“Ah so you’re the new guy.”

Lyssa read amusement from the man, with some mild apprehension. She could read no more through the shielding.

Sokolov turned away to speak to the Director through his comms device.

“Who the hell is this?” He asked.

“A student,” Whitworth said. “Show her the ropes.”

“Sir, this is a real mission.”

“Yes.”

“She just tried to read me too. She’s an undisciplined telepath. Only psychos go around reading people willy nilly.”

“Whoever’s behind these attacks used to be a member of M.A.G.E,” Whitworth said. “Someone with a grudge. Someone who worked deep. The kid’s our unexpected element.”

“You cannot be staking our success in a child.”

“I’m not.”

“What’s plan B?”

“This is plan B.”

Sokolov chuckled. “What’s plan A?”

“Update me, if necessary,” Whitworth said. “Have fun.”

Sokolov adjusted his gear, suddenly aware of an itch beneath his layers of equipment.

“Should really start using my vacation days,” he muttered. He returned to the rest of his men and one kid.

“Okay,” he said. “Sell yourself. What’re you good at?”

“The Director didn’t tell you?” Lyssa asked.

“I’m asking you.”

“I did Clandestine training for a while.”

“Observation and analysis,” Sokolov said. “Yes we all did. What else?”

Lyssa shrugged. “I have no other skills,” she said.

“Okay, so he gave me a telepath with zero field experience?”

“I have other gifts.”

Sokolov frowned. Nervousness. Wariness.

“I remember you,” he said. “Could barely recognize you for some reason. Honestly, never thought he would activate you so soon.”

“I had a feeling I was under watch,” Lyssa said.

“My name is Sokolov,” he said. “Pleased to meet you. These are my friends.” He gestured to the rest of the team. “Thing one and thing two, and three and four.”

Lyssa exhaled, smiling, though she didn’t quite get it. She glanced at the other passengers of the Magpie. They were dressed in dark colors. A blue patch was sewn into their shoulder plates with that signature acronym. Soldiers. Underneath all the fanfare of costumes and public morals, these were the real workhorses of hero institutions. Which meant this was a two-pronged operation.

There would be a hero response, obvious to all citizens. It might even be televised. A distraction so Sokolov’s team could go in and solve the issue.

“Alright, we’re five minutes out,” Sokolov said. “So I’ll give you the cliff notes of the op. We found a laboratory out in the middle of the woods where we think they made that creature you saw during the games.

“Gift splicing. Highly illegal, immoral, results in abominations. You know the history from class.”

Lyssa did not react.

“Also requires a vast amount of power,” Sokolov continued, “but there was no drain on the grid going back months, so we have to assume there’s someone with a high-cat electricity gift in the enemy’s roster. We are here to neutralize the facility and secure any personnel and data we might find.”

“What are the others doing?” Lyssa asked.

“Others?”

“The heroes.”

“Ah. We found some bad guys for them to fight lurking in the abandoned districts around New Langshir. Should make for a good show.”

“I see.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll see some action as well.”

Not that Lyssa cared for fighting. She had not wanted to be a part of this at all. But then she had signed up to attend this school. What did she think heroism was about?

The conversation still rang in her head, as loudly as the grenades she had taken moments before. Whitworth had said it so casually it fell on her ears like hot lead, and chilled her to the bone.

This is more important than you realize. Their work could be an attempt at replicating your grandfather’s work. This PR crisis is a mild inconvenience compared to that. Maybe this whole anti-hero narrative they’re spinning up is a red herring to cover up this work.

When had he known? The whole time? What did he mean by acknowledging it as one would a piece of trivia? It could be a kindness. ‘I knew and said nothing until now’. Or was it an implication of power? If he knew her grandfather, what else did he know?

Without spelling it out, Whitworth had set her on a specific path, gently but unequivocally deterring her from straying away. She supposed it was a sort of kindness that he did not threaten her. A way of saying, ‘I could make you, but…’ She wondered what would have happened if she had refused. Did he have a plan for that too? A metaphorical magic bullet?

Her time for introspection was over. A light turned on in the Magpie’s bay. The soldiers stood in unison and took a place towards the rear of the craft. Sokolov tapped her shoulder.

“You want a ‘chute?” He asked.

“I don’t need one,” she replied.

“Some people prefer one but don’t need it,” he said with a shrug.

The doors slid down. Cold air rushed in, buffeting the interior of the bay. She stoked the fire within to keep herself warm. The light turned green.

“Go! Go!” Sokolov shouted.

The soldiers were already out before the first syllable was finished. Lyssa was the last one out. She sailed through the night, diving through the layers of darkness. In the distance, the city’s light pollution diffused into an ochre dome, refracting off the smog characteristic of big cities. They must have been hundreds of miles away.

Here, she couldn’t see. The psychic shielding Sokolov’s people wore reduced their presences to a general buzz. And she couldn’t quite tell where the ground was. But trees where living things, as were birds. She followed their barely legible energies and at the last moment blasted the earth with pale torches of force-fire from her hands. Her armor absorbed the rest of the momentum. She had landed.

With a grunt, she climbed out of the crater.

“We alright?” A voice crackled through the radio.

She fiddled with the communicator at her neck while four other voices reported their status in curt military jargon.

“Uh… yes,” she said.

“On your right.”

Leaves and shrubbery rustled. Fire unfurled from Lyssa’s index finger. The shape of the forest appeared in shadowy detail, basked in amber light.

“Put that out,” Sokolov hissed.

“Sorry.” The darkness flooded back in.

“Check your gear.”

They had given her a pair of goggles. But she had way too much hair; its various geometries tended to tug on her head.

“What is Whitworth thinking?” Sokolov said. “Alright, try to keep up.”

He began to move, except this time he made almost no noise.