~CHAPTER ONE~

The Star Recruit

​

   Richard studied his reflection in the elevator’s polished walls and grimaced. His tailored suit did little to disguise his advancing years: the wrinkles, the liver spots, the fleshy pockets dangling beneath his chin. It wasn’t all that long ago that he was considered Chicago’s most eligible bachelor, the self-made millionaire who’d revolutionized the private Super industry.

   “Look at you now, you old fool. After all these years, still chasing Supers around like errant children.”

   “I beg your pardon?”

   He turned on his heel and flashed the concierge a vacant smile. “I said the Edelsteins have never had so much as an ounce of civic pride, and you can tell Terrence I said that. How is he?”

   “Mr. Edelstein?”

   “No. Him.”

   The concierge fiddled with his cuffs. “Well … to tell you the truth, Mr. Muller, the head housekeeper tells me he hasn’t made so much as a peep in the last seventy-two hours.” His voice fluttered. “Sir, I don’t mean to labor the point, but Mr. Friedrich left strict instructions that he wasn’t to be disturbed, and as much as you are a cherished friend of this establishment, and the Edelsteins —” Richard resisted the urge to roll his eyes, “— my duty is to the residents, and if Mr. Friedrich says he doesn’t want any visitors —”

   “Tell me, in respect to these so-called instructions, have there been any exceptions?”

   “Exceptions?”

   “Any of his ‘special’ friends?”

   “No, I don’t believe so.”

   Richard’s mood brightened. “Then perhaps my constant lecturing is finally getting through to him.” The concierge’s expression changed to one of thinly veiled incredulity; Richard conceded the point with a grunt. “The Daily Spectator may have to report some actual news for once. Oh, don’t look so nervous, young man.” He patted the concierge on the back. “I am here at Christopher’s personal invitation.”

   The concierge’s lips parted in surprise. “But I thought you two were no longer on speaking terms?”

   “Preposterous. Where on Earth did you hear that?”

   “The Daily Spectator.”

   “Of course you did.”

   “Is what they’re saying true?”

   “Rarely, in my experience.”

   “I read that Miami offered him a three-year deal at thirty million. Crazy money, if you ask me —”

   “I couldn’t agree more.”

   “— but then again, he did take out that psychopath up on the north side last summer. My sister and her kids live in the Loop. She saw the whole thing outside her kitchen window.”

   “Did she now?” he said absently.

   The concierge took a deep breath. “Begging your pardon, sir, I know Mr. Friedrich’s reputation — everyone does — but I’ve been here six years and he’s never been less than kind to me.”

   “Then consider yourself fortunate.”

   The elevator slowed to a gentle halt; the doors opened upon a softly lit hallway that ended at the foot of a pair of cast-iron doors inlaid with golden filigree. Richard took a fifty dollar bill from his jacket and slipped it into the concierge’s pocket.

   “Oh, sir, that’s very generous, but we’re not allowed to accept tips, it’s company policy.”

   “Then let me give you some advice instead.” He leaned forward and tapped the side of his nose in a conspiratorial fashion. “Evil men are incapable of kindness, but all kind men are capable of evil.”

​

◊◊◊

​

   The last time Richard had been inside Trillium’s apartment was towards the end of the inaugural year of their then auspicious partnership. To celebrate the one year anniversary of Christopher’s signing, Richard had organized a formal dinner at the Waldorf Astoria to which he’d invited the entirety of Chicago’s social elite. He’d made the seating arrangements himself. The Mayor was to take pride of place beside the guest of honor (their relationship having gotten off to a rocky start on account of Christopher’s blatant disregard for public property). Never one to waste an opportunity, Richard had planned to smooth things over with a rich slathering of white gold caviar washed down with a gallon or two of Salon Cuvee.

   Yet Christopher being Christopher (or Trillium as he'd been christened by his classmates at the Galloway academy for Supers) had eschewed the dinner in favor of throwing a riotous shindig in his own seventy-fifth floor penthouse apartment, a now notorious event that reached its zenith when a stark naked man scaled the Edelstein Center’s radio tower and shot a water cannon at a passing police helicopter (the naked individual being Trillium himself, of course, Richard having bribed half the Chicago police department to keep his name out of the papers).

   Little had changed since, not least the apartment. Richard tucked his platinum key-card back inside his jacket as the double-doors opened onto a cavernous sunken living room whose broad marble steps encircled a garish red leather sofa. A magnificent grand piano sat in the shadow of a spiraling staircase trimmed with golden flourishes. Glowing embers smoldered in the depths of an enormous hearth crowned with a hand-carved limestone mantel featuring a pair of semi-naked women entwined in a tangle of roots with a distinctly phallic bent.

   Never one to shy away from an opportunity to toot his own horn, Trillium had added his own subtle touch to the living room’s gaudy aesthetic by artfully placing a self-styled 15-foot tall golden statue right in the middle. Spanning not one but two floors (courtesy of a giant hole in the ceiling that crudely accommodated its prodigious head), even now, nine years after it’d been airlifted into the apartment by none other than the Airfox himself, the statue’s unabashed nakedness (and the intricate detail in which it was so meticulously rendered) had lost none of its shock value. 

   Richard shook his head at the plethora of trash, and not just the decor: empty wine bottles, dirty glasses, and miscellaneous spillage (of what, he dared not speculate) littered the designer furniture everywhere he looked.

   “Christopher?”

   His voice circled the living room. From somewhere to his right came a muffled clang. He tiptoed his way through the obstacle course of Dom Perignon and peered down the hallway. A stench of cigarettes and stale alcohol tickled the end of his nose.

   Of all the rooms in the penthouse, the most magnificent view belonged to the gargantuan master bedroom. Its floor-to-ceiling windows opened upon a stunning vista of the spectacular city skyline. From his vantage point by the door, Richard saw the Chicago River curling a serpentine path amongst the buildings, a purple ribbon glittering at the feet of twinkling monoliths.

   In keeping with the general aesthetic, the bedroom was a disaster, or at least what little Richard could see of it in the pervading darkness. The furniture lay scattered about the floor, along with what seemed the entire contents of Trillium’s humongous wardrobes. Squinting through the gloom, Richard noted the faint outline of a black scorch mark running the entire length of the wall above the king-sized bed’s marble-fresco headboard. To his left, the mirror above the bar (of course there was a bar) had been reduced to silvery shards littering the varnished hardwood; they glittered in the moonlight.

   A silhouetted figure sat in a leather armchair by the window, a cigarette smoldering in a shallow ashtray by his elbow. A gleaming broadsword rested against the chair — the Joie De Vivre, Trillium’s famous blade.

   Richard took a silk handkerchief from his pocket and covered his nose. “You’ve certainly outdone yourself this time, haven’t you? Perhaps I should keep your handyman on retainer?”

   The figure barely stirred.

   Richard up righted a chair and placed it by the foot of the bed. He took a seat, fussing with the tails of his jacket. “Well, here we are at last. I must confess, I was somewhat relieved to finally hear from you. This little spat of ours has gone on far too long for my liking. It does us both a disservice, wouldn’t you agree?”

   The figure remained still. Richard shuffled forward in his chair and leveled Trillium with a cold stare that penetrated the darkness like a shaft of light. “Let’s drop the charade, shall we? I’ve grown weary of these games, Christopher. Nine years of nothing but petulant rot. I gave you Chicago. I gave you fame. Fortune! And what have you given me in return? A drunken has-been who can’t so much as crawl out of bed without pumping his body full of toxic waste. You’re an embarrassment, not only to yourself, but even worse, to my agency — my legacy!”

   He let his words sink in. Yet again, his star Super ignored him, his cigarette slowly turning to ash. Richard shook his head and loosened his tie. “God help me. I don’t know what you hoped to achieve with all this, but you’ve failed.” In spite of his foul mood, he smirked.           “We both know that if I were to terminate your contract, it would mark the beginning of the end. Not mine, Christopher. Oh no, the Muller agency will outlive us both. Think about it: no more cover-ups; no more turning a blind eye to your so-called extracurricular activities. Good heavens, for once in your life you’d have to act like a law-abiding citizen …”

   His words trailed off into a confused silence. A tiny pinprick of light no bigger than a firefly had suddenly appeared a few feet above the bed. He squinted; on closer inspection it took the form of a crystalline dandelion, its feathery tufts infused with a strange, hypnotic glow. It floated above the duvet as if trapped on a warm breeze.

   Richard slowly rose from his chair. His feet had begun to involuntarily edge toward the strange apparition when a sudden explosion of light stung the back of his eyes. He instinctively threw up his hands to ward off the stunning brilliance; the light scythed through flesh and bone and scalded his retinas as though he were staring directly into a blazing furnace. He shrieked in pain as an unnatural heat enveloped his body.

   He crashed to his knees, tiny rivulets of molten magma coursing through his veins. His skin hardened like a barren river bed in the baking sun — crack! Blood rushed to the surface and dried instantly in the blistering heat, blackened lines bisecting his body like a morbid patchwork quilt. His screams withered to a rasping death rattle as the air in his lungs evaporated, then, just as quickly as the torture had begun, everything turned black.

   The scorching heat vanished in an instant. He slumped forward; life returned to him in great, gulping breaths. His head swam, the sound of blood rushing to his brain crashing against the inside of his skull, yet he heard the grim, authoritative voice as plainly as though it’d whispered directly in his ear:

   “Light, Manfred.”

    The darkness fled and revealed a sight that momentarily caused him to forget all his pain. Standing on the other side of the room was a giant. The colossal figure was draped in shadow — a Super-suit so utterly bereft of color it appeared to be nothing but a contour sketching his muscular physique. A long, midnight cape fell from the giant’s shoulders, capped on either side by wrought-iron pauldrons sculptured in a likeness of snarling reptilian heads. His helmet bore a wild Mohawk crest that added another foot to his already impressive height, but perhaps the most startling aspect of his appearance — aside from his general aura of menace — was the fact that he was entirely monochrome. Beneath his helmet, his thick-boned and oddly gaunt face was frighteningly pale, yet its intensity was a mere reflection of the glowing whip that burned at his hip.

   Richard’s attention was quickly drawn to a second figure lying on the bed. The lithe, long-limbed woman wore a subtler version of her companion’s outfit, yet no less intimidating. Her face was hidden behind a multi-faceted chrome mask, each of its three distinct sides depicting a cherubic child’s face — all plump cheeks and rosebud lips — the effect of which was oddly unsettling.

   Richard gawked at the pair of them. In spite of his shock (not to mention the pain coursing through his body), his wits managed to gather themselves into a glimmer of consciousness:

   “The Rubicon!”

   His hand shot to his throat and grasped for the electronic pedant he kept on the end of a silver necklace. Before his fingers could close around it, it was seized by another and yanked from his neck. An impossibly handsome young man flashed him a grin full of pearly white teeth; he dropped the pendant to the floor and gleefully ground it beneath the heel of his boot.

   There was a creak of leather as Trillium rose from his armchair. Only it wasn’t Trillium. The figure whistled sharply. On command, three more Rubicon emerged from the master bedroom’s adjacent en-suite. The first two were identical clones of the masked woman lying atop the bed, but it was the bruised and bloodied figure they dragged between them that sent a shower of ice tumbling into the pit of Richard’s stomach.

   It was Trillium, or what was left of him. His head hung limp between his shoulders, his hair a matted pulp of blood and gristle. A kaleidoscope of lesions carpeted every inch of his naked body, his feet dragging a trail of glistening dark claret across the carpet.

   The masked clones dropped Trillium to the floor with a heavy thud; a sickening cry of pain died in his throat the moment the first clone stamped down on the back of his neck. The second began casually rummaging through the famous Super’s scattered belongings.

   Richard tore his gaze away from the ghastly visage and stared at the Rubicon’s infamous leader. “What’s the meaning of all this? What do you want with him?”

   The man fixed him with a stare that sapped the heat from his body:

   “Not him, Richard. You.”

   Richard looked around the room at the assembled Supers. Each wore a trademark black Super-suit that took its inspiration from Roman antiquity. The metal cuirass — or lorica segmentata, a set of overlapping plates held together with leather straps — had been re-imagined as impenetrable interlocking carbon layers. They’d each personalized their suits in subtle ways: the giant had dipped his Mohawk crest in red paint; the handsome man’s pauldrons were inlaid with serrated blades; the masked woman — well, she had a mask, didn’t she?

   Richard gripped the bedpost as two more Rubicon entered the room from down the hall. Fine-boned and exuding an aristocratic air, they were identical in all but sex. Unlike their brethren, their heads were bare, each sporting a crop of short-cut platinum-blond hair. The male yawned and slumped into an antique armchair by the door. His sister perched herself on his knee.

   “America’s richest Super and he’s got nothing to show for it but tacky shit.”

   “Tasteless garbage,” echoed his twin.

   Hemmed in on all sides by the Rubicon, Richard broke out into a cold sweat. “If it’s money you want, name your price.”

   The handsome one chuckled. “You hear that, Eddie? He’s trying to buy us off.”

   Eddie Prince, leader of the Rubicon, placed his finger to the tip of the cigarette perched between his lips. It began to smolder; he inhaled deeply. “It’s not your money we want, Mr. Muller.” He casually tapped the side of his head — clack, clack, clack. “It’s what’s in here.”    

   Unlike his henchmen, Eddie Prince’s Super-suit was of a different cut: a genuine service-issue uniform straight from the Conservatory itself. Plain. Simple. Functional. White with a splash of blue across the shoulders, boots, and forearms, a pair of red chevrons sutured to his upper-left arm, one of which was half missing. Truth be told, whenever anyone was unfortunate enough to come face-to-face with Eddie Prince, their attention was rarely concerned with his suit, but his head. Many years ago, long after the Conservatory had terminated his employment, Prince had suffered a highly publicized beating, the result of which was a shopping list of injuries that would’ve seen a mere mortal stuffed into a pine box: ruptured kidney; collapsed lung; broken ribs; shattered femur; fractured vertebrae; subdural hematoma. According to the medical reports, which Richard himself had personally witnessed via his connections at the OPA (it paid to know his market), he’d acquired no fewer than sixty-five broken bones. If that wasn’t bad enough, his head had taken the brunt of punishment. The sheer magnitude of his injuries had forced the surgeons to take the drastic measure of removing nearly half his shattered cranium and replace it with an artificial shell made of an experimental ceramic-carbon composite.

   The resulting effect was unsettling to say the least. The bone-white skull cap reflected the evening light as Prince tapped his cigarette into the ashtray. “Apologies for the inconvenience, Mr. Muller, but I have a question for you. Where on this fine Chicago evening might one find Roy Caesar?”

   The pain pulsing through Richard’s torso twisted his attempt at laughter into a tortured whimper. “You can’t be serious? How the hell should I know? I run a private agency.”

   The masked clone ground her foot into the soft flesh at the base of Trillium’s neck — the battered Super winced.

   In many ways, it was odd that they’d never before crossed paths. The Muller agency had been a stalwart of the Super-trade for going on thirty years (ever since Supers had unionized). Richard had always prided himself on having a keen eye for talent, yet somehow Prince had slipped his net and fell directly into the greedy paws of the Conservatory.

   Eddie Prince’s story was all too common — a rising star thrust into the limelight, used and abused by the very institution that had given him his wings, then tossed aside in favor of someone bigger, better, and stronger. As per Conservatory protocol, his background had been largely erased from public record. As far as his movements after being dismissed from the Conservatory were concerned, the facts had become so entangled with rumor that one was indistinguishable from the other. What Richard did know, however, is that if Prince had wanted him dead, he would’ve breathed his last the moment he entered the room. This was something he recognized.

   A negotiation.

   Emboldened, he struggled to his feet and took a tremulous step forward. He made a show of casually straightening his tie in an effort to disguise his trembling fingers. “Let me get this straight. You broke in, took my estranged star-Super hostage, lured me here under the false pretense of reconciliation, all so you could ask me the whereabouts of the most famous Super in the world?”

   “A little bird told me that you have an arrangement with the Conservatory.”

   Richard scoffed. “If by ‘arrangement’ you mean they steal all my best Supers, then yes.”

   “Covert missions. Black Ops. Jobs the OPA can’t be seen dirtying their hands with.” Prince glanced down at Trillium’s prostrate body.     “That’s the deal you cut with our mutual friend here, isn’t it? He’d do all the Conservatory’s dirty work, and in return, you’d make him famous.”

   The handsome Rubicon kicked Trillium in the ribs with the toe of his boot; Trillium gasped. “You hear that, big boy? You’re a star!”

   Richard snorted. “Where’d you hear such nonsense?”

   Prince knelt beside Trillium and ran his callused hand beneath his chin. The wounded Super flinched from his grasp. “But that kind of work weighs on a man’s soul, doesn’t it, old friend? You were always soft. Dana saw right through you, didn’t he?” He rose to his feet. “Let me guess. He started having second thoughts. He tired of the killing. The weak ones always do. He wanted out of his contract, but you wouldn’t let him. So he tried to shame you into it, force your hand by bringing the great house of Muller into disrepute. There’s nothing more precious to an old man than his legacy.”

   “Absurd,” said Richard.

   “My question to you, Mr. Muller, is what’s your end of the deal?”

   “What deal?”

   The female twin groaned. “Oh, I do hate the coy ones.”

   Prince’s cold stare ate at Richard’s resolve:

   “I … well, yes, I did, but that was the past,” he stammered. “The Muller agency is proudly independent —”

   “Caesar, Mr. Muller. Where is he?”

   The old man shivered; the Rubicon leader’s aquiline features grew crueler the longer he stared.

   “I hear rumors only.”

   Prince’s eyes narrowed.

   “Word is that he’s on a top-secret mission —”

   “Details of which can’t be divulged for fear of endangering the outcome of said mission,” said the masked woman. “Yes, we’ve heard it all before. Eddie, please, let’s just kill him and be done with it. I don’t care if he knows anything or not, he’s exhausting.”

   Richard’s pulse pounded in his ears. “Now just you wait one second! Killing me will solve nothing. Tell me what you want and I swear on my life that I’ll do everything in my power to give it to you.”

   “What I want is Caesar.”

   “To what end?”

   “To do to him what he did to me,” said Prince. He ran a hand over his skull cap; the strange, blueish-hue of his skin contrasted starkly with the bone-white of his artificial cranium.

   “After all these years, still you thirst for revenge?”

   “My Prime always said I was a stubborn bastard.” 

   “Even if Caesar really did beat you within an inch of your life —” Prince’s right-eye twitched, “— just what do you propose to do? Challenge him to a rematch?” he said incredulously.

   “I intend to kill him.”

   Richard stared at him in disbelief. “I’d heard rumors you’d lost your mind, but this is insanity. Caesar is invincible.”

   To Richard’s surprise, the Rubicon leader smiled. “Everybody has a weakness.”

   Before Richard could express his shock at Prince’s limited grasp on reality, there was a loud clang. The second of the masked woman’s clones yanked a silver dish from a pile of debris that formerly resembled a wardrobe.

   “What’s this?” she asked.

   The first clone squeezed Trillium’s neck; the ailing Super coughed and spluttered:

   “No idea,”  he wheezed.

   “That’s a serving tray,” said the handsome Rubicon. “My old Nan had one just like it.”

   Richard’s loud snort drew everyone’s attention; he blushed.

   “Well?” said the clone.

   “It’s a chafing dish. Antique. One of a kind, in fact.”

   “What on earth is a chafing dish?”

   “It’s used to keep food warm. That one in particular was owned by the thirty-third President of the United States. I gave it to      Christopher as a house-warming gift,” he said with a note of pride.

   In spite of his predicament, Trillium managed a horridly bloody smile. “I’ve been using it to soak my feet.”

   The clone tossed the dish aside. Richard watched as it rolled across the floor in a wide circle — miraculously skirting the detritus littering the shag — and came to rest less than an inch from Trillium’s right hand. Bloodied, burned, and almost certainly broken, Trillium’s right-index finger slowly unfurled itself and stretched towards it.

   Richard saw Prince’s eyes widen. “No —”

   With a sudden whoosh, the antique chafing dish flew off the floor and struck Trillium’s captor with a resounding blow to the back of her head; she toppled forward and crashed against the bar. 

   Trillium let out an almighty roar. It was joined by a high-pitched keening that rattled the windows; the gleaming broadsword launched itself across the room. Prince pitched his head left; the razor-sharp blade passed a whisker short of his neck and flew straight into Trillium’s hand. The sword guard — an elaborate ribbon of metal that twisted an eclectic path around the leather-bound hilt — contracted like a writhing snake and ensnared his hand.

   The magnificent blade thrust skyward and used its own momentum to hoist Trillium’s broken body off the floor. He stumbled forward; the sword corrected his balance. He spat a glob of bloody phlegm on the floor and regarded the blade with the look of a man reunited with a long lost love:

   “Hello, gorgeous.”

   The marble headboard exploded in a shower of shattered concrete. Richard cowered as several shiny objects shot through the air and affixed themselves to Trillium’s body.  The silver armor glistened in the moonlight. Granted, eschewing the superiority a modern Super-suit in favor of hand-crafted metal armor polished to a brilliant shine wasn’t the most logical (nor understated) of choices for a Super, yet Richard had to admit that in that very moment it did inspire a welcome sense of awe. His heart swelled as Trillium raised his sword, pointed it at Prince, and smiled through broken teeth:

   “Let’s call it a night, Eddie. I’ve got a rotten headache.”

   Prince clicked his fingers. Manfred tore his whip from his belt and lashed out — snap! Trillium dodged to his left and caught the glowing tendril on his magnificent blade. With a twist of the hilt, he tore the whip from the giant’s grasp.

   “Behind you!” Richard yelled

   In one fluid motion, Trillium raised his elbow and smacked the handsome Rubicon across the bridge of his nose with the diamond-shaped pommel. At the point of impact, Prince’s henchman turned transparent, the hilt passing directly between his eyes and emerging from the back of his head. Quick on the uptake, Trillium delivered a second blow that struck him square in the chest. This time, the handsome young man transformed a fraction too late; he tumbled backward, his body falling onto the bed where he was simply absorbed by his masked companion. Her body twitched, limbs violently contorting. She launched herself off the mattress and threw herself at Trillium. His sword sparked against her steel gauntlets. A sharp hit to her solar plexus knocked her off her feet; she hit the floor with an OOMPHF! and the ghostly form of the handsome Rubicon tumbled out of her.

   “Do that again, Darius, and I’ll slit your throat,” she scowled.

   The handsome Rubicon resumed a tangible form. “Don’t pretend you didn’t love every second.”

   “Kill them, Christopher! Do it now!” Richard shouted desperately.

   The words had no sooner left his mouth when Trillium was hit by the flying female twin and crashed into the wall. Staggering forward in a heady daze, he swung aimlessly; the twin ducked, dodged, then narrowly avoided a third wayward stroke by slipping beneath her opponent’s arm and deftly maneuvering behind his back. She threw up her hands and projected her palms forward; an invisible force gripped Trillium’s body — “RUGH!” — and lifted him off his feet.

   Her male twin approached from the other side of the room, his pose mirroring that of his sister. Trapped by an invisible force, Trillium struggled in vain to free himself. It was no use. His rigid body floated a foot above the floor, arms outstretched, his face straining with effort as he desperately willed his limbs to break free. The air rippled with an electric pulse as the twins’ polar-opposite magnetic fields fought each other for supremacy, their captive helplessly trapped between them.

   “Manfred, be a good boy and take his sword from him, would you?” said the female.

   The giant seized the sword by its guard and pulled. It wouldn’t budge. He drew back his elbow and struck Trillium so hard across the temple that it dented his helmet; the metal ribbon loosened its hold. Manfred had no sooner freed the sword from its owner’s grasp when the four-foot long blade leapt at his face and almost took off his nose.

   Darius cackled.

   “Leave it,” said Prince. “That sword has only ever known one master. It’ll likely cut your throat in your sleep.”

   To Richard’s shock, Trillium laughed. “You just never understood her, Eddie,” he croaked, his voice laboring under the weight of the twins’ suffocating hold. “She’s a romantic. All she wants is to be shown a good time.”

   Manfred shoved the recalcitrant sword through a loop of his belt; that, too, proved a struggle, the sword demonstrably unwilling.

   “Was this really your plan?” Trillium continued. “To hold me hostage? I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised. The Conservatory didn’t hire you for your brains, did they? Nor your looks.”

   Prince stared directly at Richard, eyes hard as stone. “Hostage? No. We both know Mr. Muller here is unmoved by sympathy. Acts of wanton violence, however …”

   A strange scent began to mingle with the odor of sweat and dust — a nauseatingly sweet yet putrid stench. What little remained of Trillium’s humor faded along with his grin. He began to breathe heavily beneath his metal breastplate. Locked in the twins’ embrace, his face twitched and contorted, his cheeks turning an alarming red. A desperate whimper escaped his lips:

   “You — you fucking coward!”

   Richard’s stomach churned as the scent took on a familiar note — the unmistakable fetor of burning fat. He lurched toward Prince; the handsome Rubicon shoved him back. “You can’t do this — no! Please! Stop!”

   Trillium howled in pain. Richard watched in horror as the Super’s silver armor began to glow from within. Sweat poured down his swollen face, his features distorting into an animalistic mask of pure agony. Prince clenched his fist tighter; a dense black smoke wafted up from between his fingers and curled into ringlets. An awful hissing sound filled the room — Trillium writhed violently as his internal organs began to boil in their own bodily fluids. He screamed. And screamed.

   And screamed.

   The stench took on a thick, coppery taste so pungent it provoked Richard’s gag reflex; he doubled-over, tears streaming down his ashen cheeks. What little skin was visible beneath Trillium’s metal armor burned an unnatural red, then, to Richard’s utter revulsion, it began to bubble and pop.

   His star Super, his multi-million dollar recruit, the pride of his agency, erupted in flame. Such was its white-hot intensity that all but Prince averted their eyes. Within seconds he was reduced to a charred corpse encased in red-hot steel. His head slumped forward; his helmet sloughed from his molten scalp and tumbled to the floor, taking most of the skin with it.

   The twins released their hold and let his body drop; it landed with an awful, wet thud, a smoldering monstrosity encased in its own metal coffin.

   A mournful wail filled the room. It took them all a moment to realize it was coming from the sword at Manfred’s belt. The giant swatted the hilt.

   Richard dragged his eyes away from Trillium’s smoking corpse and mustered what little courage he had left. “You … you monster!”

   Prince waved his hand and shook off the last tendrils of acrid smoke encircling his fingers. “Real tears, Richard? Or are your eyes simply stinging from all the smoke?”

   The old man wiped the back of his hand across his cheek. His shoulders slumped forward under the weight of the horror he’d just witnessed, yet even as his own mortality hung in the balance, a flicker of defiance flared within the cowered remains of his courage.          “And to think I used to chastise myself for missing the opportunity to snatch you out from under the Conservatory’s nose. I thought you a man of rare talent, a world-beater, but you’re nothing more than a mindless brute.”

   The handsome Rubicon waggled a finger. “Now, now, if you can’t say anything nice —”

   “You want Caesar? He’ll come for you. He’ll come for you all, and do you know what will happen when he does?”

   Prince’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “Enlighten me.”

   “He will eradicate you.”

   The corners of Prince’s mouth curled back to reveal a devilish grin.

   Richard recoiled from him. “You think because you’ve taken out a few piddling Alphas that you’re suddenly indestructible? They were nothing compared to him. I’ve seen his metrics. I know what he’s capable of.”

   “We handled your boy, old man,” said Darius. “Plus Eight-ball, The Redeemer —”

   “Pollux, Wayfinder, Preston Vogel — yes, quite the morbid resume,” Richard spat.

   Prince’s skull cap pulled forward under the weight of his frown. “… Vogel?”

   “What? Forgotten him already?”

   “On the contrary. I was quite fond of the old windbag. I never laid a finger on him.”

   “Preposterous! You killed him in cold blood.”

   Prince appeared lost in thought for a moment, then regarded Richard with what could only be described as abject disappointment.    “Apologies, Mr. Muller, I’ve made a terrible mistake. It appears you can’t help me after all.”

   Richard’s heart fluttered; panic flooded his body. “What? Wait. No, no, I can help you! Of course I can. I have contacts! I know the directors personally —”

   “Darius, would you see our guest out?”

   The handsome Rubicon snapped to attention. Richard hastily retreated as Darius slipped a cashmere scarf from Trillium’s discarded belongings; he hooked it around Richard’s shoulders and yanked him close:

   “Best you rug up, old man. Wouldn’t want you to catch a chill.”

   Without warning, Darius merged with his body. An enormous weight pressed down on Richard from all directions. He felt his consciousness cower beneath the sudden intrusion of a shapeless presence, one that oozed malice. His muscles spasmed as the ghostly apparition bent his limbs to his will. 

   “Any last words?” he heard his own voice say in a mocking tenor. “No? Okay, then. I guess that’s goodnight and adieu!” 

   Like a sprinter from the starter’s blocks, his legs propelled him forward. His eyes widened in horror as the Chicago skyline came rushing towards him at full speed. A split-second before he hit the glass, the Super’s body detached from his own and jettisoned him forward. The scream that had been silently building inside him burst forth from his lips as he crashed through the tall plane of glass and plunged over the edge of the seventy-fifth floor.

   Darius skidded to a halt by the window’s edge and resumed his solid form. “Well, as much as I enjoy throwing executives out of high-rises, that was a huge waste of time.”

   Prince closed his eyes and savored the crisp night air wafting over his face.

   “Seriously, if the Conservatory’s just going to keep ignoring us, why bother?” said the female twin. “They’re never going to send Caesar after us, no many how many Guardians we kill.”

   The giant cleared his throat with a sound like a diesel engine turning over on a cold winter’s morning: “I like killing Guardians.”

   “I know you do, dear.”

   “We kill Guardians because it undermines the public’s faith in their government,” said Prince.

   “That’s just it, boss — I don’t think they care,” said the male twin.

   “Then we must make them care,” said Manfred.

   Darius mocked him with an obscene gesture. “That’s all well and good, but how?”

   Prince knelt beside Trillium and picked up the fallen Super’s blackened helmet. He paused a moment in solemn reflection, then rested it upon the dead man’s chest. “Christopher was one of the strongest Supers I’ve ever known, and what has his death wrought us but another pile of ash?” The Rubicon looked at each other in confusion. “Manfred is right.” He closed his eyes and wrapped his hands around his skull cap; his fingers pressed so tightly against the carbon composite that they heard it shift. The twins exchanged a worried glance.

   “You okay, boss?” said the masked woman.

   The big Rubicon leader shuddered and slowly rose to his feet. “If the Conservatory keeps sending their agents, we’ll do what we must to survive,” he said finally. “But I think it’s time we targeted a new enemy.”

   “Who?” said the twins.

   He raised his hand and gazed intently at his charcoal-colored fingers; his nails were cracked with an oddly galvanized sheen of spotted black. He took a deep breath and rolled his head around atop his shoulders as if to shake off the last of his migraine, then turned and faced his motley crew:

   “The weak.”

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