Broker

Chapter 16

Sonya looked out the window of the private jet, resting her chin on her palm. The clouds passed by far below. She wondered where they were, exactly, she figured they were over Europe at this point. She cast her thoughts back to her previous life, The EU had always been a few steps behind when it came to recognizing Heroes in my last go around. She thought, her lips pressing into a thin frown, Not by any real fault of their own, the president just wasn’t up to the task of leading in these times. She turned her head a bit and glanced across the aisle at Amos and Marta, Marta had dozed off and was resting quietly in her seat while Amos was writing in his notebook.

Her eyes turned forward and she spotted Mikayla sitting across from her. She was looking down at her knees again, her ears clearly burning. She could practically see the girl’s eyes spinning. She snorted and shifted to face her, “Why so nervous?”

“F-florence, we’re going to florence, florence italy, we’re going to florence italy, where headquarters is,” Mikayla muttered, “Madame Lucci is there, I might see Madame Lucci, what do I do?”

Sonya rolled her eyes, this poor girl was going to give herself a heart attack at this rate. Maybe a little teasing will help get her mind off it? “Mikayla,” Sonya called, the girl jumped and looked up at her, frazzled. “You seem tense, shall I distract you?” Sonya asked, winking at her.

Mikayla blinked, then her eyes widened and Sonya could see the red rise all the way up from her shoulders to her ears, the steam out of her ears came next, followed by the heat haze over her head. She slumped in her chair mumbling something about ‘unfair’. Sonya barked out a laugh and leaned back in her seat, letting out a breath. She tried not to think too hard about leaving New York for the first time since she’d started building her foundations. Shark was still hard at work and had a plan for the rest of the city now, he didn’t need her interference.

She glanced out the window again and hummed thoughtfully to herself. When it gets out the gangs of New York have fallen under a single banner, I’ll start hearing from the bigger crime groups. Based on standards from my last time around, Shark has a Mythic-grade ability. He shouldn’t have any problems with the majority of power users.

Instead of simply judging a particular ability by its overall strength, the guilds of the future would eventually utilize a scoring system to pin down the grade of an individual light-touched’s powers. Raw power could of course be graded as Mythic if it was suitably destructive, but the guilds had come to favor functionality and versatility over pure attack power. Number of functions became the primary score, with each function getting graded individually with drawbacks being taken into consideration. Sonya frowned as she mulled it over, So somebody already knew that folk could have more than one separate ability.

Shark has his base transformation, superhuman strength, hydrokinesis, regeneration, enhanced senses, shapeshifting, and his ability to communicate with aquatic life. As far as she knew, that was the extent of his abilities. His strength alone would put him somewhere in Epic-grade, but everything else on top of it would doubtlessly get him the Mythic-grade. Yeah, that’s a fair assessment. He shouldn’t have any problems, especially with the four Epics I helped him make and the twenty-or-so Rares we sifted out of the gangs.

She let herself relax,

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Her bigger concern was that several Mythic-Grade heroes had their origins in New York. She’d warned him to keep a low profile and focus solely on expanding her organization and keeping a tight rein on criminal activity in the city. 

She glanced down at her phone and checked the date, “Not long now…” She murmured.

“Whats up, boss?” Amos asked, looking up at her, “You say something?”

She rolled her eyes and glanced at him, “Amos, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be playing in the lab right now?”

He huffed, “I want to go on a vacation too!”

“This isn’t a vacation, Amos!” Sonya countered.

He crossed his arms, “Yeah, yeah, work first, but you’re totally going to see the sights after all that’s done, right? Nice try, deflecting.”

She barked out a laugh, “You got me.”

He rounded on her, a comical amount of tears in his eyes, “And you weren’t going to invite me?!” He held up his hands in a ‘why would you do that’ gesture.

“Amos! I thought you wanted to play with your new equipment!” Sonya said defensively, referring to his technopathy, “How would I know you wanted to go to a place like Florence?”

His eyes widened, “Are you kidding? Florence is the heart of the Renaissance! It’s birthplace! Leonardo da Vinci!” He exclaimed, flailing his arms and took in a deep breath as if he could already smell the air there, “He’s my inspiration! My hero!”

She raised an eyebrow, “Is that why you doodle in notebooks instead of using tablets and modern tech to keep your thoughts in order?”

He went pink in the face and cleared his throat, “Maybe.”

“You’re noisy,” Marta grunted, opening her eyes and glowering at him, “Can’t you keep it down? You’re disturbing the atmosphere for Miss Chernovna.”

He rounded on her, “I don’t wanna hear that from a grumpy maid cosplayer.”

“Says the guy with an ego so big he thinks he’s the modern da Vinci,” She countered, leaning forward.

Sonya groaned, “Oh just kiss already or something,” she sighed, “You two are insufferable together.”

The two of them flinched, then rounded on her with anger in their eyes, they pointed at one another with disgust, “Are you joking? This coward?” “Boss! You can’t be serious!” That led to them rounding on one another again. She visualized a dog and cat snarling at one another and turned away, snickering at the small amount of chaos she’d caused. She leaned back and closed her eyes.

“This is going to be fun.”

–

Martin pressed his back against the wall and inched further to the right, drawing closer to the edge of the alley. Being seen was a death sentence, there would be know way out if any of those freaks saw him. Another roar shattered the air, followed by a crash and and a howl of laughter. He craned his head around the corner and spotted the corpse of the hound, that’s what the Pandora Commission was calling the lowest tier of the monsters that had been appearing with increased regularity. He glanced past it, towards the two figures that stood over it. Both of them were in costume, masks over their faces. They looked like characters straight out of a golden-age comic book.

His nose wrinkled, it was a little tacky.

One of them, a huge man in a blue-black outfit, patted the other, shorter man on the shoulder. The shorter one had a green tunic and tights, his hands were wrapped in strips of cloth. “One hell of a show, Mister Fist,” the big man said, “Did you learn martial arts before or after the flash?”

“Before,” The man in green, ‘Mister Fist’ said thoughtfully, regarding the monster with disgust, “One wasn’t enough.”

“Never is,” The big man grunted and slapped his abs, he let out a sigh, “Sorry, I heard your wife died during the first wave after the flash,” He said and gave Mister Fist’s shoulder a squeeze. “You alright?”

“I’ll be better once I kill a lurk,” Mister Fist snarled.

“Good money in that, ASTA pays top dollar for a Lurk corpse,” The big man said, rubbing his chin, “Don’t get cocky, though, Lurks are tricky and like to wait until you least expect them.”

Mister Fist turned on him, “You fought one, Captain York?” He asked, and Martin could practically smell the admiration and excitement wafting off of the guy. He glanced at the man in black and blue, Captain York? Is he saying he’s the champion of this city or something? I knew these ‘heroes’ had egos but, damn. Martin felt his stomach twist, the very idea of referring to these people as ‘heroes’ made him nauseous. The real heroes were the law abiding men and women who fought desperately to protect and serve, not these jumped up lunatics.

“Sure did! Two of ‘em! One hell of a fight and an even bigger payday,” Captain York said and threw his arm around Mister Fist’s shoulder, “You nab one of those things and live simply, it could last you a year, even around here.”

“A whole year… I could pay my daughter’s tuition with that kind of money…” Mister Fist said.

“Sure could! Why don’t you join my group, Fist? Spotter and I would love to have you on, and it’ll make the hunts that much better. Yeah?” Captain York enthused.

I knew it, they are organizing… Martin frowned, Wait, Spotter? There’s three of them?

He pulled away from the corner and turned around, coming to a full stop when he saw a woman in a domino mask standing behind him. She had a gun in her hand and a smile on her face, “What do we have here?” She asked, “A villainous spy come to watch us? Off to report to your boss?”

He held up his hands, “I’m-”

“Not interested in hearing you make shit up,” She said, stalking towards him, “You work for Boss Shark, don’t you?” She growled, getting in his face, “You tell that piece of trash villain that we’re coming for him,” She sneered and looked him up and down, “This is our city to protect. He and his gangs can shove off.”

He blinked, a thrill running up his spine and forced himself to relax, “Uh… yeah, sure, I’ll tell Boss Shark all about it,” He lied. “You’re… uh… Spotter, right?”

“Best eyes in the world,” She announced, putting her hands on her hips.

So she has an ocular power, got it, “O-okay, I’ll let the boss know!”

“Good,” She sniffed and pushed past him, “Now get lost, if I see you again spying on our heroic work, I’ll deal with you. This place is not safe for civilians,” She seemed to add that last bit almost offhandedly. He watched her go, feeling his pulse settle immediately. He needed to get as much distance from those freaks as possible. He power walked down the alley and rounded a corner, pulling out his phone.

“It’s me,” He said, “Get me in contact with the Commission, I think I know what's been happening with the gangs of New York.”

–

He stood in front of the mural, his fingers running over the surface. His eyes washed over the paint, it had stood the test of time, preserved in this ruin for an eternity. He was tall, lean, his blonde hair coiffed to the right. Yet it was his eyes that were the most arresting, they gleamed like liquid sapphires in his head. One hand in his pocket, he marveled at the artwork. “It’s so beautiful,” He breathed, reveling in the mystique of the past. “Odysseus and the Cyclopes,” He said, his eyes casting up to the brilliant and mischievous hero of the Odyssey, depicted in brilliant relief.

“It was such a harrowing tale, Odysseus, returning from Troy, passed the island of Serifos and heard the sound of livestock. He and his men were hungry, so they went ashore to scout the island and hunt. There they found a pen filled with goats filled with cheese and meat,” He grinned, “It was not a farm protected by any land, and he was a king! Had the farmer not left his land alone, perhaps Odysseus would have reconsidered. But his men needed to eat. So they did…”

He ran his fingers up to the depiction of Polyphemus, the Cyclopes, “He didn’t know that the mountainous Polyphemus, a cyclopes, was the owner of the cave. The great monster came and found Odysseus’ men lounging and thought to himself, ‘ah, to think my next meal fattened itself up for me’. He entered the cave as Odysseus and his men slept, rolled a boulder to block the exit that not even the Greek hero could move, and attacked. He ate a man, then satisfied, he went to sleep.”

“Days went by, Polyphemus ate one man after another as the Greeks trembled in fear. Odysseus, desperate, hatched a plan with his comrades. They collected together their wine, a potent draft that they had kept undiluted in skins and offered it to the mighty being. Excited by this new treat, Polyphemus indulged himself, unaware of what was to come. He was pleased, though, and asked the smart little morsel before him if it had a name,” He practically trembled with elation.

“Outis einai to onoma,” He said and looked back at Odysseus reverently, “My name is Nobody.”

He looked over his shoulder, his eyes blazing in the dark, filled with madness, “Did you want to hear what happens next?” He asked, excited, and saw only the dozens of corpses he’d left behind. Civilians, soldiers, researchers, and archaeologists all lay broken and smashed on the ground. “Ah, I see. That’s a shame,” He smiled and looked back at the mural, “It is a good story, though.”