The week spent prepping for the arrival of relief supplies had been hell. Well. It would probably be more accurate to say that Sunday, when Leviathan attacked, was hell. The week following had been… purgatory, or something. I’m not all that up on my religious metaphors, so sue me.

  The ship had arrived just slightly ahead of schedule, very early Saturday morning. It dropped anchor outside the bay to wait for the sun to rise before docking. Mostly out of an abundance of caution, but I wasn’t going to complain about taking our time to make sure things went as smoothly as possible. It felt like a boulder rolled off my back when it was finally moored, and the DWU started to unload the vessel.

  In the back of my mind, I’d been afraid that maybe we had missed something, or that some unknown other dangers were lurking under the surface of the bay and the channel.

  I’d swum around on the seabed obsessively checking for any debris during the cleanup operation. Things had gone off according to plan, and it had been less of an issue dealing with the rotting hulks of the sunk vessels than first thought.

  Turns out that controlled demolition truly was Faultline’s area of expertise. Legend had also gotten involved and assisted with two of the ships that were in deeper water. He’d used freezing lasers–don’t ask me how that worked–to freeze columns down to where the wrecks were on the seabed. Digging out an access shaft in the ice was child’s play for him. We’d had the bay cleared by Thursday afternoon.

  When all was said and done, there were thousands of relatively tiny chunks of steel sinking into the mud and sand under the bay. After some talks with people smarter than I am on the matter, it was determined that leaving them in place to rust away wouldn’t cause any serious ecological damage, and so the hardest part of the operation had been eliminated. Of course, there was a big asterisk on the report next to the line about minimal impact on the local ecology. Namely, that the area was already pretty messed up by having the contents of the bay dumped on land, and then having huge amounts of pollutants backwash into the sea.

  There wasn’t much we could do about that fact at the moment. Ongoing cleanup operations were using the few functional boats already. The biggest concern had been recovering the bodies of people who had lost their lives to the tsunamis.

  I tried not to think about that too much. It tended to get me heading off to a dark place mentally. There was more than enough work for me to sink my claws into. Small blessings.

  In the past week, I basically hadn’t stopped to come up for air for any serious length of time. I had been sleeping four hours a day, and then was on my feet the remaining twenty. I’d be lying if I said that I was doing well, but I was doing well enough. Part of me was driven to get as much done as possible, and a much smaller part of me was nagging that I was using the work to avoid dealing with the other issues that were slowly accumulating.

  I just… didn’t want to process the grief at the moment. It would have to wait. Other people were working through their own issues, and somebody had to keep the place from burning down.

  Acclimating to less sleep had been easy. Of course, I’d cheated and used my power. The request for less sleep had gone through without so much as a ripple or any obvious physical effects or changes. When I’d done it, I had thought that nothing had changed, which was odd. I had been debating seeing how much further I could push it. Miss Militia, who was directly training me when the time permitted, was one of the noctis capes who didn’t sleep. So it was very convenient for us to line up our schedules in the dead of night, provided we weren’t busy doing patrols or other work. I hadn’t made up my mind yet if I want to press my power about eliminating the need for sleep. I’d noticed a clear trend by now, which was that non-temporary changes I requested, or that my power pressed on me, tended to come with unexpected consequences.

  Speaking of those consequences. The challenges presented by my size and usual shape were never more pronounced than when I was spending a lot of time at PRT HQ. I felt a constant sense of pressure to disguise myself in the building. Not that anyone else was pressuring me into it; it was the trappings of my own mind. As strange as it was to think of working as my human self as being in disguise, I knew the truth of it. I could feel it in my bones.

  Adding to the pile of ‘things I don’t want to have to parse through right now’ was the fact that I just… didn’t like being in disguise. It was uncomfortable, like an itch in my head I couldn’t scratch. I felt slow, weak, blind, deaf… Truthfully, as much as I felt incapable, I also felt vulnerable in ways that made me uneasy. And all of that was bad enough on its own, but I’d had a moment very early Wednesday morning. I’d taken a shower and was getting dressed. I’d looked in the mirror in the bathroom as Morgan Rivera… and I hadn’t recognized myself.

  I’d tried to rationalize things off as being the result of the creeping bleed I’d been experiencing for weeks now. The stubborn changes that didn’t seem to want to go away when I was in disguise. My nails, my teeth, and something that I couldn’t quite put my claws on. I’d studied myself in the mirror after making the realization. Pulled up some photos and compared myself side-by-side. As far as I could tell, I was able to narrow it down to two things.

  One was that there was something subtly different about my body language, or perhaps just the way I was holding myself upright. I doubt that anyone else would be able to tell, even if they were very observant, but there was something just… off about the me in the mirror. Maybe it sounds cliche or stupid, but the me in the mirror had an edge? A sharpness or something. I looked at the woman in the mirror, and the impression I was left with was that this was someone dangerous. Predatory. The thing was, I wasn’t trying to be when I was standing there in my underwear with a towel hanging from my neck. Nothing I was doing lent itself to the impression I was getting, and yet it was there.

  The other thing that was bothering me was equally ephemeral, and maybe a touch more confounding. I just wasn’t making that mental connection of self-recognition. I looked in the mirror, and the unconscious conclusion that my mind drew was ‘that looks like Morgan Rivera.’ But notably, it wasn’t ‘that’s me.’ It was frustrating and a little unsettling. I did my best not to dwell on it. I knew I was a giant blue monster and that this was just a fancy outfit I was wearing around part of the time. Whatever.

  When I wasn’t in disguise, I was constantly reminded that I didn’t fit into normal spaces. There was no getting around the fact that I was fucking huge. It wasn’t nearly as bad in the fire station because the place was very roomy, made with the ability to move around big things, and for people wearing bulky gear to get around easily. Most of the doors were double doors, the ceilings were high, and the building was all concrete and steel, made for durability and utility over comfort and curb appeal.

  Being in PRT HQ, I was always having to watch my claws on the flooring and head on the ceiling. When I was forced to go through a standard-sized single doorway, it involved ducking, shimmying, and twisting my way through. Director Piggot was very helpful in getting me set up in a space near the top floor that suited me better. It was previously a large office space. The furniture and cubicles were taken down and moved out, and it was reappropriated into an office for me.

  Right now, it was pretty barebones. I had a desk and a few chairs for meetings, as well as a handful of secure filing cabinets for storage. One of my two beanbags. Colin had come up from his ‘private quarters’ and helped install a complicated-looking rig for computer monitors and input devices. After a little bit of testing, we’d stumbled across a new ability… of sorts.

  It wasn’t news to anyone who had taken more than a cursory glance at me that I had an abundance of both eyes and limbs. Well. I had an abundance of lots of things, but those two are the relevant ones here. I was able to control all those things independently without even a thought or ounce of effort on my part. After setting up six monitors with a mouse and keyboard, Colin was observing me to make sure the ergonomics were working well for my rather unusual circumstances. I wasn’t really paying attention to the fact that I was typing up a report with a few tentacles, rummaging through a filing cabinet with a few more, and texting on my PRT phone, all at the same time, until he’d brought it to my attention.

  He’d pushed me to see what my abilities were with using multiple computers. That might have gone into a bit of a nerding-out session. Adjustments and additions were made to rig up additional monitors, keyboards, and mice. We settled on six sets consisting of one monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and then an additional four monitors I could display more static information on, like camera feeds, chat windows, spreadsheets, and the like. By the time we were done, there was a semi-circular and very daunting-looking computer setup that would look perfect for some scheming tinker-mastermind supervillain.

  I told him as much, and I got a snort out of him. He’d told me that he had a not-too-dissimilar setup in his workshop and quarters.

  On the topic of Colin, things had been… odd with him. There were internal reviews going on with the higher-ups within the PRT as to what to do with him. He’d broken the number one rule in Endbringer fights, and it’d gotten multiple people killed. His initial admissions had been that he’d only intended for villains to die, but even that was unacceptable. One of those lies you wrap yourself in like a safety blanket to self-justify your actions, no doubt.

  So, for now, he was under house arrest and only let out of his handful of approved spaces in the tower on an as-needed basis. And he wasn’t allowed to costume up and work at all. Medical leave following the loss of his arm was the official story with the wider PRT. The city was still dysfunctional enough that the press wasn’t a concern at the moment. I was thankful for that.

  Colin had changed, too. I guess he had his own version of hitting rock bottom. He’d been quiet, listening more than he was speaking, and only really contributing when it was warranted. A pretty large departure from his normal, arrogant, and overbearing self. Keeping an eye on him was now officially part of my job duties, one of countless other things I was managing. I tried to make time to visit him at least once a day. I couldn’t help myself. I was concerned about his well-being, despite everything we’d personally been through and the things he’d done. He was also a good source of information, tips, and tricks for trying to learn the ins and outs of my new role.

  I was currently rotating between Hana, Colin, and Dragon for advice and training. I wasn’t supposed to be talking to Colin about such things, but it wasn’t like anyone was doing anything about it. It would have been foolish in my mind not to try and learn what I could from my immediate predecessor. It had been nice getting back in more regular contact with Dragon. We’d been keeping in touch during my departure from the PRT off and on, but now it was unusual for me not to have a secure IM conversation with her open on my computer when I was in the office.

  A muffled beep in my hair roused me from my contemplative doze. I’d started allowing myself a small break at some point during the day, at the persistent insistence of Miss Militia. The single best place I’d found to clear my head and relax was still at the bottom of the Bay, and so that’s where I was. I didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t get any cellular signal in the event of an emergency, but Hana had remained firm that they would be fine without me. I tried to keep my breaks under an hour in duration.

  I brought my tail into motion and started to head for the shore. The bay, even under normal circumstances, didn’t have particularly clear water. It was usually some shade of murky green, but the tsunamis had turned the water such a dark brown it was nearly black. It also tasted off, as odd as that might be to say. Traces of metallic and alkali flavors tinged it from what I remembered from before the disaster.

  I breached the surface near the shore and continued out of the water on all fours. The storms from a few days ago had mostly cleared out, leaving a partially cloudy sky. The sun was currently out. It was fairly early still, not quite noon, but I’d been up nearly twelve hours already. I retrieved my work and personal electronics from a small satchel I’d slung over an intact streetlight. Not the most secure place to stick my stuff for a quick dip, but it wasn’t like most people were walking around with ladders. The devices were locked and encrypted, so I wasn’t terribly worried.

  I sent off a status update to Miss Militia on my PRT phone before pulling out my personal phone.

  Shit. I had six missed calls in the past 10 minutes. That wasn’t good.

  All were from Amy. I tried to remember where she was today as I unlocked my phone and dialed her back.

  Oh, right. She’s at the station today. Hard to keep track of so many people sometimes.

  She picked up on the second ring. “Apex?”

  The use of my cape name and the stress in her voice made my gut clench.

  “Sorry, I wasn’t available. Are you okay?” I kept my own voice level.

  “Y-yeah, nobody’s hurt at the moment. Can you get over to the station, like now?”

  I was already taking to the air. “Be there in a few minutes. I’m not far.”

  There was shouting in the background, multiple voices that I couldn’t make out. “I gotta go before someone starts shooting. Situation is tense, so uh… careful when you get here. Bye.”

  I secured the phones in my hair when she hung up and tore through the air over the city. I wasn’t concerned about trying to be subtle or stealthy, and my mind was racing with the possibilities of what might be going on.

  She said the situation is tense. So… maybe not under attack per se, but something adjacent? A hostage situation? One of the refugees losing their shit?

  The station was in sight. Over the course of the week, the place had more or less exploded in size. The Dockworker’s Union had ‘salvaged’ several dozen shipping containers, which had been repurposed into housing units. Being completely honest, many of the containers that they had brought over had some level of damage that would make them unsuitable for their original purpose. But we had Manpower and George on our side. Neil could knock out bent or buckled sections with his strength, and George… George was some kind of wizard with an arc welder.

  That’s about all I knew about the guy. Sure, my attention was heavily divided between here and the PRT, the latter of which was consuming the bulk of my time. But the guy had just shown up with the clothing on his back, one of over a hundred refugees we were sheltering now, and said he was good with handyman stuff. He might have been underselling things a little. He was now the go-to at the station for fixing anything from a broken-down car to hooking up fresh plumbing or wiring in additional electrical service.

  A four-by-three stack of containers stood inside the walls near the main gates, along one side where they weren’t blocking access in and out. They’d been in temporary housing at first, and still were, but to a lesser extent. As the need for more staple services had grown as the population had exploded, we’d been steadily relocating people out of those containers and repurposing them into a dedicated medical clinic, kitchen, and storage for communal-use supplies.

  There was a small pop-up town circling the walls of the station, boxy constructions of steel, wood, and plastic tarpaulin. The mosaic of colors of the various shipping containers had only grown more vibrant with the addition of layers of graffiti of varying levels of skill and talent. Paint by the bucket was easy to source and a good form of entertainment for the restless youth. As I circled overhead and prepared to land, my eyes swept over the complex that the station had evolved into.

  I cringed a little when I saw several daubed images of crude stick-figure me fighting various ‘bad guys.’ The one where I was standing on top of a big, dead aqua-colored blob with X’s for eyes wasn’t so bad. At least I wasn’t alone on the artistic rendition front. I saw a few Glory Girls and Laserdreams, two Alexandrias, four Legends with rainbow lasers, and even a Skitter!? No Eidolon. Either they were haters, or we were out of green paint. Hard to tell.

  There was a singular flag snapping on the flagpole on top of the station roof. Originally, the topic of what to fly was a little contentious. If you did a head count, New Wave was, by far, the majority. Someone, not one of the capes in our group, had suggested a Protectorate flag. Taylor had spoken up and reminded the group that we’d set out to be welcome to all, and that putting up hero-aligned flags might scare off any potential comers from the ‘other’ side. A valid point.

  Crystal, Victoria, Amy, and Taylor had retreated into the room the three shared and brainstormed. What came out of that session was what was now flying overhead. Crystal had done the art–she was really quite talented–for the flag. It was plain white cloth, and front and center was a black outline in the shape of Leviathan with a giant black X superimposed over top. Underneath, in bold block lettering, it said: “BROCKTON STRONG.” It was instantly and wildly popular. People had taken quite a number of photos of the design and had posted them online.

  A trip to the Pelhams’ home had Victoria and Crystal returning with supplies that New Wave used to make their own branding merch. Crystal had been laser-cutting out designs with her power and ironing them on to hand out to people. She enjoyed doing it, and keeping busy was helping her work through the loss of her brother, Eric. Her mom had insisted that at least some New Wave shirts were included in the mix.

  I noted that the courtyard was remarkably empty for this time of day. Normally, the gates would be open and the place would be milling with people. The gates were closed, and there wasn’t hardly a soul to be found out and about.

  Ah, yep. That would be why.

  Two members of Chess team were on the wall, one on each side of the gate. Both were standing and trying to look casual, but I could see that each had their hands close to their guns. Amy was standing in front of the gate, the bottoms of her Panacea robes filthy from where they were soaking up the standing water in the street. She was animatedly talking with her hands. Leaned against the wall with one foot up and her arms crossed over her chest was Skitter, looking casually bored. I knew her better than that. She’d be ready to spring into action at the drop of a pin.

  Standing several feet away and facing Amy was one of the giantess twins, looking large but not large-large. Maybe eight or nine feet tall. Enough to dwarf Amy. She had one hand on her spear, the butt resting on the pavement under the water. She had the other hand extended, pointing a finger at Amy.

  All three looked up as I whump-whump-whumped overhead. Amy and the giantess clammed up and covered their faces with their hands, which was smart. The downwash from my wings was blasting filthy street water everywhere. Getting that stuff in your mouth was probably really not good for you. Doing my best to avoid blowing the spray at the small group of people, I dropped to the street with a loud splash. I folded my wings behind me and kept my stance relatively neutral as I approached at a leisurely looking pace.

  Reports were that Fenja died in the Leviathan battle, so this should be Menja. It would be pretty easy to fake one over the other, but I can’t think of a reason why you would. I’ll assume that this is Menja.

  Amy and Menja had been facing one another, with Skitter off to the side. I strolled up to a position that would complement addressing any of the three. A fourth leg on the table, so to speak. That exposed most of my right flank to a potentially hostile third party. Let her think that I was being tactically dumb if she wanted. My goal here was to de-escalate and figure out why she was here.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  There were a number of capes in the city that were potentially dangerous to me in a direct confrontation. The giantess twins were one of them. It wasn’t just that they could outscale me and overpower me. Their powers also had that special bullshit element of breaking physics in ways mine didn’t. The bigger they grew, the more resistant to harm they became, and it was a multiplicative effect when combined. Anyone who could tank direct hits from an Endbringer was dangerous.

  I suppose that includes me as well. I’m not sure if my coming here is going to put additional pressure on her, but let’s hope she doesn’t do anything drastic.

  The three were quiet as I squatted and sat in the murky water. Menja was wearing her valkyrie-themed armor and still had her spear held at rest. She had a large shield strapped to her other arm. The armor itself looked finely made and probably cost a small fortune to fabricate. There were wing motifs etched into the metal plates, and wing adornments on the shoulders, her helmet, bracers, and belt. I couldn’t see the face of her shield from this angle. Despite appearing very well-made, the armor was also sort of… trashy? Risque? I wasn’t sure what word it was that I’d use to describe it, but it was sort of video game covergirl styled in the cut and coverage.

  What I’m trying to say here is that she had quite a bit of thighs on display between her knee boots and armored skirt, and there was an emphasis on the breast part of the breastplate.

  I’m not staring. My eyes just wander naturally. It’s a creepy monster predator thing.

  I’d apparently interrupted something between her and Amy. Nobody was speaking, but there was the body language of a lingering argument, and Amy looked a touch flushed in the cheeks. To be expected, she had quite a temper at times.

  Skitter was her usual self. She’d shifted as I had come up, and had a hand resting behind her lower back.

  I could see Menja’s hand clench on her spear as Skitter had reached around behind her back, and she repositioned her feet to better face the three of us. Scowling at Skitter, she didn’t take her eyes off the black-and-gray clad girl.

  “Going to pull a gun on me, Skitter? Wouldn’t be the first time your crew has done something cheap like that.” Menja’s tone was icy.

  Skitter shrugged one shoulder and pulled her hand out from behind her back and flipped it around to show it was empty, then crossed it back over her chest.

  “Wouldn’t need one in the first place. Bigger they are, harder they fall, blah blah.” A few dark-colored moths hopped off the wall behind her and fluttered in lazy patterns over her head.

  My personal phone vibrated in my hair. I slithered my hair around and stole a glance at it out of one of my rearmost eyes, hopefully without revealing what it was I was doing. Only the people who knew me knew that I kept some odds and ends tucked away in my hair.

  It was a text from a number I didn’t recognize.

  Local Area #: dnt sens ne1 els e88 arond. thnk shes alon -s

  Huh. I didn’t see anyone else either when I was coming in. Streets are fairly quiet at the moment.

  I tucked my phone back away and interrupted Menja when she looked like she was about to deliver a retort to Skitter.

  “So… Menja, right? What’s the purpose of the visit today?”

  She closed her mouth and fixed me with her glare instead of Skitter. “Yeah. And what are you, a customs agent? Want to check my baggage?”

  I cracked my jaw and licked the part of my head where lips would normally be.

  Salty.

  “I guess you could say that. This is my place, and the people here are my friends and guests. I take their safety pretty seriously.” The rumble of my voice was making tiny ripples in the water directly under my upper chest. I was grinning internally.

  She stared at me for a long moment, then Menja looked over at Amy. “Really? He runs this place? How come all of New Wave is crawling all over it?”

  Amy responded by crossing her arms over her chest and harrumphing like a cranky middle-aged man.

  Skitter spoke up and answered instead: “Yes, she does own and run the station.”

  I typically made a point of not correcting potential opponents when they misgendered me. I didn’t want them to feel like they had something to twist against me. Still, I did really appreciate Taylor setting things straight on that front for me. Have to watch each other’s backs and all.

  Menja looked back over at me with a blank look on her face. With a flex of my tail, I sat upright, placed one hand on my hip, and then ran my claws through my tentacles like I was in a shampoo commercial.

  “Personally, I think I look fabulous. What do you think, Amy? Is today a good hair day?”

  Amy nodded rapidly and jumped straight into the bit. “You do the tousled look the best, Apex.” She raised her nose and sniffed the air. “Is that Eau d’Atlantic you’re wearing today?”

  I sighed dramatically. “It was out of stock, so I had to settle for Kelp Number 9. Besides, I wanted to support local businesses, and everyone knows that we’re world-famous for our algae products on the Gulf of Maine. ”

  Amy nodded sagely in her hooded robes. I made a mental note to make it up to her later because the smell around the station, while not as bad as other parts of the city, certainly wasn’t great.

  “Is everything just a joke to you? Is that what this is?” Menja asked. She gestured at the station with her free hand. “Just a comedy club?”

  I did an open-armed shrug then dropped back down onto all fours. Answering the thinly-veiled insult seriously, I told her, “I’d call it Apex’s Big Top Circus City if it meant the people here got to take their mind off their situation for fifteen minutes. We just call it the station. You can call it whatever you want. Names don’t matter; what matters is everyone gets safety, food, medicine, and shelter.”

  I waved a clawed lower hand at the gates and building rising up from behind them. “I’d say we’re doing a pretty good job at the moment. Better than most places in the city, but I wouldn’t want to brag too much. It’s thanks to a lot of hard work by everyone involved.”

  I turned my angular head back towards Menja directly and tried to give the impression that I was looking at her with more than a dozen inky orbs.

  “Well?” I asked her.

  Let her come out with it herself. I’m honestly interested in why she’s here.

  “Well, what?” she asked testily.

  “I was still waiting to hear the purpose of the visit today.”

  Her jaw flexed as she gritted her teeth. She just stood there, stiff as a board, as the moments passed by in silence. I just waited her out. Amy took a half-step forward and looked like she was about to say something at one point, but I just held a hand out to her to politely ask her to hold whatever it was for the time being. Amy looked mildly peeved at the request, but she complied.

  Finally, Menja came out with it. “I want supplies. Food. Medicine. Electricity. My phone’s been dead for three days now.”

  I nodded slowly. “There’s a relief station being set up nearby. The closest one is going to be on the corner of Lord and Catawba. It should have opened yesterday, but I haven’t been over there myself to verify.”

  “You think I can just go up to a relief area swarming with PRT and ask for food!? Are you stupid?” She snapped back at me, gripping her spear tighter in her hand.

  “You could, yes. Nothing is making you go there as Menja. They ask for ID, but don’t require it. It wouldn’t be hard to just go in plain clothes, say you lost your ID. Literally the exact situation thousands and thousands of people are in currently.”

  “Yeah, well-” she jumped right back with another response hot on the heels of my reply. “-I had my identity dumped out for everyone in the world to know who I am under my armor.” She turned her head away from me to glare daggers at Skitter.

  “As my former teammate told your people, we weren’t responsible for that, and I don’t want anything to do with the people who did do it,” Skitter said, addressing the glare with the featureless gaze from her mask.

  “Yeah, real convenient for you.” She turned back to face me. “Anyways, that’s what I want.”

  I bobbed my head a little and cleared my throat. “Well, we certainly have those things, but we’re not a relief center; we’re a shelter. We could probably put something together for you today, but if you wanted anything more than a day or two’s worth of supplies, we’d have to discuss terms for an arrangement.”

  “You think I’m going to wait around so you can go call your buddies in the PRT to come arrest me?” Menja shifted back on her feet into a more defensive stance, and she looked up and down the two streets. She’d been regularly glancing about, but trying to be discreet about it.

  “Wouldn’t be a very good shelter if we were calling the cops on anyone with a questionable background, now would it?” I pointed at Amy in her Panacea robes, and then at Skitter. “We have, and have had, both heroes and villains here. As I said before, anyone who needs help is welcome–and that does mean anyone– provided you’re going to follow the rules we have.”

  I rose off my haunches and approached Menja. She turned to face me directly and picked the end of her spear up off the pavement and held it in both hands, angled across her chest. I just plodded along until I was just a few feet away from her. We were right about eye-level with one another when I was standing on all fours or sitting. This close to her, I was able to make out finer details without being obvious about it. Her hair was ratty in places, tangled and snarled. She wore eye black around her eyes–a practice more popular with capes who wore close-fitting masks, like domino masks–but I could see they were bloodshot, and she had bags under her eyes.

  Other little clues gave away the game. One of the wings on her shoulder and another on her bracer was snapped off and missing. She had bruises on her arms and legs that she was covering up with concealer. She definitely looked worse for wear up close.

  Still, she was proud to a fault, sticking her chin up and her chest out under the scrutiny. I was locked in at the moment, though, and the distracting swells weren’t going to pull my attention away.

  I picked back up from where I left off, standing idly in front of her, my tail lazily tracing figures in the air behind me. She kept up her defensive stance. I could tell she was on the edge, maybe in more ways than one.

  “If you want food, shelter, and the rest of it, you have to work. Everyone contributes. We have a big organized task board that’s set up every morning at the crack of dawn with all the jobs and tasks for that day. Four days a week, you pick whatever tasks you want. One day a week, you pick a red task of your choosing. We don’t make people work on days six and seven, but you earn points for special rewards if you do.”

  Menja snorted derisively. “What, are you running a kindergarten? Gold stars for little Timmy this week?”

  I shrugged one shoulder. “We have minors who work and get points, sure. With their parents’ permission, assuming they have any.” I did my best attempt at giving her a level look. “Are you really telling me that right now, you wouldn’t bust your butt if it meant getting a fresh pepperoni pizza straight out of an oven, an hour or two of dedicated media center time with whatever entertainment you want, or, for that matter, your own hot bath all to yourself?”

  Menja squinted at me, and her icy blue eyes roamed between the multitude of my own. It was a problem most people had, not being able to really tell how to make eye contact when you were staring at someone with more eyes than an arachnid.

  “You’re fucking with me. That’s your sales pitch to get people in and slaving away doing…” She released the lower hand she had placed on her spear and waved at the stack of shipping containers inside the walls. “...whatever homestead crap it is.”

  Amy was clenching her teeth and slowly turning a deeper shade of pink where she was off to one side. Positively fuming.

  That was fine. Cooler heads prevailing, or whatever. Nazi Barbie here wasn’t ruffling my feathers in the slightest. I was willing to give her a shot if she was serious, but if she thought that she was just going to demand supplies for nothing, she had another thing coming. We had enough cape power on tap to stop pretty much anyone in the city, not that we wanted to flex it. This place was outside ‘the game’ though. Villain, Hero, homeless- didn’t matter. You checked that shit at the door to work and live in relative luxury compared to pretty much anywhere else open to anyone in the city.

  We also didn’t tolerate spies and narcs, and that was a concern here as well, but we had to deal with things one thing at a time. Generally, I wouldn’t be personally involved with trying to onboard someone like this. We had people here who did it pretty much full-time. But I’d make an exception in this case because there was likely to be complaints and grouching if it wasn’t me handling it. Not that I didn't think them capable.

  Skitter piped up from her position leaning against the wall. “I usually go for the hot bath myself. Hard to beat an hour of soak and unwind time.”

  There was a shift in Menja. Her eyes looked distant.

  Real luxuries are in very short supply. Sure, you can get all the drugs, tobacco, or liquor you want by raiding places or going to one of the countless racketeers hawking goods at insane prices. But the real stuff? Like having an actually good hot, fresh meal? The ability to sit down and watch a movie or play video games? People go hard for those things.

  Menja blinked and turned back to me. “If I had a friend who was interested, what are the rules?”

  I turned away from Menja to face Amy. “Amy, would you mind laying them out?”

  She shot me a quick look, half-questioning and still partially pissed. Then she sighed and blew a strand of frizz out from in front of her face and broke into it. Amy was one of the people that helped with onboarding more often than not, as her public persona of Panacea was tempting for people all on its own.

  We made sure to make it clear to people that Panacea wasn’t here to heal people, and that wasn’t something we offered.

  “We have two sets of rules,” she said while pulling the cuffs of her robe up to her elbows. “One set applies to everyone, and the other set also applies to capes or anyone with powers. People with powers have to obey and follow both sets.”

  Menja crossed her arms over her chest, and Skitter pushed off the wall to come stand next to me. I offered her a tentacle hand and foothold, and after a moment’s contemplation, she took both and I lifted her up into position, sitting on my neck. From there, she leaned forward, resting her forearms on my upper neck and watching the proceedings from her new vantage point.

  I listened to Amy roll out the rules and expectations. I was hoping that now that Menja seemed to be in less of a knee-jerk reactionary sort of mood and actually communicating, it would be a good icebreaker to let Amy show her own area of expertise.

  After all, they were potentially going to have to live together. It wouldn’t do to have them at one another’s throats.

  “As Apex was saying, everyone works and everyone contributes, unless you’re on either end of the age spectrum, injured, or disabled. Most of the people who are injured or disabled still contribute. We have a task list of things you can pick from and do. Expect most tasks to be at least four hours of doing that thing, some are longer. We color-code them. There’s always more tasks than there are hands to do them, but people prefer some over others, and it’s first-come, first-served when it comes to signing up.”

  Menja was affecting a bored look, but I don’t think she was really fooling anyone. She seemed like the rich and spoiled type, so I expected that the biggest challenge would be getting to actually contribute. But maybe she’d prove me wrong.

  “What’s with the red tasks?” she asked.

  Skitter spoke up from above me. “They’re the tasks that almost nobody would otherwise volunteer for. Usually hard physical labor, sometimes gross things, sometimes both.”

  “Ugh,” was all Menja had to say about that.

  I spoke up. “Exactly. Nobody wants to do it. It still needs to be done. So we make it fair for everyone. Everyone contributes an equal amount each week to handling the red tasks. We do the best we can to remove the gross, but at the very least, everyone is sharing the load so that someone doesn’t have to do it all the time.” Looking over at Amy, I continued: “We’ve been making a lot of progress towards eliminating or minimizing the nasty stuff thanks to some of the capes we have.”

  Amy ticked off the other rules rapid-fire, counting them out on her fingers.

  “You can think of these as order of importance, but they all matter. We went over number one. Everyone contributes. Number two is respect is mandatory. Basic golden rule stuff. Don’t harass people, get violent, or steal people’s stuff. Number three is that the shelter is sacred. This is a refuge, a safe space for people, again, anyone, so that means no fighting, no gangs, no politics. If it threatens the peace, it stops at the door.”

  Menja rolled her hand for Amy to continue.

  “Last two are easy. Number four is speak and step up. If there’s a problem or you think something isn’t right, bring it to the group’s attention. If someone needs help, offer it. Number five is that we don’t judge here. There are little kids and elderly people who can’t work. They help how they can. We have all sorts of people. Criminals, heroes, queer and straight, rich and poor. Everyone’s here for shelter and safety, so we don’t judge them or their circumstances.”

  Amy said her piece, and I spoke next, turning my head to face Menja directly. “The other set of rules is for people with powers. If your friend has powers, then relay these as well. We have added expectations for capes.”

  Mejna cocked her hip to one side and made a noncommittal grunt.

  I continued. “Rule one for capes: Mask off at the door. That means there are no teams, affiliations, alliances, or rivals. We’re here as people.”

  “That means that you have to unmask to enter?” Menja’s tone was testy, but I didn’t think she would care all that much, considering she’d been forcibly outed. That said, it might also be a sore spot for her.

  “No, it’s not a requirement, but pretty much everyone here does. You feel kind of stupid sitting at a table with a dozen other unmasked parahumans eating dinner while trying not to have someone step on your cape or get soup on your mask.”

  Menja rolled her eyes at that, so I went on. “Similar to rule one, rule two is no power plays, and that includes things that are harmful but not overtly breaking the other rules. Spying, for example, isn’t tolerated.”

  “You think I want to spy on your hippy circle clown house? You think anyone cares?”

  She was being sarcastic, but as with the other things she’d said so far, I played it straight. “Do I think you want to spy? No, probably not. Do I think some people in the city want to spy? Yes, absolutely. So the rule exists clearly and openly for everyone, so that we don’t get any crossed wires.”

  “Yeah? And what if someone does spy or break the rules? What then?”

  I brought one big hand up and rocked it from side to side. “Depends on what it is, but if it were something severe, it would probably be expulsion, and the person would be given a persona non grata status with us. Which, depending on what they were scheming, would potentially be quite bad for them.”

  “That’s it? You kick them out and tell them don’t come back?” She scoffed and looked at me like I was stupid.

  I nodded. “Pretty much, yes. But if they were spying, for example, that would mean that they probably had ulterior motives for the people here. I can tell you with confidence that anyone who wants to fuck around will certainly find out. In addition to a squad of combat veterans with machine guns and rocket launchers, we also have the biggest bang-for-your-buck group of capes in the city.”

  Menja looked away from me to give the place a speculative once-over. A lot of the defenses were sort of blended into the overall structure and growing assortment of decorations, but under the bright graffiti, there were tall, thick walls topped with razorwire, observation posts all over the place, and people actively patrolling around and keeping an eye out for trouble basically everywhere.

  “I’d mention that we have the two-time back-to-back flyweight dragon slayer title belt holding champion and a girl that can give you six hundred different types of ass cancer with a moment’s touch as well, but I wouldn’t want to embarrass them.” I couldn’t help myself, I snickered a bit at the end.

  Amy scrunched up her face, and Skitter, for her part, just muttered: “Flyweight? Really?”

  “Whatever. What are the other cape rules?” Menja seemed to be slipping into actual boredom, so I wrapped it up with the last two.

  “Rule three is keep the peace. You’ve got powers; we expect you to use them responsibly to de-escalate, defuse, and keep the people here safe. Rule four operates off the back of rule three. If you’re a cape and disaster strikes again, then you defend the place and people if you’re here and present when it happens. If some outside person or group decides to attack us, you put your shit on and protect the people and property. We expect capes to be smart and autonomous, and not wait around for specific orders. Just work together and put an end to whatever the issue is.”

  Menja ran her thumb over the leather wrappings on the shaft of her spear and looked at the flag flying over the station. I thought it looked damn good. The silence between us stretched out.

  Finally, she asked: “That’s it?”

  She looked at me, then Amy, then Skitter, looking for reactions. All she received was a nod and a shrug from them.

  I asked her, “Did you expect some kind of blood ritual or jumping-in requirement or something? We’re not a gang, just a shelter and small community.”

  “And the fact I wa- am…” She trailed off without explicitly stating the obvious.

  A nazi? A member of the Aryan Brotherhood? Empire Eighty-Eight?

  “You understand that not harassing people and causing problems or strife is part of our rules, yes?” I asked her slowly.

  “Yeah.”

  “Right. So that would include stating those opinions and spreading those beliefs. What most would consider to be hate speech. If you’re here because you need work, a bed, and food, then great. If you’re here to spy, recruit, or convert, then you wouldn’t be welcome. If you can follow the rules we have and actually stick to them in the spirit and letter, I don’t really care what you were doing last week and before then.”

  Menja gripped her spear with a white-knuckled grip, and I could see her jaw muscles flexing. For several seconds, I expected her to blow up or start a fight. Finally, she just exhaled loudly, rolled her eyes, and went, “Whatever. Fine. What now?”

  I gestured with a lower hand at Amy. “Drop your power, and Amy will get you checked in and set up, if she’s available.” I looked over at Amy and told her, “No pressure or anything, just figured since you’re here and know everything.”

  Amy stared at me.

  Just trust me? I’d be happier with you doing it, even if you two were at each other’s throats earlier.

  “Sure. Rebecca isn’t working today, and Jeremy is busy.”

  Menja hadn’t dropped back to her normal height yet. She was glaring at me.

  “Yes?” I asked patiently.

  “What, you run the place so the rules don’t apply to you?”

  I cocked my head to the side, not quite catching what she was on about.

  “Why don’t you drop your powers first? You’re the host, or whatever,” she asked in an irritated tone.

  “Hah!” I barked a quick laugh. The assumptions people made about one another’s powers. “Alright, give me a moment…” I performed a few quick stretches and limbered up while she watched with narrowed eyes. When I was done, I took a deep breath and let it out in a performative manner. “Okay. Done.”

  Skitter snorted from above and behind me. Menja was frowning at me.

  “This is what she looks like all the time. She’s not using her power,” Skitter said for Menja’s benefit.

  I thought it was pretty funny?

  “This is stupid. I’m just supposed to believe whatever you’re selling, take it at face value?”

  I slid back onto my haunches and crossed my lower arms over my thorax. Skitter shifted on my shoulders as I sat in a more upright pose.

  “Look,” I told Menja. “You don’t have to believe anything I’m telling you. But what you can do is stick around, prove us wrong, or that we’re lying to people, if that’s what you think. But you know what I think? I think if maybe you open your eyes and ears, observe and listen, you might learn a couple of new things. If you think we’re scamming you or here to profit off your labor, you’re free to leave whenever you want. Some people do. Most don’t.”

  Menja turned away from me with a huff. She brought a hand up to go for a hair flip, but seemed to think twice about it halfway. She played it off by picking a piece of plastic bag off one of her shoulder wings. Then she shrank down. She was still tall when she finished, but more in a statuesque way than a size-changing superpower way. Maybe she was still using a little of her power, but I honestly didn’t care enough to press the issue. Bigger fish to fry and things to worry about than sit and nitpick.

  Amy hoisted her chin and lifted the soaked hem of her robe up above the surface of the water. Turning around, she waved to one of the members of Chess team on the gate post, and the gate started to open with a whir of electric motors. Menja stepped forward to go with her. Amy looked back at me one last time, and I gave her a thumbs up, followed by a ‘call you later’ hand gesture. She nodded once and went inside the walls with the other woman in tow. Whoever was in the guard tower looked over to Skitter and me, and I waved a hand. The gate started to close.

  I called out after the two departing women: “Menja!”

  She turned to look back at me.

  “Make sure you get your boots off and dry when you get checked in and cleaned up. We’re seeing a lot of cases of jungle rot. It’s bad news, best avoided.”

  The look of revulsion on her face told me the message got across before the gate clanked shut.

  “Want to do a quick look-around with me?” I asked Skitter.

  “Sure.”

  I rose to all fours and set off to do a walk around the outer wall, visit the container town, and then take a look at the wider area. I took the long way around. When we were out of earshot, Taylor asked me: “You think she’s trouble?”

  I rocked my head in a lazy, undecided motion. “Not sure, to be completely honest with you. There’s certainly a pretty big opportunity for foul play or ulterior motives.”

  “So why take the risk?” She murmured. “We have families and young kids here. Compromising information.”

  I let out a deep breath and bobbed my head. “You’re not wrong. But if we weren’t willing to take the risk on the off-chance we might get burned, what does that make us? We’d be barely better than the PRT at that point, you know?”

  She snorted. “Ironic, coming from us.”

  I strolled onward, the water growing deeper as we came to a low point in the surrounding blocks. There was a lot of debris on the pavement, and I could feel that it was cracked and heaved in places under my hands and paws.

  “I could say some trite garbage about being the change you want to see, blah blah, but you know as well as I do how hollow some of those things ring.”

  “Mmmh,” she nodded in agreement. After a beat, “So what’s the actual plan?”

  “Same with any potential problem actor. Watch them like a hawk and give them the space to hang themselves, if that’s what they want to do.”

  We rounded a corner and saw a handful of kids painting figures on the backside of some containers. There was an older teen with them, keeping an eye on things. The kids waved excitedly to us. I waved back. Skitter sent a small cloud of moths flying in formation overhead and circled them a few times before sending them back off.

  I continued our talk after we’d passed by. “You’re our best asset for people like we’re discussing. You’re good at getting to know people behind the mask, and you’re a one-person spy army. Watch her, but try to avoid making assumptions. If she’s here, chances are fractures or infighting are happening with her normal crew. Maybe she’s here to spy or steal, or maybe she’s just sick of the shit and wanting to get away. I would be very surprised if she didn’t keep in some kind of contact with them, or some of them, but you use your judgment and let me know if you think it’s more than catching up or socializing.”

  Taylor was quiet for a minute or two. I assumed she was thinking things through.

  “And if she does call in the Empire?”

  I turned my head to the side as if I was looking over my shoulder at her, and I let my tongue hang out and flashed my multitudinous chompers. Licking my ‘lips,’ I told her, “We crush them, Skitter. Show them the error of their judgment in thinking they could get one over on us, and make them regret the life decisions that led them to our doorstep.”

  I got the impression she was grinning under her mask.