***Teresa Fuller***

Teresa came to with a quick intake of breath, surveying first her own situation before she extended her search outward.

She was, in short: fucked.

She was bound to a slab of concrete and rebar cut into a chairlike shape, kept in place by layer after layer of duct tape seemingly scavenged from the surrounding abandoned construction site.

I recognize this place.

She was in the Meyers building, a building in downtown destroyed during a Trigger rampage five years ago, allowed to remain ruined because of a feud between the litigious owner and the city itself.

She was across the street from the headquarters of the Bureau of Investigation.

She craned her neck to the right, spotting her own office from the corner of her eye.

Son of a bitch. Miracles happen. Paradox couldn’t have chosen a worse place to bring me. I’ll have the bureau rain down-

Teresa’s thoughts screeched to a halt, remembering the last thing she heard before the lightning.

There’s no one in that suit.

FUCK! It didn’t matter how shitty the location Paradox had chosen, none of the Bureau’s pet minders could touch him because he wasn’t there.

They also couldn’t tell if Teresa was being tortured across the street, because she was an android – something she was still grappling with – and the suit was similarly invisible to them.

Best case scenario, she got someone’s attention, and they sent the military over to force Paradox to retreat. Even if they got his suit, the bastard was lurking somewhere in the city. Thankfully his dossier had included his likely civilian identity, so they would be on his ass like white on rice.

What kind of idiot uses their real name…actually, what kind of idiot gives their kid a super name?

Now how the hell do I get out of this? She couldn’t even wiggle a finger, she was strapped so thoroughly to the heavy concrete chair. Except for her head, she couldn’t move. It might feel like a hazing at her sorority if it weren’t so serious.

Maybe I can bite or lick the tape around my shoulders. Spit will probably loosen the adhesive binding.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Paradox’s modulated voice came from a shadow in the corner of the room that she’d assumed was empty.

The darkness resolved into a shape, blacker than the surrounding shadow by an order of magnitude. A perfect humanoid void in reality.

“Get the fuck away from me!” Teresa shrieked at full volume, hoping it would echo down to the street level and get someone at the bureau’s attention. “You’re breaking so many goddamn laws right now, you piece of shit, I thought you were supposed to be a goddamn hero, not a kidnapping asshole!”

A tactic that could be employed against aggressors was an unending verbal assault. It was more effective than most people knew.

Paradox’s armor waited patiently, an unmoving void in the corner of the room while she screamed every hurtful, emasculating thing she could think of at him.

It took several minutes before she realized he’d simply shut off his mics and was doing something else while he waited for her to tire herself out.

Teresa stopped screaming. It was starting to hurt her throat, and it wasn’t accomplishing anything.

A couple minutes later, the armor twitched.

“Done?” He asked.

Teresa said nothing.

“Excellent. Now, given your profession I’m sure you know your interrogation techniques. This is the part where I ask some questions I already know to establish what it looks like when you lie to me.”

“First question: What is your name?”

“Teresa Fuller.” Teresa said with a sullen scowl. She needed to save her lies for the important things. If she wasn’t wearing her clothes, then of course he’d gotten his hands on her wallet.

“Who do you work for?”

“The bureau of investigation.” Teresa said. “And when they find out I’m-“

“Have you ever personally engaged in political espionage?”

“No.” Teresa denied reflexively. Sure, there was that one time she’d been assigned to change an outgoing leader’s law designed to prevent ‘designer babies’ from taking his position, but that was just making things fair.

And the time she’d had her tool generate a dossier on a grass-roots up-and-comer, but it wasn’t anything good old footwork couldn’t accomplish.

And a handful of other things.

“So that’s what it looks like.” Paradox said. By all means, continue lying to me. This is the part where it’s encouraged.”

I really need to shut my mouth, Teresa though, tightening her lips.

“The imported android civilians from Franklin are going to live long, happy, productive lives in Washington City, the new hub of android society. True or false?”

She gave him nothing. Not a twitch. Even if she knew what the higher-ups were planning she wouldn’t spill it. The android imports were above her paygrade. The only thing Teresa had been assigned was handling Paradox. She didn’t know anything beyond that.

Paradox ignored her silence, seemingly taking her lack of response as an answer.

“Were you planning on starting a war with Franklin? Side note: I don’t recommend it.”

“What, of course not!” Tersea protested.

“Then why did you kidnap Chemestro and Sin-Eater and attempt to do the same to me, using Minders, for that matter? I can tell Solaris exactly what happened here right NOW, and that would be enough justification to leave Washington to its own devices next High Tide.

Being the hero that I am,” Paradox continued, “I’d rather not doom a city offhand because of the mistakes of a few poor decision-makers.”

Teresa bit her lip. She was forbidden from telling anyone about the specifics of her mission. That was what security clearance was all about. She could keep her mouth shut when she needed to.

Paradox noted her reaction.

“Do you plan on brainwashing my team with minders into switching teams to Washington?”

She said nothing.

“Do you plan on erasing their memories and sending them home on the next train?”

Teresa kept silent as Paradox guessed the correct answer, but Paradox simply cocked his armor’s head to the side.

“I see.”

Goddamnit.

“So if you only planned on erasing our memories and sending us home, that means we’re not the primary goal. Instead, someone high up the chain in Washington is planning on breaking the deal with Franklin, and doing something bad to the android civilians, and they don’t want any word of it reaching Solaris’s ears. That in turn, means the answer to question four is ‘false’…Isn’t logic fun?”

“Fuck you,” Teresa growled.

“Do you know what they’re planning on doing to the civilians?” Paradox asked, ignoring her outburst.

“…No.” Teresa said.

“Do you know who would know?” Paradox asked.

Teresa kept her mouth shut.

“How about your boss?” Paradox pointed to the nearby building, indicating he was aware they’d been in the lap of the B.I. the entire time.

She said nothing.

“Washington has supers integrated into their military. What’s your boss’s security detail look like? Speedsters? Bruisers? Catalysts? Energy? Wildcards?”

She gave him nothing, but Paradox nodded like he’d gotten something out of it.

“I see, I see. A speedster and Energy type.”

He got that from somewhere else, Teresa thought, her heartbeat skyrocketing in her chest. He’s playing games with you. He can’t read your mind. No one can.

“Well, Teresa, we’re going to have to shelve this for the afternoon, I got things to do. J.C., why don’t you come out? I can literally see you through the wall, dude.”

A wide-eyed civilian in a sweat-stained shirt jumped out of nowhere and clubbed Paradox’s suit on the head with an iron pipe, wrapping the thing halfway around the helmet.

Paradox did nothing as the civilian whacked the armor to no effect another half a dozen times before the idiocy of it seemed to catch up with him, causing him to stagger backwards in fear, dropping his makeshift weapon to the ground with a clatter.

“What’s up, man? Did you walk all the way here from Chicago?” Paradox asked.

“What did you do? What the HELL did you do! You killed my partner! Everything happened after you showed up…in that place…Every time I try to remember that…door, I…” the civilian winced, wobbling on his feet. “Chicago… the whole city fell apart. You….”

The civilian collapsed to the ground unconscious.

“Aw, he’s sleepy.” Paradox said, pulling a 10k chit out of his armor and poking it into the civilian’s pocket.

Chicago? What the hell? I thought that place was a wasteland, destroyed by…the…replicators…

Teresa was still struggling to come to grips with the fact that she was the end-product of a long campaign by robots to replace humanity. She felt human as ever.

But Chicago. That was destroyed by Professor Replica, our ene…their enemy, decades ago…or…maybe not?

This information was hot. Just knowing it could get her burned. It also lent insight into what her superiors were thinking, if they knew about this.

“I’ll be turning my mic off now, I’ll probably be back in an hour or two. If you need anything; I don’t care.” Paradox said.

“Wait, I have to use the bathroom!” Teresa said. Maybe she could signal someone in the next building over to rescue her.

“I can’t smell anything through this suit, so go nuts.” The armor powered down, Paradox’s mannerisms fading to nothing as the void armor turned back into a statue.

***Sasha Currant, AKA Spangle***

I think my face is gonna swell off, Sasha thought, her heartbeat pounding in her grotesquely swollen face. If she got a mirror, she probably wouldn’t look into it for a month or so. She ran her tongue across her teeth, and noticed several of them were loose. Loose, but not gone. That was good, at least.

She’d tried to fight back, but her most powerful glitter blast just made Serenity angry.

That was the problem with Bruisers: Offence and defense came hand-in-hand, and a Sweeper-rank like Serenity was also fast: Gotta be quick to punch enough Prawns to death to make the cut.

But why did she come after me in the first place? Spangle thought, studying a sliver of her surroundings from between her swollen eyelids. It was pristine, well-prepared, well lit, reinforced concrete box with a steel chair bolted to the floor.

It was professional, and impersonal. Something mass-produced. Government issue.

So, did Dad get caught?

The government hadn’t gotten involved because of any mistake she’d made. She might be a vigilante, but she was also very photogenic and gave Washington city a bit of bragging rights over their rival. While her activities were illegal, they were low priority for the government.

Dad also turned down the heat whenever the police got too interested in figuring out who she was, so she’d enjoyed a rather long and illustrious career as a vigilante.

She always figured she’d get caught sooner or later and the G-men would pressure her to join the military or police, but this…this seemed different. More serious than a recruiting attempt. If that was the case, it was probably Dad’s fault.

Should I give him a pass on this one because he throws the police off my trail every now and then at great personal risk to himself? Sasha thought. …Nah.

Sasha spit out another mouthful of blood rather than swallow it.

“When are you gonna leave?” She asked her captor.

“Why, so you can escape?” Serenity asked.

Through her swollen eyes, Sasha could only see a tiny slice of Serenity, and she had to pan from bottom to top to make out her entire outfit.

The Bruiser stood seven fee tall, wearing thick steel boots to make her kicks more devastating, extra thick hyperweave on her legs and torso, black with purple and gold. There were no sleeves, to show off Serenity’s impressive guns. In the night, the woman’s bulging, pale white arms seemed to emerge from the darkness, kind of like a floating pair of Bruiser arm, absent a personality to go with it.

It suits her.

“Yes, so I can escape.” Sasha said. “This can’t be the most valuable use of your time.”

“You’d be surprised,” Serenity said with a shrug, her arms folded over her chest.

“The hell did I do to warrant this?” Sasha asked, taking another tactic. If she couldn’t’ escape, then she could at least figure out how much she should yell at Dad when she got loose.

Serenity shrugged again.

“Not my problem, little girl. The only thing you should be concerned about is when I get a phone call,” She waggled a phone at her. “Whether it’s to let you go or snap your neck like a chicken’s.”

Ah, so I’m a hostage. Nobody was offering her terms, or trying to pressure her into doing something, only saying that maybe they’d kill her, maybe they wouldn’t. That meant someone else was being pressured.

Most likely Dad.

I hope he’s okay.

As much as she hated his overbearing attitude, scaring off boys, and generally being a helicopter parent, he was still an okay dad….minus the whole mind-reading thing.

Now, how the heck do I get out of here before they make Dad do something awful? She could rub a bit of glitter off of her hyperweave in a pinch, but it’d already proven ineffective against Serenity.

Maybe I could blow a hole in the wall and make a run for it. Due to the hyperweave, her body was in relatively good shape, only her face had received the most punishment.

I could cut the zipties with the glitter, then hit her with a flashbang glitter. No damage, but I might be able to blind her long enough to get to the next room.

…If she was just distracted for a moment.

As if some deity of chaos was listening to Sasha’s plea, Serenity cocked her head to the side.

“Do you hear that?” she asked.

Strangely enough, Sasha did hear that. It sounded like…whistling? That old movie with the yellow jumpsuit and the katanas, set in Mega-Tokyo.

BOOM!

The concrete box the two of them were in shook violently, causing Serenity to lose her balance and fall to her knees.

Shouts of alarm began to emanate from hallway beyond the door, which had popped open when the room settled.

Multiple dark figures rushed past the door, followed by gunshots and screams of pain.

All the while, the whistling grew louder.