After Emmett identified himself, the world fell away.

  He was in the forest of cyberspace again, though the outline of the real world was still there. Emmett stood in a clearing—there wasn’t any data or power, and so there wasn’t any light. To one side, the highway and mainline roared with electricity. Small streams and buildings dotted the surrounding area.

  Emmett stood alone in the clearing, and he glowed. The stolen nanite swarm rolled around him like living fog.

  Across the field, the storefront glowed faintly, like a barely living tree stump. The three supers stood atop it. Two of them glowed like ghosts, like they weren’t actually present in cyberspace. The only one that was actually there was the one who had spoken to Emmett.

  Instead of the black and gray swirls of his suit, the man glowed with light—even more so than the drones and biomechs. He was completely mechanical, and electrical signals suffused every part of him. Emmett had to squint to see it, but he discovered part of the reason for the glow; there were layers upon layers of densely packed nanites across his body. His swarm couldn’t compare to Emmett’s in sheer volume, but it was much more complex.

  The man had formed a rifle out of the nanites in his arm. It glowed brightest of all, and Emmett couldn’t take his eyes off of it. The gun… the power… even the nanites the man used… all of it was impossibly familiar, and just out of Emmett’s reach.

  In the real world, the man sheathed his rifle. In cyberspace, the glow softened. Both were true, and but neither lessened the fear that had taken root inside Emmett.

  “Can you hear me?” the man asked.

  “Yes,” Emmett replied, voice shaking.

  Their voices were echoes of one another, and yet they couldn’t have sounded more different. The man’s voice flowed like a steady stream and carried authority, while Emmett’s flickered like static.

  “I’m not your enemy,” he said.

  “And I don’t want to be yours,” Emmett replied.

  The man stepped out of himself. In cyberspace, a glowing silhouette walked off of the tree stump and onto the dark field. A faint outline stayed behind, marking where his body still stood on the roof, motionless in the real world.

  In cyberspace and in the real world, Emmett shrunk back.

  “Who are you!” Emmett’s nanites pulsed as he shouted.

  The man slowed, but didn’t stop walking forward. “There isn’t a simple answer.”

  “Stop!” Emmett’s swarm flared to life like a kicked beehive. The man finally stopped. “If you won’t tell me who you are, then why should I trust you? You could be working with the Brotherhood! Maybe you’re Bastion… Or maybe you’re just another biomech.”

  Emmett couldn’t read the man’s expression behind his mask, but he felt the man’s emotions through cyberspace. He probably could’ve hidden them, but he let them float freely across the field. The man wasn’t offended, but he was cautious.

  “Emmett… you know that’s not true. I’m not with the Brotherhood—”

  “Then why won’t you tell me who you are?”

  The flow of emotions changed, like the direction of the wind. “...Because I’m afraid of what will happen. I’m afraid for myself… and for you.”

  Something swept over cyberspace.

  Emmett looked up. Until then, there hadn’t been a sky. Now, there were rolling clouds overhead. The sky reminded him of his nanite cloud, but it stretched as far as he could see. Sunlight peeked through the clouds and swept across the landscape.

  Emmett knew who it was. He’d felt Tina’s presence before. She’d tried reaching out to him moments ago, when the supers first appeared. But he didn’t remember her.

  As sunlight swept across the field, Emmett felt the words again:

  ATTEMPTING TO RECONNECT

  For a moment, Emmett felt something. Attempting to connect should’ve been as easy as shaking hands, but Emmett was on guard. Tina had barely brushed his fingertips and he’d recoiled like a frightened animal. His nanite cloud rippled—it insulated Emmett and pushed the sensation away.

  “It’s just TINA,” the man said.

  “Who is she!”

  “She’s an AI—a friend. She’s just trying to help.”

  Though Emmett couldn’t see the man’s expression, Emmett knew he was telling the truth. It didn’t matter—nothing could assuage that feeling of someone else worming their way inside his brain. Emmett would never allow it.

  “She needs to stay out of my head.”

  The clouds began to churn, then boil.

  Lightning crackled.

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  ATTEMPTING TO RECONNECT

  The man looked up at the sky. “No! Don’t force it—”

  A thunderclap echoed across cyberspace like the sky had been torn open. Bolts of lightning streaked down toward both of them. Lightning struck the man, and a fraction of a second later, struck Emmett as well.

  But Emmett rejected it. Electricity rippled across his nanite cloud, dispersed into harmless static.

  CONNECTION FAILURE

  SYNC IMPOSSIBLE

  For a moment, both men were surprised. Maybe the man hadn’t expected Emmett to be able to resist it. But Emmett knew how to defend himself. He’d taken back control of his brain implant and fought his way out of prison.

  Emmett’s own shock quickly turned to anger. And they called themselves friends. They lied—they’re just like Bastion and the Brotherhood. How dare they!

  Emmett tapped his batteries. Power suffused him, soaking into every nanite and every pore. In the real world and in cyberspace, Emmett’s voice became a roar—distorted by the swarm, and by pain and rage that he couldn’t remember, let alone understand.

  “I told you to stay out!”

  Emmett flared power. Shockwaves of destructive energy and nanites tore across the fields. In cyberspace, they left fractal patterns, like frozen lightning bolts. In the real world, the shockwaves contained nanites. They shredded the grass, leaving scarred swathes in their wake.

  In the real world, the middle super moved. The woman stepped forward and raised a gauntlet. Fire poured out of it. But it didn’t come at Emmett. Instead, it spread outward like a protective shield. It glowed white hot in Emmett’s vision, so bright that Emmett saw it through his nanite shroud. Shockwaves and nanites crashed against it; both disintegrated, like a wave crashing against the rocks.

  In cyberspace, Emmett’s attack met a similar end. His power arced along the field, but when it reached the man, it swirled around and fell into him like a whirlpool.

  For a moment, fear settled on the field of cyberspace. Both Emmett and the man were afraid—afraid of what the other might do.

  The man extended a hand toward Emmett. In the real world, nanites streamed across the field, and in cyberspace, a signal followed the same course.

  “Let me help you.”

  In both realms, Emmett backed away. The swarm writhed.

  The man didn’t stop. His nanites formed a thin wire and slithered across the field. Emmett took another step backward, but the nanites didn’t stop.

  “You need to trust me.”

  When the wire reached Emmett, the swarm went wild. It surged like a storm, tearing and dissolving the end of the wire. The man kept feeding nanites into the wire, rebuilding it as quickly as it was destroyed.

  In cyberspace, the man’s signal traveled along a similar path. It reached Emmett and stalled out. It hung in the air, flickering.

  Emmett rejected the connection…

  But he still felt something.

  All this time, Emmett could sense the man’s emotions across cyberspace. There might not have been a direct connection, but there was something between the two men. Emmett couldn’t deny it.

  And now, as the wire brushed against his swarm, Emmett felt flickers of something deeper.

  Memories bubbled up inside Emmett—

  No. Not inside him. There were the man’s memories. But Emmett was there too. They were only flashes, but like everything else in cyberspace, so much information was conveyed in such a short time.

  Emmett saw Clara for the first time—the first day of his internship. She gave him a tour of the lab’s first level and introduced him to her father. Emmett remembered being sad when she walked away. Remembered spending the rest of that day hoping she would stop by, hoping to see her again.

  Emmett saw himself and Lock sitting on the roof of their college apartment. Talking with each other about classes. Before learning that they were supers and enemies.

  Flashes came quicker. He remembered meeting Athena, McGuire, Cherry, Krystal, and Larian… Remembered battles with the Deep Ones and countless battles with other supers.

  He remembered trying to break into the lab. How Lock managed to escape, and how he got captured…

  Emmett shook his head. It was too much.

  HIs guts twisted. The turmoil inside him bled into the swarm, but instead of boiling, it collapsed to the ground. It fell and spread out into a lifeless puddle.

  Emmett glanced backward. Until now, he’d kept Dr. Venture half-contained with the swarm. Emmett had meant to keep him safe, but had almost forgotten about him. Emmett had forgotten about him. Venture was alive, but he’d been restrained… Imprisoned. Just like Emmett had been.

  The woman—Clara—flew down off the roof, streaking toward the field with barely contained power. For a moment, Emmett thought she was going to kill him.

  She soared past. She knelt down and cradled her father. He coughed and came to, quickly taking in his surroundings.

  “It’s okay, Dad. I’ve got you.”

  As soon as Venture realized who it was, he hugged his daughter.

  Even without a connection, Emmett felt the emotions and the weight of the reunion. Emmett’s own emotions swirled—gratitude, guilt, shame—and he turned away.

  A flicker brought Emmett’s attention back to the man—

  The man that was himself. A mirror. An echo.

  For a moment, Emmett realized that this was how his friends and his enemies saw him.

  The name finally came back to him: Mod.

  It had been his superhero name once. Emmett wasn’t sure that it was his name anymore. Wasn’t sure if it ever would be.

  Mod took another step forward. “You’ve been compartmentalizing. You’ve been locking thoughts and memories away so that they wouldn’t distract you… so that they wouldn’t hurt you. But you need to stop that now. You need to remember. That’s the only way—”

  Something else swept across cyberspace.

  Instead of rays of sunlight, this felt like oppressive darkness. Cyberspace was all still there—the mainline river, the streams, and buildings—but it felt like Emmett was looking at the world through squinted eyes.

  A woman’s voice—Tina’s voice—echoed from the clouds:

  “We’re out of time.”

  The nanite wire retracted, and the flickers of connection were lost.

  Emmett called back, fear finally replaced with determination. “Wait! I’m not afraid anymore!”

  Mod looked up at the sky. “That’s not TINA. That’s Bastion. It found us.”

  In cyberspace, twin suns rose on the horizon. They blazed bright with power and blotted out the surrounding landscape. In the real world, Emmett could just make out the two new signals. They were approaching quickly, bringing a primal sense of dread with them.

  “Two heavy drone squadrons approaching.”

  Tina announced the threat, but somehow Emmett already knew what they were:

  The most powerful units of the Brotherhood’s fleet.

  ~ ~ ~