Perfectly silent, the invisible car sped through dark back alleys. It was late, late night now, almost early morning. The heroes above were beginning to turn in, with others who hadn't joined the initial effort taking their places.

The vehicle made a tight turn around a corner, running over a puddle but somehow not splashing up water. Scott watched through the window, curious as to how that worked - maybe some kind of special tire. He and Golden Geisha had stayed quiet throughout the length of the ride, with Bombshell and Doctor Demise only trading the occasional words.

"We should be arriving soon." said the dark-robed doctor, rapping on the glass between them and the driver. The undead chauffeur looked back again and she gave it a few directions by gesticulating, pointing her hands around. With another electronic whistle from her mask, the corpse turned to the wheel.

Leaning to get a better look, Scott studied it with interest. Zombies were Demise's thing, and while he had seen them before while reporting, he'd never been this close to one. Luckily, they weren't the horror movie kind that could turn you into one of them with a bite. They could easily tear a person apart, though.

"Impressed?" Doctor Demise asked, noticing Scott's fascination. "His driving skill is quite acute for a corpse, no?"

"Well, uh..." Scott didn't really know what to say. Cadavers generally didn't drive, so she wasn't wrong. "Yeah?"

"I've trained zombies for many purposes." she stared back at the driver's seat through the glass, stroking her fingers on the window. "You'll see a few around at the afterparty, but don't worry, they're all perfectly tame."

Scott rose an eyebrow. Afterparty? They were going to a party?"

"Should we really bring him?" breaking her silence, Golden Geisha rubbed her forehead. "He might be overwhelmed. We can drop him off at another base..."

"Hey, we gotta show him all his new friends!" Bombshell clapped him on the back. "You like to party, Scott?"

Scott shook his head. "I've uh, never really been to a party."

That was only partially true. His editor invited him to a work party once, where he got to meet most of the other writers for HeroHub. They all knew each other already since they worked out of the office and not their apartments like he did. It was mostly just drinking and chatting in a hookah bar, and he'd left halfway through because the smoke was getting to him.

"Figures." said Bombshell. "Well, it's gonna be a hell of a time."

"God, what a long day!" Streak stretched and yawned, then ran a hand through her pink hair. "Not gonna lie, I'm getting kinda tired of all this bouncing around..."

The two heroes had flown back to the Champion Center, taking the same specialized aircraft they had gone to visit Scott's apartment in. First, they had stopped at the main lab in the head of the building so System could store away his power armor. When he was done, they took one of the lifts down to the underground section of the facility. Side by side they strolled through dark corridors, which lit up bright with motion sensor lights as they passed through - this whole area had been operated by Futureman, and it brought a strange feeling to them both that soon some other hero would be taking up shop here.

"You're welcome to go to your quarters." System said, walking as he talked. "I'm just going to download the schematics, then write up a report. I've decided to schedule a press meeting for tomorrow, hopefully I can convince Andrew to call off his lockdown first..."

"It's fine. I figure I should help you write it up, huh?" she pulled something out from her pocket: a cellphone with a cracked screen. "Look! I took this from his apartment."

System lifted an eyebrow as she started trying to get through the password lock, tapping out five hundred four digit combinations a second.

"Luiza, you know that's against policy."

"Uh, hello? Is there not a superweapon on the loose? I figured policy's out the window now, Mr. Masters." Luiza got the right combination. "I'm in!"

System just sighed, stopping in place. He'd reached his destination, a set of thick steel doors like those of an elevator. While most of the rooms down here had windows that looked inside and a plaque with a name that identified its purpose, this one had neither. Just a flat, non-descript steel wall.

System reached out his hand and laid it on a black panel built into the metal, which lit up as it scanned his fingers and palm. It flashed red, then blue, and the doors opened up with a mechanical whirr.

"Stay out here." he said to Luiza, stepping inside. The doors shut behind him quickly, before she could get a peek at what was inside.

For a while, Streak looked through Scott's phone. There wasn't anything too interesting to be found in the pictures, just a few selfies and family photos - apparently he reserved his actual camera for his superhero shoots. She was amused to find that he had a number of dating apps, and even more so by the lack of responses on any of them. Eventually though, she got bored... he really didn't seem to have any sort of social life, no texts or calls except to his boss and very few names in his contacts.

She slid the phone back in her pocket, then looked around and tapped her foot. System sure was taking his sweet time in the lab.

"You almost done?" she called out, knocking on the door. No response. He probably just couldn't hear her.

Pulling off one of her rubbery pink gloves, she pressed her hand against the cool black glass like he had done, expecting to be let in - but the screen flashed red.

LEVEL FIVE CLEARANCE NECESSARY

Luiza rose an eyebrow. She was a Fiver, she had level five clearance, or at least she should - damn it, had System never updated her since she was promoted from being a junior member? She tried her other hand, getting the same red screen.

Of course she hadn't been given level five clearance, of course! System, Champion Junior, Futureman, even Warmaiden, they never treated her like an actual member of the team.

She was gonna get in that lab.

Streak crouched down, bringing in one leg and stretching the other back, spacing her arms out and pressing her fingertips to the floor - a flawless runner's pose. Her body began to shake, then vibrate, then vibrate even faster - if someone was down here to watch, they would only see a hazy blur of pink and yellow. The air began to crackle and warp around her, and she took off, running right at the door. Her body phased through the solid metal, each molecule slipping around the very atoms that made up the door before reconstituting back together. She skidded to a stop, then gazed around at her new surroundings.

The circular chamber was large, with a ceiling that stretched high, high up. Dim illumination came from flourescent panels on the walls. The room was made up of round, tiered floors, each one hosting a number of metal pedestals arranged around them in a ring, with breaks for the stairs. Streak tried to count them all... there had to be a hundred of them, and each had a curved, TV remote-like device on it.

What was this place?

At the top of the series of floors, in the center of the room, was a cylindrical computer console. System was working at. It had a holographic open-air display, a series of 3D projections he was manipulating with his hands. Somehow, he hadn't noticed her enter. Streak crept up to one of the pedestals nearby, taking the device that was on it and looking it over. It was made out of a sleek white metal material. There were a number of buttons on it, as well as a name printed along the length.

"Lightning Lady?" she read it off to herself under her breath, placing it back down and sneaking to the next. "Super Samurai?"

She went to the next, then the next, then the next. Each one had different buttons with different functions, but each had a name. "Miss Mystic... Doctor Atom... Streak?"

Luiza read over the different buttons. Sonic net launcher. Epoxy spray. Phase interruptor. Velocity dampener. Each one sounded like a counter to her abilities. That's when she realized... Futureman wasn't the only one with a failsafe.

The hero cleared her throat, and System spun back, his eyes wide at the sight of her.

"What the hell is this?" she asked, holding up the remote.

"Luiza..." System's voice was dead cold. "I told you to stay outside."