“We can’t make a decision right now, not with half of our team unconscious,” Decarin said, shaking his head before Shade could speak. “Personally, I’d be happy to have another team who could help us out in big fights, but that’s not up to me. Paragon City never really sleeps, though… there’s always something going down around here.”
“I’ve seen some of the crime reports, so I believe it,” Morgan said, her voice a soft murmur, and the heroine smiled as she added, “There we go, I think Spark’s waking up. I—ah!”
Morgan recoiled as electricity arced up from Spark to zap her fingers, even though she was several inches away. Spark’s eyes snapped open and she inhaled sharply, tensing as electricity surged around her, then the woman paused, her blue eyes darting around the room, settling on Lilith for a few heartbeats more, then relaxed.
“Ah, hell. I’m in the infirmary,” Spark said, speaking rapidly, then paused and frowned. “I don’t hurt, though. What happened?”
“Dreamer decided to draw Archon in to try to take her out, and you ran into the trap first,” Shade said, folding his arms and giving Warden a sidelong look as he continued. “They all had suits that insulated them from your electricity, which is why you got taken out so easily, plus they had restraints to ground out your powers. You got hammered, but Morgan patched you up.”
“Oh, fuck me,” Spark said, groaning as she looked at Archon and her eyes widened. Lilith tried to keep from blushing at the language, but couldn’t quite manage it. Fortunately, no one seemed to notice as Spark continued, waving at Lilith, Morgan, and Warden. “She didn’t get… she didn’t get taken down, did she? What happened? Why’re they here?”
“I may have been ‘taken down’, but not permanently, it appears,” Archon said, her voice melodious, though her eyes were closed, and Lilith almost jumped since she hadn’t noticed the woman regain consciousness. “With the way the world seems to be spinning even with my eyes closed, I decided that opening them was a poor idea.”
“Archon, you’re back! I was afraid… well, nevermind that. You’re tougher than I am, that’s for sure,” Decarin said, his relief palpable from the way he was smiling, and Lilith turned as he stood up straighter, clearing his throat. “As to why Morgan, Warden, and Lilith are here… they heard that Dreamer was involved and came to help. They stopped Dreamer from putting you in a coma, and kept her from setting off an explosive with you at the center, Spark.”
Spark flinched at that, then looked at Lilith again, pursing her lips. After a second she nodded slowly. “Well, thank you, then. I really, really wouldn’t have enjoyed getting splattered across a room.”
“You’re welcome,” Morgan said, smiling a little as she nodded in return. “I wish we’d gotten there sooner, but we didn’t find out what was happening until almost too late.”
“Almost too late is better than actually too late. Thank you as well. My apologies, but my mind feels like it was run through a dehydrator. Or possibly a drying machine, then placed on a line to dry,” Archon said, slowly reaching up to rub her forehead. “Would that it was as resilient as my body.”
“I think that would make you one of the most terrifying heroes in the world, though I can’t say that I blame you,” Morgan said, rubbing her hand as she stepped away from Spark. “I’m just glad that she didn’t leave you in a coma.”
“I wish we could’ve caught Dreamer. That would make me a lot happier,” Warden muttered, tapping her arm impatiently. “It’s like she’s a lot more dangerous since she worked for that creep Johnson. Maybe she was telling the truth about being limited before this…?”
“While I don’t know about that, I think we’ve about worn out what we can discuss,” Shade said unhappily. “Acheron Dreadnaught is in custody, but Dreamer and Vincent the Viper both escaped, taking a big chunk of the bank’s vault with them. So the two of you know, we checked out the hideout that some of the minions knew about, but it was empty. I’m afraid that we don’t have any leads on where the attackers went.”
“That’s… most unfortunate,” Archon said, opening her eyes at last and slowly levering herself upward.
Her gaze focused on Lilith first, and Lilith froze, startled by how vivid Archon’s eyes were, with fire-like irises and the pinpricks of her pupils within them. It didn’t look like the heroine was in pain at all, and Lilith couldn’t help swallowing, her throat suddenly dry. Archon was widely considered one of the toughest superhumans in the world, with some people speculating she could survive a point-blank nuclear bomb, and she could heal from virtually anything. She wasn’t as strong as many others, but Lilith knew that if she had to fight Archon, she’d be completely out of her league.
“You aren’t what I expected,” Archon said at last, tilting her head as she considered Lilith thoughtfully. “I was expecting more… arrogance. Perhaps a sharp tongue. You’re quite diffident, I think.”
“Um… thank you?” Lilith said uncertainly, taken aback by the comment. “Why would I be arrogant? Or sharp-tongued?”
“I think she’s comparing you to Shadowmind, Lil,” Warden interjected dryly, grinning a little. “She could practically strip paint off the walls, her tone was so acidic. Arrogance may as well have been her middle name.”
Decarin snorted in amusement, while Spark snickered softly, standing up and stretching a little. The woman had frequent tiny arcs of electricity dance between strands of her hair, Lilith noticed, which made her wonder if Spark could fully control her electricity. Probably not, when she thought about it.
“Yes, but our Lilith isn’t like her,” Morgan said, taking a step toward Lilith and laying a hand on her shoulder. “If anything, Lilith likes to let other people make the decisions.”
“That’s unfair of you,” Lilith said, straightening at last as she gave Morgan a slightly betrayed look. “I insisted on going after Doctor Johnson, didn’t I? And on moving out without all the security that Circe wanted to give me.”
“Yes, but Circe wanted to buy a private island and fortify it so heavily that I think you’d have been a threat to orbiting spacecraft,” Warden retorted, prompting Decarin’s eyebrows to rise.
“Wait, what?” the hero asked, looking back and forth between them. “Why would an AI want to—”
“Dec, it really doesn’t matter,” Spark said, pausing for an instant before she continued, her smile fading as she considered more, then asked, “That said… I’ve heard that you think Shadowmind is still out there. Really? I mean, she died in prison, right?”
The relatively relaxed mood in the room couldn’t have died much more quickly, Lilith thought, her smile freezing, feeling almost a bit brittle as she looked at the other two, and quickly realized that since they were looking at her, it was up to her to answer the question. So Lilith let out a soft sigh, laying a hand on her armor and considering her words carefully.
“I believe she is. I’m not entirely certain how, mind you, but she appears to have some fondness for me, and warned me in time to let me dodge Sky Defender’s attack just before he blew my head off,” Lilith said, and a hint of amusement welled up inside her at how both Spark and Decarin flinched at the description. “She claimed she was busy at the time, and said something about invaders… but I really don’t know much more than that. Since she was supposedly restrained in SuperMax at the time, I suspect that Amber figured out a way to… untether herself from her body. I don’t know if she’s still like that, dead, or if she found a new body, though.”
“Most unfortunate,” Shade said, his loud voice startling with how quiet the others had been, and causing Lilith to wince.
“Must you turn your voice modulator up so loud? Listening to you is a bit painful, especially indoors,” Lilith said, reaching up to clear her right ear with a fingernail. Everyone froze for a moment, then Warden burst out laughing.
“Oh, Lil… I hope you never change,” Warden said, grinning as she reached over to ruffle Lilith’s hair, prompting a yelp of protest from Lilith. “Come on, get into your armor so w
e can go. I’m sure that they need to work things out, especially with our offer of a comm line… properly secure on both ends, of course. I don’t know about them, but I wouldn’t want to hash things out in front of guests. Particularly not guests that I wasn’t sure if I could trust.”
“Heh. I’m glad you understand,” Decarin said, visibly relaxing and cracking a smile.
“A good point,” Lilith agreed, reaching over to adjust a last setting on the armor, then nodded and stepped into it. “Now, let’s see how this goes… I didn’t have the fine manipulation that I wanted with the gauntlets last time.”
“So that’s why you just tore the display off,” Morgan murmured, and nodded to the Sentinels with a smile. “We’ll let you recover, then. I hope your afternoon is better than your morning.”
“And yours, for that matter. I will show you out,” Archon said, standing up and wincing a little. “My head seems to be doing much better, though I’m not sure how long it’ll be until I’m back to normal.”
“Hopefully soon,” Lilith said, as the helmet closed around her and the systems in her armor booted up. Then she nodded in satisfaction, rotating the gauntlets and testing how her fingers moved. “There we are, much better. Not as good as I’d like, but better.”
“If you say so,” Decarin said, looking amused.
Lilith gave the best shrug she could in the armor, which was to say not at all, then turned to leave, following Warden out.
At least she thought this meeting had gone well.
“And… there they go,” Decarin said, watching the monitors, looking rather satisfied. Tapping another key, he nodded firmly. “And scans have come back clear. No recording devices were left behind or anything like that, so we can talk freely.”
“My modulator isn’t that loud, is it?” Shade asked finally, an uncharacteristic note of disappointment in his voice, and Spark blinked, then grinned at him, amused that it was Lilith of all people who’d finally said something.
“It’s about ideal for outdoors, or for if you’re trying to address an auditorium full of people, but indoors… even if you turn it down some, it’s a bit on the loud side,” Spark said, shrugging as she added, “I always thought you did that deliberately.”
“Damn it,” Shade growled, as close to under his breath as he could manage. “It took me ages to get the voice right!”
“If you wanted to send me the settings, I could look at a second set that should sound similar indoors, just at a lower volume,” Decarin suggested, sitting back in his chair comfortably. “Then you could just swap between them, or set up a chip that would automatically adjust to your surroundings.”
“Hm, that might just work. I’ll have to think about it,” Shade said, folding his arms as he straightened. “Still, it doesn’t matter much right now. Once Archon is back…”
“Yes, yes, we get to discuss the three that saved my life, and possibly hers,” Spark said, wrinkling her nose as she glanced at Decarin. “That said… they had something that grounded out my powers? Really?”
“Yeah, a sort of restraint harness,” Decarin said, frowning thoughtfully. “I’m not sure where they got it from, but it has to be super-tech. There’s nowhere for all the energy to go, and I’m damned certain that you couldn’t reproduce it on a manufacturing line. I’ve got it in the lab, and figured I’d see if I can’t come up with a way to bypass it. I don’t want people shutting you down, after all.”
“Huh. Well, if you can, could you try not to break it, or see if you could reproduce it? Heck, if you could find a way to let it have the same effects without being restraints, I’d appreciate it,” Spark said, a flicker of hope welling up inside her at the thought.
“Um, sure?” Decarin said, sounding uncertain as he looked at her oddly, hesitating before he added, “Can I ask why? I thought you might want it destroyed…”
“Pfft. Oh, I hate the idea of being shut down when I’m on duty, but do you have any idea how frustrating it is to need a special interface to avoid frying a computer? Or how stressful it is to go on a date when you might accidentally tase your date?” Spark demanded, gesturing at the door, just as it opened to admit Archon. “I’ve been on four dates since I developed my powers. Only one of them was immune to electricity, who wasn’t a great guy I might add, and I zapped all of the others. If I can get something that’d let me go out without risking that, I’d be delighted! Even better if you can find a way to bypass it, so I can have the best of both worlds.”
“That is an odd conversation to walk into the middle of,” Archon observed, looking between everyone in the room as she raised an eyebrow. “Is this regarding the restraints she was in?”
“Yes, it is,” Decarin said, rubbing his forehead as he added sheepishly. “And that’s a fair point, Spark, one I hadn’t thought of.”
“Why would you? You don’t have to deal with my powers, except when making gear for me,” Spark said, shrugging, but feeling slightly more hopeful at the idea of being able to live a little more normally. “It’s why I’ve never bothered hiding my identity. I can’t, though in a different way than Archon.”
“True, but I do believe we need to discuss our guests,” Archon said, slowly lowering herself onto a bed as she winced. “While I’m not in quite as bad of shape as I claimed, I’m not in anywhere near normal condition. I believe that Dreamer drained me, somehow.”
Shade nodded, his voice calm as he shifted his weight slightly. “While their timing was suspicious, there’s no way that I could have gotten to you in time to interrupt Dreamer. Between the goons and Dreadnaught, I was having a hard time simply holding my own.”
Spark sighed and shook her head as she spoke. “I wish I could give my opinions on that, but I was rather unconscious at the time. I remember being caught in an explosion… some of that gas they were going to blow me up with, I’m guessing.”
“That’s probably right. It’s rather volatile, particularly when it comes to electricity,” Decarin said, and turned to his monitor, tapping it a couple of times, then it brought up an image of Lilith’s armor. “That said, I did get good readings of Lilith’s armor, and while some sections blocked my scans, I managed to figure out a fair amount, and I’m rather impressed.”
That intrigued Spark, and she sat up in her chair, looking at him, while Archon’s eyebrows furrowed a little. If technology impressed Decarin, that was both good and bad, from Spark’s point of view.
“How so?” Archon asked after a second, looking at him. “There are multiple ways it could impress you, and some of them are not good for us.”
“Hm? Oh, you’re wondering how powerful it is!” Decarin said, turning away from the screen as he grinned, shaking his head. “It isn’t that bad, don’t worry. It’s, oh… about mid-range for a class A hero? Nowhere near enough to challenge the upper ranks, but has solid defenses and weapons. I have to wonder how long it can run for, but the power system was shielded.”
“Why does it impress you, then? You’ve said you could build armor that was high-end class A,” Shade said, looking at Decarin speculatively. Spark noticed that he was trying to speak a little more quietly, to her amusement.
“It’s impressive because of the parts I could examine. From what I can tell, none of them are super-tech. It was all the sort of technology that could be mass-produced, at least in theory, and Lilith was adjusting settings and doing a bit of maintenance right in front of us,” Decarin said, turning back to them with a grin. “That’s damned impressive. I’ve always known that Shadowmind’s gear didn’t bend the laws of physics the way most heroes do, but seeing it like that was eye-opening.”
“Hm. What about the others? They have different armor than before, and it looked somewhat similar to Lilith’s,” Archon murmured, reaching up to tap her lips.
“It isn’t, really. Oh, it has some tech in it, but their armor isn’t really powered. It has a little circuitry and monitoring sensors, and obviously is designed to allow them to use a HUD if they want to, along with mount point
s for additional gear, but it’s pretty mundane. About on par with what LANCE uses for their personal armor, maybe a bit better,” Decarin said, shrugging. “I couldn’t tell you how it was made, but it seems like Lilith’s armor. Their powers… that I couldn’t tell you a thing about, just like I couldn’t tell you about Lilith’s. I had a hard time keeping my eyes off of her.”
“Her captivation field is truly obnoxious,” Shade said in disgruntlement. “It made her quite distracting on the battlefield as well.”
“I believe it,” Spark murmured, considering the woman again and trying to drive the image of how the black bodysuit had hugged Lilith’s figure out of her head. She wasn’t very successful.
“Now, as to their powers, Warden is powerful. Very powerful, as she could have contained Dreadnaught outright if she’d wanted to, and I suspect she is now at the low end of class S,” Shade said bluntly, looking around the room. “I believe she’d lose against Archon, but only because Archon has a great deal of endurance, and she’d exhaust Warden eventually. However, with her new gift of teleportation, Warden could likely escape. That said, I asked why she didn’t capture Dreadnaught outright, and she told me she didn’t want to steal the credit. It makes me feel somewhat better about her.
“Conversely, Morgan has not changed much since I last met her. She’s a skilled all-around mage, and while she’s a more refined, precise caster now, she’s not quite as powerful as me, even if she has a broader array of spells,” Shade continued briskly. “Her new armor gives her some advantages, but nothing of particular note. From what I have seen, the three of them synergize well, but aside from potentially Lilith’s power armor, they lack staying power in battle. Multiple rapid encounters would swiftly deplete their abilities, and they’d be forced to fall back.”
Queen's Move (Lilith's Shadow Book 3) Page 12
