“Mister Harkeem?”

  Isaac looked up from his fish and chips, a meal that was a little at odds with Harkeem’s fastidious persona, but when Rebecca had asked to meet him at the harbor he couldn’t resist. Most of the time he was on the complete opposite side of the city, and rarely had the chance to be by the ocean. He’d have more chances now, though, since he was a freer agent than before.

  “I am Harkeem,” he said, studying the reporter. She was as he remembered, a slim brunette wearing glasses, and dressed in a severely cut red pantsuit with her hair tied back in a bun. A few miles west, closer to the docks, she would have been out of place, but in the upscale harbor district both of them were, if anything, under-dressed. “Mrs. Rogers?”

  “Miss, actually,” Rebecca said, taking a seat at the other end of the table and placing a briefcase on the floor next to her chair. “You certainly have me intrigued, but do you have any way to verify the information you’re offering?”

  “I do, actually.” He set down his knife and fork and reached into his own small bag that he’d brought, retrieving one of the tapes he’d made. “In addition to the important material, there are several times and places that can be cross-referenced, and photostats of documents that should match the known signature.” He didn’t want to say Blacktime’s name aloud, just in case. The man hadn’t become a crime lord just on the strength of his power alone. “With them are the original, encrypted files. Obviously I cannot tell you exactly how I obtained these documents, but that should be enough to check the authenticity.”

  “Perhaps so,” Rebecca said, trying to be cool and disinterested, entirely professional, but Isaac had done enough acting to recognize the mask. She was interested, and rightfully so — being able to break a story on the largest crime lord’s secret dealings was something that could make her career. “Though more information would certainly help.”

  “Not just yet,” Isaac said, shaking his head in amusement. “There might be more coming, but we will have to see what the reaction is initially. I would not want to burden you overmuch with potentially dangerous information if it will not see use.” He was half telling the truth, as there were other reporters and if Rebecca couldn’t get it published, he was sure someone else could. She knew that too, so keeping some back was an incentive for her to push as hard as possible.

  “I suppose I can understand that,” Rebecca said, regarding Isaac for a moment and then opening her briefcase. “Mister Harkeem, I would love to run this story, and will keep your anonymity as a source, but I would like you to answer a few questions for the record.” She took a tape recorder out of the briefcase, sliding aside the napkins to set it down on the table and plugging in a mini-microphone. After rattling off her name, date, and a few brief comments – and not mentioning the name of Harkeem – she nodded to him.

  “Do you state for the record that everything you are supplying is, to your best knowledge, authentic?”

  “I do,” Isaac said, leaning a little bit into the southerner accent. He’d been spending some time practicing and improving it, trying to give his Harkeem persona a bit more foundation.

  “And that you are supplying this information of your own free will?”

  “I am.”

  “And that Star Daily is free to make use of this information in any way we deem fit?”

  “You are.”

  “Then that’s it.” Rebecca flipped off the recorder and put it away in her briefcase, holding out her hand for the tape drive. Isaac handed it over, and Rebecca looked at it thoughtfully before carefully stowing it away. “How may I contact you, Mister Harkeem?”

  “You won’t,” Isaac said. “I’ll contact you after the story runs — or after it doesn’t.” It was appropriately mysterious, but more pragmatically Isaac didn’t have a phone, not since he’d abandoned the apartment. Nor did he have something like the comm badges that Crash’s people wore, though those weren’t hooked into the phone lines anyway.

  “Hm,” Rebecca said, clearly unhappy, but then drew herself up to be professional again. “In that case, a pleasure doing business with you, Mister Harkeem.”

  “Likewise,” Isaac said, rising to shake the extended hand, and watched her leave. Once he was certain she had gone into the parking lot, and wasn’t waiting around to tail him – reporters were notoriously over-curious – he paid for his lunch and left. While he could hunker down and wait, he didn’t like being passive, and it would probably be a poor idea for Chains to simply vanish right before something broke. The persona was cover, but not one that would stand up if supervillains started looking for him with cause.

  Once he changed back into the ganger persona, he made the long trek over to the slums. Surprisingly, the building had been fixed up in the couple days he’d been gone, the fa?ade restored and the defenses hidden. Though Isaac figured they’d probably move at some point, since whatever anonymity the location provided had been entirely compromised.

  The front door was locked and the lights were off, though, so he continued down toward Lovely’s. There he got a second surprise, because it had been cleaned up – even if it still looked well-worn – and there was someone behind the bar. The only customers were Crash’s metas, all of them in their usual spots save for the Smack Twins.

  “Chains!” Banshee called as he walked in, waving enthusiastically and getting a glare from Smokeshow. “Where have you been?”

  “Library,” Isaac replied succinctly, both because it was true and because he needed to push the Chains persona outside of a dumb brute. Inviting Smokeshow to the convention really had been a mistake, but he had to roll with it now. It didn’t hurt that it was amusing enough to get some laughs, and a smirk from Smokeshow.

  “Seriously though, what class are you?” It was Blast Fist, who was eyeing Chains more appraisingly than before. “I heard that even top heroes have trouble with those things, so how the heck did you take one out?”

  “Don’t know. So, library,” Isaac demurred with a shrug. Better to play it off as a lucky coincidence than let anyone think he was particularly powerful. He didn’t want to get roped into any high-power standoffs, especially since getting effortlessly kicked through a building had absolutely driven home he wasn’t equipped for it.

  “Yeah, well, Crash was looking for you,” Banshee said, shooting a less-than-complimentary look Smokeshow’s way. Isaac recognized – if belatedly – the signs of jealousy or, at least, social conflict, and made a mental note to stay out of it. “Why don’t you go with your new girlfriend and find him?”

  Isaac suppressed a sigh, his determination to keep at a remove immediately trampled on. He’d exchanged maybe fifty words with Smokeshow, and probably wouldn’t even consider her much more than an acquaintance, but he also couldn’t let such catty nonsense pass. As Isaac he had no idea what to do, but as Chains it was easy enough. He pushed as much inertia as he could into his clothes and himself and stomped forward, creating the impression of unutterable heaviness as he swept toward Banshee’s table. She blinked at him, leaning back in her chair, but he stopped just short and stared at her, saying nothing.

  “I, uh…” Banshee said, and Blast Fist stood up, looking like he was ready to go toe-to-toe with Isaac. But instead of saying anything, he just continued to stare at Banshee. Chains wasn’t well-spoken and voluble, not enough to play Banshee’s game, but he could absolutely intimidate. Since he wasn’t even doing anything, anything Blast Fist tried would make it seem like it was him picking the fight. Which didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to throw down with Chains, but under the circumstances it seemed unlikely. None of the metas there seemed to be leaders.

  “…didn’t mean anything,” Banshee muttered at length. Isaac didn’t let her off the hook immediately, holding the glare on her until he was satisfied she was thoroughly cowed before turning away. The juvenile power-jockeying was an annoying game, but one he’d had to learn to play. Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised it was endemic to ganger life, but he had hoped to leave that behind when he’d left the foster home. Maybe he’d just been independent too long.

  Knowing he wouldn’t get anything more in terms of apology without something really drastic, he just raised his eyebrows at Smokeshow. If Crash wanted to see him, that wasn’t something he could really avoid, and the sooner it happened, the better. Smokeshow flicked her cigarette into the ash tray, looking at him for a few moments before blinking and then rising.

  “Yeah, dad did say to keep an eye out for you. Come on,” she said, beckoning him to follow her out of the bar. The bartender watched closely, enough that Isaac had to wonder if he was one of Crash’s direct subordinates, but that was all the speculation he had time for before Smokeshow led him out of the bar, and then not toward the building with all the security.

  “Blast is right, you know,” Smokeshow said conversationally as they strolled along the cracked sidewalk. “It’s weird that you could resist the suppression pulse. Dad’s been looking into those orbs, and it’s very temporary but still affects most supers.” She waved vaguely around them, as if taking in all the ganger metas.

  “It affected me,” Isaac said, feeling like didn’t have to be quite so monosyllabic with Smokeshow. She already knew he wasn’t a dumb brute. “The attack was just already in motion.”

  “Huh,” she said, glancing over at him. “You know, you act like you’re an old pro at this. Except you don’t seem to be all that interested in it, either.”

  “I’ve done a bunch of things,” Isaac said, not really wanting to properly answer the not-quite-a-question. After all, he wasn’t interested in being a ganger or a supervillain, and he didn’t want to risk lying about that.

  “Yeah, I just bet,” Smokeshow said, shaking her head as she strolled along the sidewalk. She didn’t bring up the convention, and neither did he. If she’d decided against it, he wasn’t going to try and push an idea he was already regretting.

  She turned in at a little laundromat, as worn out as the rest of the slums, with heavy-duty, credtab-operated machines. Some ordinary people were doing their laundry when Smokeshow and Isaac walked in, and they studiously ignored the gangers as Smokeshow led him to the back. The rear was stuffed with cardboard boxes and miscellaneous equipment that hadn’t yet found a home — including a minicomp, which might mean that the information Isaac had gotten was mostly old. Not that it mattered, as the point was to address Blacktime’s dealings, not Crash’s.

  Crash himself reclined on a small chair that looked like it was about to collapse under his weight, feet propped up on an over-cluttered desk as he watched a little television in the corner. A sports game of some sort, though Isaac couldn’t make out exactly who it was and Crash muted the volume before the announcers could say anything of import. It still took a couple of extra seconds for the man to tear himself away from the action to look at Smokeshow and Isaac.

  “Chains! Just the man I wanted to see!” He straightened up in the chair, which groaned and popped alarmingly as Crash rose, and slapped his hands together with a metallic impact. “Heard you went above and beyond when our little home got raided.” Isaac inclined his head, not sure either how to answer or where the conversation was going.

  “Can’t let it be said I don’t reward good work,” Crash said, rummaging through the mess of his desk before picking up a credstick. He tossed it to Isaac, who blinked at it before shoving it in his pocket as it was larger than the amount he’d gotten for the hijacking job. “But I’m sure you could use more than money. I can hook you up with our specialists, get you better duds, or whatever.”

  “Car plates,” Isaac said, suddenly seeing a solution to a problem he hadn’t really considered much for a while. He was sure his car registration was on a list somewhere, and while it wasn’t likely that he’d be picked up by a cop, out of all the millions of cars and people in Star City, the possibility was why he hadn’t been using it. But with replacement plates, he’d actually have substantive transportation again — and could always switch the plates back later.

  “Yeah? Hah.” Crash nodded and looked around the desk, shoving aside some papers to reveal a notepad and picked up a pen. “Guess I can’t be surprised you’ve got wheels. Good call not bringing it around here, by the way. You’d probably have to crack some heads before people started leaving it alone.” He scribbled a note and ripped it off the pad, handing to Isaac. “This’ll get you those plates, no charge.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Thanks,” he said, glancing over the note. It had an address and just a few words instructing one Dizzy to do exactly what Isaac had asked, along with Crash’s signature.

  “Why don’t you go take him over?” Crash said to Smokeshow, who grunted and turned to leave the office. Isaac followed, trying to show he wasn’t hurried, and when they left the laundromat, Smokeshow peered over at him.

  “A car, huh?”

  “A beater,” he said, not wanting to misrepresent himself. An ‘832 Odelle was not impressive by anyone’s standards, save maybe for it still being in good enough repair to run.

  “Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” she said, snorting. “We’re taking one of mine to the convention, then.” Isaac almost stumbled, but managed to nod, instead.

  “Sensible,” he said after a moment of contemplation. “No costumes, either.”

  “I thought it was all about costumes,” Smokeshow said, wrinkling her nose at him. The expression was cute on her, in a way that didn’t quite fit the goth image, or her ganger persona for that matter. In the same glance, he noticed she was stretching her legs, trying to match his stride, so he shortened his steps and she almost smiled.

  “Our own costumes,” he clarified. “Unless you have a super to dress up as.”

  “Oh. Nah.” Smokeshow shook her head, looking faintly embarrassed, and Isaac thought of the magical girl plushies that he’d caught a glimpse of in her room. In other circumstances he might have offered to make her something in that vein, but she probably didn’t want to admit to it and costume-making wouldn’t be part of Chains’ skillset anyway.

  “No work that day?” He prodded, finding it difficult to construct appropriately compressed questions when he wanted to be more specific.

  “Uh-huh.” Smokeshow sauntered along the sidewalk, giving a stray ganger a sneer but nodding to one of the actual residents of the area, a middle-aged woman lounging on the stoop of an apartment building with a lit cigarette pluming smoke. “The Mechaniacal thing’s messed with all the plans. Attacking dad? That’s just stupid, but it’s going on all over the Five Cities so the big shots are figuring out what to do about it.”

  “Star Central was having trouble,” he offered, remembering how he’d seen the heroes treating the spherical drones so cautiously, and of course the destroyed equipment from the hospital.

  “Yeah, that’s what dad said. That power suppressor is freaky.” Smokeshow shuddered.

  “Yes,” Isaac agreed, not needing to pretend the fervor. He hadn’t actually had nightmares, but the brief feeling of being trapped by his own powers had stuck in his mind.

  “I, uh,” Smokeshow tripped over her words briefly, which was the first time he’d seen her at a loss for words, but she recovered a moment later, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it before finishing her sentence. “Thanks. For getting rid of that thing.”

  “Anytime,” Isaac intoned in Chains gravely voice, and she chuckled, taking a deep drag of her cigarette.

  They reached their destination a few minutes later, what appeared to be a used car lot but was probably a chop shop, the two of them walking in to the sound of hammering, ratchets, and running engines. A big bald guy leaned against the counter, eyebrows practically touching as he squinted at a small television screen in the corner. Watching the very same game Crash had been, in fact.

  Smokeshow leaned against the wall inside the door, plucking another cigarette from somewhere and flicking the first one through the air to land neatly in an ashtray, so Isaac went forward and put the note on the counter with a heavy thump, just a touch of extra inertia giving the impact serious gravitas. The guy jumped, having been immersed in the game, and turned to look at Isaac. He took in the ganger style and his eyes flicked to Smokeshow before he smiled.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Plates,” Isaac said, pushing across the note. The man squinted at it, fished out a pair of glasses from under the counter, squinted at it more, then turned and yelled toward the garage.

  “Vinnie! Hey, Vinnie!” Somewhere out in the garage, clanging stopped and a young man with clear familial relation to the one at the counter appeared. Before he could ask a question, the bald man pointed at Isaac. “Plates! For a—” He looked Isaac’s way.

  “’832 Odelle,” Isaac supplied.

  “That!” The owner waved Vinnie away, and then looked at the game again before regarding Isaac.

  “We’ll getcha squared away. What boss-man wants, boss-man gets.”

  Isaac nodded, but didn’t really have anything to say to that as Chains. Instead he joined Smokeshow in leaning against the wall, the two of them waiting for the plates. Her hand brushed his arm, certainly not by accident, and he glanced over at her. She gave him a small smile, and he smiled back by reflex before realizing what he was doing. He really didn’t want to lead her on, despite being interested, because with all the issues Isaac had he sure wasn’t in a position to follow through.

  He couldn’t think of anything to say except, perhaps, to ask why none of her cigarettes carried the characteristic smell. He hadn’t decided on anything by the time Vinnie returned with a pair of worn, square pieces of metal with two rows of three letters.

  “’837 Odelle, but they look the same,” he said. “That’ll do ya?”

  “Yes,” Isaac said, stepping over to scoop up the plates, only barely remembering not to thank Vinnie politely. That wouldn’t have been in character. He turned and tilted his head at Smokeshow, and the two of them left the shop. “Better take care of this before it becomes a problem,” he said, hefting the plates. “If I don’t see you before then, Wednesday morning at the bar?”

  “Yeah,” Smokeshow said, peering over at him. “I’ve never been, do we need tickets or anything?”

  “I’ve got VIP passes,” he said, and she laughed. It was the first time he’d seen her actually amused.

  “Yeah okay, that works.” She stopped and turned to him. “Wednesday morning’s good, but don’t be a stranger.”

  “I won’t,” he said, trapped by the Chains persona despite his personal misgiving with his own relationship to Smokeshow. Though maybe he could resolve some of that by convincing her to abandon the life of a ganger. He didn’t think she was actually particularly happy with her role and social group, so perhaps it wouldn’t be all that hard. He’d have to check the files he’d recovered to see if she had some other family, though, because as a Lost Generation kid he wasn’t about to set someone against her father if that was all she had.

  In the meantime, he would get his car back. He wasn’t sure exactly how that moved him forward, but mobility was no small thing. With his first step done, and the information in the hands of the papers, he would have to figure out a way to help Cayleb. Or at least reach him, wherever he was in the depths of Star Central.

  Isaac might not have had any true ideas, but he knew he had to keep going forward.

  ***

  Administrator Ike settled his chair into the travel system with a long sigh, the magical suppressors taking over from the building’s wards and pushing away the reality tears, visions and distortions of his condition. The chair hummed as the containment cell unsealed itself, opening out onto the rear of Star Central. Unlike his normal life-support chair, the extra machinery of the travel chair was practically an aircraft, layers of metal and crystals from the Deep Kingdoms reproducing controls and constraints that had long ago been built into the architecture of Star Central.

  He guided the floating saucer out onto the tarmac where Princess Liesta waited, the runes on her skin glowing as she held communication with the array on the moon. Pale standing stones had been placed in a circle with six-foot-wide gaps between, just enough for his saucer to float through and join Liesta in the middle. Far above, the crescent of the moon was visible in the sky — their target. It was only during the new moon that travel was impossible.

  “Ready,” Ike told Liesta, who nodded to him and raised her hands. She chanted quickly in the native lunar language, something full of rolling trills and rumbles, and the runes inscribed on the standing stones lit. A swirl of purple mist rose around him, and for the moment everything tasted like limestone and strawberries. Weight dropped away, and the mist cleared to reveal the landscape of the moon.

  The sun hung low in the sky, light glittering off the immense metallic forests that filled most of the maria. The air smelled of things that had no earthly equivalent, and the life support in his chair grumbled as it switched to suppressing allergic reactions from the lunar equivalent of petrichor. Domes and spires of native lunar architecture crowded out the forest around them, almost blending into the foliage. Unlike on Earth, the constructions were of silver-grey ceramic, all of them glittering with small runes of lunar magic, providing light and heat in darkness, or shading from the month-long sun.

  Their destination was not in the city itself, but a large dome on a far hill, surrounded by the pale purple and blue vegetation of the moon’s surface. In the lighter gravity, Ike’s saucer easily rose in the air, and Liesta kept pace as they approached Mechaniacal’s prison. Not a prison of bars and chains, but one where the villain was surrounded by magic and stone and growing things, without any of the metal and glass that were necessary to create the terrible devices Ike had fought against decades ago.

  A pair of guards, tattooed head to foot in war-magic and clad in hand-stitched clothing, blocked his way, though of course they knew who he was. That was fine, and proper even. Ike would much prefer a respect for procedure, especially when it came to people as dangerous as Mechaniacal.

  “Two to visit the prisoner,” Liesta said, energizing her runes to project the seal of the royal family to demonstrate her identity, and the guards stood aside to let them into the grounds. The sensors in Ike’s chair had no trouble locating Mechaniacal, who was the only other human within a million miles. Liesta had her own means of discernment, and she flowed with languid grace in her native gravity as they walked around the central dome to the back garden where Mechaniacal was seated at a table made of magical force, with a bottle of wine and three glasses.

  He was a thin man with a sharp face and a pointed beard, dressed as he usually was in a charcoal-gray suit with a matching hat, looking out at the world through unnerving gray eyes. Yet the smile he offered as they approached was genuine — or appeared so, at any rate. Any visitor not familiar with the place would think that Mechaniacal was simply a gracious host, the master of the domain.

  “Ichabod,” he said in greeting, voice a controlled baritone. “Princess.”

  “Mechaniacal,” Ike returned, stopping the saucer a comfortable distance from Mechaniacal and the table. He wasn’t afraid, as such, and it wasn’t like Mechaniacal could whip up a doomsday device in a matter of moments just by touching the machine, but he was still a sovereign-class supervillain. Mechaniacal poured wine into the two free glasses, and Ike had to wonder exactly how Mechaniacal knew they were coming. He didn’t bother to ask, however, as he’d long gotten used to Mechaniacal showing off in that oddly understated manner.

  “What brings you by my humble home?” Mechaniacal asked, taking a sip of the lunar wine.

  “Your technology,” Ike said, as Liesta stepped forward with curiosity to take one of the wineglasses. “Someone has started unearthing caches of drones down on Earth, and begun taking bits and pieces from other places. Unfortunately, we still haven’t been able to break the stealth on your drones or shield against the power suppressors,” he said, hating to admit it, but that was hardly a secret from Mechaniacal. “So we have no idea who is doing it.”

  “My dear Ichabod, you came all this way to worry about someone playing with the few scraps and toys I left behind?” Mechaniacal lifted his eyebrows, waving a long-fingered hand at Liesa. “I don’t think you’d bother the princess simply for that.”

  “There’s another component,” Ike agreed, suppressing his irritation at Mechaniacal’s manner. Even in exile on the moon, the man acted like he was in charge of everything. “Several other supers have appeared from nowhere, and we’ve found traces of mind control being used. I suspect there may be a clairvoyant influencing all of this.”

  “Mind control?” Mechaniacal’s sharp eyebrows went upward as he looked at Ike with more consideration than before, then slowly shook his head. “If my drones with power suppression are being employed, as you say, then it seems unlikely any such control would stick. They are designed as a deterrent, a temporary inconvenience, but more than enough to purge any traces of influence. Now, it would hardly do anything about more conventional method of persuasion, but that would hardly be my problem.”

  “Do you know who is using your technology, then?” Ike asked directly, watching Mechanical closely — and with a number of esoteric sensors that did a fair job of determining truth from lie. Liesta had her own, magical version of the same, and was one of the main reasons for her presence.

  “No,” said Mechaniacal. Truth. “Yes,” he said a moment later, also truth.

  “Do you have to do that?” Liesta complained.

  “Forgive an old man his vagaries,” Mechaniacal said with a seated bow. “The timeline is much diverged from what I experienced. Many of the supers I once knew were never born; many of those alive now are entirely new to me. I only knew of one individual with clairvoyant powers, and he was in an asylum on Cutfish Island.” Ike made a note of that. It sounded unlikely, but any lead would help at this point, and so far Mechaniacal had not spoken a single lie.

  “Could you tell us about what you may have left down on Earth?” Ike asked, since even if it wasn’t clear who was involved, he could get an idea of how dangerous the threat ultimately was. Not that power suppression – the only wide-scale power suppression he’d ever encountered – wasn’t scary, and it could easily kill someone who flew or moved with super-speed, but it was still a threat only to individuals. Not to entire cities or countries.

  “If you are worried about my more interesting toys, then be assured none of my greater devices remain down on Earth,” Mechaniacal replied, taking a sip of the slightly-glowing wine. Liesta finally tried her glass, making a surprised face at the taste, but Ike wasn’t about to trust the man even that far. “However, any tinker who is following in my footsteps is capable of turning even the simplest of creations into something dangerous. Destruction is so very simple, after all.”

  “You say that, yet you never managed to destroy the world,” Ike said dryly.

  “My dear Ichabod, I was never trying to destroy it,” Mechaniacal chided him. “Only bend it a little bit. Even you would have to admit there are a great many things that are out of shape.”

  “That’s not for you to decide,” Ike said, though his mind was already elsewhere. Mechaniacal had actually provided exactly the sort of intelligence that Ike had gone to the moon to get. There were no ready doomsday devices, nothing that he had to worry about their mystery villain unearthing — but they were still a threat as a tinker. Not so great a threat as Mechaniacal, of course, but still a problem.

  “We all bend our will upon the world,” Mechaniacal disagreed. “It has always been the case that some have more influence than others. Sometimes people are in alignment, and sometimes they are not. The world runs best when we all mesh together…” He interlocked his own fingers in demonstration. “Alas, people are not gears, so there is always conflict.”

  “An interesting philosophy, considering you’re stuck here,” Liesta said.

  “My dear, what makes you so sure I am not exactly where I want to be?” Mechaniacal smiled broadly, lifting his glass to the Princess.

  “He’s just like that, Moonblast,” Ike sighed, before Liesta could take offense. “Thank you for the information, Mechaniacal. I’ll see about having something on the approved list sent up.”

  “It was merely a trifle,” Mechaniacal said, waving it off. “The news you brought was more than enough.”

  Ike started to ask what he meant, then stopped. The villain was likely just trying to get under his skin, or pry for something of real import. But it did make Ike certain that everything came back to the fake Mechaniacal — and he thought there might well be a lead on that. A villainess in a power armor suit that had appeared from nowhere, and vanished into nowhere. Power armor was rare enough, taking a very specific kind of tinker to make it work, and required a lot of infrastructure, so one appearing with no warning was an oddity. An oddity that had shown up just before the first Mechaniacal thefts, and preceded the other two strange supers – one villain, one vigilante – by more than a week. He would have to hunt down Dimetria.

  So long as no other crisis arose in the meantime.

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