Words: 58k+
Links: https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/31788
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/refrain-worm-dune.1223987/
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/112415/refrainwormdune
(In the hidden corridors of time and mind lies the great gamble. So it was that Paul Atreides—Muad'Dib, the one foretold as Kwisatz Haderach—steeped his soul in the Water of Life. Yet where he should have emerged to the familiar spice-laden dust of Arrakis, he instead awoke to the mocking giggles of a high-school classroom. His body not his own. His memories fleeting, borrowed from a boy named Greg Veder.
Cast into a strange universe where grim forces and towering powers clash, Paul's once-certain vision falters. The lessons of the desert remain, but the path ahead is no longer lit by starlight and prophecy. Faced with impossible enemies and a cosmic tapestry woven from alien threads, Muad'Dib must glean anew what it means to stand at the nexus of fate before he is swallowed by a future he cannot truly see)
PROLOGUE
The bell rang, a dull clang that echoed through Winslow High's corridors like a hammer striking warped steel. I shoved my notebook into my bag and stood up to head for my next class. Yesterday had been a blur. I was still running on the half-baked adrenaline of last night's fight—if I could even call it a fight. More like a frantic scramble to stay alive. But after defeating Lung, or helping to, and meeting Armsmaster for the first time, I'd woken this morning feeling like I was suspended in someone else's life. Today, in comparison, was just… school. Mundane. Suffocating. The contrast gnawed at me as I shuffled out of the computer lab, my sneakers scuffing the linoleum.
I'd spent most of Mrs. Knott's class hunched over a monitor, the hum of the ancient machine buzzing in my ears while I scrolled through Parahumans Online. The forums were alive with chatter about Lung's takedown—Armsmaster's takedown, technically. We'd agreed he'd take the credit, and he had, with all the stoic efficiency I'd expected from the man. "New Hero Debuts?" one thread speculated, but it was buried under praise for the Tinker's latest triumph. No mention of bugs. No mention of me. Fine. That was the plan. Still stung, though.
I had departed with one final search: me. Or rather, "Bug Girl," "Bug," "Insect Cape," anything that might prove I existed last night. My heart did an uncomfortable skip when I saw the thread. "Bug." That's all the post title said. One word, cryptic. The message beneath it was short: some thanks and a request to meet later from "Tt". There was no direct mention of the Undersiders, but it was obvious who posted it. My stomach had twisted—half thrill, half dread—and I'd logged out before I could overthink it.
Even now, trudging toward World Issues with Mr. Gladly, I still couldn't shake it. Being a cape, it felt unreal. I adjusted my glasses, pushing the thought down as I stepped into the classroom. The air smelled faintly of chalk and sweat, the usual Winslow bouquet. Madison was already there, perched at a desk near the front, her posse orbiting her like flies on rotting fruit. Sophia wasn't with them—track practice, probably—but the others filled the gap, giggling over something on a phone. I kept my head low, aiming for the seat by the door. Quick exit. Easy escape.
Except it wasn't. The chair was soaked, orange juice pooling on the cracked plastic, an empty bottle tipped over on the floor nearby. The memory hit me like a slap—locked in the bathroom, sticky grape juice running down my hair and clothes, their laughter ringing off the tiles. My jaw tightened. I willed my expression to stay blank and moved on, picking another seat a few rows back.
When Mr. Gladly entered, all cheer and gelled hair, he spent the first few minutes chattering about the weekend—nothing I could bring myself to care about—until he introduced the main activity. The chatter died to a murmur and he launched into another spiel—something about group work, sharing homework, a prize for the best effort. Vending machine treats, he said, like we were still in middle school. I tuned him out, watching the room split into clusters.
I didn't bother trying to team up with anyone popular. That was begging for rejection. Instead, I walked up to Mr. Gladly's desk, hoping to kill two birds with one stone: avoid attention and secure a replacement textbook. My previous one was unsalvageable, courtesy of Winslow's resident harpies.
Mr. Gladly looked up as I approached, eyebrows raised. "Taylor? What's up?"
"I need a new textbook," I said, keeping my voice flat.
He frowned, flipping through a stack of papers. "What happened to your old one?"
"I lost it," I lied.
His frown deepened. "You know that's thirty-five dollars for a new one, right? You don't have to pay now, but I'll need that by the end of the week."
"Right," I said, forcing a nod. "Thanks." I didn't have thirty-five bucks, but I'd figure it out. He handed me a new copy, and I turned back to the room.
The groups were mostly set now. Madison's clique was laughing too loud about something most likely inane. The other clusters were a mix of jocks, nerds, and the in-betweeners, all pretending to care about the assignment. Then there was the leftover table—Sparky and Greg, heads down on their desks, a pair of human paperweights. Weird. Sparky asleep wasn't news; the guy drifted through life in a daze, all vacant stares and mumbled words. Greg, though? Greg didn't sleep in class. He was a live wire—twitchy, loud, always spewing whatever popped into his head. Seeing him slumped there, face slack, sent a ripple of unease through me.
I hesitated, then slid into the empty chair at their table. Not like I had much of a choice. My new backpack—replacement for the one ruined earlier—thumped against the floor as I set it down. I pulled out my homework, a neat list of ways capes had shaped society: infrastructure, crime, economy, culture. I'd spent hours on it, cross-referencing PHO posts and old news articles. It was good. Solid. I folded my hands over it, ignoring the flickers of conversation around us, waiting for… something. Sparky snored softly. Greg didn't so much as twitch.
Minutes later, Julia—one of Madison's friends—walked in late. She made a show of batting her eyelashes at Mr. Gladly, who politely but firmly told her to join my group. Her face soured. She trudged over, her eyes sliding across me, Sparky, and Greg like she'd stepped in something foul. "Ew," she muttered, just loud enough to be heard. I clenched my jaw and refused to bite. She dragged a chair around so she could angle herself closer to Madison's group. They scooted their own chairs toward us, forming a cluster nearby that let them whisper between themselves. Great.
I ignored them, focusing on the assignment. But the boys were still asleep. Gladly would notice if we didn't at least pretend to work. I nudged Sparky's arm. "Hey. We're supposed to share homework." He stirred, blinked at me with bleary eyes, then dropped his head back down. I tried again, sharper this time. Nothing.
I sighed and turned to Greg, despite really not wanting to, jostling him awake."Hey. Wake up."
Disoriented, he lifted his head slowly, like it weighed a ton. Narrowed red-rimmed eyes flickered up to lock on mine, and for a second, I swore he didn't recognize me. Every line of his posture was tense, hostile. My heart gave a quick, traitorous stutter. Then, just like that, he forced it all into a neutral mask, blinking rapidly.
"Are you ok?" I asked following a brief pause. He didn't answer. Instead, his gaze flicked around the room, taking in the clusters of students, the hum of voices. His shoulders were no longer stiff, nor was his jaw tight. Still, it was odd seeing him like this; expressionless, no goofy grin, no flood of words—just silence. I frowned.
"We need to—" I began, but he just stared, silent. Finally, I placed my assignment in front of him, trying not to let my uncertainty show. He eyed the notes for a minute before taking it without a word, flipping through the pages. His gaze skimmed the lines, unreadable. I watched him, unease prickling up my spine.
That was when Julia made her presence known. "Greg," she said, tapping her nails on the desk for attention. "Hand that over. Let me see it." For a moment, I feared he would.
It was deeply unsettling when he didn't.
Greg's gaze flickered up at her, evaluating. The seconds dragged until Julia, flustered, repeated, "Did you hear me? Pass it over." Her voice got louder, drawing attention from the rest of Madison's group.
He exhaled, then said, in the most monotone voice I'd ever heard from him, "I heard you. Not in the mood for your antics today, Julia. Leave me alone."
The words hung there, heavy as lead. Julia blinked, dumbfounded, as if she couldn't believe Greg Veder—of all people—would talk to her in that manner.
"What did you just say?" she hissed, her confusion finally morphing into anger. Greg, however, didn't answer. Instead, he just flipped through the rest of my assignment, closed it, and handed it back to me.
"It's alright," he muttered, leaning back in his seat. Then he closed his eyes.
And that was that. Julia blinked, face reddening as Madison whispered something and the rest of the group snickered. My heart was hammering with confusion, and I clutched my notes tight to my chest, feeling suddenly exposed. Julia glared at him like he'd just spat in her face, and I sat there, caught between shock and something I couldn't name, wondering who the hell this Greg was—and what had happened to the one I knew.
1.01
"Survival is the ability to swim in strange water."
—BENE GESSERIT AXIOM
He woke into darkness.
Not the comforting dark of sietch caverns hidden beneath dune-scoured deserts, nor even the blackness of a starless night on Arrakis. This darkness throbbed behind the eyes—an inward place of discontinuity.
Paul Atreides became aware of a heart beating faster than any Fremen drum—too fast. His eyelids felt heavy, dragging him toward a comforting oblivion, but discipline affirmed itself. He forced a measured inhale, then exhale, feeling each muscle respond to command.
I am Paul, he reasserted, though the words flickered uncertainly through fractured consciousness. Ghost-images of dunes and spice-blue eyes warred with the imprint of the unremarkable life of an unremarkable person—the name came to him like a dream.
Greg Veder.
A wave of pressure built behind his forehead. The alien ache threatened to overwhelm him. It reminded him of that moment—just a single drop!—when he had accepted the Water of Life, only to feel everything rip away in a cosmic unraveling.
Greg's eyelids shuddered as Paul wrested them open. The strange new reality loomed: a shabby classroom of battered desks, stale air, and the hum of cheap fluorescent lighting. He registered the chalk-dust smell, layered with human perspiration. He did not know this place. Yet from his host's memory, he knew its name—Winslow High School.
He found himself seated, half-slumped, a spiral-bound notebook on the desk, faint scribbles in the margin. Not mine, he noted absently. Greg's.
The body threatened to betray him again, the eyelids drooping in exhaustion. He clenched his jaw. No, he told himself, sensing a faint premonition. Paul decided then to practice one of the mind-body techniques his mother had taught him in childhood. Three quick breaths triggered the responses: he fell into the floating awareness…focusing the consciousness…aortal dilation…avoiding the unfocused mechanism of consciousness…to be conscious by choice…blood enriched and swift-flooding the overload regions…one does not obtain food-safety-freedom by instinct alone…animal consciousness does not extend beyond the given moment nor into the idea that its victims may become extinct…the animal destroys and does not produce…animal pleasures remain close to sensation levels and avoid the perceptual…the human requires a background grid through which to see his universe…focused consciousness by choice, this forms your grid…bodily integrity follows nerve-blood flow according to the deepest awareness of cell needs…all things/cells/beings are impermanent…strive for flow-permanence within….
Over and over and over, the mantra roiled in his floating awareness. He forced the fatigue to retreat—enough, at least, to remain upright.
At his side, a girl with large glasses and an air of quiet tension—Taylor—leaned toward him, her voice edged with concern. "Greg?" she asked softly. "Are you…okay?"
Paul turned his gaze on her, forcing the swirl of confusion to subside for an instant. Some reflex of training threatened violence, but he suppressed it. Her posture told him she hovered between worry and fear. He tasted the memory-laden swirl of Greg's experiences with her: fleeting glimpses, mostly from a distance. She was…harmless, he deduced.
He was handed a battered book and told to read it. Absent-mindedly, he complied.
Then came the intrusive presence of another student—Julia, Greg's memory told him. She sat off to the side, poised with the sharpened cruelty of adolescence. He felt her words cutting in, though the details blurred. She spoke again, clearer this time. Irritation flickered in him. He suppressed it, parted his lips, and let a flat monotone ring out: "I heard you. Not in the mood for your antics today, Julia. Leave me alone."
A hush fell. He felt a silent shock ripple through the onlookers. Greg would never speak so directly. But Paul did not deem a charade of normalcy worth the effort. He handed Taylor back her notes and turned his attention inward.
A swirl of chemicals in undernourished blood, a dryness along nerve endings that spoke of fatigue, an abnormal swelling behind his forehead, on the brain. The mass pulsed, threatening to unbalance him once more. This is the seat of the problem—this malignant growth. If he could isolate it, he might glean what nature of cancer or disease had rooted in this body. Carefully, he plied the threads of nerve and muscle. In his old flesh, he could slow his pulse at will, command every subtle shift of biology. This new body was…undereducated. It would need to be retrained.
He deepened his observation of the small mass in the frontal lobe—inflamed and strangely autonomous. It shifted as though aware of his scrutiny. Any typical tumor would yield to the neural commands of a Prana-Bindu adept. But this— he realized this yields nothing. It pulsed with intensity, resisting his intrusion.
Paul stilled his respiration to a bare whisper, straining to hold focus despite the jarring stimulus. The malignant presence grew under scrutiny—no, not exactly malignant, but uncontrollably foreign. Greg's memories—disjointed, shambolic—offered no explanation. Suspicious, Paul isolated the rebellious cells from essential nutrients: a subtle shift in blood flow, adjustments to hormone release, the smallest realignment of muscular tension around the neck. In time, any typical growth would starve and grow stunted.
He waited, ignoring the outside world, giving only enough attention to remain upright. The swelling subsided. It ceased its frantic expansion, deprived of sustenance yet left alive. I will study you later, he decided.
Turning his attention back outside, a voice penetrated the hush around him: Mr. Gladly, a teacher. Greg's memory conjured an image of the man. "Greg! Are you listening?"
Paul's eyes snapped open. The entire classroom had turned its gaze upon him, a shifting mosaic of curiosity, ridicule, and annoyance. Even Taylor looked mortified by his lapse in focus.
"Come up front and share what you learned," Mr. Gladly repeated, setting aside a sheaf of papers. "We don't have all day."
Paul inhaled through his nose, breathing shallowly to stave off a fresh tide of pain. He had only half a mind to spare for these trivialities. Yet he saw no advantage in immediate conflict with an authority figure—particularly not in his current state.
He rose, each step careful, crossing the short distance to the front. The headache reverberated with each footfall, a promise of greater pain if he did not find rest soon.
Focus, he told himself, scanning memory—both Greg's and the recollections gleaned from the notes Taylor had offered him. The topic: the influence of parahumans, or "capes," on society.
He faced the classroom. For an instant, the memory of Arrakis shimmered at the edges of his vision, dunes shifting into the battered desks and blank stares of these youths. The taste of dryness from old chalk dust touched his tongue, dredging the reflex of thirst. He shook away the thoughts and reminded himself again. Focus.
"Parahumans are a distinctly unique element in the fabric of our society," he began in a low voice. He recited verbatim lines from Taylor's notes, weaving them together with half-remembered fragments from Greg's mind. Even as his words took hold, he tested each for consistency, discarding illogical pieces before presenting them. His gaze panned, absentmindedly measuring the shifting expressions of those before him, noting flickers of curiosity and skepticism.
Yet his thoughts kept drifting to more urgent concerns: the curious slip in his ritual, the incomplete Spice Agony, the veiled cause and subtle intention behind his presence here. Beneath all these reflections stirred an even deeper and more pressing inquiry—the nature of this new reality.
He finished the presentation abruptly, his head throbbing anew. Silence hung. Mr. Gladly seemed caught between praising the unexpected coherence and puzzling over its source. When he spoke, it was with a forced smile. "Thank you, Greg. That was…surprisingly comprehensive."
Paul felt a migraine roll across his consciousness like a sandstorm. He pressed thumb and forefinger against the bridge of his nose in a practiced gesture to stem the worst of it.
Seeing no benefit in prolonging the pretense, he sighed. Another moment of forced engagement would only stoke the ache—he needed quiet to reorient his thoughts and settle this body. At last, he nodded at Mr. Gladly. "I'd like to visit the nurse's office," he said. "Headache."
The teacher lingered in confusion—still wrestling with the incongruity between the presentation and Greg's usual persona—but relented. "Sure, Greg. Go on ahead."
Paul turned from them without a backward glance, disregarding the muted murmurs that clung to the air. The classroom door closed behind him with a soft click, and in the silent corridor, he paused, breathing away the worst of the pain. There, he felt, even more acutely, the enclosed strangeness pressing down upon him.
He did not fully grasp the forces at work—nor did he relish the turmoil they wrought on his plans. Yet he knew one truth: he must unravel this puzzle, and swiftly, lest the consequences spiral beyond his ability to contain.
1.02
"My lungs taste the air of Time,
Blown past falling sands…"
—GURNEY HALLECK
Paul dreamed.
He dreamed of blood and desert wind, of arid sands stretching to the horizon, awash in the bluish haze of spice. He dreamed he stood again on Arrakis, immersed in a future half-seen—his limbs burning with the potency of the Spice Agony. Within that dream, he rose as Paul Muad'Dib, Fremen war-cry echoing across the dunes.
In the depths of that vision, he relived heartbreak: precious Leto's small heart falling silent beneath the Sardaukar blade. In his palm, he felt the final blow delivered to Vladimir Harkonnen; the contortions of his foul, gluttonous face. In the silence, he heard Feyd-Rautha's snarl giving way to wide-eyed terror as the blade of Kanly found his heart. And then Irulan—his prize—kneeling before him as he claimed the Emperor's throne.
By breath and heartbeat, he felt once more the immensity of a destiny beyond singular comprehension. He tasted tears of grief and heard the chorus of a jihad that numbered billions of casualties. So many atrocities committed in his name; a cosmos bowed at his feet—even as he recoiled from the thought of such dominion. Old regrets, old certainties. Then he saw his father, Leto Atreides, standing beside him in silent witness to the bloodshed.
Leto was silent for a time, gaze fixed upon the carnage. When Paul at last spoke, his voice rang with the uncertain tremor of prophecy unmoored:
"I don't know if I wish to return," he confessed, the words lingering in the void. "I see only devastation waiting to follow—an inevitable course to which I am eternally bound."
Still, Leto spoke not. He merely observed the endless horizon of quieted corpses and charred worlds. At length, he turned his level gaze upon his son and quietly asked: "Can you stomach the consequences of inaction?"
Paul felt the question carve through him. The void of inactivity—the unknown permutations of disaster—could well eclipse the horrors he already knew. To do nothing was also a choice, and that choice bore its own cataclysmic harvest. His silence answered the question first. Then, in a voice tinged with resignation, he gave the truth: "No."
Father and son regarded each other for a moment beyond time—two consciousnesses bound by blood, by prophecy, by the unstoppable tide of cosmic events. Paul sighed, turning away from the vision of horrors done in his name. There, amid the half-formed shadows of possibility, he confronted the paradox at his feet: By all the rules he knew, he had failed; his Spice Agony should have claimed him. The absence of a death-memory—so crucial to the profound transformation of an Ego Memory—however, proved otherwise. More troubling still was the retention of his genetic memory in a borrowed body—an inheritance with no ties to his Atreides line. He felt the incongruity of it, the unnatural splicing of heritage into flesh that was not his own.
The thought unsettled him. In that troubled corner of the dreamscape, Paul wrestled with the possibility that he was but an echo—a clone spawned and displaced by the swirl of Spice-laden energies. He considered the suspicious growth in his brain, wondering if it might have been the culprit, yet intuition steered him toward the former possibility. In his mind's eye, he then saw branching pathways splitting into the myriad permutations of causality.
If clones could be made of a Kwisatz Haderach, did that art extend to the sisterhood, those vile Bene Gesseri Reverend Mothers? Or was it exclusive only to him who could access the memories of both his male and female ancestors and bridge space and time with prescient ability? Anger coursed through Paul at the notion of those hidden hands at work, scattering seeds of manipulation in a soil as unguarded as this.
His musings circled back to the question of returning to his true home. Even if he was the genuine Paul Atreides, wrested from one universe to another, how could he ensure a path back? And if he was indeed a mere copy, should he risk returning at all, ushering in unknown consequences?
At last, he turned to the image of his father, the echo of Leto Atreides manifest in the shared tapestry of a multitude of Ego Memories. His concerns spilled forth, unguarded. Leto listened, inscrutable, then spoke across the silent gulfs.
"Are you willing to leave it to chance?"
Paul knew well the answer.
A sigh escaped him even as the dream around him dissolved into motes of darkness.
✥✥✥
He awoke—Greg Veder once more—to the muffled rumble of an old bus. Evening sunlight slipped through scratched windows, illuminating the sagging seats and bored faces of other students. Paul closed his eyes in a brief moment of adjustment, still tasting dust and the bitterness of destiny on his tongue. The jolt of the bus stopping jarred him further from his musings.
He disembarked on the side of a stop sign, quietly noting every detail: chipped sidewalks, flickering street lamps, tired façades of row houses. From what Greg's memory told him, this was the southeastern fringe of downtown—a place that straddled the line between a struggling commercial sector and the older residential blocks. Posters of missing persons plastered a nearby fence; half-torn wanted posters for parahuman criminals clung to the walls of a corner store. A subtle undercurrent laced the streets, so familiar to anyone who had lived here. He walked a few blocks, boots scuffing the cracked pavement, ignoring the trio of boys donning E88 patches, to pause only at a crosswalk where an ad flickered on a digital screen, showcasing some new line of sponsor-labeled hero merch. Paul—uninterested—paced across the street and eventually came to a modest apartment building with chipped paint and a rickety set of steps. Keys rattled, and he let himself in.
The house seemed empty—his parents and brother most likely absent. Upstairs, Greg's room revealed itself exactly as Paul recalled from the memory-scans: scattered electronics, half-finished projects, mismatched furniture, stale snack wrappers in corners, and posters pinned at haphazard angles. A life built around momentary passions, never fully realized.
Paul stood in the doorway, eyes roving across the messy bed, the battered desk, and the tangle of cords beneath, before panning to a wall covered in hero memorabilia: Printouts of PHO forum threads or cape profiles pinned to the wall, posters of famous heroines and some cheap souvenirs— pins, patches, and knockoff merch. On the wall opposite that was a chalkboard overlain with printed articles, notes, something of an evidence board layered with a collage of media from different sources pinned to a pinboard and frequently interconnected with string to mark connections—possible cape identities, Brockton Bay news, villain activities. If there was an aesthetic sense to any of this, it was purely accidental.
Paul eased the bedroom door shut, tossed his backpack aside and let his body sink into the lumpy mattress. Instantly, his mind slid into the semi-meditative state of prana-bindu introspection: a meticulous assessment of every muscle fiber, nerve impulse, and cell. In his original body, such an exercise would have been instant and as natural as breathing. Now, he felt the rebellious sluggishness of untrained flesh, the mental static of underdeveloped neural pathways.
The difference between this new flesh and his old, bloodline-bred form was maddening. Yet he saw at once that this deficiency, while vexing, was not beyond remedy. One by one, he delineated, as a Mentat might, the steps needed to mould this adolescent body into a worthy instrument of his will.
First would come the stabilization of mind and body: a deliberate meshing of alien flesh with ancient memory. His consciousness, burdened with the weight of myriad lives, must not drown in the turbulence of an untempered psyche. Accordingly, he would sift through each cell of this body—cataloging the spasmodic reflexes, the thresholds of pain and pleasure—until its every response lay defined in the matrix of his understanding. Then he would undertake a careful grafting of memory into this genetic code, hence, reducing the burden on the brain and sealing away the tumult of Ego Memories that threatened to diffuse his identity.
Next would be a ritual of neural enhancement—deliberately administering mild cognitive overloads to the nervous system, leveraging the body's residual neuroplasticity to rewire the synaptic connections. Only then could he hope to reclaim the rapid computation, "naïve mind" pattern analysis, and supralogical hypothesizing at which Mentats excel.
With the mind stabilized, he would retrain musculature and nervous responses to more optimally respond to his prana-bindu control, until even involuntary responses return under his conscious regulation. Following this would be the heightened production of testosterone and other essential hormones required for physical development. Then the final regimen: deliberate physical conditioning and a reintroduction to the rigors of the Weirding Way. In these steps lay the promise of restoring a fraction of his former competence.
None of it would be instantaneous, but he estimated about seven weeks to regain a semblance of his old competence—provided he secured sufficient nutrients and rest.
He flicked through Greg's memories of his scrounged savings: a mere two hundred forty-three dollars. Even at the most conservative estimates from the teen's ragged knowledge of supplement prices, it remained insufficient. Thus, Paul resolved to liquidate any extraneous possessions in pursuit of his goal. His attention flickered to the old gaming console beneath the table by his feet—it was worth some not-insignificant amount and would be the first to go. At the thought, the faint rebel voice of Greg's Ego-Memory protested, but Paul silenced it, consigning that plaintive voice to the tumult of countless lesser memories within him.
Yet even the most focused mind is not impervious to interruption. Before he could begin the first, delicate phase of his plan, a soft knock came at the door. The glow of late dusk stained the window. On the threshold stood Greg's mother, Martha. The woman wore the easy concern of motherhood as she inquired about his well-being, mentioning a call from the school nurse.
Paul allowed a benign smile to cross Greg's features. "It was just a headache," he said lightly. "I'm alright now."
She nodded, relieved, before instructing him to fetch his older brother—Tom—for dinner. Then she withdrew, footsteps trailing away down the hall. Exhaling, Paul rose after her and emerged from his room.
He stepped into the corridor and knocked on Tom's door. No response came, only the faint clack of a keyboard. Paul turned the knob and found the older boy—tall, lanky—hunched over a computer, headphones on. His attention was thoroughly claimed by the text on-screen.
On the bed beside him, on top of a stack of other books, was a novel titled "Arabian Sands". Intrigued, Paul picked it up. His gaze flicked to the first page, drawn by the lines of a poem inscribed there in printed ink:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said—"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert...Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe Shelley—an apt meditation on impermanence and hubris. Before Paul could consider the text further, the novel was snatched from his grasp. He looked up to meet Tom's stern glare. "Told you to keep out of my stuff," the older boy snapped, pulling off his headphones.
Paul offered no retort. He only turned away. "Dinner," he said simply, voice mild.
"Mom wants us both."
1.03
"Beginnings are such delicate times."
—PRINCESS IRULAN
The hour before dawn possessed a hush that Brockton Bay seldom granted—a stillness broken only by the faint whirr of a desktop fan and the soft, rhythmic clicks of a mouse. In that dim glow Paul sat erect, eyes tracking the march of text across an aging flatscreen. The desk lay bare except for keyboard, notebook, and a mug half‑filled with lukewarm water. Each object existed where his will decreed, ordered along invisible lines of function and priority.
Information pooled before him:—an executive summary of the Helsinki Accords on Extra‑National Capes; an archived dissertation on power‑trigger demographics; a Senate subcommittee hearing in which the word Endbringer rode every sentence like a silent gravity. He fed these fragments to the fragile mentat engine of an adolescent brain, coaxing sluggish synapses toward the cadence of disciplined thought. Context, he reminded himself. Always context. In a universe ruled by parahumans, law was the sand that shifted beneath power's weight; only by mapping the dunes might one glimpse the pattern of inevitable storms.
It was 04:37 when the computer finally coughed up the last page of the research papers—two decades of diplomatic throat‑clearing that boiled down to 'don't bomb each other's capes unless you want the Simurgh to finish the job for you'. Paul scrolled, absorbing every line, forcing sluggish neurons into something approaching Mentat cadence.
Mouse‑click. Page‑save. Next file.
He was nearly through the 2007 addendum on exile provisions when the door creaked. No warning knock, just hinges complaining, then Martha's head poking in.
"Greg?" Her voice was careful, like she was expecting to catch him drooling on a pillow. "Up already?"
Paul swivelled, letting the screen's bluish glow fall away from his face. "Good morning, mom," he said, voice calm, each syllable measured to deflect curiosity.
Her gaze roamed over the disciplined geometry of the room: the bed made with hospital precision, cables coiled, trash bin empty. Surprise flared, softened into maternal approval. "Morning, Greg. Come downstairs when you're ready. Breakfast is almost done."
Paul nodded. "I'll be down shortly."
She lingered, as though hoping clutter might spring from hiding, then nodded and withdrew. The door clicked shut. Silence returned, and Paul turned back to the computer.
He allowed himself five additional minutes with the screen—long enough to finish a paragraph on Jus Gentium Triggeri, the International Custom on Cross‑Border Trigger Events. It was an obscure clause, half Greek, half bureaucrat, and entirely fascinating. Under it, a state could claim jurisdiction over any newborn parahuman who first manifested on its soil, regardless of citizenship. A modern droit du seigneur, he mused—power reasserting ancient privileges beneath democratic paint.
He saved the file, shut down the computer, and felt rather than heard the house's diurnal pulse gathering: pipes knocking, kettle hissing, the low murmur of voices conversing about something Paul couldn't decipher.
Downstairs, morning unfolded in the clatter of dishes and drifting aroma of coffee. John Veder sat at the table, scrolling headlines from a phone that bounced blue reflections against his spectacles. Without looking up he replied to Martha's gentle sotto‑voce about insurance forms and a squeaking dryer belt. He barely looked up when Greg entered—hair combed, backpack slung, outwardly unremarkable but for the tranquility that trailed him like an unfamiliar scent.
"Morning, Dad."
John grunted a reply, eyes still on the feed. Martha slid a plate—eggs, toast neatly quartered—into place. "Eat up before it gets cold."
Paul obeyed with deliberate pace, tasting rather than devouring, cataloguing textures and caloric value. Martha's gaze kept returning, searching for the fidget, the flood of trivia that used to spill from her younger son. She found only still water.
"Head feeling better?" she ventured at last. "You looked awful yesterday."
"I am better," Paul assured her. "The pain is gone."
John finally raised his eyes, brow knitting at the orderly breakfast, the composed boy. Change can be unsettling, Paul noted behind Greg's placid mask. It is better then to ease them into it as early as possible. Tom arrived then, muttered a monosyllabic hey, before folding into his chair with a novel in hand. His stare brushed Greg—querying, wary—and moved on.
Conversation dwindled to utensil sounds. When his plate was bare, Greg rose. "Thanks, Mom. Gotta go."
Martha reached to ruffle his hair—hesitated at the unfamiliar poise—then settled for a soft pat to the shoulder. John murmured something about curfews. Tom ignored him as he departed.
Outside, Brockton Bay breathed fog from its estuaries, exhaling through sewer grates and cracked asphalt. Buses groaned along their predawn routes; gulls announced territorial claims to overflowing dumpsters. Paul walked rather than waited, measuring the city block by block. As he arrived at his stop, he opened the mental ledger of this morning's data harvest and began computing.
Soon, a pattern emerged. It spoke only one message: Weakness invites correction. To navigate such a world as this he would require agency—physical, economic, political. A personal power. The only problem now was that all the paths ahead appeared murky. Uncertain. Paul didn't like it.
Soon, the bus arrived, and he boarded it, the early morning chatter washing around him unnoticed. Arriving at his destination, he filed into Winslow's corridors ghost‑quiet, notebooks balanced in steady hands. Classes slid past like beads on a string: mathematics (trivial), world issues (hobbled by a syllabus fearful of controversy), literature (Shelley again, the irony apt).
Paul went through the day, eyes half‑lidded, continually running internal calculations: risk assessments, possible contingencies, the probability curve of a derailing upheaval that might affect his plans. Numbers say weeks, not months. He didn't like it.
The resident punching bag, Taylor Hebert, was absent. Deprived of their favored prey, Madison's orbitals sought novelty. Julia's stare burned with yesterday's humiliation—an adolescent's wounded court politics. He registered it, assigned probability to ensuing confrontation, and dismissed reactive annoyance. Annoyance wasted synaptic cycles.
The consequences of this dismissal surfaced during third period, when he ducked into the boys' restroom. Shoes scuffed tile behind him; voices dimmed as the other occupants scattered. He faced the mirror and watched the taller reflection arrive.
Oscar—football physique, E88 armband half hidden beneath the jacket sleeve. Earbud in one ear, boredom curled on his lip.
"Are you Veder?" the youth asked, fingers knotting in Paul's collar. "Julia says you need etiquette lessons. Come, we're taking a walk."
In the instant of contact, Paul tasted the boy's intent: mild irritation spiced with performative menace, a favor done in hope of later reward. Not hate, then—merely commerce. For a moment, he considers the wisdom in allowing things to play out. But then he remembered Taylor. They will never be content, these bullies. Give them an inch and they would take a mile.
Paul sighed as he realised what must be done. "Walk away, and you keep your dignity," he said in a final attempt at diplomacy. "I assure you, you don't want to do this."
The boy's brow creased—too slow to parse the vocabulary, quicker to tighten his fist. "Shut up, freak," he spat. The clenched fist drew back.
In that narrowing instant, Paul calculated angles, weight, the ratio of reach to leverage. True, his new shell was incomparable to his original body, but the fact remained that Paul was a Fremen with Bene Gesserit training; muscle memory could, to some extent, be overwritten by will alone. As Oscar reared for the demonstration punch, Paul pivoted. One forearm deflected, other hand found carotid. Torque, drop of center of gravity—sinew sang its reluctant obedience.
They collapsed together, predator turned prey in a silent tangle. Paul's elbow pinned trachea just shy of collapse; his free hand muffled sound. Oscar's eyes bulged, limbs flailed briskly, then stilled in the calculus of pain.
"Walk away, Oscar," he repeated, his voice a whisper against ear and panic. "You don't want this." Tears glittered at the edge of the bully's eyes. A nod—jerky, desperate. Squeezed breath rasped agreement. Paul released, stepped back. The athlete sagged and curled away on his knees, clutching reddened throat.
Satisfied, Paul straightened his shirt. He regarded the MP3 device clipped at the boy's waist—a totem of status as much as music. "The music player," he said. "Give it."
Oscar looked up, confused. "Oh, you thought you could just bother me and walk away unscathed?" Paul clarified, his face forming a sneer. "Give it before I break your toes."
Oscar whimpered. Plastic changed hands.
In the hallway outside, Julia waited with her friends, expectation curdling into disbelief as he passed untouched. Paul ignored them. As he made way back to the classroom, he slipped the earbuds in, clipped the music player onto his chest pocket where it would be visible, and scrolled until a neutral rhythm emerged—no hate lyrics, no white‑supremacist garbage, no discordant rock. Just some old westerns.
He liked it.
The next minutes were peaceful. Classes drifted past like low clouds—useful only for barometric hints of the culture he must navigate. When the final bell released its captives, Paul diverted from routine, boarding a city bus north toward Lord Street Market rather than heading straight home.
Here, rust yielded to crammed stalls and neon, the smell of frying meat, incense, cheap electronics off‑gassing plastic dreams. At a pharmacy, he exchanged the entirety of Greg's hoarded savings for whey, creatine, protein isolate, omega‑rich oils, magnesium tablets and vitamins dense with iron and B‑complex.
Pockets lighter, he crossed the street to a squat building whose cartoonish sign declared Fugly Bob's Burgers—Home of the Challenger! Calories, he calculated. Inside, booths clattered with late afternoon chatter. A waitress in bright polyester approached. Paul gave his order.
"The Challenger?" Her brows arched. "You know it's free only if you finish?"
"I know," he said calmly.
She studied him: slight, pale, too calm. "All right, champ. Your funeral." She tore the ticket, and disappeared into the kitchen.
1.04
"Highly organized research is guaranteed to produce nothing new."
—GOD EMPEROR, LETO II
The house lay in weekend stillness—pipes ticking, refrigerator sighing, the city's distant sirens softened by coastal fog. Paul moved in deliberate silence, bare feet finding the marks he had chalked on his bedroom carpet: a square into which the universe was momentarily compressed
He began with slow Hindu squats—thirty, then forty—letting tendons warm in orderly sequence; feel the ligaments lengthen, the accompanying litany went. Push‑ups followed, hands offset each set to recruit different fibers, core locked so tight the spine felt fused. Pain bloomed early—yesterday's micro‑tears protesting their reconstruction—but he greeted it the way farmers greet first light: confirmation that life, and work, continue.
Three weeks to competence, he reminded himself. Seven to sufficiency. Anything less courts disaster.
After burpees came isometric holds against the door‑frame, then five minutes skimming shadow‑boxing: elbows tucked, hip whip measured, each strike a metronome for breath. The duffel bag—stuffed with textbooks and duct‑taped firm—served as a sandbag substitute. He burrowed hooks into its flank until shoulders burned molten.
Only when muscle fibrils jittered on the cusp of failure did he set the weight down and adopt the lotus. Three capsules clacked against molars—protein hydrolysate, magnesium citrate, a multivitamin dense with B‑complex. He drank a palmful of water, then, eyes shuttered, triggered the slow tide of autonomic command: capillaries dilated, liver pathways primed for uptake. A whispered litany guided blood to stomach lining, coaxing peristalsis, nudging secretion of digestive enzymes. Metabolism surged—small furnace flaring brighter—then subsided to a banked glow.
The room smelled of tin and adolescent sweat. He savored it, then rolled to his feet and sought the shower. Cold first to arrest inflammation, hot to loosen fascia. At the mirror, he noted fresh lines of definition along the abdomen, the nascent V of obliques. Three weeks, he repeated, before this body ceases to be a hindrance.
Pulling a fresh shirt over his bare torso, he collapsed his weary shell by the desk by his bed. The desktop hummed, a loyal familiar. Paul logged in beneath Greg's ancient handle—XxVoid_CowboyxX—then slipped the persona aside like a mask. The Parahumans Online interface scrolled past half‑hearted arguments about Endbringer early‑warning systems and a flame‑war over HeroClix rarity.
A new thread popped into existence then:
[BREAKING] — Brockton Bay Central Bank Robbed; Two Wards Hospitalized (Vista, Kid Win)
He clicked.
PHO Public Boards › Events & Sightings › Brockton Bay
■ 11:46 ►Dockworker_Catholic
Anyone else hearing chatter about BB Central Bank getting hit this morning?
Saw ambulances & PRT vans rolling code‑three down 45th.
■ 11:47 ►HBIC
Yeah. My girlfriend is a nurse. She said Vista and Kid Win were rolled in on stretchers. It was bad. Out already though—Panacea fix.
■ 11:47 ►Moderator_Blackhole
Please keep speculation tagged [RUMOR]. Posting unverified medical info violates Section 8. Final warning.
■ 11:48 ►Lifesaver
Word is Undersiders. Anyone confirm?
■ 11:51 ►CrackedLens
[CCTV] mirror link: 3 mins, pulled from internal. Watch fast.
..VIDEO TRANSCRIPT (partial)..
0:07 Hellhound exits lobby atop mutated dog.
0:15 Shadow Stalker attacks Grue.
0:21 Smokescreen obscures teller line. Gallant swarmed by mass.
0:55 Vista compressing parking lot, struck by unknown projectile
1:04 Kidwin throws sphere—flash, concussive.
1:20 Camera feed terminates.
■ 11:58 ►GrueIsStew
link dead. "DMCA request by Parahuman Response Team." Nice try, Big Brother.
■ 12:01 ►Mannerborn
Kids fighting kids and the adults hide the evidence. Stay classy, Protectorate.
■ 12:04 ►Moderator_Blackhole
Thread temp‑locked for spam, off‑topic, TOS §8 medical leaks.
THREAD LOCKED BY MODERATOR_BLACKHOLE (12:04 EST): ongoing investigation.
Paul leaned back from the screen, replaying the stolen footage in his save file eleven times, each iteration isolating a different vector: a brindled mastiff the size of a panel truck thrashing one of the heroes like a ragdoll; a swirl of darkness engulfing another; the timing between Vista's last bend and Kid Win's flashbang. The Undersiders and the Wards. Amateurs, he noted, but competent enough. Worth logging.
Nothing else in the forum scroll offered comparable yield. He archived the video, then powered down. Rising from his seat, he packed a duffel with choice objects: collector pins of New Wave's launch year, an autographed Gallant poster, Greg's vintage console and controllers. The bag filled, he tossed it over his shoulder and made his way downstairs.
There, in the living room, he caught Tom in a recliner, feet propped, nose buried in a novel. The older boy glanced up from the paperback as Paul descended the stairs. "Where are you off to?" he asked.
"Getting rid of some stuff," Paul answered, adjusting the duffel strap. Tom's eyes narrowed, curiosity wrestling apathy; apathy won. Without another word, Paul stepped out of the apartment.
Outside, fog clung to the streets, silvering cracked asphalt. Paul mapped the route in silent recitation—five blocks east, four south, past a graffiti‑flayed mural of All‑Seeing Aegis. Neon sign flickered amid half‑shuttered storefronts: MAX CASH LOANS. The pawn shop sat square in Empire territory, but Paul's aryan features and unassuming gait made him background noise.
Inside, stale cigar smoke mingled with ozone from old cathode televisions. The proprietor—a balding, wiry man, gave the goods a once over from behind wire‑mesh. A price was made. Paul matched gaze with Bene Gesserit stillness, reading pulse at throat, micro‑expressions around nostril. With a smile, he shook his head.
"Sixty?" The owner tried again, raising by ten dollars.
Paul touched two fingers to the dusty counter. "The pin is a limited run, first month of New Wave's debut. Gallant's hologram signature intact. Console's a launch model—copper shielding, fetches triple overseas. Two grand for the lot, and you make your margin back within a week."
A bead of sweat traced the shopkeeper's temple. Another micro‑pulse at the throat—he believes the figure. The man coughed, tapped his calculator, grudging. "Hundred‑ten for the pin, and I pretend the serial numbers weren't filed."
"One‑fifty," Paul countered.
Numbers rose, stalled, rose again. When goods and cash finally changed hands, sixteen crisp hundreds and a bent ten nestled in Greg's wallet.
He felt the tail as soon as he stepped onto the sidewalk: cadence too regular, breath mist caught in peripheral vision. Four pursuers, adolescent male, one limping slightly. Paul let their vector settle, then deviated down an alley rich with the sour smell of damp cardboard.
They followed.
Oscar led—neck still bruised, pride more so. Three companions flanked him: one broad‑shouldered, one tall and jittery, one moving with a thief's balance.
"I thought it was you," Oscar sneered. "Got a haircut?"
"Yes," Paul replied. "What do you want?"
"Payback," Oscar snarled. "Julia dumped me because of you. Hand the cash over, or we turn your face inside out."
"Walk away, Oscar," Paul offered, voice mild. "You don't want this."
Knuckles popped—an animal's language of intent. Paul exhaled, feeling the weight of inevitability settle upon his shoulders like desert dusk. Conflict, he knew, was a calculus of wills; to end it here, he must tip the balance so decisively that no continued equation could form. Oscar had revealed himself incapable of accepting a single defeat. Therefore, Paul understood, the response must rupture expectation—must be so vast, so disproportionate, that escalation would become an impossibility, a thing smothered in its own shadow.
In that instant of measured breath, the future tilted. Another sigh escaped him. So soon? he mused in distaste. The thought fell like a knife, sealing Oscar's fate—and Paul accepted the verdict. He set the duffel aside and stepped into the narrow center of the passage where brick walls stole the reach advantage from larger limbs.
—Intention steers energy—
The one on the left lunged first—predictable straight punch, elbow high. Paul slipped inside, heel to instep, palm to jaw, guiding momentum past him. Elbow spear to solar plexus ended the broad‑shouldered boy's contribution. A wrist‑twist dropped the jittery tall one; patella pressure kept him gasping. The thief lasted longest—two feints, a grab, then torque at the shoulder joint until tendon barked surrender. All three blacked out from the pain.
Oscar stood frozen, courage evaporating in the scent of his friends' fates. He remained still, white around the eyes. Butterfly knife finally opened with a metallic snap. Paul approached, posture unhurried, a surgeon toward anesthetized flesh.
"Stop!" Oscar squeaked, brandishing the blade yet retreating two paces. "I'll cut—"
One stride closed distance. Paul seized his collar—mirror image of their meeting in Winslow's restroom—and forced the taller boy to kneel, arm locked, fingers numb under joint pressure.
"Please—"
"SILENCE," the Voice interrupted. Paul closed his eyes, listening to heartbeats settle into trained cadence. Water carves stone by insistence. One drop at a time, unrelenting. When his eyes opened, they did so with renewed resolve.
"I WILL ASK AND YOU WILL ANSWER TRUTHFULLY. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"
Oscar's untrained mind offered no resistance. "Yes."
"Good. Now tell me, Oscar, who else have you spoken about me with?"
1.05
"A killer with the manners of a rabbit - this is the most dangerous kind."
—GOD EMPEROR, LETO II
The Veder apartment drifted in midnight torpor: a pulse of refrigerator freon, the remote susurrus of freeway traffic, Tom's faint snore two rooms away. Paul lingered at his bedroom window until every tick of the household convinced him no eye would open. Then the sash slid up, the evening air rushed in, and he eased himself onto the sill. Chalk marks on the clapboard showed measured footholds. A breath, a backward glance at the dark room—and gravity welcomed him. He glided down the face of the building, duffel cinched tight beneath one arm, landing cat‑quiet on the patch of winter‑hard ivy below.
Inwardly, he counted pulsebeats—mentat measure of risk—then stepped into the arterial darkness of residential lanes where sodium vapor blurred boundary from shadow.
Side streets lay silvered beneath sodium lamps. He moved through them without hurry, a walker blending into that loose fellowship of insomniacs and shift workers who gave Brockton Bay its after‑midnight economy. Three blocks south, he found what he needed: an elderly Chrysler idling to keep a windshield from frosting while its owner argued with a neighbor indoors. The driver's door yielded to practiced pressure on a blade slipped past the weather strip. A moment later, Paul backed the vehicle into the street and drove away.
Fog crept between headlight beams as he threaded back streets toward the alley where Oscar and his companions had met their last lesson. Earlier, he had bound and hidden them in a dumpster, mouths gagged should their consciousness return. He opened the bin. Four pairs of terror‑bright eyes greeted him above layers of duct tape. Muffled screams. No words. He dragged each boy into the trunk, resin tape rasping in small protests that died behind the shut lid. Seated again, he stripped Oscar's phone from a belt clip, stashed it in the glove box, and turned the car toward Empire turf.
Apartment blocks rose like spent cartridges—brick, rust, and curtained anger. Oscar's building squatted in the middle row. Paul parked beneath a flickering porch bulb and cut the lights. As he stepped out, the entrance door banged open. A broad‑shouldered man in sweatpants scanned the street, hand on the holstered weight at hip. Paul raised his free hand, a half‑wave, half‑apology.
"Liam? Sorry to park here." His voice borrowed the weary cheer of designated drivers everywhere. "Oscar and the boys got wrecked at my place. Figured I'd drop them—"
Suspicion drained from Liam's posture like water from a cracked jar. Two paces closed the space. Paul's other hand rose, small greeting becoming swift jab: knuckles traced a nerve cluster at the throat, blade‑edge of hand found the solar plexus, and swung back up to dislodge a vertebra in the neck. The gun never cleared its holster. Liam sagged into Paul's arms with a wheeze, more shocked than afraid; he was dead before his knees brushed the welcome mat. Paul shouldered the slack weight, nudged the door wide, and laid the body on a nicotine‑stained couch whose cushions exhaled stale beer.
He returned to the car for the duffel. Mask, disposable gloves, and shower cap sealed him from forensic curiosity; fresh duct tape gloves muffled shoe prints. One by one, the unconscious teens were ferried inside and posed: Mason opposite Liam as though they'd died arguing; Oscar behind the couch, shoulders hunched in mock refuge; Fiore draped over the sill of the kitchen window, reach frozen in flight; Gabe slumped on a toilet seat, pants and underwear toward to his ankle, earbuds piping muffled music he would never hear.
Paul stepped back and considered the staging: fear, haste, messy competence. Satisfied, he produced the Sig Sauer he had lifted from Liam's belt and threaded the makeshift oil‑filter baffle he had prepared beforehand onto the muzzle. A slow exhale steadied his wrist. He entered the apartment a second time. This time, deliberately more violently than the last. A single whisper‑round shattered Liam's forehead—entry small, exit a ruin hidden by couch fabric. Oscar's head fell as a bullet cored it. Another hummed across the room into Mason's heart. The kitchen received two hurried shots; plaster dust puffed, Fiore's torso jerked, dishes clinked from the shelf. Down the hall, Gabe's music cut short under a neat hole through crown and ceramic seatback.
Silence pooled, broken only by radiator clicks. Paul studied the positions, rotated limbs by degrees, ensuring each narrative cue aligned: surprise there, retreat here, futile defence in that corner. Satisfied, he scattered drawers, toppled a television, tore up sofa cushions as though searching for something valuable. From a bedroom closet, he drew some three‑thousand‑dollar stashed away, stuffed most into his jacket, letting several loose bills flutter across the hallway. With spray can in hand, he scrawled "ABB" in dripping red beside a crude racial slur rendered in shaky Mandarin strokes—angry, careless, unmistakable. He left the can rolling, hissing faint propellant.
Gloves, mask, and cap folded into a Ziploc that joined the stolen cash. He wiped knob and banister with alcohol‑soaked gauze, shut the door behind him, and eased downstairs. Cold air met him like absolution.
Back in the Chrysler, he unlocked Oscar's phone, found the second‑most‑dialed contact, and pressed call. A gravel voice answered on the second ring.
"Yeah?"
Thickening his accent with Chinatown cadence, he purred, "Empire boy bleed very easy tonight. ABB sending regards." He ended the call with a burst of profanity, set the ringer to silent, and waited. The phone lit twice, thrice—ignored. Five minutes later, he dialed a local news tip‑line, voice shaking with staged nerves. "Gunshots on Forty‑Seventh near Margrave—think it's ABB and the white supremacists." He broke the connection, dialed emergency dispatch, repeated the story, before adding that he dared not linger. Sirens would answer soon. Of no further use to him, Oscar's phone arced into the night, landing on a sidewalk where someone would claim it come morning.
Paul drove the Chrysler back to its origination, parking it precisely against the curb's earlier tire marks. A final wipe of the steering wheel and gear lever, a gentle shut of the door. For the second time tonight, he departed before the owner could emerge to catch him
Alone, he rolled his shoulders against the night chill and began the long walk home, thirty‑one hundred dollars warmer against the ribs; a Sig Sauer P322 with some ten rounds colder at the hips.
1.06
"Science is made up of so many things that appear obvious after they are explained."
—SUK DOCTOR YUEH
The dawn crept through Brockton Bay like diluted iodine, thin and vaguely toxic. Paul sat before his monitor in that amber hush, the soft rasp of a toothbrush echoing from the hall where Martha readied herself for work. News threads scrolled beneath his fingertips. No mention of masked killers, no leaked forensics hinting at the lies he'd stitched into Liam Tanner's apartment. Only the expected tremors: word of Purity's incandescent strafing runs against ABB stash‑houses, police scanners crowded with small‑arms fire along the coast‑road, a dozen armchair analysts predicting full gang war before the week's end. Noise.
Good, he thought, shutting the browser. Noise covers tracks.
He dressed in neutral layers, accepted toast and perfunctory questions from Martha—"No, I feel fine…Yes, I have cash for lunch"—and parted with a promise to be home in time for dinner. Tom muttered a distracted farewell from behind yet another book(he always seemed to have one on him). Paul stepped into that morning chill, already mapping the day's necessities.
School did not factor. A different curriculum claimed his attention: compartmentalisation. Every clandestine act committed from the Veder apartment risked linkage to Greg's civilian face, and Martha's maternal curiosity had the corrosive patience of seawater. In time, she would stumble upon something Paul would rather remain secret. Hence, he required new ground—sterile ground, empty of memory.
The bus hissed south, weaving through districts where brick row‑houses surrendered to glass storefronts. The Boardwalk's bustle offered anonymity; Paul disembarked into the scent of roasted nuts and diesel, found the restaurant where a balding proprietor waited with a manila envelope of rental contracts. The man was surprised to see someone so young, but he was easy enough to convince, his concerns swiftly brushed away. Forty minutes later, Paul walked the dim aisles of a climate‑controlled storage warehouse, fluorescent lights flickering like fatigued stars. Unit DF‑12—twelve hundred cubic feet, interior latch, concealed ceiling camera disabled by corrosion—felt sufficiently unremarkable. He paid six months in advance from Liam's windfall, received a pair of stamped brass keys, and locked the future behind a corrugated door.
Acquisition followed. A bedroll, a collapsible clothing rack, uniform dark cotton hoodies devoid of logos and jeans of similar mundanity, a set of ski masks, a set of sunglasses, a compact trauma kit, antiseptic powders, packets of electrolyte salts. Each item chosen for modularity, stored with deliberate layering so no single glance would reveal total function. When the final item was stored away and the unit's lock clicked, the shed smelled faintly of new canvas and metal.
By early afternoon, Paul prowled the market stalls again, adding two prepaid cell phones and a pocket knife whose carbon sheath should elude casual metal detectors. The Sig P322 rode in his duffel, magazine downloaded to nine rounds—enough. Hunger stirred. Fuel the flesh; starved tissue breeds hasty judgment. Fugly Bob's neon grin beckoned from across the parking lot.
Inside, fluorescent glare bounced off chrome and ketchup bottles. Again, he ordered the Challenger, drew a ripple of curious laughter from kitchen staff who remembered his previous conquest. While the burger assembled—monstrous strata of meat, cheese, and proprietary sauce—he selected a corner booth. Two young men occupied stools at the counter nearby: one tall, dark‑skinned, posture unhurried but coiled; the other shorter, lank-haired, a perpetual half‑smirk tugging his mouth. Their conversation bled toward Paul in amused fragments.
"Hundred says he pukes before the last bite," the smirker drawled.
"Make it a grand," the tall one replied without inflection, as though money weighed no more than air.
…Curious.
Paul offered no acknowledgement; he listened with practised neutrality. First bite, second—he folded rhythm into mastication, breath, swallow, controlled peristalsis. At the restaurant's threshold, the bell jingled. Two girls entered, shrugging off wind‑stung cheeks. One Paul hadn't expected. She moved with a familiar, careful tension: Taylor Hebert, hair tucked behind one ear, eyes scanning reflexively for predators. The companion—blonde, quick‑smiling—steered her toward the betting duo.
Taylor's glance met Paul's mid‑chew; panic flashed, raw and involuntary. She looked away too swiftly. In that startled flicker, Paul's suspicion grew. Instantly, his mind opened diagrammatic pathways: Taylor's recent absences, the reckless wager at the counter. The silhouettes were familiar, he noted. Paul reviewed his memory for matches. Only one emerged: a CCTV echo of a Kid Win hurling concussive spheres, a girl riding a nightmare hound, a black mass swarming Browbeat—
The Undersiders.
The word clicked into place like a blade seating in bone. Taylor took a seat beside the blonde—beside Brian and Alec, whispered names overheard minutes earlier. Five conspirators orbiting a single cheap table, heavy with an intent they pretended was casual lunch.
Paul lowered his eyes to the burger, measuring variables. Confrontation now would rupture every lattice he'd begun to weave. Better to observe, absorb cadence of speech—their courtesy, inside jokes, the pattern of glances toward exit routes. Each datum a thread; threads awaited the loom of future use.
Soon, he raised the final wedge of bread and beef—one last proof of disciplined digestion—while the smirking boy handed cash to his taller friend, having apparently lost the wager. Bills changed hands with careless ease. Villainy pays, Paul remembered.
He swallowed, wiped his mouth, and signalled the waitress. "Finished," he said simply. Applause scattered from a distant booth; another camera flash immortalised victory for the diner's wall. He counted out the amount for the burger and dropped it despite the waitress refusing to accept payment.
As he shouldered the duffel and slipped into the afternoon light, he tracked the Undersiders' reflection in the window glass: five silhouettes discussing, laughing at some inside joke.
In the mirror, Taylor's gaze caught his as he walked away.
1.07
"A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it."
—FIRST LAW OF MENTAT
Paul stepped out of Fugly Bob's and let the door click shut behind him. Grease-laden air clung to his clothes for a heartbeat, then the harbor wind carried it away and left only salt and diesel. He paused, making a small ritual of stillness: one breath to clear the lingering taste of charred meat, a second to count the beat of his heart, a third to let noise and motion pass around him until he felt as unmoving as a post driven into sand.
Purpose settled over him once more: a checklist, spare as a blade. He shouldered his duffel and joined the afternoon throng. Ahead, the market stretched along two intersecting streets, kiosks jammed shoulder-to-shoulder: discount shoes, souvenir mugs printed with hopeful skylines, simmering vats of chowder whose steam braided with exhaust. Paul threaded the arteries without urgency. Each storefront window became a mirror in which to gauge pursuit; each vendor's banter, a sample of cadence and dialect that filed itself into the growing dossier of Brockton Bay's underculture.
A narrow grocery displayed, amongst other things, utilitarian detergents. He selected a squat bottle of grease-cutting dish soap, noting volume, viscosity, and surfactant mix. At the register he exchanged small bills and a bland smile before quickly moving on.
Cosmetic shops followed—three of them, spaced across blocks to avoid drawing suspicion. In each he was a different customer, asking simple questions in unremarkable words, paying with small bills. In each he drifted like quiet weather, lifting bottles, eyeing descriptions, and inquiring on the efficacy of each brand. A yellow-leaning foundation went into a paper bag; a matte bronzer, two shades warmer, into a second followed quickly by a small tub of finely milled translucent powder. He added eyelid tape, micellar water, petroleum jelly, a can of dark-brown temporary hair spray, and dull-labeled contact lenses. Again, cash changed hands and Paul moved on.
When the duffle rode heavier against his shoulder he turned inland, away from the tonic glare of the Boardwalk and towards his rental. Sodium lamps jittered overhead; their amber glare made the pavement look wet even where it was dry. Unit DF-12 greeted his key with a clean click. Corrugated steel rolled up; he slipped inside, drew the door down, and let darkness envelop him.
There he changed back into Greg Veder's faded hoodie and scuffed shoes, slipped through the opening door, and walked to the bus stop. The ride home was quiet. Streetlights smeared across the window; row-house silhouettes slipping by, their windows glowing like low-powered diodes behind rain-dappled glass. John's sedan was absent from the curb, but Tom's bike was chained outside. As expected, no one was home, save for his brother.
Inside, Paul let himself settle into the apartment's cramped strata of familiar scents—laundry powder, burnt coffee, paperbacks. In his room, by his desk, he logged onto Parahumans Online and let bulletin boards scroll under half-lidded eyes. Page after page yielded only the predictable detritus of the internet: memes, rumours and speculations. Nothing concrete. Nothing reliable. Nothing new.
Time passed; key rattling at the door announced the Veder couple's return. Polite questions, muffled television, routine clatter. When Martha came up to greet him, Paul offered correct nods, gave answers of suitable length, and she withdrew.
Minutes later, the summons came. Dinner, then an evening shower. Lamps dimmed; rooms went dark one by one until none remained. And when the last floorboard ceased creaking, Paul rose.
✥✥✥
A muted desk-lamp painted his face in amber as he assembled the disguise. Foundation first, stippled then feather-blended down the neck; its warmth submerged the undertone of northern blood. Bronzer darkened planes of cheek and brow until bone structure suggested a different heritage. Powder followed, a translucent hush binding pigments where sweat might grow treacherous.
With precise fingers, he taped his eyelids—skin creased, folded—until the mirror returned a shallow monolid. Contact lenses floated into place, blue irises now a soft umber. Petroleum jelly mixed with crushed liner slicked brows into darker, subtler arches. Finally, the hair spray: towel tucked, aerosol hiss, strands drinking pigment until gold blonde surrendered to utilitarian brown. He examined the whole: pores, lash-roots, the joining at the jaw. Imperfect—no amount of makeup could change the lines of his skull—but sufficient. In half-light, in hurried glance, he would pass as Asian; to any who looked closer, a mongrel.
Satisfied, Paul changed from his pyjamas in a set of nondescript greys and cracked the window before easing outside. A block away, he stole a parked sedan, picking the door lock before jump-starting it and easing the vehicle out of the driveway. He kept the headlights off until he merged with the emptied thoroughfare, then guided the steel beast down toward the docks. Rain began, stippling the windshield in slow alchemical patterns.
The drizzle had ceased when he arrived. Killing the engine two blocks from his destination, Paul allowed the car to coast into a recessed alley behind a seafood warehouse. From there, he closed the remaining distance on foot.
The night market announced itself by smell first: frying batter, stale cigarettes, the damp of untreated lumber. Strands of colored bulbs sagged overhead, their filaments pulsing in corrupt rhythm. Narrow aisles thrummed with Japanese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean, Vietnamese, English—all under-spoken, urgent. Booths hawked knock-off sneakers, pirated DVDs, cell-phone cases, glittering knives whose quality ended at hilt polish. Under every counter, rumor promised heavier merchandise.
Paul allowed his posture to soften, shoulders rounding, gaze restless. In merchant's argot, he inquired after electronics, after discount cologne, after a certain Korean brand of pocket warmer. Exposure seeded familiarity. A gaunt man with trembling hands and fever-bright pupils intercepted him.
"Friend! Good price, you like Dream, yes?" English fractured inside rotting teeth. A small plastic bag materialized, its contents pastel and crystalline. Ah, a drug dealer…
Paul tilted his head, considering. He needed to gather information and had yet to decide on how best to begin. "Sample first," he said moments later, his accent hewed toward Hong Kong's harbor slang. "Maybe business later."
The gaunt nodded eagerly and turned. Paul followed. Moment's later, an alley offshoot swallowed them. Under a single bulb the peddler laid out capsules, powder packs, blotters printed with cartoon chimeras. Paul selected at random, broke a capsule on tongue, let the burn of cheap stimulants prickle palate—discipline already isolating the chemical, redirecting bloodstream to liver shunts. Casual nod.
"You know where?" he asked as he sampled another. "Need steel. Good steel." Fingers sketching a pistol's squared silhouette.
The peddler scratched at track marks on his neck. "Call Wen. He fix you." He scribbled two numbers on matchbook cardboard, added a grin that split parchment skin: one line of digits for guns, the other for more drugs. Paul paid fifty dollars for a pint of the first sample, pocketed the cardboard and turned to leave.
Back in the thoroughfare, he continued his investigation, then noticed something odd some fifteen minutes later:
Tension.
The civilians in the crowd were all high-strung, their wariness pitched too high, conversations clipped at the sight of lingering men in ABB colors. They were afraid. Not fear of the E88 as he had expected—rather, fear inward, of their own supposed guardians. Paul followed the ripple until pattern coalesced into something more concrete. Yet, even then the data points were insufficient for any reliable analysis.
He needed first-hand testimony.
✥✥✥
He chose his informant carefully: a middle-aged woman lounging at a doorway whose red lantern cast revealing warmth across weathered silk. Her smile, clock-work automatic, faltered whenever the gangsters sauntered by. Beneath rouge and mascara lay exhaustion.
Paul approached with lowered gaze. "How much for room and bath," he asked in Mandarin.
"One hundred," she said as she slipped into professional flirtation, palm strolling along his arm. Paul nodded and she turned to the guard before announcing in stilted English, "Customer want room."
The guard eyed Paul, then sneered with a hand extended. "Fifty upfront," he said, tone dripping disdain. Wordlessly, Paul counted out the notes—unremarkable tens—and followed the prostitute inside.
Past beaded curtains lay stucco corridors perfumed with humid roses. In a tiled chamber, she set brass spigot to roar into a claw-foot tub, shoulders rolling to seduction's tempo. He accepted the pantomime only long enough for door bolts to settle. The silk robe slid from her; steam rose; a basin's quiet splash layered atmosphere.
His questions began oblique as she slowly undressed: You seem stressed? Business slower than usual? Then nudge by nudge, he sharpened—The thugs take too much? How you manage? She answered first from habit, then from the relief of being heard, speaking of the new taxes, the new rules, the new boss. Bakuda. She spoke at length as she slowly began to help Paul undress, but awareness dawned the moment she admitted to the kidnappings. Words snapped shut. Panic dilated pupils.
Paul tried again, but knew then that his window had closed. "They will kill me," she whispered, begging. "Please, tell no one I spoke." A frown twisted Paul's features as he realised what must be done. His tone shifted. The Voice unfurled—resonance that bypassed fear, seeding compliance.
"WHO WAS TAKEN? WHY? WHERE?"
Her resistance shuddered, collapsed. "All kinds—shopkeepers, students, a dentist's wife. Gunmen come, say Bakuda needs helpers. Sometimes, they don't talk at all; just take. Sometimes, people just disappear. Anyone who sees says nothing or family also go." She clasped arms to chest, horrified by her own speech. "They carry to north tower…old lighthouse. I never go there. Don't know." Tears welled in her eyes as the compulsion faded. "Please."
Paul sighed. He pressed two folded hundreds into her palm.
"For silence… Me no Master you, no?"
She shook her head, wordless.
Satisfied, Paul donned his discarded clothing and stepped out of the room. On the threshold outside, humidity traded for ocean-salt air, he encountered the guard from earlier—broad shoulders, buzz cut, mocking smile carved thin.
"That quick, ah?" the fellow said with a guttural snicker. "Tortoise boy."
Paul ignored him as he slipped into the crowd, cross-referencing the supposed lighthouse with his memory of the city's map. Minutes later, he returned to his stolen sedan and began a quiet drive north.
1.08
"There is in all things a pattern that is part of our universe. It has symmetry, elegance, and grace - these qualities you find always in that the true artist captures. You can find it in the turning of the seasons, the way sand trails along a ridge, in the branch clusters of the creosote bush of the pattern of its leaves. We try to copy these patterns in our lives and in our society, seeking the rhythms, the dances, the forms that comfort. Yet, it is possible to see peril in the finding of ultimate perfection. It is clear that the ultimate pattern contains its own fixity. In such perfection, all things move towards death."
—"THE COLLECTED SAYINGS OF MUAD'DIB" BY THE PRINCESS IRULAN
Paul arrived at the lighthouse ten minutes later, stepping from the stolen sedan like a shade born of the turning clouds. The engine's last cough faded into the consonant hush of the evening tide, and he paused on the drizzle-polished asphalt, allowing the night to fold around him. A small bridge arched over a mottled canal, its rails spattered with streaks of rust and lichen. Across that span loomed the lighthouse, its beacon long since dark, the brickwork patched and cracked by years of neglect—and by more recent violence.
Paul began crossing the bridge in measured strides, shoulders squared beneath a soaked cotton hoodie, eyes cold prisms against the glimmer of distant sodium lamps. Already, his disguise had begun to wash off, but he was not particularly concerned given its currently diminished utility.
Ahead, the tower's entrance periphery bore two sentries, spaced so as not to invite undue scrutiny. Paul noted their positions, the line of sight between them, the distance to the rusted service hatch on the south face. He noted the guard posted at the dock's edge, one hand resting casually on the stock of an assault rifle, the other cradling a cheap pump-action at the crook of his arm. To the right, a battered CCTV dome, its lens angled low, likely tuned to flag only motion within the narrow corridor.
Parked in front of the lighthouse was a black van. Paul watched as four ABB thugs hauled crates—wooden boxes banded with steel—and plastic coolers out from the back. They stacked their burdens at the main entrance, a few others emerging from the building to pick a crate before disappearing inside.
Paul had not stopped walking. He stuck to the shadows until he was two-thirds the way across, only slowing when he started to near the more properly lit portion of the bridge. There, he swung over the railings to the right and dropped feet-first into the murky water before swimming the remaining distance. At the other side, a rusted length of structural steel bracketing the bridge's pillars marked his vertical path. Rainwater sluiced down it in thin curtains while barnacles encrusted its foot; he ascended with the silence of a grey cat, palms kissing the metal only where flaking paint wouldn't soak the minor instances of friction.
Halfway up, a cracked granite mass protruded ninety centimeters beyond the corbel course—perfect to catch his right foot, pivot, and stretch across the gap into a blind corner. There, Paul found the length of guardrail he wanted and flattened to its concrete base, counting to seven (for the sentry's next inward turn) before vaulting over and blotting across open ground towards the tower.
There, on the visibly less-used eastern side, was a service hatch. The padlock on it showed signs of neglect—rust, scratches at the lip, dented shroud where tools had slipped. He circled, testing weight distribution, gauging whether a deliberate kick would shatter the frame or betray him with a groan of metal. Instead, he reached into his duffel slung across his shoulders and produced his key chain, straightening the wire of the ring into an improvised lock pick. Within five heartbeats, the bolt slid free. He lifted the hatch and slipped inside, motion swallowed by the echoing darkness.
The corridor beyond was low-ceilinged, its walls slick with condensation and ancient graffiti. He let his hand trail along the damp concrete, fingertips poised to sense the thrum of vibrations behind the paneling. The fluorescent lamp overhead buzzed to half-life, painting the hall in jaundiced intervals. He rose into the shaft of a second-floor stairwell and advanced until the entry into the gallery above lay before him—a rectangular window shattered long ago, its shards replaced by a scrap of plywood cracked at the edges.
He planted a palm on the ledge and vaulted, hips pivoting as he swung his legs over the sill. The plywood groaned, yielded, and he slipped inside. The gallery beyond was empty: lines of old exhibits stripped of artifice, placards torn away, the floor littered with discarded cables and a broken easel. Ceiling beams held sprigs of insulation, like the bones of some great creature long dead. He paused at the threshold, scanning left, then right, ingesting the smell of stale air and solvent. This floor likely served as a lounge of some sort, distinct from the warehouse-level comings and goings one floor below.
Paul's soaked sneakers whispered across cracked tile as he advanced toward the far corridor. The hush spoke volumes: the gangsters gathered in small packs, conversing, resting, many clusters alert only to their immediate perimeter; some, not-at-all. He skirted a pair of men in leather vests, arm tattoos coiling around biceps—"Vipers," one thug called this one. The pair exchanged whispers about some shipment schedules and the associated shifts. Paul's face was a facsimile of disinterest; his stride, a pattern of broken lines that the subconscious could catalog but deprioritize.
Paul soon found himself drawn to a narrow side door, its frame set back beneath a flimsy smoke vent. Inside, a small break room offered two chairs and a table littered with coffee stains and ashtrays. One man sat with his back to the window, inhaling the acidic tang of a cheap cigarette. The second leaned against the sink, shoulders hunched, as he stared out into the darkness with a nervous tic. Paul approached as though summoned by some misguided priest.
The braver of the two—the smoker—turned at the click of Paul's silhouette. His eyes narrowed, glassed with nicotine. "You lost?" he asked in Korean, voice thick as tar. Paul said nothing: a backhanded swing of his knife slit the throat. The man collapsed, the cigarette flaring against the linoleum before snuffing out in crimson droplets. Paul's gaze flicked to the second man, whose hand dove for a pistol. He moved with prana-bindu grace—strike to trachea, a whisper of torque, strike to the wrist—and the man crumpled, gun clattering away as his eyes widened with the betrayal of instinct. No alarm sounded, his voice dying in a stifled rasp.
Paul watched as the gangster tried to scramble away; his shin thumped the man's calf, dropping him flat on his belly. Paul grabbed a fistful of damp hair and pressed the bloody edge of his blade behind the jaw hinge. "Breathe slowly," he said in Korean, voice a dry, arid husk. "Twice. Good. Now, we will have a conversation. I have only one rule: You will speak when spoken to. Only then. Anymore and you die like a dog. Understood?"
Nostrils flared; the man gulped air that scalded a trachea already bruised. "I—I don't know anything," he begged. "I only haul boxes."
Paul tightened his grip. "Lie to me again and I will carve out your testicles, make mountain oysters out of them before feeding the dish to you. Understood?"—rapid nodding—"Good. Your mother gave you a name?"
"Minho," the thug croaked. "Minho Park."
"Park Minho," Paul mused. "What are your duties here?"
"Runner—I am a runner for the docks."
Paul asked a few more questions and the gangster answered, tremors rattling his limbs. "Bakuda," the thug choked when Paul inquired about the gang's capes. "In a shed across the bridge. Not here. She—she does her experiments there. Puts bombs in people's heads. Oni Lee left an hour ago. I don't know why, or where to…she's the only cape nearby."
Paul's thoughts churned. "What were you told to do here?" he pressed.
"I don't know," the thug whined. "I was only following orders. Sometimes Bakuda needs men to move stuff around."
Paul frowned. "Some crates were brought here earlier."
"I don't know," the thug said. "Bakuda just gives us things and tells us where to put them. No one smart goes around asking—"
Something bright lit up the corner of Paul's vision, distracting him from the rest of what the thug was saying. Instinctively, he raised his hand to shield his face as he felt his ears pop from overpressure. The next moment, an explosion rocked the building as it was struck by a pillar of white light. He staggered from the tremor that shook the building, nearly falling to his knees before quickly stabilising himself against a nearby wall.
Ignoring the thug who mindlessly scrambled for safety, Paul turned his attention to the starry corona blooming at the far window: the light emanating outward from a slender figure hovering in the air, haloed by the glow of her own aura. He recognised her instantly. A cape; E88.
Purity.
The villainess drifted earthward with the poised finality of a petal abandoning its calyx, feet alighting some ten paces from the entrance like a firefly touching down on still water. Something wasn't adding up, Paul sensed intuitively. At the sight, he felt a frown shaping itself before it reached his features—an intuitive protest given form. A skein of hypotheses unfurled across his inner vision, each strand seeking the loom of causality, yet one knotted question remained: What in the world is she doing?
Paul easily recalled the news and rumors on the PHO Forum painting her campaign against the Asians in unwavering strokes: Purity, scourge of the ABB, raining vengeance on her old rivals. The pattern of her attacks on the ABB strongholds had suggested stratagem—a lure to smoke out the rival gang's remaining capes. Now, before his eyes, the pattern fractured. In its place , two explanations surfaced with mentat clarity. Either Purity was ignorant of Bakuda's presence in the vicinity and was simply acting out as usual, or she was fully aware yet had elected to step within the tinker's lethal envelope.
The latter conjecture violated the simplest axioms of power. Purity's photon-kinetic powers meant distance offered her dominion over non-flying/less mobile capes; proximity diluted this advantage. No strategist born of sane bone would trade such sovereignty for a closer view of her target—unless hubris, or ignorance, or some deeper calculus compelled her. Why would she choose to approach the lair of another villain when she could simply bombard the building from afar? Surely, she wasn't that stupid. Paul tasted each possibility, found stale error in all, and concluded: She does not know a cape is nearby.
Then why was she here? Coincidence?
Paul felt his mind unfold with fresh possibilities—layers peeling back, each petal revealing the next. Bakuda's proximity. Oni Lee's departure. Purity's conveniently timed arrival. A trap? Yes. No. Maybe. Oni Lee would have been present if so. Perhaps, more precisely, a distraction? He ran some calculations with the data he had gathered over the past few days and deduced that Lung's transfer to the Birdcage should have been finalized by now… unless, of course, it was delayed for some reason.
Ah... Realisation struck him like a freight train.
If so, it would be a scheme, most elaborate. To drag every hero's eye, every PRT chopper's rotor, away from the true target: Oni Lee's mission to free Lung before his transfer to the Birdcage is finalised.
Keenly aware how far off the mark he could be, Paul's instincts still continued to flare in alarm. The consequences of this possibility being reality unfolded rapidly in his mind. He saw Purity hadn't halted her approach and knew then that he had to act. Immediately.
Below, ABB gunmen scrambled for positions. Someone raised the alarm, warning the others of the cape; another cursed Bakuda's absence. Purity ignores the hostiles. Her focus was on the building behind them, her power already humming to fragment the reinforced steel. A mistake.
Paul's decisions crystallized in that instant. He turned and ran. With a single motion, he vaulted through the nearest window facing the direction from which he had come, body twisting in a backflip into the night air as he caught a drainage downspout to fireman slide down; fingertips burning on wet rust; soles scraping the brick wall of the building.
He dropped the last four meters into a crouch on the sodden ground, pain blossoming across calves and spine, only to be ignored. Paul bowed into a sideways roll, absorbing impact, then surged to his feet, sprinting, muscles burning, lungs seizing, adrenaline painting his vision in blurry edges. One glance back as he dove for safety told the story of his fate had he tarried: the lighthouse's lantern-like windows flared orange, then white, and a thunderous roar split the night.
Behind him, Bakuda's bombs went off, and the building metastasized into a pillar of flame. An instant later, a wall of compressed air rushed out to smack him, knocking him out before he could tumble safely into the water beneath the bridge.