When I was snatched off the sidewalk and thrown into the van, I assumed that I was on my own. Everything in my previous henching experiences taught me that the second a hero had their hands on you, your contract was unofficially terminated. It turned out I was gravely mistaken.
The moment my subdermal implant had been ripped out of my arm, it sent out a distress signal; even though it was destroyed, that final beacon was enough to let Security know that something had gone wrong. A team was dispatched to the last place a reliable signal could be traced, which was the street where I had been abducted. They spoke to June, who was panicked when I went to get the delivery and never returned. She was smart, and hadn’t called the cops, so all of the evidence was still on the scene. My cane was in the gutter, broken but unmistakably mine. The team retrieved it, along with other forensic evidence: the residue from my pepper spray on the ground, one of my shoes that fell off in the struggle, impressions of the boot marks left by my captors, rubber from the van’s tires on the road. It wasn’t much to go on, but the tire treads and rubber composition matched Draft-issue trucks, and one of the moles we had on payroll at Dovecote’s sister medical facility (affectionately called “the Vet,” as in “veterinary hospital”) reported several procedures rescheduled and one surgical theater suddenly prepped and on lockdown.
That was enough for Leviathan. While I was being interrogated, a strike was planned. Liberating me from the subbasement of Dovecote before surgery was almost impossible, but the idea was entertained. The story I heard, which I first assumed a lie, but a very sweet one, was that Leviathan had been prepared to raze the building to the ground and salt the earth when he heard what had happened. When I repeated the story to Leviathan, however, expecting him to refute it, he grew very still.
“They were kind,” he said, “to describe my outburst so judiciously.”
He was in such a towering rage that he’d become the storming, stalking, talking-about-himself-in-the-third-person supervillain not seen in years. The story was that it was Keller who eventually talked him down, promising greater success if they waited until I was moved to the Vet. He agreed to wait—just barely. Imagining that anger made me smile.
Leviathan and Keller saw their chance and green-lit the mission the moment they learned when I was to be transported to surgery, since the Vet was aboveground and far more vulnerable to attack. Supercollider had planned to watch the procedure from the surgical theater’s viewing area, but a trio of villains—Tribulation, Ecstacy, and Rapture—were convinced (with money) that now was the time to test their “ascension engine” on a nearby courthouse. The strike team waited until Supercollider was occupied, cutting it as close as they dared. There was a critical balance between how long they could wait for Supercollider to depart, because as he was leaving I was being prepped for surgery, and the time the procedure was underway. They had a very narrow window to get me out of there, but they made it.
“They had opened you,” Leviathan explained, during one of his visits in the very early stages of my recovery. “They intended to blunt your brain. Not to completely incapacitate you, but to effectively make you useless to me.”
I struggled to find the words to describe the profound violation and disgust I felt about them invading my brain—especially since they had very nearly succeeded in “blunting” me. When the team stormed the operating room, my scalp had been peeled back and a small square of bone already removed from my skull. They’d intended to keep me conscious throughout the procedure, occasionally prodding me into talking while they worked, to make sure they didn’t damage me too badly. A surgeon had only just made the first exploratory slice into my gray matter when the door was blown open and the strike team charged into the room.
When I asked what happened to the medical team performing my unwanted procedure, Leviathan simply assured me that they, as well as the guards posted outside the operating room, had been “neutralized.” Keller provided quite a bit more detail, a play-by-play of the violence, and creatively described their state as “liquefied.”
Back at the compound, I was immediately brought into surgery, where our own medical team was waiting. They were as prepared as they possibly could be; they’d even been able to get my previous medical records from the hospital I’d been admitted to after my leg injury, thanks to a surprisingly sympathetic emergency room doctor. There was some damage to my brain, especially where the surgeon, startled by the tactical team’s assault, had slipped a bit with the leucotome.
Leviathan had worked with his neurosurgeons, supplying advanced technology it was suspected he’d used in his own augmentations and armor. He decided that I would not only be repaired, but upgraded. Rather than content himself with restoring partial sight in my left eye, the nerve was replaced with a composite of stem cells and some “donated” optic nerve fiber whose origins I elected not to ask about, and more bio-modded circuitry was embedded in my retina. The lesions on my brain were knitted with more custom cybernetics, which not only compensated for the damage, but enhanced me.
They did something else to me while I was open on the table, something I hadn’t told anyone. There was a part of the procedure that Leviathan had only disclosed to key medical staff, and even then not completely.
He waited until we were alone to tell me, and I remember staring at him from my one unbandaged eye in utter confusion. My vision was still blurred and focusing was difficult. I didn’t miss, though, that his armor rippled around his mouth, like an insect flexing its mandibles. I’d come to realize that it was a sort of nervous habit, like biting one’s nails. It was one of a small list of things I planned to never tell him I noticed, so that he couldn’t become aware of his tells and stop. Whatever he had to tell me was significant.
“The results from your scans were undeniable,” he explained. “There was a well of untapped potential in you, which would occasionally seep into your conscious and subconscious minds. When you first came here, I deemed it too dangerous to activate your powers. But when the opportunity presented itself while repairing the damage those idiots had inflicted, it was the logical choice.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “I don’t have any powers. I’ve never had any.”
I was tested. We all were, as children. Superheroic Affairs mandated that everyone go through a screening process, so that the exceptionally talented could be raised to be heroes. For most of us, it was as terrifying as it was disappointing. It meant private training facilities and very few, heavily supervised visits with family. That prospect was more attractive to me than for most kids. But I went through the same standardized test that the Draft performed on everyone around puberty, and they came up with nothing extraordinary.
“They said there was nothing . . .” I tried to remember the words. “Nothing that needed further testing.”
There was a rattle from the grate over his mouth, a small chuckle. “Anna, simply because you’ve built unknowingly on top of a graveyard doesn’t mean those bodies aren’t in the ground.”
As I healed, I turned this over and over in my head. I felt no different, and had yet to accidentally levitate or set something on fire. As my mind became less clouded with painkillers and I could focus for longer periods of time, I could detect an ease and quickness to my thoughts, a bit of extra, sparkling clarity, but that was only to be expected from the upgrades I’d received. I wondered what he had found, and what would come. He’d flatly refused to tell me any details, and I realized it was possible that even he didn’t know.
“Don’t wear yourself down trying to figure it all out right away,” he’d suggested with a strangely kind irritability. “Heal first. Come back to work.”
“THIS IS RIDICULOUS.”
Susan shone a light into my good eye, testing my pupillary response. “It’s only for a few weeks, just until the implants fully heal.” She nodded, satisfied with what she’d seen, and turned to make a few notes on my chart. I tilted my head up and down, still getting used to the feeling.
“I bet I look terrible.” I’d lost weight while in recovery, which had hollowed my cheeks and made my features sharper. The hair on the left side of my head was beginning to grow back, a bit of comforting fuzz to mitigate the harshness of the staples holding my scalp together. It wasn’t the general ugliness of my face that bothered me at the moment, however, but the new black patch snugly covering my left eye.
“It makes you look . . . distinguished?” Susan shrugged playfully. She was a Korean woman, a few years younger than I, with an annoying propensity toward optimism.
“It makes me look like a fucking pirate,” I grumbled. I drew my robe a little closer around me in a sad attempt at shabby dignity. At least I was able to wear my pajamas while healing at the medical facility at Leviathan’s compound, instead of a terrible hospital gown.
“Knock, knock.” Greg poked his head in the room. “Whoa! Permission to come aboard, cap’n.”
“You’re fired,” I spat.
“I’m not in your department,” he replied cheerfully, strolling into the room with his hands behind his back. I flatly refused to smile at him when he grinned expectantly.
“I will find some way to have you fired.”
“Y’ar, matey.”
“I hate you.”
“I come bearing chocolate?” He brought out the package he’d been concealing, a small confectionary box in the shape of a star.
“Bring that closer and I may let you live.”
A moment later, Susan, Greg, and I each had a truffle in our mouths—mine was buttercream, Susan got a toffee, and Greg got the extremely cursed orange one, which I decided was an appropriate punishment.
“They still letting you out today?” Greg asked, searching for a new chocolate to get the taste out of his mouth.
“That’s the plan.”
“After one last quick glance from the docs to make sure everything’s healing properly,” Susan added.
Greg nodded to her, then turned back to me. “How’s the noggin?”
“Weird,” I admitted. “We won’t know how the implants have taken until I’m fully healed and I can use this eye again. In the meantime, it feels . . . fuller, like there’s more going on up there.”
“Would you say you’re officially a cyborg now? Are you a pirate cyborg? A piborg?”
I looked at Susan. “Remind me, is this thing weaponized?” I tapped the side of my head.
“I’m afraid not.”
“Damn.”
The medical lead soon arrived. After poking around my stapled-up skull and running a couple of quick cognitive tests, he pronounced me free to go. Susan promised to have the cards, flowers, and sweet gifts my colleagues had sent me moved to my apartment as soon as I was settled in. There was an excellent scotch from Molly, and a small army of cacti and succulents from my team. The pile of presents was dominated by a massive teddy bear from Keller and his goons. It was the size of a goddamn person, clutching a fabric heart that said, “Get Well Soon!” The thought of him, or one of his Meat, picking it out and bringing it over was delightful.
Susan offered to get a wheelchair to move me from the recovery room in Medical to the car waiting outside, but I declined. It felt important to walk under my own power, if I was able. Plus, Molly had gifted me with my newly repaired and upgraded cane, and I wanted to feel it in my hand again. I moved slowly, Greg hovering solicitously at my elbow in case I needed him, but I managed to walk the whole way through the building myself.
Outside the main doors, Melinda waited for me, smiling, the supercar purring behind her like a contented feline. It was a newer model, with a sharp, raptor-like body and odd, iridescent paint job, like an oil slick. “Your chariot, my liege.” I giggled delightedly and she embraced me before helping me into the car, while Greg held the door. My crush on her had become a comfortable thing, a kind of warm aesthetic appreciation that meant I stammered less and complimented her more. Once I was settled, Greg hopped in next to me, and Melinda took her place behind the wheel.
“I’m riding in style today, I see,” I said, running my hands over the plush, enveloping seats.
“I’ve only driven this baby a few times, usually when Leviathan really wants to make an impression. Seems he wanted to spoil you a little.” I felt a pang at his thoughtfulness, and then wondered why the idea of him thinking of me would touch on such a tender spot.
Melinda dropped me off at my apartment with another hug, and Greg walked me up. There was a banner tacked above my door that read, WELCOME BACK, AUDITOR! It made my chest constrict, both painfully and pleasantly.
“Do you want me to come in? Need anything?” he asked when we were at the threshold, suddenly not sure what to do with his hands.
“No, I’m okay, thank you,” I said, unlocking my door with the swipe of a key card I hadn’t used in too long. “I appreciate you escorting me home, but I haven’t been alone for more than a moment since I got back.”
He swooped down and hugged me then, as tight as he dared. I briefly pressed my forehead into his shoulder and patted his back. It was like hugging a great bird, and I could feel his heart hammering.
“You’ll be swashbuckling again before you know it, Captain Jack,” he said, a catch in his voice.
“If you make any more pirate jokes I will get a cutlass from Keller and run you through.”
“Y’ar,” he said sadly, releasing me. I laughed at him and went into my rooms.
My suite was neat as a pin. It had clearly been cleaned, possibly repeatedly, while I was away. There was even a hint of eucalyptus in the air. I dove into my bed, burrowing into the clean sheets and bedding, feeling home. The simple physical comfort wrung a few tears from me.
I eventually sat up, pulling the blanket around my face like a hood. I decided to spend as much of my convalescence and medical leave in bed as possible. Looking around my room happily, robed in my comforter, I noticed something new on my nightstand.
The hand-thrown little pot was filled with rich black loam and a clutch of leaves so green and lush they seemed to glow. A single delicate stalk reached up, and blossoming from it were three black, velvety orchids.
There was no card, only a single thick piece of raw-edged paper. Burned into it was the alchemical symbol for sulphur—the Leviathan Cross.
I touched the branded surface with a fingertip.
ONE OF THE hardest parts of my recovery was screen time—or rather, the lack of it. Medical might have released me on my own recognizance, but I still had to check in multiple times a day with a team of specialists, and something all of them were adamant about was I could not overtax my injured brain or my eye. That meant as little time as possible staring at screens. It turned out, the few times I cheated (I was no better a patient the second time around), it was acutely painful.
This meant that communicating with June while I recovered was impossible, at least directly. While still in Medical I had to communicate with her via Greg, who would read her messages to me and take dictation back. When I was finally back at my apartment, I was told I could try and see if I could tolerate an hour a day. In case I couldn’t, I set up some voice-recognition and voice-to-speech software so I could get my email narrated to me in a soothingly stilted robot voice. I wanted to save my precious hour or less of screen time for texting June.
Her responses, filtered through Greg, had seemed distant and generic; it must be weird talking through the filters of not only two devices but a human in between. I was sure she was saving her best material for the time we could digitally be together again.
I started by sending her a selfie of my stapled scalp with the caption:
peep my Frankenstein
And that’s not all
And then I sent a second picture featuring my eye patch.
I got her read receipt, and then the three little dots that told me she was typing. I’d missed those three little dots, even if looking at them was already giving me a headache.
Is this you? Like, you’re talking by yourself?
Yeah I broke out, I am allowed a few typing minutes a day and I’m wasting them on you
She was quiet a long time. The three composing dots told me she was writing something then erasing it, over and over.
Finally, right when I was about to put my phone down because of the discomfort, she sent,
I can’t talk right now but I’ll message you later, k?
I smiled in relief.
Sure thing, babe
It was working hours and she was probably in the middle of something. I put my phone to sleep and tried to catch a nap myself, as I had been told to do as often as I could.
The emails arrived a few hours later. Two of them, a few minutes apart. The first, coming from her official email, the one with the professional headshot for a profile picture that she sent all her résumés from, was cold and straightforward.
. . . Do not contact me under any circumstances. This includes but is not limited to in-person contact, texts, email, social media messages, phone calls, and mailed postage. I no longer wish to be personally or professionally associated with you, and will be removing you as a contact on all platforms . . .
It was a breakup that read like a restraining order.
The second message was sent from the email address she’d had since sixth grade, the really embarrassing one that still had her flipping the bird while drunk off her ass as the profile picture. That email was only nine words long.
I can’t watch you disappear into another car again.
I stared at those words much longer than I was supposed to, until my good eye started to ache and blur. I finally closed my laptop and walked in small circles around my apartment for a while, numb.
Hench Page 17