by Hayes, Drew
For a few seconds, it seemed like Phil’s reassurance had fallen on deaf ears. Then, with incredible slowness, Charles reached out and lifted up the spoon resting beside the bowl. He dunked it into the soup and brought it to his lips, where the liquid quickly vanished. The barest trace of a smile flickered on the edge of his mouth. “You used Mom’s recipe.”
“I tinkered a bit here and there, but I stayed true to the soul of it.” Phil looked as though he might burst into tears, but he barely twitched as the spoon descended once more, no doubt afraid that any sudden movements would undo the progress he’d just made.
Charles took several more bites before turning to his older brother. “Thank you, Phil. For reminding me that this is a setback, not a defeat. You’re right. As long as Shelby is still alive, there’s hope. I’m going to fix this. I’m going to set it right. No matter what it takes.”
“Oh god. Oh my god.” Mary had paled, which was rather impressive given that she didn’t have blood flowing through her mental form. She took a shaky step back away from what seemed to be a rather heartwarming scene. “This is what he meant.”
“No one else is a telepath. Can you elaborate on that cryptic vagueness a little?” Nick was trying to keep things light, but Alice noticed a bit of an edge in his eyes as they darted between the Adair brothers and Mary.
“When I met Globe, he told me it was his fault Intra died—that the blame for all of it, and so much of what was still coming, was on him. This is what he meant. This exact moment.” Mary stopped her retreat and composed herself, looking Alice and Nick squarely in the eyes. “This is where he put the idea of using Joshua Taylor, Intra, as a specimen in Powered research into Charles Adair’s head. This… this is why Chad’s father died, isn’t it?”
“But Globe is the one who killed Intra,” Alice pointed out.
“We’ve not yet reached that point,” Abridail told them. “However, we are very near. I think, after our next stop, it will all make sense.”
The world warped once more, and as it did Alice threw one last glance to the Adair brothers: Phil, watching over Charles as he slowly downed the soup that had been so lovingly prepared. It was a bizarre scene, knowing all that would come later, yet she couldn’t tear her eyes away.
161.
The new room was bare, save for two plastic folding chairs. Concrete walls paired with a matching floor and ceiling made it feel almost like they were back in the HCP, which, for all Alice knew, might be the case. Generally, their classrooms and gym weren’t quite so barren as this, though. The current room was minimal in every capacity, and the Subtlety student in Alice immediately noted that it would be ideal for blocking remote signals and ensuring no monitoring devices were hidden nearby. An optimal room to have a private conversation in, or as private as one could get with Supers in the world. Seconds after the room came into focus, the two figures sitting in the chairs did as well. One was so similar to Chad it would have been easy to mistake them, but she already knew this man was Joshua Taylor, the Hero called Intra.
In the other chair was Charles Adair. Not the love-struck man from the wedding, not the concerned husband from Shelby’s breakdown, not even the broken soul Phil had been comforting moments prior. No, this was the real Charles Adair, the hard-eyed man Alice had always known. However much time had passed, whatever had occurred in the interim, the last of that decent man had been purged from this new Charles. Words became audible, and for the first time she noticed that Joshua was holding a picture.
“You can’t do this. I’ll alert Dispatch. I’ll call the company workers.”
“The thing about a company is that, even in its most noble of incarnations, it is still staffed by people. People who can be swayed by the promise of riches. If you try to make that call, my people will intercept it. You’ll have accomplished nothing, save for dooming your family. Now, if you try Dispatch, that’s a different matter. She is beyond my reach, and if you tell her what’s happening then she will undoubtedly bring me down. But it will be too late to stop my people from pulling their triggers. You will have successfully stopped my plans, but it will cost you the lives of your wife and son.”
“Holy shit. That’s how he did it.” Nick stepped forward, drawing closer to the pair and looking over Joshua’s shoulder. “This is a picture of a baby with a date and time stamp. From context, I’m guessing it’s Chad, and taken recently. Probably through the scope of a sniper rifle.”
The picture in question was shaking as Joshua stared down at it. He looked anxious, near-frantic, as his eyes darted between the photo and Charles. “You’re bluffing. Or this is a sick joke. You wouldn’t destroy your whole career, your whole life, just to make me play along. And that’s what would happen if I called Dispatch.”
Charles Adair reached forward and gripped the top of the photo, steadying it. Unlike Joshua, there was no tremor in his hands whatsoever. He’d committed to this course and had no doubts or nerves to disturb him.
“Let me be very clear, Joshua. Let me make sure you understand the score perfectly. This is no joke or bluff. If you don’t leave this room and publicly turn villain, forcing Globe to put you down, then I’m going to kill Chad and Miriam. Make a detour, talk to a single soul for reasons that don’t sell your story, and they die. All communicators will be blocked from Dispatch once you’re on the scene, but I’ll still be listening in case you try to slip Globe any message. I don’t think I need to repeat myself and tell you what happens then. Yes, you’re right: if this goes awry my life is done. But ask yourself what I really have left to lose. A wife living in constant comatose torture, a daughter who will rightfully spend her life hating me for denying her a mother, and a job spent saving people when the person I love most in the world remains beyond aid. It’s nothing but the paltry scraps of a true life, and I will gamble it without hesitation on a chance to bring Shelby back. Because I don’t think you’re willing to trade your loved ones just to see me stopped.”
“He’s not bluffing at all, is he?” Mary asked. Alice shook her head. She knew Charles Adair well, and she’d seen him go all in before. That’s what was happening now. He was laying everything out in the open because subterfuge held no value. If Joshua had tried to buck the deal, then that would have been the end of things. And it probably would have also been the end of Chad and Miriam Taylor.
Joshua yanked the picture back, away from Charles’s steady fingers, and looked down at it once more. “Why? Why are you doing this? I was willing to give you blood, tissue, bone marrow, whatever you needed to help Shelby.”
“But we both know none of that offers what I really need.” Charles moved his hand upward and carefully pressed his index finger against Joshua’s temple. “It’s the brain. It’s always the brain. That’s where we see the differences, the additional nerves and glands and structure that give us actual data to be used. I need—Shelby needs—your brain, Joshua. In there lies the potential to change the world. Think of all the Powereds you’ll be helping if my research succeeds. Think of all the lives changed for the better thanks to your sacrifice.”
“Don’t you fucking dare try to twist this.” Joshua knocked the hand away, and for a moment Alice saw his features narrow in fury. If he was as strong as Chad, there was no question he’d be able to beat Charles in a fight, which made her certain there were protocols in place should Joshua make things physical. He clearly knew it too, because Joshua lowered his hand rather than using it to strike Charles. “Don’t you try to make this anything other than the horrible, murderous plot that it is. You should at least be man enough to do it yourself, Charles. Don’t drag your brother into this.”
“I wish I didn’t have to, but we can’t risk you dying in normal field work. Your brain might be damaged, and then it’s all a waste. No, you need to turn traitor and be brought down by a fellow Hero. If your best friend is the one to do it, with no idea what’s really going on, then the whole thing will be nothing more than a blip on the DVA’s radar. One more Super gone bad. And when I
suggest using your corpse to turn this tragedy into something good, I’ll have the backing to take custody of your body. The bribes are already paid; it’s just a matter of setting it all in motion.” Charles was remarkably calm as he detailed everything, meeting Joshua’s objections with patience at every turn.
“This conversation is really making me wish I hadn’t cursed out your dad back in freshman year,” Nick said, slowly backing away from the two Heroes.
No one said anything else for several moments, as Joshua stared down at the picture of his sleeping son. “You’re a monster.”
“I know,” Charles said, still perfectly calm.
“You’re going to hell for this.”
“Without question,” Charles agreed.
“How do you know Phil won’t go for the brain when he kills me? It’s the smartest target, given my power.” Joshua was crumpling the picture slowly. It became a ball of scrap before he let it hit the ground.
“Because he loves you like family. The head, the face, that’s a target for the emotionally detached or hateful. Phil won’t be able to bring himself to make the killing blow there. And as long as you don’t heal the spot he does pick, he’ll have no need to. Don’t get any cute ideas about tricking him into bashing your brains in just to spite me, either. All you’ll be doing is condemning someone else with a similar power to die. Maybe even Chad, if he manifests an ability and takes after his dad.”
Joshua was out of his seat in a flash, hands wrapped around Charles’s neck as he lifted the smaller man from his chair and pressed him against a wall. “Don’t you threaten my son! If I do this, you don’t touch him or Miriam. No matter how it goes, even if my head doesn’t give you what you want. Promise me that much, Charles. Let me die at least knowing my family is safe.”
“You have my word. They will never be touched—by me, by outsiders, or by life’s tribulations. They will never want or lack for anything. I will watch over them from the shadows as best I can without ever making myself known. I promise.”
Joshua lowered Charles back down slowly, his hands shaking once more. “I wish your word counted for something. You’re a Hero, and a friend. I’m supposed to be able to trust you.”
“If it’s worth anything, I never wanted it to come to this either,” Charles replied. “But you’re a Hero too, and I’m only asking that you do for your family what you’ve been prepared to do for countless strangers since you took up that title.” He smoothed out the wrinkled front of his suit, undoing Joshua’s damage.
“Die for them.”
162.
The room was fading, a new scene taking its place but still far too blurry to make out, when Alice felt a squeeze on her hand. She looked down to see Mary gripping her fingers tightly. “You okay? That can’t have been easy to watch. I’m sure Abridail can give us a few minutes if we need them.”
“No. We’ve only got so long; there’s no time for breaks.” Alice noted that her voice sounded a touch strained, so she forced herself to take a deep breath and relax. “Besides, I always knew Charles was a bastard. I just didn’t know the lengths he was willing to sink to.”
“Be that as it may, he’s still your dad, even if you’re trying to break that connection. Watching him do that to Chad’s father…” Mary trailed off, squeezing Alice’s hand again rather than finding the right words to close her sentence with.
Nick walked over, pausing briefly to stare at Abridail, who was standing still with his eyes closed, conjuring the next scene for them to view. “You know, people give things like greed and wrath a bad rap. Sure, they’ll cause plenty of folks to make some poor, shortsighted decisions, but in the end they lack staying power. Now love, on the other hand, love is in a whole different category. Love is what can truly turn people into demons.”
Turning from Mary, Alice narrowed her eyes at Nick. “Are you trying to say that what he did was okay because it was motivated by love?”
“Whoa now, I’m not even close to saying that.” Nick threw up his hands in mock surrender, even going so far as to take a half-step back. “Let’s be very clear here: Abridail was right. What we just watched your dad do was unforgivable. He backed a good man into an impossible corner by threatening a child—a baby, really. I worked with some twisted, ruthless fucks in Vegas, and even we had the rule that kids were off-limits. In no way do I think you should forgive or justify what Charles Adair did. But I do believe there’s merit in recognizing the fact that we’re not as far away from becoming him as you might want us to be.”
“You really think any of us could do something like that?” Alice asked.
“Today? No. Life is long, though, and we haven’t been through the same trial that Charles has. Speaking as someone who just said goodbye to one of the only constants in his life, there were some dark times over the past few weeks. If the right person had made me the right offer to turn Gerry healthy or bring him back, I might have made a bad call. All I’m saying is that, as much condemnation as Charles deserves, let’s not act like we could never end up there. Recognizing that potential for weakness in ourselves is how we keep it from sneaking up on us.”
As much as Alice wanted to disagree with Nick, to say that she would never be capable of such a thing, she knew better. Subtlety had done more than taught Alice to sneak around and read faces; it had educated her in the fluid, often murky concept of morality. Sometimes, situations demanded a bad action to reach a good outcome. She’d made those calls herself in her Blonk training and had found success through them. If the person she loved most in the world was in the balance, if she felt she was the only one who could help, if the guilt of the situation were sitting atop her shoulders... no, she still couldn’t see herself doing what Charles had done. But that was Nick’s point, in a way. No one ever could see themselves going over to the side of the wicked, until it happened.
“His actions are impossible to forgive, but not impossible to understand,” Alice said, echoing Abridail’s words from their last session. “What I don’t understand is how things went wrong. With the plan as we heard it, Joshua should have died, Globe would never know what happened, and that’s it. Instead, Globe was labeled a traitor and supposedly killed, while Intra died with his reputation more or less still intact.”
“I’ve got a few guesses on how things went down, but something tells me we won’t need to wait for very long to find out.” Nick pointed to a nearby bit of the slowly building world, where two forms, still blurry, were beginning to grow more distinct.
As the image sharpened, it became easier to see the costumes of Globe and Intra on the men standing in an evacuated street. Several feet away, there was a strange ripple through reality, and then, somehow, came the image of a rooftop with Black Hole and Charles Adair, now clad in his Alchemist costume, looking down on the show below.
A sheen of sweat covered Abridail’s forehead when he finally opened his eyes. “Rather than show you the same event twice, I felt it was more practical to condense both viewpoints so you could watch them happen simultaneously. As much as the world has always wanted to hear the conversation between these two in Intra’s final moments, what occurs as most of their team looks on carries importance as well.”
Alice intended to tell him to start, but her eyes were caught by the team of Black Hole and Alchemist. It was strange to see her father and an HCP professor decked out in costume. They looked so grand, so… well, heroic. Like the sort of people who could be trusted. They were supposed to be Heroes, the ones people turned to when all hope was lost, beacons of power and dedication to keeping the world safe. Yet at least one of them, possibly both, was orchestrating a plan to murder an innocent man and harvest his brain. In that moment, for possibly the first time, Alice understood why the HCP was so grueling and tested so much of who they were, both in character and skill. For a Hero to turn bad, the entire system would be called into question, and people’s faith could get shaken. The HCP had a duty to make sure only the most deserving wore that title, a duty they’d faile
d to fulfill in the case of Charles Adair.
“Okay, Abridail. When you’re ready, start it up. Let’s see what happened with Vince’s dad all those years ago.” Alice turned her back on her own father, though she did stay close enough to hear if he spoke. Any information could prove useful down the line, especially if Abridail thought Alchemist and Black Hole’s discussion was important enough to recreate. Whatever Charles said next, whatever he did, she would face the truth of it head-on.
The world around them flickered slowly into motion, and Globe and Intra began to speak.
163.
“I don’t believe you.” Globe was planted in front of Intra, the ground around his feet no more than rubble as he stared at his fellow Hero unwaveringly.
“What more do you need? You caught me on the way to a bank I’m holding blueprints for, and I just told you I came to rob it. Accept the facts as they are, Globe. Face the truth, and let’s get on with it.” Intra wasn’t giving an inch either. It was impressive how angry and determined he looked. There wasn’t a trace of fear or sadness in his expression. Clearly, he was using his bodily control more freely than he had in the meeting with Charles.
“And I’m saying I don’t believe that you would suddenly turn to crime like this. If money is tight, you can always come to me or Alchemist, and I think you know that. What’s really going on here?”
As Globe spoke, Alice’s eyes darted to Nick briefly. She wondered if he was having the same déjà vu she was. Back during freshman year, when Mary and Hershel were missing, Nick had been the one proclaiming his own wickedness and Vince had refused to accept it. Apparently, aggressive optimism was one of the many things Globe had taught Vince in their time together.