Objects in Motion: A Progression Fantasy Adventure, page 24
The real question, though, was why he was stuck in what was almost certainly not the usual entry-level squad. He doubted that Justice for Hire did some of the wetwork nastiness he’d heard of when it came to the very worst supervillains—or truly horrific awakenings—but there were plenty of less public-friendly things that were entirely above-board. Like scouring the rail and maintenance networks below the city.
“We don’t have anything at the moment, so I can help you with those runes,” Lia added, beckoning for Isaac to follow. After a moment, he did so, reflecting that it was a very good thing that he’d picked up the tinkered workbench. Otherwise he would have been better off buying all new materials for a second costume rather than adjusting the one he had. Something that he still should do, but in truth he would be better served by making another new meta identity.
Lia led him down the same hall that his own room was in but stopped a few rooms earlier. Opening the door, the interior didn’t look like it came out of a moonie drama, but more like a college frat house. The walls were plastered with posters for Star City’s Superjump and Rocker teams, including a couple signed pennants. A signed basketball stood on a dresser, and a guitar leaned against the wall in the corner. Isaac forwent comment; he was masquerading as a magical girl, so he hardly had room to judge on taste and inclination.
“Here we go,” Lia said, opening the drawer of a desk up against one wall and taking out two sheets of something that wasn’t quite paper, given its silvery sheen. She placed them down and pointed at one, then the other. “These are the symbols that it’s fine to use. But, you can’t mix them up with any of these,” she said, tapping the second paper. “Only royalists use these.”
Isaac stepped up next to Lia, looking down at the not-paper. The runes inscribed there had a clear glitter of power, given that they were created by an actual lunarian, but looking from one to the other, he saw a problem. The forbidden list was short, but a number of symbols were completely identical to the ones on the okay-to-use list.
“Ravdia can’t tell the difference between these two,” Isaac said, reaching out to put his fingers on the offending symbols. “Or these two, or these two,” he added, just to drive the point home.
“How do you mean?” Lia scowled, staring at the rune sheets. “Look, the curve of the zvith is totally different between these two,” she said, pointing one long silver finger at a loop-de-loop that seemed utterly the same to him. “And the angle of the koscht is almost the opposite.” Again, she prodded a bit of the squiggle where no difference was apparent.
“Ravdia is afraid she does not understand,” Isaac admitted. No matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t distinguish any detail that would let him tell one symbol from the other. It wasn’t like they were even particularly complicated. “Nor does she know what zvith and koscht are.”
Isaac spent a frustrating fifteen minutes trying to understand as Lia did her best to explain the underpinning principles of rune geometry. In virtually all of her examples, things that were supposed to be obviously different looked the same, or things that were supposed to be the same looked wildly different. It wasn’t simply a magic thing, as after trying to draw the sigils himself, sometimes she claimed it was one thing and sometimes another.
“Ravdia thinks there is something to runes that the human mind does not grasp,” Isaac admitted. “She cannot distinguish the differences or control them.”
“Zekcha vieds.” Lia muttered, in a tone that made it obvious the words were some sort of epithet. “Nobody talks runes with me. Some sort of rule, like no politics or no religion.”
Isaac made a noncommittal noise, rendered girlish by his voice changer. He imagined that there was some briefing most metas got about moonies when they joined any organization where the non-human runecasters were likely to show up, but Isaac was just a janitor. If there was some general rubric to dealing with the moon folk, he’d missed it.
“Then, perhaps limit yourselves to these,” Lia said, tapping the rune sheet and erasing offending symbols with a touch. Isaac nodded and picked up the sheet, but Lia wasn’t done. She glanced around, a series of runes on her skin that he hadn’t noticed before lighting up and then vanishing, and she waved at the door, making it close of its own accord.
“Not to pry,” she said, looking more concerned than anything. “But if I know, I might be able to place you better within the company. Why are you pretending to be a girl?”
Isaac froze for a moment, a reflex pushing his power in that sideways direction for a moment, the one associated with identities. Not that it achieved anything, because not only did Lia already know, but unlike with Chains, there were serious differences between Ravdia and Isaac that no amount of power would cover. Then he sighed and reached up under the veil to flip off the voice modulator.
“Mostly it’s about protecting my identity,” he replied. “Most people wouldn’t connect Ravdia with me if they knew me. It seemed appropriate under the circumstances.”
“Your divinations are weird,” Lia mused. “If I hadn’t been able to perceive beyond the armor, I would not have thought of it. It’s like Ravdia is your real identity, so I was—well, confused. I put you with the Brute Squad because I could tell you didn’t want to be too exposed, but I wasn’t sure why.”
Isaac nodded slowly. Another thing that fit into his slowly growing pile of evidence that his talent was doing something about his personas. He had an impulse to be entirely honest with Lia, but he shoved it down. There were some things he could explain, but he didn’t have any reason or need to trust her with all his troubles.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” he told her. “But it’s only tangentially related to the powerset I’m using as Ravdia. The costume stuff is for me, but for Ravdia, all I’ll be saying is I make a fair bruiser.” He hadn’t heard about how common it was for people to have edge cases for their powers. People didn’t spill everything they could do for a variety of reasons. Though if he did trust them, it was likely the veterans at the guild would have ideas.
“You’re not wanted or anything, are you?” Lia asked, but he’d already signed off on a statement to that effect, one of the few pieces of paper that was actually necessary to start with the guild. The secret identity was enshrined deeply into both culture and law, so Ravdia was entirely her own thing—up until she crossed certain lines, anyway.
“Not that I know of,” Isaac replied, mostly honestly. He didn’t know what the actual status was on Chains or Harkeem. Let alone Isaac himself. But Ravdia and his newest cover identity, David Jeffries, certainly weren’t.
“Would it be a problem if your team members knew? You can probably fool Savage, and Stratum won’t even notice, but Bubs will probably figure it out eventually.” The questions were asked in a tone that was more professional than personal, Lia clearly having no issues with the identity herself.
“So long as it’s not made broadly public,” Isaac said with a shrug. “Ravdia is not necessarily permanent, but I’d rather not compromise the identity if at all possible.” He could probably create a new super identity easily enough if he had the help of Justice for Hire, but again it would require trust—and he’d have to have done enough work to make it worth their while. Even the softest mercenary group was a business first and foremost.
“Understood. I’ll have to tell Captain Multiples, but he will have no problems with it if it’s simply a personal issue. And if he doesn’t say anything, neither will anyone else,” Lia assured him, though Isaac doubted that. Once people noticed, it was only a matter of time before loose lips made it impossible for him to keep Ravdia as an identity—but perhaps whatever his power was doing would help.
“Very well,” Isaac said, though there wasn’t much he could do about it. He reached up and flicked on the voice changer again, double-checking the veil’s attachment to the costume. “Now, Ravdia will fix her costume! And she thanks you for the instruction!”
Lia nodded and flipped her hand, opening the door again as runes shone on her skin. Isaac inclined his head to her and slipped out, returning to his own room. The fact that he’d been busted already made some of his worries about hiding things a little bit moot, but he’d already put the time and effort into a plan, so he couldn’t just not carry it through.
He closed the door and then, after a moment of thought, put his hand on it and invested it with inertia. Not just the door itself, but the lock plate as well. It wasn’t like anyone was liable to break down the door on him, but after what had just happened and with the way Lia had seen through his disguise, he needed a bit of security. Only once he was safely ensconced behind a closed door did he shuck the costume and get to work.
First, the hiding place. All it took to cut the wall’s paperboard was a utility knife, and he excised a small square to reveal the empty partition beyond. It wasn’t a large space, but it was a little dusty and big enough for him to cram in his non-Ravdia belongings. Pulling his stuff from under the bed, he slid it carefully into the wall, all save for the workbench. He’d need that to modify Ravdia’s costume.
The blue paper got cut to cover the square, the tinker stationed touched up the gloss and texture, and a little bit of glue set it in place. He only fastened the top, leaving it so he could lift up or push through the paper square, and ensured that the patch fell flat against the wall before securing the bottom with a tiny piece of clear tape. A few moments’ work with some of his supplies blended the slight difference between the paper edge and the paint on the wall, then he touched the patch to invest it.
The problem was, if he left only the cover invested, it’d rip through the wall whenever he tried to handle it. Something he should have thought of before that moment, but this wasn’t something he had been given time to chew over. He frowned at it, then tried something he’d not really spent any time doing—investing only part of something.
Generally, he shoved inertia into a discrete object, like clothing or a machine, but there didn’t seem to be any reason he couldn’t reinforce just a piece of it. He ran his fingers over the wall around the hidey-hole and focused on investing in just an inch or so of perimeter. It felt diffuse and slippery, like he couldn’t control it properly, but he hadn’t practiced it much. At least he got enough feedback from his power to tell there was extra inertia in the area, though it faded to normal over a few inches rather than being a sharp demarcation.
Prodding it without using his power exemption, it seemed entirely solid, so he was satisfied enough even if it wasn’t a completely perfect hiding place. With the clamshell and some of his more personal, identifiable items hidden away, he started working on retooling Ravdia’s detailing. It would be interesting to see if giving the costume genuine runes made the identity more solid and added another point to his investigations.
He’d try to square away his business with the mercenary company as quickly as possible and get through intake processing because he needed another round at the library. If he was going to come up with a plan to get at whoever was behind the attack on him and Smokeshow, if he was going to meet with Cayleb again, if he was going to actually act like a super if only for a very specific purpose—he needed to understand what was going on with his power. There was no telling what small edge or odd effect could be exploited to best effect.
Isaac would need every advantage he could get.
FIFTEEN
ASSUMPTIONS
“You’re going to have to tell them something.”
Glorybeam stood at attention in Ike’s office, obscured by her armor as usual but still managing to radiate disapproval at his words. He frowned back but couldn’t help remembering the old joke about sovereign-class superheroes. What do they say to their publicist? Anything they want to.
“Look, the papers are raising a big enough stink that Mayor Ducatt is trying to lean on me. Even making noises about auditing our logs, interviewing our people.” Ike took in as big a breath as he could, until he hit the limits of what the life support chair would allow. “I’m not stealing any funds or running any criminal activities, but we’ve already had a number of resignations. I suspect more are coming, and that’s not something we can afford, especially now!”
Not everyone was cut out to be a super. Most people didn’t actually like violence too much, and when that percentage was further reduced by the slice of the populace with actionable powers, he was lucky he had as many personnel on hand as he did. An uncomfortable number were only there because it was easier than being a criminal and didn’t have any loyalty to law and order.
In an imperfect world, he had to make the best of what tools were available, and some people were far better given license to thrash bank robbers, muggers, and smugglers than vanishing off somewhere to commit violence out of the public eye. There were a number of people who were either not smart enough to function without a handler or whose good behavior rested on the tacit respect of not looking over their shoulder. Some of them had already left, as Glorybeam wasn’t the only one with dirty laundry being sent to the papers. Just the most prominent.
“The only thing they could be told,” Glorybeam said stiffly, “is exactly what caused the incident. That would expose my powers and not solve anything.”
Ike sighed. She wasn’t entirely wrong, either. Telling people that Glorybeam and Blacktime’s powers caused absolute annihilation when they intersected wasn’t going to make people happy. And while he doubted that Glorybeam’s abilities were entirely a secret, it was both good policy and actual law that non-criminals didn’t need to disclose their precise talents. Especially not to the public.
“It has been almost twenty years,” Ike said at last. “Hinting what powers you used at the time surely won’t give away too much.”
Glorybeam’s power was actually quite simple. In fact, in the hands of virtually any other meta, it would just qualify for nominal class. All she could do was make light. Nothing more. For most people, that would work for search and rescue, or if they could make lasers, they might be able to function as a common-class super. But Glorybeam had been over thirty when her powers manifested, a librarian with degrees in philosophy and history, and had pushed her power—and her understanding of light—beyond the simple interpretations.
The light of truth. The light of life. The light of ancient mistakes. Lightness. She had dug into not only physics and optics, but into every record of every civilization and language to find, understand, and incorporate understandings of light and apply them to her own power. There were distinct limitations; she couldn’t just assign any quality to light that she wanted. It had to be something that connected, that she understood, and that had an underpinning in reality or conception. Even Ike had lost track of how much she had incorporated into her power-set.
“I am not happy about what happened that day either,” Glorybeam said rather than reply directly. “Perhaps if we had addressed it then, rather than just allot what charity we could, it would have been meaningful. Now, it seems like we are simply playing into the hands of whoever is behind this.”
Ike grunted. That was definitely an issue. Just because it was happening at the same time didn’t mean that they were connected, but it did seem awful convenient that their sovereign-class superhero was being targeted at the same time as Mechaniacal’s drones were becoming more overt. The general populace would raise hell if he leaned on the papers too hard, and he didn’t need more bad press, but he would have to do some investigation to find out where this stuff was coming from. More superhero-related dirt than Blacktime’s, but since they happened at the same time, it felt like they had the same source.
“We will be having a press conference,” he said at last, not wanting another useless go-around with Glorybeam. “However, I’ll have Vilmonica consult with you and decide what exactly you need to say. You can have her in an earpiece, and we’ll make sure to limit the press pool.” Glorybeam was not a fan of public speaking, and he didn’t blame her. But it was an issue that could be easily ameliorated by letting someone else handle the rhetoric.
“Very well,” Glorybeam said, clearly unhappy but not willing to fully resist his orders. It was, in a way, surprising how many supers listened to people like Ike or Mayor Ducatt. If push came to shove, it would be very hard to enforce anything on even a tactical-class, let alone a sovereign-class. But of course, that was why people went supervillain.
He watched Glorybeam leave the office, then scrolled through the messages he’d gotten while he was arguing with her. Most were just the normal miscellanea of the day, reports of crimes stopped, or requests for supplies. Another biotitan attack, a lunarian of unknown allegiance arriving from the southern kingdoms, and a comet glimpsed in the depths of space, flaring across the Cosmic Orrery as the visitor was captured and brought into the complex dance of orbits. Then, in the endless scroll of messages, at definitely the wrong priority, Machine Head reported contact with his former roommate.
Got a reply from Isaac! Says he’s around, willing to meet. Minor trouble. Maybe he noticed something?
Ike nodded in satisfaction. At least one thread seemed to be willing to resolve itself. He typed out a reply to Machine Head, assigning Thoughtstealer and Mocker to the task of managing that opportunity. Possibly overkill for bringing in a nominal-class strength-type, but if Isaac was involved with whoever had been sending professional supers into Star City, there might be someone far more dangerous around. Whoever he sent to deal with the delegation from the southern kingdoms would have to be careful.
He trusted his people, though. With a telepath and a warlock as protection, he was certain that Machine Head would be safe if they decided to arrange a meeting. As important as it was to track down whoever was involved, he wasn’t going to risk his newest tinker.
Isaac rang the bell at the end of the obstacle course, breathing hard behind the veil of Ravdia’s hat. He was learning that there was a vast difference between being in shape and being in fighting shape—even if resistance training had put him ahead of the game—which only cemented his opinion on being a dedicated super. It wouldn’t be possible to really live a normal life if he had to spend so much time training, and Isaac wasn’t willing to lock himself into being a full-time super.
