On arriving home, Adam stripped off his clothes and climbed into bed.

Since his arrest of Shudder, his life had become one disaster after another. The dissolving of his team would have been bad enough, but then there was the string of revelations that came with it. Jade was struggling to survive, Director Korris was dying. He still wasn’t sure how he should feel about the director. After all the worry about the threat of Valkyrie, it sounded as if her plans were entirely reasonable. Certainly, her goals were admirable, but the fact that she’d used a piece of him without his permission left a bad taste in his mouth. However, was it really a piece of him? He hadn’t created the nanites, they were simply the vessel for his consciousness.

Actually, it was worse than that. He wasn’t a person. By replacing every part of the ship, Theseus had really created a new ship entirely. Adam Steel was dead. He had died in a car crash and his body had been consumed by nanites which had imitated his brain. He was just software, a recreation of the real Adam Steel. If someone could interface with the nanites, they could change or delete that program as easily as any other. Director Korris and Dr. Hunt had already proven that by reprogramming the nanites they’d extracted from him. The Seraphinite was even stronger proof. It was only supposed to affect machines, but it had completely hijacked his consciousness, filled him with irrational anger and hatred that demanded he kill. He hadn’t hesitated to attack his friends with lethal force, totally willing to tear them to pieces. And now, try as he might to forget it, it was all he could think about, even when he had much more pressing matters to consider. He didn’t need to sleep right now, but it was the only way to find any relief from that memory, so it was the only thing he could think to do.

It was less sleep than sleep mode, he supposed.

He awoke to a piercing alarm from his phone. A city-wide alert to all licensed superheroes. He hastily grabbed his phone and accidentally smashed it in his hand. It had been months since he’d last made a stupid mistake like that. Why did he have to repeat it now of all times?

Glancing out the window, he saw that it was still dark. Fretting over what to do, he dressed and hurried downstairs and turned on the television, but flipping through several channels turned up no news of disaster. What should he do? He could wait until the news caught wind of what was going on, he supposed, but then he might be too late to help. Maybe he could message Lucas from his computer?

Thankfully, the issue was resolved for him when he heard Lucas calling his name from upstairs. He rushed back up to his room to find his friend and an open portal.

“There you are,” Lucas said, his voice a mixture of annoyance and relief. “Sila’s already there. Synapse and Stray still aren’t responding. But obviously we need you more than anyone right now.”

“Why?” Adam asked. “What’s happening?”

Lucas blinked in confusion, and opened his mouth as if to ask whether he’d read the alert, but changed his mind. “Arachne’s attacking the STRIX base in big exosuits.”

Well, at least it was a simple problem that allowed him to punch his way to a solution.

“Alright, portal me over.”

Lucas opened another portal and Adam stepped through without hesitation, finding himself in a darkened field. Looking around to get his bearings, he saw shadows of the various STRIX buildings around him, made unfamiliar in the dark. A couple had flames in their windows and roofs. Floodlights illuminated several groups of STRIX agents who were firing machine guns and other weapons into the approaching exosuits.

The attackers themselves were difficult to see. Lights had been trained on a couple of groups, but it was impossible to guess how many there were when they seemed to be coming from every direction at once. The ones he could see were powerful, square military designs, each painted with a spider on the chest.

There was a deafening blast, and Adam turned to see that a rocket had struck one of STRIX’s armored trucks, sending it rolling over onto a pair of agents nearby. People could be losing their lives every second of this fight. And even more would if Arachne was successful. STRIX would retaliate brutally, sending in agents from other bases to crack down on Arachne and arrest or kill anyone even suspected of associating with them. They might get the United States military involved as well, turning Fairfield into a warzone.

Adam might not be able to do much about the many warzones in the world, but he refused to stand by and watch his home be destroyed.

This would end here.

He leapt forward with a speed he didn’t know he was capable of, sprinting at the nearest visible group of exosuits. They didn’t seem to take note of him until he was upon them, springing at the first one and crunching its shoulder-mounted rocket launcher with one hand. He tore off the suit’s arm, knowing somehow exactly how to destroy it without harming the occupant. His fingers extended into needles, twisting and probing their way into the armor and destroying its battery. Before he could even register what he’d done, he was nimbly hopping to the next suit, his feet becoming spiked and embedding themselves into the armor to give him purchase and he peeled off the chestplate like a tin of anchovies before destroying this battery as well.

He continued in this manner, tearing apart suit after suit, never bothering to check his work but always certain that each was deactivated and its occupant unharmed. When this group was finished, he looked around, surprised to discover that he could see into the darkened parts of the base to where other groups were continuing their attack. He rushed at the next one, but this one, having seen what he did, didn’t ignore him. He was forced to pause and plant his feet into the ground as a barrage of rockets, beams, and bullets hurtled into him. There was no fear or pain, just an incredible force that tried and failed to push him back until it let up as the exosuits either ran out of ammo or paused to look at their work, and he was able to continue forward.

He couldn’t guess how long the fight lasted. It had become an endless repetition of rushing at a suit, leaping on it, tearing it apart, and disabling it before finding the next one. But eventually he could see no more. The sky was just beginning to lighten, and around him was only ruined weapons and machinery, damaged buildings, and STRIX agents picking over the remains and apprehending the attackers. His work done, he sat down next to the last demolished suit—this one was much less destroyed than many since he had refined his technique over the course of the fight—and contemplated what had just happened. All the stuff he did, had that been things he’d always known he could do, but never realized? Or was it information given to him by the nanites? Was there a difference anymore?

Eventually, Lucas found him, stepping out of a portal nearby. “Woah, Adam, did you encounter Seraphinite or something?”

Adam gave him a confused look. “What? No. Why?”

Lucas’ face turned to relief. “It’s just that you’re looking a little…spikey.”

Adam looked down at his body, then craned his neck to examine his back. His shirt had been destroyed entirely and his pants had deteriorated down to shorts. There were barbs all over his legs and arms, his feet were still covered in spikes, and more spikes were sticking out from his back. Apparently his body hadn’t shifted back on its own. Focusing for a second, he nudged his body into its normal shape.

“Sorry.”

Lucas craned his neck to examine the fallen exosuit. “Is there still someone in there?”

Adam looked at the exosuit as well. There was no sign of movement from inside. Carefully, suddenly no longer sure of his ability to open it without harming the occupant, he pulled off the helmet.

There was a middle-aged man inside with graying hair. He stared up at Adam with emotionless eyes, his mouth open just slightly.

“Mind control,” Lucas concluded.

Adam spied something unusual in the discarded helmet; picking it up, he discovered that it was a piece of crystal, smaller than a finger tip, taped to the inside. He felt a brief moment of panic, wondering if it was a piece of the Seraphinite, before he realized it was white, not green.

He showed it to Lucas, who shrugged. “No idea what that is, but we’ll take it to the commander.”

He opened another portal leading to a group of STRIX agents at the exterior of the command building, who jumped in surprise and raised their weapons before realizing who it was.

Commander Tomahawk was among the group. He nodded politely to each of the new arrivals. “Thanks for the assist. Thought we were done for with Nova Legion missing in action and Heaven unresponsive.”

“Nova Legion is missing?” Adam asked.

The commander accepted a clipboard from an agent, signed it, and handed it back. “We lost contact with them yesterday morning. A little worrisome, but it’s not the first time they’ve gone silent during a mission. Right now, my big concern is keeping this city from going to shit in their absence.”

“Was it Arachne?” Lucas asked, leaving an unspoken ‘or…?’ in his tone.

“To get you up to speed, last night your teammate, Stray, showed up with proof that one of our directors, Miriam Korris, is Valkyrie. We moved to apprehend her, but she was a step ahead of us. She detonated the robotics building and disappeared with her underlings, God knows how much equipment, and an Omega threat who I was fool enough to let her get her hands on.”

The commander leaned heavily against the wall. “Then, while we’re still getting our footing and planning our search effort, we’re attacked with an army of exosuits painted with spiders. Seems like Arachne taking advantage of the chaos, but…” Another agent handed him a report. “Fuck, they got to the armory? Whoever was protecting it better have a good excuse because you damn sure didn’t run out of ammo.”

“But?” Lucas prompted.

“But what would they achieve? Even if they destroyed the base, they’d become the biggest priority of the entire STRIX organization. They’d be hunted like animals. Besides, the attackers appear to be under the effects of mind control,” the commander finished.

“And Korris has an expert in mind control on her side,” Lucas said. “So you think it was her.”

“Not necessarily,” Commander Tomahawk objected. “If it’s Korris, we don’t know where she got the exosuits. If she bought them using STRIX money, she certainly hid it well. And we looked up a few of the attackers. They’re just random people, not members of her staff.”

“So there’s no solid proof,” Lucas concluded.

Adam held up the crystal he’d found. “What about this?”

Tomahawk gave it a brief look. “Cognicrystal. It can hold onto psionic signals. Doubtless part of Tlön’s handiwork. And it’s as close as we’re going to get to proving Korris is behind it. We recently received some cognicrystal and Korris claimed some of it for her own, saying it was for some project or another.”

“We’ll do whatever we can to find her,” Lucas said. “I already have a couple of leads.”

“Good man,” Commander Tomahawk said, before turning his attention to another matter.

Lucas led Adam some distance away. “Does anything about the commander’s conclusion seem odd to you?”

Adam shook his head. “Not really. Aside from the cognicrystal, maybe. Couldn’t that have been the cognicrystal that went missing from Dawn?”

“I think we need to talk this over with a few people,” Lucas announced, opening a portal to the classroom he’d utilized before and ushering Adam through.

Adam waited in the empty classroom for several minutes, spending the time turning on the lights and projector in case Lucas wanted to use it again. Eventually Sila, their blue skin singed in several places, joined him. Shortly afterward, Lucas himself appeared with Elise and Shudder in tow. Once everyone was settled, he summarized what they knew of the attack so far, pointedly looking at Shudder for a response.

She looked confused. “Wow, um, that sucks,” was all she could muster.

“Shudder, we’re thinking Valkyrie and Tlön are behind it,” Adam explained.

Shudder’s eyes widened. “Oh!” she said before relaxing. “No, that’s not Doc. Orbis Tertius doesn’t work that way. It just affects emotional responses, so that people will be compelled to help those in need, and won’t hoard more than they require for a healthy, happy life.”

“Well, maybe she changed how it works,” Lucas suggested.

“In a couple of days? With none of her original data?” Shudder scoffed. “Programming Orbis is like feeling around in the dark. You make a tweak and run a simulation over and over for months before you get something approaching the correct result. And we never really looked beyond emotional manipulation since that was always our goal.”

“What about Uqbar?” Lucas asked.

Shudder shrugged. “The Uqbar program was a fluke. And it only worked because it targeted a vulnerable part of the thought process. There’s a world of difference between disrupting executive function and completely zombifying someone.”

“Unless Tlön lied to you about that, too,” Adam said.

Elise cleared her throat. “I’m inclined to agree with Shudder here. This doesn’t sound anything like Tlön’s work, and she’s not the first supervillain to use mind control.”

“But who else in Fairfield would be developing mind control tech?” Sila asked. Adam wondered the same thing.

“Are you sure it’s tech?” Shudder asked. “For an individual-focused tech designed to completely-but-temporarily hijack the brain’s function, it would be easiest to incorporate it directly into the exosuit. But it sounds like the cognicrystal was just taped inside? That sounds like the work of a psychic or, more likely, a magic user.”

“A magic user could use cognicrystal to anchor a mind control spell,” Lucas agreed. “But if it isn’t Valkyrie, and we’ve already determined that Arachne doesn’t make sense, then who does that leave?”

“There’s Dawn Industries,” Sila suggested. “They could build the exosuits, and make the cognicrystal disappear from their own inventory, right?”

“True, but they’re already disgustingly rich,” Lucas replied. “What do they have to gain from attacking STRIX?”

“Disgustingly rich is never enough for the wealthy,” Shudder said with disgust.

“Nevertheless, they’d be more likely to develop tech than utilize a superhuman, especially if they wanted to frame Tlön,” Elise said in a tired tone. “But surely someone stands to gain. With Nova Legion gone, STRIX crippled, Valkyrie on the run, and Arachne with a target on them, every major force in the city is weakened.”

“Don’t forget about Heaven,” Adam said.

“Nothing’s happened to Heaven,” Lucas replied.

A silence fell over the room.

Shudder spoke slowly, testing the room’s response. “Vampires have innate mind control powers.”

“Of the zombifying variety,” Elise agreed.

Sila looked back and forth at the two of them. “But that can’t be. Heaven’s on our side. At least, Krisztina is our friend, right?”

Lucas was looking a little pale. He held up a finger, then opened a portal on a nearby wall. Stepping through, he returned a moment later not with Krisztina, as Adam had expected, but with Sila’s roommate, Sam.

“Uh, hi,” Sam said. “What’s going on?”

“We need your expertise,” Lucas said. “You know about vampires, right?”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “I mean, I know about the folklore surrounding them. What do you need to know?”

Lucas directed his answer to the entire group. “We’re going to go back to the beginning. And we’re going to imagine that Valpurgia was pulling the strings the entire time, trying to get us all focused on Korris while she prepared something else behind the scenes. Got it?”

A chorus of confused looks answered him.

“Good enough. So this all began when Shudder was hired to steal a psionic wave detector and Elise was tipped off about the theft, right?”

The pair nodded.

“Okay, Shudder, who were you working for?”

“Some guy named Giaour. I’ve never heard of him before, and he disappeared after we failed.”

Lucas looked at Elise. “And who tipped you off?”

“I only know that he went by the name Byron,” Elise replied.

“‘Unquenched, unquenchable, around, within, thy heart shall dwell,’” Adam recited. “‘Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell the tortures of that inward hell! But first, on earth as vampire sent, thy corpse shall from its tomb be rent.’”

Everyone stared at Adam as if he had become possessed and forced to utter those strange words.

“What?” he asked. “That’s The Giaour. By Lord Byron? Oh, right, I forgot I’m the only one here who reads.”

“So, taken together, those names form a reference to a poem that mentions vampires?” Lucas asked.

“Yeah, fun fact; John Polidori’s short story, ‘The Vampyre’, is based on one Lord Byron told in the same storytelling game where Mary Shelley conceived Frankenstein.”

“Okay, I’m confused,” Sila said. “Why would Valpurgia leave any clues about vampires if she was trying to direct us all to Valkyrie?”

“There may be a reason for that,” Sam replied. “In folklore, vampires almost always have some sort of compulsive behavior that doesn’t relate to any of their weaknesses. An unwillingness to cross running water, or enter a home uninvited. If you scatter seeds in front of them, they’ll supposedly be compelled to stop and count them.”

“Oh! Oh!” Adam said, raising his hand like a student. “Carmilla always had to use an anagram of her name as an alias.”

“Except, no, the name Valpurgia doesn’t reference vampires in any way I can see,” Sam said. “Aside from a loose connection to evil spirits and stuff.”

“Unless it doesn’t count because no one expects that to be her real name,” Adam said. He looked at Lucas “What’s her ‘real’ name?”

Lucas let out a long sigh and stared up at the ceiling. “Erzebet Bataria.”

“Elizabeth Bathory!” Adam said triumphantly. His excitement faded. “Oh, wait, no that’s really bad, isn’t it?”

“So, Valpurgia sets up a scenario in which two people familiar with Tlön’s tech will see a device used to build Orbis Tertius stolen and used her mind control to leave bystanders dazed, allowing us to assume an Uqbar was used,” Elise concluded.

Shudder’s face brightened and she sat upright. “But she made mistakes. Uqbar was too unwieldy for that job. And Hedge detected magical residue.”

“Besides, it didn’t get our attention in the right place,” Elise said. “Instead of investigating Tlön, we started looking for psionic tech.”

“So she had to leave another clue,” Lucas finished. “The cognicrystal.”

Elise shook her head. “I don’t think so. No one tipped me off to that. I just investigated things I knew were connected to Tlön. If she did take the cogonicrystal, I don’t think she planned for me to find it.”

Lucas frowned. “Then what was her next step?”

Adam considered this. It was Shudder seeing Valkyrie at the clinic that had brought her attention to Korris’ plot, but the Outcasts had only become aware after she’d stolen the Seraphinite. Except…

“Korris said she didn’t know about the Seraphinite,” Adam said aloud.

Lucas pointed at Adam. “That’s right. And Heaven tipped us off about it. But Shudder saw her there.” He looked at Shudder. “You’re sure you saw her, right?”

“No question. I’d already seen her at the clinic, so I knew what she looked like.” 

“Did she actually call herself ‘Valkyrie’ at any point?”

“No. In fact, when I asked her, she started talking about something else.” She paused, her expression becoming distant. “And there were a couple of other strange things. Valkyrie was supposedly buying the Seraphinite, but the cop cars there were regular ones, not the weird ones she uses. And the guy selling the Seraphinite was strange, too. He acted all half-asleep. I thought he was on drugs or something, but…”

“But maybe it was mind control,” Lucas said.

“There was also a man in a red suit with Valkyrie.”

“Santa Claus?” Adam asked.

Lucas ignored him. “I didn’t see a man in red when I scried her. Did you see him at the clinic?”

Shudder shook her head.

Lucas turned to Adam. “Have you ever seen a man like that at the base?”

Adam shrugged. “Maybe. I mean, he probably doesn’t wear his Santa suit every day. That’s for special occasions like illegal deals.”

Sam made a timid noise. “Er, I don’t know if it’s any help, but there’s a man who wears red who is a member of Heaven.”

Lucas looked at them, waiting for them to continue.

“It’s Ford Miller. He used to be the Crimson Conjurer.”

“Who is that?” Adam asked.

“Another superhero,” Lucas explained. “He channels the power of an extradimensional entity, but he can supposedly only do it when he’s ‘draped in the color of blood.’”

“He also specializes in illusions,” Shudder added.

“But I thought he retired after he and Galaxy Man sealed away the Eye Between the Cracks.”

“He did,” Sam said. “He used to be friends with my grandpa, but Grandpa said he was struggling with both retirement and whatever he experienced during his encounter with the Eye Between the Cracks. He joined Heaven to be part of a magical community without being directly involved in superhuman fights. But he and Grandpa lost touch after that.”

Shudder was giving Sam an appraising look. “Who is your grandpa?”

“Ah, well, he’s technically publicly known, but I don’t usually advertise it because, you know, supervillains targeting families and everything,” Sam stammered. “But he’s the Aerialist.”

Shudder hid her face in her hands, an unexpectedly bashful reaction from the tough girl. “The Aerialist’s grandkid. I completely embarrassed myself in front of the Aerialist’s grandkid.”

“It’s fine,” Sam replied, reaching a hand towards Shudder, but hesitating. “You were going through a lot. And Grandpa’s always said nice things about you.”

Adam could see Shudder blushing beneath her hands.

“I think there’s a small problem with this theory,” Sila said. “Magic didn’t work in that office, remember? Because of Hex’s incense.”

Adam puzzled over this for a moment. He could see Lucas doing the same.

“The incense went out when the ceiling collapsed,” Shudder said. “And Valkyrie appeared several minutes later. How long does it last?”

“I think it’s safe to assume it had dissipated enough for a powerful magic user to push through,” Lucas said. He put on his team leader voice. “So here’s what we have. Valpurgia sets up the psionic wave detector theft to get Shudder and Elise investigating. They go off in the wrong direction, so when the Seraphinite surfaces, she sets up a fake exchange and then tips off Nova Legion and the Outcasts so that we can witness ‘Valkyrie’ buying it. Shudder messes up that plan, but Valpurgia manages to partially recover by catching up with Shudder and taking the Seraphinite as ‘Valkyrie.’ This kept all of us distracted by Valkyrie while she prepared to…what?”

He sighed and suddenly looked very sad.

“Guess there’s one way to find out.” He pulled out his phone and called someone.

“Hey, Krisztina?” he paused. “Yeah, sorry for calling when you’re getting ready for bed again. Listen, I have a big update on the Valkyrie investigation.” His tone suddenly took a dark turn. “I know what you and your mom are doing.” Another pause. “Yeah, of course we can talk. Meet us at Serpent’s Lair tonight.”

He hung up.

“Guess we’re off until tonight.”