Chapter 8
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Lucas stood in his kitchen, waiting impatiently for the water to boil. Fire magic. That was what he should get Valpurgia to teach him next. It was practical. He could make tea in the dining room and start the meeting already. Instead the Outcasts were goofing off in the dining room while he waited for water to boil. Hopefully, they’d all arrived by now at least.

Finally, the tea kettle began to whistle and Lucas checked his phone for the next step. He never drank tea, himself, but for some reason Synapse had insisted on it today. According to the Internet, the next step was just to pour the water into cups. Wait, that was it? Tea was just hot water and tea bags? Shrugging to himself, he filled a trio of mugs and added tea bags, then carried them out to the dining room.

In the dining room he found that Synapse had created a pile of psionic suction cup darts and she and Stray were taking turns throwing them at Adam’s head. He decided to ignore this.

“Okay. Tea. Can we get started now?”

“Thank goodness!” Synapse exclaimed, reaching eagerly for her cup. “Wait, how am I going to drink this through my mask?”

“You didn’t think about that ahead of time?” Lucas asked.

Krisztina, who was laying her head on the table, spoke up. “Why do you have these meetings this late?”

Lucas handed the remaining cups to Stray and Sila. “Right, yes, let’s focus. I just spoke with Gaelos Hex and there’s some major—” He cut off, realizing that there were one too many faces at the table. “Who the hell is that?”

The stranger was tall, with short black hair, and looked somewhat nervous. Their fitted blazer and immaculate eyeliner made Lucas hesitate to guess which pronouns to use.

“That’s my roommate, Sam,” Sila explained. They were sitting noticeably close to Sam and were considerably more chipper than they had been recently.

“So we’re just inviting friends to these meetings now?” Lucas asked.

Suddenly Sila looked like a wilted flower. “They wanted to know what it was like.”

“Plus, you invited your girlfriend,” Stray added, gesturing to Krisztina with his mug.

“She’s—” Lucas paused, deciding he didn’t want to attempt to broach that subject right now. “I invited a member of another superhero team to discuss an important matter relating to her area of expertise.”

“You don’t know, maybe Sam’s an expert, too,” Synapse said.

“I’m a student of mythology and folklore,” Sam admitted. “I can leave if it’s a problem.”

“No,” Lucas sighed. “You can stay. It’s just…we really need to find a new place for these meetings.”

“But you’re the only one with a rich parent,” Synapse protested.

“We’re upper middle class at most. Anyway, meeting. Do you all remember when Titan first showed up?”

“Of course,” Stray replied. “He fought a giant robot across three districts. No one knew which of them was the good guy until it was over.”

“Well, it turns out that robot was from his home planet. It was some sort of security android that malfunctioned when it came into contact with a substance called Epsilon Seraphinite.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of that,” Sila said. “It causes technology to malfunction violently. Supposedly in ways that shouldn’t be possible. It’s extremely dangerous.”

Krisztina lifted her head heavily from the table. “It’s thought to be magic. Alien magic is rare and doesn’t follow any of the normal rules of magic, which is why Mom and Hex are freaking out enough to work together.”

“It disappeared after the robot fight,” Lucas continued, “but apparently the Aerialist recently learned that it’s resurfaced and is currently being passed around the criminal world.”

“Ah, and unless someone on our side gets to it first, it’s going to fall into the hands of someone who intends to use it,” Stray said.

Lucas nodded. “Exactly. Heaven is currently monitoring the leylines to detect any magical disturbances, but I’d like to see if there’s something more we can do magically, so Krisztina and I are going to Heaven Tower to do some research in their libraries. Stray, check with your contacts, and take Synapse with you. Sila, you and…your friend should visit your ship and see if you have any more info about the Seraphinite in its database. Adam…”

He suddenly realized Adam hadn’t spoken for the entire meeting. He was just sitting in his chair, staring somewhere to Lucas’ right.

“Adam, are you listening?”

Adam jerked and looked at Lucas. “Right, Seraphinite. Need to find it. What’s it look like again?”

Lucas began to reach for his phone, but Krisztina gestured with one hand and a dark green stone with swirls of smokey white appeared in midair over the table. “Apparently Epsilon Seraphinite is supposed to look like ordinary seraphinite. It’s a gemstone you can find on Earth, too.”

“Oh, gemstone, that’s easy. It’s gotta be Ifrit, right?” Adam said.

Stray shook his head. “Haven’t you been paying attention? Everyone’s after this thing. Ifrit keeps a low profile. She just sticks to jewelry stores and museums. Personally, I wouldn’t even go after her if it weren’t for the fact that she starts all those fires. There are apartments above some of those jewelry stores, you know.”

Adam stared at Stray for a long time. “Hey, what do you think of STRIX?”

“Complete assholes. Worse than cops.”

The succinct answer surprised Lucas enough to pursue the distraction. “They’re assholes? Then why work with them?”

“It’s a marriage of convenience. They get access to this.” He gestured to himself. “And I get them to keep gentrification out of my neighborhood, freeing me up to help more people.”

“But they helped me,” Adam protested. “After my accident, my life was spiraling out of control before they stepped in.”

Stray shrugged. “They help a lot of people in situations like yours, yeah, but they’re also an international military organization, which in practice means they’re primarily serving the interests of the United States government. They have completely unchecked power, a horrifyingly large surveillance network, and they throw people in prisons.”

Lucas considered this carefully. Of course he had never trusted STRIX, but Stray made a convincing argument that any good they did was completely outweighed by the bad.

Adam, on the other hand, seemed distressed. “But we do that, too, don’t we? We throw people in prison? Doesn’t that make superheroes like cops or STRIX agents?

Stray shook his head. “Some superheroes are assholes, yeah, but the superhero community isn’t a formal organization. Some superheroes focus on disaster relief or fighting alien gods or keeping reality from collapsing. That’s the kind of stuff I’m interested in.”

“But, wait, if you catch a supervillain you aren’t going to turn them into STRIX?” Synapse asked. The entire table was focused on Stray now. “Some of them are monsters.”

Stray looked down at his mug. “I might. If I think they’re still dangerous. That’s something we all have to weigh carefully. It’s a shitty system that forces us to make ethical decisions like that, but that’s the world we live in.”

Adam’s expression turned to relief. “So if someone’s on STRIX’s most wanted, it’s probably a good idea to turn them in, right? I mean, those are the world’s most dangerous supervillains.”

Lucas frowned. “Adam, who did you catch?”

The relief quickly became apprehension. “Shudder.”

Stray looked as if someone had just told him a cat had died. “Not Shudder! How could you?”

“She’s number thirty-seven on the most wanted list! She tried to kidnap Sila!”

“Darling, she’s only on the most wanted list because she was Dr. Tlön’s assistant.”

“Dr…” Adam scrunched his face, giving the others an unsettling show of metal wrinkling like skin. “...What? Clon?”

“Dr. Tlön,” Lucas corrected. “With a T.”

“Dr. Tilon? Who’s that?”

“You don’t know about Dr. Tlön?” Synapse asked incredulously. “The Omega threat from two years ago? You didn’t hear about that?”

“I didn’t pay attention to superhero stuff until recently,” Adam explained.

Lucas stared at Adam, dumbfounded. He knew that his friend had never had much interest in the superhero world, but to have completely missed a worldwide threat which had dominated the news seemed impossible.

“The short explanation is that the doctor had a whole mind control plot,” Stray said. “It’s all very scary and everything, but poor Shudder is just a kid. She’s no danger on her own and she’s really quite nice once you get her to crack a smile. I wonder if there’s something we can do…”

Suddenly it struck Lucas that they were leaving someone important out of the conversation. “Sila, how do you feel about this? She was trying to kidnap you, after all.”

Sila looked surprised at the sudden attention. “Oh, uh, I’m not sure. I’m new here and everything, but it seems like your criminal justice system is similar to the one on Nanzara.”

“Not exactly a ringing endorsement from someone from a brutal interstellar empire,” Stray muttered.

“Yeah,” Sila agreed. “And, I mean, it’s pretty messed up that she tried to kidnap me, but it sounds like she’s probably poor, right? And if she’s a wanted criminal, she probably can’t get a normal job. So she needs whatever the Yamosians were paying her for food and stuff.” They stared down at the table and began to speak faster. “So it kind of seems like the real problem is bigger than her and that capturing her doesn’t really help stop the Yamosians since they can just hire someone else.”

Adam sighed. “Well, shit.”

 


 

In the end, Shudder and Whisper agreed that the most likely scenario was that what they had encountered wasn’t an Uqbar, but a similar piece of technology likely inspired by the Uqbar. Giaour and Byron were either the same person or were working together. Their intentions had been to force both Shudder and Whisper to witness this new device since they were the two people in Fairfield with the most experience with Tlön’s tech. Why they hadn’t simply explained the situation was a mystery.

In fact, far too much remained unclear. They didn’t know who was working to reinvent Tlön’s tech, or why. They didn’t know whether their adversary was capable of creating their own Orbis or if they even planned to do so. In fact, they didn’t even know whether any of these assumptions were true. But the possibility was enough to convince Shudder to work with Whisper.

Not that she had much choice. She was in a position not unlike the one she had been in when Tlön was arrested. Alone with no resources, no place to live, and STRIX pursuing her. No one would want to work with her until something else had claimed STRIX’s attention and she was forced to rely on the only person who was willing to offer help. However, she had to admit that Whisper was less likely to use her than Arachne.

Elise had allowed Shudder to use her bed. Shudder wasn’t going to turn down the offer, but she felt a small relief when she learned that her host did not sleep and only had a bed because getting rid of it was too much effort. So Shudder drifted off to the sounds of Elise quietly typing in the next room over.

The next morning, Elise had already gone, but had left Shudder a note explaining that she was at work and instructing her not to go out. Shudder scoffed at the instruction. Of course she knew not to go out.

Unfortunately, Elise’s apartment offered little in the way of entertainment. The password-locked computer put a stop to any effort to relieve her boredom online and the television proved to be a Gordian Knot of remotes. This left Shudder with a collection of wordy high fantasy novels which did little to pique her interest.

It was a relief, then, when in the late afternoon she received a text which read IE. Scrounger. Location of Epsilon Seraphinite. She didn’t recognize the number, but she instantly knew a text from Arachne’s upper echelon, the Widow Council. White Tail preferred to do business in person, but the Widows often favored short text exchanges.

She tried to remember the code word for STRIX. Can’t. I’ve upset an anthill, she texted back, hoping they’d get the message.

A moment later she received a response. The risk is acceptable.

Shudder puzzled over this response. IE stood for Information Extraction. She was to use her power to coax Sarah Scrounger, an arms dealer, into revealing the location of something called Epsilon Seraphinite. However, as far as she was aware Sarah was on good terms with Arachne. Putting that relationship at risk by having Shudder intimidate her was strange enough, but doing so knowing that it could lure STRIX to Sarah’s hideout was practically a betrayal. Apparently the Widow Council was desperate to find whatever Epsilon Seraphinite was.

She could turn the job down. After all, it was a big risk on her part and according to White Tail she owed Arachne nothing. But she also needed to rebuild her life now that Prometheus had upset it, and she couldn’t expect Elise to take care of her.

Pay? she texted.

Your comfort will be ensured, was the response. It was as close to a promise as she ever got from the Widows.

She texted back a thumbs up emoji.

A few hours later she donned her costume and made her way to Sarah’s hideout. It was in Fairfield’s skyscraper-filled business district, a surprising location for a supervillain’s lair, but Shudder supposed that Sarah liked knowing that she and her collection were hidden almost directly beneath the central headquarters of Fairfield’s legitimate arms dealer, Dawn Industries.

After a trek through Sapper’s tunnels, assisted this time by a flashlight, Shudder found a circular metal door which clearly didn’t match the rectangular concrete tunnels Sapper had produced. This door marked the border of the Scrounger’s territory, but Shudder suspected that she had already passed hidden defenses and been picked up by cameras because, as always, when she pressed the button on the intercom installed in the doorframe the answer came instantly.

“Shudder! How good to see you!”

The door rose smoothly, revealing a long, sterile hallway. It seemed empty, but seams in the walls at various points revealed where the defenses would emerge if someone ever tried to enter without permission. As she approached the end of the hall, another door slid open.

Sarah’s lair looked much like Shudder remembered it. It was like a museum of weapons, glass cases displaying various guns, exosuits posed like statues, swords and axes decorating walls. Things had been rearranged a little. There were some new acquisitions which Sarah was apparently proud enough of to show off. Most of them were one-of-a-kind items with a history behind them. Sarah liked to impress visitors.

Sarah herself looked like an action movie heroine. She wore cargo pants and a tank top which showed off her toned arms. Her brown hair was shaved on one side. However, her pale, porcelain skin and sharp eyeliner were a striking difference from the rougher and often-scarred small fry.

She wasted no time in pulling Shudder into a tight hug. “It’s been so long! I was so sorry for you when I heard about Dr. Tlön. How have you been?”

It seemed she didn’t hold the mind control plot against Shudder. Shudder hugged Sarah back. “It’s been hard.”

She felt as if she should say more, but that simple phrase seemed to encompass everything.

Sarah pushed away and held Shudder at arm’s length. “You’re so tall now! Last time I saw you you were still shorter than me. What happened to that nervous girl who followed Tlön around like a puppy?”

Those words combined with Sarah’s gaze was too much to handle and Shudder looked away as a grin overtook her and a blush crept over her face. It had been some time since anyone had teased her like this.

Sarah led Shudder to a collection of easy chairs where they could sit and talk surrounded by Sarah’s collection. She offered her tea, which Shudder accepted.

“Is that the same baton Tlön gave you?” Sarah asked.

Shudder removed the baton from her hip, offering it to Sarah. “Yeah, it’s a little scuffed, but I think it’s made out of…some special…I don’t know, polymer or something. That was way back when I first started working for Doc, and I didn’t understand half the words she said back then.”

The Scrounger turned the baton over in her hand, examining it and feeling its weight. “Interested in selling it?”

Shudder cocked her head. “It’s just a stick. Why would you want it?”

“True, a baton like this is of little value, ‘special polymer’ or not. But this is the baton the notorious Dr. Tlön gave to her loyal assistant. That gives it a sort of power. If I can say I own a weapon used by an Omega supervillain, I’ll look a little more impressive and have an easier time negotiating with clients. That’s just one example of what it can do. That baton is special.”

It was hard to imagine anyone but her caring about the baton, but there was something grotesque about the image of the baton sitting in one of these cases while Sarah boasted to some customer about her amazing collection. “I don’t think I can sell it. It’s one of the few things I have left of her.”

Sarah sighed and handed the baton back. “I thought you might say that. Now, what brings you back to my door after all this time? Planning to go high-profile?”

Shudder shook her head. She had already mentally rehearsed how to approach the subject, but she still found herself hesitating. “Uh, not exactly. Look, I’m going to be straight with you. I was sent here by Arachne.”

Unsurprisingly, there was an instant shift in the mood. The Scrounger was no longer smiling at Shudder and the warmth was gone from her tone. “Does Blue Scorpion really think she can intimidate me with a child?”

Shudder wasn’t sure who Blue Scorpion was. But she must have been at least mid-ranking to have an arachnid name. “Most people don’t fully understand how my power works. No one does, really, except for me and Doc and maybe Whisper. Arachne knows that I can subtly manipulate people, but they don’t get that I need something to work with. I can’t just walk into someone’s lair, where she’s at her most confident, and get her to tell me anything I want. Besides, I consider you a friend, so I wouldn’t want to. That’s why I decided to just talk with you about it. Get a better understanding of the situation.”

Sarah’s tone softened, but only a little. She leaned back in her chair, legs crossed. “It’s simple enough. I don’t have the Seraphinite. I don’t know where it is. I told Blue Scorpion as much.”

“What even is it?” Shudder asked. “It must be important.”

“It’s more dangerous than important. It looks like a normal gemstone, but in fact it’s a highly unpredictable weapon. True, I would love to have it in my collection, but I’m no fool. STRIX and Arachne are both desperate to get their hands on it and that means they’ll take drastic measures like attacking an innocent merchant.”

Shudder had decided ahead of time to trust what Sarah told her. After all, if she was lying, Shudder wasn’t going to be able to get her to hand over the Seraphinite anyway, so it was best to assume she was telling the truth. “Do you know who has it?”

Sarah shrugged. “From what I understand, it’s changed hands multiple times. Even ambitious supervillains who would otherwise use it are keeping their distance to avoid turning Arachne into an enemy. It’s likely still in the hands of a low level supervillain looking to sell it.”

Shudder frowned as she considered this. “If it were me, I’d hand it over to Arachne. I wouldn’t even try to sell it to them, since that would probably just offend them. The best I could expect to get out of it is some favor.”

Sarah took another sip of her tea. “Ah, but would your friends think the same way?”

“Gremlin would. So would Bodkin. Quetzal…I’m not sure. She might try to destroy it.”

“She would likely get herself killed in the process. It can’t be allowed to come into contact with machinery.”

Shudder made a mental note of that. “So maybe it’s in the hands of a minion instead. They always think they’re the one person who’s figured out how to game the system. They might try to sell it to Arachne.”

“I always say minions can’t be trusted,” Sarah agreed. “You never know when one is going to turn out to be a STRIX spy.”

“So maybe they’re securing it for STRIX,” Shudder suggested.

Sarah shook her head. “That’s unlikely. If the current owner was working for STRIX, they would have turned it in right away. They would have attempted a sale to Arachne by now, too.”

But the current owner must have known how dangerous it was to buy the Seraphinite when so many people were looking for it. They most likely had a buyer already in mind, so perhaps it was someone who was difficult to contact. But if all the supervillains were afraid to go near it…

“Could they be selling it to a superhero?” Shudder asked.

Sarah barked out a laugh. “You think Nova Legion makes deals with criminals?”

“Not Nova Legion, obviously, but there are a lot of superheroes with fewer scruples.”

Of course, that led to the same problem. A licensed hero would risk their position with STRIX if they tried to buy the Seraphinite, and an unlicensed hero would be hunted down and arrested for vigilantism. Besides, what kind of hero would want a dangerously unpredictable weapon? If they weren’t securing it for STRIX, it would have to be part of some kind of plan.

Shudder gasped. “What if it’s Valkyrie?”

Sarah’s expression became serious again. “What makes you say that?”

“She’s planning something big. I don’t know what, but she kidnapped a bunch of Mindbreaker’s victims.”

Something about her host’s grim tone made Shudder even more unsettled than her brief hostility earlier. “Rumor has it she’s bringing a war to Fairfield. An all-out fight between STRIX and Arachne.”

Shudder’s anxiety was rising. “Something the Seraphinite would be perfect for.”

“Maybe, but we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.” Sarah picked up a tablet from the table and began swiping. “I haven’t tracked down her base, but it’s not difficult to find marks of her activities. Since she uses fake police cars and tends to block off areas where she’s operating—Ah. There’s currently a blockade near the food processing plant. Hmm, but they’ve left one street open. It could be her.”

Shudder stood. “If I go now, maybe I’ll make it in time.”

“Stay away from Valkyrie,” Sarah said firmly. “If she catches you, you’ll never be seen again. Recovering the Seraphinite would impress Arachne, but the outside chance that she’s buying it is not worth the risk of her finding you.”

“But if she’s starting a war, then we have to prevent her from getting the Seraphinite, right? It’s bad for everyone if she does.”

Sarah gave her a confused look. “It has nothing to do with you. That’s for superheroes to deal with. Just take care of yourself.”

“But she is a superhero,” Shudder protested. “We’re the bad guys, so we’re supposed to fight them. If she’s planning a war, we’re going to end up fighting her anyway. We can’t wait for Valkyrie to make the first move just because she isn’t coming after any one of us specifically.”

Sarah paused, staring at Shudder. She seemed to be sizing her up. “You’re determined to go?”

Shudder nodded.

Sarah stood up and walked into another room. A moment later, she emerged with a small camera.

“Keep this clipped to your costume. Capturing footage of Valkyrie may be useful.”

Shudder clipped on the camera. “Thanks.”

She gave Sarah another hug. Then she made her way back through the hallway to Sapper’s tunnels.

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