APPROXIMATELY +0.2.19 POST-INCIDENT

  There was a small park on the West End of Belport. Emmett had been there a few times growing up, and a few more during college. During his time in the dorms, it was a short bus ride or a long walk. There was a shady, dirt trail that wrapped around a ke, and pces for sports—chain-link basketball hoops and tattered volleyball nets.

  It was a mid-day during the week, so thankfully, the park wasn’t packed like it was on the weekend. There were a few parents with young kids that weren’t in school yet, and runners with odd schedules. A few of the others were probably college students.

  Until a minute ago, they’d all been going about their business.

  Now they were screaming and running away from a fight between supers.

  A tree leaned over, its massive trunk creaking as it did. One of the thick lower branches Lock like a baseball.

  A crack of impact sounded, and the force sent Lock skidding backward. He tumbled across the grass, then dug his feet and hands into the ground, gouging lines in the earth. He finally stopped and spat out leaves.

  Mod nded beside him, staff in hand. “I told you to wait for me.”

  Lock spat out leaves and gred back at their opponents.

  Three supers stood across the hill and beneath the shelter of the animated tree—all three were Summit capes. Names and registration info fshed through Emmett’s mind.

  Verdant wore a deep green suit and thick cloak. They could control pnts, which was quickly becoming an issue considering the setting. Grass and bushes had grown tall and turned into vines. Those were manageable. Trees were the problem. Lock weighed close to five hundred pounds, but a tree was heavier, and it had much better leverage.

  The second super, Arclight, rippled with purple electricity. Her jacket and hair floated weightlessly, like she was underwater. She could project rings and whips of energy.

  Both Verdant and Arclight’s faces were bnk and expressionless.

  The third super, Genevieve, stood in the back of the formation, her teeth bared in a snarl. She wore a white, pin bodysuit, and was cssified as just a telekinetic. Her tent psychic abilities were weak enough to hide from Brotherhood scanner tech and from Summit capes—

  But the Menagerie still found her.

  Now the Menagerie was controlling all three of them.

  The air rippled as a wave of power emanated from the psychic. Mod felt the touch of the Menagerie before the wind passed over him like a shockwave.

  The sensation was simir to when Emmett felt TINA’s emotions through their connection—only this felt cruder, like speaking to someone through pin text messages instead of a video call. Maybe because Emmett had more in common with an AI now than he did with a regur human. But he didn’t need an intimate connection to the Menagerie to know that it was foaming-at-the-mouth angry.

  Snarls of otherworldly anger washed over Emmett like a cool breeze.

  The Menagerie couldn’t hurt him anymore, but it was a testament to the hive-mind’s power that he felt it at all. Genevieve was a weak psychic, and therefore a poor conduit. It was like trying to fire a fusion-powered ser through a cheap fshlight. It was a miracle that it worked at all.

  It also didn’t bode well for Genevieve. If her mind wasn’t completely fried, it would be soon.

  Mod pushed the thought aside. There was nothing they could do to help her now.

  Mod drew his pistol and fired nanite rounds at the capes, but the Menagerie saw the attack coming, and the tree moved branches to shield them.

  Meanwhile, Lock fell to his hands and knees as psychic energy bombarded him.

  The st time they’d fought the Menagerie together was just after escaping the Gnosis compound—when Lock had been taken over by the hive-mind. Emmett had been forced to fight his friend. But that was when the Menagerie had a more powerful psychic as a conduit—

  And before they had McGuire’s next-gen autopinchers.

  Lock winced as the autopinchers snapped around his arm and leg. Both Athena and Lock said it felt like someone snapping a rubber band across their skin, despite both supers having different durabilities. But gadgeteer powers were weird like that.

  Thankfully, the bystanders were all gone.

  Lock muttered, “God damnit, that stings!”

  “I think they’re pissed at us.”

  McGuire warned them that the new autopinchers weren’t perfect. Against a powerful enough opponent, the gadgets could burn themselves out. One more reason to finish the fight quickly.

  “Let’s trade opponents,” Mod said.

  Lock spat again. “Hope you packed garden shears in that belt.”

  Mod sprinted forward, fusion power from his core flowing through his new legs. He closed the gap between them with Css 4 speed. Lock’s thundering steps were right behind him. Long grasses whipped at Mod’s ankles but couldn’t grab hold.

  The animated tree bent to the will of Verdant, and by extension, the Menagerie. Its thick trunk twisted, causing the entire canopy to rear back, like the end of a giant fil. There were a dozen rge branches, each big enough to pose a threat to Mod’s nanite armor, and there were countless smaller ones that might slice through him.

  But Mod parsed the danger in a millisecond. He flicked open the bde of his bo staff. He didn’t slow.

  The tree swung. Cracks echoed all across the tree as bark shattered—loud as gunshots. Tons of wood and leaves swung across the hill like the mace of a titan. Instead of trying to leap completely over, Mod leapt just enough to clear one of the rgest branches. Mod tucked his legs and the massive branch passed just beneath his feet. At the same time, Mod swung his axe, slicing easily through smaller branches. Brush tore at his nanite armor, but he slipped through the gap.

  Mod nded without breaking stride.

  Nearby, Lock had reached his own target. Arclight’s electric whips snapped across the hill. Lock shrugged off the first strikes, but couldn’t pin her down.

  Arclight bent the power around her in protective rings. They weren’t strong enough to stand up to Lock directly, but the cape was light on her feet. Each of Lock’s punches struck her protective rings and caused Arclight to skid backward across the hill.

  Mod smirked as he ran—Arclight was fighting Lock the same way that Mod did. Lock’s immense strength didn’t matter if he couldn’t nd a direct hit.

  If Lock wasn’t pissed before, he would be now.

  Mod turned his attention back toward Verdant and Genevieve. Verdant was desperately trying to conjure more vines while the tree twisted back around. Meanwhile, Genevieve cowered behind her. Every ounce of the Menagerie’s attention was focused on controlling Verdant and Arclight—the hive-mind wasn’t putting any energy toward using Genevieve’s powers.

  Not that it would matter against Mod.

  He’d only needed an opening.

  Before the tree swung around again, Mod shot both Verdant and Genevieve. The capes pawed at their suits as nanites crept up their necks and covered their faces. It would hamper Verdant’s control, but it wouldn’t stop the Menagerie.

  Across the hill, Lock had Arclight’s wrists trapped in one massive hand. She kept struggling, pelting him with electricity while Lock’s own nanites covered her face. He dragged her over unceremoniously.

  Lock had caught her so fast that Mod had missed it.

  Mod stowed his staff. Then he quickly grabbed both of his immobilized targets and carried them out of reach of the still pissed off tree. Grasses writhed at his feet, but he walked through. Once they were far enough away from the tree, Mod and Lock set their targets down and started securing them.

  Mod pulled a bck hood out of his utility belt, then slipped it over the psychic’s head. Over the st few months, McGuire had developed an anti-Menagerie hood for compromised psychics. The contraptions were little more than a multi-yered bag, each yer acting to suppress the psychic’s power and cut them off from the Menagerie. Like the new autopinchers, the hoods wouldn’t st forever, but they would st long enough for the Summit to receive an anonymous tip and take them away to the Vault.

  Mod kept a yer of nanites over the psychic's face, if only to further reduce her visibility and hearing.

  Mod breathed a sigh of relief and turned to Lock. “How did you beat Arclight? Seemed like you were having trouble for a minute.”

  Lock scoffed. “She was squirrelly, but I knocked her into the air. She can’t fly—boom—no mobility. Learned that from fighting you.”

  Mod smiled.

  He pulled out another of McGuire’s inventions—a squirt bottle and a glove. Even with Genevieve bagged, the Menagerie still had talons in the other two capes.

  Mod wasn’t sure what McGuire had done to a repurposed cleaner bottle or a rubber dish glove, and the gadgeteer neglected to expin. Whatever it was, the combination worked like a charm to break a non-psychic free from the hive-mind’s control.

  Instead of taking days to recoup, Verdant and Arclight would be back to work tomorrow.

  Mod shook the greenish liquid in the spray bottle—three times—then sprayed Verdant’s face. The creaks and groans of the tree slowed and finally stopped. Verdant’s eyes fluttered open.

  “Wha… What happened—”

  Before Verdant could fully wake up, Mod pulled on the rubber glove and spped them across the face. Verdant slumped back onto the ground, unconscious again. At least they were free of the Menagerie’s control.

  Lock snorted a ugh. “Sorry. It just gets me every time.”

  Mod shook his head and tried not to ugh. He’d already grilled McGuire about how ridiculous it felt spping fellow capes, but McGuire said this was the best he could come up with. The spray breaks them out of control, and the sp puts them back to sleep for a bit until other capes could arrive. Mod tried to be careful, but McGuire swore there wasn’t any sting damage from the sp.

  Mod offered the bottle to Lock. “Fine, you do it.”

  Lock held up his hands. “Hell no. It’s funnier watching you do it.”

  Mod rolled his eyes.

  Silently, he reached out to TINA about the aftermath of the fight. Because of all the bystanders, she’d been jamming all communications in the area.

  TINA said aloud, “You’re still in the clear. I’ll send an anonymous communication to the Summit so they can pick up their capes.”

  Lock added, “It’s a shame we can’t just recruit them to the Resistance. We did just save their lives.”

  Mod shook his head again. “Now that they’ve been exposed to the Menagerie, they’ll be under too much scrutiny and observation. Besides, we’ve got more leads to follow up on.”

  Now they had to be more careful than ever. The Summit had gotten wind of the Resistance, and so had the Menagerie. Though Emmett wondered how Wight hadn’t discovered them sooner. To hear Dr. Venture talk about the Summit’s spymaster, the guy was a boogeyman that saw and heard everything.

  …Maybe Wight wasn’t the spymaster anymore?

  Mod pushed the thought away. He wasn’t a cape anymore—he had to remember that.

  He was only concerned about the Summit as an enemy.

  Mod sighed. Then he shook up the spray bottle.

  ~ ~ ~

  RealityLocked