423 - Jailbreak!

garrett · December 27, 2024, 6:56pm

The world’s smallest covert ops agency is hitting its stride.

Costigan and Parker have offered some kind of quasi-legal access to satellites, but Charade is adamant. “Knowing which birds we use will tell people where we are,” she explains. “For now I believe it’s better that we rely on our ad hoc solution.”

The team in Antarctica and their MIA partners both know the score. Half the world’s intelligence agencies are on the hunt for Alycia Chin, to get at the lifetime of knowledge about Achilles Chin and his tech that’s in her head. The other half simply want revenge. And MIA is in the crosshairs for sheltering her, although day by day the online evidence of that collusion disappears from the world’s servers thanks to Alex’s diligent efforts.

The team has tackled two other jobs since their run against the Golden Dragon near Shanghai. One was thwarting a theft of high-tech gadgets, which exposed an international spy ring. The other was preventing an assassination attempt against a well-known diplomat working to broker peace in a regional conflict.

Now the work is finally feeling routine. Get a data dump from MIA. Make a plan of action. Launch aboard John’s stealth jet. Carry out the mission. Defeat the bad guys and look good doing it. Do some vitally necessary shopping. Go home.

Life in Antarctica isn’t easy, but it too is feeling more comfortable. Some ground rules have quickly emerged. Everyone cooks, everyone does dishes, everyone runs laundry. Group meals use rice, beans, and other staples, slow cookers and woks, and plenty of creative seasoning to offset the lack of fresh imports. There’s a big whiteboard where people keep track of tasks and supplies.

Life without regular Internet access is a rough adjustment for a bunch of Gen Z geniuses, but board games and other analog group activities are helping take the edge off. Two activities in particular keep people coming back. The first is Alycia Or Jason vs. Everybody, a paintball-style hunt through the tunnels of the Stone Builders’ city. Either Alycia or Jason take on the other four. So far it’s been total destruction for team Jalycia (and Alycia takes special pride in shooting anyone who refers to it as such), but the scores are starting to even out a bit. The second activity is a regular tabletop role-playing game Nono runs, where she rehashes some of her old spy plots off Tumblr, with the rest of the group as spy characters. It’s an exercise with high competitive value and low risk, which makes it a great training device. And for Nono, learning the flaws in her plots is a good way to improve her own skills as a planner.

That’s why everyone feels pretty good when the new mission comes in. Parker’s prerecorded video plays, as people look at the data on tablets and other devices.

“Tyran Enterprises has steadily been taking control of AEGIS assets. Part of this is the incarceration of supervillains. Tyran is moving a few such individuals, including one especially dangerous subject, from an AEGIS West Coast facility to a Halcyon-adjacent complex. We have strong evidence that at least two runs will be made against the convoy. First, we believe that Tyran will try to free their prisoner covertly, through intermediaries or deniable assets. Second, there are indications that independent supervillains are planning to disrupt the convoy themselves.”

Jason starts. “Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. Why would Tyran want to free supervillains they’ve been entrusted with keeping in lock down? I think I know why, but just in case anyone’s still in doubt.”

Alycia has this one. “The Stellar Six took a tremendous PR hit from their revelation as remote-operated puppets, cloned from the city’s heroes. The villain team the Seven Wonders are now effectively masters of Tyran’s New Tomorrow. They demonstrated on camera that they can shut off the Stellar Six with a snap of their fingers - literally. Tyran is therefore recruiting villains to battle the Seven Wonders on their behalf, while they either retool or replace the Stellar Six.”

This revelation happened in “420 - Revenge of the Seven Wonders” – Ed.

“Isn’t it in our best interest to weaken the Seven Wonders too?” asks Alex. “I get that it’s like asking Gigan to fight Godzilla, Tokyo’s gonna get stomped, sure, but isn’t there some way to swing this?”

John scowls. “A villain’s a villain,” he retorts. “Nothing good can come outta freeing more.”

Emma punches him in the back of the head - to no effect - and speaks up, in a more serious tone of voice. “I can tell you who else is making a run at this convoy. Chief prisoner Numero Uno is Father Freak. Big mutated dude out of Detroit. Super duper tough, like tanks a rocket to the face tough, and very bad attitude. Also drinking buddies with another well known villain, who’d be the logical leader of any jailbreak attempt. Mr. Big. My old mentor.”

She looks around with a worried look on her face. “Gang, I dunno if I’m gonna be able to go on this mission with you.”

And before anyone else can respond, she walks out of the ops center.

Alycia and Nono find Emma hanging out in the hangar, staring out across the Antarctic landscape beyond. It’s Emma’s favorite solo hangout, since only she and John can comfortably endure the cold without help, and John typically has no reason to interact with Emma. That leaves the two visitors struggling with the temperature in thick coats and mitts, while the pyrokinetic is comfortable in casual wear.

Alycia coughs, thanks to the bitter cold in her throat that fights to keep her from being heard. “You can tell me to leave if you wish, but…”

“Leave,” calls Emma loudly and distinctly.

Alycia and Nono look at each other. They turn to go, and begin walking, until - “Wait.”

Emma lets out a long sigh that turns to condensation a few inches beyond her protective heat shield. “Maybe you can help me through this. You with your particular background I mean.”

She turns to her partner. “Nono, no offense but keep your mouth shut for this, okay? You’re gonna be too supportive for what I need right now.”

Nono makes a lip-zipping motion, and Emma smiles wanly.

She turns back to Alycia. “Say that you got a powerful dad. He’s got a lot of pull with you. You struggle to go up against him because of that. But he’s doing a thing you’ve been asked to shut down. You worry you’re gonna earn his displeasure, disapproval, dis beating, whatevs.”

Alycia’s head tilts slightly. She thinks she knows what this is about. She suspects it’s as important to Emma to say it as it is for her to hear it, and so she listens.

Emma goes on. “Mr. Big isn’t my dad. He’s like… uh, you know those t-shirts like, I’m not the stepdad, I’m the dad that stepped up? That’s what he was for me. I couldn’t stand to live like I’d lived. I felt like everything had been a lie. And Mr. Big… he was okay with the haha, hot mess I’d become. And he said, you know, we’ll get you therapy, we’ll give you something to do, but he cared, he accepted me.”

She looks up at Alycia with tired, pinched eyes. “So I got two problems here. I don’t wanna go up against this guy who gave a shit about me. And I’m scared because he and his cronies are genuinely experienced badasses and I do not like our odds.”

Alycia opens her mouth. And Emma immediately cocks a fist. “Do not patronize me or sympathize or anything-ize me, bitch. I’m warning you.”

Alycia just smiles. “I hadn’t planned to. Your prohibition to Nono is understandable and I am complying with it as well. Instead I want to make two points. The first is that your intelligence about Mr. Big and his allies would be invaluable. Anything you can contribute to our plans would be welcome. That may be nothing at all. If so, I understand.”

Emma pauses, eyes narrowed, then lowers the fist and nods cautiously.

“The second is to say that while I do completely understand your situation as you’ve framed it - the outsized influence parents can wield - I will only give my advice if you ask for it. However, I would like to pass on advice I’ve heard elsewhere. I think you will be receptive.”

Emma looks cautiously between Alycia and Nono. “Yeah, okay, go on?”

“You are a supervillain. Your mentor has given you advice for supervillains, which you’ve often repeated. In this matter, as in all others, you should do whatever the fuck you want. It seems that your difficulty is determining what that is right now.”

Emma’s mouth hangs open, perhaps out of shock that Alycia has actually been listening to her past tirades.

Alycia jerks her head to the side, indicating to Nono that it’s time to leave, and begins walking away. Nono waves and smiles goodbye, and follows. Emma turns back, looking out of the hangar and across the white desert of Antarctica.

garrett · April 15, 2025, 3:51pm

Nevada.

Emma has agreed to partial participation in the operation. She’ll pilot the stealth jet and handle any necessary pickups and drop-offs. Alex is aboard as operator, performing surveillance and monitoring comm chatter.

Emma also oversaw the various robberies and thefts needed to keep the operation going. Thefts like “motorcycles” and “gasoline”. The team is how riding those motorcycles, which are burning that gasoline. They’re cruising in formation, north along I-15, toward Vegas itself, as the jet flies high above them.

Alycia Chin is in the lead. It’s not her Vyortovian hoverbike, nor the CHIMERA units created by John Black. And why? She reiterates the rules over the radio in her helmet.

“We can’t be outed as ultra-tech black ops people. No overt powers, no superhuman moves. If you wipe out on the road, SNOWMAN, at least pretend to limp.”

“Brigand and I will take lead in any engagement. Agent R, SNOWMAN, you’ll be our backup.”

“Our primary goal is to detect threats to the convoy and neutralize them. Since we can’t reliably anticipate threats, our operational posture is aggressive and proactive. Keep your eyes open and remember that threats can come at us from any direction. We’re far more dangerous than we look. That goes for any hostiles as well.”

She gets a chorus of acknowledgements over the radio, and revs the bike a little. The team, looking all black and badass in their riding leathers and helmets aboard their muscular motorcycles, follow her lead.

The Nellis Air Force Base is located in the northeast corner of Las Vegas. Nellis has played host to experiments since the 50’s in things like atomic weapons and superhuman power testing. The military blasted hell out of the desert of Yucca Flat over the next few decades. When AEGIS was shopping around for a secure facility to place prisoners in stasis, the Air Force repurposed some of its buried bunkers. And while scientists studied the biology and physics of the villains’ powers to find ways to permanently neutralize them, those villains slumbered.

Now those bunkers are being cleared out as part of Tyran’s takeover of the supervillain prison system. The stasis pods - cylindrical ultra-tech machines, filthy with the grime of time and connected to sensors and power banks via sturdy insulated cable - are loaded by crane into oversized armored pods mounted on trailers. Those trailers are then hitched to reinforced big-rig trucks.

Just before sunrise, those trucks’ engines roar to life. The rigs pull out. The couplings on the trailers jerk, but they hold. Pickup trucks flashing amber lights and bearing “OVERSIZED LOAD” signs pull out ahead, leading the way.

“Convoy underway,” reports Alex over the radio. “They’ll be on I-15 in 90 seconds.”

Alycia acknowledges. “Agent R, with me northbound on I-15. Brigand, SNOWMAN, get ahead of them on I-11.”

The team has just passed the Strip to their right, ending with the Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino at the north end. Now they split up at the junction of freeways at the heart of Vegas.

Alex is narrating the potential dangers the team will deal with - mostly the lawful security apparatus of the United States.

“LVMPD responding to some calls. Nothing outta the ordinary… Some local superheroes doin’ their biz. Did ya know some heroes here wear actual fucking neon in their costumes? It’s in the spirit of the city–”

“Focus,” Alycia says sharply.

If Alex was chastened, they don’t sound like it. But the narration returns to topic. “Couple folks overflying your position, Charade. Local heroes who either took an interest or were invited to play along at our party.”

Alycia only needs to glance up to see the bright flashes of Las Vegas’ aerial heroes in the predawn hour. “Roger.”

Northbound, they streak past the caravan of trucks and escort vehicles. There’s no police escort, but Alycia is pretty sure there will be soldiers in the tractor-trailers, and maybe more than that. And how long will those Vegas heroes fly along?

“Convoy visual confirmation,” she reports. “We’ll take East Lake Mead Boulevard out of town and come back around Henderson.”

So far everything feels like it’s under control. But the place for an attack isn’t here in Vegas - it’ll be out in the desert.

Jason and John ride southeast. Their job is to scout out possible locations for ambushes. Canyons, tunnels, even roadside billboards. Anywhere with low visibility, where a few vehicles could hang out, needs to be found and checked. Alex’s online maps of the region were a start, and the jet will help, but sometimes you don’t know until you get up close. Not being obvious from a distance is part of what makes potential ambush sites good.

Their second task is to just keep an eye out for the vehicles on the road. Is it all commuter cars and cargo trucks and stuff? Will they keep seeing the same few vehicles over and over?

By the time they’ve “frisked” the route for dangers, it’s dawn. The two pull up in a parking lot near the Railroad Pass Hotel at the southeast tip of Vegas’s dominion. Jason grabs a snack, while John refuels the bikes.

Off of the radios, the two men can afford a little chitchat without being chided for it.

“You ever do anything like this?” John asks.

“High-speed vehicle action across the American southwest?” Jason grins. “Not this specifically, no. Boat chases through the Congo. Instrument flying during bad weather conditions in the Himalayas, with nothing but a stopwatch and a map. So generally yes.”

John snorts. “Must be nice to retire. Now that you’re in your middle age and your busiest times are behind you, you can slow down and really take it easy.”

Jason bursts into laughter at that. “Yeah. Hey, I could retire here to Vegas and be an old pensioner. Order drinks with fancy umbrellas. Make friends with mobsters in Witness Protection.”

Alycia’s voice over the radio makes them sit up and take notice. “Brigand. We’re coming down 147, close to the junction to 564. We triggered a speed trap.”

Jason’s helmet is back on, so he can talk back. “Need us to run interference?”

“Maybe. I’ll let you know.”

Nono is speeding past cars on the road. She and Alycia are fleeing from the police. Somehow this feels very normal.

Her particular suit was tailored to let her slap on a flow patch just by hitting her forearm. She’s done so. Now the dangers of navigating complex traffic situations at 135 mph have become nothing more than an interesting puzzle to be solved.

Every so often, she gets a glimpse of herself reflected in the windows of cars she passes. She sees nothing but a person in black motorcycle leathers and a feature-concealing armored helmet. Were she a girl in one of those cars, she might be intimidated by this scary looking stranger on their high-speed bike, violating traffic safety laws. Now, she’s the person they’d be afraid of.

What a novel feeling, she tells herself.

The motorcycles have an advantage that the cop cruisers don’t - they can go on sidewalks or on narrow shoulders. Nono thought the strategy should be to find a traffic knot that’ll block the cops but not them, and communicated that to Alycia. Alycia agreed. Now they just need to find it.

The motorcycles hang low through a tight turn onto a side road. Nono can feel the friction as her armored kneecap brushes almost too close to the pavement. But she pulls the bike out of the turn without incident, shifting her weight and extending an arm or leg as needed.

Behind them, two cop cruisers try their best to make the turn. One looks like he tried a handbrake turn but only saw it done on television. The other sends up a plume of white smoke as his brakes fail.

“We’re going to reverse course and drive past them,” Alycia tells Nono over the radio. “But we have to stay in character. They must assume we’re local miscreants, not some kind of street gang or ops team. So as we pass, make a rude gesture. The middle finger, for example.”

Gotcha," Nono almost giggles. The flow patch makes her feel drunk, or high.

Alycia pulls her bike to a hard stop. The back of the bike rises into the air, and she forces the whole thing around in a graceful 180. The back tire lands, she hits the throttle, and off she goes.

Nono can’t manage the same feat, but she manages an acceptable substitute by putting a foot down on the pavement, and pivoting her vehicle around that. And on the way she manages a two-fisted finger combo, using her body weight to steer the motorcycle for the few key moments it takes.

As the pair of them howl down 564, Alex reports the police chatter. “Couple joyriders heading south. No units in position to intercept.”

Nono throws back her head and laughs.

It’s morning.

The convoy is rolling along US Route 93, a long stretch of road going south-southeast from Vegas. They’ll turn onto I-40 at a place called Kingman, then stay there through Flagstaff and Albuquerque.

The two pairs of motorcyclists can’t be seen by the convoy too much, or they’ll get suspicious. A couple of bikers passing them might not mean anything, once. But four bikers, passing multiple times, would raise suspicion. The bikes run on ordinary gasoline. And of course, almost everyone on the team has basic biological needs. Opportunities for individuals to trade positions, attend to themselves or their bikes, and so forth are thus very limited. Emma and Alex will be responsible for maintaining timetables and locations for such logistical concerns.

Alycia relents on the radio chit-chat, if only to keep people from tensing up too much due to the demanding conditions of the mission. Their comm channels out here are secure enough.

Nono, coming off her flow patch use, is the first to take advantage of the opportunity. “How long have you guys been riding motorcycles? You all seem like pros.”

John is the first to answer. “I got to ride dirt bikes when I was like 13. Never owned one, but the neighbors had a spare. Got about six months of practice.”

Jason speaks next. “Rusty kept me trained on every kind of vehicle I was likely to encounter, which was a lot. He also taught me the concepts behind different kinds of vehicle operation, such as aerodynamics and buoyancy, just enough to grasp what a new cockpit control might mean.”

“Same,” says Alycia laconically. After a moment: “Well. I didn’t train with Rusty Byrne specifically. But - you get the idea. For me, the key was to extend one’s proprioception - your sense of where your body is located - outward, to encompass the vehicle. As long as you knew where the tires pointed, or which way the ailerons were canted, or what-have-you, the rest of the vehicle would follow.”

“That doesn’t sound very specialized. So all those cool J-Turns and U-Turns and X-Turns and stuff… I guess it’s all the cool hypergenius brain stuff, huh?” Nono sounds a little disappointed.

Alycia considers this. “To an extent. Some of it is simply confidence to attempt difficult maneuvers, trusting one’s instincts and reflexes, supported by the regular training of those reflexes. Training such as you’ve been engaging in.”

Jason chimes in. “Rusty put it this way. The biggest enemy in battle isn’t the enemy’s surprise move, it’s you wasting time being surprised.”

Emma, from the jet, has something to say too. “I’ve done my share of heists. Did plenty of planning for them. Most of that planning is just knowing what pieces are on the board and where. The minute someone else’s pieces start moving is the minute your own planning stops working.”

“This kinda got off motorcycles,” Nono observes wryly. “But that’s not a bad thing, I guess. Hmm. Hey, who wants to play road trip trivia?”

Alycia and Nono ride parallel to each other.

The sun, rising in the east, is right in front of them. Fortunately their helmets’ visors handle most of it, leaving one bright spot where their eyes can’t go.

Their hair is tied off and bunched up, with the helmets and their suits keeping it restrained. Still, they can feel the wind whipping by and tugging at everything that’s capable of moving, hair included.

I-40 is a long stretch of road that runs through the desert. There are mountains in the distance, scrub in the foreground, and the occasional weather-beaten building - motels, gas stations, and eateries - breaking the monotony of the landscape.

“Heads up, gang,” reports John tensely. “Likely threat. Northbound on U.S. Route 89.”

Alycia’s response is immediate. “Acknowledged. Specify nature of the threat.”

“'Bout a dozen motorcyclists in three groups. Brigand and I just passed 'em. They’re Rossum-type robots in biker leathers, basically evil robot usses.”

“I need confirmation on that last assessment,” Alycia orders. The team is armed with conventional firearms, loaded with live ammunition, rather than their usual high-tech multi-function guns. Nobody wants to open fire unless they know for sure who or what they’re shooting at.

“I know my shit,” John growls.

Jason is a little more forthcoming. “They’re moving in near-perfect sync with each other, no hesitation, nobody’s following the leader’s cues. Like watching synchronized swimming or something.”

“Get confirmation,” repeats Alycia. “Live fire is not authorized until then.”

“Convoy’s three minutes behind Brigand and SNOWMAN,” Alex reports from the plane, looking at their map. “Only way to get that is to engage now, proactively. We okay picking that fight?”

Alycia has to think about it. It would be two against twelve… and Jason would be one of the two.

Then again, who better to tackle robots than another robot, and a man equipped with nano-robots?

“Brigand, SNOWMAN, engage target on 89. Agent R and I will trail the convoy and peel off to assist as necessary.”

Jason’s voice is high and happy. “Roger that. Here we go…!”

garrett · April 17, 2025, 4:28am

The highways jammed with broken heroes
On a last chance power drive
Everybody’s out on the run tonight
But there’s no place left to hide

Arizona.

John Black is morally certain that the riders he and Jason spotted are robots. It was just a flash - a glimpse - but somehow, deep in the pit of his stomach, he knew.

Jason’s more analytical view confirms his opinion. But really, if Jason had said nothing, he’d still be convinced.

The pair had driven south to frisk the road, and passed the dozen or so bikers. They were heading northbound, precisely timed to intercept the convoy. Now they need to catch up.

He roars the engine of his motorcycle and makes a wide arc, bumping across the median with no concerns for personal comfort or safety. Behind him, Jason follows suit, though he’s a little more cautious about the crossing.

The pair drive their vehicles hard, leaning forward so their weight compensates for the torque that might yank the bikes onto their back wheel. John gestures to his partner - a thumb to the chest, a couple of fingers pointed definitely north to indicate the robo-riders, then a closed fist to indicate violence. Jason nods, accepting the plan. John will attack, Jason will observe. That’ll give Alycia the confirmation she needs.

John streaks toward the rear of the robo-riders’ ranks. He hops up, crouched with his left foot on the seat of the bike, right foot ready. And as he passes one, he aims a savage kick at the helmeted head.

The rider crashes into the others. They recover, but the rider hits the pavement. John circles around, braking harshly, and grabs for the helmet.

Underneath it is a clearly metallic robot’s head. It is, after all, what he guessed.

The first thing Jason notes, even before the robotic reveal, is how inhuman the riders are. One of their fellows just got viciously attacked. The response of real bikers would be to protect a member of their pack, or express concern for their fellow. None of that is here.

John’s a robot too. But I could never, ever imagine him reacting that way, thinks Jason, in a stray moment. “Charade, Brigand. Targets are robotic.”

“Live fire approved,” comes Alycia’s voice. “I predict they’ll try to split up. Priority 1, stop them from reaching the convoy.”

There’s three packs of robo-riders. Sure enough, the first two packs roar ahead, leaving the remaining pack. They turn around, trying to encircle John, while the downed robot rises from the pavement.

Jason roars past him. “You got this dude!” he yells out.

“Fuck you I know that!” John yells back.

The standing order is still not to do anything that would expose the team as what they are. John’s not sure how he’s going to pull that off here. He decides to start by riding away, spinning his motorbike around, and coming back to run over the robot on foot, as it tries to regain its own bike.

The others roar in to try and intercept him. Good, that’s what he wants, because they move oh so god damn predictably, and he has known how Rossum robots move for a long long time. In and out he swerves, dodging each robo-rider. He revs his engine hard, and leans back, letting the torque do its thing this time. The front wheel rises off the pavement, just about head height, and – bam, the Rossum robot collapses to the pavement. John brakes, bringing the front wheel down on its face.

The other robots are armed with human sidearms, just like he is. They go for these now.

John reaches - and hesitates.

As Leo, he never, ever wanted to use a gun. He took up boxing and other martial arts. He was fine with fighting. The non-lethal chemical weapons the team normally uses were fine too. But a gun doesn’t give the other guy a chance. It’s fundamentally not fair. And that always rubbed Leo the wrong way.

I’m long since done failing to be him. I’m going to be me, John tells his hesitation.

He draws the pistol at his side.

The robots are already firing. The bullets are all aimed predictably, at the center of mass. John knows it’s coming because he knows how they work. He dodges left, then drops out of the dodge by deliberately tripping himself so their tracking is thrown off. As they try to re-acquire, he shoots from the ground, going for the helmets. He misses the first few shots, and their counter-fire hits his biker leathers and his invulnerable carbon shell beneath. He cries out in pretend pain, but keeps firing. Someone might be recording this.

The bullets break through the helmet visors. This by itself won’t be enough to destroy the robots. But it’s enough to interfere with their sensors.

The grounded robot trapped under his bike is doing its best to push the vehicle off itself. While it does, John lunges for the left most of the standing robots. He throws the pistol into the air, needing both arms for the moment.

He grabs the robot’s arm and swings it around himself. The giant metal bludgeon smashes the other two to the ground, and he lets go. The pistol comes down, and he tracks its fall and snatches it out of the air.

The trapped robot has freed itself and doing its best to stand despite structural damage from the collision with his motorcycle. John levels the pistol at its head and empties the clip.

He’s got more, but now that he’s actually gone and shot something, like with a gun, it’s kind of… unsatisfactory?

The other robots are up, and after him. Their faces and optics are a mess, but they have other sensors.

He throws the gun away, and lowers himself into a fighting stance.

Jason is after the other robots. They’re accelerating, and he’s accelerating, and it’s largely a matter of whose bike is more expensive at this point.

That’s fine - he’s a good shot with a pistol. Plenty of men, and a few women, have found that out. And in spite of his faked death, new lease on life, and bon vivant attitude, their ghosts still whisper to him.

These are robots, he tells himself.

So is Summer, says the darker corners of his mind, the part of him still bent on his own destruction, and he fights to push that voice away and concentrate on the task at hand.

He leans forward, bracing his shooting arm against the handlebars of the bike, and aims for the tires.

Bang - bang - bang - bang.

Two rear tires deflate. Two motorcycles wobble.

Emma was able to get the team a variety of handguns commonly found in the United States, but she couldn’t be picky while shopping the black market on a tight schedule. Jason managed to get his hands on the one SIG Sauer P365 she got, which means he’s got seven bullets left, plus a couple of spare clips.

Reloading while riding on a motorcycle is left as an exercise for the reader, he tells himself.

He rides through the pair of stricken robo-riders, and takes aim at the next two.

Unfortunately, they are armed too. Fortunately, they’re not the crack shots he is.

As bullets whiz by, Jason realizes a flaw in his tactics. The nanobots have come online, detecting danger. But he cannot be identified as himself. So now he’s got to keep them suppressed, while still steering, dodging incoming fire, and aiming his own weapon.

No problem, right?

The two riders of the middle pack have also drawn their weapons. Good, good - that means they’re slowing down, which means they’ll be easier to hit.

Jason, holding the gun in his right hand, streaks between the two riders and shoots out the tires of the right-side bike as he does. He spins his bike around in a quick in-place turn, and gets the tires of the other bike.

As he does, the robo-riders draw a bead on him and fire.

His arm automatically rises to shield his face. The bikers’ outfits they all wear are made of the same carbon tech as their usual garb, but human reflexes are hard to fight, and Jason’s also doing his best to keep his nanobots from doing their jobs and giving him away in the process.

The impact knocks him back off the bike. Without a rider to stabilize it, the bike crashes to the pavement. The wind is knocked out of him, and Jason spends his next drawn breath cursing.

He’s going to need to do a lot of shooting. On the ground, he ejects the mag from the P365, slaps in a new one, and instinctively checks that a round has been chambered, all within a tiny fraction of time.

As the robots circle his fallen bike to finish him off, he shoots. Visors first - go for the eyes, robots or not. Elbows next - a flaw of humanoid robots is that the joints are as weak as in a human being, because joints have to be, and the arms hold the guns. Knees next.

He empties the P365, ejects the mag, slaps in the half-empty magazine he started with, and resumes firing.

One robot remains. The others are in pieces on the burning hot pavement.

John has let his temper get the better of him. What are the handlers of these robots going to make of this, he wonders.

He comforts himself by ramming it with a clothesline - a wide swing of the arm, elbow crooked, straight to the face - and grabbing hold of the robot by the neck. He squeezes the robot’s head between forearm and bicep, braces with the neck grab, and rips the machine’s head off.

He’s also wasting time, he realizes. There were probably more efficient ways to do this.

He tells himself that it’s okay, because these robots might have hijacked a passing car or something.

Shit. That means he’s gotta get this scrap off the road, doesn’t it.

He runs, quick as he can, from robot bit to robot bit. He throws each piece off the pavement. He’s a third of the way through when his conflicting impulses stop him.

These guys aren’t just gonna hijack a convoy and go to Sonic for burgers. There’s gotta be someone somewhere who would take charge of the villain stasis pods - and someone who doesn’t want their robots found and implicated. Someone probably on the way here, right now, with reinforcements.

Someone who can clean up their own damn robots.

John pulls his bike up, leaps aboard, revs the engine, and takes off.

Jason has made it out unscathed. Unfortunately, his bike did not. A pair of the robots picked it up and tried to smash him with it. He dodged, but the chassis took enough damage to make it unsuitable for use.

The robots’ own bikes are right here - except he shot out their tires.

“Brigand. On your six,” he hears John call over the radio.

“Need a ride, SNOWMAN,” he calls back.

“Roger that.”

The android pulls up on his still-functioning motorbike, Jason hops aboard, and the pair take off north. There’s still time.

The final four robots are a quarter of a mile away from the junction with the convoy. They can’t go too fast, or they’ll overshoot their target. Jason and John have no such limitations, and John pushes his bike as hard as he can.

Jason, hands free, grabs John’s gun. He checks it, briefly - “didn’t think you’d use this,” he remarks over the other man’s shoulder - and grabs his own piece. As the two draw near the robo-riders, Jason opens fire. One back tire - two - three - miss - miss - four.

“Charade, Brigand,” he calls again.

“Go ahead Brigand.”

“Robots down but not fully out. Convoy okay. We have some playmates to clean up.”

John adds his own question via radio. “Comrade X. Advise on nearby vehicles. These guys would hijack the convoy, right? Then drive it where?”

Alex is ready. “Offroad, most likely. They won’t care about the trucks long term and you can land a cargo VTOL anywhere out here, load it up, and take off. I haven’t been listening to ATC but I’ll start, just in case Tyran has a suitable bird in the area.”

Alycia concurs. “Not precisely what I’d do but well within the realm of reason. Brigand, SNOWMAN, advise on possibility of exposure.”

SNOWMAN has to think about that, and doesn’t really want to. “Uh, probably 1 in 3 chance,” he says with reluctance.

He can just hear Alycia scowling over the radio. “Too high. But very well. We have a very narrow window to pass the convoy in several miles. We’ll take vanguard, you two pick up the rear.”

It’s Jason’s turn to be embarrassed. “Uh, Brigand is down one bike. Got a replacement?”

Emma snorts over the radio. “I got two. You get one tonight. Ride shotgun for awhile, you two can have a male bonding moment.”

The robots are dealt with. Jason’s a better motorcyclist thanks to his upbringing, but John doesn’t fatigue. Both men agree John should ride, and Jason will hang out on the back seat.

Now all they have to do is pour on the speed and catch up with the convoy.

The window Alycia mentioned is in a town called Williams. She and Nono abruptly take the off-ramp and roar at 120 mph past the Shell station, past the Best Western, past the cemetery, and down the main thoroughfare of this small mountain town. Out again, over the railroad tracks, and back onto the Interstate they go.

They went far too fast for the police to respond to them. Probably someone will call it in. Hopefully nobody attached to the convoy will make the connection. Hopefully.

Well behind them, John and Jason are catching up.

The next several hours are uneventful. To pass the time, the team talks about what they just experienced.

Alycia sums it up. “This transfer is still technically Air Force business. Tyran has to be seen taking charge of the villains and storing them in well-monitored facilities. Tyran wanted to get the villains to whatever program they have that runs the Stellar Six, off official radar. So they deployed anonymous robots, something that couldn’t be traced so easily to them.”

“SNOWMAN, to address your concerns: the robots could be traced to Tyran, except there’s nobody to do the tracing. The Air Force doesn’t know the attempted strike even happened. Tyran will collect their scrap from the desert and nobody will be the wiser.”

Nono raises a question. “I’m still not clear on this. Wouldn’t it be better for the Air Force to know Tyran is dirty? Shouldn’t we be telling them everything?”

Alycia sighs, and Jason steps in to keep her from getting too frustrated. “It’s like this. Charade’s real name is back on the lips of the intelligence community. If we’re exposed to anyone, they’ll say, ‘oh look, a super-terrorist made a move against Tyran’. Tyran looks good, our bosses at MIA take more heat, and nobody wins.”

“But that’s not true!” protests Nono.

Nobody can see Jason’s smile under his helmet. Nobody can comment on how empty it is. “That doesn’t matter. In this world, everybody lies to everybody.”

Alex adds their own commentary. “MIA could report to the Air Force. But they’re still smarting from their link with Charade being outed. Simply put, we have a big credibility problem. A win on this mission puts an ace in Costigan’s hand to play down the road, but we have to stay dark for now.”

Nono wraps up with her own conclusion. “So… we have to do the right thing, only nobody gets to take credit for it.”

Emma laughs. It’s the first time anyone’s heard that sound in awhile. “Welcome to the life, sweetheart.”

The convoy’s plan is to stop at Kirtland Air Force Base inside Albuquerque, roughly 660 miles from Las Vegas. They’ll refuel, rest for the night, and get going again in the morning. And hours later, the convoy pulls in.

The team has the same objective - refuel and rest. They can’t afford to waste time at a hotel and don’t have a nice Air Force base to hang out in. So Emma lands in the desert, three motorcycles are wheeled aboard, and the jet takes off again.

The jet’s interior has already been rigged with hammocks, a minifridge, privacy partitions, and other supplies. People refresh themselves, change clothes, and throw themselves down into a hammock to sleep.

It’s been a long day. And they haven’t even gotten to the supervillains yet.

garrett · April 21, 2025, 6:25am

New Mexico.

Multiple alarms wake the team up well before dawn. Alycia and Jason are already awake - of course. The others grumble their way out of their hammocks, line up for turns with the improvised shower head and the chemical toilet, stare blearily at a mirror while they brush their teeth and comb their hair, and wolf down the mixture of eggs, potatoes, and turkey bacon that Jason has cooked up.

A day of travel via motorcycle has really taken it out of them, in ways they didn’t realize it would until the day was over. Now, everyone’s going into the trip more prepared and less enthused.

Nobody doubts the necessity of it. Nobody realized the robo-riders were there until John and Jason did their close-up drive-by. Proactive engagement kept the convoy rolling without anyone the wiser.

Once again, the team monitors the convoy’s departure from an Air Force base. Once again, Alycia, Nono, Jason, and John pair off to ride in front and behind the convoy. Once again, Emma pilots and Alex monitors from the air.

The second day’s goal is a base with a cumbersome name, Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth or simply NAS JRB Fort Worth. It’s located just west of Dallas. There’s three likely routes the convoy could take to get there; the most probable is that they’ll stay on I-40. The first possible fork comes at Santa Rosa, giving the team ninety minutes of certainty.

Unlike Las Vegas, I-40 between Albuquerque and Santa Rosa is crisscrossed by U.S. Routes, the street grids of small towns, and even dirt roads. The landscape is different, too. Arizona’s flat desert has given way to much hillier terrain. The same washed-out, hearty scrub grows here, but in far greater density. There’s dozens of places a group of hostiles could hide. With the memory of yesterday’s ambush still fresh, everyone’s on edge.

Today, Alycia and Nono are up front. Despite Alycia’s ongoing doubts, she’s given Nono approval to scout solo. There’s no time to appreciate the “Musical Highway” - a strip where the road’s rumble strips have been engineered to play “America the Beautiful” if you go precisely the speed limit of 45 mph. There’s no friendly smiles for the residents of Tijeras. There’s no appreciating the mountains, the clouds, or the sky. There’s just the heat, the wind, the vibration of the road through the lower half of your body, and suspicion for the thousand thousand little roads on both sides.

As the team pulls out from between the mountains, and Nono casts a longing glance at a Comfort Inn, Alycia calls her to ride together again. “Practice your relaxation techniques,” she cautions.

Alex does their best to keep spirits lifted, without distracting from the hunt for enemies. “Y’all know that song, Route 66? Depeche Mode? Rolling Stones? Lotsa people cover it. That’s what y’all are driving on now.”

They sing along for just a moment. “Get your kicks - on Route - Sixty Six!”

“You wanna come down here and get some kicks?” John asks acidly.

“Nah, I’m good flying your super fancy spy plane,” Alex rejoins in a cheerful voice. “On that note! There’s a municipal airport nearby. If they’re gonna make a run at the convoy, landing anything around here’s very dicey without a landing strip. I’m on ATC and I’ll let you know if I hear anything nearby. But just keep your eyes open.”

Sure, sure, keep our eyes open, Nono tells herself. Like we weren’t doing that already.

As expected, the convoy stays on I-40 past Santa Rosa. This is the most northerly of the three possible routes, and the most consistent. The team did the most prep for it, so everyone is just slightly more relaxed.

Most of the traffic on this part of I-40 is similar to the military convoy itself: tractor-trailer rigs hauling cargo east or west. There’s an occasional pickup truck driven by a local rancher, and the rare RV full of retirees.

One such RV makes Nono burst out with a weird fusion of laughter and mocking shout.

“You okay down there?” calls Emma.

“Yeah.” Nono seems to realize that she was audible to the rest of the team, and feels compelled to speak up. “Just wondering, y’know, if now that I’m gone my parents are happy. I just, I guess I just uh, just pictured them going on vacation now that they’re free of me.”

Alex, in a moment of eager insensitivity, volunteers. “You want me to look online, find out what they’re up to?”

Emma gets out of the pilot’s seat and hits Alex hard on the arm. The yelp can be heard over the radio.

Everyone’s a little surprised when they hear Nono’s quiet voice. “Yeah, uh, can you do that? I don’t wanna be curious but I guess I am.”

Alex has long since compiled a dossier on everyone on the team. It doesn’t take them long to pull up names and addresses.

As the motorcycles cruise across the desert roads of New Mexico, Alex relays what they find. There’s no targeting a single person with the radio kit they’re using. But Nono asked on open channel, so Alex figures it’s okay.

“Uh. So it looks like they divorced three months ago. Proceedings still going on, but that’s when the form was filed.”

There’s another long silence, in which everyone’s uncertainty fills in what might happen next.

They didn’t expect a short laugh from Nono herself. “Hah. I guess nobody in that house liked each other. But in a way, I’m lucky.”

“Whysat, hon?” Emma asks softly.

Nono lets herself enjoy the terrain, and the blue sky, and even the discomfort of the motorcycle, just for a moment. “If my parents had been better, I’d never be with all of you.”

The attack comes at a bridge over the Prairie Dog Town Fork Red River - another long and cumbersome name, but well deserved. The river is saturated with eroded dirt. From the air, it’s hard to tell it’s even water unless you can see it moving. And for much of the year, it’s reduced to a thin trickle, leaving much of the riverbed’s mud and dirt exposed.

The team gets plenty of advance notice. Alycia is the first to spot the glint of metal in the riverbed as she crosses the bridge. She calls up, but Alex is already on it. “Tyran VTOL, tail number N320916. Nothing from air traffic control, so they’re running dark.”

Jason and Alycia are both already enumerating tactics over the radio at each other. “Destroy the bridge - or threaten it - chokepoints–”

Alycia assigns herself a task immediately. “Agent R, scout ahead as far as Estelline. I’ll check the bridge for bombs.” She drives across the opposing lane and down the dirt road to a small frontage road, which parallels the highway itself.

Jason, meanwhile, takes over communication with the jet. “Firebrand, X, circle the area. Motion and thermograph.”

He consults his mental model. Right now he and John are just passing a small town called Memphis, TX. The convoy is a mile ahead of them - enough that turns in the road, the hilly terrain, and so on make them invisible to detection. 15 miles to the bridge at 45 miles per hour gives them 20 minutes to act.

There’s a road running parallel to the highway, but it’ll be well in sight of the convoy, so there’s no advantage using it. To get ahead and engage with the Tyran forces will mean passing the convoy and being seen - as a couple of bikers, sure, but they’ll only get this one opportunity. Future sightings will arouse suspicion. Is now the time?

Jason makes the call. “SNOWMAN, gun it. Overtake and catch up to Charade and Agent R.”

“Roger.”

The two men push their bikes to maximum speed. Jason, keeping track of the minutes and seconds remaining, swears to himself at the time it’s taking.

They pass the convoy - and consciously choose not to look at it. No need to draw attention to themselves. They’re just a couple of bikers, on the way to who knows where, with no interest in or connection to the convoy.

But Jason can think about what it is. Truck after truck, each equipped with its own weapons and defenses, occupied by armed airmen, falls behind them.

Could these people handle Tyran’s robots? Maybe. Jason wants to tell himself that none of this is necessary - that he and John could hang back and let the Air Force handle it. But could they? Tyran clearly thought they’d have the upper hand.

Ultimately, he tells himself, it doesn’t matter. The MIA team is here now. There’s people who need their help.

He remembers Rusty telling him what the work is like. “If you do your job right, nobody ever hears about it.”

A much younger Jason, who was still entranced by stories of adventure from two loving fathers, and who hadn’t yet suffered through a cartoon of his own exploits, didn’t understand. “But I wanna go on action!” he’d said, joining words experimentally as a young child does. “Then I can tell you an’ Biddy about it!” Biddy and Ruddy - two ways of saying daddy that incorporated each man’s name - Jason hadn’t thought of that in a long time.

Rusty asked the question that kids and scientists love. “Why?”

“Cause… cause you’ll be proud a’ me,” Jason said, in his first exploratory foray into this new landscape.

“Aren’t we proud of you now?” Rusty asked.

“Yeah…” Young Jason turned that over and over. “But I wanna make you both more proud! An’ I wanna… I wanna… Like… like when ya share a toy… I think…” He’d tried to formulate what he felt, and fell short. Jason at that age hadn’t had many human playmates, and so had missed out on certain formative moments.

But Rusty had understood immediately. “You feel joy from hearing about action and adventure. You want to share your joy with someone else. It feels good to share something you like.”

He’d had to think about how to reply. Somehow, the thing Jason remembered most about that moment was the way Rusty’s beard had bristled and his jaw had moved. The man was literally chewing on his answer.

“The joy of saving lives belongs to the life you saved,” he said, finally. “You aren’t sharing a toy. Lives aren’t toys, Jason. Lives are lives. What you’re doing is giving someone a gift. Your time, your talent. Sometimes your own life. You give it and sometimes they don’t even know you gave it. Like Santa Claus.”

Even at that age, Jason understood Santa Claus was just a story. But he liked the story.

“A gift isn’t yours, though. You don’t get to take it back. You don’t share it, unless the other person lets you. And that’s what black operations are. They’re a gift to the world. You get to share the joy of giving that gift with your fellows, the people who served with you. But if word gets out, that person can lose the gift you gave. And you can lose your life. So it’s a secret, just between you and your team. Do you understand?”

Jason had understood a little.

Today, he understands thoroughly.

The convoy recedes and disappears in the motorcycle’s rear view mirrors.

garrett · April 22, 2025, 9:22am

Nono is once again in her flow state.

Life is exciting and hilarious and strange and colorful. She’s going to have a couple minutes of this, and then she’s going to come down and everything’s going to suck. She’s reformulated her drug multiple times, each time under the supervision of neurobiologist John Black and resident skeptic Alycia Chin. Right now the come-down is…well, about as bad as a day on a motorcycle.

Her job is to ride over the bridge down to Estelline, spot anything unusual, and hang out. She’s now passing through Estelline, which it turns out is just a handful of buildings. At first, everything looks to be in order. The Baptist Church is a respectable two blocks away from the liquor store. But Nono, heightened by her drug, her boredom, and her desire for exciting spy action, picks up on something out of place.

There’s a tractor-trailer here. She’s seen plenty while on the road. But this one isn’t powered off while the operator attends to business. The engine is idling. It’s well away from the nearest building, a yellow-orange house flanked by green trees. The cab is pointed toward the highway, and facing a paved strip over the usually grassy median that would let the operator go either south or north with equal ease. It’s not just parked here. It’s waiting.

This feels wrong.

“X, run plates for me,” she radios up to Alex. The vehicle’s license plate follows.

She doesn’t give herself away. She keeps riding, until she reaches a spot a few hundred feet south along the freeway where she can pull off road, and maybe get behind the guy without being spotted.

Alycia Chin has pulled her bike off the freeway, and is looking through a tiny set of binoculars.

She’s now sure there are bombs. The problem is that there must be someone with a detonating device nearby to set them off. The ideal tactic would be to blow the bridge as the convoy crosses it - and that can’t be left to a mere timer. She and Nono have both checked the north side. The tiny towns of Newlin on the north side and Estelline on the south are the most logical places from which to stage an attack, and they’ve just been through Newlin. Another alternative is to strike from one of the farms and ranches nearby, but she feels like that’s less probable for a variety of reasons.

“Firebrand, thermograph. North and south banks of the river. Looking for heat sources consistent with one or two people. Camouflage is a possibility.”

She and Emma spot her quarry almost simultaneously. There’s a stretch of open ground off the side of the northbound highway, just north of the river. A tractor-trailer is parked there. On top of the trailer, a couple of people are waiting and watching. One has binoculars. The other, Alycia is confidently certain, will have a rifle. A sniper and spotter team.

They’d have great visibility on the convoy’s approach from the north, and could time a detonation of the bridge very easily. The trailer, parked off to the side of the road, leans right just enough that the duo could remain in defilade and avoid being seen by the convoy. Once the fighting started, they’d simply turn around and start shooting.

But Emma’s got more news.

“Spotted a couple supers flying around. Well below us. They’re circling wide and looking down.”

The easy answer suggests itself to Alycia. Some local boys are out here supporting the convoy, the way the MIA team is doing.

Alycia, on the strength of long experience, doesn’t trust the easy answer.

For now, since the recon team is looking north and waiting for the convoy, she’s got time to get down under the bridge.

The uniformity of the landscape works to her advantage. She can immediately spot the satchels planted around the supports of the southbound side of the bridge, thanks to their color contrast with the washed-out badlands.

Now the question is what to do about them.

“Brigand, Charade, two tangos atop a tractor-trailer on northbound side. Spotting for demo, probably assigned to overwatch once things go hot.”

“Charade, Brigand copies,” radios Jason. “Gonna mess you up if we deal with 'em?”

“Negative,” comes the radioed reply, with a hint of static.

Jason grins to himself. He turns to look at the helmeted man on the motorbike to his left, as they cruise at high speed south toward the danger zone. “We got a sniper team on the road and a VTOL parked out in the river. Which do you want, SNOWMAN?”

“Gimme the VTOL,” John says, after a second of thought.

“All yours, buddy.” Jason throws a quick two-finger salute from his right temple, and John speeds up.

Behind him, Jason calls up to the plane. “X, need an intercept route that’ll get me behind that rig.”

“Copy, Brigand,” comes Alex’s voice. “Left on county road J, half a mile before Newlin…”

Jason keeps his eyes peeled for the left-hand turn. And in time, he takes it.

Nono heard back from Alex. The truck is owned by such-and-such LLC. But Alex can’t follow the chain of ownership up - Charade has them busy looking out for people around the river.

The flow patch is wearing off. With it goes Nono’s confidence in her own decisions.

She’s learned enough about basic stealth to avoid being seen. She thinks she could check the truck out herself. She’s just not sure if she should.

While she agonizes, she feels suggestions coming to mind. Why not check that orange house, for example? Who lives there? If a weirdo in black leather starts skulking around, will anyone notice run outside with a shotgun and start shouting?

Sometimes, the suggestions are in Alcyia’s voice. More and more, though, she discerns her own voice as a writer, just asking her to be curious.

I’m one of my characters, she tells herself. But I also have to be the spy writer.

How would I get myself in trouble?

How do I then not do that?

She rides in an orbit around the house, looking as carefully as she can without staring.

She parks the bike with the house between her and the truck. If the truck is suspicious, isn’t it better to be seen by people who aren’t them?

Off the bike, and forward, toward the house, confidently. She slips into a role, just for a minute, just in case - hi, can I please get a glass of water? I’ll pay. Hi, can you tell me how to get to X?

Nobody seems home. The curtains are open, and there’s nobody parked here.

Around the house, then, just in case someone’s in another room. Nobody’s home.

This is how Jason and Alycia must live, all the time, her inner writer tells her, and feels a well of sympathy. Always mistrusting, always fearful, always cautious. How precious it must be, for them to be most at ease with their once-worst enemy.

The shipping writer wakes up briefly, only to be pushed back down by the spy writer. Trucks have visibility problems. You saw all those signs on their back - “if you can’t see my mirrors, I can’t see you”.

Nono masks herself with the trees, and walks sideways until she’s right behind the trailer. Until she can’t see the mirrors.

There. Okay. We ready?

Wait. No. There’s one more thing to do.

The radio chatter has died down. “Charade, Agent R. Investigating a semi parked south of town. They’re idling–”

She starts to defend herself, to justify her decision to investigate this rather than resume doing the million other things she could be doing, because she’s foolish little Nono who can’t be right about anything except this one time, she really thinks it could be–

And she forces herself to pause, just long enough to hear what she hoped desperately to hear.

“Agent R, Charade copies,” Alycia says. And that’s it.

No remonstration or counter-orders. Just trust.

John Black has the farthest to go to reach his objective. He’s also got the least to lose if he pushes it. If he wipes out on the road, he’ll be fine.

He was cocky before, back when he was flesh and blood. Now his hyper-tech body can extend a limitless line of credit to his ego.

He takes the turn Jason is going to take, well before Jason gets there. The county road forces him to slow down, if only because it’ll throw him off the bike to go too fast with all these bumps.

Sharp right - sharp left - sharp right, onto another county road. South onto a little road marked 1619, then more dirt. Twists and turns, until there’s no more road heading south. He parks the bike and starts running, with his limitless endurance.

He sees it immediately, of course, even before he reaches the riverbank. The gleaming high-tech craft, with its four rotor pods angled up for vertical liftoff, is the child of classic military standbys such as the V-22 Osprey and the CH-47 Chinook. The tilt-rotor design lets the craft supplement its rotor lift with rockets in the rotor assemblies, and as such as well suited for carrying heavy loads.

Heavy loads like the supervillains in stasis.

The craft is out there being all conspicuous and shit and that’s fine, but he can’t afford to be spotted. And he’ll stick out like a sore thumb if he crosses the uniformly brown riverbed in decidedly not brown biker gear.

Okay, genius, now what?

He can’t just go wreck their shit. Well he could but that’s against orders. He’s not carrying any cool spy gadgets from Q, who had clearly read the script and prepared accordingly. He’s got the stuff he and Alex have been building into his shell, but it’s mostly a mixture of sensors and EWAR kit.

Right now, the ego that gloried in getting him here so fast is pacing in its cage like a wild animal.

Jason estimates he’s got two minutes before the convoy gets to the bridge. In that time he’s got to disable at least four people - the sniper and spotter on the trailer, and the two people in the cab - without arousing the convoy’s suspicion.

“Team, Brigand. Ready to engage northern truck.”

He gets a series of replies back.

“Team, Agent R. Found a southern truck. Ready to engage.”

“Team, SNOWMAN. Monitoring VTOL.”

Emma radios down. “Our two flyers have gotten more active, y’all. They’re deffo here for the convoy.”

They hear Alycia’s voice. “Team, Charade copies all. No matter who the flyers work for, we’ll look like the bad guys when we move. So watch the skies.”

“It’s go time. Each of you, take out your current target. Do not break ROE. No live fire against flesh and blood unless fired upon. Do not expose yourself as superhuman, where appropriate.”

A chorus of “copy” goes over the radio.

Once more unto the breach, Jason tells himself. This is what I live for.

His only doubt, as he begins moving, is that this is what his parents made him live for.

garrett · April 22, 2025, 6:59pm

From where he’s crouched in front of the parked truck, Jason makes a series of leaps and bounds up the cab. His gun is out in one hand, and the other hand is grabbing hold of fixtures and protrusions to help the quick climb. He’s lucky it’s a longnose extended cab, or this would have been much harder to pull off.

He sees the two men inside the cab react immediately, and he aims his gun at the head of one. Predictably, the man tries to duck out of the way, except he’s belted in. Jason aims at the other, who repeats the comic pantomime. By the time they recover and get their own pieces out, Jason is up on the roof of the cab.

He can see the top of the trailer, several feet away from where the spotter and sniper are positioned. Sure enough, one of them has a rifle, half covered by furniture padding. The rifle would be no good in close-quarters combat ranges, and so both have gone for their sidearms. Both heard his scramble up the cab.

Instead of leaping straight to the trailer, where he’d be picked off easily, he leaps to the side and grabs hold of the edge of its roof. Both men are laying down, facing the northern highway, so it’s hard for them to pivot to target him almost 90 degrees to their right.

The two are laying on a blanket, probably to insulate themselves from the metal roof of the truck that’s already hot from the Texas sun. He grabs hold of the blanket and yanks, kicking his way backward off the side of the truck in the process. Both men come with it, and he can almost feel the impact as they land on the ground. He himself comes down in a crouch.

The cab doors are opening. The driver and backup are getting out, weapons drawn. The backup driver is on this side and can shoot first. Jason ducks behind the fallen sniper, using him as a human shield. As he hides, and as the backup driver searches for a shot, Jason notices the sniper’s boot knife, draws it, flips it for throwing, and hurls it at the man’s leg in a single smooth action.

Behind him, the spotter is standing. He’s wobbly and he’s shaking his head to clear it. Jason goes for a roundhouse kick to the neck, then follows through with a low leg sweep to send the man to the ground again.

About now, the driver has come around the cab with a gun out. Jason has had time to grab two pieces - the sniper’s sidearm, and his own - and is pointing them both with determination. The driver can see his three injured teammates, one of whom is still bleeding. He throws his gun down, and clasps his hands behind his head.

Jason gives his orders. “Get your first aid kit. Bandage your guy. You have one chance to walk away from this, and that’s cooperate. You got it?”

“I got it,” the man answers gruffly.

The Jason of the cartoon would flash a smug grin at his victory, without considering the people he’d just fought. The Jason of now just hopes that these guys appreciate the gift of life he’s giving them. Killing a person, for better or worse, is just so easy.

Nono creeps underneath the trailer, gun in hand.

Tiny, meek, invisible little Nono.

She’s reasonably sure nobody will spot her from a distance down here. Maybe nobody will hear her? The engine of the cab is running.

Should she call in just to confirm she’s doing the right thing?

Alycia said it was okay.

Alycia doesn’t know the situation, her doubt tells her.

Suddenly, she smiles.

She’d never told anyone everything about her parents. Not even Emma knows.

Dad would have insisted on having the gun. He’d be the protector of the household. He’d be the breadwinner. He’d keep everyone safe in a city full of freaks. He’d also wanted a son, but you got your tubes tied after a few too many visits to the neighbors, didn’t you, dad.

Mom had been loyal enough to her own upbringing to be a traditional wife, but perceptive enough to realize her traditional husband wasn’t upholding his part of the bargain. She lacked the power to do anything about it, because she’d abandoned that power, and the stress overtook her.

Nono and Emma both got into their own therapy sessions. Nono objectively knows what her problems are. It’s no mystery why she’s so messed up.

But why is she thinking about this now? Because she’s crawling under a truck.

Her parents taught her to hide when there was danger, when she was scared. That’s why she’d hide under the bed when they’d shouted at each other.

And why is this whole thought suddenly so funny?

Right now, she’s hiding. And right now, there is a dangerous person on the loose.

Right now, it’s her.

Alycia has finished disarming the bombs.

I used to set these, for operations like this, her memory tells her.

She distracts herself by reconstructing Tyran’s plan here.

Plan A is to bomb the bridge, just as the convoy passes over it. The vehicles are built to withstand this kind of damage, so the stasis pods will keep functioning. Personnel - there’s a gap, there’s too few personnel - will deal with the airmen on the convoy, those who survived a collapsing bridge anyway. Then the VTOL will take off, people will hook up the pods to it, and it’ll haul pods to some secret facility.

Plan B, in case the bombs don’t detonate, is the trucks. The southern truck Nono spotted - good girl - would pull out across the freeway to block the convoy. The sniper and spotter would hop off the northern truck and reposition, and they’d pull in from behind to block the convoy. It would be an extended gunfight rather than a clean bombing. The convoy’s drivers might choose to try and break through, but that’s dicey.

Any plan is dicey.

Where are all the people who’d be needed for this?

Tyran allocated a dozen general-purpose humanoid robots for a convoy takeover yesterday. They must know the convoy’s security detail, probably better than MIA and her team do.

Ah - what’s in the trucks? Could you hold a full complement of Rossum-type robots in two trailers? Undoubtedly.

She trusts Jason to handle it, if they activate while he’s dealing with his truck.

She’s not quite sure she trusts Nono.

And what about those two supers in the sky?

And those two heroes they saw in the skies over Las Vegas–

Tyran has superhuman assets. The Stellar Six.

Ah!

A possible scenario emerges. The convoy comes under attack. Two seeming heroes dive in to assist - and betray the airmen, who make the wrong assumption about their motives.

Would two powered individuals, plus a dozen robots, be enough to take on the Air Force? Undoubtedly.

What’s Tyran’s plan C? What if the bombs don’t go off and the trucks don’t move?

Do the supers make their move alone? Would Tyran take the risk of the Air Force learning they’re dirty in order to gain unfettered access to a few powerful supervillains?

She doesn’t know. And she can hear her father’s voice in her head, berating her for not knowing.

John has figured out how to approach the VTOL without passing by any of the major viewports. He might still be seen but at this point he’s willing to chance it. He’s about to bust in and kick some ass anyway.

Can you lock the door of a military aircraft? Hopefully not.

He sprints across the dry riverbed, coming in from the right rear of the VTOL. He scans rapidly, evaluating his options as he runs. There - the front doors are closed, but the rear hatch is halfway open. Probably for venting the omnipresent heat.

He changes his angle slightly, leaps, grabs hold of the edge of the hatch, pulls himself up and over, and slides down the angled hatch. He comes down in a crouch, going for his gun without the hesitation of yesterday.

Three people are at the far end of the craft. He rushes them. One man is reaching for a radio. John raises the gun and shouts at him. “Touch it and you’re dead, asshole!”

In his infiltrations of Tyran’s predecessor with Alex, John Black has met people like this. They’re competent professionals, they’re paid to get a job done regardless of difficulty or morality, but they are mostly not ex-military guys. Those folks have an esprit de corps that tends to clash with Rook’s business ethos, which seems to be “who do we have to kill to make this happen”. Rook’s ideal hire is more like a gang leader off the street who can be stuffed into a business suit and not look too out of place.

John now has a challenge of wrangling three people without one covering for someone else, who then sets off an alarm or makes a radio call. Guys like this, the bangers in the business suits, value self-preservation. Thing is, Rook values success and is fine with killing off failures.

He walks forward, gun moving between three heads at all times, and yanks the headsets off, one at a time.

“What do you want?” asks one of the guys. He’s clearly not a Boss, but he’s probably more senior than the other two.

Well shit.

The team had briefly discussed cover stories. The general vibe was “we’re the super secret Tier One Delta SEAL badasses the Air Force assigned to this task and we can’t talk about it or we’d have to kill you”. Anything else, especially their connection with MIA or some other agency, would be giving away the game.

John can’t talk like a soldier or a cop. He’s gotta be another banger.

“I wanna be drinkin’ beer and fuckin’ someone but that ain’t happenin’ today, so shut your hole.”

He follows this up by pistol-whipping the unfortunate man. The other two get the message. Keep quiet and nobody will lose an eye until quarterly performance review at the very least.

This is when Alycia’s call comes over the headsets.

“Robots are likely in the two trailers. Report status.”

He hears Jason come back immediately. “Charade, Brigand. North truck secure. Convoy passing now.”

He hears Nono. “Charade, Agent R. South truck secure… in a second.”

He has to call in.

These guys will hear it. Fine. He addresses them, but with his radio mic open on broadcast.

“Any of you three make a move and I kill ya.”

He hears the response. “SNOWMAN, Charade. I’m calling that VTOL secure. Say asshole if that’s not the case.”

From behind his helmet, John smiles. He follows up his threat with an insult. “…Ya fuckin scumbags.”

Everyone else has done their jobs except Nono. She has about a minute before the convoy passes.

The effects of coming down from the flow patch are with her. Remembering her parents is depressing.

The cab windows are open. From up above, she can hear two men talking. “I didn’t hear a boom.”

“That means we’re up, don’t it?”

Shit.

She does not have time for self-pity. She cannot wait to sort out her issues. She has to deliver, for the people expecting big things of her.

She rolls out from under the cab, rapidly climbs up the truck step, and shoves a gun through the open window. “Either of you move and I shoot,” she says, in her best threatening voice.

One guy goes for a shotgun, mounted under the dash. Nono aims and fires - not for him, but the ceiling, as a warning. It doesn’t go right, and she ends up winging him in the arm. He yelps out in pain, and blood starts to flow.

She doesn’t know what to do. She fucked up - she knows it - a guy got hurt - she went against Rules of Engagement by firing first - she feels trapped–

She commits, in desperation.

“I said hold it! Move another fucking muscle and I blow your meager brains out!”

The two men clearly know she means business now, if nothing else.

The convoy will be passing by in seconds.

She has nowhere to hide and no way to leave that won’t also let them put their own plan into action. But if the convoy passes, they might see a black biker holding a gun and threatening a couple of random truckers

“Wave and smile,” she orders suddenly.

“What?” asks the driver. He gets the idea as her gun pivots to aim at his skull.

The two men put on empty smiles, and wave their hands.

The convoy goes by. Pilot vehicle - trucks - the last car - and then it’s gone, heading south into Texas.

“Give me the shotgun,” Nono orders, waving her pistol for emphasis.

The driver carefully, cautiously unhooks the shotgun. Nono snatches it with her off hand, the one that isn’t holding the gun. It’s heavy, and she loses her balance. She turns her fall into a backward hop, off the truck, and she lands on the ground. The gun goes straight back up, aiming through the cab window.

“Bandage your friend,” is her final order, before she runs for her bike.

The team is back on their bikes. All of them are both following the convoy and fleeing the scene, before any robotic reprisal or super-strike from the sky finds them.

“The supers were orbiting, but they bugged out once the convoy passed,” Emma reports.

“Tyran remote-operated clones, then,” Alycia says, feeling that her theory is now vindicated.

“Operated by Rossum.” John’s voice is heavy over the radio. “Bet I could have called him from the VTOL.”

Emma snorts. “I’m guessing that after you guys jumped the dudes on the ground, they didn’t have time to call into whatever central HQ runs the Stellar Six. Fuckin’ robots and clones, man. You can’t count on shit like that. No initiative. This ain’t real villainy.”

Alex has more information to add. “Team, I’ve got some access to military comms. The convoy called in the downed VTOL. Tyran said it was bound for Dallas and was routine. They noticed the supers too. But they haven’t twigged to us. Or if they have, they haven’t phoned it in on any channel I can hear.”

Nono hasn’t wanted to say it, but she feels compelled. “Charade. Agent R. I broke ROE. I shot first.”

She doesn’t defend or excuse it. But Alycia asks for details, and she gives them.

In the end, Nono hears something she didn’t expect. “You broke ROE. From your description the shot won’t end in a fatality. The guns are stolen so forensic analysis of the bullet will yield nothing useful. Based on these factors, it’s a mistake you could afford to make in this situation. Nevertheless it was a mistake. Further training will equip you with more and better options for next time.”

She smiles, and can’t help but smile. “Charade, Agent R copies.”

This is what criticism should be like from family, she thinks.

garrett · April 24, 2025, 2:32am

The convoy arrives at Fort Worth with no further incident.

The Dallas-Fort Worth area is dense, compared to the empty badlands and sparse desert ranches of the last few states. Emma has to settle for landing the jet on Lake Tawakoni, east of Dallas, and must wait until after dark.

Alycia and Jason manage to drag themselves and their motorcycles aboard, but it’s clear they are tired. John has to carry a sleeping Nono aboard, drop her in her hammock, and return with the two remaining motorcycles, one carried in each arm.

Emma and Alex have the reverse problem. Cooped up in the jet all day, they can’t wait to get outside and walk around.

The next morning, Nono wakes up crying. Emma checks on her. After a whispered conversation, she approaches Alycia.

“She’s still dealing with shooting a guy, like with a real gun and stuff. She’s kinda shaky. Hey, since your supervillain tip-off turned out to be Tyran’s wind-up toys, how about I ride in her place today?”

Alycia considers this, then nods her approval. “She performed adequately under pressure, for her still-limited training.”

Emma turns to Nono, who’s watching the two from the security of her hammock with puffy eyes, and grins. “Hear that, hon? That’s high praise from the Ice Queen here.”

Alycia rolls her eyes, then directs her attention to the team at large. “Clean yourselves up, eat, and we’ll commence today’s operations.”

“Bacon pancakes and OJ!” Jason announces, from the skillet. The others let out a weak but sincere cheer.

The convoy has to travel through Dallas. They’ve got almost an hour of protection within city limits. Eager to make a good impression after feeling like she let the team down somehow, Nono has put special care into launching the jet well before then, and getting it to an altitude where they can see the ground yet avoid detection. When the craft finally levels off, Alex jokingly plays the victory fanfare from a video game series over the team radios. But when Nono looks over, ready to be hurt by sarcasm, Alex’s smile and thumbs up are genuine.

When the convoy is finally underway on I-20, Jason and John are ahead of it again, and Alycia and Emma are in back.

There’s a lot more side roads to frisk, meaning they barely have time to slow down and glance left or right along the length of each road before moving on. The two riding in the vanguard settle for looking for the familiar signs - idling trucks, groups of bikers, out of place vehicles. This casual and superficial approach is riskier, but the team feels more confident. After all, Tyran has taken two swings at this and missed both times.

Alycia has cautioned the team not to assume they’ve already succeeded. But the vibe is hard to suppress. It’s gotten people more conversational.

Jason asks a question in due course, as the team rides through Monroe, AL. “Hey, Firebrand, Charade. Supervillains weren’t really my gig back in the day. So what’s the pecking order like? When would Mr. B run into someone like Dr. C?”

Emma waits, just in case Alycia wants to blurt something out. When nothing comes, she takes it. “Guys like the boss aren’t strictly regional but they have a stomping ground, a territory they know and want to stick to. Mostly that’s about networking with others they know and trust. Some of it’s knowing the limits and shit the heroes in that territory live by. If you get busted, are you going up for 20 years, or being put into forced labor camp, or dissected? Really depends on where ya are. Plus, like we’re seeing here with Bad Guys On Ice, if you network, there’s always someone at least willing to break you out.”

This is what gets Alycia to speak up. “Someone like… like ‘Doctor C’… does not ‘network’. They see themselves as the principal actor in whatever territory they control. Subordinates would do the work and face the lesser risks. Independent villains, such as ‘Mister B’, would be seen as nuisances at best and obstacles at worst. Mind you, this is not to disparage the qualities of a given villain. It’s simply a fact that you cannot easily control such people, and that lack of control is what makes them some kind of threat.”

Jason hmms. “So how about Rock’em Sock’em Ross’em? My understanding was that he and the good doctor had collaborated.”

“They did,” SNOWMAN says, but doesn’t elaborate.

Alycia does. “That is my understanding as well. In this case Doctor C would have seen someone like that as… a specialist under contract, you might say. A vendor to a corporation. Not properly an employee, not properly an equal. Simply someone who provides a unique service and can be kept at arm’s length.”

“But the Old Man also marketed his shit to dudes like Mr. B,” John says. “Need some henching done, and don’t want too much imagination or self-preservation from them? Fuckin’ robots. So maybe not that guy specifically, but guys like that.”

“So people like the toymaker would have been a conceivable middleman between B and C,” Jason speculates. “I don’t think this happened, but say that C needed some henching done, but also wanted someone with a particular power. Someone like the toymaker, not him but someone similarly positioned, might say ‘well I can build you a package of folks with the skills you need’.”

“That’s kinda how I got hold of Samir and his gang of fuckin’ cutthroats,” Emma says. “There’s middlemen like that in the community. No loyalty though, as we all fuckin’ learned to our detriment. Probably shoulda gone for some robots. I could certainly have afforded them back then.”

Something has been nudging at Alycia, and she speaks up. “SNOWMAN. you said you knew that your Old Man and Doctor C collaborated. Did he tell you that?”

“I was there for a deal one time,” John answers, over the radio. All Alycia can make out is his voice, and she wishes she could see his face when he adds more. “I even saw you there.”

“That is… Are you sure?” she asks, feeling concerned. “Leo never said anything about that.”

“I doubt that guy remembers it,” John replies flatly. “He’s done his best to move on. You could say I’m a few years closer to the experience.”

Alycia focuses, drawing her memories out and examining them carefully. “I… I remember two times when we went on, shall we say buying trips… but I…”

John snorts over the channel. “I’m very forgettable, I won’t be hurt if I don’t come to mind. You were pretty young.”

“Has it…” Alycia isn’t sure how to ask this. “Has it affected how you interact with me? Did that memory… influence your behavior with me in any way that you recognize?”

“Dunno,” is all he says, to her frustration.

“Memory’s a funny old thing.” This is from Emma, of all people, and it gets the attention of the others.

“You know, I remember shit like Mr. B handing me my first beer. Letting me pick between pieces of stolen jewelry for something to wear. Real father-daughter formative stuff. You know what I don’t remember anywhere near as much? My biological parents. I spent like a year under his care, and like seventeen under theirs. You’d think I’d remember them more, yeah? Turns out stuff like depression can mess with your head. Rearrange your memories. Trauma can do a real number on memory. And there’s no shortage of trauma from this team.”

Alycia frowns. “I admit that as a possibility. And… for what it’s worth, I am glad that you had positive memories from that time. I’m glad when any of us can claim such things.”

Jason has his own question. “Firebrand, you said you could afford robots ‘back then’. I thought you’d amassed a small fortune from your various jobs.”

Emma snorts disdainfully. “I did. Then I spent most of it on your god damn Antarctic clubhouse. SNOWMAN got upset that Comrade X was raiding peoples’ stolen credit cards to pay for stuff. My money’s just as dirty, but I can at least say I worked a little bit for it. And it’s not all stolen. I got paid by organized crime to do jobs too.”

Alex chortles over the radio from the plane. “Oh my god. That’s adorable. You felt bad and so you chipped in your hard-earned money so SNOWMAN would feel better?”

Emma’s calm as anything. “Agent R, punch Comrade X in the face please.”

“I’m busy flying the plane and I’m not punching anyone for you,” Nono answers just as calmly. “Come up here and do it yourself.”

Emma mutters, mostly to herself. “Candy-ass bitches. You should all be paying me rent for how much I sunk into that place. Eat my ass with a side salad and a nice red wine.”

They hear Alex mumble something. Then there’s a thump, and Nono is back on the radio. “X, you don’t get to say that about my girlfriend. Mind your business.”

Jason, though smiling broadly at the exchanges, tries to keep his voice level. “So I’ve heard good - well, for some definition of ‘good’ - about this Mr. B of yours. Is giving away your money to assuage someone else’s moral concerns something he’d approve of? Where did that come from?”

“A villain does what the fuck he wants,” sniffs Emma in prideful contempt. “I just felt like it.”

Everyone knows that’s not all there is to it, and feeling that psychic pressure makes her press on. “Well. I didn’t used to be that way. I guess… Yeah, I guess that’s something he taught me. Look out for people around you. That’s why I was so sure he was gonna be trying to break Father Freak outta the convoy.”

“It wasn’t exactly advertised,” Alycia points out. “This is technically a secret operation.”

“He’s broken into CIA black sites before,” Emma says. “He’s pretty plugged in. Part of the whole networking thing. I don’t know he’d know about this. And I didn’t want to break our security to tell him–”

“That is appreciated,” Alycia mutters darkly.

“–but, y’know, I’d have believed it if he knew. Make sense?”

“Makes sense,” Jason replies.

Alabama.

The team has been riding for most of the day, and it’s been as tiring as anything.

The exit says “Mile 20 - Boligee”.

The convoy passes the off-ramp and a Chevron gas station. It approaches a stretch of road where the median between northeast and southwest directions is wide. The grass is off-color, weakly green at best, growing despite the regular exhaust fumes rained down by cars passing in both directions.

This stretch of road, for about two miles, is surrounded on both sides by spindly trees. From the air, it looks like a regular carpet of green. From the ground, it looks like giant toothpicks have been planted, and managed to sprout leaves.

It’s Nono’s panicked announcement that gets everyone’s attention. “The lead truck in the convoy - it just - just rolled sideways, off the road!”

Jason and John immediately turn their motorcycles around, and steer for the shoulder to drive back to the scene.

“Convoy is stopping,” Alex reports tensely. “Security coming out of the trailers.”

“What caused it?” Alycia demands, as she and Emma accelerate from behind the convoy’s position.

“Giant fuckin ramp, just came outta nowhere,” Alex says, mystified. “Right under the front wheels of the truck.”

“It’s him,” Emma says, in a voice determined and scared at once. “It’s Mr. Big. He’s here.”

garrett · April 24, 2025, 5:08am

Alycia rides next to Emma, and both are only several seconds away from the suddenly disrupted convoy.

Alycia can feel Emma’s hesitation. The way she tightens her grip on the handlebars of her bike. The way those handlebars waver, as she considers whether to veer off or keep going. The way she lowers her head, as though trying to avert her gaze from a sight she would not wish to see.

“Do what you want, Firebrand,” Alycia says over the radio. “That was always the deal.”

That catalyzes Emma, who jerks the wheel of her bike and begins riding away at high speed. “I can’t do it,” is all she says, her voice breaking.

Alycia takes a long breath. It would have been better to have Firebrand along, though she’d never admit that aloud. But… she understands. Her own father isn’t physically here, but he is somehow present nevertheless.

The team discussed ROE - Rules of Engagement. Don’t open fire against live targets except to return fire. Avoid revealing the team’s true identity to anyone, primarily the members of the convoy.

They never got quite as far as what to do when one supervillain tries to recover another one. And Alycia now has to admit the reason. Nobody wants Tyran to have them. Nobody wants them free. And as long as the convoy was able to get to Atlanta safely, that wasn’t a thing they had to worry about.

In this scenario, there are no good answers. She curses everyone, most vehemently herself, for secretly allowing that hope to override the coldly rational need to confront that fact.

This is what she promised herself when she was fighting Pyrrhus last year in Antarctica, in the heart of the very base they now occupy for themselves. Find a way to save those embroiled in conflict.

This encounter happened in “230 - A New Hope” – Ed.

One villain or another will get their hands on Father Freak and the other imprisoned villains. Unless the team breaks their own rules, and then somehow prevails against a veteran villain who very likely came with backup.

John and Jason pull up to the site. The vehicle that toppled wasn’t the pilot truck. It was the actual tractor hauling the first of several stasis pods. The pilot truck itself, with its WIDE LOAD sign and amber lights, must have taken off to perform its job - warn people - without risking being embroiled in whatever was to come next here.

There is a high wall, made of heavy boulders that have been jammed together and affixed with mortar, that has somehow sprouted up across the highway. The pair can hear gunfire and shouting and other sounds of fighting behind it.

Leaning against the rock wall on the near side is a big, bald, muscular motherfucker. He’s covered in tattoos. This must be Mr. Big.

Jason and John remember the briefing. “They aren’t tattoos,” Emma had told them. “They’re gadgets. Weapons. Vehicles. Anything and everything he could need, shrunk down to tiny size. Every black dot on his skin is something he can use.”

Mr. Big sees them pull up, and exhales loudly. “Put your cameras away and beat it. This ain’t for tourists.”

His casual dismissal fades quickly, as he picks up on something - neither man knows what, not at first - and pushes off the wall. He walks toward the pair, still dressed in their motorcycle leathers and face-concealing helmets. “What are you two? Power Rangers Putties?”

The questioning look gives way to a big grin. “Nah. It ain’t that. Both of you got somethin’ right near the Casimir frontier, don’cha. But it’s not the same.”

“And you–” the villain turns to Jason. “You’re hiding the most.”

Jason, definitely convinced that a fight is about to commence, hops off his bike, and goes for his gun. And then it happens.

Things explode up and out of him - all around him. Suddenly much of the road is filled with what look like semi-transparent gelatin capsules, each one containing some kind of weird twisting slime monster.

“The fuck?!” yelps John.

Jason recognizes what happened immediately. “My nanobots. He made them big.”

He raises his gun.

Mr. Big shakes his head with a sly grin. “Not now, Jason, you’re be ridiculous,” he says, quoting a popular fan-made meme that had emerged from “The Adventures of Jason Quill” - Jason’s animated adventures.

John gets off his bike as well. He doesn’t go for the gun. He starts walking.

Mr. Big turns to look at him. “You’d probably explode from the inside if I did that trick on you. Don’t recommend it.”

He addresses both of them. “Reckon I know who you two are now. So is she with you gang, causing her usual mess?”

“Who knows?” says Jason noncommittally. But if there’s not going to be a fight immediately, and his identity is already known, he can at least ask. “You gonna hurt the airmen back there?”

Mr. Big turns to look at and past the rock wall he’s summoned. “Nah. You hear that?”

The two men listen. And it’s what they don’t hear that troubles them. The gunfire has died down.

The villain shakes his head. “I know what you’re thinkin’. It ain’t that. My buds Pell Mel and the Sinister Salamander are disarming and restraining 'em. Couple more folks are tackling the superhero response that’s no doubt inbound. Taking charge of the pods is my job. Nobody gets hurt unless they invite it.”

He tilts his head. “So. Whatcha gonna do about that?”

Alycia pulls up and around the rock wall on her own bike. “It’s as he says,” she reports, having just passed the rest of the convoy. “One speedster disarming the convoy’s defenders. One binding them.”

In a moment, a lizard-like being leaps to the top of the wall from the other side. It’s quadrupedal, and it seems to be partially on fire - for example, the frill and dewlap of many lizard species isn’t material here, but rather a halo of flame around the being’s head.

It peers down, sees Mr. Big, and whistles. “They’re ressstrained. You’re up.”

It takes in the trio of Alycia, Jason, and John. “Ssshall I dissspose of these?”

Big smiles, and waves his hand. “Nah, I got it.”

As an afterthought, he touches a part of his skin, and a cigar case flashes into full size in his hand. He extracts a cigar, and holds it up. “Can ya gimme a light while you’re here, Sally?”

“Wasssssteful of my talentssssss,” the lizard hisses, but it sounds somehow affectionate. The lizard breathes, a very tight and controlled stream of flame, and the end of the cigar lights up. Mr. Big puts the stogey between his lips, puts the cigar case away the way it came, and puffs.

“Well,” he says with a smile. “I take it y’all didn’t have a plan for me.”

Alycia looks at the others, then back to Mr. Big. She dismounts her bike as well, and walks toward Jason and John as she speaks.

“You were expected, actually. The difficulty you present is one of policy. It’s not in society’s interest to have free supervillains. Nor is having them in Tyran custody. The original strategy of having them in supervised confinement is the least worst alternative.”

Mr. Big’s smile grows thin and cunning. “Policy is dictated by the dominant force in any given situation. Presently, that’s myself and my associates. I don’t see the three of you posing a realistic challenge to that position.”

Alycia takes in the scattered nanobots, unable to move or function under their own weight at macroscales. This guy took out Jason Quill’s most potent weapon in one move, and he was probably the person with the most versatile power on scene at the moment. She hates to admit it, but he may have a point.

“We can negotiate,” she says.

Mr. Big actually laughs at that. “With what leverage? You have only one thing I might care about, and if you think to threaten her, no force on earth will keep you safe from my vengeance.”

Alycia shakes her head quickly. She’s more appalled by the idea of harming a teammate than by Mr. Big’s threat. “None of us would do anything of the sort to - your protégé.”

“Good.” Mr. Big pauses, and looks around. “Anyway, where is she?”

Alycia hesitates. “She is… she’s safe, and making her own decisions. She is, as you have advised, ‘doing whatever the fuck she wants’.”

She doesn’t want to give away a confidence. Doing so might have gained some sympathy from the man. But not enough to justify the violation of trust it would require.

Mr. Big nods. “Good. And… hey, how about that tall blonde girl she was with? They still dating?”

“We are,” comes Nono’s voice over the radio. “Tell him.”

Alcyia smiles. “They are. The ‘tall blonde girl’ authorized me to relay that much.”

Mr. Big takes this in, nodding amiably as any parent would when they get good news about their child. “Too bad. I was hoping if I ever ran into you folks, I’d get to tangle with her.”

Alycia tries to process that. “May I ask why?”

The man grins. “Well, I trained her. Taught her what I knew, tried to put her on a path where she could become what she wanted. And I’d like to see what that is, yannow? I wanna see what she’s grown into.”

There’s silence.

Over the radio, a voice comes. It’s quiet. “Tell him… Tell him I’m on my way. Tell him… I am gonna kick his fucking ass…”

Alycia swallows the nothing that’s developed into something inside her throat. She looks up, and smiles behind her helmet. “She says she is on her way. To kick your ass.”

“Fucking ass,” comes Emma’s voice more angrily.

“I have been corrected,” Alycia announces. “Fucking ass.”

Mr. Big smiles, and puffs on his cigar. “Looking forward to it.”

Two minutes later, Emma pulls up and hops off the bike. She strides defiantly toward Mr. Big, and takes off her helmet so the two of them can look face to face.

“Hey kid,” says the veteran villain.

“You said not to call you boss. You said I graduated. So, hey, Mr. Big I guess,” Emma says, scowling. “That also means no ‘kid’. I am Firebrand.”

Mr. Big nods, accepting the correction with grace. “Firebrand. Glad to see you’re doing good.”

Emma shrugs, and looks away, over at her team. “Yeah. I’m doin’ good.”

“So what’s this I hear about an ass-kicking?”

Emma straightens up, and looks back. “You and me. For the convoy’s captured villains. I win, you let the Air Force go. You win, you do whatever. I mean you were gonna anyway. But this way you get to see what I can do. And maybe if it’s worth it, you compensate me for that.”

Mr. Big considers, then takes the cigar out of his mouth and holds it between two fingers. “Father Freak’s non-negotiable. I can’t let him down. The others? I can live without 'em.”

Emma glances at Alycia.

Somehow, we gained some kind of leverage against a foe we can’t beat, she thinks. And she nods her approval.

Emma sees the nod, and turns back to her former mentor. “I’ve got some shit you’ve never seen before. Think you’re ready for me?”

Mr. Big grins. “You know me. Go Big or go home.”

garrett · April 24, 2025, 7:01am

Firebrand launches herself forward, boosted by a sudden gout of flame behind her.

Mr. Big responds by quickly increasing his own size - now easily 40 feet or more in height, large enough that she’ll hurt herself if she runs into him.

Firebrand jets between his enormous legs instead, and directs a thin, focused blast toward his Achilles tendon. Mr. Big is forced to raise his leg, and almost loses his balance, to avoid being scorched.

She lands, and blasts off again. Mr. Big tosses out a bunch of objects, which turn from tiny tattoo fragments into huge brick, stone, and steel walls of various sizes and shapes. Firebrand must in turn dodge these.

The initiative is again with Mr. Big. He returns to regular size, and materializes weapons. First a grenade launcher, which he pumps and fires repeatedly into the maze of walls where Firebrand is trapped. All of them explode - but several seconds later than expected.

“She’s suppressing the detonations, like she did in Shanghai,” remarks Alycia, as she observes the battle in progress.

“And these two care about each other, right?” asks John in shocked disbelief.

“The three of us have no room to talk there,” Jason remarks wryly, and John has to shrug in reluctant acceptance of his point.

Firebrand jets out and over the walls. Mr. Big has tossed away the now-empty grenade launcher and has acquired an M-16 automatic rifle. He sprays bullets, which melt into slag and fall from the air when they reach Firebrand’s heat shield.

“Doing good, Firebrand!” yells the older villain. “Now let’s stop messing around!”

“That was messing around!?” It’s Jason’s turn for disbelief. His nanobots are still littering the area, useless and slowly collapsing underneath their full-scale mass.

“I’m glad you two boys didn’t start something with him before I got here,” Alycia mumbles, mostly to herself.

Mr. Big grows large again, just in time to grab something and release it at a significant altitude. It turns out what he’s unleashed are three full-sized vehicles: a cement mixer, a school bus, and an industrial-scale steamroller. All three descend, casting a shadow on the ground like an omen of impending doom.

Firebrand, with as much confidence as she can muster, propels herself upward - through and past the three falling vehicles, dodging and weaving and bouncing off one of them once, but recovering.

Alycia and Jason, both knowing what’s about to come, throw themselves to the ground. John is too slow to anticipate it, but it doesn’t matter. The vehicles crash into the collection of walls that Mr. Big left behind, and those now fragment from the multiple impacts. Pieces of brick fly everywhere. Some bits of stone catch John in the face and chest, sending him sprawling backward. Their motorcycles, not built of anything particularly special, are knocked sideways and take considerable damage.

A huge cloud of dust, pollen, and grass stems also erupts from the impact site. Mr. Big simply grows larger to avoid the worst of it. The three on the ground can only huddle in place and wait for it to blow over.

As the dust settles, they look around. Where the hell did Emma go?

A moment later, they find out.

Firebrand descends from the sky, having enveloped herself in fire. She positioned herself in a line between Mr. Big and the sun, hiding her fiery radiance with celestial fire. Almost too late, Mr. Big raises his hand in a effort to ward her off. She hits, and bounces off, but the big man flinches in obvious pain, and shakes his injured hand in quick motions in a vain attempt to deal with it.

“First blood!” shouts Emma, as she touches down on the ground.

“No more Jack the Giant Killer for you!” booms the giant man. Suddenly he too disappears.

“He shrank,” deduces Alycia immediately. “Can she detect him like that?”

“He was able to sense my nanobots,” Jason tells her. “And whatever SNOWMAN has that’s small–”

“Casimir fractal, power source,” John says, hurriedly, fearing a joke from Alex about other kinds of small equipment he might have.

Firebrand seemingly has no way to detect Mr. Big’s shrunken state. She doesn’t need it. She simply sends a ring of fire outward from her body, in every direction. This time, John is the first to see the attack and react. He grabs hold of Alycia and Jason, each under one arm, and leaps away. The ring of fire passes beneath the three, and he lands hard on the pavement.

Mr. Big has given his position away as well. A relatively tiny hemisphere of glass springs up on a spot on the road - his only real defense against a wave of super-heated air coming at him from all directions.

“Got you now, motherfucker!” she shouts, and rushes the position.

The glass hemisphere suddenly grows and expands in every direction - and like Firebrand’s ring of flame, it doesn’t matter where she is because it’ll hit everything. She can’t reverse course fast enough, and the glass smashes into her.

Mr. Big suddenly grows again. He’s got an Uzi in his hand, and opens fire. The glass shatters, and Firebrand is both shot by a few bullets and cut by flying glass shards.

John abruptly crouches down, trying to extend himself as widely as possible to cover both Alycia and Jason. Without Jason’s nanobots, he’s only as tough as the biking leathers the team wears. Stray glass hits John from behind, but does nothing to his carbon-allotropic skin.

“We’re not safe here,” Alycia says, as the worst of it subsides.

“Ya think?” Jason grins lopsidedly.

The three of them beat a hasty retreat from the immediate battlefield.

Behind them, Firebrand is down on one knee. She’s got a hand out, projecting a fire shield to absorb the remaining Uzi fire. But that hand is wobbly, and she’s bleeding, even as her healing factor does its best to reverse her injuries.

Mr. Big runs out of ammo, and tosses the Uzi aside. He throws out another object - a giant Buick - that quickly descends toward where Firebrand crouches.

“It’s gassed up!” he shouts, daring her to use her flame powers against a vehicle with fuel still in the tank.

Firebrand grits her teeth. She raises her other hand, and shapes a complex pattern of heat in the air. Nearby atmosphere rushes toward her, bringing with it all the ambient moisture it holds. And then, rather than increasing the temperature, she drops it - radically. In a moment, she’s encased in a dome of ice. The Buick crashes into it, then slides off and onto its side.

Mr. Big whistles. “Hey, that’s new.”

He materializes a grenade, and tosses it toward the Buick’s exposed gas tank.

From inside the ice shell, Firebrand suppresses the explosion again. It’s costing her concentration, and the healing she’s doing is interfering too.

Alycia knows Emma’s power to suppress grenades is only temporary. She turns to John, the one member of the team who still has some kind of superhuman strength on tap. “I’d rather lose a supervillain duel than a teammate,” she says tensely, urging him by her comment to intervene.

They can hear Firebrand’s voice over the radio. “You take one step and I’ll kill you myself.”

The ice barrier cracks. Firebrand leaps out, grabs for the grenade, and pitches it overhand, hard as she can. It explodes in the sky.

She’s breathing heavily. She seemingly unable to move. But she’s still defiant.

Mr. Big materializes another rifle and sighs. “You give up?”

The pyrokinetic looks up at her mentor, blood still dripping from a cut on her face left by the glass. “Talk is cheap, asswipe. Shoot or shut up.”

Mr. Big looks genuinely regretful. But he begins raising the firearm to his shoulder, and sighting his shot–

And pauses.

He drops the gun, and laughs and laughs. “Oh god, you almost got me, didn’t you!”

Emma starts to giggle in amusement. “Haha, I almost did, didn’t I.”

John looks from Jason to Alycia and back for an explanation.

Jason beats Alycia to it, this time. “Gunpowder. She could have cooked off the ammunition in the magazine at any time. It would have blown up in his face.”

Alycia concurs with a nod. “Very likely either lethal or life-threatening, had it happened.”

Mr. Big has grown large enough to physically remove Father Freak’s stasis pod from its trailer. He’s shrunk it down, and affixed it to his skin, as yet another object he’s carrying around. He got the toppled tractor-trailer upright again. He even returned Jason’s nanobots to their proper size. They’ve all been out and big for long enough to become non-functional, but the nano-hive will recycle them to make more.

He’s also also been kind enough to clear the big stone wall obstructing the freeway. Traffic behind the convoy has backed up for a mile and a half, and plenty of horns are still honking. There’s still a lot of rubble on the scene, including broken glass.

The convoy’s airmen are directing traffic onto the shoulder and around the rubble. They understand that something went down well beyond their pay grade. They have been clearly informed that a few supervillains and their identically dressed motorcycle-riding henchmen are going to leave now with only one of their prisoners. That seems like an acceptable deal to them.

Emma is leaning on Mr. Big, and limping, and he’s supporting her with one arm. The two of the approach Alycia, John, and Jason.

“Nobody will hear about you folks from me,” he promises. “This story is yours to tell.”

Alycia nods. “Your discretion is appreciated.”

She nods in the general direction of his tattoos. “That said, I would like to know what kind of danger Father Freak will pose to society, now that he will presumably be freed.”

Mr. Big shrugs a little, and smiles strangely. “After his transformation, he got the idea God had abandoned him. Turned to black rituals and Satanism and stuff for a little while. Stayed cooped up in his old church. But it’s a coping mechanism. The main thing that bothers people isn’t what he does, it’s what he is. The fuzz raided his church by demand from a frightened community. They got schooled, so the governor called for the Army. Took 'em a couple tries but they did for him. So mainly, I’m gonna do what I did for Firebrand here. Some psych work, some partnering, some permission to commit a bit of the old ultraviolence. Whatever helps him.”

He looks down at his still-injured, but smiling protégé. “Something tells me I did a good job with this one. Maybe I can get lucky a second time.”

“What would you have done if Tyran had got to the convoy first?” Jason asks curiously.

“Probably gone after them,” Mr. Big says after a moment’s thought. “My sources only knew about the convoy. I didn’t know they’d try to spring their own prisoners.”

He grins. “Guessing you folks kept them safe until now, huh? In that case, I owe ya one.”

“We’ll consider your silence payment enough,” Alycia says firmly. “And on that note… since we appear to be without ground transportation, we shall walk into the woods and arrange a pickup some other way.”

Mr. Big nods. “Gimme a second with Emma here,” he asks.

They look at her, she nods, and they nod in return.

As the trio walk away, the big man looks down at Emma. “They seem like okay folks, for heroes.”

“I ain’t apologizing for hanging out with heroes, if that’s what you want,” she says with a smile. “But I think we’re past that, aren’t we.”

He nods back, and pats her carefully on the back. “We’re past that. I’m really proud of you, kid.”

She elbows him and scowls. “I said Firebrand, not ‘kid’.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. To me, you’re always going to be that kid I took in. Even though, as I’m happy to admit right now, you’ve grown up in every way that matters.”

“I guess that’s okay then.”

She looks up again. “Hey. I want to let you know something. Me and Nono - that girl I brought by that one time - things are good. I thought, y’know, the old me had been burned away, and I was just gonna be a villain, and that was it. Turns out, I found some stuff in the ashes that hadn’t burned up. Turns out, controlled burns really makes for fertile soil for growing things.”

She scowls again, but at herself. “You know what, this metaphor fucking sucks. Just… Just… Just know that you did right by me, okay? I’m… I’m not healthy, but the pieces fit together.”

“That’s all I could ask,” smiles Mr. Big. “Now get going. And don’t be a stranger.”

Everyone has returned to the jet.

Alex reports on the situation on the ground. “A team of heroes was flying in from Montgomery. No way would they have made it in time. But they made it. Everyone on the convoy was unhurt. They got rolling again. God knows what kinda report they’ll file with the brass. But as far as I can tell, we won’t feature in any of it. And bless Mr. Big for his ‘villain henchmen’ cover story. We’re off the hook with the Tyran guys we beat up, since their brass will believe that in a heartbeat. Nobody saw nothing thanks to that big honkin’ wall he raised.”

Alycia smiles. “Somehow it worked out.”

She turns back to address Emma. “And somehow, you–”

She finds Emma asleep in one of the hammocks, snuggled up next to a napping Nono.

“I suppose we have to see them safely to Atlanta,” she says in resignation. “I’ll pilot.”

garrett · April 24, 2025, 8:24am

Las Vegas.

Normally you have to book a stay at the Four Seasons Hotel months in advance. Alex has somehow mysteriously gotten them a few choice rooms with all the amenities.

“Won’t someone else have these rooms?” Nono asked, when Alex was explaining things.

“Probably, but we beat Tyran, so we’re above good and evil,” Alex had replied with a grin.

“We could have added another villain to that convoy,” Nono had pouted.

Nobody on the beat-up team had argued it any further. Poolside relaxation, a view of the mountains, and room service all sounded too good.

Most of the team is enjoying time around the pool.

Nono is wearing a conservative one-piece swimsuit, with a light linen shirt over it. Emma went with a bikini. Alex is wearing an A-line dress and has added a sash around the waist that somehow gives it a stronger unisex flair, and some very durable cargo shorts.

Alycia and Jason have taken off together. The others are pretty sure it’s a date of some kind, and nobody has any interest in prying. John is also at the pool, but retreated in annoyance and embarrassment after Alex taunted him with the prospect of seeing more skin from the trio. He is now firmly heads-down in a book and will not budge.

“You should be nicer to him,” Nono says to Alex, once enough time has passed after the incident.

“I’m trying,” the hacker protests meekly. “I’m just, y’know, awful at being nice, is all.”

“You really do suck at a lot of stuff, don’t you,” says Emma. She adjusts her sunglasses, and gets out more sunscreen, but hesitates to apply it. “Fucking bullet holes in me. I grew fresh skin and it’s still so itchy.”

“I’m really glad you made it out of that okay,” Nono says earnestly, and more than a little worriedly. “I wanted to come down and see it, but I couldn’t bear to see you get hurt.”

Emma scoffs. “Like he was any serious danger to me. I saw he was using guns and immediately had a plan. Get him comfortable with shooting at me, then kablam.” She mimes an explosion with her hands. “He just got lucky and figured my scheme out at the last minute.”

Alex grins over at the pyrokinetic. “But hey, he didn’t hold back, right? From what I understand, that was a real straight-up fight. Y’all showed mercy at the end, sure.”

“Yeah…?” Emma glances suspiciously over at Alex.

“So. That means you are a serious, bona fide, dangerous supervillain, doesn’t it.”

Emma thinks about that. A smile spreads across her face. “Yeah. I guess that’s exactly what it means.”

Nono isn’t sure she likes where this is going, but tries her best to be supportive. “Soooo, in a sense, he was giving you a confidence boost, right? By not holding back? He wanted you to see what you’ve grown into too.”

Alex looks past Emma at Nono and tsks. “You’re gonna make her insufferable if you keep pumping her up like this. Dial it down.”

Emma isn’t hearing it. “No, no. Nono. I want you to tell me more about how awesome I am.”

Nono grins at her partner and friend and teammate. “How about after I get to actually see you fight. Then I’ll praise you.”

Emma rolls her eyes, and lays back on the poolside chair. “My reputation will grow and grow and then nobody will be willing to fight me.”

The three of them take in the sun of Vegas.

Finally Nono speaks up again. “I used to think being a grownup meant not having any rules. But being an adult, there’s so many rules, aren’t there.”

Alex ticks off items on their fingers. “Pay your taxes, obey the law, insure your car… Being who we are, we can avoid most of those, at least.”

Nono turns on her side in the chair, to look at the others. “But it’s not the rules I mind. I think… I think I like this best, because we’re making our own rules. And we are responsible to ourselves for sticking to them. The rules aren’t the problem. It’s people giving us annoying nonsense rules and not explaining them. Like the ROE we followed. Well, mostly followed. Those were okay. Because they made sense.”

“The difference between a home and a prison is who has the key to let you out, huh?” asks Alex. “That’s how I thought of it, growing up.”

“Yeah, something like that.” Nono thinks about it. “I keep thinking about what Mr. Big told Emma. ‘Do whatever the eff you want’. But he has rules too, doesn’t he. He stuck by our deal even if he didn’t have to.”

Emma smiles over at her girlfriend. “Yeah. I do whatever and whoever I want. But I have rules about those things too, don’t I. The boss gave me a key that let me turn my life from a prison into a home.”

She looks over at Alex, brows furrowed. “Wherein I play host to one loving partner and a bunch of annoying freeloaders.”

Alex grins, taking it as unseriously as they know Emma means it. “I pay my way with my hacking skills.”

Their smile fades a bit, and they glance over at a distant John Black, still reading his book and pointedly ignoring everything else in the universe.

“He said… He told me, once, every system has rules. That if I was gonna hack, I had to know the rules. He meant himself. His rules.”

This conversation happened in “418 - The Golden Dragon” – Ed.

The grin is back, and they direct it at Nono and Emma both. “I’m bad at following rules. My parents gave me far too many for me to ever be okay with them, I think. I’m a rebel at heart. I have to mess with systems. And… to be honest, as much as I mess with the two of you, I want you both to know that… well, that you mean the world to me. I’m always goofin’ on somebody but it’s, I guess, it’s how I try to make a connection with people. Everyone likes clowns, right?”

“Nobody likes clowns,” Nono says firmly. “But…listen. We do like you.”

She jerks her head in the direction of the distant Mr. Black. “Your parents aren’t here. He is. If… if you want to be free to do something… then… what’s letting your parents keep you in their prison, huh? What’s your key to let yourself out?”

Alex hangs their head. “I dunno yet. The one thing whose secrets I can’t really raid is myself. Funny, huh?”

Nono looks at Emma, then back to Alex. “Fine. Tell you what. Emma and I are your parents now. Like, you’re our age and stuff, but you kinda act childish, soooo you’re just going to have to live with it.”

Emma goes along with this immediately and enthusiastically. “Right. As --”

She glances back at Nono. “Both moms right? We’re not doing this ‘mom and dad’ shit, I hate butch and femme stereotypes–”

Nono raises her hands. “Gender’s a tool, hon, go wild.”

Emma coughs and clears her throat. “Right. As your hot mom, haha, I command you to set three rules for yourself. Those are the only rules you have to follow. Anything your former parents said, anything your church said, none of that shit matters. You’re living in my house, youth, and as long as you’re here and not paying rent, you will follow rules.”

She turns back to Nono, questioningly. “How was that?”

Nono, eyebrows raised in surprise, claps. “No, that was great! I hardly know what to add to that.”

She turns back to Alex, and puts on her best stern face, which isn’t much. “Listen to your mother. Well your other mother.”

Alex wasn’t taking this very seriously at first - it just felt like more role-play - but more and more it’s growing on them, if their facial expression is any indication. “Three rules, huh? I guess…”

They glance over at John again, and catch him looking at the group. They immediately flash a shark-like smirk of victory at getting his attention, and he angrily puts his nose back down into his book.

Alex sighs and lowers their head. “Okay. Three rules. I gotta think about this.”

Jason and Alycia have found their way to the Las Vegas Ice Center. There’s a huge rink for skating here, as well as training equipment, classes, and more. Right now, there’s a small handful of tourists, an all-girl ice hockey team here for practice, and a pair of older couples all out on the ice.

The pair have plenty of recent experience with ice. Somehow, having it here, in a tightly controlled rink they can step out of at any time, is a million times more fun than Antarctica.

They’ve talked about silly little nothing topics, mostly to drain out the accumulated stress of the recent mission. But something is bothering Jason, and he’s slowly bringing the conversation around to it.

“John said he’d seen you once. When you were both younger, and your fathers had met for business. But you don’t remember it?”

Alycia nods, and frowns. She’s letting Jason lead, and his hands are around her waist, steering her. It’s a relaxing feeling, and she both needs and fears the relaxation. “I… I think perhaps that the memory damage you and I suffered at the hands of our fathers might have affected me. And that maybe I’m remembering wrong… I remember my father dealing for robots for a particular project, but I remember you being there. Surely you wouldn’t have been. So that memory can’t be accurate.”

Jason smiles gently. “Yeah, I’m quite certain Rossum isn’t my father. So maybe some memory conflation? Perfectly normal, very human and all that.”

Alycia looks up at Jason, and her eyes are uncharacteristically searching. “It was… well, I suppose I had a hope that somehow I’d met more children with fathers like ours. Would life had been less lonely for each of us, if we’d known each other, and a young Leo Snow? If-- if a Chin and Rossum partnership had happened, had lasted, would-- would I, would he–?”

At one time in his life, Jason might have envied Leo after hearing questions like this. He just shakes his head. “It’s hard to say and I hope you forgive me for saying it, but if giving up our relationship had let you be happier as a child in some retroactive, time-travel way, I’d seriously give it some thought.”

Alycia scowls, and elbows Jason gently. “I’m not trying to push you out, you goof. I’m just wondering…”

She turns pensive again. “I think… it’s yet another reason I’m wary of a deeper relationship. You and I were both isolated by our upbringing. Now we live in a literal secret base in Antarctica and we think that’s a good idea. Can I, myself, be trusted not to repeat the mistakes of the previous generation?”

This gives Jason the opening he wanted. “It wasn’t just our primary father figures that influenced us, was it? I had Rusty. Leo didn’t have his biological mother Ji-a, but he had a succession of foster families. What about you? I never hear you talk about a mother.”

Jason learned the truth of Alycia’s parentage in “418 - The Golden Dragon” – Ed.

Alycia shudders in Jason’s arms, and pushes away from him to ice skate on her own. Jason doesn’t contest it at all. Even now, she often needs her distance from him. Perhaps I pushed too far, he tells himself, and watches her for a reaction.

“I… I know, objectively and rationally, that I had a mother… after all, I was born, yes?” She leaps lightly, spins in place, lands moving backward on one skate, raising her other foot off the ice to balance, and clasps her hands behind her back.

She looks carefully at Jason. “What makes you ask this now?”

He smiles easily. “Well we’ve been talking about parents this mission, haven’t we. It just sort of came up and it lingered as a point of conversation.”

Alycia frowns, and looks away as she skates backwards. “I don’t know anything about any mother. I expect that my father took a wife or concubine, conceived me, and having no further use for her discarded her, as he discards everything and everyone who do not align with his aims.”

Jason can hear the uncertain quaver in her voice. This topic is something he’s dredged to the surface from a lightless depth in her subconscious, and she’s struggling to cope with it. He does his best to push it away with a light comment.

“It’s fine. I didn’t learn about my biological mother until my father disappeared. You might just be a late bloomer there. But since I know you’re keeping score, it’s my two dads to your one. Unless like Byron and Rusty, he and Hector Callado…?”

Alycia actually laughs at that, and Jason feels relieved. “Oh my god, I can not picture my father and his bodyguard like that, in any sense.”

Jason allows himself a brief gloating grin. “Hah. My two to your one then. How are you going to make up this deficiency?”

Alycia spreads her arms in a wide shrug, moving one arm aside at the last second so as to not collide with a fellow skater she can sense but not see. “I can’t, so you have got me this time. That’s quite annoying of you. You are, as they say, ‘on thin ice, pal’.”

Both laugh at the joke as they skate through the ice rink.

Alycia grows more serious, once the pair are out of earshot of other skaters. “It still scares me. Maybe… I’m scared to know, because I’ll doubt myself even further.”

She need not elaborate on what she’d learn about. Jason brought up her mother, and left it alone once he saw it was difficult.

He tries for something reassuring. “Supposedly, a woman asked the American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin a question after the Constitutional convention. ‘Do we have a republic, or a monarchy?’ His answer was ‘a republic, if you can keep it’.”

He smiles. “We’ve all declared our independence from our parents, the old ways of doing things, everything. So now what do we have? A relationship - and a team - if we can keep it.”

Alycia’s eyes warm again, to Jason’s relief. “I’ll fight and win as many wars as it takes to keep both of those things,” she declares.

She skates back into his arms, and the pair glide together across the ice.

garrett · April 24, 2025, 8:25am

That wraps up “Jailbreak!” The final MIA story will be “Go Loud”.