Shudder stormed out of the building, taking a side door outside where she soon slowed to a stop. Where was she? Since Lucas had portaled her to what turned out to be a high school, she had no idea where in Fairfield she was, if she even was in Fairfield.

After a brief moment of panic, she checked her phone to confirm that she was, indeed, in Fairfield’s suburbs, but unfortunately far from Elise’s apartment. Driven by an instinct to put distance between herself and any crime, she began walking, thoughts of what had just occurred swirling through her mind.

She felt betrayed. She wasn’t sure why. After all, she barely knew Synapse and regularly dealt with people far worse than her. But she had placed trust in Prometheus, and trusting him meant extending some of that trust to his team. Their brief time side-by-side was supposed to mean that they were more than just associates. They were…she wasn’t sure what. Comrades? Companions? If White Tail had turned out to be Mindbreaker, it wouldn’t have hurt, but this was like if the mind-eating demon had turned out to be Gremlin or Bodkin. They might not be friends, but it still would have been a betrayal.

Just as joining Valkyrie would be a betrayal. She had been foolish to imagine she might have anything in common with a group of superheroes. Between the two of them, Valkyrie and Mindbreaker would devour every small fry in the city and no one’s lives would be better for it.

And then there was Lucas’ claims about Dr. Tlön. They were ridiculous, of course, but he’d spoken them with such conviction and everyone else had gone along with it and acted as if she didn’t know what she was talking about.

She desperately missed her mentor now. Dr. Tlön would make sense of everything. Every time Shudder began to think she could understand the world without her, something new happened to throw everything into chaos.

She eventually reached a small park where she sat on a bench and texted Quetzal, hoping that her fellow supervillain would spare her effort of finding her own way home. Luckily, she quickly received a response and after a half-hour’s wait, the familiar dented van appeared. Shudder wearily pulled the door open and sat in the passenger’s seat.

“Hey, Scaregirl.” Quetzal’s grin quickly melted. “Woah, have you been crying? What’s going on?”

Shudder hadn’t planned to tell Quetzal about what had happened, but the story came spilling out of her anyway, in a confused, non-chronological mess. By the time she was finished, tears were pouring from her eyes and Quetzal had pulled over to stare at her.

“Wow, that’s a lot to unpack,” said the wide-eyed Quetzal. “Thankfully, everyone knows to avoid Valkyrie by now. Whether she has the permission of STRIX and the government or not, if her little army goes marching down the street in exosuits she’s not going to have an easy time finding us. But Mindbreaker…I never would have imagined.”

“She’s probably going to join Valkyrie, too,” Shudder added glumly, drying her tears on a napkin from Quetzal’s glove compartment.

Quetzal nodded. “Makes sense. They’re all on the same side, after all. If Nova Legion knew now, they wouldn’t allow it to happen, but rumor has it they’re out of town. It’s hard to guess how they’ll react if they return to find STRIX and the Outcasts—their allies—already in the middle of some draconian sweep.”

“Valkyrie’s only going to do this if she’s sure Nova Legion can’t or won’t stop her.”

“True, true,” Quetzal agreed. “I guess the only part that has me confused is the Tlön stuff. Where did Lucas get the idea that she’s magic?”

Shudder tried to trace back Lucas’ reasoning, but the conversation was becoming as much of a confusing mess in her mind as when she’d described it to Quetzal. “I don’t know, he got high and had a vision or something. And then he had some photo of a completely different woman.”

“Weird,” Quetzal replied. “He doesn’t sound like he knows what he’s doing.”

“But everyone believed him,” Shudder continued. “Just because they don’t believe anyone could really be as smart as Doc.”

Quetzal frowned. “What does her being smart have to do with anything?”

“They think she has some magic way of learning really fast.”

 Quetzal considered this for a moment. “Okay, I can at least see where they’re coming from with that. I mean, you’d know better than I would, of course, but psionics is kind of under-researched, isn’t it? The scientific community finds it a little ooky spooky, so there isn’t really a lot of data out there, but Tlön made huge advances all on her own.”

“But that’s not that weird, is it?” Shudder asked. She gestured towards the back of the van. “You built all that stuff on your own.”

“My suit is a far cry from Orbis Tertius. And I was building off the work of others. Leaked data from Dawn Industries and Repulse’s team, mostly. But, again, you’d know better than me. You were there, so if you understand how she figured it all out, it’d be a mistake to tell you you’re wrong.”

How had she figured it all out? Orbis’ psionic emitter was the most powerful in the world, completely outclassing much larger STRIX models which could project psionic signals for nearly a mile. The device that had scanned Shudder’s brain had recorded the activity of each individual neuron, making it far more advanced than any mnemoscope and making MRIs look laughable by comparison. But couldn’t it be that Tlön was just that smart? Was there any way to confirm the truth? One possibility found its way to the surface of Shudder’s mind.

“Listen, there’s still an old cache of Doc’s. She told me to never go there unless she said it was time. If she really has a secret, it’ll be there. Obviously I’m not supposed to take anyone, but I don’t think I can go alone. So would you want to…”

Quetzal threw her van into drive. “Hell yeah!”

The storehouse in question wasn’t far from the plant where Shudder had found the Seraphinite. After several minutes of driving, they pulled into the storage center’s parking lot and made their way inside.

The unit number was burned into Shudder’s brain, so with a tension even greater than performing a burglary, she led Quetzal through the empty halls to the correct door. Instead of keys, this storage center used keypads, so all Shudder had to do was punch in the number and slowly pull the door open.

Revealing an automated turret.

Shudder froze. She cursed her own hesitation, but it turned out to be the right choice when a light shined from the turret, scanning her face. It seemed to recognize her, and returned to its inactive position, pointed at the ceiling. Shudder breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that Quetzal had been behind her, unnoticed by the turret.

Aside from the turret, the only other object in the unit was a large, aged trunk. Heart pounding, Shudder led Quetzal inside and slowly pushed open the trunk. There was an incendiary bomb attached to the inside of the lid, apparently designed to go off if the turret fired.

“This is a Dawn Industries weapon, isn’t it?” Quetzal asked, admiring the turret.

“Probably,” Shudder replied. “We usually bought our defense systems from Sarah, but it most likely came from Dawn originally.”

Shudder carefully pulled a collection of cloth-wrapped bundles out of the trunk. Unwrapping the first, she discovered a silver tiara. That was strange. It seemed very unlike the doctor to own something like that. Setting it aside, she unwrapped the next bundle to find a handwritten journal in a language she didn’t recognize. As she flipped through it, she found several sketches. Some appeared to be ordinary locations such as houses and gardens, a couple were even recognizable ones such as the Eiffel Tower, but others were fantastical and dreamlike. On the later pages, there were several which appeared to be blueprints or schematics. The handwriting in this section seemed to be much neater, too. The neater section resembled what Shudder recalled Tlön’s writing looking like. She traced the tidy handwriting back, looking for where it changed, and discovered that the change occurred just after an illustration of the tiara. As she stared at the sketch, she suddenly remembered Quetzal hovering over her shoulder.

“Do you recognize this language?” she asked.

Quetzal squinted at the page. “No, but I bet I can figure it out.” She took out her phone and typed a few of the journal’s words into a translator. “It says it’s something called Basque? I think I’ve heard of that.”

Shudder didn’t know the name. She wasn’t aware that Tlön could speak any language other than English, although it didn’t surprise her that she could. Translating this journal would have to wait, however. She unwrapped the next bundle to find another journal. This one had a worn leather cover and looked much older than the first. Flipping through its yellowed pages, Shudder found that each entry began with three names, along with birth and death years. The birth years always appeared to be within around five years of each other, and the death years were never separated by more than a single year. Several of the years had a lowercase ‘c’ next to them. Below each of these was an entry, sometimes just a paragraph long, other times stretching for several pages. They appeared to have been written by at least three or four hands, possibly more, and several different languages. Flipping to the end, Shudder found that the last set of names had accompanying death dates of 1938. It was written in Tlön’s hand.

Shudder laughed bitterly. “I guess that confirms it. She hasn’t written her own entry yet, but sets of three women going back centuries? It’s just like Lucas said.”

“So she really has magic powers?” Quetzal asked. “And she used to be friends with Valkyrie? Is that bad?”

“I don’t know,” Shudder admitted. It certainly hurt, at least. “I just wish I knew why she didn’t tell me.”

“Well, maybe if we translate that journal we can find out more,” Quetzal suggested. “Or maybe there’s something else in that trunk.”

Shudder removed the final cloth-wrapped bundle. This was yet another book, but it was more of a ledger than a journal. Unlike the others, it was written in English and loaded with names, dates, areas of expertise, and additional notes under each entry. The earliest entries seemed to be centered around criminal life, things like avoiding authorities and stealing from secure locations, but they quickly transitioned to focusing on science and research. Flipping to the entries from four years ago, Shudder found an entry for Dr. Timothy Austin, endocrinologist. She read the notes beneath it.

Regular blood work will be important, but I found nothing in his knowledge to explain why puberty blockers would be necessary in the young lady’s case. She insists that there’s no medical reason to delay estradiol and I am inclined to believe her.

She recalled that. Shortly after Tlön had recruited her, the two of them had researched hormone replacement therapy online together. Shudder had shared her thoughts and Tlön had promised to speak to an expert. The next day, she had left for a few hours and returned with both medication and all the equipment needed for blood work. Shudder hadn’t imagined Tlön helping her so quickly.

She set aside this book, as well. At the bottom of the trunk was a collection of weapons and other supplies. The only things which looked interesting were a laptop and a flash drive. She set the laptop on the floor and booted it up. It was password locked, but she still remembered the complex password Tlön had drilled into her mind years earlier. On the desktop there was a text file named “Shudder.” Naturally, she opened it.

 

Dear Shudder,

 

The purpose of this cache is to offer provision should Orbis Tertius fail, or should circumstances prevent us from completing it. Since I cannot consistently predict the future, ensuring our survival in unforeseen events requires me to share certain information regarding my past and my capabilities.

If I have sent you here alone, then ideally I have already explained what you will find here. If, for some reason, I was unable to do so, then the things you find here may confuse or unsettle you. I ask that you trust me and carry out your instructions. When things have settled, I will explain everything.

 

Tlön

 

“Huh. Not much for comforting words, is she?” Quetzal said, reading over Shudder’s shoulder.

“It’s more comforting than it probably sounds,” Shudder replied, staring at her name at the top of the page. Tlön rarely offered words of reassurance, but her cool, clinical attitude had a way of letting Shudder know that everything would be okay. “I guess you have to know her.”

She began searching through the computer’s files. They seemed to be largely familiar, if somewhat out of date. There were research notes, schematics, and a collection of files on major figures in Fairfield’s superhuman community, both criminal and legal. Shudder searched through these and found a file on Snapshot. She read Tlön’s notes.

Since my escape, I have encountered Amelia several times. She has become distant and enigmatic, enough so that I do not believe it is wise to share Orbis with her. She appears to have abandoned any ambition and is now using her talents to work as an information broker. However, she has expressed a willingness to sell information to me, something I may take her up on.

There was no entry for Valkyrie, but Shudder found one for Miriam.

Miriam is working for STRIX now. It would seem that her cautious nature has blossomed into paranoia, leading her to turn against everything we once believed in. She would build a sphere around the planet to protect us from meteors if she could. Needless to say, I will not be sharing Orbis with her. It seems I must progress alone.

Shudder giggled with mischievous glee. She had never seen such angry words from Doc. It cheered her to see confirmation that she was right about one thing, Tlön wouldn’t help Valkyrie.

Bolstered by this good news, Shudder decided to look at another file. She was aware that her mentor had a file on her, but it had never occurred to her to look at it. Now, however, still confused by the day’s revelations and wanting to feel connected to the doctor again, Shudder opened the file labeled Subject 1/Young Lady/Shudder. It was a lengthy document, written over the course of the two years they had been together. She started with the beginning.

 

Note: For the time being, Subject 1 will be referred to as “the young lady” as she lacks a suitable name.

 

Subject 1 is a 13-year-old homeless girl.

The young lady is the first psychic I have found who appears to be capable of direct emotional manipulation. Her ability currently appears to be limited to manipulating fear. This alone is insufficient to complete Orbis Tertius, however it is possible that her ability will grow with practice, or study of her power alone will allow me to extrapolate the data I need. Since potentially suitable powers are proving to be more elusive than expected, I will begin my research with her.

Even if the young lady’s ability proves to be insufficient, she may be useful in other ways. Due to a history of abuse and the deviant nature of existing as a transgender person, she is vulnerable and easily influenced. A small amount of validation will easily earn her trust. Thanks to this foundation, coupled with her compassionate nature and a tendency to see herself in the downtrodden, I believe it will be easy to convince her of Orbis’ necessity.

 

Shudder stopped reading here out of fear that she was going to cry again. It sounded exactly like the way Whisper would describe Tlön. As if she had been manipulating Shudder from the beginning. Part of her wished she could just ask Tlön to explain it. After all, she was the only one who could make sense of the world. But another part of her wondered if that feeling was only a result of Tlön’s manipulation. She was tempted to close the computer and leave now, but she needed to see one more thing. She plugged the flash drive into the computer.

It contained a program Shudder recognized. A huge amount of data—much more than would fit on an ordinary flash drive, suggesting that the drive itself was a unique piece of tech—designed to be converted into thought in a pseudocerebrum and projected across the planet.

“It’s Orbis Tertius,” Shudder breathed.

Quetzal looked up. It seemed she had become distracted by looking at the ledger and her phone. “There’s another Orbis?”

“Just the software,” Shudder explained, pulling out the flash drive and holding it up for Quetzal. “None of the physical components.” 

Quetzal’s eyes darted between Shudder’s face and the drive. “Listen, you should probably give that to me.”

Shudder clutched the drive protectively, leaning away from Quetzal. “Why?”

“Look, I’m not going to try to make you. I mean, you’d kick my ass without my armor, but I’m not going to try because I think you know that Orbis is monstrous. There’s no way you’d even try to build another. But that thing…it’s just going to drive you insane if you keep it. If you give it to me, it’ll just be gone and you’ll never have to think about it again.”

The idea of allowing Quetzal to destroy Orbis revolted Shudder. It didn’t matter whether or not Orbis was a mistake, throwing away all of the work and passion that she and Tlön had put into building it together would be like throwing away Tlön herself. Even after reading the log describing her, Shudder wasn’t ready to do that. She couldn’t do it until she was sure that what everyone said—that Tlön had manipulated her into building what amounted to a global brainwashing device—was true.

Which would mean reading more of the file, she realized. No matter how unpleasant the truth might be.

“We should go,” Shudder said.

Shudder collected the books, laptop, tiara, and flash drive, and, after making sure the unit was locked, led the way back to Quetzal’s van. They spoke little while Quetzal drove; a sudden tension had arisen between them that Shudder had never felt from her friend before. Not wanting to reveal the location of Whisper’s apartment, Shudder had Quetzal stop several blocks away.

As she got out, Quetzal spoke up again. “You should look up the names in that book. If that doesn’t convince you to destroy that drive, then you aren’t the person I thought you were.”

With those cryptic last words, they parted and Shudder walked the final few blocks back to the apartment. Elise wasn’t home yet, so Shudder found a loose necklace chain in the bedroom and attached the flash drive, allowing her to wear it around her neck. Then, after hiding the other findings in Elise’s closet, she used the laptop to start looking up names from the ledger online.

She started with the endocrinologist. Timothy Austin wasn’t an uncommon name, but it was easy enough to pick out the right one. She found a few sites listing him as a doctor, including one which listed him among LGBT-friendly physicians. She was about to give up and move on to another name when she discovered an obituary. He had died of a heart attack right around the time Tlön would have consulted with him.

Shudder wasn’t sure if she could handle another terrible discovery, but she moved on to the next name, an engineer. After some searching, she found that she’d died of a brain aneurysm. Next she tried a martial arts expert. Dead from complications from a stroke.

Shaken, she flipped ahead and found one of the scientists she’d brought to Tlön. Another heart attack. She’d lured a man to his death.

That was all she could take. She closed the book and laptop, then pulled a chair in front of the door even though it wouldn’t prevent Whisper from entering the room if he wanted to, and finally laid down on the bed and cried.

 

---

 

That evening, Lucas texted Krisztina, Hang out?

His original plan was to hang out and watch movies in an attempt to clear his head, but around ten minutes into a cheesy action movie, he found himself unable to sit still. What if Valkyrie targeted another family member before Adam could set up the meeting? What if Valkyrie wouldn’t form a truce, or only offered unacceptable terms? He needed a plan, but how could he come up with one when his enemy could see the future?

Well, the first thing to do would be to try to reunite the Outcasts. Sila would be easy to convince. If nothing else, they would see the strategic advantage of meeting with Valkyrie. Stray would be more difficult. He was unlikely to trust Jade now that they knew she was Mindbreaker, but Lucas had some idea of how to approach an appeal to the cat-eared man. Shudder was another matter. She was clearly invested in the well-being of her criminal friends, and Lucas had no way of promising their safety. Was there any way to convince her to return? Was she even worth it?

“Hey, want to watch me while I scry someone?” he asked. “Just to make sure nothing goes wrong? I haven’t done it alone yet.”

Krisztina, who was sitting on the couch somehow both too close and too far away at the same time, turned to him. “You should probably have mom help you with that. If the target has magical protection, they’ll spot you even if I try to help.”

“It’s just Shudder,” Lucas explained. “She doesn’t have any magical protection and she’s not the kind of psychic who could sense it.”

Krisztina bit her lip as she considered the idea. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Scrying can mess with your head. You shouldn’t do it unless it’s important.”

Valpurgia hadn’t mentioned that risk. Lucas filed away that piece of information to decide what to do with it later. “It is important. I need to know how much she can be trusted.”

Kristzina looked troubled, but she finally nodded. “Alright, fine, but if you collapse or something I’m not going to hesitate. I’ll carry you to Mom or a hospital or whoever I need to get you checked out.”

“Deal,” Lucas replied.

They moved to the dining room where Lucas began drawing the appropriate magical circle. He didn’t copy Valpurgia’s circle exactly, he found that magic was more effective when he added a personal touch, so he included more symbols he was familiar with, including several from the tattoos that covered his body. When he was done, he placed the crushed camera in the middle of it. Scrying the same person multiple times was a bad idea, but surely there couldn’t be any issue with using the same object to scry two different people.

Just as Valpurgia had guided him, he mentally guided magic into the circle, vaguely aware of his tattoos glowing dimly before he lost track of time and space.

He lost track of Lucas, as well.

He had a name, but he didn’t like thinking about it. It was a bad fit for him, or maybe he was a bad fit for it. It was as if he was too small for it, or he didn’t make enough of a dent in the piece of the world his name pushed him into. 

Any thoughts of homeschooling for his own safety were long gone. He’d never been homeschooled. He—or rather she—was sitting in the back of a classroom. There was no air conditioning and the oppressive heat made her even more aware than usual of how disgusting her body was. The teacher was droning about the different parts of speech, but her attention had drifted away long ago.

She was busy watching the girl next to her—the name Maggie came to her—out of the corner of her eye. Maggie was currently occupied with a rainbow of nail polish spread across her desk. She was painting each of her fingernails a different color. A few of the other girls painted their nails, but Maggie was consistently creative with it, always doing more than one color, sometimes in different patterns, but most often a rainbow. The girl with the name she didn’t care for was incredibly jealous.

When the bell rang, she lingered while the other students gathered up their things and filed out of the classroom. Braving the crowded halls was an exhausting prospect. As she slowly rose from her chair, she noticed that Maggie had accidentally left one of her bottles of nail polish. It was a bright, sunny yellow. It reminded the girl of her favorite flower.

She picked it up and slipped it into her pocket.

BLINK

She was in an abandoned office building, sitting on a stained mattress. Next to her was a half-eaten gas station sandwich and a half-read young adult fantasy novel. Her few other possessions sat in a number of plastic bags on the floor. She wasn’t sure how many squatters had used this mattress before her, but judging by the thick layer of dust on the desk, the room’s only other piece of furniture, she imagined that whatever company this had been must have shut down years ago. How long had it sat empty before members of Fairfield’s substantial homeless population had begun to occupy it?

She was lucky to have this room. Most of her fellow squatters were kind enough to allow someone so young her own space. And the few who weren’t so considerate didn’t usually press the issue after she gave a few tugs on their fear. Even if it smelled of dust and mold, this space provided a small amount of comfort.

As she stared at the floor before her, contemplating her situation, a pair of feet appeared in her vision. She looked up and her eyes quickly widened. It was a woman wearing a lab coat and some kind of visor. A supervillain.

The other squatters had said that this would happen. Homeless people with superpowers didn’t last long. If it wasn’t a self-righteous superhero looking for a sidekick it would be a scientist looking for someone to experiment on. Or an Arachne agent looking to earn the Widow Council’s favor by placing another superhuman in debt. Or an alien looking for someone to experiment on. Experiments seemed to be a common theme.

“Hello,” the woman said, her voice calm and friendly. “Are you the young man with psionic abilities?”

“I’m not a man,” the girl replied.

The woman frowned and the girl instantly regretted her words. She didn’t own a single piece of feminine clothing and she had never taken a single estrogen pill. What was the point of trying to assert herself here and now?

“What do you mean?” the woman asked.

Taking a deep breath, she spoke with the hesitation of one who knows she has nothing to be ashamed of, but is accustomed to those around her disagreeing. “I’m transgender.”

“Ah, my apologies,” the woman said with the smooth politeness of a TV show butler. “Are you the young woman with psionic abilities?”

There was no hint of mockery in her tone, but the girl remained suspicious. “Yeah. What do you want with me?”

The woman stared at her for a long time, a small smile crossing her lips. “I’m going to be honest with you. I came here today to ask to perform some tests on you, but…no, you’re no simple test subject. You have potential. Would you like a job?”

The girl’s heart betrayed her and she felt a small amount of excitement at being called special, but the practical won over in the end. “Aren’t you a supervillain? I don’t want to be a criminal.”

The woman chuckled. “My dear, you’re already a criminal.”

“Just misdemeanors,” the girl replied hastily. “I think.”

She had held up a few convenience stores, but never with a weapon. And each time she only took what was in the register along with some food. Surely that couldn’t be a serious crime.

The woman shook her head. “Theft committed with the use of psychic powers is a felony. The curse of having a misunderstood talent.”

The girl felt a small jab of panic. Even if she stopped stealing, prison might be unavoidable. How many irreversible mistakes had she made? “I only did it because I had to.”

The woman stepped closer and crouched, looking straight into the girl’s eyes. “Of course you did. The law doesn’t determine right from wrong. After all, if I were to capture you against your will and lock you in a room for years, no one would deny that my actions were monstrous. But if a member of Nova Legion were to do it, they would be praised.”

“Nova Legion wouldn’t do that,” the girl protested weakly.

“But they could,” the woman pressed. “And even if they wouldn’t, any number of police officers and STRIX agents would be happy to. Superheroes like Nova Legion protect the world, but they protect the world as it is. They might stop a falling meteor from ending your life, but you’ll still be here in this tetanus-ridden hovel. Positive change comes from criminals who are recast as heroes after the fact.”

The girl wondered if the woman had a point, but she had seen stories about some of the terrible things certain supervillains did. Couldn’t any of them use the same words?

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“You don’t,” the woman replied, to the girl’s surprise. “But I know what I would choose in your position. You can either continue holding up bodegas until you find yourself in prison or you can take control of your life and seize the opportunity before you. I can offer you shelter. I can offer you protection.” The woman reached up and removed her visor, allowing the girl to see the sincerity in her eyes. “I can even help you make some changes to your body, if you want.”

Anxiety quickly began to turn into excitement. She could change her body? She could finally, really feel like a girl instead of fighting a constant battle in her mind? It occurred to her that this supervillain had not hesitated to start treating her a girl after being corrected. No one had ever done that before. She really was being offered a better life.

“What do I call you?” she asked.

“Dr. Tlön,” the woman replied. “And what’s your name?”

The girl hesitated, looking down at the floor.

“Ah, I see. Well, we’ll just have to come up with something, then, won’t we?”

BLINK

Shudder focused on maintaining her form as she struck the punching bag again and again with her baton, pausing only to dodge imaginary counterattacks. Her arm ached terribly, but if she paused in her practice she would once again have to think about the puzzle pieces that had recently connected in her mind.

Of course, she eventually had to stop and as sat down on a nearby chair to rest and took a drink from her water bottle the questions came flooding back. Why was Tlön so focused on studying her power? Why did she want to create a copy of her mind? What were they going to do to the world?

She felt a hand on her shoulder.

Tlön seemed to dislike physical contact, so the sensation was a rare comfort. Shudder looked up to see the doctor standing over her.

“I think it’s time I explain to you what we’re building.”

Shudder wiped the sweat from her forehead as she caught her breath. “What is Orbis Tertius?”

Tlön released her shoulder. “Orbis Tertius is a future. Every day, people starve to death in a world where there is more than enough food to go around. Every night, people sleep out in the cold when there is more than enough housing. Orbis will ensure that everything is distributed fairly.”

“But…I mean…” Shudder stammered. “It’s a copy of me?”

“In a manner of speaking. Much of the unneeded data will be deleted to save space and it will, of course, have to be heavily modified to produce the desired results, but our tests with the cognitive filters have me confident that proper programming will allow us to work beyond the current limitations of your power.”

Shudder felt a little sick to her stomach. “I don’t know if I like the idea of making another me just to cut her apart like that.”

A knowing look bloomed on Tlön’s face. “Ah, I see where the confusion lies. This won’t be an intelligent, thinking being. Perhaps with the proper program, the data from our scan would be able to approximate an imitation of your personality, but I have no particular desire to create a conscious being locked inside of a computer. Think of this as more of a photograph, or a short video of your mind.”

“So you create a simulation of how my power works, then you change it so that it does something else.” The uncomfortable feeling of sickness didn’t leave. “So that you can force people to be nice to each other.”

“Not force,” Tlön explained. “It will be much more gentle than that. This is based on your power, after all. You don’t conjure fear out of nothing. You take what’s already there and enhance it. That’s all Orbis will do. Enhance a few emotional reactions, perhaps suppress a few others.”

“So we’ll be bringing out the best in them,” Shudder concluded, feeling relieved. “We won’t be changing them. They’ll still be the same, just better.”

Tlön smiled proudly. “Exactly. We’ll be bringing out attributes like kindness and generosity, and eliminating selfishness and violent tendencies.”

Shudder’s skin tingled with excitement. “We’ll be ending all wars! We’ll be able to free every prisoner! Everyone’s lives will be better!”

“And no more young girls will be tossed out into the street by closed-minded parents.”

Shudder grinned. “We’re going to save the world.”

BLINK

Shudder stared open-mouthed at the STRIX agents before her. Each was armed with a machine gun, there was nothing restraining them, yet they were rendered completely helpless. Uqbar was unstoppable! Shudder let out a triumphant cackle.

Tlön moved away from Uqbar’s controls, leaving it trained on the agents. “Stay here and keep an eye on that one.” She gestured to Whisper, who was wrapped in bola-like bonds at Shudder’s feet. “I don’t trust those to restrain him for long.”

She wove in-between the STRIX agents to make her way into the lab.

Shudder grinned down at Whisper. “You like that?” She held up her gun to display it for him. “It has a fancier name, but I’ve been calling it the bola gun. A custom item courtesy of the Scrounger. The bonds are enchanted to be phase-resistant.”

Whisper ignored Shudder’s taunting. “So that’s your boss? The notorious Dr. Tlön finally makes an appearance.”

Shudder squealed with delight. “I’m so excited that you finally got to meet her. Isn’t she amazing?”

“What does she want?” Whisper asked.

Shudder waggled a finger. “Can’t tell you that yet, but believe me, you’ll understand when it happens. Everything is going to be better.”

“If I’ll understand, then why not tell me now?”

Shudder sat down cross-legged as she considered this. If Whisper really understood what Orbis would do, then he would stop trying to hamper their efforts to build it. In fact, he’d probably want to help. But Shudder shook her head. “I wouldn’t explain it right. And you might not be able to understand yet even if I did explain it. A lot of people turn a blind eye to how messed up the world really is.”

“Not me,” Whisper replied. “I know how messed up the world is. And I understand why you want to make it better.”

Shudder stared at Whisper. His expression was unreadable through his mask, of course, but something about him seemed different today. He’d never talked to her like that before. Maybe he really would understand.

She sighed. “Sorry. I wish I could tell you. But you’ll find out soon enough, okay?”

“When?” Whisper asked, but Tlön reappeared holding a metal briefcase before Shudder could reply.

“I have it,” she announced as she loaded the briefcase into the van. “We’re going. Remember, the Uqbar’s lingering effects will only give us about a minute head start once it’s deactivated. By the way, you did well restraining Whisper so quickly. His appearance could have disrupted things.”

Shudder beamed with pride.

BLINK

Lucas yelped with shock.

Krisztina jumped in surprise. “What? What is it? What happened?”

Lucas held a hand to his forehead as he tried to remember who he was and sort his thoughts from Shudder’s without letting any memories from the vision slip away.

“It was never like that before. It was like spying before. Witnessing stuff.”

Krisztina fretted over Lucas, clearly searching for some way to help. “What was it like this time?”

“It was sort of like being her. Experiencing little flashes of her life.” He looked up at Krisztina. “Holy shit, do you have any idea how much dysphoria sucks? Why do we let trans people go through that?”

Krisztina gave an uncertain giggle. “Okay, but can you trust her?”

Lucas shook his head. “No way. Not a chance. She is always going to be loyal to Tlön. No matter what.”

“How can you be sure of that?”

“We already know her background,” Lucas explained. “She was homeless, Tlön found her, took care of her, and manipulated her into helping take over the world. But actually experiencing it…Tlön was kind. She was supportive. I hesitate to even say she was manipulative. She just laid out what she wanted to do and persuaded her. As horrible as Orbis was, I don’t think I could come up with an argument that would convince Shudder that it was wrong.”

Krisztina gave him an incredulous look. “Okay, I think we really need to get you to Mom because you’re starting to sound unhinged. Orbis was a mind control device.”

“It was her, Angel. Orbis Tertius was a little piece of her mind. Shudder sees potential in everyone. Her worst enemy, the assholes Synapse lobotomized, she wants to bring out the best in all of them. Admitting that Orbis was evil would mean giving up hope in bringing out that potential. It might even mean giving up hope in herself.”

“Okay…” Krisztina still sounded very concerned. “Did you learn anything else?”

Lucas sighed. “Just random stuff. She exercises to deal with stress, she likes to gloat when she’s won, and…nail polish? Yellow nail polish is important somehow.”

“Because of the dysphoria?” Krisztina suggested.

“Maybe, but I feel like there’s more to it than that.” He paused. “Also, how did she not realize Tlön was magic? She was immune to Uqbar.”

He let out a small laugh while Krisztina stared at him in confusion.