still don’t understand,” Hogan said. More than one thing, but one the doctor might be able to shed some light on.

  “What’s that?”

  “You have a healthy twin. And an ill twin. That’s what Lauren said. Her sister Rachel is sick. Why put this miracle gene-altering thing in the healthy twin? Isn’t the natural thing to do put it in the sick one?”

  “One would think Lauren would be kept as the baseline,” Dr. Yeoh agreed. “I’m not sure. Maybe something was incompatible about Rachel? Do you know the nature of her illness?”

  “Not at the moment.” Maybe it was in Ramsey’s report.

  “I’d be curious to know,” Dr. Yeoh said. “Agent Hogan- I don’t think you truly comprehend how special this girl is. She’ll never get any common illness again. No infections. No cancer. Her aging will slow at her physical prime if not stop entirely. The fact that this was put into an ordinary human… we need to reverse engineer her DNA. It’s imperative.”

  “What’s imperative is the need to keep this classified,” Hogan told the excited doctor. “You don’t discuss this with your peers, or other medical personnel in BASTION, no one except senior agents and executive staff who are briefed on the situation. Do you understand?”

  “I… yes, I understand,” the doctor said. “And Lauren herself? She should be aware of all of this.”

  “Yes. She should.” Maybe just not here.

  Hogan exited the hospital wing to find Agent Dodds waiting alongside Ramsey. She was starting to look truly unhappy.

  “Don’t worry, I was just leaving,” Hogan said.

  “No, actually you aren’t,” Dodds said, turning to follow him down the hall. “The director has heard about our turbulent first week. She wants an update. From both of us.”

  The director. Hogan’s last conversation with her had been her putting him on this case. She wasn’t usually so involved. Could she see the true size of this too?

  Hogan looked at Ramsey at his other shoulder. “Ramsey. Give me the headlines of what you discovered.”

  “Right.” The junior agent flipped through the folder he had been carrying with him. He’d need to learn to rely on those less. “Headlines… This Tommy Lucenko that Lauren and Rachel worked for in Callis? He was killed a month after they were taken. Local law enforcement say it was an organized-crime related hit by an out-of-town outfit.”

  “And what do you think it was?” Hogan checked. Ramsey had to practice thinking between the lines.

  “I think…” He paused. “My hunch is that this Lucenko was paid to set them up. Sold with little to no questions asked. And then they murdered him to cover their trail. Easy enough to kill a man with powerful enemies and have it written off.”

  Hogan nodded. It was a good assessment. Others might have thought it a leap in logic, but he would have come to the same conclusion. The young agent was learning.

  “Lucenko is a dead slum lord. Maybe worth checking up on if he were alive, but he wouldn’t have known anything or wanted to. What else?”

  “Lauren’s parents were Calvin and Mae Boone. Nothing outstanding about them. Calvin had a few DUIs. Mae was possibly a juvenile delinquent. No ultra-gene in either. No strange contacts, acquaintances, or encounters. Both died when a bridge over a gorge that was scheduled for repair collapsed.”

  “Unlucky. And the sister, Rachel? What condition did she have?”

  Hogan looked at the junior agent when he didn’t answer. Ramsey was looking through his folder, but not very closely.

  “I don’t have that information with me, sir. We’ll have to discuss it when we’re back at our mobile office. My apologies.”

  Hogan understood immediately Ramsey didn’t want to discuss whatever he had found around Dodds and the school. So there was something about the twin. Good man.

  The three of them crossed the lawn back to the administration building. Before they entered, Hogan addressed Agent Dodds again.

  “Listen, Agent Dodds, I think you might be right.”

  Her eyebrow arched. “Oh? Regarding what?”

  “Lauren not belonging here.”

  “I never said Lauren doesn’t belong here,” Dodds insisted.

  “But you think it.”

  “So what makes you agree with that sentiment?” Dodds asked.

  Agent Hogan decided to lay all the cards on the table. “I think we’re playing into someone’s hands by leaving Lauren here. Someone out there cares more about keeping tabs on her than the ollyrian we have on-planet. I find that disturbing. I’m thinking maybe she should be moved inland, somewhere more secure.”

  Somewhere with less conflict to make her ripe.

  They moved inside. Instead of heading underground again, Dodds lead the way down the hall.

  “Lauren doesn’t strike me as the type to take being isolated well,” Dodds said. “I’m aware of the security threat. The intruders overplayed their hand. My school will remain secure.”

  My my my. That was the problem with these ladder-climbers. Everything had to go flawlessly according to their vision, and any problems were pasted over. Even if she didn’t like a student, removing them would be seen as a point of failure.

  They reached a meeting room at the end of the hall. Agent Dodds put her hand on the door handle, but paused and turned to look Hogan in the eye before opening it.

  “You may find this hard to believe, but I also do my own intelligence gathering. I know this isn’t the first time you’ve been in a situation like this. I understand your desire to want to protect Lauren.”

  Hogan bristled. His jaw clenched.

  Dodds leaned in. “But it isn’t about what we want. It’s about what the world needs. That’s what we’re here for. That’s why we serve.”

  She offered a smile. It might as well have been a knife telling him to back off.

  “We shouldn’t keep the director waiting,” Hogan said.

  They entered the meeting room. Ramsey waited outside. A wide table surrounded by chairs took up most of the space. A black-suited agent stood at the ready, briefcase in front of him on the table.

  Without ceremony, Hogan and Dodds sat at the table. The agent before them opened the brief, inside which was two small electronic beads nestled in foam padding. He slid the case over to them. They both picked up their communication device.

  “Place the device on your right temple,” the communications agent instructed. “Sync should take less than five seconds.”

  Hogan had been through this routine many times, though the devices had been invented in the past five years. He placed the bead on his temple, where it stuck to his skin. He closed his eyes as the bead grew warm. It was less disorienting if you closed your eyes during the sync.

  He opened them to find himself in another meeting room.

  This one was much darker and visibly high-tech. Screens lined the walls, displaying maps and real-time information streams. Other senior agents sat around the table. Most of them also merely projections in this room.

  The rest of Hogan’s senses synced. The wafting tobacco of a cigarette assaulted his nose. The smoky trail led across the table, to the head at the far end. There, the cigarette was held by the one person who could get away with smoking in a top-secret government facility.

  Director Weiss didn’t bother to sit; she was known for her opinion that if a meeting was going on long enough for her to get tired of standing, it was too fucking long. She wasn’t one for wearing professional suits, either. It had been said that she was out on a mission when the previous head of BASTION died and left her in charge. When she returned to headquarters and was informed of her promotion, still covered in dirt and blood, still wearing her operator’s gear, she fell right into the director’s chair and never bothered to update her wardrobe.

  So there she stood at the head of the table, all senior agents looking up at her. Her face was lost in the shadows that the light from the downward-angled monitors didn’t reach. That was her style; seeing everyone below her, but not often seen. Her lithe body, which by all rights should have belonged to a much younger woman, was zipped into a grey tactical infiltrator’s bodysuit, all it’s buckles undone and holsters and pouches empty. One arm was crossed over her chest, and the other held her cigarette. The burning glow of it might as well have been her eye.

  “There you two are.” The director’s voice was a firm contralto.

  “Apologies for our tardiness,” Hogan said. It was his responsibility as the more senior agent.

  “Not at all. We were just finishing our weekly updates. I believe Kenson was next to report. What do you have for us, Kenson?”

  The large, ginger man sat close to the director rose from his seat. He was nervously blinking. It was no wonder why. He had a big job, one not many would be prepared for.

  “As has been the case for the past twenty months, BASTION currently has access to only two Planet-Class heroes. I’ll start with an update on Seraph. She has historically been the more reliable of the two. She’s proven herself against everything from rampaging kaiju, to alien invaders, to some of the most dangerous supervillains on planet Earth. Without her, entire cities would be lost. Not even being killed during Invasion Day stopped her for long.”

  Agent Kenson cleared his throat and shuffled the papers in front of him.

  “But I’m afraid all the work we’ve been putting on her is taking a toll. Lately… she has expressed that she's growing weary of the job.”

  “Weary?” Director Weiss asked.

  “Yes ma’am. She… well, she wants to retire and become a nun in the alps.”

  Director Weiss scoffed. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. She got world-defending powers from God, for Christ’s sake! At least that’s what she told us happened. She’s gonna give that up?”

  Agent Kenson shrugged, at a loss for what to say.

  “She said God’s telling her it’s time for a change soon. We’re doing everything in our power to keep her on board for as long as possible.”

  “You better be doing more than everything. Pay the Pope to get her head on straight if you have to.”

  Kenson nodded eagerly and noted her suggestion.

  “Yes ma’am.”

  Weiss ashed her cigarette in the tray in front of her. The bottom half of her face dipped into the light momentarily. She had a narrow face with a strong jaw. A scar accented her chin.

  “What about Paradigm?”

  “As powerful and stable as ever, thankfully. We’re working on increasing his reliability. He still has a habit of disappearing for days at a time, without telling us where he’s going or why.”

  “I don’t like that,” Weiss said. “Have you had him followed? Used satellites? All our usual tricks?”

  “Most of them, ma’am. I’ve tried to be subtle, not too intrusive. He’s very canny. I worry that if I overstep, we might ruin our working relationship with him. But if you think it would be better to find out where he leaves for at all costs, I can increase our efforts immediately.”

  Weiss shrugged, impatient.

  “You’re a big boy, Kenson. It’s your job, you figure out how to best spend your portion of taxpayer money. Spend a whole lifetime becoming his secret-keeper for all I care. But the next time there’s a Paradigm-sized problem and he’s away on one of his little camping trips with no contact info, your ass is getting dragged to my office like there’s a fishhook in it. You understand?”

  Agent Kenson nodded, his face almost as red as his beard. He took a seat.

  Weiss turned to the next head agent.

  “What’s the situation on the ground, Maloy?”

  Agent Maloy dutifully stood. Hogan had known the woman for almost his whole career, and respected her highly. She was a worker bee, like him.

  “It’s a bit better than the global situation, but not by much. Our ranks of City-Class heroes are at less than half of where we’d like them to be. Certain cities are over-represented, while others are empty. We move people where they’re needed, but it’s hard to be preventative to any degree. If a city is quiet, we try to keep it that way and not stir up trouble. Of course, quiet only means someone’s getting away with something that we aren’t seeing. Teams of field agents fill in for smaller issues. Vigilantes and street-supers also pop up to fight local crime. You know how that goes. Sometimes well, sometimes not.”

  Weiss shook her head. The curling smoke snaked in front of her.

  “Too short-staffed to even effectively discourage people from putting on a home-made mask and trying to take on their local gang boss. We’re failing the people. What about Sector-Class?”

  “More of the same. Hellsister’s patrolling the West. The Astro Family has the Midwest, Trailblazer the South. Nightmaster, Deepwatcher, and Dragon Kid are doing the best they can covering the eastern seaboard. Moonclaw is watching over the Northwest, but she and we both know she isn’t really Sector-Class. No one has failed any assignments yet, but there hasn’t been much to test them. Sectors need to be smaller, with more coverage. Way smaller, like the size of states. Of course, that’s a dream until we have a few dozen more heroes and teams on that level. Until then, we have them patrol as efficiently as possible and support them however we can.”

  “I suppose that brings us to our investment in Pacific City,” Director Weiss said. “Agent Dodds, why don’t you take the floor.”

  She took Maloy’s place as the one standing.

  “Thank you, director. I’m happy to report that Rosewell Academy is fully operational after our first academic week.”

  Fully operational was a bit of a stretch, but Hogan let it slide.

  “Our students are underway in their studies. Already, we’re collecting valuable data on their abilities. I believe that Pacific City is still an ideal proving ground for their training before sending them off on individual assignments.”

  Director Weiss finished her cigarette, ashing it into oblivion.

  “I understand there have already been certain difficulties over the past few days.”

  “Yes.” Agent Dodds’ tone slid on the word. Surely she knew the director had her own eyes everywhere.

  “A few… overeager students have been involved in incidents already. The robbery near Neptune Market on Friday. An assault at a music venue on Saturday. And Vivian, the ollyrian. She’s exploring North America at a rate we can hardly keep up with. Social media is abuzz with sightings. Then, just this past night, a student was hospitalized with injuries that seem caused by powered individuals. The perpetrators remain unidentified for now.”

  “And all this is your school project going well?” Director Weiss asked. “I remain unconvinced this is better than a decentralized apprenticeship program.”

  Dodds was on slippery ground. Weiss smelled failure. She could pull the ambitious agent’s career with a word. This was what happened when you took a few big steps instead of many smaller ones. You didn’t have many past achievements to point to.

  To her credit, Dodds remained composed, her head high.

  “I understand that the launch of this program is off to a bumpy start. I’d like to propose something that may sound radical: moving up the timeline of introducing the Rosewell students to the world.”

  Senior BASTION agents were a remarkably unshakable bunch, but whispers tremored through their ranks at the suggestion. Weiss clenched her gloved fist to silence them.

  “Your students are acting out, disobeying your orders… and you want to give them more freedom and exposure?”

  “I believe the students are only acting out because they feel restricted,” Dodds said. “They’re young. They’re powered. They need an outlet besides each other. They need to come home tired and sore. I know they aren’t ready. We haven’t even begun their training. But the real world is training. They’ll stumble and get hurt. But they’ll learn. Headmaster Knapp agrees with this. So does Elias.”

  “Oh, well if the supervillain you hired agrees…”

  “Our country is yearning for a new generation of heroes. People feel we’re hiding something from them. And our students won’t stop leaving campus because we tell them to. We can monitor their power usage, and group them to keep each other safe. This way, we can be in control of the scenario.”

  Director Weiss was silent. Her expression unreadable in her mask of smoke and gloom.

  “Director,” Dodds pressed, “we all know why Pacific City was chosen for this program. The school was built over a pit of vipers. Our enemies are quietly consolidating power here. Our student attacked over this past night was likely the first clash with them. Their people move through the city with impunity, while ours are expected to hide? We are not weak. We are not passive. We are BASTION. They shouldn’t feel safe lurking under our noses.”

  Hogan held a breath. Dodds was on a knife’s edge right now. It was the only right move if she wanted to keep her momentum. But she was betting the farm on the outcome. The worst part was, he couldn’t even say the push was wrong. He just worried about the inevitable crossfire.

  “Fine,” Director Weiss said after what seemed like ages. “Debut them when you feel it’s time. As long as you’re aware it’s something that can’t be walked back. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “Thank you,” Dodds said with a relieved nod. “I won’t—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Weiss said with a tired wave. “Everyone except Hogan leave. I’m tired of looking at you. Impress me next week.”

  One by one, the other senior agents blinked away, leaving behind empty chairs. Two stood and left the room. Dodds glanced at Hogan before disappearing.

  Director Weiss, or Evelyn as Agent Hogan thought of her when they were alone, came around the table and sat by her old colleague. She put her feet up on the table and leaned back. In the light, her face was surprisingly unwrinkled, but not youthful. The weight of what she did pressed down on her at all times. White bled through her chestnut hair.

  “One day, you’re gonna have to share whatever juice they feed you directors to keep you so young on the outside,” Hogan said.

  Evelyn smiled with a sharp look. “I’ll give you all of it. You should have been made director when the old bastard croaked. I’d switch places with you.”

  “You know I belong out there,” Hogan said.

  “And I don’t? The only good work I ever did was out there. Ten thousand bureaucrats, and they make their best tool a leader.”

  “If Debrue wanted a bureaucrat he would’ve picked one,” Hogan reminded her. “Did you really think you could keep just crossing names off lists for BASTION forever?”

  “Of course not,” Evelyn said. “I also would have kept screwing any man in a costume who so much as looked at me forever.”

  The two of them shared a small laugh.

  “How’s the hunt going?”

  Just like that, back to business.

  “It’s a strange one,” Hogan told her. “I keep trying to feel the edge of it to box it in, and it just keeps going. This thing has deep roots. Pre-Invasion roots, almost certainly.”

  “These ones who altered the girl. Do you think they’re connected to this wider conspiracy in Pacific City?”

  “It would make sense why they fled to there. Where their money and connections come from. But I’m not sure why they would hand her off to us. The girl at the school who’s involved, doctor says he’s never seen anything like her before. No ultra-gene, but she’s going to get stronger and tougher. At that school? It’s inevitable.”

  “We could use that,” Evelyn said.

  Hogan looked at her, knowing Evelyn would understand the root of his worries.

  “Building a school for teenagers who will grow up to be superheroes is one thing. Turning them loose onto what’s out there…”

  “Not like Kristen,” Evelyn said, shaking her head. “No more like Kristen.”

  Hogan could believe a lot of his director’s lies. That one was hard to swallow. But he let it go. He wasn’t in charge of the powered youths.

  The director groaned as she let her legs down and stood.

  “We need to right the ship before we’re through,” Evelyn said. “Keep working at it. We’ll crack these bastards. All of them.”

  She walked around the table to leave. But Hogan didn’t disconnect. So the director hovered at the doorway.

  “I’m not afraid of them ending up like Kristen.”

  “Then what are you afraid of?”

  “The real hard part about raising superheroes. Convincing them, despite all evidence, that they should listen to us mortals.”