As usual, when it was time to head to the base, Adam texted Lucas and received a portal in return. Once he was through, the portal closed behind him and quickly reopened, admitting a troubled-looking Shudder.

“Hey, Shudder,” Adam greeted with a wave. “Nervous?”

Shudder gave him a distracted look. “Hmm? I guess. Sorry, just got a weird text from Lucas earlier. Any idea why he would want to talk to Whisper?”

Adam shrugged. “Probably just wants to recruit him.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Shudder said. 

She didn’t add anything further, so Adam led the way to the first checkpoint and began the arduous task of making their way to the command office.

Things took much longer than expected. Phone calls had to be made, permission had to be gotten, and at one point a guard very nearly pulled his gun on Shudder. Apparently since the visit had been arranged so quickly, word hadn’t gotten everywhere that it needed to.

For her part, Shudder handled these obstacles with the same calm detachment that she displayed in most situations. Adam, however, found himself growing increasingly jumpy. He could, of course, protect Shudder if one of the guards actually did pull a weapon on her, but what would happen if one was simply too stubborn and insisted on having Shudder taken to a holding cell instead of calling his superior?

Thankfully, the pair made it to their destination without things getting out of hand. They were directed to a meeting room with a long, arching table facing a huge TV screen that dominated a wall. Adam wondered if they ever used it to watch movies.

The base’s commander, Reginald Tomahawk, was seated in one of the chairs. He was a rough-looking man with graying hair and a thick mustache. He was chatting with a woman seated a couple of chairs down, Director Korris.

As soon as they entered, Shudder’s demeanor changed entirely. All serenity was gone. Her eyes were wide with fear. Her breathing was so fast that Adam wondered if she was having a panic attack. She must have barely been holding back her anxiety this entire time.

“Adam, good to see you,” Commander Tomahawk greeted. “We’re a little busy today, so I’m doubling up on meetings. Have you met Director Korris?”

“Yeah, we’ve met,” Adam said. Director Korris nodded a greeting.

“Good, have a seat,” the commander said.

Adam chose a seat a few chairs away, where he could easily converse with both the commander and director. Strangely, Shudder hesitated for a moment before pulling out the chair next to Adam and sitting a little ways away from the table.

“Now,” the commander began, “I’m a little confused. A couple days ago, you brought this young lady into STRIX custody. Then, the next day, she vanishes without a trace. The next thing I know, my fifth grade science teacher is calling me up and telling me that this little Houdini is now the newest member of the Outcasts. Can you explain to me what the Hell is going on?”

Adam didn’t know what to say. Fifth grade science teacher? He thought Shudder was planning to contact a member of Nova Legion.

“Uh, I guess I’m a little lost, too,” Adam said. He looked to Shudder for clarification. But she was busy staring wide-eyed at their hosts.

“I mean the Aerialist,” Commander Tomahawk explained. “He used to work a day job as a teacher. He’s an old family friend, too. And he likes to tell stories. Do you know what I mean?”

“Oh, like embarrassing stories from when you were a kid?” Adam asked.

“Bingo.” The commander pointed to punctuate the reply. “So I tell him I’ll meet with Shudder in order to keep the man from talking my ear off, but understand that I am reluctant to license someone who helped build a mind control bomb.”

Finally, Shudder spoke. “Our interests are aligned now.” Unfortunately, Adam worried the weakness in her voice wasn’t doing her any favors.

“For the time being, maybe, but what about six months from now? Are you going to stab us in the back next time Arachne calls you up?”

“She only worked for them because she needed the money,” Adam countered. “If she’s licensed, she won’t have any reason to betray you. Besides, the Outcasts will be keeping an eye on her.”

The commander shook his head. “I’m not seeing why she’s worth the risk.”

There were a host of reasons why. She had criminal contacts, she was the only reason any of them knew about Valkyrie or Mindbreaker, she was more useful in a fight than her power suggested. But Shudder spoke up first.

“Someone, maybe Valkyrie, we aren’t sure yet, is stealing psionic tech. We think they’re trying to recreate Dr. Tlön’s inventions. I know more about Orbis than anyone except Tlön herself. You need me.”

Director Korris jolted, a mixture of fear and anger on her face. “You’re sure of that? There’s a possibility that someone is building another Orbis Tertius?”

Shudder stared—no, glared—at the director. “Something like Orbis, yeah. Not identical, but potentially on the same scale. No matter who it is, they need to be stopped.”

“Commander, this is the kind of thing I’m talking about,” the director said sternly. “It’s bad enough never knowing when a powerful superhuman could threaten the world, now there’s a possibility of the secrets behind world-ending technology becoming public knowledge. The world can not be allowed to be this delicate. We need experts who can both help us deal with the immediate threat and work to prevent future ones from appearing.”

Commander Tomahawk hesitated, looking troubled. “Okay, you’ve made your point. Type up a proposal and—”

“Commander,” Director Korris said sternly. “We need to do this now.”

The commander gave a heavy sigh and looked back at his visitors. “We’re going to have to cut this meeting short. Nova Legion’s out of the country, Arachne’s ramping up their activities, and now there’s…this mess to sort out, so I don’t have time to decide if I think a misbehaving kid regrets her actions enough. The Outcasts are free to work with her, I’ll put out the word to discontinue any search for Shudder, but any official license will have to wait until another time.”

That was disappointing. It seemed as if the entire meeting had been a waste of time.

“Fine, I guess that’s fair,” said Adam. “By the way, before we go, where’s the…uh, complaints department, I guess? Or do I just complain to you directly?”

Commander Tomahawk sighed again, this time in annoyance. “What do you have to complain about?”

“That’s not important, Prometheus,” Shudder muttered.

Adam ignored her. “Apparently the checkpoints weren’t properly informed of our visit. We had a hard time convincing some of them to check with their superiors instead of taking Shudder into custody.”

“As I said, STRIX is a little overwhelmed right now,” the commander said.

“Yeah, well, details like that are kind of important,” Adam said. “Especially since one of them almost pulled a gun on my friend.”

“I’ll make a note to review our checkpoint procedures,” the commander said flatly, looking tired. “Is there anything else?”

“Yeah, actually,” Adam continued. He wasn’t going to let the commander get away with brushing them off without making it as painful as possible. “You should review your sensitivity training, too. A member of the robotics division said some really transphobic stuff last time I was here.”

Director Korris’ eyes narrowed. “Who?”

“Dr. Hunt, actually.”

She was gripping the edge of the table so hard that cracks had begun to form. “I will have a word with her. There’s no place for bigotry in my division.”

“That’s all I ask,” Adam replied. “Thanks.”

With that, he led Shudder out. As they made their way back through the various checkpoints—thankfully much more easily this time—Shudder’s attitude shifted again. Where before she had seemed relaxed and disinterested even as the possibility of her detainment came up, she now seemed tense and paranoid. Her eyes darted back and forth as if expecting an ambush and she seemed surprised every time they were allowed past a checkpoint. When they were finally outside, she grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the tree where Lucas usually made his portal.

“We need to get the Outcasts together now,” she said.

Adam wasn’t sure why, but he obliged, group texting his teammates to let them know that they’d seen the STRIX commander and that Shudder was requesting a team meeting. However, when the portal opened, it led to a restaurant Adam didn’t recognize instead of Lucas’ house, and the other Outcasts were already there, gathered around a table

“She’s with STRIX,” Shudder said as she strode up to the table. “Valkyrie is one of their directors.”

Adam trailed after her. “Wait, who? Director Korris?”

The other Outcasts murmured their surprise, but Lucas simply nodded. “Right. And she knows that we know, now. Contact your families, everyone. Get them out of town.”

“My parents don’t even know I do this,” Synapse protested. “What am I supposed to tell them?”

“I don’t know, but figure it out,” Lucas replied. “STRIX keeps records of maskers’ civilian identities, so she’ll be able to find them.”

“Supervillains don’t usually go after families,” Stray noted. “She doesn’t have a vendetta against any of us. Our families aren’t worth the effort.”

Lucas shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Valkyrie’s starting a war here in Fairfield. I don’t know what she’s planning, and I don’t know if we’ll be able to stop it. So we need to be prepared for violence. A lot of it. Stray, can you find us a place to stay?”

Stray nodded, looking uncharacteristically grim. “Of course.”

Adam tried to process what he was hearing. Everything had felt relatively normal a minute ago and now he was planning to send his family into hiding? And Director Korris was a supervillain? It made no sense. Wasn’t she trying to prevent exactly the type of violence Lucas was accusing her of?

“You knew, didn’t you?” Shudder asked, bending over to look Lucas directly in the eyes. “You were already prepared for this news.”

“I considered it a possibility. The truth is, I couldn’t find any publicly available photos of Director Korris, so I was planning to portal you somewhere where you could see her and confirm whether or not she was Valkyrie. That meant taking on a risk of her seeing you, so I prepared for the possibility.”

Shudder slammed a fist on the table. “You could have at least warned me!”

It did seem a little messed up, but there wasn’t time to worry about that now. “Right now, we need to trust Lucas,” Adam told Shudder. “And focus on getting everyone safe.”

Shudder heaved a sigh. “Fine.”

The others were already taking out their phones. Adam fished out his, as well. He started to text his parents, but paused when he realized that he should probably call them instead.

 

---

 

Miriam Korris, Samantha, Amelia, Tutamaqui. Those were the key names connected to Valkyrie.

Elise didn’t understand how visions worked. She didn’t know whether each of the scenes Lucas had described were revealed to him accurately or whether he had accurately relayed them to her, and the rumors Valpurgia had shared were worth nothing more than guesses. However, the names were direct, and some of them were specific, so they were what she needed to focus on.

She wasn’t entirely comfortable with keeping this line of investigation secret from Shudder. However, Lucas had insisted on it, insisting that he wanted a complete look at Valkyrie’s background before deciding on what to share with his team. For now, Elise was cooperating. If she did learn something more, however, she would decide for herself whether to tell Lucas or Shudder first.

On the day Lucas called, she waited until Shudder had returned to the apartment and gone to bed before she crouched at her computer and searched for information on Miriam Korris. STRIX’s public website had a few mentions of her name, listing her as the director of the robotics division of the Fairfield STRIX base, but there was no photo or additional information.

She paused here to consider the situation. They knew who Valkyrie was, but if they told anyone, there was no chance they would be believed. It was hard not to get distracted by how frustrating that was. This frustration was compounded by the fact that acting against her would be taken as acting against STRIX. No matter the outcome, they would be branded as supervillains and Miriam would remain exactly where she was. How were they going to dislodge her?

Searches through other public records failed to produce any results for Miriam Korris. Samantha and Amelia were too vague on their own. Elise supposed she could search for the three names together, but she decided to focus on Tutamaqui first, after a brief break for a snack and a soda. The name turned up nothing on traditional search engines, but search engines weren’t all-inclusive. She knew of a few potentially relevant websites which weren’t indexed on search engines, so she moved on to those. There was a particular website that cataloged as much detail as possible about every superhuman its users could find. It was largely populated by anti-superhuman extremists, and generally used inflammatory language that exaggerated the danger posed by a given superhuman, but it had occasionally proven to be a useful resource in the past. Here, Tutamaqui turned up nothing. Valkyrie’s listing only offered the same vague rumors that already ran through Fairfield’s supervillain community. On a whim, she searched for the Norns, and turned up a lengthy, rambling page full of wild speculation of a hidden cabal that ruled the world. The part of her that was Whisper chided her for getting distracted.

On a website which tracked the movements of STRIX, she finally found a result. Searching for Tutamaqui on their forum turned up a ten-year-old post.

 

Anyone know about a STRIX operation from 1997 in a town called Tutamaqui? Seems to be somewhere in South or Central America, or possibly the Caribbean. Trying to figure out what happened. Sorry I don’t have more info.

 

It was accompanied by a photo of three women standing before a stone building. Just like Lucas had described from his vision. There were a few responses from others suggesting possible operations, none of which quite matched the scenario the original poster had described. Eventually, a user mentioned that there were many STRIX operations which simply didn’t get revealed to the public and that, while the website logged many of their secret activities, there was no telling how much they missed.

Elise sent the poster a direct message asking to compare notes on Tutamaqui. Searching for their handle on other websites turned up nothing, so she was forced to hope that they still used this account.

She spent a little more time searching, but found that her focus was beginning to drift. Besides, the sun was starting to rise and Shudder would be waking up soon, so she watched some funny videos as she waited for the day to begin.

Soon, it was time to head to work and pretend as if she wasn’t in the midst of a struggle to save countless lives while her manager scolded her for not collecting enough email addresses from customers. Whisper entertained himself by imagining all the ways he could murder him.

When Elise finally got home, she found that Shudder was still there. Shudder gave her an update on the Outcasts. Apparently they’d all safely gotten their families out of Fairfield, with the exception of Stray, whose mother staunchly refused to leave her home and many cats. The Outcasts themselves were staying in an abandoned mall for the time being while they decided how to proceed.

When Shudder stepped away to use the bathroom, Elise surreptitiously checked the forum for a reply and was surprised to find one. I’d love to share information. How would you like to communicate? I have photos it will take some time to scan, so in-person would be quickest if you’re in the Toronto area.

Not even in the same country. There was a STRIX archive somewhere in Toronto, so the location made sense. Fortunately, Elise had an accomplice who could make portals. She sent a message back with her phone number and instructions to take a photo of an empty wall in a public place and wait. Shudder returned from the bathroom and Elise told her she was going out to take a walk. Then she stepped out of the apartment, took an elevator down to the laundry room, and took a photo of an empty wall just as one arrived from an unknown number. She sent both photos to Lucas without an explanation.

A few moments later, a portal opened before her and she stepped through, traveling hundreds of miles in an instant. Elise felt a little jealous of the fact that Lucas could take a miniature vacation anywhere in the world without even having to put in a PTO request. She wondered how willing he was to portal acquaintances around on a whim.

On the other end of the portal, she found herself in a fast food restaurant. The workers and the few customers inside were mostly staring in surprise at the portal on the wall. One man, middle-aged and wearing a cheap dress shirt and holding an envelope, stepped forward. “I take it you’re my contact.”

“Yeah,” Elise said, as she texted a thumbs up to Lucas. “Sorry for the flashy entrance.”

The portal closed.

He shrugged. “Figured you’d have a superpower, given the strange instructions and all. Call me Larry.”

No last name, she noted. “Call me Maria.”

He led her to a booth where they sat down. He tapped the envelope idly on the table. “So, where did you hear about Tutamaqui?”

Elise sighed. “Would you believe that a contact learned the name from a magical vision?”

Larry furrowed his brow. “Maybe. I mean, you did just step out of a portal. What do you know about it?”

“Little more than the name, and its apparent connection to a supervillain I’m investigating in Fairfield. How did you learn about it? I couldn’t find the name anywhere else online.”

“It happened about ten years ago,” Larry explained. “A friend’s cousin died—sorry, I’d prefer to keep their names to myself—and my friend found an old file in his cousin’s office. I’m a reporter, so he asked me to figure it out. Most of it’s redacted, but it describes a STRIX operation targeting three supervillains in a town called Tutamaqui. Apparently the entire town was demolished as a result.”

“Demolished by which side?” Elise asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe both. Anyway, the report paints them as an extremist group who posed an imminent threat, but there were a collection of photos in the file, too, and they seem to tell a different story.”

He opened the envelope and removed a stack of photos, which he spread before Elise.

The first one which caught her eye was the one he’d included in his forum post. She picked it up.

“Do you know their names?” she asked.

Larry shifted, his hand reaching out for the briefest moment before he pulled it back. Was he afraid of her stealing the photos?

“They used a number of aliases, but most of them are redacted. The only ones I can read are, from left to right, Amelia Terrini, Miriam Korris, and Samantha Delavore.”

Elise’s gaze traveled from photo to photo. Amelia seemed to be the photographer. She only appeared in a single photo in the entire set. Each of the photos was clean, vibrant, perfectly composed and precisely focused. To call them professional was an understatement. Almost all of them focused on either Miriam or Samantha, though there were occasionally other people. A woman holding a baby, a man surrounded by goats, an old woman playing a handheld video game. Elise spent little time on these, though she took a photo of every one to be thorough.

The photos of Miriam and Samantha were similarly mundane. Samantha washing dishes, Miriam talking on the phone, Samantha repairing a small wind turbine. The only one which seemed vaguely threatening was a photo of Miriam cleaning a gun.

“They just look like normal people, right?” Larry said.

“Most supervillains do, when they aren’t in costume,” Elise replied.

Of course, that didn’t mean they were supervillains, even if Miriam had become one. And even if they were, what difference did that make? Either STRIX had destroyed the town deliberately or they’d botched the job so badly that the town had been destroyed as a result.

Something about the last photo in the set gave Elise pause. It seemed mundane. Samantha was sitting in an easy chair, reading a book. Back straight, legs crossed, a cup of tea on a table beside her. The title of the book was just barely readable due to the photo’s angle.

Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges.

Despite the fact that it was day time, suddenly Whisper was wide awake.

“No way,” Elise muttered. “It has to be a coincidence.”

“What’s a coincidence?” Larry asked.

It fit with Lucas’ vision, Whisper warned. Adding in Valpurgia’s theory answered a lot of questions, past and present.

“I might know who they are,” Elise said.

The excitement was visible on Larry’s face. “Well, don’t leave me hanging. Who are they?”

Elise took out her phone and texted Lucas. We need to talk. Now.

She looked around. No one else seemed to be listening now that the excitement of her arrival had worn off, but she leaned close to Larry and spoke quietly. “I don’t know who they were before Tutamaqui, but now they’re three supervillains from Fairfield who I thought were unrelated. Miriam Korris is called Valkyrie. Amelia Terrini is known as Snapshot.” She looked him in the eyes. “And Samantha Delavore is Dr. Tlön.”