Later that afternoon, Shudder found herself at a cramped diner not far from the train yard. It looked old, but not rundown. More faded. Its walls and sign were lighter than they should be, slowly being erased by time and the sun.

The Aerialist had responded quickly to Shudder’s text and suggested that they meet at this restaurant—out of costume, of course. She hadn’t been expecting to speak with him that very day, and felt entirely unprepared to see him again. After all, she hadn’t seen him in person since they’d spoken in that bar after Tlön’s fall. How could she even begin a conversation?

She decided to take the encounter one thing at a time. First of all was physically stepping into the restaurant. Easy enough on its own. With a deep breath, Shudder pulled open the door and stepped inside, which proved to be just as old-fashioned and faded as the outside. There was only room for a few booths in the tiny restaurant. The rest of the seating was a row of red pivoting stools at a tin counter that looked directly into the kitchen where a man in a paper hat was frying something.

There was only one customer, sitting at the counter. He was a tall man with curly brown hair who Shudder would have guessed was in his thirties or possibly early forties if she hadn’t known who he was. He swiveled at her entrance and waved.

“Shudder, glad you could make it,” he said with a warm smile.

“Hey,” she said. It felt like a woefully inadequate greeting, but she tried to force herself not to worry about that as she sat down on the next stool.

The cook came over to take their orders. The Aerialist ordered a tenderloin sandwich and coffee. Shudder, seeing that the restaurant’s menu was very small, and turned off by the way the oversized cutlet poured out of the bun on the picture of the tenderloin sandwich, just ordered an iced tea.

“It’s been, what, two years?” the Aerialist asked. “I meant to check in on you, but the life of a member of Nova Legion is busy. It would have taken time even for me to find you. Kept an eye on your exploits, though.”

Of course he had. Shudder was already beginning to feel like this was a mistake. “The robberies and shakedowns?”

The Aerialist nodded. “The robberies, the shakedowns. That fellow you stopped from shootin’ up that bodega. That security guard you protected during that museum heist.”

That felt even worse. Shudder felt as if he was painting a far too charitable image of her. “I was one of the people robbing that museum.”

“Maybe. But you don’t hurt people unless it’s necessary to complete your job. That’s good. And you stop your allies from causing unnecessary harm. That’s even better. Shows me that I made the right decision.”

The cook returned with their orders and the Aerialist paused to take a bite of his sandwich. Shudder decided to use the opportunity to change the subject.

“I looked up the Rouge Renegade.”

It had been a few months after their meeting that Shudder had become curious enough to look up the name the Aerialist had mentioned. It had proven surprisingly difficult. There were people who religiously followed the exploits of superheroes, so finding an old supervillain was usually a matter of a simple internet search. But the Aerialist’s career was long and he had never drawn much public attention. For a time, Shudder had wondered if the Rouge Renegade had been some secret, hidden from the public eye like Cruelty’s Calculation, but when she’d finally found a record of the name, in a microfilm pdf from the newspaper of the first city the Aerialist had worked in, she discovered that the truth was nothing so dramatic.

“Ardent Aerialist Foils Crossdresser’s Caper” read the headline. Some corporate espionage incident between two rival makeup companies had led to an employee of one of the companies, who had a minor metahuman mutation, to dress up in a costume and sabotage her rival. The Aerialist had put a stop to her. It wasn’t hard to work out why he had brought her name up at the bar.

The Aerialist gave her a sad look. “I’m not proud of that. I try my best to recognize my mistakes and do better in the future, but it took me too long to recognize that one.”

“What happened to her?” Shudder asked.

“She didn’t spend long in prison, thankfully. That was only a few months before Breakout Day.” Breakout Day was a major event in superhero history. Dozens of prisons around the world had experienced breakouts all at once, releasing countless superpowered criminals. No one ever discovered who was responsible. It was the reason STRIX was formed. “We were all too busy with the heavy hitters to worry about the Rouge Renegade. I looked her up awhile back. She ended up in the film business, doin’ makeup for horror movies. She has an Oscar and everything.”

That was a small relief.

“Since you brought it up,” the Aerialist continued, tapping his thumb on the countertop. Was he nervous, too? “I owe you a debt of gratitude.”

That was probably the last thing Shudder would have expected him to say. “Me? What do you owe me for?”

“A few months ago, my grandkid came out as nonbinary.” He paused to take a drink of his coffee. “The last few years haven’t been easy for him—them. Gotta work on that. They’ve had a lot of depression and anxiety. My son had them in therapy, but it didn’t seem like enough. We were all at a loss.

“They came out to their parents first. I didn’t find out for a couple of weeks and, well, my son wasn’t doin’ a good job. Don’t get me wrong, he didn’t react like…” He gestured vaguely at Shudder. “But he wasn’t takin’ his kid seriously. Not usin’ the right pronouns or anything. When I found out, I gave him a lecture unlike any he’d had since childhood. And I wouldn’t have been able to set him straight so easily if I hadn’t researched trans folks back when I was lookin’ for you and Tlön.”

“But that couldn’t have helped you find us,” Shudder said.

“No, but I wanted to understand you. Tlön was easy to brush off as another arrogant type who thinks a bit of scientific knowledge gives you a better understandin’ of right and wrong. But what would make an ordinary teenager loyal to her? Couldn’t she just go back to her parents and pretend to be a boy for a few years?”

“Of course I couldn’t!”

“Of course you couldn’t,” the Aerialist agreed. “So I tried to put myself in your shoes. Identity is something a guy like me takes for granted. My parents called me Ari and that suited me fine. It never occurred to me that it might not have. And when I started callin’ myself the Aerialist, no one argued with me. So I tried to picture what it would be like if everyone told me that, no, I’m not Ari, I’m someone else. Except it’s worse than that, ain’t it? It’s more like the possibility of being Ari was never presented to me. And the longer it goes on, the more I look in the mirror and see myself turnin’ into the person I’m told I am. I can’t imagine how that feels. But if I had to guess, I’d say it’s a bit like missing a nutrient. You’ve got food and water, but there’s somethin’ wrong and you don’t know what and it keeps gettin’ worse and worse.”

Shudder stared at the Aerialist, recalling the endless, unsettling itch of dysphoria. “That is…wow, that’s accurate.”

The Aerialist flashed a newspaper-worthy grin. “I find that empathy is helpful in detective work. Anyway, because I’d put all that thought into your experience, I knew how important it was to be active in supportin’ Sam, and let me tell you, it makes a world of difference. You should see how they smile when we get it right. So it might sound corny, but thank you for bein’ you. I mean it.”

The comment had Shudder resisting the urge to blush. She had never imagined that, simply by existing as a trans woman, she might have made another trans person’s life a little easier. She generally spoke little about being trans, even to other supervillains, partially out of concern that the opposite might be true, and that people might use her as an excuse to treat other trans people worse. To hide how touched she was, she cleared her throat, a little more loudly than she intended.

“You said you owe me a debt of gratitude for that. But remember, I’m a supervillain. You know how it works for us. When we do someone a favor, we’re owed one in return.”

“Oh, is that so?” the Aerialist replied slyly, clearly enjoying the game. “Has the scheming Shudder outsmarted the Aerialist at long last?

Shudder nodded with exaggerated firmness. “That’s what happens when you underestimate me. Now you’re left with no choice but to help me register with STRIX so that I can join the Outcasts.” Her dramatized confidence dropped. “They, uh, asked me to join.”

The Aerialist slapped the counter. “Gee whiz, if that ain’t good news! And I needed some good news today. I’m happy to help you, darlin’.” His excitement abated. “But you know you’re gonna be a tough sell.”

Shudder was stunned by the exuberant response. Did he really use the phrase ‘gee whiz’? She shook herself when she realized he was waiting for an answer. “Yeah, I understand that. It’s probably hard to trust me after everything.”

“Normally with a history like yours, the easiest way to go would be the sidekick route, but I don’t think that arrangement would work out too well. You’re too experienced to need a mentor, and I can’t imagine you’d enjoy the attention you’d get from the media as a supervillain joining Nova Legion. Thankfully, you’ve worked with the Outcasts before, and Repulse says you were quick to jump to the defense of your allies. Plus, you told us about Valkyrie. Both of those make you look good.”

He cupped his chin with his hand thoughtfully. “I’d prefer to take you to the STRIX base myself, but between Valkyrie and this whole Brazil mess, I don’t have the time. Lucky for us, the commander there is an old acquaintance of mine. I’ll give him a call and he’ll be happy to meet with you.”

Shudder’s fight-or-flight reflex began to kick in. “I’ll have to go there? To the base I just escaped from?”

“I know it’s a bit intimidatin’, darlin’, but he’s a man of his word. And even if he weren’t, every STRIX officer knows that the Aerialist doesn’t like dirty tricks.”

There was something threatening about the way he said that. Perhaps getting on the Aerialist’s bad side was, for those on the right side of the law, the equivalent to getting on the Widow Council’s bad side. Still, Shudder wasn’t entirely reassured. He really couldn’t come with?

“What’s going on in Brazil?”

The Aerialist waved a hand dismissively. “Just a magic mess, nothin’ for you to worry about. Normally, that would be Heaven’s area, but since they did such a good job locating the Seraphinite, they’re staying focused on that while Hex takes the lead on the Brazil situation. We’re takin’ Titan’s ship down there in a few hours.” He leaned in close. “Between you and me, Hex and Valpurgia ain’t too fond of each other. There’s some personal history between them that makes team-ups like this a bit messy. He’s not happy about her mentorin’ Lucas Delacroix, either, but even he admits that he can’t think of a better teacher.”

Shudder nodded, recalling how Dr. Tlön had explained that Gaelos Hex had no magical talent of his own, and instead relied on a vast array of knowledge and collection of enchanted items.

“Take one or two of your new friends with you,” the Aerialist advised. “They’ll make sure you make a good impression.”

“Thanks,” Shudder replied, finally saying the word she’d stopped herself from uttering two years ago. “You know, of all the superheroes out there, I never imagined you’d be one who would understand me.”

“We’re not so different.” The Aerialist smirked at Shudder’s scrunched face. “I’m an old man. I’m allowed to use cliches like that. But it’s true. We both have minor powers that force us to use our heads. We’ve both experienced poverty in one way or another. We were both bullied in school. We’re both biracial children with mothers who were immigrants.”

Shudder blinked, momentarily confused. “Oh, right, I guess you would know that. So your mother was…?”

“Lebanese,” the Aerialist finished. “She was an amazing woman. Passionate, fiercely protective. She could enter a room in a way that had everyone silent and at attention. Made delicious sfouf, too.”

Shudder’s mother hadn’t been protective. She didn’t usually feel envious when others talked about their loving parents—after all, Dr. Tlön was better than any parent could have been—but something in the Aerialist’s nostalgic tone made her feel an absence, something major lacking in her life that others had.

“My mom used to make a Korean dish I liked,” she said finally. “I don’t remember what it was called. My dad always called it spaghetti, but it wasn’t spaghetti. It had a thicker noodle, and pork and a bunch of vegetables and a weird black sauce that looked scary but tasted really good.”

The Aerialist’s face brightened. “I think I know what that is. It’s called jajangmyeon.”

“That was it!” Shudder said, excited to recall the name.

“You haven’t had it in years? There’s a Korean takeout place down the street. You should get some. A little way of celebrating your new career.”

They continued to chat while the Aerialist finished his lunch before the pair parted ways. Shudder made her way to the restaurant the Aerialist had suggested. On top of being as cramped as the diner, it was badly lit, but the tables and chairs were made of a pristine wood with a glossy finish that seemed expensive. The enthusiastic Korean woman working the register happily served her a tray of jajangmyeon along with an assortment of pickled vegetables.

It was the best thing she’d eaten in years.

She hardly thought about her Korean heritage these days. It was as if that part of her had been severed when her parents had kicked her out. Now she was realizing that a major piece of who she was had gone unexplored and she wondered if it was possible to reconnect with it. She could vaguely recall a trip to Korea when she was a child, but it was little more than images. A temple, the house they stayed at, a few faces of extended relatives whose names she couldn’t remember. It occurred to her that they might not be as hostile to a trans relative. She wondered if the Aerialist could help her find them.

As she thought back to their conversation, something odd struck her. The Aerialist had mentioned being bullied in school. However, Shudder had difficulty picturing him as anything but the all-American-captain-of-the-football-team-prom-king-valedictorian. Besides, he had a way of winning everyone over. Even Arachne agents spoke of him in admiring terms. Why would he have been bullied?

Ah, well, old people enjoyed telling stories. She supposed she could ask him about it when he got back from Brazil and things had calmed down.

 

---

 

The next day, as he was getting dressed, Lucas was surprised to get a call from STRIX requesting to meet with Shudder. He had anticipated success, but hadn’t expected things to move so quickly. He couldn’t escort her himself, so he texted Adam and instructed him to take Shudder there that afternoon.

Once he was ready, he portaled himself to Heaven Tower and made his way to floor thirty-five. He looked around for Krisztina as he made his way to the lesson room, but saw no sign of her. It was probably too late in the morning and she’d already gone to bed. Once again, Valpurgia was already there, looking as impossibly tidy as usual.

“Good morning, Lucas.”

“Good morning,” he greeted. “Sorry I asked to meet you so early, but Shudder brought us a lead on Valkyrie and I need your help with it.”

Valpurgia looked intrigued. “What sort of lead?”

Lucas sat down in his chair and the crushed camera out of his pocket, showing it to the vampire. “This thing saw Valkyrie. Do you think that’s enough to scry her through it?”

Valpurgia accepted the camera with a curious look, examining for a few moments before a pleased smile spread across her face. “Lucas, you’re becoming very creative. I think this will do nicely. I take it you brought it to me because you are concerned Valkyrie may have magical defenses.”

“I don’t want to take any chances. Especially when I’m still inexperienced.”

“Very wise,” Valpurgia said. She once again drew the magical circle on the table and, when it came time, Lucas offered his wrist for her to bite. As her teeth pierced his skin he once again felt the unreal sensation of his mind being guided into the act of scrying.

Just as before, he lost his sense of time as the vision gradually took over his consciousness. The experience was completely different this time. Instead of being a vague scene whose details shifted and were impossible to pin down, it was laid out before him with the indifference and impartiality of a camera.

He was looking down at an angle at a huge, windowless room. Nothing about it struck Lucas because it didn’t occur to him to consider anything. There was a pair of oversized elevators in the back and rows of huge military exosuits, each armed with a terrifying array of machine guns, rocket launchers, and weapons Lucas didn’t recognize, leading up to his position. Just at the bottom of his view, and somewhat to the side, was a group of people. Almost all of them were cyborgs with very few remaining biological parts. Each was made of smooth metal which was usually reinforced in certain areas, like the chest, head, shoulders, and sometimes forearms. One wore a patchwork coat. Another had been turned into some sort of anthropomorphized cat, and was crouched like an animal. Another was made of some kind of plastic instead of metal. This was their leader, Valkyrie.

She was speaking to the only person in the group who wasn’t a cyborg, a small woman wearing a lab coat. “They seem fit to me.”

“Their bodies are untested,” lab coat replied. “And their minds…something’s wrong with them. Whatever damage Mindbreaker did to them must have damaged their souls, too. If you allow me to do some more testing before we convert the others—”

“We don’t have time for more testing,” Valkyrie interrupted. “I no longer have control over how fast the war is coming. Tension between STRIX and Arachne is rising by the hour ever since the Seraphinite episode. Now Nova Legion has left the country. Without them to referee, it won’t be long before either organization makes the first move. If I’m going to succeed, all of my forces need to be ready to act.”

“But your sisters haven’t arrived yet,” the small woman protested.

“I’ll be speaking with the commander this afternoon,” Valkyrie said. “I’ll find a way to pry Samantha from him, and once she’s aboard, Amelia will fall in line.”

“I just want to make sure they aren’t going to do something unpredictable,” the woman insisted.

Valkyrie seemingly ignored her and stepped in front of the cyborg with the coat. “How do you feel?”

“Fine, I guess,” the cyborg replied. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me.”

“What’s your name?”

“Well, everyone here has been calling me Scarecrow, I guess because of my coat. I don’t remember my real name, though. It’s not Scarecrow.” He paused for a few moments, his one eyebrow curving more and more downward as his concentration grew more intense. Finally, he gave a grunt of frustration. “Nope, I’m sorry. Whatever I’m trying to think of, it’s just not there.”

“You see?” lab coat asked. “That’s not consistent with the previous subjects. We don’t know how damaged he is.”

Valkyrie gave her assistant a stern look. “Memories are unimportant.” She turned back to the cyborg. “Are you loyal to me?”

The cyborg nodded. “Yeah. I mean you brought me back to life and everything. And if I didn’t want to work for you, I don’t really see what else I would do.

“You see?” Valkyrie said, giving the cyborg a proud look. “I’ve cut away all fear and thoughts of disobedience. What remains will suit my purposes, no matter what damage Mindbreaker did.”

CUT

He was in the corner in another room, looking down from a similar angle. This room was much smaller than the previous one. There was a table and a collection of hard plastic chairs. Valkyrie sat on one side, dressed in a gray prison jumpsuit. A man in a suit sat opposite her. From his position, Lucas couldn’t see the man’s face.

“I understand you’ve made some upgrades,” he said.

“Just a hobby,” she replied. “I only kept it hidden because I knew the prison wouldn’t approve.”

The man examined a set of papers. “From what I understand, you’ve enhanced your strength several times over, installed firearms, reinforced your skeleton. How did you even manage to get the resources?”

“Patience, cleverness, and a liberal use of some of my lesser-known abilities,” Valkyrie answered matter-of-factly.

“The part that confuses me is why you didn’t escape. You could have torn right through the wall at any time. Hell, you could kill me right now if you wanted.”

“What would be the point?” Valkyrie asked. “I have nowhere to go, and no reason to kill you. So I’m spending some time figuring out what I want. Working on myself, as it were.”

“Right, and that brings us to why I’m here,” the man said. “The higher-ups at STRIX are panicking a little over the discovery that you’ve turned yourself into a one-woman battalion. Most of them want you sent to Singularity. But a few of them…well, did you know that STRIX got hold of your journals?”

The woman’s tone was steady, perhaps even restrained. “It doesn’t surprise me to hear that.”

“The scientists wanted to look over your work, see if any of it was applicable to people without your…unique characteristics. And you’ve developed quite a little fanbase over there. Your writings about the dangers posed by superhumans and the need for a radical systemic change to ensure humanity’s survival fits nicely within STRIX’s philosophy.”

Valkyrie’s expression turned suspicious. For the first time, she seemed to be off-guard. “I don’t…no it doesn’t. STRIX has no place in the world we wanted to create.”

“You can’t create the world you want if there’s no world left,” the man said smugly. “I’m here to recruit you before STRIX decides to send you to Singularity. Technically, I’m supposed to appraise you and decide without your direct input, but I prefer to just lay things out for you. We can just say that that affair in South America was just a momentary lapse in judgment and that what you want more than anything is to keep the world secure from the threat of the supernatural.”

CUT

Another room, a similar angle. This one was bigger, an operating room with a table loaded with strange equipment next to the operating table, which was occupied by a person so badly burned and cut that their features couldn’t even be made out. Several people were conversing over the person on the table. All were wearing surgical gowns.

“You didn’t tell me she was in this kind of condition,” one man said. He was short and had a craggy face. “Look, what you’re asking me to do…I don’t even know if someone in full health could survive it. She has no chance.”

“She’s a superhuman,” another man said.

“That’s no guarantee,” the craggy faced man objected. “I realize this is based on her own work, but if she has accelerated healing we’re better off waiting and letting her body handle it.”

“It’s not accelerated healing,” the other man said. “Look, this is simple. If you don’t do this, she will die. As will the two women bonded to her. And we can’t allow that to happen until we learn the truth of Tutamaqui.”

“You mean until you can retroactively justify what you did to them,” the craggy man said bitterly.

CUT

He was outside. His view was different now. It was lower, just below eye level, but also more vibrant, as if emotion had returned to the world. He was looking at two young women. One was wearing a flannel shirt, the other a hooded sweatshirt. Both wore their hair in ponytails that waved in a breeze. Behind them, he could see a stone building.

“Are you almost ready?” the woman in the hoodie asked. “I have work to do.”

“Honestly, why are you being so fussy today?” asked a voice from somewhere behind Lucas. “You normally let me take all the photos I want.”

“I imagine that’s because you usually prefer candid photos,” said the woman in flannel.

“I know, I know,” said the voice, “but the problem with being a photographer is that I never get photos of myself. So you can bear with me for five minutes while I engage in a little self indulgence. Anyway, I’m almost ready. This timer is just a little tricky…there, it’s ready.”

The voice hurried to join the others in Lucas’ view. She wore a pocket-filled vest over a button-down shirt. Before taking a position, she placed her hands on her hips sternly as she addressed the woman in flannel.

“Oh, come now, Samantha, at least try to smile. You always look so serious.”

“I suppose I can humor the woman who brought us together,” the woman in flannel replied.

“There’s more than that to smile about,” said the woman in the hoodie as the photographer took her position. “After all, Tutamaqui could change the world.”

The trio smiled.

CUT

It was over. Lucas was back in the lesson room trying to grasp everything he’d just seen. He put his hands on his head as if to try to hold the images in place.

“It was different that time,” he said. Were his eyes watering from the strain of his experience?

“As I said before, scrying is unpredictable,” Valpurgia replied. “Did you learn anything?”

“She’s with STRIX,” Lucas replied. “Or with the government, like Shudder thought.”

What the man had said could be read in two different ways. Either he was hiring her out from under STRIX or he was hiring her for STRIX before the higher ups could come to the inevitable decision not to.

“Adam’s mentioned that the head of the robotics division at STRIX is a cyborg,” Lucas continued. “She could be Valkyrie.”

“A cuckoo in the nest,” Valpurgia said, a dark expression on her face. “Preparing to kill the competition.”

Lucas considered whether to reveal the rest to Valpurgia. He didn’t know what it all meant, but something told him to keep this secret guarded. However, he decided, she could know more about it. “There was other stuff, too. She was a superhuman before she became a cyborg. I don’t know what kind of powers she had, but she’s somehow bonded to two other women. It sounds like, if one of them dies, they all die.”

Valpurgia stiffened just a little and stared at Lucas for a long moment. “There is a theory, or perhaps more of a rumor, about three such women. You are familiar with the theory that certain figures from religion and mythology may have been inspired by actual superhumans, are you not?”

Lucas nodded, recalling the stack of history books he’d checked out from the library a few years ago. “Yeah, basically the further back you go, the harder it becomes to separate history from legend because superpowers are often so unique and unpredictable.”

Valpurgia nodded. “Exactly. Ancient people were not fools. They understood that the man throwing lightning around was not a god, but after generations of retelling his story, it became changed and corrupted, building him into a god. Certain members of the magical community believe that this is true of the Norns. Are you familiar with them?”

Lucas resisted rolling his eyes. Some of the tattoos his mother had given him were runes. Of course he had researched Norse mythology. “The three goddesses of destiny.”

Valpurgia leaned back as she continued. “The rumor is that there are three women with immense magical power. They are not immortal like the Norns of myth, but they are what is now known as a legacy. When one trio dies, their power is passed on in some manner to three more women. I think it is no coincidence that our adversary chose the name Valkyrie.”

If there was any possibility that this was true, then the answer to one question could change everything. Lucas tried to keep his voice from shaking as he asked it, “If they’re the Norns, does that mean they can see the future?”

Lucas felt his heart sink as Valpurgia nodded. “So the rumor says. We had best pray that it is an imperfect foresight. Because if it is flawless, then our only hope lies in one final rumor. It is said that the Norns can only interfere with the fate of the world indirectly, by guiding others. If they become directly involved, everything they achieve will fall into ruin.”

Since Valkyrie’s plans involved the entire city, Lucas found little comfort in Valpurgia’s words.

“I’m going to need some time to think about all of this,” he said. “Figure out where to go from here.”

“As will I,” Valpurgia agreed. “Since this appears to be a magical matter, Heaven may need to act directly.”

As he left, Lucas considered whether to warn Adam and Shudder about the possibility of Valkyrie being a member of STRIX. However, warning Shudder would definitely frighten her away from the meeting that afternoon. On the off chance she did see Valkyrie, it wasn’t as if the Norn could do anything about it in the middle of the STRIX base, and it would be positive confirmation of her identity. Instead, as he made his way to the elevator, he pulled out his phone to text Shudder about another matter.

Can you put me into contact with Whisper?