Amaranthine

Nick pulled the APC into an underground parking garage straight out of a videogame, all stainless steel and cyber-lights. Gwyn weakly protested as he wrapped her up and pulled them both out of the hole in the roof, copping a little feel along the way. Qi and Kennedy both easily hopped out after him, clearing the roof entirely and landing on the steel floor with a ‘Clang!’.

“Damn,” Qi said, “Why do we even have doors on those things?”

“Because this is fucking annoying,” Cait huffed, pulling herself out of the hole with her hands and rolling onto the roof. Illustrating her point, Watchdog pushed the back door open, tipping his hat at Willow as she stepped down to join them. Cait peeked over the side, saw that, then groaned and just rolled off the side with a big thump.

Drama queen, Nick thought, lifting his friend up and setting her upright once more. He really was stronger. He’d always been able to lift Cait, 800lbs was well below his weight limit, but now that was nothing.

YOU GOT WAY TOO USED TO THAT NANOTECH WAY TOO FAST, he scolded, receiving a scowl from the big girl.

“This from the guy who was treating his girlfriend like a bowling ball a month after becoming a tentacle monster,” she shot back.

“Two months!” Gwyn corrected, examining one of the glowing conduits on the walls. She’d know, if it had been up to her that measurement would have been in weeks, or better yet, days.

I HAD CORRUPTING INFLUENCES, he said, and would have winced if he could. Sure, Gwyn definitely qualified, but now…. He was clearly dealing with some actual malevolent forces.

It was quiet now, within him, but he could still feel it there. His friends talked about the wall he’d built within himself as some kind of titanic, monolithic structure, but it didn’t feel that way to him. It felt small. Like a bump under your skin, easy to miss, something you thought you might have just imagined. But you keep feeling it, maybe only once every few months when you scratch near that area, and slowly, you feel it more, until you realize its been getting bigger.

Yeah, Nick, convince yourself you have soul-cancer, great fucking idea, he scolded himself, wonder what WebMD would have to say about this.

Still, it was tough to shake the similarity. The big difference was that he did know it was there, he did know it was dangerous, and most importantly, he had help.

Willow looked over at him as his senses brushed across her, and she smiled. Nick did his best to return it, but gave her a thumbs up just to be sure.

Can she feel it when I ‘see’ her? Weird. Or maybe not weird, who the fuck knows anymore.

He realized he’d drawn in on himself, and came to as he rolled along next to Gwyn, being led by the tentacle as she followed Watchdog to a lift with the rest of the group.

“Okay!” Watchdog said as the doors slid silently shut behind them, “I’m taking you guys up to the top, The Council said they wanted to see you soon as you arrived.”

“Anything we should know?” Kennedy asked. Her girlfriends were too busy ooo’ing and aah’ing over the admittedly impressive cityscape on display as the lift rose to ask important questions.

“Eh, I don’t know much about your leadership over in DSM, but I’d guess its pretty similar?” Watchdog answered, eyes going to the ceiling in thought. “We’ve got about a 50/50 split between Altereds on The Council on account of how important their powers are, and Meta-Brains on it due to their aptitude for leadership, administration, anything like that.”

“Not like ours at all, tbh,” Kennedy sighed. “For us, AEGIS leadership is separate from city leadership, and its also just my mom, because she’s the best at everything.”

“Best at being a stone cold fox!” Cait shouted over her shoulder, face falling when she saw Kennedy’s glare. “Second best, sorry honey.”

Nick had to cover up a snicker at that.

“Anyway,” Watchdog continued, also ignoring Cait, “No one in particular you have to watch out for, but you know how it is. We’re all pretty weird.”

ANY MEDICAL METAS?

OURS KEEP TRYING TO PUT THINGS IN CAITS ASS

UNLESS THEY SUCCEDED WHILE I WAS OUT?

“They did not!” said Cait pointedly, suddenly interested in the conversation. For his part, Watchdog just laughed and shook his head.

“No, no one in medical,” he responded. “They’re all actually in research or practicing medicine themselves. Sounds like you all know exactly how hard it is to keep a Meta-Brain on task if it isn’t their area of interest, no point in trying to put one of them in leadership. Nah, just know that PlazLoad and Splice are frat bros, but they mean well, and that despite having the potential to be the world’s biggest pervert, Orwell is weirdly normal.”

“Wha—” Cait started, but was cut off by the door opening.

The room it revealed took up the entire top floor of the tower. It hadn’t looked clear from the outside, but from the inside it was perfectly transparent, without so much as lines for windowpanes. It also somehow seemed to be well lit from above, despite night beginning to fall and there not actually being a visible ceiling.

Nick let out the low whistle of being impressed, pleased that a month in carbonite hadn’t lost him the knack.

In the center of the room, at a large half circle table, 8 figures sat. 4 of them, 3 men and a woman, were huddled on both sides of the table, clearly working hard on a project of some kind. Conversely, at the other end, a man that looked to be made entirely of roiling blue plasma encased in an Adidas tracksuit played an energetic game of cards with an Alt girl straight off the Suicide Girls’ homepage. The other two chatted amiably until Watchdog walked into the center point of the half circle, and coughed to get The Council’s attention.

“Heyo!” he started, immediately giving the team the impression this group wouldn’t be much for formalities. “I’ve got the DSM AEGIS delegation here, ready for an audience.”

He gestured behind himself at the team, who had lined up fairly neatly, having ignored Cait’s earnest whispered request they quickly come up with a Ginyu style pose.

The group that actually seemed to be working scrambled, waving their hands to shut down what Nick realized must have been displays he couldn’t see. He’d gotten so used to Gwyn’s tech making that kind of thing visible for him back home and around the team he’d almost forgotten it was a thing. The two sat on the inner-side of the table unceremoniously crawled under it to take up the seats near the middle of the arc on the outer-side.

“Nertz!” called the Alt girl, slapping down one final card as the guy who must be PlazLoad cursed. She laughed when he glared at the cards before turning towards the group as well. She gave them a jaunty wave, before kicking combat boots up on the table and leaning back.

Damn, it’s like a peek at the future awaiting us if Cait ever knocks Kennedy up, Nick thought, realizing how accurate the thought was the longer he looked at the woman. To be fair, the muscles, jaw, and cheekbones made her look more like Cait than Kennedy, but the overall look she cultivated? Definitely more the goth.

The busybodies finally got settled, and one, a tall thin man in an immaculate suit, cleared his throat to speak.

“Good evening, Watchdog,” he began, as if the entire group hadn’t just watched him crawl under the table. Admittedly, he now seemed entirely composed, and his voice carried more competence and command than anyone Nick had heard outside of Director Swan. Grey eyes, hard, but not devoid of warmth, swept across his guests, taking them in. “And good evening to you all, our guests from AEGIS. I am Herman Zebrowski, sitting Chairman of The Council. To my right,”

He indicated the others who had actually been working, two of which waved and one of which looked like she was literally itching to get back to what they had been doing- “sit the Meta-Brain’s of our council. Mark Roman, our tech generalist, Orwell, our Security Specialist, and Fiona Impish, our Chief Logistician. To my left,”

He gestured towards the tracksuited star and Alt girl, and Nick examined the other two. Both perfectly normal, save for lighting up his Altered sense like Christmas trees. One had a solid, crystalline aura while the others appeared to be a mass of circuitry, constantly shorting out.

“The Altered members of our contingent. Point Defense, Firewall, PlazLoad, and Splice.”

They each waved as they were named, and Nick placed the crystalline aura to Point Defense and the circuitry to Firewall.

Kennedy stepped forward and introduced their own group, channeling her mother as she did and doing a good job of matching Chairman Zebrowski’s energy. When she got to Gwyn, mentioning her NanoSmith persona, he saw Mark, the tech guy, perk up.

“You’re NanoSmith?” he asked, leaning forward across the table. “Finally! Some of my guys have been begging to get a look at some of your stuff.”

“I’m aware…” Gwyn responded, clearly a little put off. “But we’ve had, you know, actual supervillains to thwart.”

“Ah, yes,” the Chairman said, taking back control of the conversation, “and our deepest apologies that Technocago was unable to offer as much aid as we would have liked during that trying time. As you’ve no doubt seen, we have been dealing with our own issues of late.”

He gestured towards the horizon in the direction they’d come, no doubt indicating the Horde beyond.

“Right,” Kennedy said, her voice neither offering absolution nor implying guilt, “to that end, I’m curious as to why you didn’t request help yourselves? We were under the impression aid was coming from your area right up until the end of the crisis.”

The room fell silent, every pair of eyes on The Council locking on to Kennedy. Even Splice’s, who had been blatantly eye-fucking Cait since her introduction. The Chairman finally broke the quiet.

“Miss Swan, isn’t that why you’re here? We did request help.”