Harry Gale turns the key in the ignition and his car explodes.
A moment later, he’s a block away, on the ground and in agonizing pain, as flaming bits of Nissan Z rain down around him. His super-speed saved him, but it really hurt to activate it.
The first thing he thinks about is how Stella is going to be angry about the lost books.
The second thing he thinks about is that he should activate his suit’s emergency beacon.
Four seconds later, Silver Streak has scooped him off the pavement. Ten seconds later, they’re in Nebraska.
“What happened?” his dad asks urgently.
“Car bomb,” Harry manages weakly. “Guess word is getting out.”
Nobody made it public that a member of the Gale family was de-powered. But it was inevitable. If nothing else, people would see Harry driving, and ask why.
“The bomber must have been a pro,” Silver Streak observes. “We took the car to the HHL’s mechanics. They put in the usual security systems. This wasn’t done by any ordinary bad guys.”
The Grasscutters. Or Tyran, Harry thinks to himself.
Dad smiles, but Harry can see the worry behind it. “Guess it’s time we talk about what you’ve learned about this assassin.”
“What are we gonna do about the car payments?” Harry asks, as another thought reaches him.
“It’s handled. Your old man has fantastic insurance.”
The whole thing is bothering Harry, because he can’t stop thinking about it. Having a car was new to him. Being attacked is something he’s familiar with, but a car bomb? It’s a new experience. And it’s one of those mundane things that draws in all kinds of other things.
At home, he asks his questions. “Aren’t the police going to investigate the car bomb? Won’t it come out who was driving?”
James holds up his hands. “It’s fine, son. We have folks in the HCPD. We’ll keep it quiet.”
Bile rises in Harry’s throat, as old memories surface. “Is covering stuff up part of the HHL member’s manual that I missed?”
His dad looks hurt, and his mom frowns. He realizes immediately that he said more than he should.
“I’m sorry. I know you’re trying to help me here. It’s just–”
“It’s hard, being a hero, son,” James says with surprising gentleness. Harry looks up, unsure that he heard his father’s tone correctly.
His mother Helen joins in. “We do know how you feel, Harry. It hasn’t been easy on us.”
She gestures to the sofa and chairs in the living room, and the family sit down together.
“Nautilus left the HHL last year,” Helen says quietly. “The Revanchist team - the HHL members who went into space to chase after the Blot - they felt the same pressure. Your father and I feel it too. That’s why we’ve unofficially withdrawn.”
James nods. “Unofficially is important there. Harry, we’ve talked about this before, but I want to show you something. This’ll answer your questions about the car too.”
He retrieves his laptop and invites Harry to lean over and look as he works. Spreadsheets open on screen, and James Swift explains what his son is looking at.
“The World Alliance wasn’t a for-profit organization, but it was profitable. The Halcyon Heroes’ League is the same way. Through work contracts, bounties on wanted villains, charitable donations, bequests, federal-state-local contributions, and much more, hundreds of millions of dollars flow through the organization. That tower didn’t build itself. Those employees, from the security team to the rapid response phone banks, are well paid for their services. Paid by people who believe in the organization and what it stands for.”
James opens another spreadsheet. “This is the financial statement for Chip In - your personal charity. You’ve been great at promoting it. But I don’t think you’ve ever really looked at the money side of it, have you.”
Harry has not.
His dad grins weakly. “Well, son, it turns out that on paper, you’re a multi-millionaire.”
He jumps through a few tabs, scrolls around, and points at a number that makes Harry’s eyes bug out.
Mom speaks up. “No hero worthy of the name is in this for the money, son. We know you aren’t. We aren’t either. And I don’t know any hero who’s ever said, you know, I think I’ve done enough good for the world, time to retire. What your father and I are dealing with isn’t that. It’s the sacrifices and compromises we have to make.”
Dad gestures back at the spreadsheet. “Harry, things like this are doing good as well. We want this good work to continue. This kind of money is what keeps food banks and shelters open year round. This kind of thing is what helps the victims of supervillain attacks get back on their feet. If someone throws a car at someone else in a fight, the result is a wrecked car. That was someone’s way to get to work. That was how they picked up their kids from school. Because people keep making contributions, because of these charities, those people get the help they need.”
Mom nods. “Sweetie, we know you want things to be simpler. Easier. Just help people, right? But things aren’t simple. They’re never simple, as much as we want them to be.”
Dad nods too. “But people who make our job possible, and who contribute, and legislate, and so on? They want things to be simple in a different way. They want uncomplicated heroes. ‘Just save us from the bad guys, then go back in your box,’ they think. But being a hero is complicated. That’s one of our challenges, Harry. Reconciling the image people hold of us - the image that makes it possible for us to really help those people - with the reality that we aren’t, and can’t ever be, what they would prefer us to be.”
Being a hero is a magic trick, Harry thinks, as his conversation with Stella comes back to him. You’re deceiving an audience that wants to be deceived.
The connection prompts him to speak up. “Mom! Dad! The assassin. I learned some stuff.”
He relates his time talking to Stella at the Witches’ Sanctum, and what he remembers reading from the books. He talks about the Sentence, the mysterious wizard-assassin, and what little he read about the League of Lemuria.
At the end of the recitation, his parents look at each other and nod.
His mother goes first. “We’ve talked to our contacts and sources. They corroborate some of what you’ve said. Some of that is new to us. Some of what we know will be new to you.”
They don’t actually say the name “Hecate”, but in light of what was said about compromises and sacrifices, Harry has to think they talked to her at some point. At least he didn’t have to, he muses.
He borrows his dad’s laptop and starts taking notes. The least he can do for Stella, to repay those lost books, is to submit something new.
Every so often, he’ll re-edit what he’s typing, to try and organize it in the moment. The gist of what he gets is thus.
The League of Lemuria is an organization of uncertain age. All that is known is that it follows some kind of very long-term plan, meant to shape history in unspecified ways. It is made up of all sorts of practitioners of magic, scholars of the occult, and so on. If it has leaders, none of them are known. What distinguishes it is its callous methods and mysterious goals. Blood sacrifice, assassinations, and so on are the least of the dark things attributed to it.
There are organizations that oppose the League, and Harry learns that the Witches’ Sanctum is the front for one such group - effectively, the JHHL or “feeder team” for another group of secretive veteran magi who are on the front lines of the conflict. The Grail Knights, Armiger’s organization, are another long-time opponent of the League. Harry has met Skinner, Armiger’s current mentor in the Knights, and that guy always seems like he’s ready to go on another black-ops mission.
“So we can count on some help?” Harry had asked at one point.
His dad had frowned at that. “Heroes like us, son, at our level… we’re expected to be able to take care of problems like this. We might get help, but we need to be seen as able to face any challenge that comes our way.”
Harry had figured it would be something like that.
The Sentence himself is one of the League’s assassins. He takes contracts, priced in the millions of dollars, to deal with superheroes and other hard to kill sorts. He has a pretty good record, but he’s really only brought in for big problems. Heroes on Silver Streak’s and Tempest’s level, Harry thinks.
As expected, he uses a combination of written and spoken linguistic magic. Harry’s books and his parents’ testimonials from other heroes agree on this. Worse, he’s not above using this magic to put civilians and innocents in jeopardy, as a way to coerce heroes.
Harry is angry about that, and he sees his parents’ agreement in the hard looks on their faces as he voices his feelings. “Doesn’t seem to matter what the powers are. ‘I will hurt these people to get what I want’ is something villains always do.”
At the end of it, Harry has something to take to his own team. And he’s buoyed up by the smiles of pride he sees from his parents at the end of the review.
Inside Stingray’s lab, the team brainstorms.
Ninjess goes first. “If they are magical compulsions, such as for self-harm, we can neutralize the civilians’ hostage value by knocking them unconscious. Gas weapons, for example.”
Mirage joins in, from a holographic broadcast station at the center of the lab. “Augmented reality modifications to your visor may allow you to block out the written effects of a hypothetical Enochian language. I understand that you’ve rejected this option in the past. The frame rate of cameras and screens would be too slow for you to properly process things at hyper-speed, as I understand it, but right now you don’t have that, do you.”
Sympathetic as always, Harry thinks, bemused. But he’s not going to derail this conversation with unhelpful asides.
“Similarly, sound-dampening ear buds may interfere with spoken commands. Of course, the efficacy of such tools is untested.”
Stingray is up next. “The quantum acoustics work I’m doing can do more than make barriers. If I can disrupt sound across an area, maybe we can build a neutralizer against spoken magic.”
At length, the team looks at A10. She shrugs. “I got nothing.”
The others look, and she looks back. “I can punch the guy if he shows up, I guess.”
Harry looks at his team. He looks at A10. “Hey, can I talk to you outside for a second?” he asks.
The others’ eyes follow them outside. Harry sees A10 want to look back, over her shoulder, to see the looks, and he shakes his head just enough to dissuade her.
Outside, he sits down across from her, cross-legged, elbows resting on knees.
“Tell me that thing you told me, about people putting you in boxes,” he says quietly.
“Abuela told it to me. 'If someone tries to put you in a box, that makes them a boxer. If someone wants to box with you, you get to punch ‘em in the nose.’” Andi looks up with a weak smile. “It sounds silly now.”
“It sounds good,” Harry says with a smile. “So. What happens if you’re the one putting yourself in a box?”
Andi immediately picks up on what he’s saying, and protests loudly. “I’m no good with this stuff! I don’t do technology. I don’t do magic. I just hit stuff. I’m not versatile like you guys. I have one thing and I do it well. But it feels weird because I’m sitting there with you all and you look at me, and I feel like a fool because I have nothing to contribute.”
The last time they’d talked, Harry had tried to be reassuring by telling her she had times to contribute. Now, he’s not so sure he should do that. It feels like he’s giving up on her.
He tries a new angle. “You do one thing really well. I agree. Now that you’ve got that down, do you want to try learning more? Do you want to be more than just what you are? It’s up to you. It has to be. But you don’t have to do it by yourself.”
Andi hangs her head. “I had a crush on you in high school, you know.”
Harry is not sure how to respond to that. Fortunately, staying quiet is the right move here, because she keeps talking.
“I guess… I think, anyway… that I… I wanted you to see me like you. You have powers. Your family has them. And… it’s the same with me. Tatanka being my uncle… me inheriting from…”
She tosses her hands in the air. “I don’t know. I wanted things I can’t really explain. I wanted… I wanted…”
Finally she looks at Harry. “I wanted to be like you. I wanted it to be as easy as you have it. But it’s not easy for you at all, is it.”
Harry smiles warmly. “It’s not. Not at all.”
Andi pouts, just a bit. “You make it look easy, you bastard.”
With a flourish, Harry produces a pack of playing cards and grins. “I am the famous magician, the Great Harry Houdini Gale. Fooling my audience is what I do best. Here, pick a card, any card.”
He presents the deck, fanned out. Andi stares at him, just for a moment, picks one, and flips it over to read it.
Harry takes the card back, pretends to think a moment, draws another card out, and presents it. “Is this your card?”
Andi gapes. “Six of diamonds. Yeah. But how?”
Harry turns the cards around for inspection. Every single one is the six of diamonds.
“How did you do that?” Andi demands, with a curious smile on her face.
Harry smiles and lets out a breath. “It’s not that great a trick. I have fifty-two decks of cards. As a kid, my parents took me to see card tricks and magicians and stuff. As a speedster, I fidget a lot. I get impatient waiting for things to happen. I’d do a lot of things to pass the time. Oh god, so many goofy things. But one of those was stuff like card shuffling. I’d take all these decks and deal them out so every deck had only one card. I just brought this one along to play around with, in case I got bored. Which I have to say, hasn’t happened once since someone started gunning for my family.”
“The hard work that nobody can see…” Andi looks like she’s realizing something. “Cooking’s that way, isn’t it. Everyone talks about the recipe, nobody talks about doing the dishes. But they have to be done, just the same.”
She leans in and kisses Harry’s cheek, to his surprise. “I’m not going to let you down, Harry Gale. I’m gonna do the work. I’m going to step up and improve. Because I’m sick of you doing all these things for me, like cheering me up, and not doing enough for you.”
Harry remembers his mother, describing real heroes. None of them ever retired thinking they’d done enough.
He nods, rises to his feet, and extends a hand. “Come on. We have friends. Let’s all figure this out together.”