2103:12:10:07:15:02

  It was another school day. Mom was still tired from yesterday’s shift and so we hadn’t seen each other, but that wasn’t too unusual. What was unusual was that Michael was downstairs, lying on the couch in the living room looking angry, tired and just overall in a foul mood.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  He grunted in return, but otherwise ignored me.

  Whatever.

  I went to the fridge and made myself some breakfast before settling in at the kitchen table. I took my phone out and started with the morning news.

  I’d already read it late last evening and throughout the night, but the morning reports of yesterday’s events were a lot less matter-of-fact than last night’s had been.

  Opinion pieces by the boatload, all analyzing this strategic victory; vloggers, bloggers and streamers commenting excitedly commenting and speculating without end; the CAS morning news heaping praises on the heroes, though overemphasizing the contribution of the Guardians compared to the Wardens and other heroes.

  There were also some words directed specifically at me. Most referred to my mentor’s death and my subsequent resilience in the face of it, and characterizing my continued, even heightened participation in fighting the Jannacht and Motorgang as praiseworthy, if concerning for a minor. They’d also taken my cooperation with the Sentinels last night as a sign I might be joining them, which was… something.

  As I was halfway through an article – and halfway through my bowl of cereal – speculating about how the Jannacht Wars would change after this, a bog-standard ringtone sounded from the living room.

  It wasn’t mine.

  I looked over and saw Michael pause the TV, sit up and reach for it with all the indignity and annoyance he could muster.

  “What did I say-?!” he began angrily, before suddenly stiffening. “Yes, of course I already- what? What are you talking about? He’s not there?” His voice grew more worried by the second. I put down my spoon and looked at him. “No. No, he didn’t say anything. How long since-? And he just- Alright, alright, I’ll check up on him. Hopefully we can- Yes, I’ll tell him. Yes. Yes, see you there. Bye.” He hung up and kept staring at his phone after, a frown on his face.

  “Everything alright?” I asked. I couldn’t recall ever seeing him so concerned.

  My question startled him. His head snapped to me in confusion, then realization. “Ah, yes. Yes, everything’s fine. There’s just a problem with my-” he blinked and his state shifted. He turned off the TV and started gathering his things. “Just a… problem with my boss. He suddenly cancelled on an important meeting and, ahhh,” He hurried back and forth, grabbed his coat, opened the door and turned to me. “Look, I’ve got to go. See you tonight. Maybe.”

  And just like that, he was gone.

  Alright then.

  I resumed my breakfast, cleared the table and went upstairs to brush my teeth and do the rest of my preparations. I still had a lot of time left to get to school – school started at nine and the trip took only fifteen minutes on an average day, even if I liked getting there early – but I liked to get things done so I could have some free time in the morning to do whatever I want. The other option would be pretending to sleep longer, which was an objectively worse way to spend my time.

  Once my daily routine was done, I messaged Amber’s Crowsong-phone to see if she was awake and could give me an update about last night. Surprisingly, she sent a message back: “Can you call?” she asked.

  I frowned. That… seemed risky, talking about masked stuff over the phone. Riskier than messaging, anyhow.

  But whatever, she must have a good reason for it. I send back an, “Okay” and walked back downstairs. Then I went further downstairs and into the basement, figuring it the safest place to call as long as the connection held.

  I pressed Amber’s profile and called her.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “A lot. I’ve-”

  Her words were interrupted by my phone beeping. I looked at my screen. “Nth-Sight’s calling,” I said.

  “Convenient,” Amber sneered. “Pick it up and see what he has to say. I can tell after.”

  “Okay,” I said and answered the second call. “Nth-Sight, what’s up?”

  “A lot,” he said, huffing from exertion. “Listen, I don’t have much time, but I need your help. Right now.”

  I frowned. “I have-” school today, but I didn’t get to finish.

  “People will die. Regular people. Normal citizens,” Nth-Sight said, voice panicky. “If my vision is correct, Soliloquy is about to break the Treaty.”

  A chill shot down my spine. “What?” I whisper-hissed.

  “He’s on my trail and Motorgang’s about to do something stupid that drives him crazy. I don’t know what, but I know that he will blame me and start attacking wherever he thinks I am. Doesn’t matter how many civilians get killed in the process.” I heard a door close and the rattling of keys. “I’m trying to get as much distance from the city as I can so that if he does attack, there’s less collateral damage.”

  At least he still had some good qualities – that, or he was just running away. Still, if he was speaking the truth, what could I do by myself? I was a minor, and definitely not powerful enough to take on Soliloquy alone. “Why-”

  “Everyone else reacts too slow,” he answered the question before I could ask it. I heard a door open and close, followed by more keys – a car, probably. “Only you can reach him in time.” He was breathing hard now, as if he’d been sprinting.

  “All you need to do is stall. Keep him talking, keep him from running about, keep him from going completely insane.” I heard some a welcoming beep as he started his car. “The heroes will come quickly; there’re dedicated augur teams just for shit like this. Even other gangs and the Jannacht itself will eventually come and stop him once it’s clear he’s breaking the Treaty.”

  I didn’t hesitate. “Okay. Where do I need to go?”

  “Little Europe. I’ll send you the exact address soon, just start moving in that direction,” he said. “And Jester?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you,” he said, sounding more genuine than I’d ever heard him before. “And good luck.” He hung up.

  “What’d he say?” Amber said.

  “Soliloquy is about to break the Treaty,” I said, pacing around and anxious to get going. “I need to-”

  “Was he speaking the truth?”

  I froze mid-pace, but didn’t hesitate for long. “Yes, at least most of it. He was panicking. Said Soliloquy was coming after him and trying to kill him, and kill whoever’s near him in anger, or madness, or something. He was literally fleeing his house during his call.” Amber was quiet at my explanation, which probably meant, “You know something?”

  “Maybe,” she replied. “Nth-Sight’s been difficult to track. His house – the one we met him at, at least – is long abandoned. I’ve had to intimidate a couple of rogues, threaten them with knowledge that they might be breaking the treaty by cooperating with the man. It’s turned into something of a race about what happens first – Nth-Sight's rogues telling him I’m alive, or me finding out about him.” She became silent.

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  “Okay. And?” I asked, impatient.

  “The rogues I’ve talked to? They’ve become suspicious too. The frequency of his requests increased, the places they were sent got more varied and less logical, the items they made, the things they were sold or the things he bought-”

  I didn’t have time for this. “Please, get to the-”

  “Right, sorry. The more I kept pulling, the more the scheme unraveled. Blazin was right, Nth-Sight – or the man behind him, he isn’t just one augur.” For the second time, a chill shot through my spine. “I’ve found three more identities linked to his: Plenarian, Thirdway, and Slightsee are all him.”

  “Plenarian.” The name rang a bell. “That’s the Sentinels’ augur contact.”

  “Exactly,” Amber said. “Thirdway is one my mentor used to deal with. Before we discovered he bargained much more with Dead Hive than we’d previously thought and switched over to Nth-Sight. Slightsee’s a known Motorgang informant.”

  “He’s been doing this to everyone,” I said. “What do we do?”

  “You listened to him just now. Do you still think what he said about Soliloquy is true?”

  I hesitated. It could be that Nth-Sight was purposefully leading me astray so he could make his escape before Amber and I caught him. Or the information could be a trap, either leading to my capture or even my death. Or it could result in a fight that was simply meant to keep me occupied.

  It all sounded plausible, but not everything was logical. Motorgang going after Soliloquy didn’t make sense, nor did I see Soliloquy as the type to get ‘driven mad’ so easily.

  “Sam?”

  But even so, “Doesn’t matter if it’s a lie, I have to check to be certain. I can’t let people die just because I wasn’t willing to take that risk.”

  A moment of silence. “Okay,” Amber said. “You check out Nth-Sight’s lead, I track down Nth-Sight. Call me when you get done, alright?”

  “Alright.”

  “Good luck Sam.”

  X

  I flew as quickly as I could to Little Europe, trying to make up for the time spend talking to Amber. I had to keep shifting in and out of form to regain stamina, and to see if Nth-Sight had sent me the address he promised he would.

  And halfway through, he did: Parkway Drive, somewhere between 55 and 87. He said he couldn’t get any clearer than that.

  The street was next to a park (duh). The townhouses were grand and neo-classical, multi-storied in emulation of those once found in the former Great Britain. Rich English refugees had settled here long ago, and made sure this place resembled their former home.

  I arrived at a calm street- well, it was actually a busy street with numerous cars going through it – it being rush hour and all – but calm in the sense that Soliloquy was nowhere to be found and nothing was in the process of being destroyed.

  I flew past number 55 and headed further along the street, examining each number and expecting a fight.

  And then, I got one.

  People on the sidewalk looked up and started pointing, fear clearly etched on their faces. Yet just as I was about to turn around to see what they were pointing at, crow-me got gripped by a familiar force.

  “Drop the form before I’ll make you,” Darkstar growled, voice echoey behind his nebular mask.

  I obeyed. I dropped less than an inch before he caught me again.

  We both started speaking at the same time, “Jester, you better tell me what-”, “I got info that Soliloquy is-”, but neither of us got to finish.

  Parkway Drive 77 exploded. Stones raced towards us and I managed to shift just in time for my crow form to take the hit.

  It struck me dead instantly and I plummeted toward the ground in base form, landing in the rock-strewn asphalt with a painful thud. Though it didn’t feel like anything had broken, the air was pushed out of my lungs in a painful gasp. Instinctively, I breathed in only to accidently inhale debris, dust and embers falling from the sky, starting a coughing fit.

  Darkstar was still in the air, doing his best to shield himself and others from the falling debris hurtling towards him. He was succeeding, until the debris that had launched high up in the air came plummeting down around, and eventually, on him.

  A chunk of rock struck his head, and although the blow was slowed by his gravity field, it disoriented him.

  He plummeted.

  Before my mind could think on whether I should, I did.

  I transformed into an ostrich. The pain and coughing cleared instantly, but the brain fog didn’t. But it didn’t matter. I rushed to the spot right under where the villain was about to fall.

  Darkstar landed straight on top of me, his weight crushing me as my feathery body softened the blow. I was driven into the asphalt, a burst of agony splitting my sternum. I tried shifting back to base and found that I couldn’t, my body too pinned down and smushed to get into human shape.

  Struggling against the pain, I shifted my body to try and get Darkstar off of me. I heard him groan and tried squawking at him to get him to move, but all it did was let the last breath of air escape my lungs.

  I felt darkness creeping in and pain begin to dull as the death of ostrich-me was growing more and more likely. All the while, I was spamming my powers like a lab rat pressing the cheese button in a maze.

  Then, suddenly, it worked.

  Pain fled, replaced by its phantom variant and returning coughs, but that was better than losing my form and also having to deal with this. I pushed through it and slowly start to stand up.

  The streets were, predictably, a mess. Dozens of people lay on the road, bleeding and broken – including Darkstar, who had managed to slide himself off of me. Cars had crashed in the wake of the explosion and were flipped over, on fire or crushed by rock, leaving more civilians at risk of death.

  Yet I couldn’t help any of them. Not right now. I had a goal, a target, a mission; something I had to do to prevent worse. Someone I had to find.

  And I believed I’d found him.

  A forty-something-year-old man, one remarkably untouched by the explosion, walked out of the ruins of what had once been Parkway Drive 77, huge chunks of rock and debris sliding off him like water.

  But while he looked unmarked by the explosion, his expression was one of deep agony. So deep I couldn’t help but think of him as anything but dying – in spirit if nothing else. His walk, too, was agonizing to watch. Stumbling like a man that had lost everything, his eyes glazed over yet nevertheless searching for something that couldn’t be found.

  He walked down the stoop of his former home, nearly tripping on the third step before righting himself with an ease and grace that ran counter to his previous gait. Then, after he’d caught himself, he returned to that same stumble.

  He walked down the last step and onto the street, before he dropped. He allowed himself to drop.

  Right as the man did, Darkstar got up and rushed to what was no-doubt Soliloquy. I hesitated, but cautiously walked closer, careful to maintain a healthy distance.

  Darkstar crouched next to the man. “Sol,” I heard him say. It was at a volume low enough – and the streets were busy enough – that I doubted anyone who wasn’t focusing on this particular exchange could’ve heard it. “What-“

  “He killed them!” Soliloquy cried out, uncaring about any onlookers. “T-that fucking augur-!” He spat.

  But his anger left him just as quick as they came. “T-they’re all dead, Mike,” he sobbed. “Kayla, Mark, Emma – they’re all dead… He killed them, blew up my house! He boobytrapped their fucking corpses!” The anger and energy returned in full briefly, before he wailed and collapsed again.

  “I-I’m so sorry, Sol,” Darkstar said, taking the man’s arm throwing it over his neck while lifting Soliloquy by his waist. “Let’s get you out of here. Your identity is hanging by a thread and-”

  He froze as he saw me, clearly forgotten I was present.

  Soliloquy looked up at the sudden stop. His eyes landed on me, first in confusion, then realization, then in hatred. Overwhelming hatred.

  “You,” Soliloquy said, shakily at first. “You! You work for him, don’t you!”

  “Sol-” Darkstar said.

  “I don’t-” I tried.

  But he wouldn’t hear it. “Did you do this?!” he shouted, pointing a finger at me.

  I held up my hands to ward off the accusation. “I’m not-”

  “Sol-”

  “Where is he?!” Sol shouted, struggling against Darkstar’s grip. “Where the fuck is he?! Where the fuck is Prognost?!”

  Darkstar tried again. “Sol, please, you’ve got-”

  I took a step back. “I-I don’t know who that is,” I said, letting the fear speak.

  “-to stop. Jester has nothing to do with this.” Darkstar started pulling Soliloquy away from me. “Let’s just-”

  “Unhand me, villain!” Soliloquy spoke. Air and space rippled in front of him and Darkstar was blown backwards.

  Soliloquy started walking. I took a few panicky step backs, nearly stumbling over a brick as Soliloquy closed in on me.

  “Don’t know him? Speak truth for once, jester, or be banished from my realm!” I felt his power settle over me, and dread take hold.

  “What about Scrylark!” I shook my head. “Seldonite!” I shook again, “Cliomancer!” and again, until, “Nth-Sight!” I had no choice but to nod.

  His eyes took on a manic look as he grabbed me by the shoulders. “Where is he?” he nearly whispered.

  And again, I had no choice but to tell the truth. “I-I don’t know!”

  He froze. “Fuck,” he said, turning and walking away from me. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! Fuck this fucking city! Fuck its augurs! Fuck its heroes! Fuck its people!” He kicked a large rock, pulverizing it instantly as whatever lines he’d used to survive was still active. “To hell with it all!” The world seemed to quake at his words, but nothing happened.

  Then, as if the shout had expended all his energy, he collapsed in the middle of the street, quietly sobbing.

  Just when I was beginning to believe this was it, a beam of golden light descended from the sky, and Peakstar appeared between Soliloquy, Darkstar and I.

  “Jester?” she asked, confused. She turned around, eyes passing over Soliloquy to Darkstar. “Darkstar? What’s going on?” She looked around in mounting horror at the destruction. “Did you-”

  “No!” Darkstar waved his arm in denials, his shout edging towards panic. He calmed himself. “No. There was-”

  “He killed them,” Soliloquy sobbed.

  Peakstar’s head snapped to Darkstar.

  “He didn’t do it!” I hastily said, truth spell and morals both obliging me to clear the villain’s name.

  But it was the wrong thing to say. Soliloquy’s head snapped up, thinking my denial was on Nth-Sight’s part.

  “N-No?” he stammered, looking forlorn. He looked at me, then Peakstar, then Darkstar, then back to Peakstar and me. There was a wild look in his eyes, and even from a distance I saw his eyes darting rapidly in confusion, his posture turning to panic, edging on paranoia. “T-then w-who…?”

  In another flash of light, Jauntiste teleported in. With him were clock-suited Gaptime, and the stone-armored Pia Pietra.

  Soliloquy scrambled back, panic shifting into paranoia.

  They looked at the situation, at Peakstar and me and Soliloquy, and then at-

  “Darkstar!” Gaptime shouted. The others turned towards the villain, each taking on a stance and ready to engage – except Jauntiste, who disappeared in a flash.

  “Stop!” Peakstar said, causing the heroes to turn in confusion. “We’re still-”

  It was interrupted by another hero appearing. Strikemight, in his lightning-bolt-blue half-plate, half-skinsuit, struck the asphalt like, well, a lightning bolt. Fulminante herself would’ve been proud of his entrance if the situation wasn’t so delicate.

  He looked around, confused at the situation. “What’s going on?” Strikemight asked Peakstar. All the other heroes looked at the pair, hoping for their own explanation and instructions.

  But my eyes – and from my peripherals, Darkstar’s as well – were focused solely on Soliloquy. The man had crawled further back at the Guardian’s entrance, and he looked at the heroes in terror… and a terrible spark of realization in his eyes.

  “We’re still trying to figure out,” Peakstar said, turning to me. “Jester, what’s-”

  She was interrupted by a cackle, Soliloquy finally cracking under the pressure.

  “I see how it is,” he crooned madly. The heroes turned to him, confused as to who he was. “It’s everyone, isn’t it? This whole city…”

  “Sol,” Darkstar said, voice taking on a pleading edge. The eyes of the heroes turned to Darkstar, all tensing at the nickname for Soliloquy. “Don’t-”

  “Don’t!” Soliloquy shouted. “‘Don’t’, he says!” Soliloquy laughed. “I don’t- I never even did anything! I came to this city to bargain, to talk, to integrate! I followed procedure, I came in peace! And what do I get? Gangs attacking my parlays! Rogues networking to throw me out! Heroes conspiring to kill me! My family, dead and murdered inside my own home!”

  “Sol, let’s just calm down and-”

  “And now you! My protégé, my apprentice! Even you-!” He choked on his words, whatever accusation left unspoken. “It’s this city, isn’t it? It’s hell, it’s torture. You warned me about this city and I… You told me-!” Another choke. “You told me I shouldn’t… I should never have…” His eyes took on a glassy look.

  Thank God. His energy was leaving him again.

  The street was silent. Everyone that could leave had already left, either running down the street or entering those houses whose doors had opened for them to shelter in. All that remained were the severely wounded – their groaning low and distant – and the dead.

  I hoped they were still able to be resurrected.

  “Darkstar,” Peakstar said, voice cautious and neutral. “Can you-”

  Jauntiste appeared in a flash once again, Knight of Artemis in full paladin plate and Pangolin Imperiale already in her shifted state appearing beside him. They looked at the gathering of masked, confused at the lack of fighting.

  “What’s going on?” Pangolin asked warily.

  “Stop. Don’t move, don’t do any-” Peakstar tried to say.

  Where Pangolin sensed the weird mood, Knight of Artemis was not so quick on the uptake. “Tell me, which foul villain are we here to dispatch?” he asked, voice booming. “My mistress’ blade hungers for justice!”

  Silence reigned, everyone staring at him with disbelief. The mood, already deep in the well, now plummeted into the abyss. It was bad enough that the man himself finally became aware of the weirdness of the situation.

  “Did I say something wrong?” he whispered, voice now cautious.

  Unfortunately, too little too late.

  “Justice…” Soliloquy said, voice soft. “No, judgement. That’s what this city needs.” Manic energy started trickling back in with a newfound purpose, a new outlet.

  He stood up.

  Darkstar tried one more time. “Sol.” His old mentor’s head snapped to his former protégé. “Please,” Darkstar begged.

  Soliloquy’s smile was watery and trembling, tears rolling down his face. With a nervous energy that shook his body, he opened his mouth and spoke.