Renan scowled. His father stood on his right. His sisters, Mandy and Ana, had his left. Their mother sat in the living room of the apartment they had taken as their own. The final member of their party- a tall woman with blonde hair and a heart-shaped face- sat at the dinner table in front of them.

“There’s something going on here,” Renan said, leaning on one of the dining room’s seats. “The city is subdued, even the ones that aren’t with the ARA. Even the ones who lived here before the Tutorial. The districts are supposed to be war-zones.”

“We heard nothing about Grey,” Ana said. His younger sisters were twins, and the only real difference in their appearances was their eyes. Ana’s were blue. Mandy’s were dark like their mother’s.

His father waved his hand before crossing his arms. “He was in danger.”

Ana touched the sword at her hip. Like him, she and Mandy had both gone to the Tutorial. “Yeah, he had to have gone into hiding.”

Mandy shook her head. “Or they got him.”

The woman at the table looked up at them. Her name was Sybil, and she was the Returnee responsible for ‘enchanting’ weapons with the ability to damage monsters even without an Evolution supporting them. Convincing her to come with them was difficult, but Renan’s Evolutions had washed away her objections like a great wave of persuasion.

In some ways, she was a hostage. She was too valuable an asset to kill, so with her around, he felt more protected. She was also useful in other ways, however.

“Evolutions sort of blow the door open on concealment. Do you know what sort of Evolution he has?” she asked.

“No, he’d never send such valuable information over a message, even coded.” Renan stared at the grain of the wooden dining table, hoping maybe he’d find Grey in it. No luck.

Sybil lifted an eyebrow. “So he’s intelligent?”

His father grunted. “Smartest of all of us.”

Renan frowned but said nothing. “There’s no telling where he might have gone, but he would have left feelers out for us. We just have to find them.”

“Do we know any places he frequented?” Ana asked, doubt lacing her voice.

Of course they didn’t. Grey had grown distant after high school, and they rarely heard from him. Renan suspected he himself was a large cause of that, but their mother and father’s dysfunctional and combative relationship also played a role.

A part of him wondered if they should just move on. Grey was family and had information, but Renan suspected he might not be as helpful or welcoming as the others might think. He knew his brother. Even growing up, Grey had never looked at things with emotion. His love for his family came from a sense of duty. Of responsibility. He sent them a message because it was what he was supposed to do. Not because he cared.

Renan knew because he felt the same. It was why he had cowed Grey so thoroughly. It was simple arithmetic. Potential threats had to be eliminated before they could actually become threatening. The Tutorial might have eliminated his work, but that was a worry for later. He had to see Grey first to understand what his brother was thinking.

Renan tapped the dinner table. “I’m going out.”

“Where?” Ana asked.

“Somebody knows about Grey here, even if they don’t know where he is, but that’s not necessarily my goal,” he said. “I just want to know what has happened here. We know he was with the ARA. He isn’t now. Someone must have heard something.”

He left unsaid that his goal wasn’t to ask about these things. His goal was to talk to people. Renan rarely asked for what he wanted to know. People simply told him.

“Someone will get suspicious.”

“If you and Mandy continue to fumble about, perhaps. This is the apocalypse. We play to our strengths. This is what I do.”

He stepped out of the building they had taken refuge in some time later. It was still winter here in… District Twenty-four. It was a dreadful name really, stripped of all life or warmth, but when he looked at the empty, rubble-strewn streets of the city, he felt it was fitting.

Noncombatants and natives had started to appear on the streets, but they were few and far between, their steps often accompanied by hard gazes. These were scavengers, people too stubborn or perhaps intelligent to follow their neighbors to the closest evacuation area. Occasionally, a patrol might sweep the street with gazes even harder and sharp edges besides.

The more he thought of the situation, the stranger it seemed. Though news was sparse regarding the country and the world, rumors and details regarding the local situation had come frequently back at the base. Renan had heard tales of Returnees, both benevolent and otherwise.

Some were superheroes without capes. A woman named Saint had led a group of fighters with an Evolution that allowed her to shift into an angelic figure. Others healed the sick and injured, miraculously curing ailments science could not. Saviors abounded in a world full of myths come to life, and Renan suspected many of them had goals altogether less altruistic.

Others were more obvious in their pursuits. The Highway Butcher had carved swathes through evacuating citizens. A man known simply as Tom had brought a town to its knees, subjugating it with an unknown Evolution. Others still seemed ambivalent. Figures like the Rage Knight, who cut through everything but innocents in his inky black armor, fell into this group.

District Twenty-four had produced no such figures. It was suspicious. The city was calm. Almost domesticated. A singular mind or at least a small group of brilliant ones had to stand atop this all, yet no word of them had leaked past the city’s whispers. That was dangerous.

Information was the world’s only universal currency. To see it hoarded so tightly spoke of someone with intelligence, and with his brother’s disappearance, Renan could only assume this person was the same one Grey had run into. Worrying indeed.

He walked down an abandoned street, letting his mind roam as it pleased. They had already mapped the patrol routes and times nearby, but Renan wasn’t looking for a group. They were difficult to approach, and numbers made people callous.

He had to find a single person or perhaps two, but he had to do so in a nonthreatening way. Everyone was cautious now that the stranger on the street could put a laser through your chest. Thankfully, appearing weak wasn’t an issue. Renan was weak, martially speaking.

He tore his clothes ragged and sliced through his palm with one of Sybil’s blades, rubbing blood on his neck and clothes. He feigned a limp. When he was finished, he looked like the victim of a monster attack, a common sight on the city’s streets.

Renan was special. He knew it was so not out of arrogance but observation. Few saw the world in the way he did, through the lens of give and take, benefit and risk. There was no warmth in his world, save for that of success, but there was logic and observable variables.

Fear was a variable Renan had studied well. It was perhaps the greatest of human motivators, and he had learned how and when to pull on it. What he was to do now, however, was the opposite. In all things, he had to become less scary, less intimidating.

This was the apocalypse. The end times. The kind had died or grown cautious, and the only heroes that existed sat firmly on thrones of imagination. That didn’t mean there weren’t those who were willing to act kind or heroic to get what they wanted.

One such person found Renan. Well, Renan had made sure one such person found him. She was a woman, dark-skinned and hard-eyed. His sisters had made notes of the survivors in the surrounding areas, and after some questions, Renan had divided them into different groups, assigning them value and assessing their risks.

The woman was a special case. She was the mother of a young boy, and she was a clear survivor. When guard patrols passed, she feigned weakness. When unsavory sorts showed up, they received a blade in the back before they could become a problem. She was not the sort of person to rescue a stranger, not typically. She was, however, the type to rob one.

“You’re hurt.” Her voice leaked sympathy, and her strong hands lifted him from his knees, throwing one of his arms around her shoulders.

Renan coughed and nodded. “Monsters…” Another wracking cough. “Monsters.”

“Quiet now,” she said, “You’re safe. Let me just take you home, okay?”

“Okay.” He watched her eyes drift to the bag on his back and the weapons on his waist that practically radiated power. Bait, line, and sinker.

She carried him to an apartment next to the one she actually lived in with her son. To any mildly observant eye, it was clear no one lived in the place. Dust coated many of the surfaces, and cabinets sat open, their innards scattered about the tiled kitchen floor. She laid him on the couch and reached for a pair of concealed handcuffs at her waist.

Renan had seen them, of course. He sat up quickly, grabbing her wrist and locking eyes with her. “None of that now. You want what I have? It’ll cost information.” She pulled her hand away and reached for the gun at her waist, but he clucked his tongue. “Don’t be so reckless. Your son is next door.” His words carried with them the power of his Evolution.

She froze. “Who are you?” Her dark eyes met his own.

“Your friend, though if you keep reaching for those handcuffs, maybe a little more.” He cracked a grin, the type that seemed to put people at ease. “Maybe buy me a drink first instead. I don’t like the type that likes to jump straight into these sort of things.”

“Are you threatening me?”

He raised his hands. “Last I checked, I’m not the one reaching for weapons. Listen, I can see you want my weapons and gear. That’s fine. I’d love to give them to you, but I need something in return. Can’t have you owing me, right?” Power drenched his voice, and the woman relaxed unknowingly. He had already won; she just hadn’t realized it yet.

“What do you want to know?”

“How about your name? That seems as good a place as any.”

“Tay.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Tay.” He extended a hand. “I’m Renan. My safe word is pineapple by the way.”

She tilted her head, the danger of the situation seemingly forgotten. “What?”

He pointed at the handcuffs. “My safe word. You know, in case you brought those out again.”

“Oh.” She didn’t quite smile, but it was a start.

“You been in the city long?”

“Since college.”

“How much do you know about what’s happened since the… Genesis?” he asked.

She shrugged, sitting on the table in front of him. “I didn’t go to the Tutorial or anything, so I’ve been here the whole time.” He remained silent. She would feel compelled to fill it, and from there, he could lead the conversation. “I did notice that before the Genesis as you call it, a lot more police had been around. Feds, too, not just the city police. Then everything happened, and they came around, calling themselves the ARA. My neighbors evacuated with them, but B… My boyfriend was in the Tutorial. He never came back.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, I really am. My brother was one of the Taken, as well, which is why I’m here actually.” He let a flicker of grief to spread across his face before quelling it with noticeable effort. Sympathy. That was his angle. “I just arrived in the city. I know he’s here, but the ARA won’t tell me anything.”

She nodded. “They’ve… changed recently,” she said. “Before, they visited this part of the city rarely. Some sort of military group called the Guild did most of the patrolling and that sort of thing. Then a few weeks back, they missed a patrol. I was worried, you know. They’re all that kept some of the more dangerous types away, and my Evolutions haven’t reached the point where I’m confident to handle that sort of thing all on my own. The next week, though, it was the ARA patrolling here, not the Guild. It was the same faces, same people, but under a different name.”

“So the ARA absorbed this Guild?” That was interesting. Eliminating rivals and consolidating their forces spoke of conquest. A government agency shouldn’t have interest in that sort of thing. Unless, of course, the government had effectively dissolved.

This was very interesting, actually. So much to learn. So much to do.